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Entry tags:
TDM 003
| TDM 003: #BEACHBUMS |
I. BEACH  Welcome arrivals, new and old! The skies on Erku may be perpetually gray, but the weather has taken a sudden turn to summertime heat. Fortunately, soaring temperatures have chased away more of the strange fog that conceals so much of the island, unveiling a charming, sandy cove dotted here and there with rustic love shacks. These shabby little lean-tos are dusty and sparse, but they provide everything one (or two, wink wink) might need for a little relief from the sun. Just don’t wander too far... that fog has memory-loss properties. II. DRINKS  The 'bots are very apologetic about the whole fog incident, and they are trying to get on the new arrivals' good sides by giving out fancy drinks. Of course, they still haven't mastered the art of making things properly, so each drink has a little something... extra.
III. SNACKS  Lo! As you ask, the Augur shall provide. Thanks to the efforts of your organic predecessors in restoring the planet’s Eros energy, edible fishes and seaweeds have returned to the ponds and the shores of Erku. If you fancy yourself savvy to basic survival skills, why not fashion up a fishing rod and catch yourself dinner? Just be careful if you happen to hook one of the octopus creatures from the deeper waters - they can be quite forward with their tentacles! Or, if primitive angling isn’t in your repertoire, you can always trade some credits for a tasty catch from one of the food stalls along the coast. Most stalls are manned by 'bots, but there’s nothing stopping an enterprising arrival from setting up shop. No credits? No problem! The robots have also provided a bit of entertainment, and any volunteers to man the kissing booth, get dunked in the wet t-shirt dunk tank, or grill up some fish - among other opportunities - will find credits automatically loaded onto the payment app of their bracelet devices. The 'bots are recruiting especially hard for participants to work in the gloryhole tent! IV. SPARKLES  As dusk descends, the white sands of the beach suddenly come alive with glittering lights. It’s as if the darkened waters have carried a thousand shining stars from the depths of the sea to the shores of the cove. In actuality, each little twinkle is a bioluminescent plankton or jellyfish! Feel free to wade among them and admire their shine; even the sting of the jellies won’t hurt you... though they do pack a different punch. The tentacles of the jellyfish elicit a powerful aphrodisiac response, which gets the heart racing and the blood pumping for an intimate touch. The effects come on within a matter of minutes, and last for a few hours. Only time will relieve the symptoms, but a partner will help to make it more bearable. N A V I G A T I O N |
sparkles
The change completely transforms the beach and sunset, Cloud finds, is resplendent with color, it reminds him of travel advertisements for Costa del Sol peeling on the walls of small noodle stands and watering holes, mixed in with faded posters of Shinra propaganda and winking pin-ups.
Plenty of other things need doing right now, walking along the shore as night falls isn't checking anything off that ever-lengthening list of stuff Cloud needs to address sooner or later. He's wasted enough time, now he'll have to make the trip back to the city in the dark--
He doesn't see it happen, but he hears someone call out further down the beach and looks. One moment later, he turns his head and finds the waters closest to the shore have started to shimmer and glow. Storms usually turned the sea dark and treacherous before, pregnant with dangers like riptides.
It didn't breathe an ethereal illumination through the calm swells that softly slap the sand, nothing does, except-
Cloud presses the heel of his hand into his brow at the scratchy fissure of wrong fighting through his skull, something pressing up against a memory or a dream, leaving his throat tight with nausea. It clears and with it his head, but he finds the water splashing against his knees without remembering ever descending into the surf.
There's a man in dark clothing straight ahead of him, his silver hair spilling long down the middle of his back. His step backward is loud, a slosh against the slap of a wave, an arm pinwheels out briefly before his soaked boot getting sucked into the sand can topple his balance.
It's not him. He's too slender, too slight.
Chances are good Cloud has cost himself an opportunity to retreat unnoticed anyway.]
I'm sorry about Yazoo 8')
( Yazoo feels him before he sees him.
Even without the stuck boot and the slosh of water, slinking away unnoticed isn't an option when the frisson of energy between them has already alerted the Remnant. He turns his head, his profile illuminated by the gentle ebb and flow of the water, and lets silence stretch between them for a moment before letting his body follow. Is it possible that he'll harbour resentment for the way they'd played with him outside of Edge? Perhaps, but right now Yazoo feels nothing but burgeoning warmth for the other man.
He'd like to show him as much. )
Brother ...
( The barest hint of a smirk touches the corners of Yazoo's lips as he moves out of the water. The sea pulls at him, and little pinpricks of light drag against his leathers, but he ignores the brush of tentacles and other detritus as he rises from the glowing foam. )
I'm glad to see you.
( And he is. Yazoo can feel Mother's cells in him too—their connection is irrefutable—and they thrum through every fibre of his being as he closes the distance between them. Cloud looks ... different, he thinks, to how he remembers him from their previous fight, but it hardly seems to matter in that moment. All he wants is to be close to him again, which is evident in the way he decides to ignore the idea of personal space and reach for both of Cloud's hands with his own. )
Now we can search for Mother together.
( Dark lashes dip low as, unbeknownst to him, the aphrodisiac begins to tingle into his extremities. )
... You're glad to see me too, aren't you?
I knew what I was getting into!
Is it the same magnetic draw humming in Cloud's very cells that brought him to a Remnant of another Sephiroth years into an unknown future, the way it had been for another Sephiroth from years into Cloud's past? Cloud doesn't know. He can't know, he hasn't lived it yet, those battles and the influence Vincent warned that Sephiroth can exert over him.
The figure turns and Cloud is instantly shaken by the uncanny resemblance. It's not just the long cascade of silver, the darkness he clads himself in, it's the eyes, alien and striking. Sephiroth and this man could easily be mistaken for, if not brothers, then relatives of a kind-
Brother.
Cloud is a few years younger than the one who faced Yazoo and the other two Remnants in the future, the absence of recognition, the confused frown and the jerk backwards when Yazoo reaches for him, he doesn't know who he is, and the sand sucking on his boot turns his pivot away into a stagger, dropping onto his seat in the surf. He scrambles back, struggling now with dislodging his boot from the sand and fighting the weight of the Buster Sword at his back carving a furrow in the sand below the waves. The glowing life teeming in the surf crowds around the exposed meat of his biceps, casting him in their ethereal glow.
Stuck in a pratfall is not how he wanted to deliver a back off but this is what he's got.]
The hell? I'm not your brother.
This thread though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6oQUDFV2C0&feature=emb_title
( Now that they're up close, Yazoo can see the subtle difference in Cloud that suggests all is not as it should be. His face is a little rounder, somehow younger, as though he doesn't yet carry the same weight on his shoulders that he did the last time they met, and it gives the Remnant a moment of pause as he tries to decipher what such a revelation might mean. Doesn't he remember them?
Doesn't he remember Him? )
Of course you are.
( Yazoo replies softly, slinking forwards as though he needn't worry about the fact that his quarry is scrabbling through the surf to get away from him. Of the Remnants he's certainly the more patient of the three, and he's willing to help Cloud understand before he's forced to turn to other means. For the time being, in any case. )
Don't you feel our connection?
( He has to. It pulls Yazoo towards him in the same way it pulls him to Sephiroth, not least because his physical body was designed for the sole purpose of Reunion. Cloud—their Big Brother—is an unquestionable part of that, and Yazoo offers him his hand to help him up out of the foam. He wouldn't see him crawling just yet—not when there's still a possibility he'll be able to help him continue his search for Mother. )
Take my hand. Let me help you.
( Silver-spun hair slips over his shoulders to frame his face as he leans forwards, reaching for Cloud, his skin luminous and his eyes unblinking in the glittering light. )
u rite :')
He disliked hearing that his friends had kept him ignorant of Sephiroth's presence, but he didn't doubt Zack's sincerity of intent, that he did it to protect them both. That, in the end, is what prompted Cloud to throw in with the other ex-SOLDIER. To do what he can to make sure this doesn't become another Nibelheim.
The arrival of his future self's Remnants complicates an already complicated situation and Cloud is from too early along in that chain of events to understand or even recognize the possibilities. Rather, he's wondering why he's being called brother when the resemblance to Sephiroth is by far more striking.
He feels it, because of course he feels it, the feeling of the needle forever pointing at magnetic north, a presence, but Cloud has been trying to shake off the specter of five years ago and he isn't stopping now.
Yazoo reaches for him. It's the luminous glow in his emerald eyes, the slick of silver, it's instinct that Cloud lifts his arm to shield himself and cringes back.
He may have accepted it, that Sephiroth is from a time before Nibelheim burned, when he was so recently First Class and what's more, had something like friendship with the most famous SOLDIER of all time, the visceral fear isn't so easy to overcome.
Ah, his head aches.]
I don't need your help.
[He swings his arm at the offered hand, only to look perplexed at his own palm at the sensation that runs up hot on the heels of that brief contact. Like appreciation, like desire. Like that's something he wants, needs.]
.... Huh?
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( I don't need your help.
The barest hint of a frown creases the space between Yazoo's brows. They'd tried taunting and teasing and that hadn't worked particularly well, but now Cloud won't even respond graciously to an extension of help? It's disappointing to say the least—although perhaps something he can attribute to the fact that this version of his brother just doesn't seem right. Still bearing that connection, certainly, but with a little more bark than he had that day by the cliffs.
Perhaps fortunately for both of them, Yazoo's thoughts are set aside at Cloud's brief exclamation. He blinks slowly, his gaze drifting from the mako crackle of the other man's eyes to the way he's looking at his hand, and can't help but wonder whether what he's feeling is more evidence of their relationship or that slow simmer of wanting heat.
... Could it be that the sensations are coming from the same place? Yazoo couldn't possibly say, but the longer he spends in Cloud's presence, the harder it is to give him some semblance of space. Some part of him feels as though he won't be satisfied until they're touching skin-to-skin. )
You're afraid of me.
( The downturn to his lips suggests that Yazoo, in his current state of addled desire, might be genuinely distressed by this. )
You don't need to be. We belong together.
( ... In a manner of speaking, anyway, although at the moment Yazoo is feeling for the first time as though he might want to be with him for his body as well as his cells. The strange weight of his gaze skims over Cloud's wet biceps, the cut of his chest, the way his hair falls to the cut of his jaw—
Yazoo sucks his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, his contemplation evident even behind the unreadable shine of his eyes. )
I won't harm you.
( Yet. Not until he denies their bond with violence and refuses to give up Mother's location. )
no subject
He doesn't know who this is, he doesn't understand what he's talking about, he's too close, there's a strange space he's occupying that's disturbingly adjacent to the man who burned his hometown down, killed his mother- all of that should be more than enough reasons to pull back and get away.
It should be.
There's something else that paralyzes this instinct with another one, an irresistibly magnetic pull. The figurative needle always swinging to point towards Sephiroth spins to fix on Yazoo due to proximity. It calls to him, like it has each time his dragging steps have carried him forward against his will, when he hasn't had the strength to reel himself back or tear himself from the grip of another black-cloaked man.
Yazoo speaks and that takes Cloud's attention off his hand, opening his mouth as if he means to argue that he isn't afraid. Yet he gets as far as saying that they belong together and, baffled, Cloud shuts his mouth. His alien gaze roams over him and Cloud finds it almost tangible, gaze narrowing in on the way his teeth worry at his lip. He's drawn so close that when gravity drags a silver lock of his hair from Yazoo's shoulder, it sways against Cloud's gloved hand. He doesn't mean to, when his fingers move, unconsciously winding it between them.
He heaves a breath.]
You've got.... [He feels both too warm and too hazy.] the wrong guy. Who are you?
no subject
( Yazoo watches as Cloud moves his fingers into the ribbon of his hair. Something about the action makes him feel better: he's finding it difficult to accept him with words, or so it would seem, but his gestures tell a slightly different story, and Yazoo finds himself more appreciative of the prospect of physical contact than he's ever experienced before. He wants Cloud to touch him, wants to be able to slide his own fingers against his skin in return, and his gaze instinctively dips to the other man's lips as he moves in closer still.
Interesting. Another curious urge. )
You know that I don't.
( Have the wrong guy, he means. Yazoo's response is soft and easy as green eyes flit back up to Cloud's, and his words are light with the offhand confidence of a person who simply knows that he's right. Cloud may be unwilling to accept it just yet but he can't deny the pull between their cells—nor can he deny the the melting pulse of heat that only deepens as they draw closer. The corners of his lips prick into an unreadable smirk as he lifts his own hand to Cloud's cheek, the backs of his knuckles caressing smooth skin until they find the line of his jaw. )
And you should feel that I ... ( Yazoo tilts his head as thick lashes dip low, considering. ) Am part of your destiny.
( ... But Yazoo isn't going to make Cloud call him that. He moves to set a knee either side of his thighs so that he's kneeling over him in the surf, which tumbles the glittering sea-foam around them as his hand skims down to touch the centre of his chest. Yazoo's touch is gentle—just the pads of his fingertips resting light against Cloud's sternum—but there's a different kind of weight behind that might keep the other man in place. )
My name is Yazoo.
hope this is ok! lmk if I need to change it!
Through it, in spite of it, he craves the contact. Needs to peel himself away from here and can't abide every second they're apart. The only relief, the only end to it strikes the same second he feels a hand brushing over his cheek. He chokes on his own gasp, leaning into the brush of knuckles with his eyelids falling shut.
Cloud almost snatches for his wrist before that contact can end, it seems so unlike him it snaps him back into himself - and he bites back his frustration.
He has been struck by the magic drawn from Lightning Materia, he's been poisoned, addled by toxins, this doesn't resemble those, it's the singular minded shuffle ever onwards, following the swing of that internal needle to the source, to Mother, to Reunion, all tangled up in this desperate need to touch and be touched. He can't sit up, that blade all along his back meets the resistance of the sand beneath him, he can't lie back without the surf crashing over him.
The barely weighty presence of his hand on his sternum has his heart beating, more fight than flight, one gloved hand finds the sharp of Yazoo's hip among all that leather, the other winds up that ribbon of silver to fist closer to his scalp, right above his nape. When he rolls them over, it points their feet toward the sea and seeks to plant Yazoo's back on the sand.
He feels like he's watching someone else do these things, like this isn't him.
Putting his hand from his hip to Cloud's mouth and biting the tip of a finger of his glove he yanks his hand free of it to bring it shakily around Yazoo's neck, high up where it meets the underside of his jaw, his chin. There's really no denying it anymore, there's something there, a pleasant sizzle in his cells.]
It's perfect, and also same!
( A frisson of satisfaction runs the length of Yazoo's spine when, in the space between heartbeats, he finds himself flipped over onto his back and pressed bodily into the sand. Good, he thinks. He may have forgotten, but at least he's still strong. What could have been a cold and wet experience is made pleasurable by the heat crackling between them: Cloud's expression is intense enough to shiver something low-down in his core, and when that hand moves to peel out of the glove and wrap around he column of his neck—
His lashes flutter, and Yazoo's lips part on a wordless little sigh as though his touch could be Reunion enough. It pulls at a part of him that's never had reason to stir before: the sensation pulses through the centre of his body to pool heat between his legs, his desire for Cloud finally meeting the physical reality of arousal. The ends of pale hair soak to gunmetal-grey as the rhythmic beat of the water pulls through the strands, but that doesn't stop Yazoo from tilting his head to bare more of his throat beneath Cloud's hand.
Supplication? Hardly. Begging for more isn't in Yazoo's nature; rather, he'll challenge Cloud to take more of what he wants if he has the stomach to do it.
His right hand drifts to the sliver of space between the Buster and the other man's back. There's heat there too, caught between the weight of the metal and the curve of his spine, and Yazoo's fingers splay against the dip of his back while to keep their bodies pressed in close. It's instinctive — he understands the theory of acting on desire, certainly, but it isn't something he's experienced firsthand — but for the time being keeping their hips pulled flush seems to be just about enough to keep the ache tolerable. )
Is that what you want?
( His throat moves against Cloud's hand as he speaks, a warm reverberation. )
To choke me to silence?
( Exhaling softly, Yazoo lifts his free hand up to cup the curve of Cloud's cheek. Would he let him? No, he wouldn't, but there's something enticing about letting him play with the idea, and he arches beneath him just to feel the ripple of the charge in the air. )
no subject
[No? Like he ever had a choice.
He's hard and effortlessly seductive, Cloud's mental state is a dizzying churn that can't help but notice, that's too ready to tie it to his own confusing need. The stranger stretches his long neck for Cloud's bare hand and he watches it skate the length of his throat. Yazoo's challenge is answered by the twitch of his fingers, clasping around his neck but not squeezing, his thumb pressing in against the side of his adam's apple.
He could choke him. He could give in to the visceral hunger to pull him open and integrate with what he finds inside that preternaturally beautiful shell. Tangle himself up inside the alien structures in his cells that are calling to his. He doesn't want his blood and pain. That isn't him, that's not what he wants.
Cloud's breathing quickens and he's aware of it only when Yazoo's hand cups his cheek; too done in by the toxin flooding his mako-enhanced veins, that reminder of how gratifying that contact is makes him bend under the weight of this instinct, this craving. Yazoo has already arched himself for him but the fist in his hair tests that limit, tucking his face into the exposed side of his neck.
Somehow, that's better, where he can drown his senses in the scent and taste of his skin, palming down from throat to chest. His self-awareness, mortified, can't turn away from himself.]
no subject
( Yazoo's own pulse jumps with excitement when he feels the press of his thumb against his throat. It's thrilling in a way that it could only be with Cloud; the tension between them is a strange, palpable thing that seems to be drawing them even closer together, and he slides his hand into soft blond hair just to give himself something else to hold on to.
Kadaj would be proud, he thinks, as a dreamy smile touches the corners of his lips. What better way to show their brother how much he means to them?
Cloud turns his face into his neck and it feels like victory. A dreamy little smile settles on the curve of Yazoo's lips, because for all the push and strain that it's taken to get here? This is a kind of acceptance in his own way. It's non-verbal. It's Cloud wanting to be closer but not quite knowing how to do it, and while Yazoo doesn't particularly enjoy having to be patient ... maybe he can be, if waiting for him to understand means he'll get to feel like this. Maybe letting himself soak in the strange heat of their connection will be enough to tide him over. )
... You see?
( When Cloud finally releases his throat to stroke down to his chest Yazoo immediately misses that skin-to-skin contact — and so the hand at his back slips free to move back up and curl around his bare bicep. He sighs, satisfied now that he has more of Cloud to feel, and tilts his head just enough to rest his cheek against the other man's temple. )