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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 |
IV
He isn't even looking for anyone when her silhouette against the bio-luminescence proves the hook that snags his attention. Doesn't trust his own eyes when he sees her, boots crusted with sand and the breeze fluttering the ends of her ribbon, the hem of her long skirt. Right off, Cloud presses the tips of his gloved hand in, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes. Gives himself a second and looks again, expecting nothing, someone else, or just an empty space he tried to fill with something more familiar.
He thinks about them often, the ones left behind when he woke up in a hospital room with strange machines trying to impress on their breathing newcomers how necessary it was they fulfill their function. It's hard to believe he's been here longer than he's known most of them. When he opens his eyes, there's still someone standing there, a still familiar silhouette. Cloud descends to the shore, half-tripping when the sand proves treacherously soft in the lee of the dune, taking the rest of the way down at near to a jog. A good meter apart and there's no mistaking who it is. His lips purse and, jaw tight, he gives his head a shake in disbelief. Seriously? By now he should know better, anyone could end up here, yet it seems especially heinous to wrest her from Gaia. Where there are people who love her, who are waiting for her to come home.
When he decides to look up again, she's not on the sand, just her empty boots. Her laughter on the waves, that glow throws an ethereal light all around her and it's no wonder Zack-]
Shit-
[Hoo boy, Zack, now there's something to unpack, but first Cloud surges into the surf, wading with boots, pauldron, harness and sword, struggling to get closer, swiping his gloved hand through the swells at the glowing organisms. Aerith reaches for a forearm and he reaches back, to pull her towards him, to put himself between her and that glow.
Late again.
That flush, her blown pupils, the quickened breath, could just be the exhilaration of something new and awe-inspiring, but a few months here and Cloud knows better.]
Aerith. You okay?
no subject
No, that's impossible--
But perhaps it's not quite as impossible as she might initially think. Maybe it's not who she thought it was, for just a moment, but it is a friend. Blonde hair, mako eyes, and he's saying her name, asking if she's okay. It's with a sigh of relief that Aerith's head drops to Cloud's shoulder, her shoulders noticeably lifting, chest rising and falling against his with each heavy breath that passes through her lungs. ]
Cloud. I'm okay. I should've known my bodyguard would come to my rescue...
[ They're words that feel like they should have a playful tone, but her body is doing too much right now for that. Instead, they sound somewhere between tired and needy, and when she lifts her head to smile at him, the expression is nothing short of inviting. ]
This place is strange. I feel...
[ She cuts herself off with a shake of her head. She's not the shy type, not at all, and yet it seems somehow wrong to punctuate their reunion with an admission that she doesn't think she's needed this much in her entire life. Instead, she smiles, shakes her head, fingers tightening on his forearm. ]
Are the others here?
you actually did it I
Not that it's any of Cloud's business or interest what others do on their own time, he prefers whatever it is occurs on their own terms. There's not a single friend that Cloud wants to see hurt. He heard one cry to the dim glow of a campfire under the dark canopy of a cloudy night once already for his failure to do enough to protect these few connections he's made.
His cautious backwards glance and any ruminating about previous changes to the island jumps the mental track when he feels a deliberate touch, and the look it prompts him to give her probably deserves the sort of soundtrack that resembles a burst of static and a chocobo-themed elevator lounge variation of The Girl From Ipanema.
....
Cloud's inaction results in more of those glowing sea creatures crowding in around them while he's catching up on everything else, his palm spread over the swell and contraction in her ribs when she breathes, the twist in his guts at the tone in her voice, how impossibly green her eyes are, bathed in this ethereal glow-]
Uh.... [Speechlessly shaking his head, Cloud stares.]
[Hey, buddy, wasn't there something you should be doing?
Jolting back to himself, he swipes his arm at the water, detaching from her long enough to peel tendrils painlessly off his bicep before trying to walk her up the shore. Easier said than done when between her long dress and his sword, boots, and voluminous pants force them to fight against the weight of all that water.]
You mean Tifa and Barret? No. Haven't seen Red, either.
I live to serve; also that song will not get out of my head now
She's not doing a very good job.
Perhaps she can be better at helping them work against the weight of the water, so that they can get back to the shore.
His words come as something of a relief, something to distract her from the pulsing heat between her legs, the too-quick beat of her heart. Of course she wants to see them too, but if Tifa and Barret and Red aren't here, then all of this likely isn't due to the rippling changes they no doubt set in effect by defeating the Whispers. There's a lot to worry about, still, but it's one small sigh among all of that, a knowledge that lets her relax into Cloud for a moment.
Now all they have to do is get out of the water, away from the glowing creatures that caused this feeling in her, and-- She blinks, the realization hitting her late that Cloud just peeled one of them off his arm.
Oh, no.
(Her body is singing an entirely different tune, of course. After all, if he's feeling the way that she's feeling, then wouldn't it just be easy?)
Her fingers grip harder on his forearm as they wade through the shallows, trying to ignore the way the muscles feel shifting under her fingers. Her eyes are serious, searching his face, looking more at him than where they're going. Her mouth is dry. ]
Cloud, are you okay?
had to go with max elevator muzak.... sorrymasen
He can feel the tension cut loose when she relaxes against him, like he can be depended on, like he's something she likes. A muscle jumps in his jaw when his teeth clamp tight, a drenched glove passing over his face. The water doesn't do much to brace him, dripping from the point of his chin and the blond spikes hanging in his face.
Keep it together.
It might even be easier to scoop her up into his arms and walk them out onto the shore, the greater challenge then would be letting go. He's been here months and the heat surging through his mako-enhanced body is familiar, it's not the lowkey hunger threading through every interaction when Cloud has had to eat whatever rations were available (with a little extra something added). It's alarmingly potent, maybe that's because of the manner of its delivery. A painless toxin as opposed to something diluted into their food or drink, like that dart ejected from that flowering plant, when the city and its surrounds became a jungle of rampant overgrowth in days.
He realizes, late, that she's looking at him and his bare arms pebble over with goosebumps, a hot clench in his guts and an involuntary bloom of his pupils when Cloud glances back. Fixes on her eyes. Then her mouth. He looks away like he's trying to rip off a bandage.
It isn't like the aphrodisiac is trying to make something of nothing, the attraction was already there.]
I'm fine.
[He's not. His heart is thudding hard in his chest, he feels like his lungs can't quite draw enough air, too aware that a sigh might betray in which direction all this curdling warmth is headed.
Don't make it weird, Cloud.]
I have to get you somewhere safe.
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The second problem is the fact that he's lying.
Aerith's already pretty good at knowing how people are feeling regardless of what they say, but right now she's hyper aware, watching as his pupils blossom and his eyes flicker briefly to her mouth before he looks away. It's enough to make a breath catch in her throat, a pulse of heat spark to life in her stomach. He's lying, because the glowing things have had the same effect on him as they've had on her.
She wants to stop, make him tell her the truth right here and now, but her feet and bare and the creatures are still swarming, and even if there's probably nowhere safe, they can at least get out of the water. So she grabs his forearm hard in her fingers, determinedly pushing aside the swelling, desperate feelings so that she can drag them the last few feet to shore. Only then does she turn back to look at him, a frown on her features. ]
Cloud. Look at me. [ Her tone is tired somehow, as if from trying to fight against the feelings surging through her body, but there's still a small smile on her lips. Whether he looks or not, she'll continue on: ] That creature, it did the same thing to you that it did to me, right?
[ She's not entirely sure where she plans to go with that line of questioning. What if he says yes? What then?
Before he can respond, though, Aerith's lips part in a soft sound, something half-gasp, half-moan; an all-new, much more potent wave of arousal crashes over her, and she staggers forward, suddenly dizzy, fingers curling into the knitted fabric of his shirt. When she looks up at him, her eyes are heated, confused, her quickened breath more pronounced now. She doesn't see the glowing creature latched onto her ankle, tendrils spread over her right foot. ]
C-Cloud? Why is this... it's... it's so much worse..?
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Cloud, trying to stare past her and not at her, wears an expression pinched with frustration when she bids him look. It exposes the extent of his distraction, when he has to fight himself every time his eyes try to peel away from hers. The simplicity of her question makes it harder to sidestep what happened and, with some reluctance, Cloud-
-doesn't get to answer her, that sound she makes scours itself into his memory about as fast as it makes his pulse race, catching her in his arms when she staggers.]
Aerith!
[His eyes roam her face, they snag on her mouth again and he sways on the cusp of a decision. They dart to the side, tracking a glow that isn't in the water where it belongs, and his pupils contract to the tightening of his jaw.]
'Cuz it is.
[Fury isn't an expression Cloud wears often outside of battle, so when one arm folds itself around her back, restraint makes his fingers shake as he tries to lower them both to the sand with his bent knee to brace her. He leans quickly, thrusting his gloved palm into the space between her ankle at the glowing creature, one swift scoop almost to the elbow.
When he cocks back his arm to hurl it to the sand, there's a moment where its crimped and glowing tendrils stand out along his bicep like lighting bolts, stuck fast, and no sooner than it's been thrown down, Cloud drops the treads of his other booted foot down. His body may block the sight, it does nothing for the sound of its gelatinous splatter.
A second later, he's twisted back around to pull her up against him as he stands, swinging his glance wildly up and down the beach. She's already been heaving against him, Cloud's own breath is quickening to keep pace. There are shelters here and there, shabby little shacks like the one that Gladio lives in. One of them has no lights burning, its door hanging open might as well read like a sign: vacancy. He starts in that direction, pulling Aerith along with him. More accurately, it's almost a shamble, weighed down by his own drenched clothing and his ever-narrowing, aphrodisiac-soaked focus.
If he takes her there, no one will bother her. He won't have to hear another friend cry over some bullshit on this island, not tonight.]
no subject
Cloud, what...?
[ She sees the creature just as he scoops it off her ankle, watches in a daze as the tendrils lash out against his skin, cringes at the splatter. The pieces click together in her mind slower than they should, so heavy is the fog around her now. As he draws her back to her feet, she presses into him again, letting him draw her along in a stumbling walk. She doesn't know the place well enough to have any idea of where they're going, and besides, it's too slow, the water weighing them down even as it pours off them in rivers. Too slow. Aerith feels like she's going to burst with it all before they even have a chance to reach their destination.
She's always been attracted to him, but this is something different; every sense she can still make sense of is honed in on him: the strong muscles that support her as they move, shifting against the sand and their weight; the scent of the saltwater in his hair and a faint hint of something else, something she can't place; his quickened breath; the skin that feels soft but strong under her fingertips. She wants him so badly that it's a need.
She needs. It's screaming through her blood, impossible to ignore. Her dress is cold from the seawater but heat is pulsing between her legs, sparking with something that occasionally tints her exhaled breath with the barest hint of a whimper. Her fingers squeeze on his forearm, her steps dragging to a halt, practically dead weight in his arms.
She simply can't go any further. It's too much. She needs it to stop. ]
Cloud. [ Her voice trips out, a soft, plaintive whisper. Green eyes peer at him through the darkening air, swimming with something desperate. ] Please. Help.
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She pleads and Cloud's heart does this lurching tumble in his chest when their eyes meet.
In a more reasonable frame of mind, Cloud would have been gentler about the way he carries Aerith along, instead of the iron band of his arm and all that hardware strapped onto it cinching around her slender waist, the firm grip he has on her shoulder as he pulls her with him. They don't quite make it to the door, because his knee buckles when that pulse of need roars back with a grievance for being denied. To catch himself means Aerith's crowded into the wall, propped up and trapped by the band of his arm, the fold of his frame against her and his palm spread against the shack.
Cloud's head falls into the gap between her ear and shoulder, breath gusting, humid and warm where the breeze keeps wicking away the heat off their soaked clothing. She smells like sea water and flowers, he doesn't just want to breathe her in, he wants to devour her and that's- there's a lot to unpack there, when he's back in his own head again. In light of what he's come to remember, about Zack, about his connection to Aerith.
It would be so easy to pull her against him, to wedge himself in between her trembling thighs and find a little relief from this need that threatens to shake them both apart, against the wall his plated glove creaks, fingers curling against the shack. Cloud turns his face only a little, finds her eyes in the close dark, close enough he can taste her exhale.
(She said to help. She said please. Isn't he? Didn't she ask for this?)
He pushes one muscled thigh between her knees, even if the rugged material of his pants and her long skirt present their own set of challenges, pulls her, a little roughly, up against him with the arm curled around the small of Aerith's back.]
no subject
A moan catches the wind when he pushes her into the wall, her fingers tangling the knit of his shirt, in his hair, anywhere she can reach; her head cants back as she sucks in desperate, needy breaths. Too much, not enough. She doesn't know what she wants, what she needs, apart from everything, and is there even any way to vocalize that when the only thing she knows right now is his name? It's a mantra in her mind, the syllables sometimes falling from her lips on panted moans.
She finds purchase against the push of his thigh, and there's too much fabric there, even as she reaches to grab handfuls of her skirt and hike it up around her thighs; there's still the thick material of his pants and a pair of flimsy lace panties in the way, but her hips start to rock against him nonetheless. Her breath quivers against his for a moment, eyes searching, and maybe if she wasn't needing so much right now, there'd be vulnerability there - but she is, and there's not.
Her lips press down against his, then, hungry and wanton, as much a clash of their mouths as it is a kiss; her hands lift to tangle once more in his hair. She needs wants needs him closer. She wants to touch him, she wants him to touch her, she wants him to fuck her-- more, more, more, more-- ]
More.
[ It's a throaty, breathy moan against Cloud's mouth, one that barely makes it past her own lips before it's shattered into a sharp moan of pleasure; it spears through her like lightning, back arching into his, tension holding her taut for a moment. Her walls clench down on an emptiness that makes her whine - it's not enough... ]
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Without the patience to navigate it, she'll have to do with one bare hand and the other still clad in metal-gauntleted leather, and Cloud must contend with too much sensation delegated to a single hand. She thinks there's too much fabric and Cloud, Cloud can't agree more. There's heat at the junction of the thighs surrounding his that he wants, that he needs, and too many layers of clothing between them. Why can't it be easier? Can't anything, anyone appreciate how much they're suffering?
He could rip every machine in this place limb from limb if he thought it would remedy this inconvenience.
Aerith is pulling up her sodden skirts by the handful and Cloud, catching on, pulls at the lapels of her short-sleeved jacket to try to shove it from her shoulders so he has one less thing in the way if he tries to pull her dress up and off of her willowy frame. But the effort only drags her down to grainy earth and Cloud, sinking to his knees with her, can only clumsily push her skirts up past her hips, loath to stop drinking in the taste of her lips, the salt on them from her swim.
His scalp crawls, raw appreciation for her hand in his hair, his battle rough palm shoves up inside her skirts, up the flat, soft plane of her belly, finds the warm valley of her breastbone and the steady, rabbit-quick beat behind it and whines against her lips. She says More and Cloud should be more apologetic, that his sword-calloused palm can be so mean when it cups her breast inside her clothing, when his gloved one his palming the crotch of her lacy underwear at the junction of her bare thighs.
Neither of them can think around the enormity of their desire.]
no subject
She's dragged down to the sand, her jacket halfway off her shoulders and halfway on; she untangles her fingers from his hair for long enough to writhe her way out of it, leaving it on the ground underneath them, one less obstacle. And by the time she's done that, her dress is hitched all the way up past her waist, and Cloud's hands are on her, bare fingers of one cupping her breast while the other -- oh, she needs that, she needs him to do that.
The kiss is hard, messy, her panted breaths mingling with his as her hips arch, trying to press herself into his hand, seeking more of his touch. It doesn't seem fair that she's halfway to naked now and all that Cloud's lost is a glove--
Under circumstances not like these, it might be different - she might lie back, let him enjoy her thoroughly and in his own time before she returns the favor, exploring every last inch of him. But this is not that time; right now, the need is too great to have him at all, let alone for her to be fussy about how they go about it. Right now, all she wants to feel his body against hers, all hard and strong and all the things she can't stop thinking about. She wants to see the muscles move under his skin as he moves against her. It's with this thought that her hands raise to his waist, where her nails scrabble against leather for a few too-long seconds, a frustrated whine against his lips. Why is he wearing so many belts?! ]
no subject
He doesn't want to take his hands off her but has to; he does so he can impatiently snatch at the fastenings of his bracer, knocking it into the sand to tear off his glove. Wet cloth and leather don't peel off easily. What remains is the length of dingy gauze wrapped around his forearm to protect it from chafing and too little patience to bother removing it.
Aerith's face is taken up by both of his hands cupping her cheeks, pulling her mouth up to meet his, breathing around the broken seal of their lips moments later and, ever hungrier for more, licks his way into the soft, wet silk of her mouth. It's good, any contact is good, getting inside her is right where he needs to be, but it isn't enough. He huffs against her mouth, something low and wanting, his fingers sliding into the arch of her nape. It's as much soft bite as it is kissing his way down the pale slope of her throat, palming the soft swell of one through the thin fabric of her disheveled dress when he mouths the valley between her breasts.
She arches for his touch, as desperate for contact as he feels. When the soft spikes of his blond hair trickle over the exposed plane of her belly, his right palm spreads one thigh for him, the other pushes a thumb up against the firm of a nipple through her damp clothes. He tastes salt when he doesn't even try to peel off her panties and instead licks a stripe up the crotch, one firm pet of warmth, a clumsy kiss.]
no subject
It doesn't matter for long; Cloud opts for something else instead, something that has his waist shifting out of her hands' reach; Aerith's head falls back into the soft sand as she feels the gentle scrape of teeth along her neck, his kisses down her throat and between her breasts leaving a trail of fire in their wake. Every kiss, every touch, is met with an eager reply from her own body, back arching into the hand at her breast, legs parting at the mere suggestion of touch. The press of his thumb against her nipple sends a jolt of pleasure arcing straight between her legs, a pulse of heat racing through every synapse, every nerve in her body.
With his hair brushing against her stomach, there's almost nowhere for her aching, desperate hands to reach; in the end, the fingers of one hand tangle in his hair again, the other falling to the sand beside her as if it can somehow ground her, help her find purchase among the need and want that has so densely covered her mind.
It's still not enough.
Cloud seems to read her mind, though; before the thought has even finished forming, she feels the wet of his tongue, licking a stripe up the crotch of her lace panties, already soaked through by the ocean water and her orgasm. She cries out, a sharp sound that breaks the near-silence of the air in two, and her fingers tighten in his hair, a too-sharp tug against the strands. ]
Fuck—! Yes, please, Cloud— there...
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She's softer than she had been when he was licking his way into her mouth, delicate and quivering when Cloud splits her lower lips with the indulgent slide of his tongue. Cloud's arm is a weight keeping her hips against the sand but he isn't trying to pin her down, she can still squirm and arch up against his mouth if she wants to. She might have to, only lust and enthusiasm to occupy this act where he lacks the experience, taking in her responses to guide his own.
The kiss he gives her is a slow, wet pull of his mouth against the warm, succulent folds of her flesh, gauzily looking up the slender trunk of her body, pupils so blown they're vying with mako glow for the little real estate of blue left.
She's beautiful but even more devastating like this, green eyes dark and her chest heaving, skin a pretty blush of arousal he's never seen on her before. Another lick up between her lower lips and the whole of his body seems to sway with it, a lean of his shoulders up towards her, the gradual push of his own hips into the sand. It gives little relief, his cock swollen and rigid between the confines of rugged clothing and the whisper of sand.
Then, tragically, terribly, he stops giving her the attention she craves right where she craves it, turning to press a kiss to her thigh. She even tastes good, the soft inside of her thigh gives deliciously under the gentle bite he gives her.]
no subject