Sephiroth examined the young SOLDIER across the table from him, gauging how tipsy he had gotten. The boy was still fidgeting, as he had been all evening, but it had slowed down some. It looked about right, and Sephiroth nodded to himself, getting up to draw the blinds over his windows. With luck he’d be able to get to bed, now.

“You should go find a woman, Zack,” he said, over his shoulder. “That’s what your body is asking for.”

A soft thump sounded behind him and he turned to find Zack had put his head down on the table. “I figured that part out pretty quick, actually,” Zack observed, enunciating with the care that comes just before slurring. “And I don’t want just some random screw.” A moment of silence. “Well, I do, but I don’t, and the thought makes me shrivel. If I could right now.” He shifted in his chair, and muttered, “This is really damn uncomfortable. But it just doesn’t feel right.”

Sephiroth shook his head. The spooked look hovering around Zack’s eyes had led him to let his most newly blooded man in, when Zack had showed up at his door with an ingenuous smile and a bottle. Zack was a good soldier, and an excellent SOLDIER. Nevertheless. “I trust you don’t expect me to help you out with that part,” he said, a bit dryly.

Zack lifted his head, probably too quickly, and swayed a bit, blinking at Sephiroth. “Of course not, sir! I didn’t,” a shrug, “didn’t expect you’d be that, um, charitable or anything.” He looked down at his glass and tossed back the last swallow. Quietly, he finished, “I just wanted to be around someone I could talk to. Who would understand.” A grin suddenly flashed over his face. “And who could sit on me if I lost the argument with my gonads.”

A corner of Sephiroth’s mouth quirked. That was not an inconsiderable problem for a boy he expected to be First Class in a year or two, he had to admit.

None of this solved the basic problem, though, and he considered Zack for a long moment. He’d had a long day, himself, and dealing with both Hojo and Scarlet trying to rewrite the day’s assignment so they could get live monsters for their own research at the cost of more casualties to Sephiroth’s men had tired him out. It would be very nice to be able to solve just one problem in the world simply and easily. Normally the thought he was currently turning over would never have entered his mind. Most of his men might too easily assume that Sephiroth would favor them, afterwards.

Zack, though… Zack was wiser than that, he thought. The boy had kept his head through his first real battle, and was even keeping it now, in the aftermath, when most men cheerfully let go.

Not that this meant Zack didn’t need to let go, too. And it would be one simple thing in this wearingly complicated day.

Sephiroth nodded to himself, decision made, and strode back to the table. Zack looked up, eyes just a little out of focus and widening abruptly as Sephiroth caught his chin in one hand. They slid half shut again as Sephiroth leaned down and kissed him.

Sephiroth was amused to note that Zack looked, of all things, just a little concerned, as Sephiroth drew back.

“Sephiroth-san, you don’t… I didn’t…”

“Be still Zack. You have duties tomorrow, and you won’t be in any shape to attend to them at this rate.” A second kiss, and Zack leaned into this one.

Though that didn’t stop him protesting, against Sephiroth’s lips, “Just because… I mean, you shouldn’t…”

Sephiroth snorted and pulled Zack up out of his chair. “I will decide what I should and shouldn’t do,” he said, firmly, and kissed Zack more seriously.

Zack’s lips parted, and Sephiroth thought it was more than the alcohol making Zack sag against him. “Well, if you put it that way,” Zack mumbled.

Sephiroth reflected that it was a good thing Zack was better than this at following orders in the field. “Come.”

Zack followed him into the bedroom willingly enough, only to pause next to the bed. “I’ve, um… never actually, um…” He shifted, looking down.

Both corners of Sephiroth’s mouth curled up this time. “Being older does have some advantages,” he observed, taking Zack’s hands to tug his gloves off.

Zack swallowed. “Oh. Good. That’s… good.”

“Yes, it is.” Sephiroth set Zack’s hands on his own belt buckle and stepped back to shrug out of his coat. Bandoliers, boots and pants followed, to be draped over the clothes chest, and Sephiroth turned back to see Zack, shirtless, leaning against the bed with one foot in the air, boot half off, staring. “Need any help?” he inquired.

“Ah! No, I’m just fine.” Zack finished undressing hastily, and smiled a little as Sephiroth came back and pulled him close. “Yeah. Fine,” he repeated, light and husky.

Judging from the soft sounds Zack made as Sephiroth pressed him back on the bed and settled over him, he was, indeed, just fine. But Sephiroth still listened carefully to the shaky edge of Zack’s sighs as Sephiroth’s hands stroked firmly over the solid planes of his body. Zack was uncertain but not tense. Interesting.

Zack’s breathing got rougher as Sephiroth sank slicked fingers into him. “Ahh. Sephiroth-san…”

Sephiroth made an inquiring noise, a bit distracted by how Zack looked, increasingly flushed and heavy-eyed. Zack squirmed.

“It feels… good.”

“That’s generally the point, yes.” It really was refreshingly simple, Sephiroth reflected; Zack’s body was eager and responsive to every touch. It was so easy to open him, to spread his thighs apart. And even though Zack bit his lip a little when Sephiroth’s cock started pushing into him, he still didn’t tense. He just looked up with wide, bright eyes, panting a little.

“Is it all right?” Sephiroth asked, a bit husky. The heat and the slide of Zack’s muscles tight around him brushed shivers of pleasure over his nerves.

“Very all right.” Zack’s voice was quite breathless, now, and Sephiroth smiled with just a touch of smugness. That, however, made Zack laugh, and the laugh rippled through his body and made Sephiroth gasp. “Glad you’re enjoying it, too, sir,” Zack added cheekily.

Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed I am,” he murmured, and drew back only to thrust in again, smooth and firm. Zack moaned, hands flying up to lock on Sephiroth’s arms. That was more like it. He thrust again, a little harder.

“Sephiroth!” Zack spoke his name like it was the answer to a question.

It was, the back of Sephiroth’s mind noted absently, a strange thing in the midst of this tight, hard heat, but Zack’s uncomplicated enthusiasm soothed him. Zack simply wouldn’t be still for a moment, squirming and arching to meet Sephiroth’s cock with every stroke, and every moan and yes in that light voice relaxed Sephiroth a little more. If it were possible to cast a healing spell over a heart, he would have been looking around for an active materia somewhere.

So very simple was his last thought before pleasure broke its bounds and flooded him, wild and bright and untamed.

When he opened his eyes again, Zack’s eyes were wide and impressed, watching him, in a way that made the corner of Sephiroth’s mouth twitch. He put a stop to it by closing a firm hand around Zack’s cock and stroking him. Zack’s gaze unfocused and he bucked up into Sephiroth’s hand, openmouthed, so abandoned that Sephiroth almost purred just watching him.

Zack came quickly, which Sephiroth rather expected of someone his age, and lay there in a sweaty, breathless, messy heap grinning. Sephiroth realized that he was grinning a little himself.

Zack’s eyes focused again, bright and pleased. “That was fantastic. Can we do it again?”

Sephiroth stared down at him for a moment, and burst out laughing, unable to help it. “Later,” he finally said, chuckling.

“Whatever you say, sir,” Zack agreed, complacently.

Sephiroth was moved to wonder whether he’d been wrong to think this was a simple thing. But then he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

End