FFVII: Advent Children, "The Earth Squeals And Shudders To A Halt" (Elena/Rufus/Tseng, NC-17)
Title: The Earth Squeals And Shudders To A Halt
Words: 5000
Characters/Pairings: Elena/Rufus/Tseng
Rating: NC-17/MA/Not Worksafe
Summary: What matter is that they're alive. For ponderosa121; I hope you enjoy it.
Canon/Spoilers: Advent Children, set right at the end of the movie
Warnings: m/m/f smut, kink, er... and more smut.
Elena's beginning to lose count of the times they've almost but not quite died. Rufus has a demon's luck, but she and the other Turks -- well, it's probably that they're just too fucking stubborn to die. To scream and swear and dread and sweat and bleed strength away on the floor, yes, definitely, but not to die.
She's used abandoned stairwells for a little privacy ever since the beginning, when they still worked in the Shinra building. Nobody used the stairwell, so when she fucked something up and wanted a chance to compose herself she'd go sit on the steps and breathe, and center herself, so that she could go back and try again (and again, and again), and not let anyone see her ruffled. Even when she was the greenest rookie, she hated appearing weak.
There's plenty now she wants to think about -- torture, rescue, Tseng, Rufus' healing -- and though the Shinra building is neither conveniently near nor really still standing, one emergency stairwell was more or less like another. Concrete walls and uncomfortable gratework-iron steps and railings, everything chipped and scuffed, maybe some graffiti, and here, in Edge, where half the buildings are ruins anyway, the constant scuffling of rats and the huge mutant beetles that plagued the less-populated areas.
She finds a likely-looking building and nudges open the battered metal door, and immediately realizes that she's chosen the wrong one, because she can see movement, and even before her eyes adjust to the darkness, she can tell exactly what's going on. Ten feet away, someone is getting fucked against the cinderblock wall, and by the muffled sounds of it, enjoying it quite a bit. She starts to back away.
Then her eyes do adjust, and the first thing she knows is that the person doing the fucking is Tseng -- she'd know that fall of dark hair anywhere -- and the second thing she knows is that the person up against the wall is Rufus, and all the air in her rushes out in a small hungry noise. Holy fucking hell. She's stunned, although not honestly all that surprised -- well, surprised at the venue, but not at the act -- and she knows she should be a little heartbroken and she is, because she's been crazy about Tseng for years, but the main thought in her head is that this is the hottest thing she's. . . seen is the wrong word. From the angle, and the fact that they're both still mostly dressed, she can't see much. But she can hear. And she can imagine. Oh god.
She realizes that she is standing there, staring, her heart in her throat, and then Tseng snarls and snaps his hips forward, and she realizes that Rufus has his hand clenched tight in Tseng's hair and is dragging his head back to expose his throat, and she makes another noise and hears herself and realizes that she ought to get out of here, like, now. Minutes ago.
She works her way backward, step by step, toward the door. She has just about convinced herself they haven't noticed her when she hears Rufus' voice. "Leaving so soon, Elena?"
Her heart's in her mouth again, but she's not going to stutter. She might flee -- 'make a strategic retreat,' Reno would say -- but her voice will remain even. "Sir," she says.
Rufus doesn't say anything else, but his smile is serpentine, and then Tseng pulls away from him -- the long cut of his suit jacket covers a multitude of sins, so to speak -- and holds out a hand to her, mutely.
She is frozen. She does not know what to do. His gesture assumes that she will comply, and that alone makes her want to walk out, except that the look in his eyes does not assume.
It's just one step, two steps forward to put her hand in his. She isn't sure that she knows why she goes; she thinks that she has a reason, but she can't quite get a grip on what it is yet. Tseng reels her in, pulls her up against him, so she can feel his whole body against hers, and he kisses her. Deeply, thoroughly; his lips moving softly against hers, his tongue tracing her lips until she moans, opens her mouth, and then stroking against her mouth and teeth. Gently, gently, but leaving no territory unexplored, nothing uncovered; she feels naked, even though she's still fully clothed, pressed against him (and how did she get so close to him, his hand on the small of her back, without noticing?)
He backs her up, step by careful step, and then suddenly her back is against Rufus' chest. Tseng is still kissing her, not hard but deep, thorough. He knows her, he knows all of her, he did before this began and even more so now that it's going on.
Her back presses up flush against Rufus' chest, and she moans into Tseng's mouth, pinned between them. He breaks the kiss to look at her. And, she realizes, to give her a chance to say that she doesn't want this. To protest.
Rufus' hand slides around her waist, splayed wide across her stomach.
Oh god, she thinks.
She isn't sure what to expect, but it's definitely not what happens next. Tseng sinks to his knees, gracefully. She starts to shiver when she sees that, and more when Rufus' hand flexes against her, holding her up. Tseng looks up at her, and it is as if the kneeling isn't an act of submission but an elaborate feint in some game that they're playing, the rules of which she does not know. But she knows the look in his eyes, which ask permission before he goes on.
"Why?" she asks.
"Because we're alive," he says. "We're all alive."
She looks down at him, dark hair, dark eyes, serious and beautiful and fierce. Tension and adrenaline transmute by some weird alchemy into lust: they're alive, they're alive, they're alive. "Yes," she says.
Rufus' arm tightens around her waist, and he murmurs against her ear, "Yes," as well. And then Tseng is unfastening her uniform trousers, and sliding them down far enough that he can nudge her thighs apart, and this isn't something she'd ever really envisioned, Tseng kneeling, about to -- about to --
His mouth closes on her and she shudders. His tongue works between her folds, just stroking her at first, the palms of his hands flat against the bare skin of her upper thighs. It's overwhelming, and all the more so because Rufus' breath ghosts over the side of her throat, his mouth almost but not quite touching her, just below her ear. Then Tseng's tongue finds her clit, circles it teasingly, and she's not going to last very long at all. Her legs shake, and Rufus' arm tightens more, so that he's supporting part of her weight, and he says, "Ah," in her ear, very softly, as if this were fascinating. One of her hands is in Tseng's hair and she's not sure how it got there; he flicks over her and she makes a rough noise, arching, her head falling back against Rufus' shoulder. Tseng's mouth drives heat through her, pulsing with the deafening sound of her own blood in her ears; Rufus makes a nose -- a chuckle, maybe, or a purr; she can't tell, she can't hear him over the roaring of her heartbeat, but she can feel the vibrations through his body and into hers. She's tightened her grip in Tseng's hair without really realizing it, and it can't be comfortable for him, but he isn't protesting and she can't figure out how to work her muscles well enough to let go, because she's almost there, and then, embarrassingly fast, she is there, trembling hot against his mouth as pleasure burns like a flash grenade, white-hot and hissing through her veins.
She can't move for a moment, her eyes closed, still leaning against Rufus. Oh, he's definitely chuckling, and Tseng has a look of such smugness on his face that she wants to think of something witty and scathing to say to the self-satisfied pair of them. And she will, but later, when she doesn't have to fight a really blissful lethargy to do it. Tseng rises to his feet, wiping his mouth, then kisses her again, slow and deep and drawing another soft moan from her. She can taste herself on his tongue. He draws back, leaving her breathless, but she's saved from staring stupidly at him by Rufus' fingers surprisingly gentle on her jaw, turning her head a little so that he has the angle to kiss her. It's interesting in a not-really-academic-at-all kind of way, the differences between the way they kiss: Tseng direct and strong and smooth and deep, Rufus with an edge of something that she would have characterized as playfulness in anybody else. Tseng smooths her slacks back into place while she's distracted.
What she does say, when she's got her breath back and Rufus has let go of her, is, "That's hardly fair. You're both finished, there's nothing left for me to do."
"Yes, well," Rufus says, very coolly, as though he had not just held her up and moaned in her ear while Tseng sucked her off, "you will simply need to seize the next opportunity that comes your way. Isn't that a Turk thing -- taking advantage of opportunities?"
"Yes," Tseng says. "And making them, when they don't turn up conveniently on their own." You'd have to have known him quite a while and worked with him closely to read the affection and amusement in his impassive expression and level tone, but fortunately, Elena has.
***
She thinks about it all night (really, how could she not?), and into the next day she finds herself ambushed by vivid clips of sensory memory: the warmth of Rufus' hand against her stomach, the exact texture of Tseng's hair wrapped around her fingers, the slick heat of his tongue working skillfully against her. And the memory of watching Tseng fuck Rufus against the rough cinderblocks of the wall, and the sounds they both made, and the faint flush on Rufus' face -- he has very nearly the same complexion she has, after all -- gets her going, too, more than she really would have anticipated.
She's always had a thing for dignified men, reserved men, who never let on too much what they're thinking. She's not like that at all, herself. She's very good at what she does, and doesn't let emotions get in the way of her work -- but she laughs openly, she gets angry, and she once poured most of a bottle of beer on Reno in an attempt to get him to shut up for thirty seconds. (It backfired spectacularly.) She's not sure if it's an opposites-attract thing, or if it's that she likes the idea of wringing a response out of someone who normally would rather not show their hand.
When she gets the message that evening that she's to provide bodyguard duty for the trip back to Rufus' apartment, she thinks, 'Ah. Opportunity.'
***
Rufus says nothing to her in the car, except the usual brief pleasantries. He says nothing until they are in the elevator at his apartment, and the door has whisked itself silently shut. Then he is standing close to her, so close she can hear the rustle of his absurd layers of clothing, smell his aftershave. She can see his forehead, and his throat, which until just yesterday had been either obscured by lengths of bandage or marred by the greenish-black markings of the Stigma. His skin was whole now, whole and smooth and unbroken, as if the disease had never been.
"Tell me you aren't interested," he says, "and you are free to go. No questions." Her expression must be skeptical, because he says, "You are my Turks, Elena, not my whores. You are too valuable to me -- your loyalty is too valuable to me -- to threaten by forcing your hand over this." His mouth curves up in a snow-leopard smile. "So. Do you want this?"
"I . . . . " she said, and stutters off. Because that's almost more frightening than the idea that he would pressure her, because if she says yes now, the decision is entirely hers -- it means that she wants, without coercion, to. . . what? Fuck her boss and her boss's boss?
It sounds like a really terrible idea, put like that. And yet, and yet, and yet. . .
". . . Yes," she says. She thinks she's maybe damning herself. It doesn't matter; she doesn't care, not now, not yet.
His smile says I knew you were going to say that, but she's known him for a while now -- she's been a Turk and he's been a president for almost exactly the same length of time -- and she can tell, beneath that, that he's genuinely pleased.
Almost as soon as they're inside his apartment, Rufus touches her shoulder to stop her, then slides his hand up into her hair and pulls her in and kisses her. That surprises her a little. Somehow, it was a lot easier for her to imagine sex coming from this than more kissing. He doesn't kiss gently, but he isn't particularly rough, either; his teeth graze her lower lip but don't sink in. This is the point at which she decides: fuck it. (So to speak.) She isn't some shrinking flower -- she's a Turk, she carries a minor arsenal under her jacket and can tie bruisers in knots if they look at her funny -- and she doesn't see the point in playing coy. It's kind of late for coy, anyway, considering what went on in the stairwell. So she pushes her tongue into his mouth. He makes a startled noise, and she thinks the whole evening will be worth it for just that, because nobody surprises Rufus Shinra.
(Well, maybe Tseng.)
He recovers immediately, though, and his hand tightens in her hair. It pulls sharp against her scalp, and that feels. . . actually, surprisingly good. But she needs to know and needs him to know that this isn't him thinking that this is one-sided, so she pulls her tongue out of his mouth and bites down on his lip in one fluid movement. She bites harder than he has been, but not quite enough to draw blood.
Rufus pulls back a little, and the look in his eyes is measuring, glacial-blue, with a hint more respect than she'd previously seen. "You bite," he says.
"I'm not gentle," she says, "sir, or at least I'm not any more gentle than Tseng is, so don't expect it of me." She licks her lips. She's intensely aware that he's just inches away, his hand still curled in her hair. "You wouldn't want me to be, anyway. I'm a Turk."
"True," he says, and kisses her again, and this time he's rougher: not biting per se, but crushing his mouth against hers so her lip presses hard against the ridge of her teeth. She works her hands into his hair and tightens, keeping him pulled close against her, giving as good as she gets. Her heart is thumping and damned if this isn't making her wet, just kissing, not touching anywhere but their mouths and hands in hair.
There's a tiny part of her that's pointing out, wildly, that that's Rufus Shinra she just bit, whose hair she is currently tugging on, and who's making a low growling noise into her mouth, and is this really a good idea, really?
He breaks the kiss to say, "You're not quite right, you know. You're actually rougher than Tseng. He doesn't bite much." He's a little breathless but his voice is perfectly calm, almost academic. The contrast makes her shiver. She realizes she's staring at his throat, thinking that maybe she should check to make sure the Stigma is all gone, to make sure that that fair unbroken skin continues all the way down.
She hears footsteps behind her and twists around with the swiftness of instinct. It's Tseng. His jacket is off, and the breadth of his shoulders is somehow more evident in the plain white shirt. He puts his hands on her shoulders and then she is pressed between them again, and really, that's not such a bad place to be. They're both taller than her, but Tseng by rather more of a margin: Tseng is solid against her back; she can feel the muscles of his chest, the flat plane of his stomach, the strength in his hands on her shoulders. And hard, she realizes, and her breath catches on a little sound when she feels that. And Rufus is almost pretty, except that there's a layer of ice there, and a note of ferocity, that makes the beauty something else entirely. He is fine-boned like a hawk, with the same agile power behind it. They're looking at each other, and at her, and she wonders what they see.
***
Later, they have made it to the bed and got most of their clothing off, although undressing Rufus is a task in and of itself. His skin is healed, unmarred, and she licks and bites from his throat down over the once-marked flesh until he winds his fingers in her hair and tugs her back. Tseng kisses him, and oh that's worth seeing, Tseng very intense, Rufus with a little knowing smile right before their mouths meet. And she touches the scars on Tseng's body, materia-healed wounds but the lines still an angry pale red, the gunshot splattermark on his upper arm, the knife-lines across his chest. Rufus traces the scars of her own torture, some of which she can't even remember getting; he bends his head to press a long flat-tongued lick over the burn-scar high on her inner thigh.
. . . and a little after that, Rufus is sliding his fingers into her, and Tseng is teasing her nipples hard, and a little after that, she's stretching her mouth wide to take in Tseng's thick cock while Tseng sucks Rufus' fingers, and a little after that she's between both of them, arching and grinding shamelessly against their hands, and she's not sure how they got there, but she's sure as hell not going to stop long enough to ask. She nearly died; she deserves a shot to feel alive, no questions, no overthinking.
***
They have tangled together, drifted, coming down; she might have even dozed a bit. She thinks it's the intensity of Rufus' silent gaze that rouses her, so that she lifts her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised questioningly. He smiles, the snake's smile, hypnotic and venomous.
"Do you want to fuck him?" Rufus asks. His voice is cool and smooth, like the touch of well water.
The suggestion chases a shudder through her; or maybe the shudder came from Tseng, his chest against her back. She turns her head, and Tseng's eyes meet hers; they're so dark that they scorch. She realizes she's holding her breath, and has to suck in air suddenly.
"Do you want me to?" she asks Tseng, because that's important. She won't do anything he doesn't want, not on Rufus' say-so. It feels like everything here is careful negotiation, but that doesn't wring the power from it: the fire is still there, burning in her, burning in Tseng's eyes, in Rufus' hand on her hip. It's like some kind of ritual, great magic harnessed by precise lines.
Tseng's eyes are dark, so dark and so deep she feels like she could fall into them and never touch bottom. They go down, and down, and down . . . "Yes," he says, so low and quiet she doesn't register it at first. When she does, it's like a hit with an EMR; her body burns and jumps and shudders with sudden lust.
It's not really surprising that Rufus has the necessary equipment, although it does make her wonder exactly how much of this was planned, and for how long. The process of getting the strap-on on would be awkward and embarrassing if she wasn't so worked up. Well, and if Rufus and Tseng weren't. . . distracting: the intentness of Rufus' expression as he slides slick fingers into Tseng, and the sound of Tseng not making a sound, swallowing a sound, his teeth pressing briefly against his lower lip.
Then Rufus pulls away a little bit, sprawling himself against the pillows like he's waiting for a good show. That makes Elena shiver more, the thought of him watching, and Tseng's eyes are on hers, too, holding her gaze. There's longing there but also a challenge, and be damned if she's going to back out now. He trusts her with this; she will trust herself with it, too. She's good at taking opportunities, after all.
She positions herself, her hands braced on the bed, and begins to push into him, and he makes a fantastic noise: another swallowed moan. His eyes are shut. It's as if he's unwilling to make any noise, but unable to stop himself. He tilts his head back, and his hair spreads out as she begins to build up a pace. She's unsure at first, but the look on his face and the way he's almost but not quite making noise gives her confidence. I always was pretty good at improvising.
It's also hot as hell, wringing those noises from him. It makes her shake hard, so that she has to brace herself to keep her thrusts steady. She reaches between them and wraps her hand around his cock. He arches up, thrusting into her grip and at the same time pushing her deeper into him. She knows her hands aren't soft -- she's spent too long handling weapons in daily life to have soft hands -- but he doesn't seem to be complaining. Tseng losing it might be the hottest thing she's ever seen; it definitely makes the top three.
She startles when she feels fingers on the backs of her thighs, sliding toward the soft skin of her inner thighs. Rufus' fingers are softer than either hers or Tseng's; he abuses them less on a daily basis. But there are still rough spots, calluses, scars that catch on her skin. She can't hold back a sharp, needy little sound; and Tseng's moan echoes her.
Rufus slides smoothly up behind her, his fingers drifting slowly higher, drawing faint circles and patterns on the inside of her thighs. The distraction is making it hard for her to concentrate, hard for her to keep a steady pace. Tseng groans, a shocking harsh sound -- his voice has always been so smooth, unruffleable -- and tightens one hand on the sheets, the other on her hip. She reaches out to brace herself by winding her fingers through his.
Rufus' fingers navigate the straps of the harness and find her slick cunt, and she arches and cries out. The movement pushes deeper into Tseng, and he arches, too, his hand tightening almost painfully on hers. "That's it," Rufus murmurs in her ear, cool satin. He strokes her, working his way achingly slow toward her clit. "Make him come. Let me see it."
She can't bite back her moan; her hips jerk, and her hand tightens, and sure enough that's, well, enough. The noise Tseng makes is quite soft, but he's biting his lower lip, his head thrown back so she can see the tendons of his neck. He pulses over her hand, and the wet heat of it counterpoints the wet heat between her legs, where Rufus strokes her, teasing-gentle.
Then he pulls his hands away, and she swears with frustration before she realizes that he's loosing the harness and sliding it off her. Then she knows what he intends, and goes along when he grips her shoulders and half-turns her for a rough kiss, biting at her lower lip and at the same time bearing her back toward Tseng. She goes easily, turning as she does, until her back is against his chest. She can feel his release against the small of her back, and the ragged rise and fall of his chest.
Rufus nudges her thighs apart and kneels between them. He is surprisingly gentle with her body, while rough with her mouth, rough with her hair. At the same time, Tseng's arm closes around her waist. Not holding her down, she knows -- just holding her. "Elena," he murmurs.
Rufus holds her gaze, and it's bizarre that such a cold glacier blue can be so hot. "Yes," she says, spreading her thighs wider: "yes," to both of them. Tseng's other hand finds her breast, and Rufus' fingers part her folds, skating over her clit, and then he's pushing into her. She arches into both of them. She's so wet and aroused that it's effortlessly easy.
She isn't sure she wants effortlessness, though. It would be nice, to melt into them, here, but she can't give in that thoroughly. She's not sure whether she's afraid that they won't respect her for it, or if it's just. . . not her, as though she could lose herself in this. As if she could sink into them and be lost.
She won't be. She refuses it. She wraps her legs hard around his hips, pulling him down and arching up at the same time, and when he opens his mouth on a startled noise, she kisses him. Hard. She tastes blood.
Rufus is quiet, even through the biting. Tseng chuckles again, slow and full of pleased lethargy. "She's not going to let you forget that she's a Turk."
"I have noticed," Rufus says.
Elena objects to being spoken of in the third person, but she doesn't express her displeasure in words. She bites him on the collarbone, twice in the same spot and not gently, to leave a mark. They're marked, after all, she and Tseng, marked by blue suits, as surely as if they had collar and tags: they are his hounds. He should have something to show for it, too.
And also, to bleed and bruise and feel pain, you must be alive. That seems important, somehow.
She works one hand flat to the bed, unhooks one leg from his, and twists in a way that Tseng actually taught her, although not in this particular context. It flips them over, so that Rufus lands hard on his back on the bed, and she rises over him, still tight around him, still moving. He looks startled for the second time this night, and she feels like she's counting coup, and she's so smug she could burst with it, even though the startled look lasts for less than half a second.
She rides him, unrelenting. One of his hands fists in the sheets, and the other clenches against her hip, hard enough that there will be five marks there tomorrow from the pressure of his fingers. The tension in his hand belies the unruffled look on his face. The slick slide feels good inside her -- feels amazing -- and pleasure builds slowly like a rising tide. Dimly, she is aware that Tseng has rolled up to his knees beside them, but she doesn't really register the fact until he slips his fingers between them. With the pads of his fingers, he brushes against Rufus' cock and the lips of her cunt, holding his hand still and letting them stroke themselves against him with their own thrusts, stroking right exactly at where Rufus' body presses into hers. She makes a helpless garbled noise, trying somehow to tell him how shockingly good that feels but beyond the capacity for words. Tseng's thumb massages her clit, and she throws back her hair and shouts, almost an angry sound, and grinds down hard. He does it again, and she comes, the breath out of her, almost a sob.
She can't keep her balance, she's shaking too badly, her thighs sweaty. Rufus takes shameless advantage and flips her back over; takes over the pace, too, thrusting deep into her. She's too blissed and languid to fight this particular battle, so she simply stretches out and purrs. Tseng slides behind her again, and he hums a little and she sighs when Rufus finally comes.
***
"You know," Elena says drowsily, some short time later, "the stairwell probably wasn't the best idea for a location. I mean, I've gone there for some privacy for years."
"Oh, I knew that," Rufus says silkily.
She lifts her head to look at him, brows raised. Behind her, against her back, Tseng starts to laugh.
***
Author's Note: The title comes from Lou Reed's "Romeo Had Juliette."
This one's in a slightly different continuity than Professional Estimation and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so it's a slightly different Elena. I expect this matters to myself, and no one else, but nonetheless. ;)
Words: 5000
Characters/Pairings: Elena/Rufus/Tseng
Rating: NC-17/MA/Not Worksafe
Summary: What matter is that they're alive. For ponderosa121; I hope you enjoy it.
Canon/Spoilers: Advent Children, set right at the end of the movie
Warnings: m/m/f smut, kink, er... and more smut.
Elena's beginning to lose count of the times they've almost but not quite died. Rufus has a demon's luck, but she and the other Turks -- well, it's probably that they're just too fucking stubborn to die. To scream and swear and dread and sweat and bleed strength away on the floor, yes, definitely, but not to die.
She's used abandoned stairwells for a little privacy ever since the beginning, when they still worked in the Shinra building. Nobody used the stairwell, so when she fucked something up and wanted a chance to compose herself she'd go sit on the steps and breathe, and center herself, so that she could go back and try again (and again, and again), and not let anyone see her ruffled. Even when she was the greenest rookie, she hated appearing weak.
There's plenty now she wants to think about -- torture, rescue, Tseng, Rufus' healing -- and though the Shinra building is neither conveniently near nor really still standing, one emergency stairwell was more or less like another. Concrete walls and uncomfortable gratework-iron steps and railings, everything chipped and scuffed, maybe some graffiti, and here, in Edge, where half the buildings are ruins anyway, the constant scuffling of rats and the huge mutant beetles that plagued the less-populated areas.
She finds a likely-looking building and nudges open the battered metal door, and immediately realizes that she's chosen the wrong one, because she can see movement, and even before her eyes adjust to the darkness, she can tell exactly what's going on. Ten feet away, someone is getting fucked against the cinderblock wall, and by the muffled sounds of it, enjoying it quite a bit. She starts to back away.
Then her eyes do adjust, and the first thing she knows is that the person doing the fucking is Tseng -- she'd know that fall of dark hair anywhere -- and the second thing she knows is that the person up against the wall is Rufus, and all the air in her rushes out in a small hungry noise. Holy fucking hell. She's stunned, although not honestly all that surprised -- well, surprised at the venue, but not at the act -- and she knows she should be a little heartbroken and she is, because she's been crazy about Tseng for years, but the main thought in her head is that this is the hottest thing she's. . . seen is the wrong word. From the angle, and the fact that they're both still mostly dressed, she can't see much. But she can hear. And she can imagine. Oh god.
She realizes that she is standing there, staring, her heart in her throat, and then Tseng snarls and snaps his hips forward, and she realizes that Rufus has his hand clenched tight in Tseng's hair and is dragging his head back to expose his throat, and she makes another noise and hears herself and realizes that she ought to get out of here, like, now. Minutes ago.
She works her way backward, step by step, toward the door. She has just about convinced herself they haven't noticed her when she hears Rufus' voice. "Leaving so soon, Elena?"
Her heart's in her mouth again, but she's not going to stutter. She might flee -- 'make a strategic retreat,' Reno would say -- but her voice will remain even. "Sir," she says.
Rufus doesn't say anything else, but his smile is serpentine, and then Tseng pulls away from him -- the long cut of his suit jacket covers a multitude of sins, so to speak -- and holds out a hand to her, mutely.
She is frozen. She does not know what to do. His gesture assumes that she will comply, and that alone makes her want to walk out, except that the look in his eyes does not assume.
It's just one step, two steps forward to put her hand in his. She isn't sure that she knows why she goes; she thinks that she has a reason, but she can't quite get a grip on what it is yet. Tseng reels her in, pulls her up against him, so she can feel his whole body against hers, and he kisses her. Deeply, thoroughly; his lips moving softly against hers, his tongue tracing her lips until she moans, opens her mouth, and then stroking against her mouth and teeth. Gently, gently, but leaving no territory unexplored, nothing uncovered; she feels naked, even though she's still fully clothed, pressed against him (and how did she get so close to him, his hand on the small of her back, without noticing?)
He backs her up, step by careful step, and then suddenly her back is against Rufus' chest. Tseng is still kissing her, not hard but deep, thorough. He knows her, he knows all of her, he did before this began and even more so now that it's going on.
Her back presses up flush against Rufus' chest, and she moans into Tseng's mouth, pinned between them. He breaks the kiss to look at her. And, she realizes, to give her a chance to say that she doesn't want this. To protest.
Rufus' hand slides around her waist, splayed wide across her stomach.
Oh god, she thinks.
She isn't sure what to expect, but it's definitely not what happens next. Tseng sinks to his knees, gracefully. She starts to shiver when she sees that, and more when Rufus' hand flexes against her, holding her up. Tseng looks up at her, and it is as if the kneeling isn't an act of submission but an elaborate feint in some game that they're playing, the rules of which she does not know. But she knows the look in his eyes, which ask permission before he goes on.
"Why?" she asks.
"Because we're alive," he says. "We're all alive."
She looks down at him, dark hair, dark eyes, serious and beautiful and fierce. Tension and adrenaline transmute by some weird alchemy into lust: they're alive, they're alive, they're alive. "Yes," she says.
Rufus' arm tightens around her waist, and he murmurs against her ear, "Yes," as well. And then Tseng is unfastening her uniform trousers, and sliding them down far enough that he can nudge her thighs apart, and this isn't something she'd ever really envisioned, Tseng kneeling, about to -- about to --
His mouth closes on her and she shudders. His tongue works between her folds, just stroking her at first, the palms of his hands flat against the bare skin of her upper thighs. It's overwhelming, and all the more so because Rufus' breath ghosts over the side of her throat, his mouth almost but not quite touching her, just below her ear. Then Tseng's tongue finds her clit, circles it teasingly, and she's not going to last very long at all. Her legs shake, and Rufus' arm tightens more, so that he's supporting part of her weight, and he says, "Ah," in her ear, very softly, as if this were fascinating. One of her hands is in Tseng's hair and she's not sure how it got there; he flicks over her and she makes a rough noise, arching, her head falling back against Rufus' shoulder. Tseng's mouth drives heat through her, pulsing with the deafening sound of her own blood in her ears; Rufus makes a nose -- a chuckle, maybe, or a purr; she can't tell, she can't hear him over the roaring of her heartbeat, but she can feel the vibrations through his body and into hers. She's tightened her grip in Tseng's hair without really realizing it, and it can't be comfortable for him, but he isn't protesting and she can't figure out how to work her muscles well enough to let go, because she's almost there, and then, embarrassingly fast, she is there, trembling hot against his mouth as pleasure burns like a flash grenade, white-hot and hissing through her veins.
She can't move for a moment, her eyes closed, still leaning against Rufus. Oh, he's definitely chuckling, and Tseng has a look of such smugness on his face that she wants to think of something witty and scathing to say to the self-satisfied pair of them. And she will, but later, when she doesn't have to fight a really blissful lethargy to do it. Tseng rises to his feet, wiping his mouth, then kisses her again, slow and deep and drawing another soft moan from her. She can taste herself on his tongue. He draws back, leaving her breathless, but she's saved from staring stupidly at him by Rufus' fingers surprisingly gentle on her jaw, turning her head a little so that he has the angle to kiss her. It's interesting in a not-really-academic-at-all kind of way, the differences between the way they kiss: Tseng direct and strong and smooth and deep, Rufus with an edge of something that she would have characterized as playfulness in anybody else. Tseng smooths her slacks back into place while she's distracted.
What she does say, when she's got her breath back and Rufus has let go of her, is, "That's hardly fair. You're both finished, there's nothing left for me to do."
"Yes, well," Rufus says, very coolly, as though he had not just held her up and moaned in her ear while Tseng sucked her off, "you will simply need to seize the next opportunity that comes your way. Isn't that a Turk thing -- taking advantage of opportunities?"
"Yes," Tseng says. "And making them, when they don't turn up conveniently on their own." You'd have to have known him quite a while and worked with him closely to read the affection and amusement in his impassive expression and level tone, but fortunately, Elena has.
***
She thinks about it all night (really, how could she not?), and into the next day she finds herself ambushed by vivid clips of sensory memory: the warmth of Rufus' hand against her stomach, the exact texture of Tseng's hair wrapped around her fingers, the slick heat of his tongue working skillfully against her. And the memory of watching Tseng fuck Rufus against the rough cinderblocks of the wall, and the sounds they both made, and the faint flush on Rufus' face -- he has very nearly the same complexion she has, after all -- gets her going, too, more than she really would have anticipated.
She's always had a thing for dignified men, reserved men, who never let on too much what they're thinking. She's not like that at all, herself. She's very good at what she does, and doesn't let emotions get in the way of her work -- but she laughs openly, she gets angry, and she once poured most of a bottle of beer on Reno in an attempt to get him to shut up for thirty seconds. (It backfired spectacularly.) She's not sure if it's an opposites-attract thing, or if it's that she likes the idea of wringing a response out of someone who normally would rather not show their hand.
When she gets the message that evening that she's to provide bodyguard duty for the trip back to Rufus' apartment, she thinks, 'Ah. Opportunity.'
***
Rufus says nothing to her in the car, except the usual brief pleasantries. He says nothing until they are in the elevator at his apartment, and the door has whisked itself silently shut. Then he is standing close to her, so close she can hear the rustle of his absurd layers of clothing, smell his aftershave. She can see his forehead, and his throat, which until just yesterday had been either obscured by lengths of bandage or marred by the greenish-black markings of the Stigma. His skin was whole now, whole and smooth and unbroken, as if the disease had never been.
"Tell me you aren't interested," he says, "and you are free to go. No questions." Her expression must be skeptical, because he says, "You are my Turks, Elena, not my whores. You are too valuable to me -- your loyalty is too valuable to me -- to threaten by forcing your hand over this." His mouth curves up in a snow-leopard smile. "So. Do you want this?"
"I . . . . " she said, and stutters off. Because that's almost more frightening than the idea that he would pressure her, because if she says yes now, the decision is entirely hers -- it means that she wants, without coercion, to. . . what? Fuck her boss and her boss's boss?
It sounds like a really terrible idea, put like that. And yet, and yet, and yet. . .
". . . Yes," she says. She thinks she's maybe damning herself. It doesn't matter; she doesn't care, not now, not yet.
His smile says I knew you were going to say that, but she's known him for a while now -- she's been a Turk and he's been a president for almost exactly the same length of time -- and she can tell, beneath that, that he's genuinely pleased.
Almost as soon as they're inside his apartment, Rufus touches her shoulder to stop her, then slides his hand up into her hair and pulls her in and kisses her. That surprises her a little. Somehow, it was a lot easier for her to imagine sex coming from this than more kissing. He doesn't kiss gently, but he isn't particularly rough, either; his teeth graze her lower lip but don't sink in. This is the point at which she decides: fuck it. (So to speak.) She isn't some shrinking flower -- she's a Turk, she carries a minor arsenal under her jacket and can tie bruisers in knots if they look at her funny -- and she doesn't see the point in playing coy. It's kind of late for coy, anyway, considering what went on in the stairwell. So she pushes her tongue into his mouth. He makes a startled noise, and she thinks the whole evening will be worth it for just that, because nobody surprises Rufus Shinra.
(Well, maybe Tseng.)
He recovers immediately, though, and his hand tightens in her hair. It pulls sharp against her scalp, and that feels. . . actually, surprisingly good. But she needs to know and needs him to know that this isn't him thinking that this is one-sided, so she pulls her tongue out of his mouth and bites down on his lip in one fluid movement. She bites harder than he has been, but not quite enough to draw blood.
Rufus pulls back a little, and the look in his eyes is measuring, glacial-blue, with a hint more respect than she'd previously seen. "You bite," he says.
"I'm not gentle," she says, "sir, or at least I'm not any more gentle than Tseng is, so don't expect it of me." She licks her lips. She's intensely aware that he's just inches away, his hand still curled in her hair. "You wouldn't want me to be, anyway. I'm a Turk."
"True," he says, and kisses her again, and this time he's rougher: not biting per se, but crushing his mouth against hers so her lip presses hard against the ridge of her teeth. She works her hands into his hair and tightens, keeping him pulled close against her, giving as good as she gets. Her heart is thumping and damned if this isn't making her wet, just kissing, not touching anywhere but their mouths and hands in hair.
There's a tiny part of her that's pointing out, wildly, that that's Rufus Shinra she just bit, whose hair she is currently tugging on, and who's making a low growling noise into her mouth, and is this really a good idea, really?
He breaks the kiss to say, "You're not quite right, you know. You're actually rougher than Tseng. He doesn't bite much." He's a little breathless but his voice is perfectly calm, almost academic. The contrast makes her shiver. She realizes she's staring at his throat, thinking that maybe she should check to make sure the Stigma is all gone, to make sure that that fair unbroken skin continues all the way down.
She hears footsteps behind her and twists around with the swiftness of instinct. It's Tseng. His jacket is off, and the breadth of his shoulders is somehow more evident in the plain white shirt. He puts his hands on her shoulders and then she is pressed between them again, and really, that's not such a bad place to be. They're both taller than her, but Tseng by rather more of a margin: Tseng is solid against her back; she can feel the muscles of his chest, the flat plane of his stomach, the strength in his hands on her shoulders. And hard, she realizes, and her breath catches on a little sound when she feels that. And Rufus is almost pretty, except that there's a layer of ice there, and a note of ferocity, that makes the beauty something else entirely. He is fine-boned like a hawk, with the same agile power behind it. They're looking at each other, and at her, and she wonders what they see.
***
Later, they have made it to the bed and got most of their clothing off, although undressing Rufus is a task in and of itself. His skin is healed, unmarred, and she licks and bites from his throat down over the once-marked flesh until he winds his fingers in her hair and tugs her back. Tseng kisses him, and oh that's worth seeing, Tseng very intense, Rufus with a little knowing smile right before their mouths meet. And she touches the scars on Tseng's body, materia-healed wounds but the lines still an angry pale red, the gunshot splattermark on his upper arm, the knife-lines across his chest. Rufus traces the scars of her own torture, some of which she can't even remember getting; he bends his head to press a long flat-tongued lick over the burn-scar high on her inner thigh.
. . . and a little after that, Rufus is sliding his fingers into her, and Tseng is teasing her nipples hard, and a little after that, she's stretching her mouth wide to take in Tseng's thick cock while Tseng sucks Rufus' fingers, and a little after that she's between both of them, arching and grinding shamelessly against their hands, and she's not sure how they got there, but she's sure as hell not going to stop long enough to ask. She nearly died; she deserves a shot to feel alive, no questions, no overthinking.
***
They have tangled together, drifted, coming down; she might have even dozed a bit. She thinks it's the intensity of Rufus' silent gaze that rouses her, so that she lifts her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised questioningly. He smiles, the snake's smile, hypnotic and venomous.
"Do you want to fuck him?" Rufus asks. His voice is cool and smooth, like the touch of well water.
The suggestion chases a shudder through her; or maybe the shudder came from Tseng, his chest against her back. She turns her head, and Tseng's eyes meet hers; they're so dark that they scorch. She realizes she's holding her breath, and has to suck in air suddenly.
"Do you want me to?" she asks Tseng, because that's important. She won't do anything he doesn't want, not on Rufus' say-so. It feels like everything here is careful negotiation, but that doesn't wring the power from it: the fire is still there, burning in her, burning in Tseng's eyes, in Rufus' hand on her hip. It's like some kind of ritual, great magic harnessed by precise lines.
Tseng's eyes are dark, so dark and so deep she feels like she could fall into them and never touch bottom. They go down, and down, and down . . . "Yes," he says, so low and quiet she doesn't register it at first. When she does, it's like a hit with an EMR; her body burns and jumps and shudders with sudden lust.
It's not really surprising that Rufus has the necessary equipment, although it does make her wonder exactly how much of this was planned, and for how long. The process of getting the strap-on on would be awkward and embarrassing if she wasn't so worked up. Well, and if Rufus and Tseng weren't. . . distracting: the intentness of Rufus' expression as he slides slick fingers into Tseng, and the sound of Tseng not making a sound, swallowing a sound, his teeth pressing briefly against his lower lip.
Then Rufus pulls away a little bit, sprawling himself against the pillows like he's waiting for a good show. That makes Elena shiver more, the thought of him watching, and Tseng's eyes are on hers, too, holding her gaze. There's longing there but also a challenge, and be damned if she's going to back out now. He trusts her with this; she will trust herself with it, too. She's good at taking opportunities, after all.
She positions herself, her hands braced on the bed, and begins to push into him, and he makes a fantastic noise: another swallowed moan. His eyes are shut. It's as if he's unwilling to make any noise, but unable to stop himself. He tilts his head back, and his hair spreads out as she begins to build up a pace. She's unsure at first, but the look on his face and the way he's almost but not quite making noise gives her confidence. I always was pretty good at improvising.
It's also hot as hell, wringing those noises from him. It makes her shake hard, so that she has to brace herself to keep her thrusts steady. She reaches between them and wraps her hand around his cock. He arches up, thrusting into her grip and at the same time pushing her deeper into him. She knows her hands aren't soft -- she's spent too long handling weapons in daily life to have soft hands -- but he doesn't seem to be complaining. Tseng losing it might be the hottest thing she's ever seen; it definitely makes the top three.
She startles when she feels fingers on the backs of her thighs, sliding toward the soft skin of her inner thighs. Rufus' fingers are softer than either hers or Tseng's; he abuses them less on a daily basis. But there are still rough spots, calluses, scars that catch on her skin. She can't hold back a sharp, needy little sound; and Tseng's moan echoes her.
Rufus slides smoothly up behind her, his fingers drifting slowly higher, drawing faint circles and patterns on the inside of her thighs. The distraction is making it hard for her to concentrate, hard for her to keep a steady pace. Tseng groans, a shocking harsh sound -- his voice has always been so smooth, unruffleable -- and tightens one hand on the sheets, the other on her hip. She reaches out to brace herself by winding her fingers through his.
Rufus' fingers navigate the straps of the harness and find her slick cunt, and she arches and cries out. The movement pushes deeper into Tseng, and he arches, too, his hand tightening almost painfully on hers. "That's it," Rufus murmurs in her ear, cool satin. He strokes her, working his way achingly slow toward her clit. "Make him come. Let me see it."
She can't bite back her moan; her hips jerk, and her hand tightens, and sure enough that's, well, enough. The noise Tseng makes is quite soft, but he's biting his lower lip, his head thrown back so she can see the tendons of his neck. He pulses over her hand, and the wet heat of it counterpoints the wet heat between her legs, where Rufus strokes her, teasing-gentle.
Then he pulls his hands away, and she swears with frustration before she realizes that he's loosing the harness and sliding it off her. Then she knows what he intends, and goes along when he grips her shoulders and half-turns her for a rough kiss, biting at her lower lip and at the same time bearing her back toward Tseng. She goes easily, turning as she does, until her back is against his chest. She can feel his release against the small of her back, and the ragged rise and fall of his chest.
Rufus nudges her thighs apart and kneels between them. He is surprisingly gentle with her body, while rough with her mouth, rough with her hair. At the same time, Tseng's arm closes around her waist. Not holding her down, she knows -- just holding her. "Elena," he murmurs.
Rufus holds her gaze, and it's bizarre that such a cold glacier blue can be so hot. "Yes," she says, spreading her thighs wider: "yes," to both of them. Tseng's other hand finds her breast, and Rufus' fingers part her folds, skating over her clit, and then he's pushing into her. She arches into both of them. She's so wet and aroused that it's effortlessly easy.
She isn't sure she wants effortlessness, though. It would be nice, to melt into them, here, but she can't give in that thoroughly. She's not sure whether she's afraid that they won't respect her for it, or if it's just. . . not her, as though she could lose herself in this. As if she could sink into them and be lost.
She won't be. She refuses it. She wraps her legs hard around his hips, pulling him down and arching up at the same time, and when he opens his mouth on a startled noise, she kisses him. Hard. She tastes blood.
Rufus is quiet, even through the biting. Tseng chuckles again, slow and full of pleased lethargy. "She's not going to let you forget that she's a Turk."
"I have noticed," Rufus says.
Elena objects to being spoken of in the third person, but she doesn't express her displeasure in words. She bites him on the collarbone, twice in the same spot and not gently, to leave a mark. They're marked, after all, she and Tseng, marked by blue suits, as surely as if they had collar and tags: they are his hounds. He should have something to show for it, too.
And also, to bleed and bruise and feel pain, you must be alive. That seems important, somehow.
She works one hand flat to the bed, unhooks one leg from his, and twists in a way that Tseng actually taught her, although not in this particular context. It flips them over, so that Rufus lands hard on his back on the bed, and she rises over him, still tight around him, still moving. He looks startled for the second time this night, and she feels like she's counting coup, and she's so smug she could burst with it, even though the startled look lasts for less than half a second.
She rides him, unrelenting. One of his hands fists in the sheets, and the other clenches against her hip, hard enough that there will be five marks there tomorrow from the pressure of his fingers. The tension in his hand belies the unruffled look on his face. The slick slide feels good inside her -- feels amazing -- and pleasure builds slowly like a rising tide. Dimly, she is aware that Tseng has rolled up to his knees beside them, but she doesn't really register the fact until he slips his fingers between them. With the pads of his fingers, he brushes against Rufus' cock and the lips of her cunt, holding his hand still and letting them stroke themselves against him with their own thrusts, stroking right exactly at where Rufus' body presses into hers. She makes a helpless garbled noise, trying somehow to tell him how shockingly good that feels but beyond the capacity for words. Tseng's thumb massages her clit, and she throws back her hair and shouts, almost an angry sound, and grinds down hard. He does it again, and she comes, the breath out of her, almost a sob.
She can't keep her balance, she's shaking too badly, her thighs sweaty. Rufus takes shameless advantage and flips her back over; takes over the pace, too, thrusting deep into her. She's too blissed and languid to fight this particular battle, so she simply stretches out and purrs. Tseng slides behind her again, and he hums a little and she sighs when Rufus finally comes.
***
"You know," Elena says drowsily, some short time later, "the stairwell probably wasn't the best idea for a location. I mean, I've gone there for some privacy for years."
"Oh, I knew that," Rufus says silkily.
She lifts her head to look at him, brows raised. Behind her, against her back, Tseng starts to laugh.
***
Author's Note: The title comes from Lou Reed's "Romeo Had Juliette."
This one's in a slightly different continuity than Professional Estimation and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so it's a slightly different Elena. I expect this matters to myself, and no one else, but nonetheless. ;)