Solipsism X: Circuits in Your Brain
Solipsism
Chapter 10: Circuits in Your Brain
End of the Dreams Arc
Hints of Sephiroth/Tseng and Sephiroth/Zack;
PG-13; sexuality, violence.
a COMPILED version of the ENTIRE Dream Arc can be found in two sections, here and here.
"Love is a violent star,
A tide of destruction;
Love is an angry scar,
The pain of instruction;
Love is a violation, a mutilation, capitulation;
Love is annihilation."
--Sting, Inside
"I’m gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall.
We will rise as the buildings crumble,
Float there and watch it all;
Amidst the burning, we’ll be churning.
You know, love will be our wings.
The passion rises up from the ashes
When the world ends."
--Dave Matthews Band, When the World Ends
The change is complete at that moment, clutching the box that holds all that is left of his Mother except for threads of tangled DNA. He is falling and above him the sun casts a brilliant crown of flame over Cloud's pale hair. His heart is still twisted with pain and the thought of failure, utterly anathema, sparks a deep and violent wave of black lust for vengeance.
Someone who believes that the human mind is basically a computer, like Dr. Hojo perhaps, would describe that moment as a connected circuit. To Kadaj, it is more like their minds, already close enough to echo through time, have simply overlapped. His pain, his hunger, his rage, his desires, all are soothed by the sheer magnitude of Sephiroth's emotions, soothed and comforted and ultimately subsumed by them.
When that black inferno washes his sense of self into nothingness, Sephiroth Ascendant, it seems Kadaj drifts for eons in dreamless sleep. Then he stands in a corridor, a long hallway limned and lit by steady red light. On each side of the hallway, at irregular intervals, are doors, also glowing red at their edges, and each is marked with a strange design. Geometric patterns, increasing in their complexity as they wind away from him into a horizon point.
Door One:
Wrapped in warmth, unable to move. It is a comforting sensation. Sucking at something fills his mouth with the rich sweetness of milk. Silken hair, long, brushes his cheek and his eyes slowly attempt to open. Blurred form against the light: it smells female.
Door Six:
Slash of steel against bicep, weak, burning. He stares up into the face of his weapons instructor, who smiles like a jackal. "You're going to have to come at me for real, boy." He lunges.
Door Eight:
Mako chamber. It feels like insects are crawling beneath every surface in his body. They're even crawling in his eyes and his sex. He tries to scream but his mouth is full of a taste of blood and flowers. How long has it been? Hours? Days.
Door Nineteen:
First time. Hesitant, full of images of softness, of colored light mingled together. It resolves itself slowly: Sephiroth's first time.
Black hair, willing lips. Young, so young he hardly recognizes the man he tortured not so long ago. This is a good match in that they both keep themselves completely contained except for the pleasure shared, the caresses and bites and slip of hot tongue or gentle slicked finger here or there- it is a bad match in that there is no fire. In both of them, for both of them, the mystery of what lay behind the mask was the attraction, and once even half lowered, the sex degenerates into a lesson.
Words like, "Yes, God yes," or "I love you," don't factor in. In their place, "More of an acute angle," and "Seven o'clock," and "Use your fingernails." It still sweeps them both away with pleasure, but there is no moment of disconnect, no emotional level.
When orgasm comes, the serrated feeling of loss of self that always grips Kadaj in that moment is not in it, but something strange and shadowy surfaces in the aftermath. Sephiroth's hand runs over Tseng's body, and there is no sense of distance, of touching another person. He feels duplicated, replicated and condensed. The feeling puzzles him, leaving no room for affection or complication. He gathers his clothes and goes.
Door Twenty-one:
President Shinra's hand cupping his privates. Disgust, rage. His gloved fingers caress the side of the flabby throat, squeeze... squeeze. Shinra's erection brushes against his thigh. Sick, he stalks from the room.
Door Twenty-six:
A dream of Jenova. A broken planet, the atmosphere on fire, glows with the multiple warm and bloody hues of death. Its entire crust is an ashfield of demolished cities and moving columns and clouds of burning air.
Door Thirty-eight:
Masamune slices upward through Zack's cheek, splintering bone. All the doors further back than twenty-six are closed to him now, so he is not forced to remember all the nights he watched the light lie on that cheek like a kiss and felt, as with no one else, enhanced by the depths of what clutched his heart when he looked at him.
Door Fifty-two:
Held in warmth, unable to move. It is not a comforting sensation. Sucking at something fills his mouth with the rich sweetness of milk. Lights flash in the background, red, and his eyes slowly attempt to open. Blurred form against the light: it smells male.
Door Sixty-six:
First time. Insistent, full of tension and disintegrated resistance, of colored light mingled together. It resolves itself slowly: Kadaj's first time.
It felt wrong at first, as if he were being smothered, obliterated by the sensations that filled him. Like losing himself in the pulses beating in every extended vein. But there are so many useless words, "I love you," and "that feels so good," even "I'm sorry." He finally releases himself to it, and as always, is swept away.
As always, a part of him seems to die when he comes, a part of his private universe opened for public view and annihilated.
These things he knows, so onward to the 1000th door:
It's a white room, shining like ivory mirrors. Perfectly cubicle, enclosed, windowless and unadorned. All there is inside it is a pool of spreading blood, and in the opposite corner, a chair with a man seated upon it.
The man wears black, and his hair is platinum silk, trickling into the nothingness of white, hardly darker. Kadaj draws back, but as the beautiful face rises, there is nothing of madness or of megalomania in his expression. It is gentle, open, a little sad. That sadness lives in his brilliant green eyes, descending to unspeakable depths.
Kadaj moves toward him. The blood curls out at once, wrapping itself up Kadaj's boots, covering him with bright red and the reek of it. He falls on the slick stones, hand extended helplessly for Sephiroth to save him.
"Soon it will envelop this room," Sephiroth says. "Soon of me there will be nothing left. To fight it you must touch it. If you touch it, it will have you utterly."
Crimson covers him.
It is so very cold and he is unable to move. He can feel slender but strong arms around him, cradling him. His eyes struggle to open, see a figure against the light. A familiar scent, a masculine scent. A brother: one who can hold, touch. Kadaj wants to warn him of the blood's corruption, that it is all over him, dripping warm crimson. But he knows instantly that this is his blood. A second scent, tantalizing, lingers for a moment. Then it is gone in a sudden breeze of flowers.
Chapter 10: Circuits in Your Brain
End of the Dreams Arc
Hints of Sephiroth/Tseng and Sephiroth/Zack;
PG-13; sexuality, violence.
a COMPILED version of the ENTIRE Dream Arc can be found in two sections, here and here.
"Love is a violent star,
A tide of destruction;
Love is an angry scar,
The pain of instruction;
Love is a violation, a mutilation, capitulation;
Love is annihilation."
--Sting, Inside
"I’m gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall.
We will rise as the buildings crumble,
Float there and watch it all;
Amidst the burning, we’ll be churning.
You know, love will be our wings.
The passion rises up from the ashes
When the world ends."
--Dave Matthews Band, When the World Ends
The change is complete at that moment, clutching the box that holds all that is left of his Mother except for threads of tangled DNA. He is falling and above him the sun casts a brilliant crown of flame over Cloud's pale hair. His heart is still twisted with pain and the thought of failure, utterly anathema, sparks a deep and violent wave of black lust for vengeance.
Someone who believes that the human mind is basically a computer, like Dr. Hojo perhaps, would describe that moment as a connected circuit. To Kadaj, it is more like their minds, already close enough to echo through time, have simply overlapped. His pain, his hunger, his rage, his desires, all are soothed by the sheer magnitude of Sephiroth's emotions, soothed and comforted and ultimately subsumed by them.
When that black inferno washes his sense of self into nothingness, Sephiroth Ascendant, it seems Kadaj drifts for eons in dreamless sleep. Then he stands in a corridor, a long hallway limned and lit by steady red light. On each side of the hallway, at irregular intervals, are doors, also glowing red at their edges, and each is marked with a strange design. Geometric patterns, increasing in their complexity as they wind away from him into a horizon point.
Door One:
Wrapped in warmth, unable to move. It is a comforting sensation. Sucking at something fills his mouth with the rich sweetness of milk. Silken hair, long, brushes his cheek and his eyes slowly attempt to open. Blurred form against the light: it smells female.
Door Six:
Slash of steel against bicep, weak, burning. He stares up into the face of his weapons instructor, who smiles like a jackal. "You're going to have to come at me for real, boy." He lunges.
Door Eight:
Mako chamber. It feels like insects are crawling beneath every surface in his body. They're even crawling in his eyes and his sex. He tries to scream but his mouth is full of a taste of blood and flowers. How long has it been? Hours? Days.
Door Nineteen:
First time. Hesitant, full of images of softness, of colored light mingled together. It resolves itself slowly: Sephiroth's first time.
Black hair, willing lips. Young, so young he hardly recognizes the man he tortured not so long ago. This is a good match in that they both keep themselves completely contained except for the pleasure shared, the caresses and bites and slip of hot tongue or gentle slicked finger here or there- it is a bad match in that there is no fire. In both of them, for both of them, the mystery of what lay behind the mask was the attraction, and once even half lowered, the sex degenerates into a lesson.
Words like, "Yes, God yes," or "I love you," don't factor in. In their place, "More of an acute angle," and "Seven o'clock," and "Use your fingernails." It still sweeps them both away with pleasure, but there is no moment of disconnect, no emotional level.
When orgasm comes, the serrated feeling of loss of self that always grips Kadaj in that moment is not in it, but something strange and shadowy surfaces in the aftermath. Sephiroth's hand runs over Tseng's body, and there is no sense of distance, of touching another person. He feels duplicated, replicated and condensed. The feeling puzzles him, leaving no room for affection or complication. He gathers his clothes and goes.
Door Twenty-one:
President Shinra's hand cupping his privates. Disgust, rage. His gloved fingers caress the side of the flabby throat, squeeze... squeeze. Shinra's erection brushes against his thigh. Sick, he stalks from the room.
Door Twenty-six:
A dream of Jenova. A broken planet, the atmosphere on fire, glows with the multiple warm and bloody hues of death. Its entire crust is an ashfield of demolished cities and moving columns and clouds of burning air.
Door Thirty-eight:
Masamune slices upward through Zack's cheek, splintering bone. All the doors further back than twenty-six are closed to him now, so he is not forced to remember all the nights he watched the light lie on that cheek like a kiss and felt, as with no one else, enhanced by the depths of what clutched his heart when he looked at him.
Door Fifty-two:
Held in warmth, unable to move. It is not a comforting sensation. Sucking at something fills his mouth with the rich sweetness of milk. Lights flash in the background, red, and his eyes slowly attempt to open. Blurred form against the light: it smells male.
Door Sixty-six:
First time. Insistent, full of tension and disintegrated resistance, of colored light mingled together. It resolves itself slowly: Kadaj's first time.
It felt wrong at first, as if he were being smothered, obliterated by the sensations that filled him. Like losing himself in the pulses beating in every extended vein. But there are so many useless words, "I love you," and "that feels so good," even "I'm sorry." He finally releases himself to it, and as always, is swept away.
As always, a part of him seems to die when he comes, a part of his private universe opened for public view and annihilated.
These things he knows, so onward to the 1000th door:
It's a white room, shining like ivory mirrors. Perfectly cubicle, enclosed, windowless and unadorned. All there is inside it is a pool of spreading blood, and in the opposite corner, a chair with a man seated upon it.
The man wears black, and his hair is platinum silk, trickling into the nothingness of white, hardly darker. Kadaj draws back, but as the beautiful face rises, there is nothing of madness or of megalomania in his expression. It is gentle, open, a little sad. That sadness lives in his brilliant green eyes, descending to unspeakable depths.
Kadaj moves toward him. The blood curls out at once, wrapping itself up Kadaj's boots, covering him with bright red and the reek of it. He falls on the slick stones, hand extended helplessly for Sephiroth to save him.
"Soon it will envelop this room," Sephiroth says. "Soon of me there will be nothing left. To fight it you must touch it. If you touch it, it will have you utterly."
Crimson covers him.
It is so very cold and he is unable to move. He can feel slender but strong arms around him, cradling him. His eyes struggle to open, see a figure against the light. A familiar scent, a masculine scent. A brother: one who can hold, touch. Kadaj wants to warn him of the blood's corruption, that it is all over him, dripping warm crimson. But he knows instantly that this is his blood. A second scent, tantalizing, lingers for a moment. Then it is gone in a sudden breeze of flowers.