I've Never Been Sure Who's Battling.
For the Final Fantasy fans who aren't already aware, or who need a reminder, lassarina is currently hosting the Final Fantasy Kiss Battle 2024! Head over there to prompt or write any Final Fantasy kisses you might like to see.
While I went through the prompts, I opened things I was tempted to write in their own tabs. Once I'd finished, I looked through the prompts I'd collected and went, 'Wait, every one of these involves coercion or brainwashing or incest.' I can write nice things, I swear.
I've written a couple of short fills, which I'll reproduce here! I really wasn't expecting to ever write Clive/Joshua, but apparently these things just happen.
Final Fantasy VIII, Transgression, (possessed) Edea and Seifer, PG-13, 270 words. First posted here, in response to the prompt 'What am I going to do with you?'
“You let the SeeD defeat you,” the Sorceress says.
Seifer is kneeling before her, but at those words he forgets humility, snaps his head up with a snarl. “I didn’t let anyone do anything. I put everything into fighting for you.”
“Then you were simply not strong enough,” the Sorceress says, calmly, “which is worse.” She gestures for him to straighten up with a toss of her head, and he obeys before he consciously registers the command: still on his knees, but no longer bowed. “What am I going to do with you?”
She reaches out and touches her fingers to his throat.
She could kill him, Seifer finds himself thinking. There’s a romance to that; it feels like a fitting end for a knight. He’s given his life to her, and now she’s chosen to take it. He’ll say her name with his last breath; he can picture the scene now, he can see the illustrations in the books that will be written about the Sorceress Edea.
A small, urgent voice breaks through his fantasies, in the back of his head: she could kill him. He could die.
She strokes her fingers up from his throat to his jaw. It no longer feels like a threat, suddenly; it feels like... something else. The thought is thrilling and terrifying all at once.
She stoops to kiss him on the temple. It’s gentle and chaste; it feels fond, familiar, and somehow it’s more frightening than anything he was anticipating.
“This host will be more obedient if I am lenient, it seems,” the Sorceress murmurs in his ear. “But do not fail me again.”
Final Fantasy XVI, Strangers, Joshua/Clive (NB incest), PG-13, 250 words. First posted here, in response to the prompt 'It's the apocalypse. Who has time for shame?'
“My brother Joshua was dead to me for so long,” Clive says. “It feels like the man I’ve met in adulthood is someone else.” He hesitates. “Someone important. I don’t mean to say I don’t care for you. But not the same person.”
“Whatever makes this easier for you, Clive,” Joshua says, calm and neutral.
A different person; a second Joshua. An ally, but not kin. Most of the time, Clive can almost believe it.
But then something will strike him. A laugh, a cough, the way the light catches Joshua’s hair: something will strip away all the years since Phoenix Gate, and suddenly it’s as if they’re back in Rosaria, two brothers young and unsuspecting.
“We don’t know how much time we have left together,” Joshua says. He’s so close, close enough to feel dangerous, and Clive has to close his eyes and rein Ifrit in. “Let’s not waste it with shame.”
A friend, Clive tells himself, as Joshua kisses him. An ally. But not my brother. And, when that doesn’t work, A stranger. Someone I’ve met in a tavern. We’ll spend the night together, and then we’ll go our separate ways.
He brings his hands up to touch Joshua’s hair, almost without thought, and it’s Joshua, unmistakably, painfully. His hair was always so distinctive.
There’s no going back. They’ve stepped off a cliff together; they’re already falling. Does he think he can stop this here and they’ll both just forget it happened?
He tightens his grip on Joshua’s hair and kisses him harder.
While I went through the prompts, I opened things I was tempted to write in their own tabs. Once I'd finished, I looked through the prompts I'd collected and went, 'Wait, every one of these involves coercion or brainwashing or incest.' I can write nice things, I swear.
I've written a couple of short fills, which I'll reproduce here! I really wasn't expecting to ever write Clive/Joshua, but apparently these things just happen.
Final Fantasy VIII, Transgression, (possessed) Edea and Seifer, PG-13, 270 words. First posted here, in response to the prompt 'What am I going to do with you?'
“You let the SeeD defeat you,” the Sorceress says.
Seifer is kneeling before her, but at those words he forgets humility, snaps his head up with a snarl. “I didn’t let anyone do anything. I put everything into fighting for you.”
“Then you were simply not strong enough,” the Sorceress says, calmly, “which is worse.” She gestures for him to straighten up with a toss of her head, and he obeys before he consciously registers the command: still on his knees, but no longer bowed. “What am I going to do with you?”
She reaches out and touches her fingers to his throat.
She could kill him, Seifer finds himself thinking. There’s a romance to that; it feels like a fitting end for a knight. He’s given his life to her, and now she’s chosen to take it. He’ll say her name with his last breath; he can picture the scene now, he can see the illustrations in the books that will be written about the Sorceress Edea.
A small, urgent voice breaks through his fantasies, in the back of his head: she could kill him. He could die.
She strokes her fingers up from his throat to his jaw. It no longer feels like a threat, suddenly; it feels like... something else. The thought is thrilling and terrifying all at once.
She stoops to kiss him on the temple. It’s gentle and chaste; it feels fond, familiar, and somehow it’s more frightening than anything he was anticipating.
“This host will be more obedient if I am lenient, it seems,” the Sorceress murmurs in his ear. “But do not fail me again.”
Final Fantasy XVI, Strangers, Joshua/Clive (NB incest), PG-13, 250 words. First posted here, in response to the prompt 'It's the apocalypse. Who has time for shame?'
“My brother Joshua was dead to me for so long,” Clive says. “It feels like the man I’ve met in adulthood is someone else.” He hesitates. “Someone important. I don’t mean to say I don’t care for you. But not the same person.”
“Whatever makes this easier for you, Clive,” Joshua says, calm and neutral.
A different person; a second Joshua. An ally, but not kin. Most of the time, Clive can almost believe it.
But then something will strike him. A laugh, a cough, the way the light catches Joshua’s hair: something will strip away all the years since Phoenix Gate, and suddenly it’s as if they’re back in Rosaria, two brothers young and unsuspecting.
“We don’t know how much time we have left together,” Joshua says. He’s so close, close enough to feel dangerous, and Clive has to close his eyes and rein Ifrit in. “Let’s not waste it with shame.”
A friend, Clive tells himself, as Joshua kisses him. An ally. But not my brother. And, when that doesn’t work, A stranger. Someone I’ve met in a tavern. We’ll spend the night together, and then we’ll go our separate ways.
He brings his hands up to touch Joshua’s hair, almost without thought, and it’s Joshua, unmistakably, painfully. His hair was always so distinctive.
There’s no going back. They’ve stepped off a cliff together; they’re already falling. Does he think he can stop this here and they’ll both just forget it happened?
He tightens his grip on Joshua’s hair and kisses him harder.