Work Text:
Saïx wakes up with a throbbing pain behind his eyes, the roaring in his ears slowly fading. He can smell blood. It's happened again, he thinks. That's twice this year -- far too frequently for comfort. The last thing he remembers, he and Xemnas were walking from La Tortue Vert back toward Xemnas's apartment, and --
Alarmed, he opens his eyes. Xemnas, at least, is still there, watching him calmly. There's blood spattered on his cheek, but he's smiling, and he daubs at Saïx's face with his handkerchief.
"Does this happen often?" Xemnas asks.
"No, sir," Saïx says. He looks down at himself. The light from the main street is dim, but enough to see that his suit is ruined, soaked dark with blood. There's a hot ache in the bones of his right hand, as though he's broken them again. "Perhaps six times, over the course of my life."
"I can't imagine it's always been this convenient," Xemnas says, wiping his hands clean.
Saïx laughs shortly. "No, certainly not." He takes a deep breath. "What happened?" Nobody has ever given him a straight answer to that question; the third time this happened, he had deep gouges across his face afterward, and nobody he asked could tell him where he'd been, much less how he'd gotten them. Even this most recent time, the Turks only gave him vague answers. Excessively enthusiastic, they called it, for a routine interrogation. Don't worry; it's been cleaned up.
Xemnas gives him a curious, hungry look, almost like the one he gets over dessert when he's impatient to bring Saïx home and lay him out across the sheets. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"We were walking back to -- to your apartment, after dinner, and then...we were attacked, weren't we? I remember there were street thugs, under-the-Plate types." His head hurts just from trying to concentrate. "One of them -- tried to attack you, didn't he? After that it's -- everything goes red."
Xemnas laughs. "That's a fairly accurate description, really." He looks around them at the carnage of the alley, the mess of bodies. "You attacked the one who had drawn a knife on me, and drove the fight back here, into the alley. The other two followed, but you didn't even seem to notice their attempts to drag you off their comrade." His voice is calm, level, as though he's discussing nothing more emotional than the price of Wutai pottery. "You wrenched a bar loose from the fire escape there, and managed to beat two of the three of them to death. The third escaped, badly injured. You kept hitting the ones that had gone down until you lost consciousness." Xemnas smiles dryly. "I would be surprised if anyone manages to identify what remains as human, much less name the individuals."
Saïx takes deep breaths. No wonder even the Turks foisted him off on an "undercover long-term assignment" after the last time it happened. "Thank you for telling me, sir," he says. "I apologize for my loss of control."
"No apology necessary," Xemnas says. "You never gave me the impression that I was in danger." He rises to his feet, brushing grime from his knees. "We should be going, I suspect. By the time anyone comes to investigate, I would prefer to be far from the scene."
"Of course," Saïx says. He stands, bracing one hand against the brick. His clothes cling to his skin, heavy and wet. "I'm afraid I'll need to take quiet streets, as much as possible. I'm not exactly inconspicuous."
"We'll manage, I'm sure," Xemnas says. "On the bright side, I suspect that nobody is likely to stop us, even in the nastiest parts of town, when you look like that." He smiles, as though this has been a minor inconvenience at worst, and turns to leave.
Well. So far, Xemnas is taking this better than anyone else, better even than Veld, who didn't seem fazed but also reassigned Saïx immediately after the incident. Saïx follows him through a maze of alleys, surprised at how well Xemnas navigates the back streets -- he's been in Midgar for almost ten years himself, but he still doesn't know the city as well as his employer.
Saïx suspects that it is not standard-issue for all tenants, but Xemnas has a keycard that lets him in through the back door of his building, so they don't have any awkward encounters on the way in. The same keycard, swiped through the card reader in the elevator, lets them proceed all the way to the top floor. The blood, fortunately, seems to have grown tacky enough not to drip anywhere. The elevator door hums smoothly open, and they step out into the cool slate entryway to Xemnas's penthouse.
"You know where to find the shower," Xemnas says with a little smile. "Should I put some coffee on, or have you had enough stimulants for the evening?"
"I'll pass," Saïx says. He reaches up to undo the first buttons on his shirt, and the twinge of pain through his hand stops him. "If you have a potion to spare, though, it wouldn't go amiss."
"In the medicine cabinet," Xemnas says. "Take whatever you need."
Saïx nods. "Thank you, sir."
Xemnas smiles. "I do my best to take care of my people," he says calmly. He's said it plenty of times before, but in light of the evening's incident, it seems more meaningful than it used to.
The bathroom in Xemnas's apartment is as extravagant as everything else, creamy marble and polished brass fixtures, the shower walled off with frosted glass. Saïx unlatches the medicine cabinet, and laughs softly. Of course Xemnas would only want the best. There's nothing on these shelves less powerful than a high potion.
It's overkill, spending a high potion on a petty injury like this, but if there's nothing less powerful on hand.... Saïx fumbles the cap off one of the high potions, and raises it to his lips. It doesn't taste any better than the lower-quality ones he's used to, but the effect is almost instant, leaving him dizzy and swaying in front of the mirror as the soft warmth spreads through his system. His hand knits cleanly, and the last traces of his headache fade away.
The pain taken care of, Saïx strips efficiently, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor. He doubts that anything he was wearing will be salvageable. Smudges of blood have dried on his skin, rust-red and itching.
The water in the shower is hot almost from the instant he turns it on, and he steps into the spray with a sigh of relief. It's entirely possible that tomorrow he'll find himself transferred to one of Xemnas's satellite operations in Junon or Costa del Sol, so he might as well enjoy this while it lasts.
He's washed his hair and is scrubbing the blood from his skin with cool, juniper-scented soap when the bathroom door opens. Saïx looks up, surprised, afraid he's misjudged the situation and his reprieve won't last even until morning -- but then Xemnas opens the shower door, too, and steps in with him.
"Feeling better?" Xemnas asks, water spattering against this skin as he reaches out, sliding an arm around Saïx's waist.
"Considerably," Saïx says, trying not to show his surprise. In the dozen or so times that he's been here in the last few months, Xemnas has never come into the shower with him.
"Good," Xemnas says. He's smiling, warm and possessive, closing the distance between them so that they slide against each other. "I'd hate to think that anything was troubling my most valuable lieutenant."
Saïx just has time to smile at the compliment before Xemnas's mouth is on his, chasing away the aftertaste of the high potion with brandy-rich kisses. He moans, letting Xemnas push him back into the shower wall. The tile is cold against his back, and Xemnas's body warm against his front, Xemnas's cock swelling against his hip.
It's never gone like this after one of his episodes -- he's been hushed and avoided and occasionally even comforted, but never desired in the aftermath. He rocks his hips, his hands sliding on Xemnas's skin as he tries to get enough leverage to push back.
"Yes," Xemnas breathes against his mouth, "yes, that's right," and he bites at Saïx's lower lip, sliding one hand up to curl in a hard grip around Saïx's shoulder and hold him against the wall. He reaches for the little inset shelf with the soaps, and a moment later his hand curls around Saïx's cock, cool and slick.
Saïx shudders, hardening in Xemnas's hand, pushing into that confident touch. "Ah, don't stop," he says, his hands curving around Xemnas's hipbones, his breath catching in his throat. The need humming in his veins almost as unexpected as Xemnas's presence -- he'd have thought he'd feel drained, like the times before this, but instead he's energized, hungry. "Harder," he pleads, "more."
Xemnas laughs, grabbing him by the hair and dragging his head back to bare his throat. "Harder, mm? You need more stimulation?" He bites down, sucking on the pulse point in Saïx's throat, his grip tightening.
Saïx bucks into his hand, moaning at the bite, at the rougher strokes. The sound echoes off the walls, and the warm air is thick with fragrant steam. Between the luxury of the sensations and the relief at the apparent lack of consequences for this most recent blackout, he's already shaking, already holding tighter to Xemnas's hips, his breathing fast and ragged -- "Yes," he whispers, "yes, yes," and his back arches off the tile and his legs nearly give out under him as he spills over Xemnas's hand.
"Mmm," Xemnas purrs, licking the tender spot on Saïx's neck where he bit down. "You needed that pretty badly, didn't you?"
"Hha, feels that way," Saïx says, smiling weakly. His heart's still pounding, his knees weak. "And you?" He runs his hand down his stomach, through the slick of his own come, and reaches for Xemnas's cock.
Xemnas makes a low, rich sound, too restrained to be called a purr, and pulls harder on Saïx's hair. "Yes, mmn, do that," he says. "Do that, just like that," and he thrusts into Saïx's hand, pressing closer. His mouth works against Saïx's shoulder, licking and sucking, biting down again at the base of Saïx's throat as if he's trying to muffle the sound he makes when Saïx's fingers brush the ridge where head meets shaft.
That sounds promising -- Saïx repeats the motion, and this time Xemnas shivers against him, moaning into his skin. Power thrills down his spine, and he changes his grip just slightly so he can focus more on that spot, so that each stroke will make Xemnas move like that for him. It hurts, makes Xemnas bite down and pull hard on his hair, but it's worth it to hold on tight like this and make Xemnas moan and shudder and come, taut and trembling, in his arms.
For a moment Xemnas slumps against Saïx, unsteady and limp. Then he straightens again, and steps back into the spray of the shower. "Thank you," he says. "I'm beginning to expect you to be talented at everything I ask of you."
Saïx smiles. "That's a burden I can live with." He follows Xemnas into the water, rinsing himself clean. The shower is still hot, despite how long they've been in here; Saïx finds himself wondering if it would ever run cold, or if enough money will buy endless hot water along with all the other luxuries.
Still, he's ready to get out for now, and when Xemnas reaches for the tap, he nods. The water shut off, they step out of the shower to towel dry -- and Saïx looks down at the bloodied mess of his suit with a grimace. "I don't suppose you have anything I can wear this evening, do you?"
"I'm sure I can loan you a robe," Xemnas says. "I'll go fetch you one."
A robe, rather than a change of clothes, means he's expected to stay the night, Saïx realizes -- somewhat surprising, since that hasn't been the case more than a third of the times that he's been invited back here, but certainly a pleasant surprise. He wraps his towel around his hips and walks out into the living room while he waits; the carpet is thick and soft under his feet, and from the picture window he can see Midgar, spread out and glittering below them. When he gets close enough, he can feel the chill coming off the glass from the night outside. Still, there's a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Faint reflections in the glass warn him of Xemnas's approach -- but he's still not expecting Xemnas to place one hand flat between his shoulderblades and press him up against the window. "Worn out?" Xemnas asks, pushing his hair out of the way, nuzzling at the nape of his neck.
"Not yet," Saïx says. "You want more?"
Xemnas bites him affectionately, and tugs his towel untucked so that it starts to slip down off his hips. "You look good here," Xemnas murmurs, hand sliding up the back of his thigh to cup his ass possessively. "I want to have you like this. Right here."
Saïx shivers. "Yes," he whispers, his breath fogging the glass. "Yes."