Everyone Has Their Reasons (For Science!) [FFVII: OGC, Nanaki/Aeris, Hojo, NC-17] Title: Everyone Has Their Reasons (For Science!) Author: ellnyx(was logistika_nyx) Content/Rating: Coercive sex (fuck or die), xeno/beastiality. M ~ NC-17 Word count: 2000 Prompt: July 15 - Final Fantasy VII, Nanaki/Aeris + Hojo: fuck or die - sandpaper tongue A/N: I keep shying back from the actual sexual description these days. Sigh. Summary:
Nanaki is ashamed as any a young captive warrior would be; Aeris thinks this isn't as bad as it could be for an unprotected slum dwelling girl; Hojo's thinking his trousers shouldn't be feeling this tight of how good this is going to be for science. For science!
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Hojo's interest in this is purely scientific. He's written and submitted papers through his (self-elected) ethics committee to prove this is a purely scientific interest. Nine out of ten scientists agreed. Fair enough, his papers do little to prove whether this endeavor will succeed, but (as Hojo argued, waxing purposefully theatrical,) that's the purpose of experimentation, to give proof where all precedent, correlation and extrapolation simply can't.
Hojo's interest in this is purely scientific. He explains this to Jenova, so she doesn't think he's getting any strange ideas. He sits in the dark to explain, because he thinks she prefers the dark; backlit by the glow of her mako drips, he hunches under the weight of her consciousness. We can conclude the first sample was a failure, Hojo says, mostly because your superior genetics were too diluted due to the involvement of a human mother as well as a father. Imagine if that intermediary womb could be discarded. (Oh, how Hojo imagines, like a scientist never should). He's sure that the drugs and preparations he's made on the Cetra will make her receptive to the Cosmo creature's sperm, instead of treating it like a foreign invasion. The preparations weren't at all invasive, Hojo assures Jenova; so we'll see how this goes with these two terrestrial beings, not so much difference between them despite the whole two leg and four leg difference, and if all goes well, Jenova, then maybe you and I can…
Hojo stops, to clear his throat, to straighten his tie. The mako glow flushes his cheeks with green, turns his glasses to blind, unseeing mirrors.
Hojo's interest in this is purely scientific, oh yes, oh yes it is.
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'Frankly,' the lion beast snarls, 'this is as much of an imposition on my personal freedom as it is on yours. I find your screaming abhorrent, childish, and entirely out of proportion to this situation. Direct your "no, please Gaia, nooooo!" rebuttal to the scientist out there,' that lion head gives a toss, with a jingle of well-crafted jewelry chiming from that thick mane, 'not towards me. I have no intention of savaging your frail limbs, the very look of them puts me off my prison-issue slop entirely.'
Aeris' next shriek dies in her throat. She's not quite sure how the lion beast can talk so clearly around a mouthful of such shining white teeth, but he can, and with greater clarity than she's heard from half of Midgar's lower denizens, too.
'I'm very sorry,' she says, because she was brought up to be polite. 'All I was told was,' she pauses to set her voice deeper, and makes a face like a leer, ' "you're gunna enjoy this 'un, luv, makin' the two-backed beastie with a four-leg beastie, hur hur hur, naw get in thar—" '
'And so they shoved you in here.' The lion beast's tongue curls and unfurls in that great muzzle, in and around teeth: that's how he talks, then, all with tongue and not with lip. Aeris can hear the sandpaper texture of that tongue rasp against teeth as the lion beast rolls his words around, with care. 'I can understand your response, but please be at ease. As much at ease as you can, in this situation. I will not harm you.'
The lion beast prowls then, tense and elegant, rubbing the long curve of his whiskers around the curved perspex that contains them both. Specimens in a jar, Aeris realises; her hands have left sweaty prints on the glass behind her. She wipes her palms against her skirt, but sweat prickles from the rest of her skin, too. They gave her some injections, some things that gave her vivid dreams and disturbing thoughts, but she still feels herself now, she can still feel the Lifestream; she's grounded despite the surges that swim up from her belly.
Now she's stopped screaming, there's almost nothing else to do except to stare at her surroundings, which are even more boring than the depths of a Midgar slum. Aeris stares instead at the lion beast. He smells like sun-warmed grass; Aeris can almost see that smell filling their glass jar, curling in red and gold spirals.
'Red XIII,' comes a bored drawl over the PA, 'would you get on with it, please?'
The lion beast sits back on his haunches and with a magnificent toss of his mane, directs a glare outwards. Aeris follows, espies the target of the lion beast's rage sitting hunched over his console, up on the mezzanine. Hojo. If Tseng knew Hojo had her here, Tseng would rescue her, she's sure of it. So much for her bodyguard.
With a visibly pronounced sigh, Hojo presses something on his console.
Aeris nearly screams again, out of bad habit, where screaming is the only language universally understood by the denizens of Midgar's subsectors. Red XIII spasms as though struck by lightning, the mass and weight of his body thrown physically off the floor, slamming into the perspex curve. His claws lash out, leaving marks upon a supposedly impervious surface, the scent of sun-warmed grass suddenly turned to scorched fields. Red collapses; Aeris collapses to her knees with him, her toes and fingers curled to match his claws. She can feel his anguish, the futility of all his strength bound up in all this civilisation and crippled, and the shame of that is a pain sharper than that of Hojo's directed shock.
He's young, Aeris suddenly realises, as the lion beast rises despite his pain, Red XIII is proud and young, and more civilised than anything Midgar's ever put him through.
'Let me take off that collar,' Aeris says. She can see the evil thing now, copper coloured just like Red XIII's fur, as though invisibility reduces the severity of the crime. But then, all of Shinra's operatives have been taught along those lines, invisible, blameless.
Red XIII shakes his head, his muzzle pointed low. 'It's welded closed.' His tone wavers, speaks of years of anguish. 'I've tried.'
'Red XIII,' Hojo begins again, 'your usefulness to Shinra's operatives has just about reached the end of its span. The Ancient will be serving our purposes for years yet to come, but you have a very limited tenure left. I suggest you do not try my patience any longer: perform as you were directed, or you will be killed, and what knowledge you have yet withheld from my department will be carved from your carcass instead.'
Red XIII's dripping nose touches the floor. Aeris can see those bright eyes slide closed, the way muscles legs brace, the way broad shoulders tense. The lion beast is more willing to die, she realises, than to fuck her. Aeris is ashamed then that her own survival urge is not nearly so discriminating.
Hojo raises his hand, somewhat melodramatically.
'No!' Aeris uncoils, throws herself at the lion beast, digs her fingers through coarse and knotted fur to find that flesh-warmed collar, feels the raw, burned skin around it as she does but she can't flinch, not now. Aeris clings. 'If you kill him, you'll kill me too!'
Hojo still doesn't lower his hand, but raises the other to indicate the pair of blue-glad Shinra grunts at his shoulder. 'Don't make me send down the guards, Aeris.'
'Let me die,' Red XIII whispers. This close, the smell of him is all summer and sunshine and endless green fields; Aeris can close her eyes and see freedom running through a sun-lit rain, feel a wild heartbeat hammering at the wide ribs against hers. 'Please, human. Aeris. It's more of an escape than I can even dare dream of, any more. I'm a warrior. Dying to spare an innocent is more than I could have hoped for, you can sing my name to the sky for me, Nanaki died to save me. It's a brave death, better than one on an examination table. Please, let go.'
'But I want you to live,' Aeris says. 'All life – you don't understand, it's glorious out there, and you're a part of it. It's not your time. I know – I know these things, Gaia tells me, and I can smell it on you, Nanaki, I can smell green grass and the wildness again, you'll live to see it. Hang on to your pride tight, warrior, it'll see you through!'
'What pride,' Nanaki says dully, 'when this shame is demanded of me—'
'It's not shame,' Aeris digs for her fierceness, shakes Nanaki by his collar until she hears the metal clips in his mane start to chime. 'This is survival, and there's no shame in living, or in making sure others can live too. Nanaki. We're all Gaia's creatures, we're all Gaia's blood and Gaia's soul, you're as good as my brother and I'm your sister, there's no shame in this.'
'Cowardice,' Nanaki says. 'I don't want to be a coward. I'm not afraid to die.'
Aeris buries her fingers in the stiff mane, her mouth and nose. Crushed grass, now, and the sourness of chocobo chips and dying dandelions. 'Yes, you are. Especially for such a little thing. It's not going to hurt me, Nanaki, and it's not going to hurt you. Let's just do it, and live another day, because every day gives us another one in which we can spite Shinra.'
Nanaki's head lifts, his eyelids opening. He has eyelashes thick and dark, nearly like eyeliner around his eyes, the seared skin of a warrior's tribal markings growing back white and fine next to all that dense, bristling red. The lion beast looks at her, a banked flame not so constrained in his amber gaze now. 'Aeris. Are you – are you willing? Are you saving my life?'
Aeris shivers. She's kneeling so close to the beast, his smell rubbed all over her now and thick, and she can see the very texture of his tongue; all the earth's voices can't offer her anything now except for the glory of what life can offer, and oh, Aeris wants to live, and wants Nanaki to live too. All Gaia's creatures, Aeris tells herself, warm blooded and proud and thinking: they are both Gaia's creatures. There's no alien stink on them.
She has to steel herself, she does, but fear is nothing new. Cowardice is. She won't be a coward any more than Nanaki will let himself be.
'Yes.'
Nanaki bows, forepaws flat to the floor, his broad forehead pressed against Aeris' own, hot and furred. 'Warrioress,' he says, with respect.
A huffing vibration, not quite a purr, starts somewhere deep in Nanaki's ribs. Aeris can feel it vibrating through her very bones. Aeris clenches her hands in his fur, just once, before moving her fingers to the buttons on her dress.
.
Hojo's interest in this is purely scienti—
This is ridiculous, really, Red XIII's big head nosing between the girl's legs like a dog at an interesting smell. Hojo always knew the creature was only semi-intelligent, but this is a literal proof in front of him now, to see the creature go dog-like and panting over a bit of white panty. Hojo sees it when the creature hooks a single claw through and pulls off the fabric; he then has to take off his glasses to wipe the condensation from the inside. The air conditioning must be playing up again, he really should go and reprimand someone, if he didn't think the Cosmo creature would take any excuse to disobey.
The girl is crying – no, moaning – with Red XIII's tongue dipping and lapping like at a pond of water. Hojo's sure not all that glistening wet over the girl's legs is from Red's tongue, it can't be, not that much. Not with how she's straining to keep her knees so far apart, the twist of braid as wild as the creature's red mane. 'Now,' she manages, 'Nanaki? Oh goodness, your tongue, your tongue, you can -- Now!'
The creature moves to mount, standing over the girl as she rolls onto her belly between the four points of the creature's legs and arches—
'Phwoar,' says one of the Shinra grunts, muffled through his mask.
Hojo's palms return from where they'd strayed, clammy around his belt, to slap flat and resonant on the console. 'Get out,' he shrieks, 'the pair of you, get out, damned uneducated, gits what do you think, this is about science, this is about science, get out!'
And it is, really, all about science. Cross-special impregnation. Completely scientific. Hojo calms himself again once he's alone at the dash and lets the specimens get on with their part of the bargain.
Hojo buffs the fog out of his glasses again, settles back in his chair, and thinks of Jenova.