Wherever You Will Go

Title: Wherever You Will Go
Fandom: FFVII / FFVIII crossover
Authors: Calvi Sama (Vincent) and Madisuzy (Laguna)
Pairing: Vincent and Laguna
Summary: From an erotic chance encouter blossoms a love that will test both
men's desire and devotion and will send them on a journey of self
discovery that will change both of their lives forever.
Warnings: Yaoi, swearing, sex, angsting.
Rating: +18
Disclaimer: We don’t own FFVII or FFVIII and make no money from this story.

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Title is taken from the song – Wherever You Will Go by The Calling.
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Chapter 2

Laguna surrendered to Vincent’s kisses willingly, mind foggy with desire as the young man devoured him. He’d never felt so wanted as he did now, kisses moving to cover his face as if he was something important, something special. Then he heard words that both thrilled and terrified him.

“I want my cock inside of you……I want to come, inside of you.”

His mind spun as he sucked in air, trying to calm himself. The thought of something that big ever thrusting into him…gods…as scared as he was, he wanted it. Wanted so much to feel Vincent inside, filling him and making him writhe. He stared at the gorgeous face before him. “Y…Yes,” was all he could stutter out as he began to tremble with a mixture of need and fear.

The fear in Laguna’s eyes both broke Vincent’s heart and fed his lust like nothing else. Slowly he rose to his feet, drawing Laguna up as well. He bent over and removed his boots and stepping quickly from his leathers, he shrugged out of his shirt until he stood nude before the Estherian. He remained still and relaxed as the other man’s eyes took in his body, and he shivered as goosebumps rose on his flesh in response to those miraculous green eyes lingering heatedly in certain places. Laguna was afraid, yes, but there was also a hunger there that Vincent recognized, as it matched his own. “Undress yourself,” he breathed. “Reveal your body to me.”

Standing and watching Vincent undress, Laguna tried to calm himself. When the young man was bare before him, he let his eyes roam the pale, beautiful body before him. Gods, he was perfect.

When Vincent asked him to undress he blushed while his fingers fumbled over the buttons of his shirt. Letting it drop to the floor he hesitated for a moment, chewing his bottom lip with his head down. Fucking gods, he was the older man in the room and here he was acting like a child. Taking in a deep breath, he undid his pants, pushing them and his boxers down to the floor before stepping out of them.

Laguna had the overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around himself then, feeling so exposed under that penetrating gaze. Instead he just stood there with his head down and tried to level his breathing.

All Vincent could do was stare, as perfect skin on an exquisitely proportioned body was revealed to him. No scars marred that flesh as did they his own and suddenly Vincent became embarrassed. I am so ugly compared to this, he thought with shame, my own twisted figure has no place next to him, let alone touching him. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered in awe as he gazed upon Laguna’s naked body…a body the man appeared to be trying to hide without being obvious about it.

Hesitantly, Vincent reached out and touched the skin over Laguna’s heart and when the man looked up at him, startled he said, “Don’t hide… please, you…” He broke off as he pulled back and let his eyes wander down the pale body, lingering on the dusky rose of peaked nipples, a lightly muscled chest – sleek , he thought – down lower to the faint yet defined muscles of the man’s abdomen and further still until his vermilion gaze lit upon Laguna’s cock, the flushed organ standing thick and erect with a faint glistening of precum adorning the flared head. Vincent licked his lips, wanting suddenly to wrap his lips around it. “Laguna…,” he said, his voice rumbling from deep within his chest and richly colored with lust.

Laguna heard Vincent call him beautiful and his eyes widened in surprise. When a hand gently touched his chest, he looked up to see the young man’s eyes slowly drink him in. He swallowed nervously, seeing the hunger on the taller man’s face.

Looking back up, Vincent closed the distance between them until they were standing nearly chest to chest, not close enough to be touching but close enough so that he could feel Laguna’s flushed body radiating heat. He shivered as his nipples tightened. Breathing shakily, Vincent smoothed his hands over Laguna’s chest, rubbing his thumbs over the other man’s nipples, causing them both to shudder and Laguna to lean in towards him. “You feel it too,” he murmured hoarsely, and was rewarded with a little whimper issuing forth from the other. Unable to take even that little distance between them, Vincent placed his hands on Laguna’s waist and brought their hips together, groaning into Laguna’s neck as he felt their erections finally make delicious contact.

He undulated his pelvis, rubbing their cocks together between their pressed bodies and moaned into a delicate ear, “Gods, Laguna, I want you so badly…” He reached around to grasp naked buttocks and squeezed them, parted them so that the cooler air could drift across Laguna’s tight ring of muscle. “Want inside of you. Please let me,” he pleaded, suckling the pale flesh of the Estherian’s neck. He was nearing a level of desperation that he had not felt in decades, if ever.

Laguna moaned as their cocks rubbed together, Vincent so close that he could smell the young man’s scent. He was surprised that the dark haired vixen was already hard again but not disappointed because he honestly couldn’t take much more of this. Just the touch of that burning, throbbing member against his nearly made him come.

“Please Vin…cent,” he whimpered as the young man suckled his neck. “Show me…show me what to do.”

Vincent growled from deep within his chest. Oh, I’ll show you all right, and so much more , he thought. Placing a hand on Laguna’s chest to indicate he wait a moment, Vincent turned and retrieved a small tube from his discarded pants pocket. “We’re going to need this,” he said seductively with a grin, and tossed it onto the bed before walking up to Laguna and gently pushing the man backwards. When Laguna bumped against the edge of the bed, Vincent caught and steadied him before gently lowering him backwards, kissing him as they came to rest upon the mattress. Vincent crawled up the bed over Laguna as the smaller man scooted up towards the pillows. Once there, Vincent slid his thigh in between Laguna’s legs, parting them as he deepened the kiss.

The Estherian’s arms came up and clutched at his back as he arched up into Vincent’s contact. Vincent in turn began thrusting slowly against Laguna’s thigh, moving his kisses down the other man’s jaw to his neck. The other man’s hands came up to fist in his hair and Vincent growled, low in his throat. After he had called a red mark up on the pale neck under him, he began kissing and licking downward until he came to one hardened nipple. Flicking it with his tongue, he pulled away to blow a thin stream of cool air over it before returning to lave it roughly while his fingers pinched and rubbed on the other.

Never had it been like this with Raine. She never touched him like Vincent did or made his body burn for more. What little coherence Laguna had left fled when Vincent had begun caressing his nipples with his tongue and fingers. The bolts of pleasure that coursed through Laguna’s body made him squeeze his eyes closed, squirming and making noises which would embarrass him if his brain was still functioning.

Laguna was writhing under him, giving little keening cries that only made him harder, fiercer, and yet infinitely more gentle. He switched nipples and repeated his actions before moving lower, tongue moving in lazy swirls, dipping into Laguna’s navel while his right, un-gloved hand rubbed up and down Laguna’s side and belly. When he came even with the turgid cock he paused, looking up at Laguna who had his head pushed back into the mattress, sable hair a dark wave against the sheets and his eyes squeezed tightly shut. His voice was low and husky when he said, “Laguna, look at me. I want you watching me when I take your cock into my mouth.”

Vincent was asking him something and Laguna tried to focus on the words. Gods… he wanted him to open his eyes. Knowing that he was helpless to deny anything the dark haired vixen wanted, he slowly opened them to suck in a breath at the sight before him, trembling as he remembered exactly what else Vincent had said.

“If…if you do that, I think I’m gonna come,” he mumbled back, embarrassed by his own lack of restraint.

“Go ahead and come,” Vincent purred. “I’ll just get you hard again.” With a slow grin, Vincent stood Laguna’s cock upright then proceeded to slowly lick up the thick shaft to rub the tip of his tongue at the sensitive spot at the underside of the flared head. Laguna whimpered and he was merciless as he dropped his head down over the other’s throbbing organ, causing Laguna to twitch and jerk his hips with a gasp. Bringing his head back up, Vincent flicked the slit at the tip with his tongue before beginning a rough up and down rhythm with head and hand, pausing only long enough to gently pull down on Laguna’s scrotum when the Estharian began to tense up in pending orgasm.

Laguna groaned as Vincent waited patiently for the other man’s body to relax enough for him to continue his grueling attention to the freely weeping cock in front of him. While Laguna was absorbed in the activities performed by his mouth, Vincent managed to get two fingers generously lubed, and when Laguna was coming down from his third teasing flirt with orgasm, he slid one long, elegant finger into Laguna’s body. This earned him a gasp and a startled look, which he only replied to with a grin and another generous lick with his tongue before saying, “Spread your legs wide for me, Laguna.”

When Laguna did as he was told, Vincent carefully inserted a second finger, slowly rotating them and curling until he found…a spastic jerk and a cry told him that he’d found that spot within Laguna’s body. With Laguna reduced to tiny twitches and soft moans he asked, “Did that feel good? Shall I do it again?”

“G…gods,” was all Laguna could mutter in response. Vincent was breaking him with every touch and he was helpless to prevent it. He wanted to beg, to plead for release. The words were on his tongue but he had no breath with which to expel them.

He stared down at Vincent, his eyes unable to look away from his tormentor’s visage. Vincent thrust his fingers into him once more, hitting that spot that made everything turn to lightning bolts of pleasure. It was the most intense sensation, but it somehow wasn’t enough. Fighting for air, he finally managed to speak. “Please….please I want to feel you inside,” he whispered, his voice desperate.

“And so you shall,” Vincent replied huskily as he reared up onto his knees. He waited until that deep emerald stare was on his cock before he liberally applied lubricant. “Laguna,” he murmured softly and when Laguna met his eyes he said, “I won’t lie…this will hurt at first, and if you wish me to stop you have but to say no and I shall.” Laguna’s eyes were wide and nervous, but hunger burned there as well. At the smaller man’s shaky but determined nod he said, “Very well. This will be easiest if you get onto your hands and knees.”

After Laguna situated himself, Vincent nudged the other’s knees further apart before positioning himself and leaning forward over Laguna’s shoulder. “I will go slow…,” he breathed as he stroked Laguna’s side tenderly. “It will be difficult, but try to relax. If you push out, it will make it easier for both of us.” Laguna swallowed and nodded, fisting his hands in the bedspread as Vincent slowly pushed forward. He stopped when the head of his cock was inside Laguna, when he heard the Estharian issue a quiet, strangled cry and his hands tightened in the bedspread.

He winced and wished he could make it easier, but the first time was usually rough. “Push out, Laguna,” he gasped and groaned when he felt an ease in the pressure around his dick. “That’s it…a little more…”

Finally he was fully seated within the intimate embrace of Laguna’s body. They were both panting from the effort of it. He from trying to go slow and be as gentle as he could, and Laguna from trying to relax and not seize up. He held perfectly still as he stroked Laguna’s back and flanks and said hoarsely, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Laguna gasped. Vincent felt so huge inside of him as he willed his body to relax. It had hurt, a burning sensation of stretching that was fading now. The feeling of being so completely filled was so foreign to him that his muscles wanted to contract, despite his mind trying to make them do the opposite. As they remained still on the bed, Laguna couldn’t help thinking of how they must look, joined together with Vincent buried to the hilt inside of him. His cock twitched in response and he failed to hold back a whimper.

“I’m okay,” he whispered. Vincent was being so understanding and he didn’t want to make him wait anymore. “Please, Vincent….move. I want…” His voice faded as his shyness resurfaced briefly.

“I will take care of you,” Vincent whispered and kissed Laguna’s shoulder blade before he slowly began to thrust his hips, causing Laguna to rock forward and pulling a moan from his own throat. “Gods you’re so tight,” he grunted and angled his hips to the degree that would brush his cock against Laguna’s prostate. The smaller man gasped and cried out, shuddering under his body and Vincent sped up, gripping Laguna’s hips hard to steady them both. Their breathing was irregular, one counterpoint to the other, while Laguna’s soft, breathy cries echoed his own deeper ones. He was surprised when Laguna began pushing back into his thrusts, driving him deeper and he groaned again, low and rough.

He was too close to the edge, the tingling pleasure having moved into a wild burn that shot up his spine and tightened his balls. Before he was incapacitated by orgasm, he reached around and grabbed Laguna’s straining erection, jerking with practiced strokes until he felt the man’s body tense and shudder under and around him as Laguna released. He kept up the friction on Laguna’s cock until the Estharian was reduced to small moans, his sable-haired head hanging limply between his shoulders and then he finally allowed himself to come in three quick, erratic jerks that shook them both.

When they were spent, he eased out of Laguna’s body and sank down to the bed, pulling Laguna with him and drawing the slightly smaller body up against his, spooning them together. He slid his arm around Laguna’s chest to rest his hand over the wildly beating heart and rumbled, “Well?”

Laguna chuckled softly. How could he possibly put that into words? It was amazing, intense and the best orgasm he’d ever had but to say that out loud would make him sound like some far too innocent and inexperienced idiot. Then again, Vincent already new that he was inexperienced, so it was pretty pointless to try and act differently now. “Amazing,” Laguna murmured, deciding to meet himself half way. He definitely would like to do that again he mused, reliving the feeling of being taken over in his mind.

“Mmmm,” Vincent murmured, nuzzling behind Laguna’s ear and delighting when he felt the other shiver. “You are too generous, but I’ll take the compliment.”

Reality came creeping back to Laguna when he realized that this may never happen again. After all, it wasn’t like they’d discussed this being anything more than just a one night stand. His body tensed then, the thought of walking away more distressing than it should be after only one night but he couldn’t help it. Laguna Loire was not a man that did this kind of thing and never looked back. Biting his lip, he shoved his emotions down and silenced them. Vincent had given him everything he had asked for and other people did this kind of thing all the time, didn’t they? It just wasn’t right for him to demand more.

Vincent was grinning, nibbling a particularly appealing bit of sensitive flesh when the slight tension he felt in Laguna’s body distracted him. “Laguna,” he said softly, moving away slightly to roll Laguna onto his back so that he could see the Estharian’s flushed face. He traced the backs of his fingers down one pale cheek. “What is it? You look sad and it’s not the sadness that I saw earlier today. Surely I didn’t I put that there, did I?” He frowned slightly when Laguna blushed and looked away. “I did.”

He shook his head and kissed Laguna’s forehead before rolling Laguna into his chest to hold him close, resting his cheek on top of the smaller man’s head. “Oh, Laguna, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in this position. I’ve compromised everything.” He sighed and then tilted Laguna’s head up to stare into those ivy-colored eyes. “But I don’t regret it, not one minute of it. You gave me something precious, Laguna and I shall never forget that.” He then rolled onto his back, dragging Laguna with him so that the smaller man’s head rested on his chest as he idly stroked his fingers through Laguna’s soft hair. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, shutting his eyes to hide his sudden pain.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m just a romantic fool. Not your fault,” Laguna answered, breathing in and memorizing the feel of Vincent against him. He would never forget a moment of this despite the ache in his chest.

Vincent winced. Yes it was. He had all but seduced Laguna, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit that, coward that he was. “You are no fool,” he whispered. “Gods, this world needs more people like you.” He tightened his arms around Laguna and choked, “Where were you thirty-five years ago, when I needed you.”

“Thirty-five years ago? What are you talking about? You weren’t even born then.” Frowning, he pulled back to look at Vincent, confusion wiping away his other thoughts.

It was Vincent’s turn to blush, which he did, embarrassment making his face heat even more. He just knew it was as red as his eyes. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes, well…that is part of my long and very unpleasant past.” He took one of Laguna’s hands and traced those slender fingers over the angry scar just below his sternum. “This, is where the man who married the only woman I ever loved, shot me. I…” He hesitated. “That was how I died. I was twenty-seven years old.”

Laguna stared at the scar beneath his hand, trying to digest Vincent’s words. He was dead? What, was this some kind of sick dream he was having? He pinched himself on the arm and flinched. Okay, so he wasn’t asleep but where did that leave him?

Vincent had said that he died when he was twenty seven years old but here he was, warm and very alive-looking underneath him. Looking up into ruby eyes he saw a deep sadness, but not any amusement so this wasn’t a joke either. That only left him with one option left. Vincent truly believed what he had just told him. So, either the young man was crazy or he had just had the best sex of his life with a zombie. Fuck, he didn’t like either of those options.

Frowning and running a hand through his hair, he ran Vincent’s words back through his head again. Well, he really found it hard to believe that Reeve would send a crazy man out to meet him, so maybe it was true. He found that the thought of the young man being some kind of living dead didn’t disturb him as much as it should. Gods, he really had spent too much of his life around sorceresses and time compression if he was so willing to believe this on face value.

“Vincent, how can you be dead? You feel so alive,” Laguna murmured, running his hands over the bare chest before him. “Explain it to me.”

Vincent took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Laguna was taking this very well considering he just had sex with a reanimated corpse. “I am alive, in a sense.” He laced his fingers with Laguna’s, needing the contact and taking heart in the fact that the other man didn’t pull away. “Laguna, what I am about to tell you may change your opinion of me, but I want you to know that the man you shared your body with…I…” He floundered, desperate to tell Laguna the truth but realizing he was fated to tell a lie. “Laguna, I am still the same person you met and what I told you before holds true. I would never hurt you. Please, you have to believe me.”

He shut his eyes and turned his face away. He didn’t want see Laguna’s revulsion, and when he spoke his voice was mechanical. “I used to work for the ShinRa Corporation. I’m sure you have heard of them. In the Department for Administrative Research or Turks as we were most commonly called. My father, too, worked for ShinRa, in the Science Department, working as a mentor for a young woman named Lucrecia Crescent who was researching Chaos and Omega. I was… I was assigned to protect her following my father’s death in a laboratory accident. I grew to care very deeply for her and at one point, I had thought that she might return my affections. You can imagine my…disappointment when she turned instead to a colleague after I found out the circumstances of my father’s death.”

“Even then I never blamed her. It was an accident. But they were married and I remained as her protection. I then learned that she was to use her unborn child in an experiment, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear for that to happen. It was… it was wrong. I tried to convince her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. When it seemed that she might actually be beginning to listen to me, her husband, a sick and deranged man named Hojo, took it upon himself to see that I stayed out of their business…permanently. On evening I went to the lab, looking for Lucrecia and found Hojo instead. He drew a gun and shot me. When I came to, I was strapped to a table and that was when the experiments began.”

“I won’t go into them, Laguna, you don’t need to know the details, only that I was violated in every way possible. He had grafted three demons into my very DNA, and had created an indestructible body fated to never age, but I didn’t survive the experiments. It was simply too much.” He shuddered as he remembered those horrible days and nights, tightening his grip on Laguna’s hand. “I told you the gunshot wound had killed me. It didn’t but I say that, because it put me in his hands, so in effect, it did. My dead body was moved into a Mako Tube, preserving it and what life might remain within it, and Lucrecia realized that she could save my life, but to do so she would have to inject this new body with the Chaos gene.”

“Her guilt overrode her good sense, I suppose, because she did. She saved my life, but she also trapped Chaos within my body, and the only reason Chaos didn’t consume me was because of Hojo’s experiments. It was after I had been infused with Chaos that I had learned that the very creature calling my body home had been the one to kill my father.” His gloved hand came up to cover his eyes as he finished his story. “In the end, Lucrecia lost her child to Hojo who in turn then created the monster named Sephiroth, who was just another poor, twisted victim of his madness.”

“That loss finally broke her mind, and she locked herself away in a Mako Crystal, and I retreated to a coffin in the basement of the ShinRa mansion in Neibelheim where I slept for thirty years until Cloud and the others woke me. And the rest you know.” He lowered his hand and turned his head to look mournfully at Laguna. “A lot of horrible things happened because of me. A lot of innocent lives were lost because I wasn’t strong enough to do what had to be done. I have finally accepted that and I have forgiven Lucrecia. Chaos has returned to the planet, leaving behind what you see now. A ruined shell of a man, a man barely more than a monster who is a host to demons.” His gloved hand shook as he reached over to touch Laguna’s cheek. “Can you ever forgive me for what I have done to you?”

Laguna leaned into Vincent’s hand and smiled back at him. After all that Vincent had suffered through, here he was blaming himself and apologizing. Well, he may think he’s a monster but Laguna saw otherwise.

“Gods, Vincent. You are no monster. You just fell in love with the wrong woman, and I think you’ve already paid a heavy enough price for that. The only monster in your story is that Hojo character. I do hope you killed the bastard.” Anger flared in his eyes at the thought of a man that could do this to another human being, as he thought about how much the beauty before him had endured. “Does it hurt? The demons inside, I mean. Do they cause you pain?”

Vincent smiled sadly. “I am used to the pain. It is still difficult when they come forward and I transform, but it no longer incapacitates me afterward like it used to. The rest of the time, it just feels like I am being watched, and sometimes there is a buzzing in my head, but I have learned to ignore them for the most part. Chaos was the worst, having a sentience of its own, it would often ‘speak’ to me. I am grateful it’s gone.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I think the worst thing for me are the nightmares. I do not really sleep anymore…I am afraid to because they always come…and they’re so terrifying…,” he trailed off as his eyes glazed over a bit in thought before he shook himself and looked over at Laguna once more.

“To the best of my knowledge, Hojo is dead…and I think, to a point I have forgiven him for what he has done to me, but then I think of all of those lives he has destroyed with his little experiments, and to know that I was one of the first…and I did nothing.” He looked pleadingly at Laguna. “I just shut myself away in that coffin, consumed by my guilt, and did nothing! I am no better than he.” He shook his head and smiled wryly. “I do not know why I am burdening you with this, as it is none of your concern. But to no other have I spoken to regarding what was done to me. What is it about you Laguna that makes me forget my fear…,” he said thoughtfully.

“Shit, Vincent please stop blaming yourself. You are nothing like that… Hojo, and it is he who is responsible for the lives destroyed, not you,” Laguna muttered, still angry that the beautiful man before him had been made to endure so much. “As for this being a burden on me, I can assure you, it isn’t. You are the one burdening yourself with it, which you shouldn’t do. Being that mad man’s first victim doesn’t make you responsible for anything that followed.”

Seeing the deep hurt on Vincent’s face, Laguna felt a stab of regret for making Vincent feel more guilt, this time for the moment of pleasure they had shared. “Promise me you’ll not carry any guilt over today with you. It was… well a beautiful experience, and all because I want more, that is not your fault. I’m just a… what was it Kiros called me? Oh yes, a romantic, old fashioned, old fool.” He ran a hand through his hair nervously before continuing. “Besides wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy it. Anyway, we could always do this again, um…that’s if you wanted to…or not…either is fine…”

Startled by that rather abrupt blurt, Vincent could only blink. Finally he managed to untangle his brain enough to get a message to his mouth, “You… you wish to do this again?” Without quite realizing it, he continued, “You do not find me…ugly?” He blinked again, and in some distant part of his brain, he wondered if he had finally lost his marbles.

“What?” Laguna stared at the man before him with his eyes wide. “Gods Vincent, you’re beautiful. Of course I want to do this again.” Seeing only disbelief shinning back at him, Laguna cupped the perfect face before him and softly kissed Vincent’s trembling lips. He decided to be completely honest, knowing that the man before him needed to hear exactly how he felt. “I never dreamed someone as good looking as you are, would ever even look twice at me, and to tell you the truth…well…it’s a little hard to keep my hands off you,” Laguna whispered as his face burned.

Vincent cupped Laguna’s blazing faze gently in his hands and feathered his thumb under one brilliant eye. “There is so much more to a man, or a woman, than mere physical beauty, Laguna, and it is to that other beauty that I had directed my inquiry.” He pushed his fingers through Laguna’s soft, soft hair. “You have both. How could I not be attracted to you? The darkness in me yearns for the light.” Then a slow grin tugged at his lips as he rolled over on top of Laguna to look down at the Estharian. “You can touch me all you like.”

He leaned down, capturing Laguna’s lips in a heated kiss and when he raised back up, his fingers once again traced Laguna’s face, small grin still in place. “Who would have thought that I would find a glimpse of redemption in an older man who is, in fact, my junior?”

Laguna smiled up at Vincent, relieved to see the pain gone for now. In its place was a grin that sent shivers up his spine. Vincent’s permission to touch him, and his passionate kiss had renewed Laguna’s desire instantly, and he tried to control it. As much as his mind would like to have Vincent take him again, his body was beginning to ache in all the wrong places. “You know, now you’re just confusing me,” he chuckled. “I may be older in looks but you’re technically robbing the cradle by being with me.”

Vincent laughed, dropping his head down to Laguna’s shoulder before raising it again to look back into the man’s gentle face. “You may be right, Loire.” He leaned forward to nuzzle Laguna’s ear, idly wondering where his fascination with that particular piece of anatomy had come from, before growling softly, “I guess that just makes me a dirty old man then, doesn’t it.”

When he rubbed against Laguna’s thigh, feeling the smaller man’s answering erection, Laguna winced and he suddenly felt ashamed. He sighed again and eased off of Laguna. “Forgive me my persistent advances, Laguna. It would seem that I, too, cannot seem to keep my hands and…other, parts of my body off of you.” He turned onto his side, propping his head on his hand and contented himself with trailing his fingers over Laguna’s chest. “It will ache until your body grows accustomed to this type of activity.” He grinned, “I guess we shall just have to have sex more often, then.”

“Really?” Laguna blurted out, staring wide eyed at Vincent.

Vincent’s grin softened as he gazed at his new lover. “You didn’t think I would let this stay at a one-night stand did you? Laguna, I do not work like that. A person’s feelings are not to be toyed with. Only a coward would use another like that. I would not have pursued this if were otherwise, and you deserve better than that.” He touched Laguna’s face. “Unless, of course, you do not wish to see me anymore. It would be difficult, but I would respect that.”

“Of course I want to see you again,” Laguna replied quickly, smiling brightly as relief flooded through him. “But I have to ask you, will this cause problems for you with Reeve?”

Stretching and bringing his hands up behind his head as he rolled onto his back, he flashed another smile at Laguna. “I do not work for Reeve, remember? And he owes me now. We could just call it ‘part of the negotiations’.” He winked slowly at Laguna before frowning and cursing, “Dammit!” He looked back over at Laguna. “I can’t go back with you. I signed on with some hunts, some contract jobs and I cannot back out.” He reached for Laguna and cupped his cheek. “But I’ll come for you as soon as I can. Is that acceptable?”

“I’d like it if you did. Then I could show you around Esthar,” Laguna answered, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that was telling him it would never happen. He may be a hopeless romantic but when he looked at Vincent, all he could see was affection. There was no reason to not believe his words.

“Good,” Vincent murmured, holding up his arm. “Perhaps you might lie with me a while?” As Laguna settled in against him once more, he buried his nose in the sable mane, and let his mind wander as the other man’s breathing settled into the easy rhythm of sleep. And so Laguna slept, and Vincent held him until he woke.

TBC

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