(no subject)
Title: Goodbye
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Characters: Reeve, Zack
Prompt: 53, Earth
Word Count: 943
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Zack and serious. Two words I’m not used to using together. But I shall try anyway. I cannot promise much, but who knows, Reeve seems to somber up any environment.
“He doesn’t belong here. He’s not like the other ones. There is hope in that one. You can see it in his eyes. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You’ve said that before. And in the end they are more suited to the work than you are.”
“Not this one. He’s…” the younger man fumbled for words, “like you must have been before you came here.”
“Then I truly pity him, Zack. There is nothing worse than being like I was back then.”
“I just can’t believe that Reeve.”
“No. You just don’t want to.”
There was a chuckle from the younger man before warm, strong arms came to wrap around Reeve’s waist. Zack knew. Reeve knew that Zack knew. They just didn’t talk about it. Family was always a taboo subject between them. Maybe it was because Reeve’s had been abusive, and still was. Maybe it was because Zack’s was neglectful and hadn’t even seemed to notice that the oldest son had been gone for three years already. Or maybe it was because it was just too serious a subject for either of them to bring up. It made them think too hard about relationships, even their own. Zack was, after all, fourteen years younger than Reeve.
“He’s still a good kid Reeve. Can’t you just pull some strings and get him assigned to night duty or something? Maybe then he’ll just give up and go home.”
“Would you in his place?” was Reeve’s response, because there was no need to point out that he didn’t even have any strings to pull.
“Well sure…”
“You’re lying.”
Reeve sighed and pulled away from the warm embrace of his lover. His robe was pulled from where it rested against a bed post and pulled on to protect him against the chill of the evening. In silence he made his way to the desk that took up most of the room in his cheap apartment bedroom and looked over the piles of paperwork. Even though he was only a minor member of the Urban Development Department, he was still Midgar’s engineer, the designer of these new, higher tech mako reactors. There was always paperwork for him to do that no one else, not even the head of the department, was qualified for. The nearest pile was pulled under the light of a lamp as Reeve rooted around for a pen.
But, as was to be expected, Zack wasn’t going to accept the weak attempt to escape the conversation. Instead the SOLDIER pulled the chair, quite easily too, away from the desk. With a smile he sat himself down in Reeve’s lap and pinched the cheeks of the older man.
“No way you’re getting off the hook that easily, rosy cheeks.”
“I have work, Zack,” Reeve said weakly. He had, after all, given up his evening for the young man, as they wouldn’t see each other for at least a week when Zack was shipped out tomorrow. To some small mountain town suffering troubles with its reactor. Reeve wasn’t too worried about the mission either. Word was that Sephiroth himself was being sent because the man was bored, and Reeve knew that if anyone other than Hojo knew of how to handle a reactor, it would be the General.
“You can do it tomorrow,” the teen pointed out with a smile, pinching a cheek again. “You’re really going to deny me my precious time with you? For all you know I’m going to be pushing up daisies after this. You better bury me in the park, you know? None of that creepy cemetery stuff.”
“Don’t say that,” Reeve responded, his head lowering to rest against Zack’s chest. Little jerk always said stuff like that before a mission, and Reeve was getting tired of the bad dreams that came with it. Of a bullet riddled corpse in the dirt. Of blood mixing with the dust and of parched soil hungrily drinking in the offered moisture…
“Please, just don’t say that.”
“Hey,” Zack said, cupping Reeve’s face in his hands and forcing the man to look right at him. “I have every intention of coming back to you. You won’t be rid of me so easily. Okay?”
“Zack, I…”
“Okay?”
Reeve nodded and accepted the kiss that followed.
“Good boy.”
“Promise you’ll come back?”
“Of course.”
There was a sigh of relief from the older man. Zack wasn’t the sort to break his word.
“But…”
“Do we have to do this every time?”
“Absolutely. Now listen, because if you mess up this homework assignment I will be very upset with you Reeve.”
“Alright already. Just tell me what it is you want from me, Zack.”
“You figure something out that will help me keep Cloud from this. He doesn’t belong in Shin-Ra. Sure, he’s got hope like you, but he has too much. He’ll be crushed here. He isn’t strong like you are. He’s got his head in the clouds instead of keeping his feet on the ground, like you.”
“Is that really something so bad?”
Zack chuckled. Of all the people in Shin-Ra, only Reeve was likely to ask something like that. “No. But it won’t let him be happy.”
Reeve nodded and rested his head against Zack’s chest again. “I’ll figure it out. You just make sure to come back to me Zack. You hear me?”
“Roger, captain. I’ll be back before you know it. Soon you’ll be wishing I was still in Nibelheim.”
“Somehow,” Reeve mumbled as he stood at Zack’s prompting and followed him back to the bed they shared when Zack could sneak away from the barracks, “I doubt that.”