[Fic] Got Your Back - FFVII, Zack/Cloud, 20/25
*mutters* This story is never actually going to end. It's going to just keeping adding chapters onto the end so that I'm never free of it. ARGH. This is now officially the longest fanfic I've ever written, and there's still at least five chapters to go.
This is one good reason not to agree to write the AU you all want me to. At this rate, I'm never even going to get that far!
Title: Got Your Back
Fandom: FFVII, pre-game
Pairing: Zack/Cloud
Rating: R, with NC-17 in other chapters
Chapter length: 4931
Total length: 95,761
Summary: Even the best had to start out somewhere, and everyone needs someone to watch their back on the way up.
It was a weary and half-frozen group of troopers who trailed their way down to the barracks from the airstrip. They'd spent another week on the glacier attempting to mop up the monsters, only to discover there seemed to be an endless supply of the damn things. Finally they'd been sent home to Midgar, but morale among the troops was low.
Cloud was especially miserable. The SOLDIERs had left the day after confirming their quarry had fled the area; their mission was to track the scientist down and capture or kill him, not to harry monsters. That was the whole reason the companies of troops had been called in the first place, to occupy the monsters and free up the SOLDIERs for the real search. So he hadn't even had the consolation of getting to spend some time with Zack.
Worse, the story of his battle at the side of Zack and the General had made the rounds quickly, and once people realized Cloud had actually spent hours in that cave with the two of them he was swamped with curious troops wanting to know every minute detail. Never comfortable with being the centre of attention at the best of times, Cloud had retreated into himself and used surliness to keep the worst of the gossip-mongers at bay. That did nothing for his reputation of being unfriendly and snappish, and it wasn't long before he started hearing rumours that he thought he was too good for ordinary troopers and was only willing to be friendly to SOLDIERs.
None of the men in his current unit had any idea that he and Zack had been so close long before Zack became a SOLDIER, of course. To them it looked like Cloud was just sucking up, ingratiating himself in order to get ahead.
Walking alone in the crowd of his company, Cloud wondered sourly exactly what they thought he was trying to ingratiate himself for. It wasn't as if being friends with a SOLDIER was going to make it any easier for him to get in.
He supposed it could get him granted special favours - and had already, in a way, if you counted Zack's insistence on going back out into the storm to find him. Not that the other SOLDIERs hadn't gone out looking for the rest of those who'd been lost, but Cloud was the only one brought back alive.
It all added up to create a very uncomfortable environment for him, and of course the more they resented him the more he pulled into himself, creating a vicious circle. Cloud had never been so grateful to see charlie company's barracks come into view; at least in Midgar there were places he could go to get away from everyone else, even when Zack wasn't around.
They piled into the barracks, dumping their gear haphazardly for the moment as people collapsed into their bunks. Some of the more ambitious started changing into fresh uniforms with the intention of heading out into the city, since charlie company had been given a three day furlough to allow them a chance to recover from their time in the frozen wastelands. Cloud had no intention of joining them; he didn't have any friends in the city and had no interest in going out barhopping or whoring. He just wanted to curl up in his cozy bed and try to rid himself of the half-frozen feeling that had never quite left while they were on the glacier.
The sergeant sorted through the stack of papers left on his desk, calling out names as he came to each piece of mail. Mail time was always a big event in the army, but never more so than when they were returning from a mission that had taken them far from home.
Cloud was surprised when his own name was called; Zack was the only person who ever wrote to him, and never when they'd seen each other as recently as a week ago. Hauling himself back out of his bunk he went to go retrieve the letter from the sergeant.
It was not one but two pieces of mail, he saw. The first was a hastily scribbled note in Zack's handwriting that had just been folded in half with his name on the outside. Cloud's heart leapt as soon as he saw it, because no envelope or stamp meant it had been hand delivered. Sure enough, the brief message inside was that Zack's unit of the Specials had been posted to Midgar for a week for R&R and resupply. It was dated only two days past, which meant the older boy was still here.
Ecstatic, Cloud nearly shouted aloud with glee. He contained himself with an effort, rushing back to his bunk and quickly shedding his worn and dirty uniform. Screw sleeping, he and Zack finally had leave at the same time while they were in the same place! It was still early in the evening; if he hurried he was pretty sure he would be able to catch Zack in his room before the older boy went out into the city to entertain himself for the night.
In his excitement he almost forgot about the second piece of mail, a plain brown envelope with Shinra's logo stamped in one corner. It looked like every other piece of official army mail he'd ever gotten, and if not for the fact that he was the only one who'd gotten one he'd have just assumed it was a statement of his latest pay period.
Well, it probably wasn't anything important; Shinra's clerks seemed to have some sort of unholy fondness for generating completely unnecessary paperwork. Still, if he ignored it then it was guaranteed to be something that he was supposed to have responded to right away, and that was always a pain even if it was a totally innocuous issue. Reining in his impatience, Cloud tore open the envelope and pulled out the sheaf of typed documents inside.
It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, and another minute or two before he could convince himself that it wasn't a mistake. The papers he was holding were a transfer order, identical to the one he'd received when he'd been transferred from the rifle corps to the sword corps after the SOLDIER exams.
That in and of itself wasn't too surprising. Troops were transferred between units all the time, as people were injured or killed or retired or transferred elsewhere. For all Cloud knew enough people in his current unit had complained about him that he'd been transferred out for that reason.
It was where he was being transferred to that made him reread the papers repeatedly to ensure he wasn't misunderstanding somehow. It had to be a prank. There was no way he would have been assigned to omega company.
The two missions he'd been on with a unit of SOLDIERs were the exception rather than the norm. Very few missions required an entire unit of SOLDIERs, rare and precious resources that they were for the company. Usually only one or two SOLDIERs would be assigned to a mission, with ordinary troopers for backup or to cover the grunt work.
Also unlike the missions Cloud had been on, entire companies of troopers were almost never required to accompany SOLDIERs. Generally they only brought a handful of troops with them; SOLDIERs were used for precision strikes like a scalpel, not blunt force trauma like a hammer.
And since the companies of troopers were usually engaged in larger missions as a complete unit, the groups the SOLDIERs took with them were drawn from a smaller pool of troops who were assigned only to that purpose. Omega company was the non-SOLDIER equivalent of Sephiroth's Specials; the best of the best, neither assigned to a battalion nor composed entirely of one type of trooper, but instead a mishmash of skills and specializations so that there would be someone available to cover anything that was required. They answered to no one but the SOLDIERs, and it was the most prestigious position a trooper could aspire to outside of the SOLDIER program.
"Hey Cloud, you look like someone just slapped you with a dead fish," one of the other corporals observed, pausing beside him. "You okay, kid? Did somebody die?" That was the one piece of mail every trooper dreaded receiving, the notification that a friend in another unit had been killed in the line of duty, but those envelopes always had a thin border of black to warn the recipient of the impending bad news.
"No, I... I've been transferred," Cloud replied a bit indistinctly, still trying to absorb the shock. Belatedly it occurred to him that it might not be a good idea to tell the others exactly where he'd been sent to; they were already accusing him of sucking up in order to get preferential treatment, and this would only confirm their worst opinions of him. He folded the papers over quickly before the other man could read over his shoulder, and stuffed them back into the envelope with shaking hands.
"Transferred?" the other corporal sounded surprised but not dismayed, which was a stark contrast to the disappointed reactions of B platoon when Cloud had been transferred here. It only drove home the fact that he wasn't really a part of this unit, just someone who happened to participate in the same activities they did.
"Yeah. I don't have to report in until tomorrow, so I guess I'm still bunking here for the night," Cloud said, feeling numb. "I, uh... I'm gonna head out, though. Who knows, my new unit might be shipped out somewhere first thing. I'd better take advantage of my leave while I've got it."
"For sure," the other man shrugged and turned away. "Have fun, kid. Good luck with your new unit."
That was all, and Cloud allowed himself a moment of self-pity as the man walked away. He hadn't even asked where Cloud was being transferred to, and the implication that nobody cared was hard to miss. Well, he had only himself to blame. He was the one who'd resisted their initial attempts to make him part of the group, however miserable he'd been at the time. Hopefully he wouldn't make the same mistakes with his new unit.
His new unit. Gods, this had to be some kind of prank. He couldn't think of anyone who could pull off something that looked this official other than Zack, and he didn't think the older boy would be that cruel. But maybe Zack hadn't thought about how much something like this would mean to Cloud if it was real.
Well, there was only one way to find out, and he'd intended to go find Zack anyway. Now he really hoped he wouldn't be too late to catch up with the older boy; the last thing Cloud wanted was to have to spend the night here in the barrack. Sooner or later the truth of where he was being sent would get out, since the sergeant would have received a copy of the same papers Cloud had. He didn't relish the idea of trying to deal with the inevitable resentment and hostility that would be generated.
Clutching the envelope tightly in one hand, Cloud finished changing and hurried out of the barracks area. The SOLDIERs were quartered in a different building entirely; there weren't enough of them to form whole companies, and anyway they got much better quarters than the regular troops. Even the SOLDIERS 3rd Class got a room with only one other person in it, and the 1st Class quarters were as private and luxurious as a major's. So rumour said, anyway; Cloud hadn't actually seen it for himself.
The troopers who stood guard at the SOLDIER building recognized him on sight by now. Usually he just stopped at the door and asked for either Zack or, if his friend was out of the city, he'd ask for Bence, the SOLDIER who had taken pity on him and agreed to pass him information about where Zack's unit was. Today one of the guards just grinned and waved him in. "Lieutenant Zack said you'd be showing up soon," the man commented when Cloud blinked at him in surprise. "He's been waiting for you all day, since he got the news that your unit was due back. Second floor, third door on your right."
"Thanks!" Cloud called back over his shoulder as he bolted up the stairs. Belatedly it occurred to Cloud that these men were surely part of omega company, and he probably could have gotten some valuable information from them about his supposed new unit. On the other hand, the last thing he wanted to do was start spreading the word of his new posting in case it turned out to be a joke after all.
"Zack!" he called as he knocked loudly on the indicated door, a little winded from having run the whole way there. "Zack, it's me, open up..."
The door was practically flung into the wall; Zack had apparently forgotten his enhanced strength in his excitement at seeing Cloud again. "Cloud!" Zack stood in the doorway, dressed in civvies and grinning like an idiot. "You finally made it back! I was starting to think maybe I'd misread the schedule and it was some other company that was due back today."
"We hit some bad winds over the ocean between the north island and the mainland," Cloud said absently, shaking his head. "Zack, I've been transferred!"
"Transferred?" Raising an eyebrow at him, Zack stood aside and indicated Cloud should come in. The room was more than spacious enough for two people to be comfortable in, and clearly divided down the middle by two sets of identical furniture arranged in mirror image. It wasn't hard to figure out which side was Zack's; Cloud was more than familiar with the way the older boy somehow managed to leave the impression of clutter even though his belongings were tidy enough to pass inspection. There was no sign of Zack's roommate aside from his belongings.
Obviously trying to figure out why being transferred would have Cloud so upset, Zack frowned. "Don't tell me your new unit is being shipped out?" he asked, dismayed. "Damn it, who do I have to kill to get us a couple of days alone together to relax?"
"No," Cloud shook his head, thrusting the envelope out towards him. Zack took it with a curious look as Cloud continued to babble helplessly. "I mean, maybe, I don't know. I haven't actually reported in yet, I'm not due to present myself until tomorrow. So we've got tonight, anyway. But that's not the point!"
"Omega company?" Zack's shocked delight was clearly unfeigned, and that put Cloud's fears that this might be a tasteless joke on his part firmly to rest. "Cloud, that's fantastic! Holy crap, congratulations kid! You know what this means, right? Given Sephiroth's tendency to let SOLDIERs choose who they want to work with, you and I will be assigned together more often than not!"
"Don't you get it?" Cloud demanded, still upset. "It's got to be some kind of mistake, or something. Omega company is the best of the best. You have to work for years to earn enough commendations to be assigned there! There's no way it can be for real, I haven't done anything to earn this. They don't even take anyone below sergeant rank, do they?"
"So maybe you'll be promoted as well as transferred," Zack laughed, waving the papers at him. "It wouldn't be the first time. Sergeant Cloud has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Though I suppose it's not as nicely alliterative as Corporal Cloud."
"They can't promote me again, I'm too young to be a sergeant!" Cloud protested.
"You're still too young to be in the army at all, kid, in case you've forgotten." Zack snorted in amusement.
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Cloud exclaimed. He stamped his foot in a childish gesture, frustrated that Zack wasn't taking this seriously enough and inadvertently proving his point. "It was hard enough to get my squad to accept having a kid as their corporal. There's no way anybody would respect a sergeant my age. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't even respect a fifteen-year-old sergeant."
"Well, that's true," Zack agreed, relenting. He dropped down to sit on the edge of his bed, waving for Cloud to take the desk chair. Studying the transfer orders again, he finally shrugged. "It doesn't say anything about a promotion, anyway. I'm sure they don't have a rule that you have to be a sergeant, it's just that normally by the time you attract that much notice chances are good you're going to be a higher rank. The front line grunts may be the ones doing most of the dangerous work, but they're not the ones who get the credit for it."
"So how could I possibly have earned this transfer?" Cloud demanded, brought right back to his initial concern. "It's got to be a mistake or somebody's idea of a joke, Zack. It just can't be for real."
To his surprise, the look Zack gave him was something close to sympathy. "You never give yourself enough credit, you know that? Hades, Cloud, I can tell you exactly why you got this transfer. You impressed the hell out of General Sephiroth in that fight, and it's not even the first time you've attracted his attention."
"But... but I didn't do anything impressive!" Cloud said, stunned at the idea. "He had to cast Regen on me at least a dozen times, and before that my most notable achievement was nearly freezing to death because I was too stupid to realize that the only reason the two of you were comfortable was because you're SOLDIERs! And that fight only happened in the first place was because I was gullible enough to be caught by a Confuse spell and led away from my platoon."
"The same Confuse spell that caught me and turned me against you," Zack pointed out dryly. "Which I never got a chance to apologize for, by the way. I don't really remember what happened, but I saw your body armour afterwards. Anyway, he's hardly going to hold it against you that you needed to be healed more often than we did, since that's just because you don't have mako enhancements. It's the fact that you fought at all that impressed him, Cloud. A lot of troopers would have hung back and let us do all the hard work, figuring they wouldn't be able to keep up with us anyway, but you waded right in there with us."
"I wasn't going to let you go out and fight while I cowered in the cave!" Cloud said, stung. "Even if you weren't my friend, there's no way I would have done that. I may not be a SOLDIER, but I'm still a soldier."
"See, that right there is why you impressed him," Zack told him, pointing in triumph. "You're dedicated, you're loyal, and you take your responsibilities seriously. You'll throw yourself against impossible odds if it's needed, and you don't give up until you physically can't keep going. You've got the courage to attack the Silver General himself with nothing more than a paint gun, and the determination to ream out a superior officer if that's what it takes to get what you need. You're going to fit into omega company just fine, trust me."
"Assuming they don't all resent me for being fast-tracked into the unit when they all had to work that hard to get the assignment," Cloud muttered, still uneasy but starting to believe it might actually be for real.
"It's not as unusual as you think, you know," Zack told him with another grin. "You'll be the youngest one there, but that's just because there probably aren't more than a handful of people in the army as young as you. You do realize omega is essentially a training ground for potential SOLDIERs, right? You might have been transferred on the basis of your exam results alone, if it weren't that Heidigger turned the whole mess into a spectator sport and therefore Sephiroth didn't observe them as a protest. It's not a matter of getting enough commendations in your record. Everyone in omega company was scouted either by the Turks or by Sephiroth himself."
"What? Are you serious?" Cloud stared at him, astonished.
"Don't go spreading it around," Zack cautioned him. "It's not public knowledge, partly because they don't want any accusations of favouritism in the SOLDIER exams and partly because otherwise every half-assed loser who thinks he 'deserves' to be a SOLDIER would be harassing their commanders for a transfer. Not that they don't already, but it would be a lot worse."
"Why weren't you sent there straight out of boot camp, then?" Cloud asked, frowning. "Everybody knew the officers had marked you as SOLDIER potential."
"I don't know," Zack shrugged. "I've heard people say that SOLDIERs tend to be better commanders if they spent some time in the regular troops first. Or maybe it was just because Sephiroth wanted the two of us assigned together, we know that's true, and you hadn't publicly done enough to warrant being sent to omega company yet. Does it matter?"
"I guess not," Cloud murmured, still reeling from too many shocks in one day. "This is all so crazy. I can't believe it's really happening."
Standing, Zack moved to drape himself over Cloud's shoulders from behind, holding him in a loose embrace and rubbing his cheek against Cloud's. "The important thing is that we won't be separated nearly as often now. I'd say the whole thing is cause for a celebration." Zack's voice turned low and husky, making Cloud shiver. "I think it's about time we tried out that bed we keep talking about, don't you?"
Glancing involuntarily at Zack's bed, Cloud choked back a moan. How did the older boy manage to take him from stunned numbness to the spreading warmth of desire with just a few words and an innocent touch? "Here?" he asked, his voice more than a little gruff as well.
"Nah." Zack sighed and sounded regretful. "Randy's out on the town, but he always comes back here to sleep and he doesn't always stay out all that late. No sense in taking chances. But there's nothing stopping us from going out and availing ourselves of Midgar's amenities as well, is there?"
Giddy, Cloud laughed. He shoved aside all his worries about the transfer and its possible ramifications, and let himself just enjoy the chance to be with his best friend. "Sounds good," he agreed breathlessly. "So what are we sitting around here for?"
Releasing him, Zack moved to stand in front of him and pulled him up by the hands. The moment Cloud was standing the older boy leaned in and kissed him hard. It was hot and demanding, his tongue probing for entrance immediately and Cloud willingly granted it. They tangled themselves up in each other, arms twining around bodies as they pushed to be as close as possible while still clothed.
It had been so long that Cloud had forgotten just how good it really was. Fantasies and treasured memories couldn't begin to replace the real thing. He moaned, rocking his hips up against Zack's and cursing the fact that Zack had gotten significantly taller than him again.
"Right, that's enough of that," Zack declared, pulling away abruptly. They were both flushed and breathing hard, and the glow of mako in Zack's eyes seemed more pronounced than usual. "Let's get out of here before I forget I'm not the only one with a key to that lock."
"Where are we going?" Cloud asked as Zack grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him out of the room.
"Don't know, don't care," Zack declared cheerfully. "We'll hit the main road out of town, there's dozens of hotels there for visitors from outside the city. It won't be hard to find something." Laughing again, Cloud followed him out of the building towards the gates.
By the time they ran across an inn that had a vacancy, Cloud was absolutely certain that somebody had come in and lengthened the roads of Midgar while he'd been away. He and Zack had wandered down the main strip all the time back when they were both in the 3rd rifle, and it had never taken anywhere near that long to get there before.
"Finally," Zack muttered as he grabbed the key from the bored-looking clerk and they clattered up the stairs to their room. "I thought I was never going to get a chance to keep that promise." He smiled, a wicked look that made heat curl low in Cloud's body. "You remember the rest of the promise, right? The part about what I was going to do after we got the hotel?"
"I think it had something to do with fucking me into the wall," Cloud replied, his voice rough with barely leashed need.
"Into 'next week' was the phrase I think I used, but into the wall works for me," Zack said with a husky chuckle.
The first time was going to be wild beyond words, Cloud knew; they'd both gone too long without to be patient when they finally had a chance to be together again. But they had the room for the whole night, and neither of them had to be anywhere until Cloud needed to report in to his new commander tomorrow. There would be plenty of time for exploring and really enjoying the bed after they'd gotten the worst of the urgency out of their systems.
The moment the door shut behind them Zack pulled Cloud into his arms for a heated kiss, and Cloud surrendered with a groan. He couldn't remember ever wanting something so badly in his entire life, and the desperate desire just added spice to the pleasure of being embraced by Zack.
"Clothes. Off," Zack demanded against Cloud's mouth, not bothering to pull away as he tugged at the younger boy's uniform. Cloud fumbled at the fly of Zack's jeans, his fingers brushing over the hard warmth of the older boy's trapped erection and making him groan. They were forced to separate briefly to get Cloud's tunic and Zack's shirt off, but then they were plastered together again like a pair of magnets.
Zack's hands were gripped almost painfully tight on Cloud's hips, pulling him up to balance on his toes in an effort to get their bodies to line up properly, and under other circumstances Cloud would have protested the force that was probably going to leave bruises. Right now though, the reminder of Zack's strength was thrilling, making Cloud rock up against him harder and moan in frustration when he still wasn't tall enough to press his cock against Zack's.
They were still wearing their pants, though Cloud had managed to get Zack's unfastened at least. Apparently tired of waiting, Zack tightened his hands a little more and lifted Cloud right off his feet, muscles bunching in his arms and shoulders but with no other evidence of effort. Cloud's pained half-protest was immediately buried in his cry of desire as he finally felt Zack's cock against his. He could handle a little pain if it was going to get him pleasure like this.
Locking his legs around the older boy's waist helped shift his weight enough that Zack relaxed his grip, and Cloud was almost dizzy with passion. "Bed," Zack groaned, trailing his mouth away from Cloud's and down over the column of the boy's throat. He took a few staggering steps in that direction, but it was all the way across the room and Cloud honestly didn't think either of them would last that long.
"Not going to fuck me into the wall after all?" he murmured, tipping his head back to give Zack better access. There would be time for the bed later.
Growling, Zack bit at his shoulder hard enough to make Cloud shudder with need. "Fuck, Cloud, you little tease," Zack gasped around a snarl. "Fine, you asked for it."
Kissing him hard again, Zack bore Cloud back into the nearest wall. Streaks of pain shot across Cloud's vision as his head impacted the solid surface hard, but that was nothing compared to the sharp jolt that came a second later when his back struck the wall. Something cracked audibly, and passion was suddenly lost in the fiery agony of just trying to breathe. Zack had misjudged his strength, or else forgotten himself in his desire, and used far too much force to slam Cloud against the wall.
It took Zack a second longer to realize something was wrong, but he pulled back when he felt Cloud go rigid in his arms. "Cloud? What...."
Cloud had started to choke out an answer, but managed only a breathless cry that was almost a shriek when Zack's movement made his weight shift against the wall. Pain washed over him in a crashing wave, and blackness crept up to eat at the edges of his vision.
"Cloud? Cloud!" Zack's frantic voice sounded like it was coming from far away as Cloud lost his grip on consciousness. "Shit, shit, Cloud, I'm sorry! Are you okay? Cloud!"
But Cloud was beyond the ability to answer him, lost in the darkness of oblivion.
This is one good reason not to agree to write the AU you all want me to. At this rate, I'm never even going to get that far!
Title: Got Your Back
Fandom: FFVII, pre-game
Pairing: Zack/Cloud
Rating: R, with NC-17 in other chapters
Chapter length: 4931
Total length: 95,761
Summary: Even the best had to start out somewhere, and everyone needs someone to watch their back on the way up.
It was a weary and half-frozen group of troopers who trailed their way down to the barracks from the airstrip. They'd spent another week on the glacier attempting to mop up the monsters, only to discover there seemed to be an endless supply of the damn things. Finally they'd been sent home to Midgar, but morale among the troops was low.
Cloud was especially miserable. The SOLDIERs had left the day after confirming their quarry had fled the area; their mission was to track the scientist down and capture or kill him, not to harry monsters. That was the whole reason the companies of troops had been called in the first place, to occupy the monsters and free up the SOLDIERs for the real search. So he hadn't even had the consolation of getting to spend some time with Zack.
Worse, the story of his battle at the side of Zack and the General had made the rounds quickly, and once people realized Cloud had actually spent hours in that cave with the two of them he was swamped with curious troops wanting to know every minute detail. Never comfortable with being the centre of attention at the best of times, Cloud had retreated into himself and used surliness to keep the worst of the gossip-mongers at bay. That did nothing for his reputation of being unfriendly and snappish, and it wasn't long before he started hearing rumours that he thought he was too good for ordinary troopers and was only willing to be friendly to SOLDIERs.
None of the men in his current unit had any idea that he and Zack had been so close long before Zack became a SOLDIER, of course. To them it looked like Cloud was just sucking up, ingratiating himself in order to get ahead.
Walking alone in the crowd of his company, Cloud wondered sourly exactly what they thought he was trying to ingratiate himself for. It wasn't as if being friends with a SOLDIER was going to make it any easier for him to get in.
He supposed it could get him granted special favours - and had already, in a way, if you counted Zack's insistence on going back out into the storm to find him. Not that the other SOLDIERs hadn't gone out looking for the rest of those who'd been lost, but Cloud was the only one brought back alive.
It all added up to create a very uncomfortable environment for him, and of course the more they resented him the more he pulled into himself, creating a vicious circle. Cloud had never been so grateful to see charlie company's barracks come into view; at least in Midgar there were places he could go to get away from everyone else, even when Zack wasn't around.
They piled into the barracks, dumping their gear haphazardly for the moment as people collapsed into their bunks. Some of the more ambitious started changing into fresh uniforms with the intention of heading out into the city, since charlie company had been given a three day furlough to allow them a chance to recover from their time in the frozen wastelands. Cloud had no intention of joining them; he didn't have any friends in the city and had no interest in going out barhopping or whoring. He just wanted to curl up in his cozy bed and try to rid himself of the half-frozen feeling that had never quite left while they were on the glacier.
The sergeant sorted through the stack of papers left on his desk, calling out names as he came to each piece of mail. Mail time was always a big event in the army, but never more so than when they were returning from a mission that had taken them far from home.
Cloud was surprised when his own name was called; Zack was the only person who ever wrote to him, and never when they'd seen each other as recently as a week ago. Hauling himself back out of his bunk he went to go retrieve the letter from the sergeant.
It was not one but two pieces of mail, he saw. The first was a hastily scribbled note in Zack's handwriting that had just been folded in half with his name on the outside. Cloud's heart leapt as soon as he saw it, because no envelope or stamp meant it had been hand delivered. Sure enough, the brief message inside was that Zack's unit of the Specials had been posted to Midgar for a week for R&R and resupply. It was dated only two days past, which meant the older boy was still here.
Ecstatic, Cloud nearly shouted aloud with glee. He contained himself with an effort, rushing back to his bunk and quickly shedding his worn and dirty uniform. Screw sleeping, he and Zack finally had leave at the same time while they were in the same place! It was still early in the evening; if he hurried he was pretty sure he would be able to catch Zack in his room before the older boy went out into the city to entertain himself for the night.
In his excitement he almost forgot about the second piece of mail, a plain brown envelope with Shinra's logo stamped in one corner. It looked like every other piece of official army mail he'd ever gotten, and if not for the fact that he was the only one who'd gotten one he'd have just assumed it was a statement of his latest pay period.
Well, it probably wasn't anything important; Shinra's clerks seemed to have some sort of unholy fondness for generating completely unnecessary paperwork. Still, if he ignored it then it was guaranteed to be something that he was supposed to have responded to right away, and that was always a pain even if it was a totally innocuous issue. Reining in his impatience, Cloud tore open the envelope and pulled out the sheaf of typed documents inside.
It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing, and another minute or two before he could convince himself that it wasn't a mistake. The papers he was holding were a transfer order, identical to the one he'd received when he'd been transferred from the rifle corps to the sword corps after the SOLDIER exams.
That in and of itself wasn't too surprising. Troops were transferred between units all the time, as people were injured or killed or retired or transferred elsewhere. For all Cloud knew enough people in his current unit had complained about him that he'd been transferred out for that reason.
It was where he was being transferred to that made him reread the papers repeatedly to ensure he wasn't misunderstanding somehow. It had to be a prank. There was no way he would have been assigned to omega company.
The two missions he'd been on with a unit of SOLDIERs were the exception rather than the norm. Very few missions required an entire unit of SOLDIERs, rare and precious resources that they were for the company. Usually only one or two SOLDIERs would be assigned to a mission, with ordinary troopers for backup or to cover the grunt work.
Also unlike the missions Cloud had been on, entire companies of troopers were almost never required to accompany SOLDIERs. Generally they only brought a handful of troops with them; SOLDIERs were used for precision strikes like a scalpel, not blunt force trauma like a hammer.
And since the companies of troopers were usually engaged in larger missions as a complete unit, the groups the SOLDIERs took with them were drawn from a smaller pool of troops who were assigned only to that purpose. Omega company was the non-SOLDIER equivalent of Sephiroth's Specials; the best of the best, neither assigned to a battalion nor composed entirely of one type of trooper, but instead a mishmash of skills and specializations so that there would be someone available to cover anything that was required. They answered to no one but the SOLDIERs, and it was the most prestigious position a trooper could aspire to outside of the SOLDIER program.
"Hey Cloud, you look like someone just slapped you with a dead fish," one of the other corporals observed, pausing beside him. "You okay, kid? Did somebody die?" That was the one piece of mail every trooper dreaded receiving, the notification that a friend in another unit had been killed in the line of duty, but those envelopes always had a thin border of black to warn the recipient of the impending bad news.
"No, I... I've been transferred," Cloud replied a bit indistinctly, still trying to absorb the shock. Belatedly it occurred to him that it might not be a good idea to tell the others exactly where he'd been sent to; they were already accusing him of sucking up in order to get preferential treatment, and this would only confirm their worst opinions of him. He folded the papers over quickly before the other man could read over his shoulder, and stuffed them back into the envelope with shaking hands.
"Transferred?" the other corporal sounded surprised but not dismayed, which was a stark contrast to the disappointed reactions of B platoon when Cloud had been transferred here. It only drove home the fact that he wasn't really a part of this unit, just someone who happened to participate in the same activities they did.
"Yeah. I don't have to report in until tomorrow, so I guess I'm still bunking here for the night," Cloud said, feeling numb. "I, uh... I'm gonna head out, though. Who knows, my new unit might be shipped out somewhere first thing. I'd better take advantage of my leave while I've got it."
"For sure," the other man shrugged and turned away. "Have fun, kid. Good luck with your new unit."
That was all, and Cloud allowed himself a moment of self-pity as the man walked away. He hadn't even asked where Cloud was being transferred to, and the implication that nobody cared was hard to miss. Well, he had only himself to blame. He was the one who'd resisted their initial attempts to make him part of the group, however miserable he'd been at the time. Hopefully he wouldn't make the same mistakes with his new unit.
His new unit. Gods, this had to be some kind of prank. He couldn't think of anyone who could pull off something that looked this official other than Zack, and he didn't think the older boy would be that cruel. But maybe Zack hadn't thought about how much something like this would mean to Cloud if it was real.
Well, there was only one way to find out, and he'd intended to go find Zack anyway. Now he really hoped he wouldn't be too late to catch up with the older boy; the last thing Cloud wanted was to have to spend the night here in the barrack. Sooner or later the truth of where he was being sent would get out, since the sergeant would have received a copy of the same papers Cloud had. He didn't relish the idea of trying to deal with the inevitable resentment and hostility that would be generated.
Clutching the envelope tightly in one hand, Cloud finished changing and hurried out of the barracks area. The SOLDIERs were quartered in a different building entirely; there weren't enough of them to form whole companies, and anyway they got much better quarters than the regular troops. Even the SOLDIERS 3rd Class got a room with only one other person in it, and the 1st Class quarters were as private and luxurious as a major's. So rumour said, anyway; Cloud hadn't actually seen it for himself.
The troopers who stood guard at the SOLDIER building recognized him on sight by now. Usually he just stopped at the door and asked for either Zack or, if his friend was out of the city, he'd ask for Bence, the SOLDIER who had taken pity on him and agreed to pass him information about where Zack's unit was. Today one of the guards just grinned and waved him in. "Lieutenant Zack said you'd be showing up soon," the man commented when Cloud blinked at him in surprise. "He's been waiting for you all day, since he got the news that your unit was due back. Second floor, third door on your right."
"Thanks!" Cloud called back over his shoulder as he bolted up the stairs. Belatedly it occurred to Cloud that these men were surely part of omega company, and he probably could have gotten some valuable information from them about his supposed new unit. On the other hand, the last thing he wanted to do was start spreading the word of his new posting in case it turned out to be a joke after all.
"Zack!" he called as he knocked loudly on the indicated door, a little winded from having run the whole way there. "Zack, it's me, open up..."
The door was practically flung into the wall; Zack had apparently forgotten his enhanced strength in his excitement at seeing Cloud again. "Cloud!" Zack stood in the doorway, dressed in civvies and grinning like an idiot. "You finally made it back! I was starting to think maybe I'd misread the schedule and it was some other company that was due back today."
"We hit some bad winds over the ocean between the north island and the mainland," Cloud said absently, shaking his head. "Zack, I've been transferred!"
"Transferred?" Raising an eyebrow at him, Zack stood aside and indicated Cloud should come in. The room was more than spacious enough for two people to be comfortable in, and clearly divided down the middle by two sets of identical furniture arranged in mirror image. It wasn't hard to figure out which side was Zack's; Cloud was more than familiar with the way the older boy somehow managed to leave the impression of clutter even though his belongings were tidy enough to pass inspection. There was no sign of Zack's roommate aside from his belongings.
Obviously trying to figure out why being transferred would have Cloud so upset, Zack frowned. "Don't tell me your new unit is being shipped out?" he asked, dismayed. "Damn it, who do I have to kill to get us a couple of days alone together to relax?"
"No," Cloud shook his head, thrusting the envelope out towards him. Zack took it with a curious look as Cloud continued to babble helplessly. "I mean, maybe, I don't know. I haven't actually reported in yet, I'm not due to present myself until tomorrow. So we've got tonight, anyway. But that's not the point!"
"Omega company?" Zack's shocked delight was clearly unfeigned, and that put Cloud's fears that this might be a tasteless joke on his part firmly to rest. "Cloud, that's fantastic! Holy crap, congratulations kid! You know what this means, right? Given Sephiroth's tendency to let SOLDIERs choose who they want to work with, you and I will be assigned together more often than not!"
"Don't you get it?" Cloud demanded, still upset. "It's got to be some kind of mistake, or something. Omega company is the best of the best. You have to work for years to earn enough commendations to be assigned there! There's no way it can be for real, I haven't done anything to earn this. They don't even take anyone below sergeant rank, do they?"
"So maybe you'll be promoted as well as transferred," Zack laughed, waving the papers at him. "It wouldn't be the first time. Sergeant Cloud has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Though I suppose it's not as nicely alliterative as Corporal Cloud."
"They can't promote me again, I'm too young to be a sergeant!" Cloud protested.
"You're still too young to be in the army at all, kid, in case you've forgotten." Zack snorted in amusement.
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Cloud exclaimed. He stamped his foot in a childish gesture, frustrated that Zack wasn't taking this seriously enough and inadvertently proving his point. "It was hard enough to get my squad to accept having a kid as their corporal. There's no way anybody would respect a sergeant my age. It's ridiculous. I wouldn't even respect a fifteen-year-old sergeant."
"Well, that's true," Zack agreed, relenting. He dropped down to sit on the edge of his bed, waving for Cloud to take the desk chair. Studying the transfer orders again, he finally shrugged. "It doesn't say anything about a promotion, anyway. I'm sure they don't have a rule that you have to be a sergeant, it's just that normally by the time you attract that much notice chances are good you're going to be a higher rank. The front line grunts may be the ones doing most of the dangerous work, but they're not the ones who get the credit for it."
"So how could I possibly have earned this transfer?" Cloud demanded, brought right back to his initial concern. "It's got to be a mistake or somebody's idea of a joke, Zack. It just can't be for real."
To his surprise, the look Zack gave him was something close to sympathy. "You never give yourself enough credit, you know that? Hades, Cloud, I can tell you exactly why you got this transfer. You impressed the hell out of General Sephiroth in that fight, and it's not even the first time you've attracted his attention."
"But... but I didn't do anything impressive!" Cloud said, stunned at the idea. "He had to cast Regen on me at least a dozen times, and before that my most notable achievement was nearly freezing to death because I was too stupid to realize that the only reason the two of you were comfortable was because you're SOLDIERs! And that fight only happened in the first place was because I was gullible enough to be caught by a Confuse spell and led away from my platoon."
"The same Confuse spell that caught me and turned me against you," Zack pointed out dryly. "Which I never got a chance to apologize for, by the way. I don't really remember what happened, but I saw your body armour afterwards. Anyway, he's hardly going to hold it against you that you needed to be healed more often than we did, since that's just because you don't have mako enhancements. It's the fact that you fought at all that impressed him, Cloud. A lot of troopers would have hung back and let us do all the hard work, figuring they wouldn't be able to keep up with us anyway, but you waded right in there with us."
"I wasn't going to let you go out and fight while I cowered in the cave!" Cloud said, stung. "Even if you weren't my friend, there's no way I would have done that. I may not be a SOLDIER, but I'm still a soldier."
"See, that right there is why you impressed him," Zack told him, pointing in triumph. "You're dedicated, you're loyal, and you take your responsibilities seriously. You'll throw yourself against impossible odds if it's needed, and you don't give up until you physically can't keep going. You've got the courage to attack the Silver General himself with nothing more than a paint gun, and the determination to ream out a superior officer if that's what it takes to get what you need. You're going to fit into omega company just fine, trust me."
"Assuming they don't all resent me for being fast-tracked into the unit when they all had to work that hard to get the assignment," Cloud muttered, still uneasy but starting to believe it might actually be for real.
"It's not as unusual as you think, you know," Zack told him with another grin. "You'll be the youngest one there, but that's just because there probably aren't more than a handful of people in the army as young as you. You do realize omega is essentially a training ground for potential SOLDIERs, right? You might have been transferred on the basis of your exam results alone, if it weren't that Heidigger turned the whole mess into a spectator sport and therefore Sephiroth didn't observe them as a protest. It's not a matter of getting enough commendations in your record. Everyone in omega company was scouted either by the Turks or by Sephiroth himself."
"What? Are you serious?" Cloud stared at him, astonished.
"Don't go spreading it around," Zack cautioned him. "It's not public knowledge, partly because they don't want any accusations of favouritism in the SOLDIER exams and partly because otherwise every half-assed loser who thinks he 'deserves' to be a SOLDIER would be harassing their commanders for a transfer. Not that they don't already, but it would be a lot worse."
"Why weren't you sent there straight out of boot camp, then?" Cloud asked, frowning. "Everybody knew the officers had marked you as SOLDIER potential."
"I don't know," Zack shrugged. "I've heard people say that SOLDIERs tend to be better commanders if they spent some time in the regular troops first. Or maybe it was just because Sephiroth wanted the two of us assigned together, we know that's true, and you hadn't publicly done enough to warrant being sent to omega company yet. Does it matter?"
"I guess not," Cloud murmured, still reeling from too many shocks in one day. "This is all so crazy. I can't believe it's really happening."
Standing, Zack moved to drape himself over Cloud's shoulders from behind, holding him in a loose embrace and rubbing his cheek against Cloud's. "The important thing is that we won't be separated nearly as often now. I'd say the whole thing is cause for a celebration." Zack's voice turned low and husky, making Cloud shiver. "I think it's about time we tried out that bed we keep talking about, don't you?"
Glancing involuntarily at Zack's bed, Cloud choked back a moan. How did the older boy manage to take him from stunned numbness to the spreading warmth of desire with just a few words and an innocent touch? "Here?" he asked, his voice more than a little gruff as well.
"Nah." Zack sighed and sounded regretful. "Randy's out on the town, but he always comes back here to sleep and he doesn't always stay out all that late. No sense in taking chances. But there's nothing stopping us from going out and availing ourselves of Midgar's amenities as well, is there?"
Giddy, Cloud laughed. He shoved aside all his worries about the transfer and its possible ramifications, and let himself just enjoy the chance to be with his best friend. "Sounds good," he agreed breathlessly. "So what are we sitting around here for?"
Releasing him, Zack moved to stand in front of him and pulled him up by the hands. The moment Cloud was standing the older boy leaned in and kissed him hard. It was hot and demanding, his tongue probing for entrance immediately and Cloud willingly granted it. They tangled themselves up in each other, arms twining around bodies as they pushed to be as close as possible while still clothed.
It had been so long that Cloud had forgotten just how good it really was. Fantasies and treasured memories couldn't begin to replace the real thing. He moaned, rocking his hips up against Zack's and cursing the fact that Zack had gotten significantly taller than him again.
"Right, that's enough of that," Zack declared, pulling away abruptly. They were both flushed and breathing hard, and the glow of mako in Zack's eyes seemed more pronounced than usual. "Let's get out of here before I forget I'm not the only one with a key to that lock."
"Where are we going?" Cloud asked as Zack grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him out of the room.
"Don't know, don't care," Zack declared cheerfully. "We'll hit the main road out of town, there's dozens of hotels there for visitors from outside the city. It won't be hard to find something." Laughing again, Cloud followed him out of the building towards the gates.
By the time they ran across an inn that had a vacancy, Cloud was absolutely certain that somebody had come in and lengthened the roads of Midgar while he'd been away. He and Zack had wandered down the main strip all the time back when they were both in the 3rd rifle, and it had never taken anywhere near that long to get there before.
"Finally," Zack muttered as he grabbed the key from the bored-looking clerk and they clattered up the stairs to their room. "I thought I was never going to get a chance to keep that promise." He smiled, a wicked look that made heat curl low in Cloud's body. "You remember the rest of the promise, right? The part about what I was going to do after we got the hotel?"
"I think it had something to do with fucking me into the wall," Cloud replied, his voice rough with barely leashed need.
"Into 'next week' was the phrase I think I used, but into the wall works for me," Zack said with a husky chuckle.
The first time was going to be wild beyond words, Cloud knew; they'd both gone too long without to be patient when they finally had a chance to be together again. But they had the room for the whole night, and neither of them had to be anywhere until Cloud needed to report in to his new commander tomorrow. There would be plenty of time for exploring and really enjoying the bed after they'd gotten the worst of the urgency out of their systems.
The moment the door shut behind them Zack pulled Cloud into his arms for a heated kiss, and Cloud surrendered with a groan. He couldn't remember ever wanting something so badly in his entire life, and the desperate desire just added spice to the pleasure of being embraced by Zack.
"Clothes. Off," Zack demanded against Cloud's mouth, not bothering to pull away as he tugged at the younger boy's uniform. Cloud fumbled at the fly of Zack's jeans, his fingers brushing over the hard warmth of the older boy's trapped erection and making him groan. They were forced to separate briefly to get Cloud's tunic and Zack's shirt off, but then they were plastered together again like a pair of magnets.
Zack's hands were gripped almost painfully tight on Cloud's hips, pulling him up to balance on his toes in an effort to get their bodies to line up properly, and under other circumstances Cloud would have protested the force that was probably going to leave bruises. Right now though, the reminder of Zack's strength was thrilling, making Cloud rock up against him harder and moan in frustration when he still wasn't tall enough to press his cock against Zack's.
They were still wearing their pants, though Cloud had managed to get Zack's unfastened at least. Apparently tired of waiting, Zack tightened his hands a little more and lifted Cloud right off his feet, muscles bunching in his arms and shoulders but with no other evidence of effort. Cloud's pained half-protest was immediately buried in his cry of desire as he finally felt Zack's cock against his. He could handle a little pain if it was going to get him pleasure like this.
Locking his legs around the older boy's waist helped shift his weight enough that Zack relaxed his grip, and Cloud was almost dizzy with passion. "Bed," Zack groaned, trailing his mouth away from Cloud's and down over the column of the boy's throat. He took a few staggering steps in that direction, but it was all the way across the room and Cloud honestly didn't think either of them would last that long.
"Not going to fuck me into the wall after all?" he murmured, tipping his head back to give Zack better access. There would be time for the bed later.
Growling, Zack bit at his shoulder hard enough to make Cloud shudder with need. "Fuck, Cloud, you little tease," Zack gasped around a snarl. "Fine, you asked for it."
Kissing him hard again, Zack bore Cloud back into the nearest wall. Streaks of pain shot across Cloud's vision as his head impacted the solid surface hard, but that was nothing compared to the sharp jolt that came a second later when his back struck the wall. Something cracked audibly, and passion was suddenly lost in the fiery agony of just trying to breathe. Zack had misjudged his strength, or else forgotten himself in his desire, and used far too much force to slam Cloud against the wall.
It took Zack a second longer to realize something was wrong, but he pulled back when he felt Cloud go rigid in his arms. "Cloud? What...."
Cloud had started to choke out an answer, but managed only a breathless cry that was almost a shriek when Zack's movement made his weight shift against the wall. Pain washed over him in a crashing wave, and blackness crept up to eat at the edges of his vision.
"Cloud? Cloud!" Zack's frantic voice sounded like it was coming from far away as Cloud lost his grip on consciousness. "Shit, shit, Cloud, I'm sorry! Are you okay? Cloud!"
But Cloud was beyond the ability to answer him, lost in the darkness of oblivion.