niflow
in
springkink
Jealousy is a Spiky-Haired Puppy [ FFVII : CC, Angeal/Zack, PG-13 ]
It happened faster than Zack could remember how.
One moment, Angeal had been talking to him, leaning back lazily against the sofa’s arm with his long legs stretched out and crossed in front of him, the denim of his pants frayed comfortably at the ends, and the next Zack was on him, pushing him down, knees on either side of him on the narrow couch, with a noise in the back of his throat that could have been called a snarl if it wasn’t so very sad.
They stayed like that for some long minutes- Zack really didn’t keep count- just… staring at each other, eyes locked; the hue of the ocean on a winter night clashing against the blue of a summer sky. The Second’s palm was still frozen on his mentor’s chest, the other tight around the sofa arm behind them, knuckles white with unnecessary tension. Angeal’s hands had gone up to his student’s torso to steady the boy, and hadn’t moved either, long fingers spread across ribs, curled around the cage, shifting with each shallow breath filling and leaving Zack’s lungs.
“You planning on moving any time soon, kid?” Angeal murmured at last, letting his eyebrows form an arch that hid his confusion, his bewilderment. Zack mouthed at him for a second, clearly wrong-footed- although there wasn’t much else he could be in a situation like this- before dropping his head, black spikes swaying with the movement, and then chuckled self-consciously, as if he couldn’t believe himself, trailing off into silence as he looked back up. And didn’t budge.
“Gonna push me off I don’t?” he asked instead. Angeal shrugged, not smiling, but not not-smiling either, his eyes enigmatic as they trailed down the body stretched out above him, down to where his hands were holding it, before sliding up again.
“Depends on why you won’t do it.”
Zack swallowed, trying to make it sound natural rather than the gulp it really was, voice tenfold confident compared to the beat-beat beat-beat of his heart as his blood pounded inside him, against his mentor’s fingers.
“Maybe I got something to say.”
Angeal blinked up at him before laughing quietly, a surprised huff of amusement that had the same rough texture as the cotton of his untucked dress shirt, top two buttons undone, smooth patch of skin inches from Zack’s thumb. He didn’t move either and just shifted so that he was more comfortably positioned underneath his student, before tilting his head to the side, dark bangs falling across his eyes, and saying, “Go ahead, then. “
Zack wet his lips, suddenly unsure of himself, of how to start. Now that he had his chance, he didn’t know what to do with it, and he looked away with an uncertain, "Well... I, uh...“ Something softened in his mentor’s gaze at this, although Zack didn’t get to see it; and only when two thumbs slid reassuringly up and down did Zack’s eyes shoot back up.
“Go ahead,” Angeal repeated quietly, deep voice calm and calming at the same time. Zack found himself nodding, just a little. Swallowed again- Gaia, his mouth was dry- before beginning slowly.
“Thought I’d go mad.” He paused. “Thought I’d go mad, Angeal, just sitting back and listening to you go on about him all the time. Talking about him, laughing when you did, telling me about you bein’ kids. All the time, talking about him, and I-…I couldn’t take it anymore, y’know?”
He looked earnestly, desperately into the blue eyes that were carefully devoid of shock. “Go on,” Angeal said, and reassured, Zack went on.
“That was just him, though. Then you started talking about the both of ‘em. How- how it was like with them when you were all Firsts together-“ Zack didn’t say, when I wasn’t there, but it was unspoken between them- “and how much you missed the good ol’ days. And at first, I felt kinda angry. That you talked about them so much to me, as if I wasn’t important, as if I was just… there to listen to things about them. Then the angry changed, and I…”
Although he’d thought that admitting he was angry at Angeal would have been hardest to say, Zack found that the next few sentences were sticking in throat something awful.
“And I felt like,” and Zack was horrified to hear the tremble in his voice and cleared his throat, ignoring the way the thumbs pressed soothingly against his ribs if only because otherwise he’d be admitting to himself exactly how much that helped. “…like I deserved it. Because who was I anyway, compared to the two of them? Especially him? He was your past, right? I was just some kid you taught, that you liked some. Not like them, not like him. An’ I thought to myself, I was nothing compared to him. He was your past, present, future, not some chubby pup from Gongaga. After all, he’s Genesis Rhapsodos, your bestest pal, and I’m Zack Fair, your nobody.”
The raw, coffee-bitter words caught in his throat even as he spat them out, along with his breath, making it lump up and hurt, making him look away again because his eyes were stinging and there was no way that he was going to let his mentor see the tears in his eyes.
This resolution was promptly smashed to bits as a wayward drop squeezed out of the corner of one eye, splashed onto the bared part of Angeal’s chest.
And then there was only silence, interspersed with the in-and-out of his unsteady breathing, of Angeal’s steady heartbeat under his palm. The rhythm would have been soothing at any other time, but right now Zack couldn’t think of anything else.
Then-
“Get off.”
Zack trembled.
The words were like a knell, for all their steady calmness, their neutrality. Get off. He’d ruined everything.
Pausing only for a second more, not making eye contact with the man he respected, looked up to, loved more than anyone else, Zack managed to slide one leg down, hooking the other over, and still staring at the ground with those Gaia-damned tears standing in his eyes, shakily sat down on the other sofa.
Angeal got up as well, but Zack didn’t dare look up at him, didn’t dare see the expression of disgust that had to be there. The cold rejection. Get off. Angeal walked past him and went into his bedroom, and only when Zack heard the door close did he allow himself to bury his face in his hands, fingers digging into his hair, cutting into his scalp. He’d ruined everything. Everything they had ever shared, everything they had- as teacher and student, as friends, as brothers and had he just… just waited, because the signs were there, they were, it could even have been lovers-he’d ruined any chance he’d ever had with Angeal.
Get off.
“Zack?” Looking up, face crumpled and a howl of grief ricocheting violently off the walls of his heart, Zack’s wet eyes met the blurred shape of his teacher’s face. He couldn’t make out anything other than the fact that Angeal’s mouth was opening; the faintest sound of a breath catching, beginnings of his name carried over the space between them.
“Za-…come here.” Gentle. Kind. Angeal. Zack swallowed painfully and got up, keeping his head bowed because fuck but the tears were now beginning to slide down his cheeks. Breath stuttering, he prayed that Angeal would move or get out of the way. When he reached the doorway, he discovered he was right.
Curiosity won out. Discreetly wiping his face with his shirt sleeve, he peeked out from under his bangs to see Angeal not standing in front of him, waiting to yell or reject or- or anything like that, but to find that his mentor was instead sitting on his bed, a box of papers opened beside him. Without looking up, his mentor gestured him to come in, and Zack shuffled forward, freezing with consternation when a wide hand, hand that had held his ribcage, his heart, when that hand patted the mattress.
Get off. Zack sat down, unsure of everything, looking at his knees. Angeal handed him the box and then, oddly enough, leaned back on the heels of his palms, head tilted up.
“Look at them.”
They weren’t papers, Zack realized as he sifted through them, one by one by one. They were letters. Letters, letters to someone’s mother, letters to other people, friends, directors, even a postcard from Costa Del Sol of all places-
Angeal’s letters. What was he getting at? Mouth open in a round ‘o’ of confusion, he turned to his teacher and asked in a hoarse voice, “Angeal? What...?”
“Read a few of them,” his mentor invited, eyes still locked on the stucco of his ceiling and Zack picked up one, read it, and despite himself, found himself smiling a little at what he encountered. He picked another, and another, and his smile widened sometimes, a chuckle escaping him at others-but he still couldn’t see the point, and when his emotions had died down considerably, he put the box aside and turned to his teacher.
Angeal was no longer gazing at the ceiling. Instead, his eyes were on Zack, inscrutable but with affection and a bit of mischief lurking in their depths, and the Second felt his face heat up a little, embarrassment catching up with him. He shoved it away, uncertain still but no longer hurt. He had a feeling he wasn’t in trouble, that he hadn’t ruined something precious and irrevocable.
“Angeal, what’re you trying to tell me?”
His mentor shook his head and laughed quietly. “You’re somethin’ else, kid. Didn’t you find something in common with all of them?”
Zack thought back. “All of ‘em were by you?”
“…Zack. What was I talking about?” Zack thought some more and then said, casually but not understanding where this was going, not really, “Well, most of ‘em you were talkin’ about, about SOLDIER. And your work. That’s mostly it. Aside from plants,” Zack added, sniggering a little and then ducking as Angeal’s hand swapped at his head.
“What is my work?” The question was patient if not exasperated.
“You’re really only doing teaching, now, aren’t you?” Zack frowned.
“Exactly.” When no answer to that was forthcoming, Angeal sighed and then thoroughly startled his student when he reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders and, ignoring his yelp, pulled him close.
“Kid, I talk to you about my best friends.” The reminder hurt, and Zack tried looking away but Angeal’s gaze locked him where he was, his next words slow and careful. “Listen to me. I talk to you about them. I talk to everyone else about you. Think about that for a second.”
Zack thought one more time, heart skipping a beat and then suddenly, joyously, thumping against his ribcage.
“Angeal,” he began, a smile tugging at his lips, exultant, wild, and his mentor let him get only that far before throwing him on the bed in a playful maneuver that had Zack on top of him, one hand catching itself on a pillow and the other pressing helplessly against Angeal’s chest to steady himself. Angeal’s own hands were on the side of his torso, Zack’s knees digging into the mattress on either side of his hips.
“Now,” and the teasing tone there had Zack’s blood singing, a grin on his face that was mirrored on Angeal’s as his mentor leaned up and said huskily, “Where were we?”
One moment, Angeal had been talking to him, leaning back lazily against the sofa’s arm with his long legs stretched out and crossed in front of him, the denim of his pants frayed comfortably at the ends, and the next Zack was on him, pushing him down, knees on either side of him on the narrow couch, with a noise in the back of his throat that could have been called a snarl if it wasn’t so very sad.
They stayed like that for some long minutes- Zack really didn’t keep count- just… staring at each other, eyes locked; the hue of the ocean on a winter night clashing against the blue of a summer sky. The Second’s palm was still frozen on his mentor’s chest, the other tight around the sofa arm behind them, knuckles white with unnecessary tension. Angeal’s hands had gone up to his student’s torso to steady the boy, and hadn’t moved either, long fingers spread across ribs, curled around the cage, shifting with each shallow breath filling and leaving Zack’s lungs.
“You planning on moving any time soon, kid?” Angeal murmured at last, letting his eyebrows form an arch that hid his confusion, his bewilderment. Zack mouthed at him for a second, clearly wrong-footed- although there wasn’t much else he could be in a situation like this- before dropping his head, black spikes swaying with the movement, and then chuckled self-consciously, as if he couldn’t believe himself, trailing off into silence as he looked back up. And didn’t budge.
“Gonna push me off I don’t?” he asked instead. Angeal shrugged, not smiling, but not not-smiling either, his eyes enigmatic as they trailed down the body stretched out above him, down to where his hands were holding it, before sliding up again.
“Depends on why you won’t do it.”
Zack swallowed, trying to make it sound natural rather than the gulp it really was, voice tenfold confident compared to the beat-beat beat-beat of his heart as his blood pounded inside him, against his mentor’s fingers.
“Maybe I got something to say.”
Angeal blinked up at him before laughing quietly, a surprised huff of amusement that had the same rough texture as the cotton of his untucked dress shirt, top two buttons undone, smooth patch of skin inches from Zack’s thumb. He didn’t move either and just shifted so that he was more comfortably positioned underneath his student, before tilting his head to the side, dark bangs falling across his eyes, and saying, “Go ahead, then. “
Zack wet his lips, suddenly unsure of himself, of how to start. Now that he had his chance, he didn’t know what to do with it, and he looked away with an uncertain, "Well... I, uh...“ Something softened in his mentor’s gaze at this, although Zack didn’t get to see it; and only when two thumbs slid reassuringly up and down did Zack’s eyes shoot back up.
“Go ahead,” Angeal repeated quietly, deep voice calm and calming at the same time. Zack found himself nodding, just a little. Swallowed again- Gaia, his mouth was dry- before beginning slowly.
“Thought I’d go mad.” He paused. “Thought I’d go mad, Angeal, just sitting back and listening to you go on about him all the time. Talking about him, laughing when you did, telling me about you bein’ kids. All the time, talking about him, and I-…I couldn’t take it anymore, y’know?”
He looked earnestly, desperately into the blue eyes that were carefully devoid of shock. “Go on,” Angeal said, and reassured, Zack went on.
“That was just him, though. Then you started talking about the both of ‘em. How- how it was like with them when you were all Firsts together-“ Zack didn’t say, when I wasn’t there, but it was unspoken between them- “and how much you missed the good ol’ days. And at first, I felt kinda angry. That you talked about them so much to me, as if I wasn’t important, as if I was just… there to listen to things about them. Then the angry changed, and I…”
Although he’d thought that admitting he was angry at Angeal would have been hardest to say, Zack found that the next few sentences were sticking in throat something awful.
“And I felt like,” and Zack was horrified to hear the tremble in his voice and cleared his throat, ignoring the way the thumbs pressed soothingly against his ribs if only because otherwise he’d be admitting to himself exactly how much that helped. “…like I deserved it. Because who was I anyway, compared to the two of them? Especially him? He was your past, right? I was just some kid you taught, that you liked some. Not like them, not like him. An’ I thought to myself, I was nothing compared to him. He was your past, present, future, not some chubby pup from Gongaga. After all, he’s Genesis Rhapsodos, your bestest pal, and I’m Zack Fair, your nobody.”
The raw, coffee-bitter words caught in his throat even as he spat them out, along with his breath, making it lump up and hurt, making him look away again because his eyes were stinging and there was no way that he was going to let his mentor see the tears in his eyes.
This resolution was promptly smashed to bits as a wayward drop squeezed out of the corner of one eye, splashed onto the bared part of Angeal’s chest.
And then there was only silence, interspersed with the in-and-out of his unsteady breathing, of Angeal’s steady heartbeat under his palm. The rhythm would have been soothing at any other time, but right now Zack couldn’t think of anything else.
Then-
“Get off.”
Zack trembled.
The words were like a knell, for all their steady calmness, their neutrality. Get off. He’d ruined everything.
Pausing only for a second more, not making eye contact with the man he respected, looked up to, loved more than anyone else, Zack managed to slide one leg down, hooking the other over, and still staring at the ground with those Gaia-damned tears standing in his eyes, shakily sat down on the other sofa.
Angeal got up as well, but Zack didn’t dare look up at him, didn’t dare see the expression of disgust that had to be there. The cold rejection. Get off. Angeal walked past him and went into his bedroom, and only when Zack heard the door close did he allow himself to bury his face in his hands, fingers digging into his hair, cutting into his scalp. He’d ruined everything. Everything they had ever shared, everything they had- as teacher and student, as friends, as brothers and had he just… just waited, because the signs were there, they were, it could even have been lovers-he’d ruined any chance he’d ever had with Angeal.
Get off.
“Zack?” Looking up, face crumpled and a howl of grief ricocheting violently off the walls of his heart, Zack’s wet eyes met the blurred shape of his teacher’s face. He couldn’t make out anything other than the fact that Angeal’s mouth was opening; the faintest sound of a breath catching, beginnings of his name carried over the space between them.
“Za-…come here.” Gentle. Kind. Angeal. Zack swallowed painfully and got up, keeping his head bowed because fuck but the tears were now beginning to slide down his cheeks. Breath stuttering, he prayed that Angeal would move or get out of the way. When he reached the doorway, he discovered he was right.
Curiosity won out. Discreetly wiping his face with his shirt sleeve, he peeked out from under his bangs to see Angeal not standing in front of him, waiting to yell or reject or- or anything like that, but to find that his mentor was instead sitting on his bed, a box of papers opened beside him. Without looking up, his mentor gestured him to come in, and Zack shuffled forward, freezing with consternation when a wide hand, hand that had held his ribcage, his heart, when that hand patted the mattress.
Get off. Zack sat down, unsure of everything, looking at his knees. Angeal handed him the box and then, oddly enough, leaned back on the heels of his palms, head tilted up.
“Look at them.”
They weren’t papers, Zack realized as he sifted through them, one by one by one. They were letters. Letters, letters to someone’s mother, letters to other people, friends, directors, even a postcard from Costa Del Sol of all places-
Angeal’s letters. What was he getting at? Mouth open in a round ‘o’ of confusion, he turned to his teacher and asked in a hoarse voice, “Angeal? What...?”
“Read a few of them,” his mentor invited, eyes still locked on the stucco of his ceiling and Zack picked up one, read it, and despite himself, found himself smiling a little at what he encountered. He picked another, and another, and his smile widened sometimes, a chuckle escaping him at others-but he still couldn’t see the point, and when his emotions had died down considerably, he put the box aside and turned to his teacher.
Angeal was no longer gazing at the ceiling. Instead, his eyes were on Zack, inscrutable but with affection and a bit of mischief lurking in their depths, and the Second felt his face heat up a little, embarrassment catching up with him. He shoved it away, uncertain still but no longer hurt. He had a feeling he wasn’t in trouble, that he hadn’t ruined something precious and irrevocable.
“Angeal, what’re you trying to tell me?”
His mentor shook his head and laughed quietly. “You’re somethin’ else, kid. Didn’t you find something in common with all of them?”
Zack thought back. “All of ‘em were by you?”
“…Zack. What was I talking about?” Zack thought some more and then said, casually but not understanding where this was going, not really, “Well, most of ‘em you were talkin’ about, about SOLDIER. And your work. That’s mostly it. Aside from plants,” Zack added, sniggering a little and then ducking as Angeal’s hand swapped at his head.
“What is my work?” The question was patient if not exasperated.
“You’re really only doing teaching, now, aren’t you?” Zack frowned.
“Exactly.” When no answer to that was forthcoming, Angeal sighed and then thoroughly startled his student when he reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders and, ignoring his yelp, pulled him close.
“Kid, I talk to you about my best friends.” The reminder hurt, and Zack tried looking away but Angeal’s gaze locked him where he was, his next words slow and careful. “Listen to me. I talk to you about them. I talk to everyone else about you. Think about that for a second.”
Zack thought one more time, heart skipping a beat and then suddenly, joyously, thumping against his ribcage.
“Angeal,” he began, a smile tugging at his lips, exultant, wild, and his mentor let him get only that far before throwing him on the bed in a playful maneuver that had Zack on top of him, one hand catching itself on a pillow and the other pressing helplessly against Angeal’s chest to steady himself. Angeal’s own hands were on the side of his torso, Zack’s knees digging into the mattress on either side of his hips.
“Now,” and the teasing tone there had Zack’s blood singing, a grin on his face that was mirrored on Angeal’s as his mentor leaned up and said huskily, “Where were we?”