Back from the dead; 09
Title: Proper use of knowledge
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Claim: General
Other characters/pairings: Cloud/Zack, mentions of Cloud/Sephiroth/Zack
Table link: Here
Theme name and number: Back from the dead; 09
Rating: PG
Warnings: Boys kissing.
Summary: Cloud finds a new summon materia that calls forth the last person he'd expected to see again.
Notes: A little rough around the edges, needs more proof-reading, but I like it anyways.
Cloud had never started searching for materia again since Sephiroth’s third defeat, at least not with the same zeal as before Meteor. He did not look away if he stumbled open clues and he kept his reflexes sharp, but his delivery service kept him busy and he liked it that way. The hum-drum of normal life was pleasantly numbing, with only the roar of his bike in his ears and the smell of burnt fuel.
It would be lying to say that it didn’t bore him out of his skull on many occasions. In those times he just rode out with Final Tsurugi and scoured the continent for a day or weeks until he was satiated and felt like he could fit in Tifa’s tension-filled four walls again. He was content enough, but it never felt like he could get his brain wrapped around peace, around tranquility, or around life with Tifa when he always felt a step behind what was expected of him after all this time. He never could get rid of the feeling that something just wasn’t right.
Cloud had taken profit of a lull in business to race out of his trapped feeling. He’d gone far south, beyond Junon and just west of Fort Condor in broken-edged cliffs overlooking a frothy sea. He’d stopped counting how long it’d been since he’d left. He hadn’t answered his phone. The only things alive he encountered were monsters he quickly dispatched on sight.
It was early in the afternoon when Cloud stopped Fenrir at the edge of a sharp drop, letting the engine purr in case he needed it warm and fast. He stepped forward and lowered himself on his knees to keep his balance against the powerful wind before inching carefully towards the edge. He’d swear he’d seen something against the cliff side, like a mirror reflecting the sun. Except there were no human habitations in this area, narrowing to a few appreciable possibilities what it could be.
The sun was in his eyes, making it hard to see, but Cloud thought he knew what he was looking for. Squinting, he stretched his neck. The cliff side was pock-marked with rocky depressions and protruding boulders creeping with small plants. It slanted outwards, so that if anything fell it had a chance to be able to stop its fall before it plunged into the water. That way, if the source of the gleam was of any interest at all, Cloud figured he’d been able to monkey a short way down to fetch it.
Still, the cliff was not immediately forthcoming in its secret. Cloud squinted harder and stretched farther, and only after contorting himself over the drop more than it was safe did he find what he was looking for. Hidden by an overhanging rock was a small hole in the cliff through which reflected the colored light of materia. Cloud had seen it enough to recognize it. He carefully slid himself back on the hard, solid ground and sat, considering.
He wasn’t sure the mako would have flowed there long enough to concentrate into materia, or that it would be anything useful at all. In both cases, he’d be taking a big risk for nothing. Still, there was the chance that it was something powerful, and from personal experience Cloud had figured the harder it was to find and reach a naturally-produced materia, the better it was. He resisted the urge to look down again and instead lifted his face against the wind. It was strong, but not too strong, and what else did he have to do around here in any case? Cloud reached over his shoulder and undid the leather straps holding his swords on his back, carefully setting them on the ground beside his bike. He killed the engine, not knowing how long it’d take him to climb down there, and let himself wonder about his own foolishness before walking back to the cliff.
The climb wasn’t so hard after all; there were plenty of holds. Cloud reached the hidden hole in short order and with only one or two near slips. It was small, barely big enough to fit both of his hands, yet it probably ran deeper through the rock since the mako wasn’t overflowing over the cliff. Cloud peered closer and forcefully ignored how the proximity with mako made his own mako-choked veins thrum painfully; he could just make out a small materia through the green haze. He stuck his hand in and out rapidly and dropped the materia in a pocket without even looking.
He’d keep the surprise for when he was once again on safer ground.
The materia was warm against his thigh as he climbed back up. He took his time shouldering his swords, forcing himself to wait and build the expectation, and sat on his bike before finally reaching down in his pockets and taking out the materia in question. His breath caught when the bright red of a summon flashed back at him, uncommonly warm and comforting in his hand. He hadn’t had that feeling from a materia since Phoenix, yet it was still different. Cloud clicked it in his bracer and kicked Fenrir back to life.
There was plenty of monster life around here. He doubted he’d have very long to wait before he found out what it summoned.
---
Like predicted, it wasn’t long before Cloud snared a monster big and fast enough not to be afraid of Fenrir. The cat-like creature stopped when Cloud did, facing him with a deep-throated hiss that might have been intimidating to the local fauna, but missed its mark against him. He didn’t even bother taking his sword; he simply reached for the unknown in his bracer and released its magic.
For a moment Cloud almost thought it hadn’t worked. Normally summons showed up with impressive displays of power, yet it took him a second to realize that the wolf’s howl he heard in the distance and the warm, soft breeze against his back were this summon’s warning trumpets. The wind grew to a sudden, powerful gust that made him lurch forward and flinch, and when he opened his eyes there was a man’s silhouette between him and a surprised monster.
The first emotion that registered was plain surprise; he’d never seen summons be so…human in form. That out of the way, however, Cloud recognized the back of the man in question, knowing its shape as much as his own, and a thick ball rose in his throat until he had trouble breathing.
This had to be someone’s crappy idea of a joke.
The summon -Cloud couldn’t bring himself to say the name- reached over his shoulder for a sword that should be embedded in a cliff overlooking Midgar’s ruins, and with a few easy but so powerful movements dispatched the monster. He didn’t fade away after holstering his sword again, like any normal summon would do. Instead he turned to face Cloud and a slow, deep grin conveying too many emotions split his face.
“You don’t look happy to see me.”
Cloud realized he was sitting there, dumbstruck and gaping, but he couldn’t bring himself to smile. That’d mean all this was real.
“Zack?” he managed to croak, and the summons had absolutely no right to nod and look so happy and relieved.
“You betcha, kid. Nice bike, by the way.”
There was an uneasy moment of silence during which Cloud couldn’t stick two thoughts together probably. He just stared at Zack, tall and confident like he’d always been, even during the bad times, and wondered when he’d wake up
Zack shuffled uneasily after a moment and his grin slipped a bit, as if he doubted Cloud’s own pleasure at seeing him. It wasn’t that Cloud wasn’t happy. He simply couldn’t bring himself to believe it was really happening.
“How?” he finally asked, breaking the heavy silence. The act of summoning and seeing Zack appear instead just didn’t add up in the logical equation.
Regaining some of his poise, Zack pointed towards Cloud’s arm. He hadn’t moved yet, seeming afraid to spook him. That knowledge hurt Cloud far too much than it had any right to.
“The materia. You’re now the holder of the unique example of Zack materia!” he laughed, his voice full-throated and truly delighted. If Zack had ached for life as much as Cloud had ached for the long rest sometimes, than he understood his cheer.
Still, Cloud had guessed as much, yet it didn’t explain all that much how Zack had managed to make himself into a summon from the afterlife. True, he didn’t much know about how materia worked, exactly, aside from the fact that they were supposed to contain the knowledge of the Ancients.
His trail of thoughts derailed violently and he stared wide-eyed as an idea as ludicrous as improbable took form in his brain.
Zack seemed to have followed his progress and smiled knowingly.
“Aerith’s been working on it for a long time now. She says it was hard concentrating the knowledge in one suitable place, but she got it done!” He shook his head, impressed and sheepish. “I don’t have to leave unless I want to, though technically I have to return to limbo-world for a bit, but the lapse of time is long. The other summons just don’t have any reason to hang around. Oh, and if anybody else gets a hand on my materia or a duplicate-“ Zack waved his hand in admonition against such an act, “-I have to answer the call, so you make sure it never happens!”
Cloud was dumbstruck, to say the least. It made too much sense. The Ancient’s knowledge, Aerith, a mako fountain, the Lifestream… It might just be real.
Zack’s sheepish look softened into understanding and a deep longing that was tired of being patient. “Cloud? I’m real. Really.”
Cloud breathed deeply out of his nose and got off Fenrir. He walked slowly, forcing himself not to hesitate, and stopped before Zack. He didn’t have to look up so much anymore to be able to stare him in the eye. Time had passed. Mako-glowing eyes looked back, open and expectant. He inhaled, and from this close he could smell Zack, his familiar heady tang. So he wasn’t dreaming. He never remembered those details in dreams.
He didn’t know what to say, but Zack saw the look in his eyes and understood. With a deep, relieved chuckle he grappled him in a bear hug he didn’t have to hold back anymore, not like when Cloud was only a trooper, and Cloud returned it fiercely.
Much later in the day found the both of them sitting with their backs to a sharply inclined hill and their hands over a small fire. Cloud sat silently, his thoughts a mad jumble like he hadn’t felt since before Meteor, but misgivings had started cropping up like slow-dripping poison. He wasn’t reconsidering Zack being there. He was reconsidering Zack.
He glanced to the side. Zack was staring at his hands over the fire with a strange expression of awe and comfort. He’d respected Cloud’s silence for the most part, but it wouldn’t last. Zack never let him wallow in his worry too long, if at all.
A moment passed, the silence growing heavier, but Cloud couldn’t bring himself to break it. When he heard Zack lean back with a heavy sigh, he knew the decision had never been in his hands from the start.
“That much time has passed, and you’ve still got that frown between your eyes whenever you’re worried about something.” Zack smiled faintly and reached over to push Cloud between the eyes, startling him. “What’s wrong?”
Cloud clenched his hands reflexively and resisted the urge to bite his lip. He had no choice to ask, he knew, otherwise this silent awkwardness that had settled between them like an unwanted guest would never lift. Cloud wanted it gone.
“Zack, is it really you?” He raised his hand to forestall the taller man’s squawk of perplexed surprise. “I mean, is it you, or just a mako-creation made with Aerith’s version of yourself?”
Cloud had no clue how summon materia worked, but if only her knowledge of Zack, her take on who he was, had been transferred to the materia, then this wasn’t Zack. It was only someone else’s impression of him.
Zack blinked, caught by surprise, but eventually he smiled, understanding. He’d never needed explanations to understand Cloud’s moods, what he was thinking most of the time. It had been unsettling at first, but eventually it became comforting not to have to speak his mind all the time to be understood.
“It’s me. I don’t know how Aerith did it, but I remember being in the Lifestream, how it felt.” He paused, recalling something beyond Cloud’s comprehension. Being dead, but aware and watchful of the living. “I remember leaving it, too. Aerith wouldn’t know how that felt for me. Besides,” he added with a light in his eyes that was not mako, “she told me she was binding my soul.” He laughed. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily!”
A weight lifted off Cloud’s shoulders and he let himself laugh quietly. It was surreal, and he guessed he was still in a state of shock because he wasn’t reacting more to Zack being here, but he was finally starting to feel the simple, overjoyed elation of seeing him in the flesh.
“How did it feel? In the Lifestream, I mean,” he asked. His only venture in the Lifestream had nearly cost him his life; he was curious to see how it was for those who belonged in it.
Zack made a humming sound as he considered. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, but it didn’t dispel the shadow that crept behind his eyes. “When I died…well, I guess I joined everybody else in the cycle. I wasn’t unaware, but I can’t say I was conscious either.” Zack exhaled deeply. “Sorry man, but I can’t explain. I only know starting from the point when suddenly I was with Aerith, and she kept me so we could look out for your sorry ass. And you, Cloud, attract way more trouble than is healthy!”
He couldn’t join that laughter. The only real trouble he’d ever attracted came in the form of the same man, dead three times over by his hands. Hands that had caressed and loved, before they were forced to kill. Cloud shrunk on himself and shook his head.
“I’m glad Aerith got to you,” he said honestly, maybe trying to hide the conflict he was so used to keeping secret by now. Of course, Zack saw right through it. It figured, considering the man had been in the same position, only he didn’t survive to repeat the feat twice.
Silently, Zack scooted over, closing the two awkward feet that had been separating them. It wasn’t awkward anymore, just painfully heavy with bad history. Zack slung an arm across his shoulders, and Cloud found himself leaning gratefully into the embrace. He hadn’t realized he’d missed this so much.
“I can’t say when it’ll happen, but Aerith is working on Seph now,” Zack said softly, his voice pained but heavy with hope and confidence.
Cloud couldn’t help a surprised jerk. He craned his neck to look up at Zack. The man grinned deviously.
“She can do with him what she did with me, but first she’s got Jenova’s remains to deal with, and their influence on him. That done, she’ll be able to get us an authentic Sephiroth materia.” Zack laughed at the sheer pleasure of the possibility. “Sephiroth, Cloud, not whatever he became because of Jenova!”
The possibility was too tempting to embrace just yet, but still, it had happened with Zack, why not Sephiroth? Aerith had been able to cure geostigma, Jenova’s poison. If anyone could battle Jenova’s remains, it was the last Ancient. Maybe, in a few years, Cloud would see Sephiroth again, and this time it wouldn’t be to put a sword through his chest.
“That would be great,” Cloud conceded with a small smile that had almost become unfamiliar.
Zack shifted against him, and when Cloud looked up their faces were almost touching. Impulsively, and because now he could, after so long, he inched up and kissed Zack. The other man wrapped his arm around him tight, tight enough to hurt anybody else, and Cloud returned the favor just as hard. The kiss intensified and they started breathing faster and heavier.
This is what had been missing, he realized, what had made him periodically run out of Tifa’s house. But now Zack was here, and they had catching up to do.
Cloud unwrapped his arms to push Zack backwards, oddly thrilled when the other fell on his back with a groan of surprise. This time, it wasn’t because Zack was willing to go down, to let Cloud push him around, ever mindful of his strength as SOLDIER. Cloud was dragged right along, but he didn’t mind. He settled on Zack’s stomach and leaned down with a deep frown that was half desire, half sternness.
“You are never going away,” he said, almost as an order, and under him Zack raised an eyebrow and tested his liberty by bucking his hips to try and throw him off. Cloud kept him solidly pinned down, occasioning a deep-throated, purr-ish laugh that scent familiar goosebumps of lust skittering up his back.
“Unless you never summon me back, I won’t.” Zack raised his head and kissed Cloud, and while he was distracting him with his tongue, kicked sharply with his knees, flipping Cloud over his head and following him so that their roles were reversed.
“And you,” he purred, his hands snaking under his shirt, “are always going to keep summoning me back.”
Cloud answered by fighting to roll Zack around again, kissing him and getting him out of his gear at the same time. They didn't need vocal answers anymore. Neither would ever waste the impossible chance they had been given and the promise of more yet to come.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Claim: General
Other characters/pairings: Cloud/Zack, mentions of Cloud/Sephiroth/Zack
Table link: Here
Theme name and number: Back from the dead; 09
Rating: PG
Warnings: Boys kissing.
Summary: Cloud finds a new summon materia that calls forth the last person he'd expected to see again.
Notes: A little rough around the edges, needs more proof-reading, but I like it anyways.
Cloud had never started searching for materia again since Sephiroth’s third defeat, at least not with the same zeal as before Meteor. He did not look away if he stumbled open clues and he kept his reflexes sharp, but his delivery service kept him busy and he liked it that way. The hum-drum of normal life was pleasantly numbing, with only the roar of his bike in his ears and the smell of burnt fuel.
It would be lying to say that it didn’t bore him out of his skull on many occasions. In those times he just rode out with Final Tsurugi and scoured the continent for a day or weeks until he was satiated and felt like he could fit in Tifa’s tension-filled four walls again. He was content enough, but it never felt like he could get his brain wrapped around peace, around tranquility, or around life with Tifa when he always felt a step behind what was expected of him after all this time. He never could get rid of the feeling that something just wasn’t right.
Cloud had taken profit of a lull in business to race out of his trapped feeling. He’d gone far south, beyond Junon and just west of Fort Condor in broken-edged cliffs overlooking a frothy sea. He’d stopped counting how long it’d been since he’d left. He hadn’t answered his phone. The only things alive he encountered were monsters he quickly dispatched on sight.
It was early in the afternoon when Cloud stopped Fenrir at the edge of a sharp drop, letting the engine purr in case he needed it warm and fast. He stepped forward and lowered himself on his knees to keep his balance against the powerful wind before inching carefully towards the edge. He’d swear he’d seen something against the cliff side, like a mirror reflecting the sun. Except there were no human habitations in this area, narrowing to a few appreciable possibilities what it could be.
The sun was in his eyes, making it hard to see, but Cloud thought he knew what he was looking for. Squinting, he stretched his neck. The cliff side was pock-marked with rocky depressions and protruding boulders creeping with small plants. It slanted outwards, so that if anything fell it had a chance to be able to stop its fall before it plunged into the water. That way, if the source of the gleam was of any interest at all, Cloud figured he’d been able to monkey a short way down to fetch it.
Still, the cliff was not immediately forthcoming in its secret. Cloud squinted harder and stretched farther, and only after contorting himself over the drop more than it was safe did he find what he was looking for. Hidden by an overhanging rock was a small hole in the cliff through which reflected the colored light of materia. Cloud had seen it enough to recognize it. He carefully slid himself back on the hard, solid ground and sat, considering.
He wasn’t sure the mako would have flowed there long enough to concentrate into materia, or that it would be anything useful at all. In both cases, he’d be taking a big risk for nothing. Still, there was the chance that it was something powerful, and from personal experience Cloud had figured the harder it was to find and reach a naturally-produced materia, the better it was. He resisted the urge to look down again and instead lifted his face against the wind. It was strong, but not too strong, and what else did he have to do around here in any case? Cloud reached over his shoulder and undid the leather straps holding his swords on his back, carefully setting them on the ground beside his bike. He killed the engine, not knowing how long it’d take him to climb down there, and let himself wonder about his own foolishness before walking back to the cliff.
The climb wasn’t so hard after all; there were plenty of holds. Cloud reached the hidden hole in short order and with only one or two near slips. It was small, barely big enough to fit both of his hands, yet it probably ran deeper through the rock since the mako wasn’t overflowing over the cliff. Cloud peered closer and forcefully ignored how the proximity with mako made his own mako-choked veins thrum painfully; he could just make out a small materia through the green haze. He stuck his hand in and out rapidly and dropped the materia in a pocket without even looking.
He’d keep the surprise for when he was once again on safer ground.
The materia was warm against his thigh as he climbed back up. He took his time shouldering his swords, forcing himself to wait and build the expectation, and sat on his bike before finally reaching down in his pockets and taking out the materia in question. His breath caught when the bright red of a summon flashed back at him, uncommonly warm and comforting in his hand. He hadn’t had that feeling from a materia since Phoenix, yet it was still different. Cloud clicked it in his bracer and kicked Fenrir back to life.
There was plenty of monster life around here. He doubted he’d have very long to wait before he found out what it summoned.
---
Like predicted, it wasn’t long before Cloud snared a monster big and fast enough not to be afraid of Fenrir. The cat-like creature stopped when Cloud did, facing him with a deep-throated hiss that might have been intimidating to the local fauna, but missed its mark against him. He didn’t even bother taking his sword; he simply reached for the unknown in his bracer and released its magic.
For a moment Cloud almost thought it hadn’t worked. Normally summons showed up with impressive displays of power, yet it took him a second to realize that the wolf’s howl he heard in the distance and the warm, soft breeze against his back were this summon’s warning trumpets. The wind grew to a sudden, powerful gust that made him lurch forward and flinch, and when he opened his eyes there was a man’s silhouette between him and a surprised monster.
The first emotion that registered was plain surprise; he’d never seen summons be so…human in form. That out of the way, however, Cloud recognized the back of the man in question, knowing its shape as much as his own, and a thick ball rose in his throat until he had trouble breathing.
This had to be someone’s crappy idea of a joke.
The summon -Cloud couldn’t bring himself to say the name- reached over his shoulder for a sword that should be embedded in a cliff overlooking Midgar’s ruins, and with a few easy but so powerful movements dispatched the monster. He didn’t fade away after holstering his sword again, like any normal summon would do. Instead he turned to face Cloud and a slow, deep grin conveying too many emotions split his face.
“You don’t look happy to see me.”
Cloud realized he was sitting there, dumbstruck and gaping, but he couldn’t bring himself to smile. That’d mean all this was real.
“Zack?” he managed to croak, and the summons had absolutely no right to nod and look so happy and relieved.
“You betcha, kid. Nice bike, by the way.”
There was an uneasy moment of silence during which Cloud couldn’t stick two thoughts together probably. He just stared at Zack, tall and confident like he’d always been, even during the bad times, and wondered when he’d wake up
Zack shuffled uneasily after a moment and his grin slipped a bit, as if he doubted Cloud’s own pleasure at seeing him. It wasn’t that Cloud wasn’t happy. He simply couldn’t bring himself to believe it was really happening.
“How?” he finally asked, breaking the heavy silence. The act of summoning and seeing Zack appear instead just didn’t add up in the logical equation.
Regaining some of his poise, Zack pointed towards Cloud’s arm. He hadn’t moved yet, seeming afraid to spook him. That knowledge hurt Cloud far too much than it had any right to.
“The materia. You’re now the holder of the unique example of Zack materia!” he laughed, his voice full-throated and truly delighted. If Zack had ached for life as much as Cloud had ached for the long rest sometimes, than he understood his cheer.
Still, Cloud had guessed as much, yet it didn’t explain all that much how Zack had managed to make himself into a summon from the afterlife. True, he didn’t much know about how materia worked, exactly, aside from the fact that they were supposed to contain the knowledge of the Ancients.
His trail of thoughts derailed violently and he stared wide-eyed as an idea as ludicrous as improbable took form in his brain.
Zack seemed to have followed his progress and smiled knowingly.
“Aerith’s been working on it for a long time now. She says it was hard concentrating the knowledge in one suitable place, but she got it done!” He shook his head, impressed and sheepish. “I don’t have to leave unless I want to, though technically I have to return to limbo-world for a bit, but the lapse of time is long. The other summons just don’t have any reason to hang around. Oh, and if anybody else gets a hand on my materia or a duplicate-“ Zack waved his hand in admonition against such an act, “-I have to answer the call, so you make sure it never happens!”
Cloud was dumbstruck, to say the least. It made too much sense. The Ancient’s knowledge, Aerith, a mako fountain, the Lifestream… It might just be real.
Zack’s sheepish look softened into understanding and a deep longing that was tired of being patient. “Cloud? I’m real. Really.”
Cloud breathed deeply out of his nose and got off Fenrir. He walked slowly, forcing himself not to hesitate, and stopped before Zack. He didn’t have to look up so much anymore to be able to stare him in the eye. Time had passed. Mako-glowing eyes looked back, open and expectant. He inhaled, and from this close he could smell Zack, his familiar heady tang. So he wasn’t dreaming. He never remembered those details in dreams.
He didn’t know what to say, but Zack saw the look in his eyes and understood. With a deep, relieved chuckle he grappled him in a bear hug he didn’t have to hold back anymore, not like when Cloud was only a trooper, and Cloud returned it fiercely.
Much later in the day found the both of them sitting with their backs to a sharply inclined hill and their hands over a small fire. Cloud sat silently, his thoughts a mad jumble like he hadn’t felt since before Meteor, but misgivings had started cropping up like slow-dripping poison. He wasn’t reconsidering Zack being there. He was reconsidering Zack.
He glanced to the side. Zack was staring at his hands over the fire with a strange expression of awe and comfort. He’d respected Cloud’s silence for the most part, but it wouldn’t last. Zack never let him wallow in his worry too long, if at all.
A moment passed, the silence growing heavier, but Cloud couldn’t bring himself to break it. When he heard Zack lean back with a heavy sigh, he knew the decision had never been in his hands from the start.
“That much time has passed, and you’ve still got that frown between your eyes whenever you’re worried about something.” Zack smiled faintly and reached over to push Cloud between the eyes, startling him. “What’s wrong?”
Cloud clenched his hands reflexively and resisted the urge to bite his lip. He had no choice to ask, he knew, otherwise this silent awkwardness that had settled between them like an unwanted guest would never lift. Cloud wanted it gone.
“Zack, is it really you?” He raised his hand to forestall the taller man’s squawk of perplexed surprise. “I mean, is it you, or just a mako-creation made with Aerith’s version of yourself?”
Cloud had no clue how summon materia worked, but if only her knowledge of Zack, her take on who he was, had been transferred to the materia, then this wasn’t Zack. It was only someone else’s impression of him.
Zack blinked, caught by surprise, but eventually he smiled, understanding. He’d never needed explanations to understand Cloud’s moods, what he was thinking most of the time. It had been unsettling at first, but eventually it became comforting not to have to speak his mind all the time to be understood.
“It’s me. I don’t know how Aerith did it, but I remember being in the Lifestream, how it felt.” He paused, recalling something beyond Cloud’s comprehension. Being dead, but aware and watchful of the living. “I remember leaving it, too. Aerith wouldn’t know how that felt for me. Besides,” he added with a light in his eyes that was not mako, “she told me she was binding my soul.” He laughed. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily!”
A weight lifted off Cloud’s shoulders and he let himself laugh quietly. It was surreal, and he guessed he was still in a state of shock because he wasn’t reacting more to Zack being here, but he was finally starting to feel the simple, overjoyed elation of seeing him in the flesh.
“How did it feel? In the Lifestream, I mean,” he asked. His only venture in the Lifestream had nearly cost him his life; he was curious to see how it was for those who belonged in it.
Zack made a humming sound as he considered. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, but it didn’t dispel the shadow that crept behind his eyes. “When I died…well, I guess I joined everybody else in the cycle. I wasn’t unaware, but I can’t say I was conscious either.” Zack exhaled deeply. “Sorry man, but I can’t explain. I only know starting from the point when suddenly I was with Aerith, and she kept me so we could look out for your sorry ass. And you, Cloud, attract way more trouble than is healthy!”
He couldn’t join that laughter. The only real trouble he’d ever attracted came in the form of the same man, dead three times over by his hands. Hands that had caressed and loved, before they were forced to kill. Cloud shrunk on himself and shook his head.
“I’m glad Aerith got to you,” he said honestly, maybe trying to hide the conflict he was so used to keeping secret by now. Of course, Zack saw right through it. It figured, considering the man had been in the same position, only he didn’t survive to repeat the feat twice.
Silently, Zack scooted over, closing the two awkward feet that had been separating them. It wasn’t awkward anymore, just painfully heavy with bad history. Zack slung an arm across his shoulders, and Cloud found himself leaning gratefully into the embrace. He hadn’t realized he’d missed this so much.
“I can’t say when it’ll happen, but Aerith is working on Seph now,” Zack said softly, his voice pained but heavy with hope and confidence.
Cloud couldn’t help a surprised jerk. He craned his neck to look up at Zack. The man grinned deviously.
“She can do with him what she did with me, but first she’s got Jenova’s remains to deal with, and their influence on him. That done, she’ll be able to get us an authentic Sephiroth materia.” Zack laughed at the sheer pleasure of the possibility. “Sephiroth, Cloud, not whatever he became because of Jenova!”
The possibility was too tempting to embrace just yet, but still, it had happened with Zack, why not Sephiroth? Aerith had been able to cure geostigma, Jenova’s poison. If anyone could battle Jenova’s remains, it was the last Ancient. Maybe, in a few years, Cloud would see Sephiroth again, and this time it wouldn’t be to put a sword through his chest.
“That would be great,” Cloud conceded with a small smile that had almost become unfamiliar.
Zack shifted against him, and when Cloud looked up their faces were almost touching. Impulsively, and because now he could, after so long, he inched up and kissed Zack. The other man wrapped his arm around him tight, tight enough to hurt anybody else, and Cloud returned the favor just as hard. The kiss intensified and they started breathing faster and heavier.
This is what had been missing, he realized, what had made him periodically run out of Tifa’s house. But now Zack was here, and they had catching up to do.
Cloud unwrapped his arms to push Zack backwards, oddly thrilled when the other fell on his back with a groan of surprise. This time, it wasn’t because Zack was willing to go down, to let Cloud push him around, ever mindful of his strength as SOLDIER. Cloud was dragged right along, but he didn’t mind. He settled on Zack’s stomach and leaned down with a deep frown that was half desire, half sternness.
“You are never going away,” he said, almost as an order, and under him Zack raised an eyebrow and tested his liberty by bucking his hips to try and throw him off. Cloud kept him solidly pinned down, occasioning a deep-throated, purr-ish laugh that scent familiar goosebumps of lust skittering up his back.
“Unless you never summon me back, I won’t.” Zack raised his head and kissed Cloud, and while he was distracting him with his tongue, kicked sharply with his knees, flipping Cloud over his head and following him so that their roles were reversed.
“And you,” he purred, his hands snaking under his shirt, “are always going to keep summoning me back.”
Cloud answered by fighting to roll Zack around again, kissing him and getting him out of his gear at the same time. They didn't need vocal answers anymore. Neither would ever waste the impossible chance they had been given and the promise of more yet to come.