Work Text:
ma always told them not to go sungazing, not even with sunglasses on: they’d go blind, at worst; have sunspots in their vision for hours at best.
that had always been an easy rule to follow for young cloud; they always were a creature of the night, prowling about under clear or covered night sky, full or new moon. they would fall asleep late and rise early, and that’s how they liked it.
then they met zack fair.
they’d never seen someone so bright, so full of warmth and smiles with eyes like the sky just before dusk. he slept in when they never could--he was the kind of person to fall asleep in a pool of sunshine in the mid-afternoon, just because.
they were in love with him.
they’re not sure when, or how, it happened, only that it did, and it didn’t even matter because he had a girlfriend.
then nibelheim happened, and then the labs happened, and then zack brought them almost all the way to midgar, and then--
and then--
then zack died, and cloud forgot.
he still lingered, though, every time they saw the sun. every time the dusk sky painted itself that pretty purple color. every time they held the buster sword in their hands, every swing, every time they put on the soldier uniform. he was always there, forgotten but never gone, and even when they started to remember him again after mideel, it wasn’t everything. it wasn’t enough. they had stared into the sun for too long, and spots had formed in their vision, blocking out the little details. leaving them just enough to form a silhouette, but little else.
that was almost three years ago, now.
so when tifa told them--when they found out how long she’d hid this--when they agreed to meet--when they got up and realised today was the day--well.
they weren’t sure what to expect.
but when zack fair walks through the doors to seventh heaven, all cloud sees are sunspots.
----
cloud’s in their office upstairs, listening to tifa and genesis have a loud argument in the bar below.
i still don’t think this is a good idea! tifa yells, slamming her fist on the counter.
i keep being bothered about this, rather non-stop in fact, and i am quite tired of the incessant whining! genesis volleys back.
yeah, well, it’s not like i’m doing this because it’s fun! cloud is-- and here her voice drops to a low whisper, but it’s not nearly low enough for cloud not to make out --sensitive, about that topic, okay?
(this isn’t the first conversation about that topic that cloud has overheard. they know it’s something to do with genesis’s flat, because they’re not allowed over anymore; they know tifa and vincent are in on it; they know it’s something tifa thinks would trigger a really bad episode for them; and they know it’s something alive and opinionated. so it’s probably some person from their past they don’t really remember, but all their attempts to figure it out over the past couple months have been thoroughly blocked by vincent.)
yes, yes, i know how delicate you perceive cloud to be, genesis seethes. i disagree. they’re far more resilient than you give them credit for, tifa dear.
godsdammit, gen, i know that, she hisses back, flexing her hand furiously against the counter. she’s probably also clenching and unclenching her other hand into a fist, if cloud knows her. and cloud knows her.
i just... they shouldn’t have to be resilient like that all the time.
genesis doesn’t respond for a moment.
he doesn’t deserve to be kept waiting like this, either, they overhear eventually, and from the sigh tifa lets out, cloud guesses she agrees.
okay.
hm, yes. shall we ask the little bird themself what they think, then? gen asks.
yes--wait, no, absolutely not. i see that look on your face. not now. i’ll do it. go back home, gen. i’ll see you later.
genesis’s footsteps echo as he strides out of seventh heaven, and less than a minute after the front door swings shut behind him, tifa calls up the stairs.
cloud! i know you were listening, so come down here!
(dammit, they’d hoped she hadn’t noticed.)
with great reluctance, they traipse out of the office and down the stairs, eventually appearing at the base of them where the door to the back patio resides. tifa’s waiting there, arms crossed, brow furrowed like she has something to confess and she knows they won’t like it.
what, they say, affect flat as ever.
cloud, she swallows nervously. we need to talk. about...
----
zack, they breathe out, choked by the intensity of the emotions they feel.
hi, cloud, he whispers.
(is this what it feels like to be alive? there’s something here, back in their chest, that’s been missing for so long, cloud almost forgot there was even a hole.)
they move unconsciously, propelling themself across the room and into zack’s waiting arms. their face is buried in his chest, in the front of his shirt--it’s not his usual soldier uniform that he wears, but instead some simple jeans and a t-shirt--he smells right to them in a way they can’t articulate. like safety, like home. like being loved.
oh--they’re definitely crying now.
someone is hovering anxiously nearby, staring hard into the back of cloud’s head as they press closer into zack.
you died, they sniffle, the words muffled nearly to total incomprehensibility by how much they’ve nestled their face into his chest. his arms have come around to stroke at their back, rubbing circles on their shoulders. it soothes them like nothing else ever has, and they wish they remembered why.
i died a lot, zack agrees, and cloud realises he’s close to tears himself.
but i’m here now, and i’m not going anywhere, he promises, leaning his head down to graze the top of cloud’s hair.
cloud, are you okay? tifa asks--still hovering, unsurprisingly.
(that’s a difficult question to answer. mostly because being honest about how cloud feels doesn’t come naturally to them anymore, not when it was safer for so long to clamp down every emotion and keep it under lock and key instead of just expressing it. but they made a promise to her, and it’s a promise they intend to keep.)
...no. they shake their head against zack, who’s still just holding them, comforting them as they cry and try to process that he’s here, real, and alive in front of them again.
tifa sounds deeply concerned when she next speaks.
does he need to leave? she queries, and while cloud knows she doesn’t mean to terrify them, the prospect of zack suddenly going--just after he swore he wouldn’t!--scares them to the bone.
they shake their head violently against zack’s chest and clutch harder at his sides in response.
no, no, no, they just got him back. it’s been nearly three years. they’re not going to lose him again, not again, not if this is real. (this had better be real.) they’re staying right where they are, sobbing into zack’s shirt in the middle of seventh heaven, and they don’t care who sees. they need him. he’s right there.
tifa, zack begins, his voice not unkind, d’ya think maybe ya could give us some space? show us some spot upstairs, maybe?
i don’t know if that’s a good idea, tifa says, her voice shaky and uncertain.
(it makes cloud’s heart ache, on top of the overwhelm they already feel from zack alone.)
(they thought they would be ready for this.)
it’s okay, they tell her, turning to look at her. they reach out a hand for hers, although they can’t let go of zack with the other.
her wine-red irises and reddened sclera meet their own blue-mako-green eyes, tears streaming down both their cheeks. they squeeze her hand twice to let her know they’re serious.
okay, she whispers, her voice ragged and hoarse.
----
gimme two days, they tell genesis.
they’re once again sitting at one of the many tables at seventh heaven, this time out in the back patio. it’s sunny out. (that feels significant, somehow.)
genesis was already sat down with tifa when they walked outside--there’s something odd about his pose, like he’s got a wedgie or something in his underwear, but cloud quite frankly doesn’t care enough to ask. nor do they want to know.
also, they’re pissed at him, tifa, and vincent for not telling them sooner.
(they acknowledge that this deception was done out of worry and care, but even if there hadn’t been a deception involved, they’d still be kind of pissed. they never were good at being cared for.)
as you wish, little bird.
gen’s doing a perfect job of looking disinterested, which is great and fine and definitely not pissing cloud off any more than they already are.
(they’re doing their damnedest not to strangle him right now.)
tifa, on the other hand, looks like she might pop a blood vessel from how hard her eye is twitching.
are you sure, cloud? she asks, her voice coming out measured and even, not even a hint of her obvious (well, to cloud, who’s known her since they were kids and has spent the past three years living with her pretty much 24/7) frustration showing.
yes, they bite out.
this conversation, frankly, didn’t need to happen; but tifa insisted that if cloud really meant it, they tell genesis themself.
and now, it being done and all, cloud thinks it’s high time they left.
(two days. two days. two days. don’t think about it too much, cloud, you’ll burst. two days. as far as they knew, a week ago he was dead. he’s dead. he was dead. he’s not dead. he’s alive? two days. two days, two days, two days--)
the chair scrapes angrily across the stone tile of the patio, a foot getting caught in the gaps of mortar and screeching painfully. their footsteps echo loudly, more stomps than anything else, dust rising in their wake as they march through the back door and immediately turn to go up the stairs.
the door to their office slams open--
----
they can’t move, rooted to the ground in front of him. it’s embarrassing how little control they suddenly have; it’s like getting mako poisoned all over again, actually, and they’re over it. beyond over it.
...at least it’s just tifa and zack in the bar. it’s nothing either of them haven’t seen before.
tifa and zack exchange a few more words--cloud doesn’t give a shit, though, so they tune it out in favor of listening to the steady thump of zack’s beating heart.
(he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive--he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive--he’s not dead and he’s alive and he’s here and he’s holding them and the sun has never shone on them so brightly before, standing here in the middle of tifa’s bar in downtown edge where layers of metal obscure the real sky from their spot on the floor and yet their roots break the metal, break the concrete, questing out for water with which to quench their thirst; their trunk sprouts tall and mighty, weak and frail, as it reaches out to the sky, searching and searching for that which the clouds have hidden for so long; the dam breaks open, the floodgates fall: the sun is shining down once more)
he presses another little kiss to the top of their head. then, with immeasurable strength, he lifts them gently, cradling them against his chest in a way that feels so right. they don’t know why. there’s only faint impressions left of those ten long months--mako poisoning and memory don’t mix well, as it turns out--but they know, in their bones, that they belong in his arms like this.
they never could sleep well on their own, and they think they might have found what was missing, all these years.
his voice washes over them, a soothing balm as he carries them up the stairs. vaguely, cloud registers that tifa is leading zack to their office. it has a bed in it. (it’s supposed to be their bedroom more than anything, but cloud’s always struggled with thinking of it in those terms.) it’s also off-limits to everyone except the kids and tifa, but it feels natural to let zack in, too. of course he’s allowed into cloud’s safe space in the city limits. he is safety, to cloud.
they’re laid down on the bed, although zack doesn’t really let go of them, so he kind of just flops down with them. they’re tangled together--he’s holding them, just holding them, and tifa’s probably in shock because cloud doesn’t even let her hold them like that half the time and they’re literally... dating? married, for tax purposes, at the least; fucking sometimes? not that either of them are terribly interested in doing so, but now cloud’s struggling to define the relationship in their head and zack is holding them so close they can feel his heartbeat through his chest and--
tifa knows, though.
breathe with me, cloudy, zack murmurs, his head still nestled atop theirs. he’s probably got his eyes closed. they’re staring up, though, burning a hole into the ceiling, because if they look back at him they might actually start sobbing, not just crying a stream of endless tears, the difference being that sobbing’s a lot louder and a lot more pathetic.
he draws in a deep breath, holds it for a bit, then lets it all go. there’s a pause before the next inhale, and then he does the whole thing over again. if cloud pays attention, it feels like a four-count: in, two, three, four; hold, two, three, four; out, two, three, four; hold, two, three, four. they don’t know if they can get their lungs to do that easily--not that a four-count is a difficult thing for an enhanced individual such as themself--but they’re simply overcome with such waves of emotion that they’re getting lost, swept under by the riptide, and they don’t know if zack’s breathing exercise will be enough to pull them out. it’s a hard thing to breath when you’re already drowning, after all.
but yet, their body must remember where cloud cannot--the heaving, gasping of their lungs slows, evens out in time with his continued breaths. stabilising as ever in his presence. (how many times has he done this, they wonder, to be so familiar to them now?) (it’s been three years.) (it’s been three years.)
his thumbs brush at the bags under their eyes, wiping away the tears still pouring out. it’s a silly gesture. they haven’t stopped crying.
they’d scoff at him, but their vocal cords refuse to respond.
shh, shh, it’s okay, he says, whisper-soft and tearful himself. can we--can we jus’, lay here a minute?
they can’t make their mouth move to answer.
d’ya remember the tap system, cloudy? zack asks. one tap for yes...
two taps for no, cloud thinks, not knowing where the thought comes from.
their hands work just fine. thank fuck for that; they’d die of embarrassment if their whole body had seized up from this. (maybe tifa was right to be afraid.)
they bring their hand, their left hand, up to his chest, right above his beating heart. one tap.
they lay like that for a long while, cloud can’t tell how long, just listening to each other’s heartbeat, breathing in the scent of the other as they remain tangled together. cloud might fall asleep. they don’t know. if they do, it’s because they need it; they haven’t slept right since... since... since before they can remember. ah.
tifa knows. tifa knows the way their memory is shot full of holes, the way that if aerith were still alive, she’d be their third, the way that cloud still has nightmares about zack’s death on the cliffside, the way cloud aches and curls around nothing some nights and can’t ever seem to get comfortable, the way they seek out someone who is not there and is not coming back. until he did. tifa knows, too, that cloud is in love with zack, even if cloud struggles to admit that to themself sometimes, or if cloud doesn’t remember zack at all others. tifa knows, because she knows cloud better than anyone else on the whole planet, better than even zack at this point because he died and missed three whole years.
i’m here now, zack murmurs, surprising cloud. they hadn’t realised they’d been speaking aloud.
tifa knows, also, that sometimes cloud mumbles their thoughts aloud in an unintelligible mix of gongagan, old nibel, and wutaian. nobody’s ever been able to understand their mumblings before.
you understand me? cloud asks, face still smushed against zack’s... shoulder, maybe?
learned it on the road, zack answers. sometimes ya’d just start doin’ it, ‘n’ after the first couple times i started to follow along.
(they don’t remember that, but they can’t say they’re surprised.)
but if he understands them, then--oh, shit, did they admit that aloud?
----
--and cloud storms into the room, crackling with tense energy as they slam the door again behind them. tifa’s voice echoes up the stairs after them-- don’t do that, asshole! --but they ignore her. they’ll fix the damn door later if they break it. wouldn’t be the first time.
she hid zack. she hid zack from them, and they don’t care if it was the right choice, it hurts.
it hurts like nothing else does, because the wound in their heart--the space he left--, long since grown over, has been ripped open again; once again raw and bleeding and crushing them from the inside out. genesis and vincent aren’t innocent, either, and maybe neither is zack for listening to them, for letting them hide him from cloud, and it just makes cloud all the more paranoid--is anyone else in on this? barret? cid? kunsel? yuffie? no, they strike that last thought almost immediately, yuffie can’t keep a secret to save her life. (literally.)
fuck! they scream at nothing, seething and breathing hard.
he’s alive? he’s alive! he’s alive, and he’s been just down the fucking street for at least two months, maybe more, and cloud didn’t fucking know and he’s alive but he died, cloud saw him die--
yeah, this is why they need two days. they can’t let him see them like this; they can’t let themself be near him like this--the only person they’d willingly be around right now is sephiroth, and that’s just to kill her again. (her? her. cloud can’t explain how they know that, but they just do.) (they ignore the weird sensation spreading through them when they think about the idea of even just seeing sephiroth again. nope, nope, not dealing with that right now. just no.)
they collapse onto the bed, dirty shoes and all, and imagine what they’ll say to him, what they’ll do. throw a punch right in his face, maybe. kiss him too. run their hands over his arms, press their ear to his chest and listen to his heart beating. crawl into his ribcage and never leave.
what if he doesn’t want you back? that sickly familiar voice whispers in their head, and it makes them want to throw up.
shut up, they growl into the empty air.
they don’t want to think about this anymore. there’s all this tension, coiled and winding in their frame, and nothing to hit. they don’t feel like crawling out the window to go fight anything, and they’re not stupid enough to start an actual fight with genesis in the patio. he’s probably left by now, anyway.
...funny. cloud seems to recall something genesis said, in a conversation they had over coffee a while back, about how he prefers to fuck his frustration out when fighting isn’t an option. couldn’t hurt to try that, now could it?
they grab their vibrator out of the drawer.
----
i love you, cloud, he says, gasping into their mouth.
i love you. i love you. i love you, and it’s like a chant, he says it with every exhale, breathes it into their skin as he plants open-mouthed kisses along every inch of exposed flesh he can find.
(you heard me say that?)
(yeah, i did.)
(oh--um...)
they slip one hand under the hem of his shirt and entangle the other in his hair, tugging on the black locks to bring him back to their mouth. he has on a sports bra, or maybe a binder, and they cup his breast through it as they explore his torso.
he obliges hungrily--as soon as the silent command is issued, he’s melding his lips to theirs once more, chasing after their every little movement, every twitch as they try to breathe in through their nose and ground themself--he’s here; he’s here he’s here he’s here--zack fair is alive and he’s kissing them and he’s theirs, if only for now (and they ignore the little pang of heartbreak at the thought of it not being forever) and he’s telling them over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again: i love you.
i love you, he gasps again when they break for air.
(they haven’t said it back yet, not intentionally for him to hear. their voice has dropped off the edge of the planet, lost in some inky black abyss, and maybe it’ll never come back.)
(they made an impatient gesture at him, grabbed at him even though they were already held so close together, and stared, hard, into those violet-green eyes. searching for his answer, waiting for him to reject them the way they’ve always been afraid of.)
(i love you.)
i love you, gods, cloud, i love you, i love you--
they’ve started working their way down his body, now, shoving his t-shirt up and over the swell of his tits to gain access to his stomach. it’s softer than they remember, not because he’s lost any of the ridiculous muscle mass mako gives, but because it’s covered in a layer of protective fat that he hasn’t had since... since... modeoheim, actually.
you’re eating better, they want to say, grasping into the darkness of their mind for their voice. they come up empty.
that’s okay; they can let their fingers do the talking. the thin layer of fat rolls under their fingers, pinches gently between their index and thumb, and they leave kisses all along it. he didn’t have this on the run. they wonder if genesis is responsible for this, if genesis has been keeping him well-fed the way he said angeal used to do. the way he struggled to on his own before nibelheim. the way that wasn’t a possibility, after. every kiss is a whispered thank you, and some of the residual anger they hold towards tifa, vincent, and genesis starts to melt with it, breathed out of them with every press of their lips to zack’s stomach.
cloud, cloud, cloud, zack’s voice has begun to break above them, and he wriggles in their hold almost like he has to pee or something. they hope he doesn’t. they don’t want him to get up from this bed ever again, because they’re afraid that if he walks out, he’ll disappear and they’ll wake up back in that darker world.
cloud, lemme touch ya, please, he continues, and they realise that oh, that tone in his voice is arousal, and the shift of his hips is too.
one tap on his bared stomach before they shuffle backwards, and then he’s moving, rearranging himself and twisting around until he’s once again lying parallel to cloud, only this time he’s pointed the other direction--ah.
the new angle brings his legs into better view. there’s less fat on his calves, but his thighs have filled out nicely--experimentally, they put their hands on the inseam of his jeans and just feel.
corded muscle ripples just below the surface as he twitches, straining to hold still, but there’s a delicious give when they squeeze the flesh there. they think they hear him whimper.
his own hands come to rest on their hips, thumbs resting on the inch of skin where cloud’s tank top has ridden up from their sweatpants. they should have worn something nicer for today, they think absently, while zack’s thumbs start to rub circles around where their hipbones jut out. something nicer than a tank and sweats, something more appropriate for their first day of real, unburdened sunshine in... in... in......
...when was the last time cloud felt this happy?
they don’t notice that they’ve stilled until zack speaks.
cloudy? you good? he asks, thumbs still right at the edge of cloud’s waistband. gaia, he sounds so concerned--the familiarity of it all has them relaxing, even though it’s probably a really bad thing that zack is familiar when he’s concerned for them. a really, really bad thing.
they tap once on his thigh, still in their grip, and try once more to find their voice. it isn’t coming to them--but that’s right, it doesn’t need to, does it? they remember, vaguely, some skill set that only comes to them when they’re really out of it--tifa never understands, because tifa neither speaks nor reads gongagan, but this is literally zack. they don’t know where they learned to do this, but it has to have been with him--
keep going, they trace out on his skin, moving a hand to his bared stomach to do so, their fingers writing a pair of gongagan characters that they’re pretty sure are correct.
they look down to see his nose scrunch up so cutely.
keep... going?
one tap.
fuck, cloud, i’ve missed you, he sobs, and they can see the tears well up and overflow in real time as they stare, mesmerised, at his face. the way the scar on his jaw flexes when he swallows, the tender trails left by his tears as they slowly find their way to the fabric of cloud’s sweats, the feel of zack’s cheek pillowed against their thighs, his thumbs still at their hips and his hands twitching eagerly like he can’t stand to be so still. they wonder what those tears would taste like, feel like under their tongue if they tried to kiss them off.
missed you too. happy, they trace against his stomach, still revelling in the fat there.
soft, they add a moment later. he giggles at that one, a kind of wet sound but pleased nevertheless, and finally hooks his thumbs under cloud’s waistband in a move they’ve been waiting for him to make.
can i please kiss you here? he begs, pleads really, like it’s killing him that they’re just laying here unmoving and not touching each other.
and... truth be told, cloud has to think about it. they’ve never touched zack like this before, they don’t think. if they have, they don’t remember. tifa’s okay with it, that’s not the issue. they’re into him, too, that’s not it either. but... there’s something, something vague and ill-defined, and it’s not coming to them.
they give him a single tap against his stomach, safe in the knowledge that if they change their mind later, he’ll listen.
besides, they do know for certain that they want to watch him fall apart underneath them. they’ve wanted that for nearly as long as they’ve known him, bordering on eight years now, if they count the labs and the three years it’s been since his death (and oh gods, his death). call it making up for lost time or something when they unbutton his jeans and tentatively pull the zipper down to reveal the dampness of his briefs, stuck to his skin from sweat and from his own wetness.
fuuuuck, he moans out, lips grazing cloud’s belly button. keep goin’, touch me, please, cloud--
then his lips meet their skin, lightning striking from odin’s own hand, and cloud needs their mouth on him yesterday.
they yank his jeans down so hard their nails leave red welts on his thighs, and they relish in the way the pain seems to go straight to his cunt if his noises are anything to go by. not that they want to hurt zack, far from it--but fuck, the sounds he’s making have their toes curling in the socks they’re stupidly wearing even now, when all their clothes (his too) really ought to be off. (they miss, in their focus on the noises spilling from zack’s mouth, the way he kicks his jeans off to land somewhere on the floor.)
in all their almost-twenty-four years of life, cloud’s never felt quite like this. for a moment, they’re fifteen again, the day after zack’s birthday, taking a freezing cold shower in zack’s apartment to make the stubborn arousal between their legs go away without them resorting to jacking off in their best friend’s bathroom like a fucking creep. but they aren’t fifteen anymore, and he’s kissing their skin back, pushing their sweats down their own thighs to nose up against their underwear and it feels too good to bother telling him no; even though they hardly ever let tifa touch them like this and they love tifa the same kind of way they love zack. even though they rarely even want to be touched like that. zack’s different, the rules are all different with him; always have been, haven’t they? since they first laid eyes on him in modeoheim and knew that he’d stick around forever if he could. nobody else ever thawed their frosty exterior so easily, so comfortably, brought cloud’s carefully guarded walls crashing down so fast--and now his callused hands have dipped into cloud’s underwear, the pads of his right index and middle finger finding the sensitive skin of cloud’s hood and hovering there.
is this okay? he asks, so careful, so cautious, like cloud might break if he touches them wrong. they aren’t so fragile, but the concern touches them in a way they don’t expect--they tap once again, this time on his now-bare thigh, and tug roughly at his briefs.
the fabric rips under their none-too-gentle touch when he rubs against their cock, those calluses dragging against the hood and grazing the sensitive tip of their clit just right--it’s unfair how good he is at this, given they’ve never done this before. not the two of them, anyway. his breath hitches when the fabric rips, and before cloud can try and trace out an apology, he speaks.
fuck, that’s so hot, he practically whimpers, and wriggles again until he’s angled his naked cunt and fat clit directly at cloud’s face. please, please, please, sunshine, fuck, touch me?
they take a gentle moment to peel away the ruined fabric before they continue, but zack only keens impatiently.
he rubs their clit in that way again, the bastard, like they need the extra encouragement. they don’t, but they’re not really complaining.
he’s so big: his t-dick must be as large as their thumb, and bigger around, too. it’s dark and throbbing in the empty air, jutting out from its hood and begging for cloud to put their mouth on it. they abstain for the moment, however--there’s more to look at, more nestled in the mess of zack’s black curly pubes. they wonder if they could get him to trim it, just so they could see what’s hidden there better; as it currently stands, they have to use their fingers to tease the curls out of the way and reveal his flushed, engorged labia. they’re dripping, glistening from being coated in his slick, and his cock twitches, hole clenching around nothing when their breath ghosts over the length of his slit as they lean in to get a better look. they’ve never seen him like this before, flushed and hard and so, so wet.
hot, they trace on the top of his thigh, right at the edge of the forest of curls.
below them, he hasn’t stopped making noises, punched out little things only buried by the way his mouth moves against their thighs. he’s slid their sweats all the way off by now, although they barely notice, too lost in the sensation of his lips on their bare skin. it feels like he’s leaving marks, and even though cloud knows they’ll heal over within the hour, they wish those would last. proof he was ever here, marked on their very body. proof he’s still here, proof he’s alive and moving against them--proof that they could stare at in the mirror, long after he’s left their room and left seventh heaven and gone back to genesis’s place, proof that this even happened.
they settle for what the mako running through their veins will let them have, and buck their hips impatiently when he takes too long in pulling down their underwear.
for some reason, they’re determined not to put their mouth on his cock until his is on theirs. they wanna ride it, wanna slip their fingers into his hole and stretch him wide enough to take their biggest strap, wanna suck him off until he’s cum once, twice, three times down their throat. they wanna leash him to the bed and never let him leave again, tease that pretty cock until he cries and begs for release, make him grind against a vibrator while they play with his tits and pinch his nipples. there’s a lot they wanna do--a lot they need to do, if he lets them, if he’s okay with it. if he’s as kinky as they remember, if he wants that from them--they were a shy virgin who didn’t know jack about kink when they were a cadet, and there’s so much they’ve learned with tifa, learned with aerith for the short couple of weeks they knew her--they wonder how much he learned from aerith, back then. if the wound is still fresh for him, the way it isn’t for them anymore.
always wanted to do this, zack mumbles breathlessly when he finally pries cloud’s underwear away from their body. every time i saw you, saw how beautiful you were, i wanted to bury my head between your thighs... fuck, and now i can? never thought i would, thought i’d lost ya forever back then, that i’d just be carin’ for the catatonic shell of the only guy i ever wanted to marry for the rest of time...
cloud manages to find their voice, their unintelligible one at least.
shuddup, zack.
(unintelligible to anyone else, that is.)
i’d’ve done it too, zack continues. i’d take care of ya every day again if ya needed. if ya wanted. can’t live without ya, spike. ‘n’ now i get to worship ya the way i’ve only ever dreamt of? gods, it feels too good to be true.
zack, they whine, pinching his thigh. shut the fuck up an’ eat me out.
they don’t think they even get the words out before his lips close around their cock, like he’s just as hungry for them as they are for him, like maybe he really did mean it when he said he’s been wanting this for a long, long time. of course he meant it. he’s zack. he means every word he ever says, because it never occurs to him to do otherwise. and gods is it hard to think of anything else, anything at all really, when he’s sucking on their clit like that and teasing a finger along their slit and then he does something with his tongue that has them moaning, an obscene sound that they never make--fuck, they’re supposed to be eating him out too, they nearly forgot--
and oh, but the way he tastes when they finally pull themself together long enough to actually put their damn mouth around him! it’s sinful. it’s heavenly. it’s nothing like tifa: his cock is even bigger, it feels like, in their mouth; there’s a tinge of mako-sweetness and a headier, muskier flavor to it; they can feel the way his length twitches on their tongue in the same way barret’s cock did the couple of times they’ve fucked. his labia are shaped different, too; they tickle their nose funny when cloud shifts angles, trying to flatten their tongue to get it under the hood of zack’s clit. tifa always calls their technique sloppy. a funny critique of her to say, given that she knows damn well they don’t get much practice--nor, to be frank, do they have an experienced teacher.
sex is just... not something cloud does very much.
it’s hard to remember why, though, when zack’s finger, wet with spit, dips into their hole teasingly; barely up to the second knuckle like zack already knew that tidbit about cloud’s body. maybe he did. he knows them.
and maybe that’s what they were forgetting earlier, about why they don’t just have sex, casual or otherwise, with any real frequency: their body’s strange response to it all. their clit isn’t big enough to get visibly hard, and even when they’re aroused to the point of orgasm it never even gets firm. their hole just doesn’t get wet. they don’t ever bottom, not even anal, and they rarely really top because it only feels good when they put a lubed up vibe at the base of the strap, and really only tifa ever has the damn patience for that, and every time they try to just give somebody head in some bathroom stall they’re either left wanting in a way they can’t truly satisfy alone or their partner wants to reciprocate in a way they can’t take, because intimate touch from anyone who isn’t in their close circle feels wrong.
not like this, though. not like this heat rising molten in their core, making them try to fuck zack’s mouth at the awkward side angle he has them at on the bed. not like the way the walls of his cunt feel around their fingers, soaked and already loose enough for two of cloud’s fingers to slip in easily, prodding for his sweet spot while they explore his cock with their tongue. not like the mess dribbling down their chin that they’d normally hate but right now only mounts the flame higher. no, this is right; this is good, this is what they never really knew they’d been missing up until now--their wrist is gonna cramp from the strange angle it’s at but they don’t care; the only thing that matters is the noise zack makes into their crotch when they crook their fingers just so, a keening whine that vibrates up through his throat and into cloud’s body, leaves them gasping for air as they have to pull off for a second just to process how good that felt.
maybe it’s weird to fuck your best friend--for the first time--within hours of reuniting with him, after nearly three years of him being dead, but cloud’s never been terribly interested in being normal. they can think of no better way to celebrate his return, to prove to themself that he’s real and here and alive than to have him writhing with pleasure underneath them, than to taste him on their tongue, than to feel his heat clench around their fingers as they add a third one and wonder if they could fit their whole hand inside him before he cums. if they could do it after, if he would let them fuck him through the overstimulation while his mako-soaked body readjusts, because they know from experience just how fast a refractory period mako makes. they push their mouth as far onto him as it’ll go, trying to take his whole cock all the way down their throat even though it isn't nearly long enough for that, wondering how long they’ll have to wait until they get to feel it pulsing against their tongue as he climaxes.
the answer, as it turns out, isn’t long. he pulls away from where he’s been licking into their hole only a couple seconds later, utters out a breathless close! and then is shaking, coming undone in real time as pleasure overwhelms him--cloud feels every wave of it as he tightens and squeezes rhythmically, unconsciously, around their fingers. fuck, it’s heady--the taste, the power rush, knowing that cloud did this to him, that cloud made this happen. their own pleasure builds much more slowly--it always does--but this feeling, this sense of control, certainly quickens the process. they work him through it and then keep going, because that seems like the kind of thing he’d like; he mutters nonsense below them, kissing and biting into their thighs to muffle himself--like tifa doesn’t already know what they’re doing, like she even cares--they don’t want him to quiet himself, not when they’ve never heard these sounds from him before.
no, they tap against his thigh, and fuck he’s out of it but he still lifts his mouth and cranes his neck and fixes them with a glazed-over stare.
whuh?
be loud, they say/trace, lips and throat shaping the sounds and fingers carrying the meaning. let me hear you, they mean; remind me you’re alive, let me hear all the sounds of pleasure i never heard from you before. let me hear you.
i want to crawl into your ribcage and never leave. nestle myself around your heart, carve out a space inside you that’s mine, all mine. i can’t let you leave again, i can’t let you leave, i’ll die if you go away again after everything i’ve been through. your death broke me once. don’t let me break again. don’t break me again, please, oh gods, please, and maybe they mutter their thoughts aloud, maybe they press them into the soft, tender flesh of his cunt, maybe they write them with their tongue on his cock and the underside of its hood, maybe they simply feel with such strength that their meaning makes itself known to zack in every twitch, every shift, every breath taken against his skin.
and zack--zack knows them like no other, zack knows them, inside and out, and it doesn’t matter that they can’t whisper aloud i’m close when that molten liquid core threatens to erupt because zack knows them so well he simply intuits the signs of their body, even when those signs are wholly unfamiliar and new to him. (because they haven’t done this before, zack wouldn’t lie about that; they would know if they’d done this before. they’d know.)
he kisses so sweetly along the length of their slit, takes the nub of their clit into his mouth and suckles it while a hand finds cloud’s thigh and massages at a muscle they hadn’t even noticed was tight until now. that, more than anything, is the final spark--he’s still caring for them, he’s always cared for them. zack fair is here, holding them, knowing them in the most intimate sense they could ever think of.
tears, unbidden, spring up and pour down like summer rain as physical pleasure washes over their body in waves. emotions, too many, too powerful to name--moving like the tide, pattering across their broken, choppy surface--their left hand still buried to the knuckle in him, still three fingers deep--mako-sweet on their tongue--and the rain, the rain, the rain; and through it all the sun come shining down from a gap in the clouds. smiling up at them, pressing a palm to the front of cloud’s groin as they rock against him, break on his shore. kissing his way up the flat of their stomach and twisting himself awkwardly to do so, hardly even dislodging their hand in the process. they’re crying. they’re both crying.
fuck, zack groans a few seconds later. cloudy, please babe, move your hand.
they slide out of him with a whine--their fingers are cramping, hard, but maybe cloud’d been trying to climb up into zack and stay there, just a little bit.
(not their best idea.)
they look at him, sideways and upside-down from the angle their head’s at, and eye him quizzically.
zack doesn’t appear to have any other requests, though, from the fucked-out look in his eyes and the hoarse sound of his voice.
we finished? cloud asks, blunt and to the point as always.
(they don’t want to be. they don’t want him to ever leave. they want so much, and they’re game for it right now. if he is. gods, they hope he is.)
(they’re still crying.)
he shakes his head in a clear refusal, blurring the tear tracks on his cheeks together in a watery mess.
they want to kiss those tears off him--and oh, but wait, they can--!
they nudge his legs with their shoulder. sit up, against the headboard, they say, words that strange mix of old nibel, gongagan, and wutaian that happens when they get like this, overwhelmed and unable to fully articulate anything.
zack knows, though. zack understands. they might never get over that--it should be terrifying, to be seen the way zack sees cloud. to be known so fully, so completely. and maybe it is, but there’s a part of cloud that has never known a world without zack, and that part of cloud can’t feel anything but comforted by zack’s piercing gaze. no, comforted’s not strong enough a word: it doesn’t fully encapsulate the peace, the home, the safety of it all; the rightness as zack uncurls himself from the way he’d been strewn across the bed and scoots back against the headboard, shucking his shirt and letting his legs fall open for cloud to perch themself on his lap; the way that their bodies fit together perfectly when cloud nudges zack’s legs just so and lowers their hips to catch the tip of his clit against their entrance, lowers themself farther until the tip isn’t just catching but is entering, pushing past cloud’s folds into their hole proper, wet as both their bodies are from spit and zack’s slick everywhere. comforted has nothing on the reverence with which zack pulls off cloud’s tank top, leaving them in nothing but their socks; can’t hold a candle to the maelstrom of emotions raging in cloud’s heart when those same hands carelessly fling zack’s bra off into some unseen corner of the room. comforted doesn’t even begin to describe the gasp that leaves zack at the sensation, nor the feeling that gasp elicits in cloud’s own chest--something so full-bodied and heavy it’s almost sickening, threatening to overwhelm them in its sincerity. something they haven’t felt in a very long time.
zack’s arms wrap tight around them. he draws them in, blunted nails scraping along their back; in turn, cloud’s hands wander his chest, finding swollen and perky nipples ripe for teasing. cloud can hardly believe they’re here, bared skin flush against each other, their hips grinding down onto his cock inside them. there’s barely enough space between them to play with his tits--they leave one hand there for the moment and slide the other up to cup the back of zack’s head, tangling their fingers in his black spikes as they kiss him deeply.
they roll their hips just so--he moans, opening his mouth into the kiss, and they take the opportunity to slot their tongue in and lick at his teeth. the canines are sharp. it’s hot. their tongues meet in zack’s mouth, twirling around each other--he melts under the attention, and cloud can almost see the tail he doesn’t have start to wag thoughtlessly. he isn’t still beneath them--far from it, rather. it seems the less he thinks, the farther he slips into subspace, the more erratic his movements grow, the more wild abandon to the bucking of his hips as he fucks up into cloud. like riding a nibel wolf--wild, untamed, but if you can just get a good enough grip on their coarse grey fur and hold on--
cloud always did have a special kinship with the wolves of the nibel forests.
mine, they breathe into his mouth, grasp on his hair tightening.
they say mine, but they mean i love you. they mean i was lost without you. they mean finally, i’ve come home.
and when he breathes back, tilts his neck up and bares that most vulnerable part of himself, inviting them to move their other hand there, they don’t even hesitate.
yours, he tells them. yours, yours, yours. always yours.
----
tifa finds them later, comes in the room without knocking late that evening. she let them sleep in--cloud slept nearly fifteen hours, curled up in zack’s protective embrace, and in the daytime no less. that’s gotta be some kind of new record for them.
cloud awakes to the slight creak of the hinges. tifa doesn’t seem to notice, though, or so cloud thinks. they plan on pretending to be asleep for as long as possible, basking in the safety they feel in zack’s encircled arms.
she presses a kiss to their forehead, leaning oddly over zack’s sleeping form to do it.
dinner’s your mom’s stew recipe, she whispers into cloud’s ear. (there goes pretending to be asleep.)
it’s in the fridge. i love you.
love you too, they mumble, because it’s true, and there’s no point in continuing the ruse when they’ve already been found out.
thank you, zack, tifa says to the other occupant of cloud’s bed. thank you for taking care of them.
...thank you, cloud adds to tifa.
she hums noncommittally, pressing another kiss to them, to their lips this time. her fingers slip into theirs and clutch tightly.
don’t go, cloud asks, voice barely audible in the quiet night air.
she sits on the edge of the bed.
don’t worry. we’re not going anywhere.