Chapter Text
If there’s one familiarity in Cloud’s life, it’s this: he knows this place.
He’s sunk into these depths before. It’s a place where his limbs are snared in wet sand and the air’s as dense as water, too thick to draw breath. He should’ve known it was inevitable, ending up in this state—where his every interest and waking desire dulls into flat stone, and time both slows to a crawl and hurtles past him in fleeting glimpses of clarity.
He’s been here before, and yet this is nothing like he’s ever experienced.
The first few days were borderline unbearable. He’d chosen to confine himself to his bed, his body wracked with searing chills, but the canopy of his blankets became too sweltering to be anything less than a stifling cage. Even the barest of light from his small bedside lamp splintered through his skull in throbbing waves—a migraine with a singular remedy. And that is to say nothing of the deep-set aches that gripped his muscles and joints, unrelenting in how they clamored, blatant, for the touch of someone unreachable.
Someone who had so plainly regretted having anything to do with him.
He thinks there might’ve been a point when he’d felt something resembling a loose heat. Wetness trickled down his thighs at irregular intervals, sticking to his sheets in unwanted rivulets, and the hardness between his legs dug uncomfortably into his inflexible mattress at even the passing remembrance of the alpha only a few doors down the hall.
But he could hardly stomach it—the thought of reaching down, touching himself and feeling an ounce of relief, when he knew Zack was most likely suffering tenfold. Isolated in the midst of a rut, because of Cloud’s own reckless impulses.
Now, as Cloud lies prone on his gnarled mass of cotton sheets, the only feeling that remains is guilt. The anger he’d held onto after leaving Zack had dissipated, fell away like the silt of burnt paper in his hands, because Zack wasn’t at fault for their fallout—not in the way that really mattered. If Cloud was to pick apart the rubble of that god-awful morning, it was the hope he’d allowed to burgeon like overgrown weeds, unfettered, dangerous, that made the bite of Zack’s refusal that much more cutting.
If only he were stricter. If he'd smothered his feelings into cinder and ash like he’d always done, like he’d always meant to, then maybe he could’ve accepted that rejection with the grace and understanding of the kind of friend Zack deserved.
He knows this objectively, but he also knows it could never be that simple. Not when Zack continues to be an endless well of warmth, of acceptance, so unlike anyone else Cloud has ever met.
Because he’s also starting to realize—maybe Zack was right about him.
He remembers anguishing in parallel misery, slumped over on the twill couch of his childhood, observing in utter disbelief as his mom hovered around him in their Nibelheim home with a heavy, anxious energy. His withdrawals were much milder then; though his body had craved for Tifa to be near, he’d only thought of her when he found the energy to swipe away all of her worried texts and missed calls, hating himself for it all the while.
The only thing Cloud could seem to do for weeks was waste away in the wake of his father leaving—listen as his mom had mourned, devastated, in the privacy of her bedroom, and watch as that grief mutated into something entirely different.
He noticed, rueful, as she painted over her heartbreak with the veneer of a smile, offering to make him his favorite Nibel stews despite the muggy heat of summer. He scoffed, reproving, as she ditched her plans with her closest friends yet again, passing another listless night in with him where they’d do nothing but watch a movie together in dreary silence.
Cloud thought he had grasped it—the weight of her picking up excessive nursing shifts at the hospital, of her selling her small collection of family heirlooms, all so that Cloud could have a chance at a new life in Midgar.
All so that Cloud could feel less like shattered glass.
All so that the two of them could resemble something whole.
At the time, he didn’t think he deserved it, and still doesn’t in truth. How could he, when it was his own inadequacies, his failure to manifest his father’s deepest wishes for a son, that forced his mom to pick up the pieces of a life she had only partially built. But he, at the very least, now understands it.
That staunch sense of self-sacrifice, that overwhelming urge to make sure the people he loves never endure sadness or hardship or loss, is all he’s ever known.
Regardless of what had transpired between them, if Zack decides to show up in front of his door and confess he wants something from him at this very moment, Cloud won’t think twice—he’ll forgo his shame and his pride to be there for him in any way Zack needs him to be. It was this exact tendency that Zack had recognized in him, had seemed so wary of, when this whole mess had begun in the first place.
Zack had seen this behavior in him, and then became intent to poke holes into it until Cloud had no choice but to spill everything he had to offer him at his feet.
Cloud’s aware that it’s pitiful—wanting to feel like he has a small crumb of worth in Zack’s life. Something to give him beyond sarcasm and reserve and the occasional witty remark.
But Zack had decided that it wasn’t enough for him, and that was that.
That was that, and Cloud will keep burying what he can until it decays back into dead soil, never to be seen again.
“Everything’s fine,” Cloud grumbles to himself as he shoves the heel of his foot into his boot, tightening its laces. “I’ve got this.”
When he drew back the curtains over his westward windows earlier that afternoon, a lance of bright sun uncovered something unsightly—his unmade bed, a sink full of unwashed dishes, and a leaning pile of recycling in dire need of being taken down to the curb.
For the first time in a little more than a week, a murky veil has been lifted from his eyes. The sluggishness in his limbs remains a stubborn burden, but even the pothos plant on his kitchen table looks reawakened, its heart-shaped leaves sprawling and unfolding in daylight’s tender heat. Somehow Cloud, a self-proclaimed homebody, feels partial to the prospect of a little fresh air and warmth on his skin.
Not to mention, his heat leave has been extended well past its typical limits. No matter how much Tifa reassures him otherwise, he doesn’t want to exploit her kindness for much longer—at some point, he’ll need to shake off whatever this is and stand on two steady feet.
Squaring his shoulders, Cloud faces his front door with a firm set to his jaw, his posture resolute. Today, he thinks, will be the day he takes two steps forward.
Small steps. Manageable steps.
And perhaps tomorrow, in the light of a new day, he can work himself up to checking the disaster that will be his phone notifications.
Brass door knob clasped in his hand, he taps open his front door open with the press of his shoulder. The air is devoid of the typical midday bustling from his neighbors, and he breathes out a small exhale, slackening his shoulders in relief.
But before his foot can take a single step outside, the click of another door opening echoes from the far end of the hallway, and a loud, even stride follows in its wake. Cloud is rendered motionless, gobsmacked, before he darts back into his apartment, slamming his door closed. The thud of it rings in his apartment like the strike of a gong, much louder than intended.
Terribly distinct footsteps slow to a snail’s pace in front of Cloud’s unit, scuffing over his coarse doormat for a drawn-out moment. A deep sigh can be heard through his door, and then those same steps continue onward, shuffling toward the adjacent elevator. Horror-stricken, Cloud rests his forehead against flecked wood, murrmuring a quiet, “f*ck me.”
There’s absolutely no way that Zack didn’t hear him.
Sighing, he knows—he’s not quite ready for fresh air just yet.
“Hey there, angel face.”
Cloud doesn’t bother looking up from the clump of soaked tea leaves that strain out of clear liquor, his chin tucked in the palm of his hand. The handful of days since his return to Seventh Heaven have been tedious at best, tasks assigned to him few and far between. The majority of the bar’s staff have been oddly mindful in how they approach him, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Tifa has had a hand in it, the alpha cautious in easing him back into work.
And if that’s not the case, asking him to develop tea-infused co*cktails at a dive bar of all places could be a legitimate cause of concern.
“Can’t this wait until after five, Essai?” Cloud drawls, resenting the snort he recognizes from Biggs over his shoulder.
“Your shift will be done by then,” the stocky beta notes from his place opposite Cloud, his elbow a confident crutch where it sits on the counter. “I know this game, gorgeous.”
“Don’t call me that,” Cloud scowls as he bats the tea strainer against the side of a mason jar. The nip of the bar’s central air isn’t enough to cool the scalding burn of hearing that particular pet name without even a hint of warning. “And if you’re so informed, then you already know how this goes.”
“You’re so snippy today. I like it.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Ah, I see. Off day, I take it? You kinda smell weird, too. It’s a real shame.”
Cloud then rubs at the coarse fabric of the scent patch planted trimly on the side of his neck. It feels like the closest thing to armor—an extra layer of protection that guards him from the patchwork of smells in the bar and its patrons.
A safeguard that prevents him from betraying too much of what he still keeps close to his chest, wounded and small.
“Maybe I just don’t feel like entertaining commentary about myself today.”
Essai then aims an annoyed grunt toward a newcomer that sidles up to the bar, a reluctance in the stranger’s steps. “Woah, buddy. The bartender’s mine right now.”
A familiar tenor carves through the easy calm like hot metal cutting through butter. “Is that so? Kinda sounds like he wants nothing to do with you.”
“You just don’t get him,” Essai says, arrogant as he takes a sip from his nearly empty co*cktail glass.
“That’s not your place to decide that, now is it?” Zack retorts easily, but he refrains from looking in Cloud’s direction—a blessing considering Cloud can barely comprehend anything beyond the storm of adrenaline that roars into his ears and under his skin, an unshakeable flood, strangling all of the air out of his chest.
“And it’s yours?”
“Obviously not,” Zack chews out, his tone thorny and begrudging, far from his usual affect.
“Essai,” Cloud scolds with a small, sharp shake of his head. “Get lost for a bit, would you?”
“Fine,” Essai grumbles with a slap to the countertop, leveling two fingers at his eyes and pointing them in front of Zack’s face, as threatening as a shrill dog.
When Cloud lifts his head, finally lets himself take Zack in with greedy flicks of his eyes, he can’t help but think there’s a sallowness to him—a dullness to his characteristic bronzed luster, his radiant blue eyes somehow dim and faded. It’s more than a little strange how, although objectively the same, Zack’s face almost appears smeared in shadow. His cheeks are clean shaven but sunken, and his jet black hair droops weakly over his forehead.
“Zack,” Cloud says, the name uttered like a question. Or, as his mind supplies, a plea. “What are you doing here?”
“Cloud,” Zack murmurs gingerly, and even the twist of his mouth looks regretful. Cloud almost can’t believe that the two of them have been whittled down to this, to discomfort and guilt and avoidance. The thought of it throttles his airways in an unforgiving vise. “I don’t mean to bother, but I’m here to see Tifa. Have some samples for her to try. We arranged for this at her party, actually. Before…”
Before everything went to sh*t.
Cloud bites at his inner cheek sourly. “Right.”
Zack’s head is slightly bowed, his gaze peeking around Cloud’s frame, shifting, as though staring at him head-on is some gargantuan task. “I don’t know what your day looks like, but if you have a second, are you… maybe free to talk later?”
The sound of metal and glass grinding against one another reaches Cloud’s ears, and a glance down helps him realize just how tightly his right hand squeezes at the jar clutched in his palm, its lid chafing against calloused skin. He sets the jar down without flourish, but keeps it within his grasp as a sort of grounding weight.
“That’s not necessary, Zack.”
Zack’s eyebrows are drawn, wrinkled together, as if he’s bracing for the floor to begin collapsing underneath him. “What’s not necessary?”
An insistent hand then lands on Cloud’s shoulder, and he swivels his head to see Biggs standing at his heels. “Cloud, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Cloud scoffs, curbing the reflex to brush off the touch with a shrug of his shoulder.
Biggs dips his head a little closer, whispering into the curve of his ear, “Do you want me to handle this?”
“Give us a second, Zack,” Cloud mumbles before gripping at Biggs’s arm and pulling him to a removed area of the back bar, if only for a minute to gather his bearings. “Look, I know you’re trying to be a good friend right now, but this isn’t the way.”
“Are you sure? You were gone for almost two weeks.” Biggs says as his warm palm presses against the skin of Cloud’s forehead, his russet eyes piercing into Cloud’s own. “Are you feeling dizzy? Aches? Chills? I can tell him to get lost.”
“Seriously, cool it.” Cloud grouses, not hesitating to bat the hand away with a half-hearted huff. A thought then pushes to the forefront of his mind, and as Biggs moves to walk past him, Cloud’s arm darts out to wrest at his elbow.
“Now there’s something I can do for you?”
“You’re so annoying,” Cloud mutters, his eyes threatening to roll upward as he shakes off the contact. “Can you go grab Tifa for me?”
With sagging shoulders, Cloud then retreats back to his former position at the bar, but not before Biggs can mockingly bellow, “Sure thing, angel face.”
“Jackass,” Cloud carps under his breath before returning within reach of Zack, his spine a rigid steel beam under the questioning sapphire of the other’s stare. Past the tightening line of his jaw, Zack’s expression is almost inscrutable as he waits, still and stiff. “Tifa’s on her way.”
“What was that?”
“What do you mean?”
Eyes fixed on the wooden countertop, Zack asks with a sullen edge, “Since when were you and Biggs like… that?”
Cloud’s nails begin digging crescents into his palm. “Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know. There’s something going on between you.”
Cloud feels lightheaded at the question, like his head has been pumped full of dizzying air, the fringes of his vision beginning to warp and swim. He’s unsure what’s thrown him more off balance—Zack’s accusing lilt, or the ridiculousness of the implication.
“Something between—are you serious right now?” Cloud rasps, swallowing down the sharp laugh that bubbles up corrosively from the pit of his stomach. “Are your hormones still screwing with your head?”
“What? Of course not.” Zack shoots back, defensive, his shoulders deflating into himself. He looks distressingly genuine, the defeated buckling of his expression, but it only fuels the confused anger that flares behind Cloud’s eyes.
“Well, you’re the one who made it pretty clear that you didn’t want this to be your business.”
A confused breath rushes out of Zack in a sluice of an exhale. “Cloud, you’re so wrong, it’s crazy.”
“Is everything okay here?” Tifa interjects from a few feet away as she approaches Cloud’s side, worry etched into her tense, muscled shoulders.
“Fantastic.” Cloud says, avoiding the eyes he knows still peer at him miserably from over the countertop. “Your three o’ clock, Tif.”
A heavy swinging door creaks behind Cloud, its hinges corroded with its usual rust. Believing Tifa might’ve followed him into the bar’s compact kitchen, Cloud whips around on his heels, rubbing over his eyes roughly.
“It’s fine, Tifa. Just do whatever you need to do.”
“Do what?” The low, confused timbre of Zack’s voice wrenches at Cloud’s most basic instinct to flee to the safety of solitude. Instead, he startles, grasping the counter in a watertight hold.
“You can’t be back here, Zack.”
“Tifa told me that I could. Just for a second.” Zack says as he takes a few careful steps forward, his gaze guarded. Even in his weary state, he looks imposing in such a small, overbright room—too sculpted and statuesque to exist here, where Cloud washes dishes and scrubs filthy floors and wallows in exhaustion. “I wanted you to know you’re right.”
A bitter taste behind his teeth, Cloud doesn’t think there’s a single thing he’d said earlier that he’d wanted to be right about. “Nesting hormones still messing with you?”
“That’s not it. You’re right—what happens between you and Biggs isn’t my business. I shouldn’t have asked you that.”
Cloud frowns as a mass in his gut plummets, low and poisonous. “Is that all you wanted to say to me?”
Zack’s eyebrows are furrowed, his mouth ironed into a tight, muted line, when he asks, “Was there something else you wanted me to say?”
“No,” Cloud murmurs with a dismissive jerk of his head. He releases his grip on the counter, but feels the indents of where it bore into his skin. “There’s nothing.”
“I’m gonna be honest, Cloud,” Tifa drones from where she’s sprawled on Aerith’s sage green couch, her head lolling over on its velvet, pleated arms. “Watching ‘Her Dark Whispers’ does not sound like a fun time right now.”
Cloud is equally as outstretched on the floor, his head settled on a crocheted flower pillow and his legs propped up on a strip of vacant couch cushion. Immersed in the relaxed spin of the ceiling fan, he feels dazed, albeit slightly too warm—courtesy of Aerith’s small plastic bag of citrus gummy edibles. Stashed in her coffee table, they’re especially useful on days like today when they all need more than a little help unwinding.
“You said it was my turn to pick the movie,” Cloud hums, a little too pleased by the subtle bloom of light that seems to blanket every nook and cranny of Aerith’s living room. “Heard this one isn’t even that scary, anyway. Does some weird sh*t with the multiverse.”
Tifa makes a garbled noise of protest, remarking, “Even more of a reason not to watch it.”
A long, pink skirt dusting at her heels, Aerith wanders into the room with a plate balanced in hand. “Are you wearing a scent patch, Cloud? There’s something off about you.”
Cloud smothers the side of his face against textured stitching, sighing, “Sure am.”
“You’re reminding me a bit of plastic wrap right now,” Aerith notes, lips pursed into a miffed grimace, as she slides what Cloud can now see is a stack of brownies in front of them. “You usually smell so lovely, too. Like a crisp spring day in the mountains. What a loss.”
“If you want, I can bottle it up for you. For a price, of course.” Cloud tilts his head up a shade, watching with lidded eyes as Aerith’s expression thaws at the sight of Tifa’s eager affection. In an odd way, he’s lucky to witness it: Tifa sitting up, reaching out toward Aerith with her hands outstretched. Aerith giggling as she topples over backwards onto the couch, looping her arms around Tifa’s shoulders to rearrange her in whatever way she pleases.
His two best friends in love. Loving each other in a way he’s never seen before.
“No thank you. I’ll take the real thing,” Aerith mumbles as she peers down at Tifa, enchanted, her hands coursing through the black locks that now pool like fine silken thread over her lap.
“Want to know what else is a bummer?” Cloud divulges, blinking up laggardly at the ceiling. “I haven’t gone down to my mail room in weeks. Who knows—I could’ve been summoned for jury duty and screwed myself.”
“What’s up with your mail room?”
“I almost keep running into… people.”
A loud, sprightly laugh breaks from Aerith’s lips until she douses it with the press of her fingertips to her mouth. “I’m—I don’t mean to laugh.”
“No, no. Go ahead. I’m ridiculous,” Cloud says alongside a wry smile.
Tifa then slants a look at him that seesaws between concerned and accusing. “You’re still avoiding him? I thought you two talked at the bar the other day.”
“Talking is a bit of a stretch. I was a complete asshole,” Cloud complains, and it takes a few breaths before he notices his rare babbling. Head melting further back into his pillow, he groans, “I don’t mean to keep bringing it up.”
“Cloud, it’s okay. Keep talking about it if that’s what you need.”
“I’m not really sure what to say,” Cloud groans as he bends his knees closer to his chest, rolling defiantly onto his side. “He was pissed about Biggs.”
“What about Biggs?” Aerith asks from where she kneads gentle circles into Tifa’s scalp.
“It was weird. He asked me whether… there was something going on between us.”
“Doesn’t sound that weird.” Aerith snorts into a lock of black hair she has twined around her hands. “Sounds like he was jealous.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Cloud croaks past his scratchy, parched mouth. “Maybe?”
Aerith sighs, and smiles, and tilts her head in that funny little way she often tends to do when speaking to a young child. “You don’t think that maybe there’s a small possibility that he wants to fix things? That he might also be aching to work things out with you?”
“I just think it could be like a post-nesting symptom or something,” Cloud says, flopping over onto the flat of his back and finding another flower pillow to squeeze into his chest. The texture of woven yarn under his palms is almost meditative as he drags his hands over it, letting himself fully sink into the thoughts he’s been avoiding. “I mean, it took me a little while to… get him out of my system.”
“It’s been almost a month, Cloud.”
“Well, you guys weren’t there.” Cloud sighs heavily, observing the rugged texture of Aerith’s ceiling. “I was so… harsh. I’ve never seen him look like that before.“
“Emotions can run pretty high during ruts. I’m sure you aren’t the only one who regrets how things went down.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t change that I f*cking suck at—” Cloud flutters his hand around him in vague circles. “—this.”
Tifa then sits up on tufted velvet, her eyes taking on a pensive edge from where they regard Cloud. “You know, when you opened up to me a few weeks back—it really helped me come to terms with a lot. We’d always talked about ditching Nibelheim, but when we finally decided to, it felt… really sudden. I couldn’t tell if it was because something happened with your parents, or if maybe I was the one responsible for… ruining things at home for you. I didn’t realize how much I needed closure around why we left.”
Expression bare, Cloud shifts to peer at her, his mouth slightly agape. “I had no idea.”
“Well, because I can f*cking suck at this, too. But I’d like to think I’m getting better at it. And you might not believe it, but you are too, Cloud.”
“I’m… trying.”
“There’s no rulebook on sharing how you feel, silly. Just trust your gut and be honest. That’s all you can really do.” Aerith then perks up, the light behind her eyes reinvigorated. “You know what else might help? I’ll never forget—after one of our first fights, Tifa forgave me because I got a pair of boxing gloves tattooed on my hip. In her honor, obviously.”
Tongue digging into his cheek, Cloud teeters to a sitting position and swipes at a brownie. “You think I should get a sketch of Zack’s car tattooed on my ass?”
“Honestly? If you’re not opposed, I know this super cool tattoo artist who’ll draft it into a sketch for you if—”
“Stop that thought right there, Aerith,” Cloud says, the brownie beginning to crumble in his hand from the strength of his grip. With Aerith, there’s no doubt in his mind—give her an inch and she’ll take a mile.
“Are you sure? I’m confident that Zack’d be so into it. I mean he loves his car, right?”
“Let’s table that, maybe,” Cloud says as he takes a hurried bite of brownie, not sure why he’s surprised by the way it melts sweetly on his tongue. “Just—baby steps first.”
Accompanied by the far-off rush of early evening traffic, there’s an odd sense of isolation in Seventh Heaven’s vacant parking lot. The rough drag of Cloud’s boots against concrete is grating in his ears as he trudges, unhurried, toward the bike tucked behind the bar’s clay brick.
His steps carry equal parts relief and dread, because as much as he wishes the idea of going home was an attractive one, he’s aware of what awaits him there. He’ll have to scrounge up the energy to rustle up something for dinner, and he’ll probably forget to eat it until it’s sapped of its heat. He’ll crumple into his bed just to scroll through his phone, confronted once again with a silence that nags at him, blaring. He’ll ruminate on the fact that nothing will change unless he finally musters up the courage to do something about—
“Zack?” Cloud utters, caught on his sharp intake of breath. He can’t believe they almost escaped his notice—the glossy black of Zack’s car seated in the far corner and the tall alpha perched on its sleek surface. “What are you doing here?”
Zack fidgets on the hood of his car, twisting his legs so that he can face Cloud. “I’m not trying to bug you at work or anything. I’m meeting with Tifa again. I can… get out of here for a bit if you want.”
“It’s fine,” Cloud lets slip, the force behind the words a little too honest. Clearing his throat, he asks, “Are you… okay?”
For a lengthy few seconds, Zack stares down at his feet, crestfallen, his face a mirror of how he’d looked at the bar not long ago. It’s long enough that thoughts begin spooling together in Cloud’s mind, melding and weaving until all he can think about is how an argument set ablaze from the heat of the moment should’ve never amounted to this.
Especially not on account of him.
“Not really. Are you?”
Cloud points wordlessly at the open patch of car next to the other’s thigh, and Zack nods his head, a baffled breath leaving him when Cloud chooses to sit beside him. “Things have been pretty sh*t for me, too.”
“I’ve been meaning to reach out to you,” Zack mutters, and from the edges of Cloud’s vision, he can see the other focus a heavy, searing look on the side of his face. “I just wasn’t sure it was okay.”
A car horn drones in the distance, and it tugs at the realization winding around Cloud’s bones—that he’d done more than his fair share of piling onto their tension unduly.
“I definitely haven’t made it easy for you.”
“Yeah, but it’s deserved.”
Cloud raises a hand to offer a light flick to the skin of Zack’s upper arm, insisting, “No, it’s not.”
“Is there something going on?” Zack asks with a disbelieving glance at Cloud, his eyebrows furrowed nervously.
“Are you doing anything later?” Cloud chances in lieu of responding, the gravel under his shoes dragging with the movement of his feet until he settles them close to Zack’s, their knees grazing against one another. “After your plans at the bar.”
“Me? Uh, I don’t have any plans,” Zack stammers, his eyes so stricken they verge on crossing. “Do you? Have plans?”
“No plans,” Cloud admits, one side of his mouth lifting in hopeful question. “Meet you at our table?”
“Oh, it’s you two,” Yuffie says, the corner of her mouth crooked into a smirk as she slips a brittle pencil out from behind her ear. She paints a time-honored picture, her oversized white apron smudged with red fingered stains and brimming with crumpled order stubs. As always, she beams at them as a large kitchen door pops open behind her, the zest of tomato sauce and baked dough palpable in the air. “It’s been way too long. Here to pay the tips you owe me?”
“You mean the tips we leave behind for you every time?” Zack greets, his smile a much weaker reflection of her own. “Nice to see you, kiddo.”
“Wait, hold on,” Yuffie says, her nose wrinkled in visible judgment. “Did something happen? The vibes between you guys are atrocious.”
“We’ve barely even said anything to you,” Cloud bristles as he prods two thick, plastic menus at the hand wielding her tattered notepad. “We’ll have the usual, by the way.”
“Things definitely don’t seem usual…” Yuffie says, tapping the end of the pencil against her temple in suspicion. Her eyes dart back and forth between them, narrowing at the image of Zack sitting ramrod straight, inches away from the arch of his wooden chair. She then claps her hands together, self-satisfied as though she’d discovered the solution to a complex riddle. “Oh, I get what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing to get!” Cloud complains, scoffing as Yuffie hustles back into the kitchen, her fingers outstretched in a peace sign.
Now alone, Cloud blinks at the solid black pendant light that shines overhead, casting over the two of them dramatically—the table now their own pitiful island, removed from the rest of the world.
“I lied earlier,” Zack spills out in a rush, sobering, his tone a sharp contrast to the Italian pop singer crooning from the jukebox.
Cloud wets over his lips measuredly. “About what?”
“About only coming to see Tifa. I thought… maybe I could catch you.”
“You did?”
“I know it’s not cool to just show up unannounced like that, but I couldn’t sit around any longer,” Zack breathes out, slumping into the elbows he places on the table. His fraught hands dishevel his slicked back locks until they dangle in his face, wilted. “Either way, I can’t seem to stop f*cking up around you.”
One finger scratching shapeless forms into his cold water glass, Cloud admits, “You didn’t f*ck up, Zack.”
“But, the other day at the bar. And then… before my rut—”
“I’m the one who f*cked up.”
Zack falters, unwinding from where he’d previously folded in on himself. “You?”
“Yeah, me. I’ve been thinking and—the way I reacted was really unfair. When you showed up at the bar, and… that day at your apartment,” Cloud insists, his tone thick with regret. It curdles in his throat, mooring his words in viscous sludge, but he barrels through it by sheer force of will. “You shouldn’t feel bad for refusing my help. I get it.”
“I don’t think it was unfair. I wasn’t listening to you, and I basically steamrolled over everything you were saying.”
“Maybe, but what I was saying was all bullsh*t—”
“Don’t say that. Nothing you say is ever bullsh*t.” Zack is leaning forward now, his hands screwed into fists and held in front of him. Even his expression is so crushingly sincere that Cloud can only duck his head, training his eyes on the plastic shine of the red-checkered tablecloth. “I was panicking. I thought things were ruined between us… because of me.”
“Nothing is ruined. You weren’t thinking straight. I was the one who overreacted.”
“You thought I was implying that you’re a pushover,” Zack says, the register of his voice tempering into one of quiet apology. “I don’t think that, by the way. It’s never even crossed my mind. You could kick my ass right now and I’d thank you for it.”
Cloud muffles a laugh into his wrist, and he knows he should be more alarmed by the obscene fluttering between his ribs. Instead, he lets the feeling persist, as comforting as the ripple of warm sea water at his heels. “I can still do that if you want?”
“One large meat lover’s pizza with extra spicy pepperoni,” Yuffie interrupts in a lazy drawl as she sets down their order on a flimsy metal stand. Her hands are slow and precise as they arrange it in place, taking unneeded time to straighten out the greasy parchment paper under her palms. She then moves on to the condiments, painstakingly organizing them in order of size and shape at the edge of the table.
“Scared the sh*t outta me, kiddo. But thanks,” Zack chirps, already eyeing the pie with renewed excitement.
Cloud squints over at Yuffie, snatching the tin of red chili flakes before she can take it in hand. “We appreciate you, but you can beat it now. I can see what you’re doing.”
“You and your wild accusations, Cloud,” she huffs, bracing her hands over her hips. She then pivots in place and wanders away, her grumbling tapering off until it disappears behind the kitchen door. Biting away a laugh, Cloud splits their order into two neat pizza slices and slides them onto their respective plates.
Embedded into his muscle memory, Cloud then begins their small, unsaid ritual. He picks at his lone slice, plucking out the bits that usually set his tongue alight and placing them on Zack’s plate. Zack’s smile grows with each one, and it’s imbued with something beyond his typical, winning charm—something content and light, found only in a heady summer breeze.
“Merry Christmas,” Cloud says as he heaps his last spicy pepperoni onto Zack’s toppling stack.
“Are we celebrating early this year?” Zack laughs, popping a small piece of one into his mouth. He then folds his arms out in front of him, hands grappling over the skin of his wrists. “Listen to me, Cloud.”
“Yeah?” Cloud asks amid a held breath.
“You’re not just anyone. You’re… important to me. You… you—” Zack forces through a helpless exhale until his whole body caves back into his chair. “You’re my best friend.”
It’s bittersweet, Cloud thinks, but he’s capable of readjusting to this—with Zack once again at arm’s length, but at least in range where Cloud can remain secure in his glowing orbit.
“Same here,” Cloud mutters as his eyes spring back and forth between Zack and the coiling twist of steam from his plate. “Being your nesting buddy wasn’t my best idea, was it?”
Zack flickers his gaze downward, his eyelashes so low they create long shadows on his cheeks. “I’m sure I made you all kinds of uncomfortable with the nicknames. And all of the physical stuff.”
“I wouldn’t say that. The names weren’t all bad.”
“Really?” Zack’s smile is small, unshielded in a way that hooks into the soft tissue of Cloud’s chest and pulls. “Did you… have a favorite?”
“Shut up. I know where you live,” Cloud laments around a large bite of bread and cheese, but his expression softens, melts, at the low cackle that Zack lets slip. “Maybe we can put this whole mess behind us?”
“Whatever it takes, Spike. If that’s what you want.”
And it isn’t what Cloud wants, but he still heaves on a smile and prays it doesn’t waver around the edges.
“It is.”
For as much as they’ve cleared the air, interacting with Zack continues to be a paralyzing prospect.
“Spike, hold the doors!”
The peal of Zack’s voice chimes from down the hall, drawing closer, and Cloud hurls out an arm to keep the elevator doors from closing. Panting and a little breathless, Zack shuffles past him, settling close enough for their elbows to touch, and suddenly the space feels imprisoning.
Far too confined for two people with a void as wide as canyons between them.
“Long time no see,” Zack says, and Cloud only catches a glimpse of the other’s smile, hapless and warped in the reflection of stainless steel doors. It‘s a reality that chews through him—that this is his first real look at the other since they’d shared spicy pepperoni slices a few weeks prior. Knocking on Zack’s door once used to be as intrinsic as his muscles expanding and contracting, and now those habits remain untouched like an abandoned novel tucked away in weather-beaten cardboard.
And he can blame no one but himself.
He can’t help that when he sees that span of hallway leading to Zack’s apartment, his legs seize up as though snagged in tangled netting. Or that, when he sees Zack pop up on his phone, texting him about the newest item on Cid’s menu for them to try, his immediate response is to freeze up and avoid it.
“Zack. Um, hey. Yeah, it’s been a while.”
Zack turns to face him, rolling his shoulders back and inhaling as if to respond, until he notices the bulky stack of envelopes nestled under Cloud’s elbow. “Wow, junk mailers around the world must love you.”
Cloud’s mouth falls open a little in surprise, paper wrinkling as he jostles the heap of mail under his arm. “Half of it is yours, actually. I’m still getting your mail.”
“Still? Man, I’m starting to wonder if the people in our building are doing it on purpose.” Zack says with a sheepish hand rifling through the back of his hair, the gesture both jarringly familiar and achingly foreign. “Did I get anything important?”
“Not sure. I thought about opening some, but then I decided that committing federal crimes isn’t really my thing.”
“You’re kidding me, Spike. I thought we were past the committing federal crimes stage of our friendship.”
“Not on weekdays,” Cloud says through a small noise that hovers somewhere between a huff and a soft laugh. “Ask me on the weekend and then maybe you’ll get a different answer.”
“You can keep them if you want. I know they’re in safe hands.”
“Absolutely not,” Cloud grumbles as he pushes half of the stack against Zack’s solid abdomen, snorting at Zack’s dramatic attempt at a fake, injured cry. “You deal with your own trash.”
Mechanisms click and unlock out of place as the elevator doors slide open, and the two of them begin the trek back to their respective units—a relaxed amble that, for the first time in ages, makes Cloud wonder what had him so fearful in the first place.
Zack did always have a way of disarming him.
“Have you been alright, Spike?” Zack asks as his stride shortens to match Cloud’s slower speed, their shoulders brushing at steady, easy intervals.
“I guess. Tifa keeps pushing me to learn techniques from fancier co*cktail bars. I drew the line at smoking a glass the other day.”
“You did always strike me as a person who’d be committed to the craft.”
Cloud scoffs, watching as he places one foot in front of the other, his steps as lax as he can manage. “Would you want a smoked co*cktail at a place that serves whiskey sours from the well?”
“If it was from you,” Zack murmurs, and Cloud’s breath catches as their fingers snag on one another fleetingly before once again separating.
Once reaching the brass sheen of the “5C” of his apartment door, Cloud subdues a resigned sigh, risking a parting look to his left. Zack’s profile catches the swathe of light from the far window, and for a moment, it feels almost blasphemous that Cloud’s attention could be focused elsewhere. His eyes roam over its sharp valleys and soft contours, reeled in like the ocean to the moon’s incessant pull.
Straight teeth chewing on his lower lip, Zack then turns towards him, his own focus flickering between Cloud’s face and a curious spot underneath his jaw.
“You’ve been wearing scent patches.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cloud obscures the side of his neck with the clutch of his hand, his volume dropping to a truth-telling murmur. “I kind of hate them. They make me feel exhausted.”
“Then why are you wearing them?”
“I just felt like I was… bumming people out.”
“With your scent?”
Cloud swallows roughly—hopes he’s not giving too much away. “Yeah.”
“Don’t understand how that could ever bum anyone out,” Zack laughs, always so earnest, before lifting a curious hand in the direction of his neck. As if to touch. “Is it okay if I…”
Cloud nods his head in affirmation, his mouth iced over at the prospect. He remains still, moon-eyed, as Zack lifts a hand and places it near the patch’s fraying plastic—shivers when Zack finds sensitive nerves and brushes over them with indulgent strokes of his thumb.
“Can’t believe I almost forgot how… renewed I feel when I’m with you.”
“Renewed?” Cloud scrapes out past the swell of his pulse in his throat.
“Yeah, like taking that first breath out in nature after being stuck in the city,” Zack says around a rapt smile, his hand still drawing slow, sweet circles into what’s becoming more gooseflesh than skin. Tingles flit back and forth over the back of Cloud’s neck, fizzling up into the roots of his hair and down into his scalp, until his every vein stirs with burning static. “I used to think that it had a lot to do with your scent. Guess it’s just being around you.”
“I don’t…” Cloud falters, stumped by the sight of thunderstruck blue eyes and a softened smile. He knows this expression, has seen it more than a few times directed at him, varnished in all of the colors of early morning and dusk and twilight, and yet he thought it was a look exclusive to then.
That week that now exists only when he lets it. A strange, addictive dream he once had.
“I’ve gotta get going,” Zack says before pulling away, reluctant. With his mail secured in a firm grip, he appears as rejuvenated as a pristine, freshwater stream. “Let’s hang out soon, Spike?”
Cloud finds out about Zack’s beer on the heels of spring.
“Got a minute, Cloud? I’ve got something to show you,” Tifa mentions as Cloud saunters into her office, settling a near boiling mug of tea he’d made for her on one of her many knit daisy coasters. Her arms are crossed with purpose on her desk, obscuring a sheet of something that glints with interest at him from under the fold of her elbow.
Pointing a hesitant thumb over his shoulder, Cloud says, “Barret asked me to bring in some kegs from the back.”
“It’ll just take a second.”
“Uh, okay.” Cloud then leans with his hip co*cked against the side of her desk, apprehensive. “What’s up?”
With a curious glance upwards, Tifa glides thick, earth-toned cardstock toward him, an illustrated yet realistic bottle prominent on its front. “Banora Orchard’s debuting its newest brew. We’re adding it to our tap rotation here.”
Taking the piece of paper in hand, Cloud’s eyes scrutinize it from its outer margins to its vivid center, eyes widening when he takes note of the beer’s very singular name. “Golden Spike? I’m not sure I… understand.”
“Zack and I have been working on how much of it we want distributed here,” Tifa says, her demeanor casual as she winds her hands around her mug and raises it to her mouth. As though she isn’t notifying him of truly earth-shattering news. “This is his beer.”
Cloud’s tongue wrings itself into increasingly intricate knots the longer he contemplates the drawn bottle, its deep indigo label and vivid gold letters more surreal than he can put words to. “And this is what he chose to name it?”
“Is it that surprising?” She then points to the thick paper held between his fingertips. “That’s an invitation to a launch party they’re hosting for it in two days. I really think you should go.”
The invitation lists several other critical details, including a date for this upcoming Friday and its location: Banora Orchard Brewing. “But he… didn’t invite me.”
“Not for a lack of wanting you there, I can promise that,” Tifa confesses as Cloud begins pacing in erratic circles around her office, his leather boots squeaking with every anxious twist of his leg. “He asked me a while back if I thought you’d be ‘okay’ with being invited. I wasn’t sure at the time. But now I’m sure—you should go.”
“Wuh—what changed your mind?”
“You’ve changed my mind, Cloud.” Tifa affirms, snagging his elbow before Cloud is able to pass, an urgent gleam in the wine-red of her eyes. “I’m sure there are many ways you’ve convinced yourself of the opposite, but I think it has to mean something. Do you know anyone else he calls that?”
“No,” Cloud breathes out, avoiding her stare with a pointed look at her now cooling tea. “Not that I know of.”
“I’d say it’s a pretty unique nickname.”
Instead of replying, Cloud braces the cardstock to his chest as though it might cease to be real if it slips from his fingers. “Please don’t tell Aerith about this.”
“Worried she’ll try dressing you up like a doll again?” The apples of Tifa’s cheeks are rounded and ruddy as she returns to her office chair, clearly pleased at Cloud’s easy agreement.
“No. Yes. I’m trusting you on this, Tif.”
Tifa laughs heartily into the lip of her mug, taking one long, lingering sip. “I make no promises.”
When Cloud steps through the bulky wooden doors of Banora Orchard Brewing that Friday evening, it’s to a space transformed. He maneuvers past golden, teeming bouquets of balloons, and gapes at the large vinyl banners on display with “Golden Spike” printed on their faces.
The hotchpotch of smell and sound are more than he’s been exposed to in weeks. Cloud refrains from cocooning his nose in his denim jacket, nausea churning just below his swamped senses. But he still doesn’t regret that, concealed under the high neck of his tank top, his neck is relieved of prickly scent patches. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to take in the world unbarred.
Weaving through clustered groups of people, he spots a familiar face from beyond the wraparound bar, a beanie cemented over downy hair as expected.
“If it isn’t the man of the hour,” Kunsel nods, twisting off the cap of an unmistakable brown bottle. “I’m guessing you’re dying to try your titular beer.”
Cloud declines with a small flick of his head. “Actually, do you have any idea where Zack is?”
“Not even a hi this time, I see.” Kunsel slides the bottle down the counter to another awaiting attendee. “What about a little sip? I think you’ll like it. And Zack worked pretty hard on nailing its flavor profile.”
“I will, definitely. But maybe a little later?” Cloud offers instead, his foot beginning to tap an anxious beat against concrete flooring.
Kunsel lets the clamor of surrounding conversation linger between them for a long minute, stone-faced, until a large smile cracks open over his mouth. “He’s in the back.”
“Oh. Well, is it okay if I—”
“Knock yourself out,” Kunsel dismisses as he gestures toward the corner of the room, tossing a towel over his shoulder. “Take it from me—no one will stop you from going back there.”
Cloud doesn’t even grace him with a farewell wave—he merely pushes onward toward the inner brewing room, not even his own nerves slowing his pace, as he navigates around crowded benches and tables loaded with fried appetizers. Elbowing through a second set of heavy doors, Cloud halts in place in a mostly unlit storehouse, batting his eyes as they adjust to stark natural light against inky darkness.
And it feels like a homecoming—when Zack’s presence washes over him like the embrace of balmy waves.
Zack slowly emerges into focus like film developing in a darkroom, his form leaning over a stockpile of boxes and surveying a clipboard braced on the flat of his hand.
“Zack,” Cloud says, the words stuck between a whisper and a breath.
Zack whirls toward him, his expression transforming into one of marvel at the sight of him. His eyes widen and his limbs freeze, gazing at him as though Cloud is an illusion conjured from a distant daydream. “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Cloud replies, craving to walk closer, but his knees stiffen into stakes that root him to the ground. Because now that Zack is in front of him, marbled under a canopy of moonlight, Cloud can hardly breathe or blink, some unseen force stripping his ability to move. “Is that… okay?”
“It’s so okay. It’s more than okay,” Zack says as he stows his clipboard on a box at his feet, straightening his posture.
“You could’ve told me this was happening. I would’ve come.”
Zack takes a few unrushed, resolved steps toward him until they’re only an arm’s width apart. “I didn’t think I was allowed to ask.”
“Of course you could’ve asked,” Cloud mutters, furling his hand into a fist and punching it lightly into Zack’s chest. “It’s for you.”
“And this is for you.” Zack’s hand points to the stack of boxes behind him, but the other curls around Cloud’s coiled hand and clasps it to his chest as if taking a stalwart oath. “The beer—not the party. I didn’t think this was really your scene. Too much schmoozing.”
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Cloud laughs from beneath a thick fan of golden lashes. “Did you really name a beer after me?”
“Yeah. Been working on it for a while now,” Zack murmurs with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, but the pounding cadence against Cloud’s knuckles betrays another feeling entirely. “Do you like it?”
“Can I be honest? It’s mortifying. No one who knows what it means will ever let me live it down. But... it’s also the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Really? I know I can be a little much sometimes.”
“That’s not what I meant, Zack.” Cloud insists as his hand unfolds within Zack’s grip, their fingers threading together with deliberate slowness. Even if both of their palms are both a little sweaty, the hold feels natural, tender, as Zack’s thumb massages into the back of his hand. “I love it.”
“I need to go back out there,” Zack says under his breath, regret suffusing his tone. Cloud’s not sure if it’s simply a trick of the light when the alpha’s pupils expand into endless black, his stare dipping down to his parted lips. “Will you wait for me? Until the event’s done. We can go home together.”
“Y-yeah, okay.” Cloud whispers, delighting in the way Zack pulls their hands further up his chest, stilling at the base of his neck. “I’ll be here.”
Leaning over one of the brewery's tall bar tables, Cloud cushions a brown bottle in his palm, puzzling at all of its little details from up close. The bottle itself has a unique quality to it, the slope of its neck longer and more elegant compared to that of Banora Orchard’s typical packaging. There’s even something novel about its label, the striking “Golden Spike” name framed amongst painted indigo clouds and beaming rays of aureate sun.
He can’t deny how special it is knowing that Zack had spent so many of his days at the brewery with Cloud in mind. He’d said mortified as the word to describe his feelings about it—like an asshole—but that’s not even close to explaining the thrill that rolls through him at the thought of it. Even if their friends had some inkling of its meaning, it somehow still feels personal, like it’s this secret that only he and Zack can really grasp.
After a measured breath out, Cloud lifts the bottle up to his lips and takes in a swill of beer, letting it flood over his tongue liberally. At first, the beer comes off a little dry and bready, almost delicate in flavor. But the taste continues to evolve into something more, becoming pointedly refreshing and crisp with an underlying sweetness.
Renewed, Zack had said.
And now he has no clue what to do with it—that feeling that winds like blooming vines around his vertebrae, unrestrained.
“Ah, long time no see, little bird. Zack didn’t inform us that you’d be attending tonight.”
Cloud cranes up his head, Genesis’s downy brown hair and sharp gaze effortlessly catching his eye. The older omega avoids appearing plain despite the brewery’s signature polo stretching over his torso, one arm settled over his hip and the other perched onto the table in front of him.
The scent of leather and roses skittering over him, Cloud says, “Zack didn’t know I was coming.”
“I should’ve expected as such. I swear, there’s something about you that renders that man spineless.”
“I’m sorry?”
“To be frank, Zack has been quite torn up about you. But against all of our advice, he remains frustratingly chivalrous about it all—the idiot,” Genesis scoffs, sharing a disapproving look with the individual looming tall and stiff beside him.
It’s only then Cloud notices Sephiroth standing stock-still behind Genesis’s shoulder, clutching the beer of the night close to his chest. His patchouli scent is more muted in comparison to that of his partner, but mated pairs often have that effect, their scents so entwined with one another that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the two.
“I… haven’t been doing all that great either,” Cloud murmurs near the lip of his bottle before taking another long swig of it, flushing liquid heat into his stomach. Given the suddenness of the conversation, he’s close to desperate for it.
“Unfortunate, but not surprising considering the state of Zack. When he suggested still going through with this—” Genesis says as he spreads his arms, gesturing to the loud festivities around them. “—I was initially against it. The last time I’d seen Zack even remotely this downtrodden was during his breakup with Cissnei. That was at the tail end of a nesting period too, I believe. And yet somehow he came out of that with more of himself intact than he did this time.”
“Perhaps that’s enough, Genesis,” Sephiroth interrupts, but despite a slight crease between his brows, he plants a hand between Genesis’s shoulder blades with the intention to soothe.
“Oh, come now, Seph. That was over three years ago—you’d think Zack would have surely shared this with his dear Cloud by this point.”
At Cloud’s shocked, open-mouthed silence, Genesis drops his head into the splay of his fingers. “By the gods. If I must be the one to tell you Cloud, then so be it. Besides, we’re all aware of how deeply you care for him.”
“I believe this is Zack’s information to share,” Sephiroth once again interjects, his expression becoming more pained with each word.
“Yes, well, he’s lost his chance.” Genesis then points a stern, narrowed look at him, and Cloud’s jaw clacks from how quickly he clenches it closed. “When I told you that nesting is quite rare for Zack, I wasn’t exaggerating in the least; this was the first time Zack has nested in over three years. For our youngest, it seems as though his hormonal triggers are entirely tied to his emotions. It’s fascinating, truthfully.”
Cloud can only clutch onto chill glass to stay afloat as he’s engulfed by a tidal wave of information that he does not feel equipped to process here: surrounded by a tipsy crowd, in the middle of a massive brewery where the subject of conversation just happens to be across the room, selling the very beer he’d worked on tirelessly in Cloud’s name.
Words balloon behind Cloud’s teeth, all clambering to escape, but he only manages to stammer, “But then… why did he—he told me he didn’t…”
“His last relationship left him considerably wounded in the ways of love,” Genesis continues with a flippant turn of his hand, though his voice grows sober, weighty, nearing a version of himself that Cloud’s never encountered. “But by Odin’s blade has it been irksome watching you two blunder about each other. With the way you both have been acting, you’d think this was a complex moral dilemma plaguing some niche psychological discipline. I promise this isn’t soft science; the answer is quite simple, is it not?”
Cloud slams his bottle on the table, propelling himself from the table frantically. “I—I have to go.”
Sephiroth sighs, taking a minute step forward. “Cloud—”
Darting toward the brewery’s exit, his pace quickening with every step, Cloud can only hear a faint hollering of, “You’ll thank me later, little bird!”
This time, when Cloud toes off his roughened boots at his entranceway, it’s amidst a havoc-wreaking stupor. He’s numbed down to the marrow of his bones—weightless as he drapes his black denim jacket onto the nearest wall hook, suspended as the soles of his feet seem to float on the way to his living room.
The ride back to his apartment was little more than a blur of streaked light. He can call to mind the cutting wind that whipped through his clothing, the sturdy grip of his motorcycle’s rubber handlebars beneath his hands, but any further detail ebbs when he reaches for it. He’d wandered through his building with nothing more than Genesis’s voice in his ears, recounting Zack’s past as though it was a series of simple truths.
But to Cloud, they were far from simple—they were insights that ruptured the foundation of everything he’d forced himself to believe about Zack.
Zack, whose nesting habits were far rarer than he originally thought. Zack, who’d tended to nest only with people he… felt strongly about.
He slips off several silver rings from his fingers and heaps them onto his coffee table, his stomach contorting wildly in his abdomen. It was unfathomable to think that he could be the one to trigger Zack in that way, in any way really, and yet the longer he lets it sweep through him, the more it becomes the only conclusion that holds together in his brain.
All this time, he’d built this narrative in his head that their situation was an unfortunate casualty of biology—that their compatibility made Cloud an obvious, temporary choice, but was heedless of Zack’s true wants. But maybe the reality of it is closer to a magnifying glass; something that concentrates a sharp, narrow sunbeam on what already exists between them in plain sight.
A few resounding knocks against his front door pummel into him with the force of a sledgehammer. The sound sends him reeling, and he’s flung somewhere between nauseous and electrified, his nerves lurching and writhing and sizzling until they threaten to split open at the seams and consume him with nail-biting feeling.
And then, Zack’s voice seeps through his motley front door.
“Spike, are you there? I’m not sure what Gen told you earlier, but I rushed over as soon as you left.”
Cloud is sure now—he can no longer feel the floor beneath his feet as he approaches his front door, cautious, and grazes his shoulder against it.
“I’m here,” Cloud responds, and his heart thuds so deafeningly in his throat, he’s surprised his words don’t shake from the strength of it. Glancing low, he thinks he can see Zack’s silhouette under the door press in a little closer at the softness of his reply.
“You don’t have to open up. Tell me to leave you alone if that’s what you really want. But… if you’re willing to listen, there’s something I need to get off my chest. And I know that makes me selfish. But it’s driving me f*cking crazy—not being selfish when it comes to you.”
Despite the trembling of his hands, Cloud wrenches open the door to a look of sheer surprise, Zack’s arm hanging midair from the way he must’ve settled it in front of him. “Cloud—”
Before he can let himself get cold feet, Cloud flings his arms around Zack’s shoulders, and his gut is sent roiling when Zack only tenses under his hands for a harrowing beat. But, like the frost on a windshield in the spring sun, Zack melts into the embrace, his arms hungry as they enfold around the curve of Cloud’s lower back.
“I’m sorry for leaving like that,” Squeezing his eyes shut, Cloud slides shaking fingers down the slope of Zack’s upper back. The feel of him beneath his hands is almost too good to be real, warm and solid, but just as close to flying apart into pieces. “It was just… a lot for a second.”
“I get it. Sounds like Gen might’ve overstepped.” Zack whispers into the curve of his ear, his nose tickling the skin of Cloud’s temple. “Is it still a lot?”
“It’s better. Now that you’re here.”
“f*ck. I really thought I’d never get to have this again,” Zack mutters into face-framing locks. His arms tighten even further around him until Cloud’s pulled onto his toes, almost entirely balanced in his hold. “That whole week with you was more than I could’ve ever asked for. But I spent most of it feeling… terrified. You have to understand, Cloud. You scare the f*ck outta me.”
“I scare you? That doesn’t even make a little sense,” Cloud says, brushing the words against the smooth line of Zack’s jaw.
“Doesn’t it? My brain just f*cking falls apart around you. I look at you and all I can think about… is how you’re all I could ever want. I knew one sh*tty, hormonal week with me was all it would take before I asked for too much or did something incredibly stupid—and then you’d want nothing to do with me. All of that worrying and stressing, and I still managed to f*ck things up. Ironic, right?”
“Zack…”
With a careful pull, Zack untangles his arms and draws away from him, setting Cloud back down on his heels. But before a distressed whine can be dragged from his throat, Zack moves to nestle Cloud’s jaw in his cupped palms, his thumbs sweeping over lightly freckled cheeks, and then gentling under wide, doe eyes.
“I’ll admit—I did think you only offered to help me because you’re a kind person, Cloud. The kind of person that goes above and beyond for the people you care about. And how could someone like me deserve someone that good? Deserve you?” Zack says, verging on a whisper, and the irises of his eyes appear almost crystal-blue, transparent and boundless and as close to infinite as Cloud’s ever been. “But I do trust you. More than anyone. And if you tell me there was another reason for that week… I’ll believe you.”
Cloud glances away with a wobbling breath, consoled by the equally unsteady rise and fall of Zack’s chest. “Genesis, he… told me that you nested over three years ago. I still don’t… understand—”
“Because, Cloud. What I feel for you—even I can barely wrap my head around it sometimes,” Zack laughs, using gentle fingers on Cloud’s chin to tilt his head up a fraction, their eyes once again meeting in a union of dizzying color. “I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.”
Cloud aligns his own hands to rest atop Zack’s, clutching onto them to remain upright on weak, teetering legs. “And you’re sure it’s not… alpha nonsense still messing with you?”
“I don’t think it ever really was. It just made it impossible to keep all of that bottled up.”
“I—but I… how do I…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Zack murmurs as he brings their arms down to hang at their sides, shifting to cradle Cloud’s hands within his own. “I’m an idiot for not just telling you in the first place. You should’ve seen how Gen tore into me earlier.”
“I’m guessing he gave you that soft science spiel too?”
“Sure did. I needed it though.” Zack’s grin is elated but unpresuming, and breathing out a lamenting sigh, he makes to fully remove himself from Cloud. “Should I… maybe give you some space?”
“Wait, Zack,” Cloud utters in disbelief and takes an urgent step closer. “You can’t just say all that and not let me respond.”
“I just thought you’d… need time to process or something.”
“No. No more time. No more waiting,” Cloud rasps, curling his fingers in the fabric of Zack’s shirt, vulnerability billowing over him in waves.
Tucking a lock of blonde hair behind Cloud’s ear, Zack whispers, “Alright.”
“You’re right about me,” Cloud says, and his lungs quiver and leap against his ribcage with all of the force of someone who’d spent far too long weighing them down in words unsaid. “I realized I f*cking suck at putting myself first. I’m not sure that’s something I’ll ever completely grow out of. But you can’t just expect me to… watch and wait when you’re struggling. This was me being selfish. Being with you was something I’d never thought I could have. So I thought that if I could at least make your life even a little better, I’d do it.”
Zack wheezes out into the meager inches that linger between them. “Are you saying…?”
“Yeah,” Cloud says amidst a small, dewy-eyed laugh. “I’m scared sh*tless, too. l still don’t really… get what it is you see in me. But I don’t regret that week. I can’t, because I also—”
And then, Zack is hauling him into an open-mouthed kiss, his lips so thorough and overwhelming that Cloud has no choice but to plaster himself along the length of him. Shuddering, he drapes his arms around the nape of his neck, fingertips slipping into the soft, black strands along his hairline, lost in the ache of it. Zack’s lips surge over his heatedly, intently, writing novels into the roof of his mouth, his hands grappling at Cloud’s waist and clenching just shy of too-tight.
Cloud pushes at Zack’s chest with insistent hands, rosiness unfurling over the ridges of his cheeks and down the skin of his neck. “You didn’t let me finish, Zack.”
“Sorry, sorry. Go ahead.”
“Because I have feelings—” Zack once again pulls him close, but the kiss eases into something closer to a soft slide of lips, his tongue curling into Cloud’s mouth like a spoonful of melted honey.
“I can’t believe you,” Cloud huffs out when they finally break apart. But he still huddles into Zack with his cheek flush against his chest, lulled by the pleasing rumbling in his ear.
“Your withdrawals… were they really bad?” Zack asks, beginning to stroke a soothing rhythm over Cloud’s back.
“They were fine,” Cloud says, but the pressure of a lie against his lungs climbs until he decides to unravel it with an honest exhale. “They were pretty f*cking miserable.”
“I know that wouldn’t have happened if I had just… stayed with you, but I didn’t think you actually wanted that. My rut really f*cking sucked too, if it makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t,” Cloud mumbles, his voice muffled in the thick cotton of the other’s shirt. “But at least you know now, right? That I want this?”
“I must be f*cking dreaming. f*ck, this feels like… drinking a gallon of water after weeks of dying of thirst. Not being with you made me feel like my skin was gonna turn inside out. You have no idea—I’m not sure I’ll be able to let you go ever again.”
I think I have some idea.
“Then don’t.”
Zack’s arm constricts from where it rests around his middle. “Don’t tempt me. You’re playing with fire, Spike.”
“Am I?” Cloud then leans in, his nose nestling into the hollow of Zack’s throat, and lets a sheepish smile flower against flushed, velvet skin. “If you want, you can call me… whatever you want again. Like, from before.”
“Hm, and what would that be, I wonder?”
Cloud makes to twist away from the other’s touch, griping, “Are you going to make me spell it out?”
“Come back, come back,” Zack snickers, grabbing at his hips and tugging him back into the heat of his arms. With a preening, sh*t-eating grin, Zack mouths against Cloud’s lips, “So you like it when I call you baby?”
“I’m about to shove your ass out of here.”
“I’ll be good, I swear,” Zack says under his breath, and every muscle in Cloud’s body locks at the unbridled stare the other skates over his face and down to his lips. “Can’t risk it when I’ve finally got you.”
Waiting with bated breath, Cloud nearly lets his eyes flutter closed, hoping Zack might once again lean down to bring him into another bone-melting kiss. Instead, a grin breaks out over Zack’s face, and he dissolves into uncontrollable laughter, a dazzling, breathy thing, his nose pitching into Cloud’s cheek.
“What’s so funny?” Cloud asks when he reopens his eyes, his mouth lifting into a bemused smile. But his next word can only morph into a stunned squeak when Zack grabs him from around his waist and lifts him into the air, spinning him around until Cloud, too, begins giggling unrestrained. His hands are perched on Zack’s shoulders, and Zack’s whole smile is bared from the fullness of his laugh, and Cloud thinks that if true bliss does exist, it’s this.
When he’s settled back down on his feet, Cloud says, dizzy and more than a little breathless, “Zack, you idiot. Kiss me again?”
“Always, baby.”
Tilting his head back mindlessly, Cloud smothers a keen as Zack continues his methodical assault down the exposed column of his neck. Grinning, Zack laves over a bit of sensitive skin, hot and slow, that has Cloud's hips writhing into his lap, already more than a little worked up. Zack’s mouth then descends lower, closer to his scent gland—so close that Cloud begins pushing at his shoulders, his breath hitching.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well—do you maybe want to….”
“Cloud, baby,” Zack groans as he circles his arm tightly around Cloud’s waist to hold him still. “You’re killing me.”
Cloud whines in frustration, his head toppling over into the cradle of Zack’s neck. “I’m not sure you understand what that week was like for me.”
“Are you kidding? Did you see me? I could barely form a thought around you,” Zack murmurs, his hot palms sliding over smooth skin under the back of Cloud’s shirt. It’s still bewildering to him that in the few hours they’ve been together, Zack hasn’t been able to stop touching him for even a moment. “But now that we’ve talked things through, I was hoping we could do things a bit… differently.”
“Oh yeah? Like how?” Cloud asks, petulant, straightening on Zack’s lap.
“I was thinking something a little slower. More like…” Zack whispers as he takes one of Cloud’s hands in his, pressing hot, reverent kisses over the imperfect knolls of Cloud’s knuckles and up to the delicate skin of his wrist. Their eyes meet in the middle of it, a shiver tearing up the back of Cloud’s neck at the intensity of Zack’s gaze.
“Oh.”
“It’s just… I want to take my time with you. Is that alright?”
“Gods, okay,” Cloud whispers as Zack presses their foreheads together, feverish, their lips grazing in a featherlight touch. “That’s definitely alright.”
“I should’ve known you’d be like this.”
“Like what?”
“A sap.”
“Oh, but you like it. I’ve been hearing things about you, Cloud Strife. Mostly about your big ol’ crush on me.”
“Hm, I don’t know. Sounds like hearsay.”
“You’re not denying it.”
“And if it’s true? If I do have a massive crush on you?”
“Then maybe I’ll ask you when you’re nesting next”
“You’re insuffer—mmph!”
