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Memories were kinda hazy in the back of his mind, but he got bits and pieces - outskirts of Midgar, talking with Zack (and talking and talking and Zack had that kind of childlike smile, all white teeth and gums, that Cloud remembers well), chit-chat again once outside of the city, a mouth that is way bigger than the whole thing, void. It’s a series of events which Cloud could easily put together, but maybe not now with a splitting headache and a dizziness to match.
When he actually regains consciousness about his surroundings, the room doesn’t feel like a whole shaker anymore. He’s sitting on a bed and the light of the room is almost blinding to him.
« You with me, Spikey?»
Zack’s voice comes to his ears with a boom, almost like someone had just turned up the volume. His headache starts acting up again - he feels pressure behind his ears and on the forehead as he was standing between two presses. He goes to grab his head as if that could stabilize him, but Zack catches his hands before he has the chance to.
He tries to speak, but no words come out. When he tries again, Zack smiles.
« Ursula stole your voice, Ariel» and laughs. Any other day, Cloud would have melted at that sound, but now it feels like nails on a chalkboard. « That Malboro got you good.»
So that would explain that giant mouth filled with razor sharp teeth that Cloud vaguely remembers. Another piece of the puzzle. Cloud watches him with a confused look - Zack is up and about, almost jumping around the room with the same enthusiasm he shows for pretty much everything in life. There is a cut on the side of his neck, not deep, but Zack doesn’t seem to mind, too busy in inspecting the insides of a white box.
When he raises his eyes to look at him, he shrugs. « Don’t look at me like that, of course we ran,» as if Cloud was judging him for his choice, « you were spinning around, waving that sword like a madman.»
Cloud was feeling sick and he knows it isn’t because of the Molboro’s venom: it’s another feeling entirely, one that leaves him nauseous. Another failure in front of him - Zack, who seemed to get everything right and seemingly was the measure of all things; who dragged Cloud’s back while keeping on a smile and now was stranded here with a white box and a silent boy.
The Soldier comes up to him, dragging a chair behind and straddles it with its back on front. Cloud smiles despite it all; there was no order with him, no regular way to do things. He always needed to add his own touch, always showing off that he was off to do great things and was striving for grandeur but there was no way he would do everything quietly. He was the spark that preceded the boom.
Cloud points at him with a puzzled look. How come he was in such a prime shape?
Zack produces a potion out of the box. « Nah, just silence and poison. Sorry, I used the last echo screen. Lucky for me, I didn’t catch frog, ribbit .»
Cloud wants to laugh, but no sound comes out when he opens his mouth. It’s a strange feeling, much like when you dream and you want to scream but only a choked sound comes out. But Zack is there in front of him and when he laughs, it almost seems like he’s laughing in his place. The thought makes him feel all light-headed and dizzy once again.
He drinks the potion Zack offers him. Touching his hand shouldn’t feel like electricity just coursed through his veins, because he’s way past that point in the relationship, and yet his skin feels prickly and itchy. Maybe he’s just the venom - or maybe it’s the way Zack regards him with that tilted head and that ghost of a smile hiding at the corner of his lips, the long, white column of his neck, the green veins barely visible underneath the thin skin. Cloud rather focuses on the taste of the potion; it’s sour on the tongue, like drinking lime, but he knows it to be the lesser evil.
« Okay, tell me where you hurt,» Zack says, poking him on the thigh. Cloud wants to laugh once again, but nothing comes out. Zack is still standing there with a smug smile on his lips, poking around as if his goal in life is annoying him rather than helping him recover. « This hurts?» And he pokes the side of his leg, close to the knee.
Cloud shakes his head.
« Here? And here? And here? What about here? And here?» A constant poking that makes Cloud move around to shield himself without really trying because he loves that kind of attention and he loves that big smile that Zack sports around like a gold medal; his fingers don’t feel jabbing but soft to the skin - and maybe it’s just Cloud that feels that way, that hunger to be touched and the fall back once received.
He swats his hand away just for Zack to wrap his hand around his arm. The leather of his glove is rough, worn down for the excessive friction and the bad washing - Zack has never actually learned how to do laundry, stuffing everything inside, unconcerned about temperature and weight and programs: he needs to do everything fast and if something doesn’t go right, there’s always next time. And next time and next time and there’s always a next time with Zack Fair, always the next mistake and always the same oblivious mind, jumping from goals to goals.
He caresses the skin with his thumb and Cloud wishes he could say something, anything, but he also feels like words are unnecessary in the moment. Zack seems satisfied in simply rubbing his skin and Cloud is not one to say no - not when they are so close and alone and the chaos of outside cannot touch them here and Zack’s glove feels so nice against bare skin.
He slides down Cloud’s glove with a precision and a slowness that is almost mental - inch by inch, rolling down the leather with ease, reaching past the wrist; he reveals the back of his palm, knuckles and fingers. Zack works with an attention that it shouldn’t come so natural to someone like him and yet there’s this kind of intimacy in that gesture that leaves Cloud unguarded, feeling like more than just his glove (and his voice) had been stripped by him.
« I grabbed you hard earlier,» Zack says, rubbing a spot under on his arm. It feels sore when Zack presses down, but it could be everything - from the way he slept that night to poor aftercare after hours of training.
Cloud points two fingers down and moves them really fast back and forth.
Zack smiles. « Yes, when we were running,» he responds, fingers moving slowly down the forearm, following the path of the veins, caressing the wrist. He pressed down under the thumb, where the flesh is softer and spread the skin - that feels rather nice. « I mean, when I was running and you were kinda--» he makes a sort of groaning sound while rotating his head, tongue lolling out as to give the best impression of a dying man.
Cloud responds by resting his other hand on the forehead, throwing his head back - a damsel in distress.
The Soldier clicks his tongue. « Lost my chance to bring you in bridal style.»
The thought of Zack carrying him inside the Shinra building like that doesn’t exactly appeal to him, considering how much more humiliating that would be. He doesn’t like that thought, but Zack seems to consider his lost opportunity.
His hand come up on the back of his palm and for a moment Cloud really thinks he’s just cupping his hand like that - keeping it in his owns and cradle it. But instead, his fingers starts to move down the knuckles, working the spaces between them. It aches, but just for a moment.
He is good - sometimes he presses too much, too hard in some places and Cloud almost sees stars in his vision, but does his best not to move under his ministration, so enthusiastic it seems wrong to tell him anything (not that Cloud could anyway). He’s clumsy and his glove is rough on few points, but Cloud likes it somehow - or maybe he just likes the way Zack bites onto his on tongue when he removes his own gloves and puts some lotion on Cloud’s skin; the way he looks so focused in spreading the cream everywhere without losing a single spot; the big smile he shows afterward like that was the neatest trick he has ever done.
Maybe Cloud just likes him.
« See? Feel better?» Zack says, leaning forward, as much as the back of his chair allows. Cloud nods but his mind his somewhere else - lost between the shape of Zack’s nose, slightly crooked because of a bad recovery, and his lips cracked into a soft smile.
The kiss is all gentle and, at the same time, barely a kiss at all: more like a light pressure of two lips. The room is dead silent and yet, when Cloud moved back, there’s no sound. He thinks there must be a way to lighten up the whole planet just with Zack’s smile, for one cannot have that kind of power and not use it for the sake of the world. He would be the first to throw away the mako, reactors would be destroyed and the green - the green Cloud grew up surrounded with - would return to the land, growing in and out the plates. All because of one person.
Zack smiles - another whole plate lightened up. « Why are you looking at me like that?»
Cloud shakes his head. He doesn't know why he’s looking at him like that, and what is like that anyway, because Cloud only knows one way to look at Zack Fair and he can’t bear to show less than that kind of adoration which the devotee has for holy scriptures and prayers.
He wants to say "nothing", but the word can’t come out.
Zack almost jumps on the spot. « I forgot the echo screen!» And sprints out of the door with such haste Cloud has to grab the chair from toppling over. He doesn’t have much time left with his thoughts - thankfully enough, he wouldn’t trust his mind. Zack comes rushing over with a small bottle right away, maybe five minutes after he left.
« Drink up,» he says, throwing him the phial. Cloud miraculously take it. The content doesn’t have a specific taste on his tongue: it feels pretty much like drinking down water.
When he sighs next, he can actually hear himself.
« Better now?»
Cloud nods. « Thank you,» he looks back at his hand and waves it in front of him, « for the echo screen and for this.»
Zack, this time, sits down next to him on the bed. His legs touch like this and Zack rests his hand directly onto the back of Cloud’s hand; that is a point of connection that Cloud appreciates because Zack’s leg bounces slightly against him as if that is a new game and his fingers on his hand feels light like he’s cradling more than holding and when Zack kisses him he does like he’s whispering a secret.
He kisses with the gentleness that doesn’t naturally come with Soldiers and Cloud wants to find out how much gentler Zack can get.
So he kisses him and kisses him to the point of almost forgetting what lips were used for aside from this.