Work Text:
On the day Zack was promoted to SOLDIER First Class, people he'd never seen before came out of the woodwork to offer backslapping congratulations, and even the skies above Midgar condescended to open up now and then to tease the city with a few stray splashes of sunlight. A few months couldn't silence all the whispers--he still heard rumors about how he'd earned his quick advancement--but he'd been working hard at proving himself, volunteering for every mission he could and doing twice the work of anyone else, and it seemed to be paying off. When Titus dragged him off the Plate for a victory celebration, the number of guys he found waiting for them at the bar almost left him speechless.
Almost. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.
"Wow, what's the occasion? Did Scarlet pop some stitches or something?" he asked, pasting a wide-eyed look of absolute innocence on his face as he paused just inside the door, Titus lurking like a small mountain at his side. He had to grin when the place erupted into cheers of welcome and heartfelt approval, ambushed by a warm feeling of belonging. It didn't hurt that the party seemed to be SOLDIERs-only, and that the majority of the faces he saw were First Class, guys with nothing left to prove to anybody.
Zack almost jumped when Titus' big hand settled heavily on his shoulder, and he looked up to find the man beaming down at him with the fond, glittering eyes of a sociopathic uncle. "Actually," Titus rumbled, his deep voice carrying under the din without apparent effort, "the occasion is your initiation."
Initiation? He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that...except that Titus was one of the few people who'd never even given him a sidelong glance, meteoric rise through the ranks or not. Besides, Titus was pushing him towards the bar, and judging by the wicked grins he was getting from every side, this "initiation" wasn't likely to be too very painful.
Embarrassing, maybe...and then he saw what they had in mind.
The long bartop reminded him of a church at Yule, only instead of a small galaxy of candles, there was a twinkling constellation of shot glasses in a full palette of colors, enough glasses to imply that each man here had bought him at least one drink. When they started chanting his name, it actually rattled the walls.
"Okay, okay!" Zack laughed, holding up his hands for silence. "But I feel it only fair to warn you that I'm from Gongaga, and there are only two things to do in Gongaga: watch girls and drink. And it's bad manners to do either alone."
"Sounds like a challenge," Titus said with a gravelly chuckle. "I'm in."
There wasn't a SOLDIER alive who could resist a challenge, and Zack spared a moment to wonder if Titus had phrased it that way on purpose...but by then there were other hands pulling him towards the bar, shouts of agreement and yelled-out orders for the bartender, and Zack was knocking back his first shot and holding the empty glass up to be admired.
"To SOLDIER!" he toasted--better late than never--the most diplomatic thing he could think of in this crush of different Classes and old units.
"To SOLDIER!" was called back without any attempt at unison, hands smacking his back and shoulders, Titus' huge paw making an affectionate mess of his hair.
Zack grinned and picked up the next glass, determined to prove he could drink the way he fought, which...usually left him on his feet at the end of it. At least this time he had backup, right?
***
"You," Zack slurred hours later, "are my tallest friend. Bestest. Friendest? Uh...you're too tall, and I mean that."
"Yes, yes," Titus agreed complacently, dragging Zack towards the side entrance to the Shinra Towers. One of Zack's hands clung to Titus' shoulder, but it was the stout arm looped around his waist that kept him on his feet and steered his mutinous legs in the proper direction.
"An' that was a great party. We should do that every weekend!"
"I think some of us do."
"Really? I love you guys!" Zack beamed, nearly forgetting to take the next step--and the next--until the drag of Titus' arm brought him back to business. "So, where are we going now?"
"Back to barracks," Titus said with a quiet chuckle, "so you can work on that First Class hangover you're going to have."
"Am not," Zack protested with a sniff. "'M from Gongaga. We don't get hangovers."
"Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that. Quietly."
Zack blinked up at him, a puzzled frown pulling at his brows. "Huh?"
Titus snorted, one corner of his mouth quirking up with lazy humor, like a stone idol casting a benevolent eye over the antics of its villagers. "SOLDIERs, booze, and curfew, Zack...and we're probably the last ones in. If the others kicked up too much of a fuss--"
Something went 'boom' inside the complex itself, and Titus shifted his hold on Zack with a sigh, hitching him more firmly upright.
"The MPs aren't going to like it?" Zack hazarded with a mournful look.
"They never said you were stupid," Titus agreed, huge body coiling up like a spring under Zack's arm. A second later they were running--or, well, Titus was running, Zack stumbling along gamely at his side--both of them covering a surprising amount of ground in a short amount of time for a guy built like an armored attack robot and another whose legs felt like they'd turned to mako. Someone hit the security lights just as they made it to the shadows, bright yellow arcs sweeping grimly across the pavement. Titus edged them away from the guarded side entrance and around the back.
Zack had never seen the door Titus led him to, though he didn't intend to forget it. He wouldn't even have minded climbing all those stairs. Really.
Instead Zack found himself dragged through maintenance exits, across a deserted foyer and down a flight of stairs, then blinked to find himself out in the open again, in the no-man's-land between the strictly corporate and the military towers, the squat lump of the motor pool's garage lurking off to their left. If he looked up--way up--he'd see the umbilical walkways that linked the huge buildings together, drawn close by a fragile corridor of steel and glass. They could have ridden an elevator up there and taken the sky bridge over to SOLDIER territory with no one the wiser, only Titus apparently thought this was safer.
Or maybe not. Not with the doors across the way sliding shut on a horde of guards, the last man hotfooting it in just as the door behind Zack and Titus hissed closed, cutting off the faint light at their backs that would have given them away.
"What's going on?" a hushed voice asked in the stillness that followed, its echoes rolling in advance of the quiet tramp of Shinra-issue boots tiptoeing in from the direction of the motor pool. "Are we on security alert?" It was a nice voice, an earnest tenor split between confusion and curiosity, but it sounded young enough to make Zack's frustrated brotherly instincts sit up and take notice.
"Dunno. They let us in, so whatever it is, it can't be too bad," another voice drawled.
"Well, you don't look like much of a security risk," a third said with friendly mockery, and somebody laughed.
"Risk? Are you kidding?" asked a fourth. "Weren't you watching the way he drove?"
"Had my eyes closed, thanks."
"Hmph," the second voice grunted, close enough now that even unaugmented vision could pick them out of the shadows easily, three taller figures converged around a fourth that looked maybe fifteen on a stretch. "See if I ever wrangle up passes for you guys a--"
"Hey! Who goes there?"
Zack found himself grinning, oddly pleased that it was the kid who'd seen them--a pair of professional SOLDIERs--hiding there in the shadows. The other three snapped on guard around their half-pint fourth, one of them glancing back at the motor pool as if considering going for help, though Zack fuzzily decided it would be a waste of time. That racket they'd heard might have come from the front entrance, but the MPs were just warming up, and--
Wait a minute. They weren't the enemy...were they?
"SOLDIERs First Class," Titus growled quietly with a touch of amusement. "I need a volunteer to escort my friend to barracks while I...hmm, ask the guards what's going on."
Zack wasn't quite drunk enough that he couldn't translate. Provide a distraction, Titus meant, and Zack couldn't keep a quiet "Aww" from escaping. His friends were the best.
For some reason, everybody was looking at the little guy.
"Um," the kid began hesitantly while a brief scuffle erupted behind him.
"Hey, look--"
"Guz, you know the rules."
"Last one in--"
"But he's going to need a wheelbarrow--"
"Good," Titus said firmly, stilling the elbowing and jostling with his mildest smile--the one that made him look even bigger than he already was. "You know where the SOLDIER barracks are, right?"
"Yes, sir," the kid said, snapping to attention and jerking his chin up smartly. It added inches to his height...or maybe that was the hair, almost as spiky as Zack's, but blond. He had a nice face, sharp and a little fey, full of boundless determination.
"Do you think you could make it to the sky bridge from this side of the compound?" Titus asked slowly, pointing a finger straight up.
The kid's eyes flicked up at once, widening a little as it sunk in that he was being asked to do something just a little bit sneaky--make that a lot sneaky, against the rules in fact--but his stare didn't waver when he jerked his eyes back down. "Yes, sir."
"Good. Zack can tell you where his room is; let's see if you can carry him."
Drawing himself up with an indignant sound of protest, Zack opened his mouth to insist that he didn't need to be carried by anybody--and realized that that put him at the perfect height for the kid to slip in under his free arm and brace his shoulder against Zack's weight. "I can do it, sir," the kid said, and there was that determination again, stubborn as a mama chocobo over one of her chicks. Zack could feel the subtle tension in the body at his side, proof that the kid was having to work already to keep him on his feet, but Zack got the feeling that it'd take an order from General Sephiroth to make him back down.
"I'll trust you for it," Titus said, and damned if the kid's eyes didn't go all glinty and proud. "You three--as you were."
Titus started away from them with an even step, but he only made it three strides before he paused, turned, and retraced his path, shaking his head.
"About taking directions from Zack," he muttered, and Zack aimed a fist at Titus' shoulder.
Aimed it, anyway.
"That's slounder...slam...er....hey!"
"Exactly. Look, take a right at the elevators...."
***
Of all the things Cloud expected to do with his evening, escorting a drunken SOLDIER back to the guy's room--after curfew, no less--hadn't exactly made it to the list. He wasn't really surprised--he'd heard some of them talking in the halls that morning, something about a celebration in one of the lower sectors--but...well...he hadn't expected to get back so late himself. Not that he was complaining; he hadn't been in Midgar or Shinra long, and the idea that anyone would want him along--would invite him to go with them, in fact--was novel enough that he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it. So he wasn't going to say one word about the time, or about the way they'd gunned it all the way back to squeak in just under the wire, or the fact that they'd still been too late. Too late for him, anyway.
Farnham was right, though. Rules were rules, even if they weren't written anywhere a sergeant might see. The last guy into the unit was the first one tapped when it came to dealing with the SOLDIERs, and at the moment that meant Cloud. It wasn't all that bad; sure, they were loud, and impulsive, and prone to fits of arrogance...but they really were that good, so it wasn't like they didn't deserve to think highly of themselves. They went where they pleased, did what they liked, and were mostly kept too busy with missions to cause too much trouble. It was just that every once in a while one would poke his head into the rec room or the general cafeteria and then some poor fool--Cloud, for instance--would find himself polishing boots, helping to clean up for an inspection, or running messages to an irate girlfriend.
Or sneaking a grinning lump of muscle and spiky black hair through the halls of the corporate tower, praying to every god he could think of that they wouldn't get caught.
"So, what's your name?" the SOLDIER asked, cocking his head to look at Cloud. The guy's eyes were friendly, violet over grey, but when their attention wandered from the path in front of them, his feet tended to lose their train of thought.
"Cloud," he said in a hushed voice, hoping the guy would take the hint and keep it down. "Cloud Strife."
"Yeah? I'm Zack," the SOLDIER said, forgetting that his oversized friend had already mentioned it earlier. "Didn't see you there tonight...did I? Nah," he said before Cloud could answer, "I'd have remembered the hair. Looks good," he added with a grin, preening a little as Cloud's eyes wavered briefly to Zack's own. "So? Why weren't you out with us?"
The guy looked so...pitiful, so forlorn, that it took Cloud a moment to find his voice. "Um...I'm not in SOLDIER," he admitted, hoping he didn't sound too desperate himself.
"Really? You should go for it," Zack said earnestly, and Cloud almost forgot that he was supposed to be the one steering, caught and held by the utter seriousness under Zack's affably drunken expression. "You're strong," Zack added with an attempt at a shrug that nearly slid him out of Cloud's hold, saved only by a quick grab and a bit of footwork. "You've got good reflexes...."
"I'm working on it," Cloud mumbled, fixing his eyes on the floor as he felt his face heat. He'd made no secret of the fact that he wanted to get into SOLDIER, though he'd have died of embarrassment if any of the men whose boots he'd polished had brought it up. It was different somehow with Zack; the guy couldn't be much older than him, for one thing, and he had a smile that invited others to confide in him. A little stunned to find he wasn't immune, Cloud waited for the laughter to start, to see Zack's cheerful smile go patronizing and lofty, and steeled himself against disappointment.
"Great!" Zack crowed instead, pulling his arm tighter around Cloud's shoulders as his face split in a delighted grin. "This is just like a practice mission, you know? Sneaking through enemy territory, silent and crafty as ninjas...."
Cloud's head jerked around in mute startlement at the unexpected vote of confidence, his feet carrying him along mindlessly as Zack's near-gloating enthusiasm sank in. Great? Zack thought...it was great? That he could do it?
"Um...ninjas are usually the enemy," he heard himself say from miles away, dumbfounded all over again by Zack's jaunty grin.
"Then we'll have to be craftier than them, won't we?"
"And more silent," Cloud prodded cautiously, amazed when Zack turned sheepish instead of haughty.
"Oh yeah...hey, is that a patrol up ahead?"
Cloud didn't stop to second-guess the man, dragging Zack three steps forward and trying the nearest door. They were in luck--it was a waiting room, and the receptionist's desk looked big enough to hide behind if it came to it--but Cloud pulled them to the side of the door, listening with shallow breaths for footsteps.
"Hope that wasn't the janitors," Zack said without modulating his voice, and Cloud almost reached over to clap a hand over his mouth.
"Shh!" he hissed, hearing footsteps now himself. "Ninjas," he added desperately when Zack opened his mouth again, and breathed a sigh of relief when Zack changed his mind, nodding with a huge grin instead.
"Ninjas," Zack whispered back. "Gotcha."
When the first pair of security guards had gone, Cloud dragged Zack out again, looking for the next maintenance lift. The lifts only went up three or four floors at a time--whoever had designed the Shinra buildings had been either mildly deranged or excessively paranoid--but the main elevators were too well-traveled, and the emergency stairs would be the first place a patrol would look. It was a good thing Zack had the security codes, though, because Cloud wasn't sure how they could have gone about getting a keycard.
Still...that was rather too convenient, wasn't it?
"Zack?" Cloud whispered as they crept around a corner, hearing echoing footsteps fade to nothing before them. "Do all SOLDIERs have access codes to the lifts?"
"Nah," Zack murmured back, his voice slurring more with sleepiness than the drink. "Got 'em today with the promotion. I'm First Class, y'know," he added with a cheeky pride that made him seem even younger.
Cloud almost dropped him, realizing at last who he'd been dragging through the halls: Zack Fair, SOLDIER's star candidate, the youngest guy since Sephiroth to make First Class and the one person in the world the General seemed to truly like. Awe battled with embarrassment--he'd told Zack of all people--at least until nerves took over.
"Oh," he said, taking a deep, deep breath to steady himself.
He couldn't mess this up for Zack. He just couldn't.
He might not have a SOLDIER's enhanced senses, but now that he understood the stakes, the slightest sound brought him alert, his awareness of every exit and bolthole sharp as crystal. Zack didn't seem to mind being hurried here and there, stuffed into elevators and pushed through doorways, though he had a tendency to laugh at the worst moments. The trip took on an almost nightmarish quality for Cloud, his breath catching at the menacing echoes of footsteps, the halls seeming far darker than the half-glow the safety lights provided. Just let him get Zack to the SOLDIER barracks, and--
"Hold up, Mart," he heard just around the corner, "I forgot those projections--"
Footsteps ahead. The hiss and chime of a door closed and locked by keycard somewhere not far behind, in the corridor with them, an office worker who'd turn in just a moment and see them there--
Cloud didn't quite panic, but he almost missed the touch pad as he tried to palm open the door on his right. He knew it wouldn't work--they were too high up, security tightening with every floor they climbed--and when the door swished open, he almost stood and stared as his heart thunked hollowly against his ribs. Instinct saved them as his body took over, diving inside so fast he tripped over Zack's feet, both of them going down in a heap on the floor as the door slid unconcernedly shut behind them.
Zack had ended up under him, which was a good thing, because it was much easier to slap both hands over his laughing mouth and lean on the guy with a bit of leverage behind him. "Shut up!" he breathed, straining his ears for shouts of alarm, ignoring the humid puffs of breath and the warm softness of Zack's lips with single-minded determination. Someone cursed outside, but the smart footsteps that came his way were light and quick, the click of high heels accompanied by the rattle of someone digging through a purse.
"Stupid--oh. Didn't mean you guys. Did I leave my keys in the conference room?"
"Not that I saw. Don't tell me you locked them in your car again...?"
"For the fifth time this year, yes. Either of you going my way?"
"Sure thing. Mart?"
"Heh. Forgetting something?"
"Eh, the projections can wait. Look, my brother's a mechanic. I bet he could get your car open in no time."
"Well...if I'm pulling you away from your work...."
"No way, not at all! Hey, it's the weekend, right? Come on, I'll take you somewhere...."
Cloud let out an exaggerated sigh of relief when the footsteps faded, letting Zack go and leaning back until his shoulders hit the wall. "Gods, that was close."
Zack was still laughing, but now he was shaking his head, mouth quirked up in a indulgent grin. "Don't worry so much," he said, sitting up on his elbows and shaking his hair from his eyes. "No one's going to throw the book at you, even if we get caught. It's not like you could argue with a SOLDIER, right? I outrank you."
"Are you crazy?" Cloud demanded without thinking, turning half away from Zack to set his ear to the door. "You don't want to be reprimanded your first day. Now shut up and let me listen."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zack sit up straighter, grin fading to openmouthed surprise. "You're serious," Zack said quietly, "aren't you?"
Flailing a hand in Zack's direction, he asked mutely for quiet and got it as he held his breath, trying to distinguish the faint tramp of feet from the constant hum of machinery through every wall. When a good minute had passed without a peep from outside--or from Zack--Cloud cautiously rose and palmed open the door.
The coast, for the moment, was clear. Time to get Zack back on his feet and run like hell for that last lift.
Zack helped this time, as much as he was able, and though it gave Cloud the screaming willies to be sneaking this close to General Sephiroth's office--only a few floors up, and that was way too close for comfort--they managed to stagger across the sky bridge connecting the towers without setting off any alarms.
"Elevator'd be fine now, I bet," Zack mumbled through a yawn, head nodding on his chest, and Cloud hesitated only a moment before taking him at his word. Zack was a SOLDIER, after all; he probably knew more about sneaking through enemy territory than Cloud's entire unit combined. And if this really were a practice mission, then he'd be following Zack's lead anyway. Might as well risk it; they could always run if Zack turned out to be wrong.
But the elevator was clear when they found it, and when they rode down to the SOLDIER barracks, Zack was awake and lucid enough to punch in his code one last time, overriding the lock that had tripped once they hit curfew. Not that Cloud thought anyone would be stupid enough to attack a floor full of SOLDIERs in their sleep, but you never knew. And anyway, this was Shinra. It was Cloud's considered opinion that the department heads didn't just like their paranoia; they were sentimentally attached to it.
He took a right at the elevators, found the spiky potted tree that jittered menacingly as they passed, and turned left at the autographed portrait of President Shinra. They were so close now, six doors down from a clean getaway, and Cloud didn't honestly care that he still had his own trek to make afterwards. If he could just shove Zack inside that door--
"You two," a crisp voice called out behind them. "Stop where you are."
Cloud's stomach sank into his boots, something about the quality of command in the voice telling him that this wasn't one of Zack's fellow SOLDIERs having him on for a joke. Turning slowly and dragging Zack with him, Cloud's eyes fell on a polished pair of black boots and froze there, forgetting to breathe entirely. Black boots, black pants, the hem of a black coat swirling past a tall man's knees...the shallow arc of a sheath holding a sword almost as long as Cloud was tall. Gaze and mind skittered away from the glimpses of pale skin bared by the open coat, the thick straps that crossed the General's chest, his eyes finally losing their courage when they settled on the unsmiling line of Sephiroth's mouth.
"Zack," Sephiroth said, a world of disapproval in his resonant voice. "I certainly hope it wasn't you who roused half the compound. What were you thinking? Drunk and disorderly," he added, mouth tightening, "I'm led to believe is traditional after a promotion. Expected, even. But involving innocents?"
Cloud couldn't help himself; when General Sephiroth's eyes cut towards him, he snapped to strict attention, staring straight ahead with the most expressionless face he could muster. He was aware that he'd probably gone dead white, and the pounding of his heart was so loud he could barely hear his panicked inner monologue over it.
It mostly consisted of I'm sorry and oh, gods.
"Did Zack drag you into this?" the General asked, and Cloud's heart lurched when he realized Sephiroth was addressing him.
"No, sir," he managed, his voice hoarse but steady.
"No? He didn't bully you into ferrying him around?"
"I volunteered, sir," Cloud said, which was true enough, as things went. Sephiroth just stared at him for a long moment as Zack got heavier and heavier, not saying a word to defend himself. Cloud almost wanted to shake him awake, but if Zack couldn't talk his way out of this, that might not be a mercy.
Sephiroth shook his head, glancing back at Zack with an odd look of consternation. "Never mind," the General said at last, "he can't hear me anyway. Do you know the way to his room?"
"Yes, sir," Cloud said, hope rising with idiot tenacity. Surely the General wouldn't just let them off...not Cloud as well. Zack was a SOLDIER, at least; Cloud was...well, nobody.
"Carry on, then," Sephiroth told him, the vaguest hint of long-suffering patience staining his voice.
Cloud attempted a salute on pure reflex and almost lost Zack off his shoulder. A quick grab saved the situation--and Zack's dignity--but Sephiroth eyed Zack's boneless slump and Cloud's white-knuckled grip and sighed.
"Follow me," the General said, closing the distance between them and sweeping past in a cloud of black coat and silvery hair, and Cloud found himself trailing after the man without a second thought. Sephiroth seemed to know exactly which door was Zack's, and he palmed it open like he did it all the time. Cloud expected the General to take over from there, but Sephiroth hit the lights and then stood aside without entering the room, nodding Cloud inside. "Get him settled if you can. I'll clear it with your commanding officer. What unit are you with?"
"The 10th Security Division, sir," Cloud stammered, "Unit C."
"The Cactuars?"
"Yes, sir," Cloud said, torn between awe that Sephiroth could place his unit so quickly and embarrassment at taking so long to drag Zack inside that the General had to hold his hand down on the lock plate to keep the door open.
"Hmm. On Zack's behalf, I thank you for your assistance," Sephiroth said formally, and Cloud nearly dropped his burden for the second time in as many minutes.
"Yes, sir! My pleasure, sir!"
Sephiroth looked almost wry as he glanced at Zack again, shook his head, and took his hand off the plate. "Good evening, soldier."
When the door snicked shut between them, Cloud sagged all at once and almost fell over when Zack's weight dragged him to the left. "Oh, shit. Sorry. Come on, it's only a few more steps...."
"Thank the gods," Zack groaned, getting his feet under himself and straightening his knees until he was leaning only a little on Cloud, taking the last few stumbling steps towards the bed under his own power. Cloud stared after him in shock, mouth working silently, wanting to smack the guy for letting him deal with the General all by himself. "You can hide out here if you want," Zack added, dropping onto the bed and then almost falling out of it again as he leaned down to try and get his boots. "It'll take a while for Seph to track down your CO, and it's no good your getting caught before then."
"I--"
"At least stay until the alert dies down," Zack interrupted, looking up at him with a fuzzy sort of concern that suggested that he might be seeing two of Cloud at the moment, but that he was equally worried for both. It wasn't in the least what he'd expected--certainly not after the way Zack had played dead...or had he been playing?--but there was a frankness in Zack's eyes that assured him the offer was genuine.
"Just for an hour, then," Cloud agreed, giving in reluctantly. "You sure you don't mind?"
"Nah, make yourself at home," Zack invited, grinning hugely and then losing it in a yawn. "Sorry. I don't think I've drunk so much in my life. As in all of it put together. You want to get the lights?" he asked, giving up on his boots with another yawn and slinging his legs onto the bed, not bothering to crawl under the blanket.
"Sure," Cloud said, crossing to the wall by the door to flip the switch. Even then the room wasn't completely dark; the security lights outside were still crawling over the compound, and the blazing glitter of Midgar never died no matter which side of the Plate you lived on. From the small window between the desk and the bed, enough light poured in to let Cloud find his way back to the center of the room, where he stood looking around uncertainty. There was a chair by the desk, but the desk itself was nearly buried under an avalanche of papers, and he couldn't be sure he had the clearance to be in the same room as any of it. He could just sit down by the wall or right where he was, but the clock faced the bed, and Cloud needed to see when it might be safe to go.
Closing the gap in a few hesitant steps, he sat down on the floor and leaned back against the bed, circling his knees with his arms and hoping he wasn't taking undue liberties.
"Hey," Zack said, springs squeaking softly as he lifted his head from the pillows. "I don't usually snore, you know, though I'm not promising anything tonight."
Cloud looked over at him with eyes gone wide, somehow managing not to jump when he realized that he could see Zack's eyes perfectly well by the faint violet glow they gave off. Was he offering to share the bed? "No, uh...I'm okay," Cloud assured him quickly, shaking his head. "Don't want to fall asleep, right?"
"You sure? I don't kick, either."
"I'm fine," Cloud said, feeling bold enough to offer a smile. "Thanks, though."
"My pleasure," Zack said, faint laughter in his voice, not the slightest bit unkind. Cloud flushed as he remembered his reply to Sephiroth's unexpected clemency, but he could see Zack's face just clearly enough to make out the indulgent smile, maybe a little teasing but not mocking at all.
"Go to sleep," Cloud muttered, turning pointedly away, though he found himself smiling as well for no reason he could explain. So far in Zack's company he'd been resolute, awed, embarrassed, and stark terrified, but now that things were quiet he felt...comfortable, at ease for the first time he could remember. He knew the guy was three sheets to the wind, that Zack probably wouldn't remember Cloud at all in the morning or much care how he'd gotten back to his room, but there were hints, under that drunken friendliness, of the kind of person Cloud himself wanted to be, honest, open and true.
Sighing, Cloud rested his chin on his knees and closed his eyes briefly, the better to hold on to his daydreams. Like a SOLDIER First Class--like Zack Fair of all people--would look at him as more than a convenient drone, a crutch that could steer.
Yeah, right.
***
When Cloud woke up the next morning, he found himself asleep on the floor, his face buried in Zack's own pillow and cocooned in one of the blankets, his left hand clutching the leg of the bed in a death grip. He had to peel his fingers up with his other hand, breathless with mortification at finding himself still in Zack's room and at...resisting, apparently, when the guy tried to move him.
Zack was a motionless tangle of wound sheets and tanned skin, sleeping on his stomach with his face tucked into the bend of his arm, not snoring. He must have gotten up sometime in the night and stripped down to his boxers, found Cloud still there, and....
Cloud's mind shut down after that, and though it took him nearly ten minutes to cross the room to the door, he didn't make a single sound doing it, stealthy enough to leave even a SOLDIER's sleep undisturbed.
No one stopped him in the halls as he made a beeline for the elevator and took it down, almost gasping in relief that the security lock had been lifted already. After playing ninjas through corporate Shinra, it was simplicity itself to sneak into the barracks room he shared with the rest of his unit, almost falling into his bunk before he saw the folded slip of paper resting ominously on his pillow.
His hands shook as he opened it up, but what he read left him staring in disbelief, the premonition of doom that had been tightening his shoulders easing at last.
It was a pass, for the entire night--for the entire compound--signed by General Sephiroth himself.
Though it was dawn, it was also the weekend; alarms wouldn't start going off for another hour, and his unit had the free rotation this week. No one would care if he slept in until noon.
Cloud didn't sleep at all, though he laid down and stared up at the bunk above, still holding the pass in one hand with a faint grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Maybe he'd been right to come to Midgar after all. Maybe his luck would finally change for the better.
And maybe, when he finally made SOLDIER....
He couldn't finish that thought, changing luck or not. Some things were just too outlandish even for him to believe.
But having a friend like Zack...he could hope, right?
***
Guzman looked up from the pool table when Farnham dug an elbow into his side, before he made his shot, at least. About to growl about lousy cheaters who shouldn't play if they couldn't pay, he caught Farnham jerking his head towards the door of the rec room and glanced over with a frown.
Spiky black hair, weird glowing eyes, and sleeveless SOLDIER charcoals--only the last time he'd seen this guy, he'd been draped over Cloud's shoulder like a bad prom date. Not that he could quite picture the guy in a dress. Cloud, on the other hand....
The SOLDIER looked a hell of a lot more impressive now, standing tall and confident, master of all he surveyed, though the good-natured smile probably reconciled most people to that. Besides more impressive, he also looked more familiar. Wasn't he that hotshot kid who'd just made First Class? In something under a year?
Before Guzman could ask what the guy wanted, Farnham nudged him again with a grin and shouted, "Hey, Cloud! It's for you!"
"Asshole," Guz muttered, rolling his eyes. Farnham had been the sacrificial lamb before Cloud came along, and was still attached enough to his freedom to make Cloud's life difficult. For all they knew, Cloud had screwed up somehow and Hotshot here was going to give the kid a nasty talking-to; who could predict with SOLDIERs?
Cloud had been sitting off to the side, waiting to play the winner or maybe honestly engrossed in his book, but he stood up with a puzzled frown when Farnham yelled. "Huh?" Cloud asked, looking towards the door, and Guzman got ready to protest--
And then the SOLDIER smiled. Lit up, really, like he'd just seen his best friend after years of separation. "Cloud," the guy called, "hey. You free?"
Cloud seemed as dumbfounded as Guz felt, but he found his voice quickly enough. "Uh...yes?"
"Great! C'mon, I got us day passes. They're playing the Grand Theft Chocobo movie down the road at the multiplex in twenty minutes--popcorn's on me."
Cloud blinked once and then, as if he'd forgotten how to do it, an answering smile spread shyly across his face. Maybe he had forgotten; Guz realized with a start that he could probably count on one hand the times he'd seen Cloud smile like he really meant it, and not one of them could hold a candle to this.
"Sure, Zack," Cloud said, pausing as if waiting to see how the name would be received. "But I'm getting the drinks."
"You're not old enough to drink," Zack teased, blithely ignoring the fact that he probably wasn't either.
Cloud's smile deepened slowly, a hint of mischief lighting up his eyes. "I know. That's the point. You're heavy."
"Slings and arrows," Zack complained, smacking his fist over his heart as if to stab himself. "Come on, slave driver. I'll get you back on time, too."
"Yeah?" Cloud asked, not like he didn't believe the guy, but like he wanted to hear why.
"Yeah," Zack said, grin not slipping a jot. "It's my turn."
Guzman shook his head, but he didn't say a word as Cloud followed the guy out.