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Zack was an infinite number of things. He was warm, and kind, and friendly. He was funny, he cared way too much and he started to care too easily. He was loyal to a fault and just didn’t know when to let things lie. He was maddening, and frustrating, and always got you to laugh and forgive him anyway.
He was also incredibly fucking stupid.
“Zack, I have drills in the morning,” Cloud griped into his PHS. It was almost four in the morning. He had drills at six. This was eating up precious sleeping time, and he’d gone to bed late as it was because he was up studying. He didn’t really have time for this. He should have ignored the call when it came in, but it could have been important.
He hadn’t known Zack was out drinking all night when he picked up.
“I know! I know, just—listen, listenlisten, this is important.”
Cloud sighed. Zack was slurring. It took a lot for SOLDIERs to get drunk, but the night was winding down, and there was every sign he’d been drinking like a fiend since early. They could get drunk if they tried hard enough, and it seemed like Zack had tried pretty damn hard.
“If it’ll get you to let me go back to sleep, fine. What is it?”
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, Zack.”
“Are you really listening?”
“Hurry it up.”
“I love you.”
Cloud’s world came to a screeching halt.
He’d loved Zack almost as long as he’d known him. He’d fallen for him fast and hard and never quite managed to kill the stupid, stupid crush. He told himself over and over that it was puppy love. That he was idealizing Zack because he didn’t have many friends (any friends, especially in Midgar) and someone was finally paying attention to him in a nice way. Someone important, a SOLDIER First. Someone he looked up to.
Zack was everything he wanted to be, from his attitude to his rank. He was a pipe dream in every single way, from his aspirations to his feelings. He was unattainable. He could have anyone—frequently did have an awful lot of people. He was a notorious flirt, and Cloud had seen it in action plenty of times. He’d learned to look away and pretend to be busy when it happened so Zack wouldn’t notice how much it got under his skin. Of course, Zack did notice, but he’d always teased him about being shy when it happened and not about being jealous, so he couldn’t know the truth.
And the truth was bad. The truth was, he cared so deeply it scared him. Sephiroth had been his childhood idol, but Zack was his everything, now. Everything he cared about and dreamed for, wrapped into one perfect package he could never have.
Which was why he was definitely taking this the wrong way.
There was no way Zack could feel the same. He was a scrawny little cadet with stupid hair who couldn’t put on muscle no matter how hard he tried. He was shy, and stubborn, and had a terrible temper if you pushed the right buttons. There was nothing to draw Zack to him. He’d always wondered why he wanted to be friends with him at all, and had always chalked it up to pity and the fact that Zack was just too nice. He’d called him his best friend multiple times now, and Cloud hadn’t really believed that. He wasn’t about to believe this.
“Riiiiiiight,” Cloud said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Best friend and everything.”
“What? No, Cloud, not like that. I—I fucking love you.”
His heart stuttered. It just couldn’t be right.
“Uh-huh. Is this a prank? Am I on speaker?”
“Of course not, why would I do that?”
“Because you’re clearly smashed, and your SOLDIER friends don’t like me very much.”
“My SOLDIER friends like you just fine!”
Cloud knew that wasn’t quite true. Zack’s SOLDIER friends liked his ass. They tolerated his presence because he was “too damn pretty,” as they had put it once. They took every chance when Zack’s back was turned to make a pass at him. He told himself over and over again that if they made one more lewd comment, he really was going to rat them out to Zack, but he never quite had the guts for it.
But he was off-kilter at the moment. His heart was racing. Zack was telling him impossible things and he was scrambling. Everything he wanted was right there but it had to be fake, had to be, he just didn’t get things like this.
So he did what he always did when he was backed into a corner.
He mouthed off.
“No, they like looking at what they can’t touch.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“That means they just wanna stare and imagine what I look like with my mouth around their dicks.”
“Cloud, c’mon, that’s not cool.”
“You’re right, it’s not cool that they keep saying shit like that to me. Get them to rein it in, will you?”
“That’s—y’know what, I’ll talk to them, but you’re trying to sidetrack me and I know it. I meant what I said, okay?”
“Sure,” Cloud scoffed. “You mean it so much? Hang up, and tell me when you’re sober.”
“What? Cloud—”
“Goodnight, Zack.”
Cloud hung up the call. He ended the next three calls that came in without even answering them. When the fourth rang, he just turned his PHS off.
When he woke up, he was too tired to remember what happened. He was too busy trudging his way through the halls to even realize his PHS was still off, much less remember the sort-of-fight.
It wasn’t until he got to his lunch break and pulled out his PHS to play a game that he remembered, and only then because he was surprised to find the device off. He turned it on and set it on the table, wincing with each incoming text.
There were a total of 12 missed calls, and plenty more texts.
Zack: cloud
Zack: cloud
Zack: cloud!!!!!
Zack: cloud stop ignoring me
Zack: cloud cmon
Zack: cloud if this is about my friends i really will talk to them
Zack: cloud just please talk to me
Zack: this is kinda important to me
Zack: i really do love you
Zack: i wanna talk about it if youll let me
Zack: you don’t even have to answer, just pick up the PHS?
Zack: okay, fine, ill type it out then
Zack: yuoer really cool and amazgn and you are my brdt friend even though i know you dont believe me when i tell you that
Zack: fuck
Zack: *youre *amazing *best
Zack: this is so much harder when youre drunk
Zack: ill type slower
Zack: youre cute and sweet and you dont just care about me because im a first and you always make me laugh and its a good thing youre not enhanced because otherwise youd know how my heart always races when im with you and thatd be pretty embarrassing and lame but maybe itd be a good thing because maybe youd believe me
Zack: the whole reason i even went out tonight was to get drunk so id have the nerve to tell you
Zack: ive been trying for weeks but i chicken out every time
Zack: you mean the world to me spike
Zack: shit
Zack: ok i think you really must have gone to sleep or turned your phone off or something
Zack: at least i hope its that and that what i said will mean something to you when you read it
Zack: ill come find you tomorrow after i sleep it off
Zack: promise not to pull you out of drills, i know you hate that
Zack: normally id do it anyway just to bug you but i dont want you mad at me
Zack: i really hope thisll go better tomorrow
Cloud’s stomach turned in some very interesting ways as he read the messages. There was a flutter of hope in it, but it kept sinking because the timestamp on the messages was from so long ago. It still seemed so impossible, that maybe Zack might care about him the way he cared about Zack. But the things he said, there wasn’t really another way to interpret the messages. There was no friend-love about hearts racing. He knew, because his heart raced around Zack all the time.
His heart was racing now, as he stared down at his PHS.
His thumbs hovered over the keypad, unsure of what to do. He didn’t know how to answer, what to say. Could he really care about him like this? Besides, he was probably still sleeping off the hangover. Best to leave him to it. He could figure out what to say during class.
Before he could get any further, a heavy weight dropped down in the bench across the table from him. He looked up from his PHS to see that it was Zack.
“So you did get my texts,” Zack said, looking pointedly down at the PHS.
“I, uh—yeah. I just read them.”
“Do you believe me yet? I’m sober now. I’ll keep saying it, if that’s what you need. I lo—”
Cloud jumped up in his seat and slapped his hand over Zack’s mouth.
“Are you sure we should be talking about this here? With, like, the whole cafeteria around? Anyone could be listening.”
Zack pried Cloud’s hand away.
“So what?” he answered. “I don’t care, I’m not ashamed of you, I—oh. Ohhhhhhh. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Cloud slowly sank into his seat. He could feel the heat creeping over his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“This is the self-esteem thing again, isn’t it?” Zack was watching him closely now. “About how you don’t feel good enough.”
Cloud looked down at the table. He put down his PHS and picked up his fork, pushing his food around on his tray.
“Is it because I’m a First?” Zack asked. “You know rank doesn’t matter to me.”
“I know, Zack,” Cloud mumbled.
Zack reached out and stilled Cloud’s hand with his own.
“What is it, then?”
Cloud didn’t risk looking up at him.
“It’s just—you’re you. You’re kind and funny and good at everything and I could keep going and I’m—me.”
Zack’s thumb stroked over his hand.
“Spike. Cloud. Hey, look at me?”
Cloud looked up hesitantly. Zack gave him his warmest smile.
“I’m happy to spend as long as it takes showing you that we’re equals.”
“But you’re a—”
“Rank can go to hell. I don’t give a damn. I love you. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. But I want you to believe me.”
Cloud looked at him closely, examining every line and curve of his face. He couldn’t find a hint of a lie in it.
His expression turned into one of wonder.
Everything he wanted. More than he could have ever asked for, handed to him on a silver platter.
“You really mean it?”
The smile Zack gave him was dazzling.
“With all my heart.”
“I love you too, Zack.”
The smile softened into something that made warmth spread through Cloud’s chest.
“Can I kiss you?”
Cloud’s eyes shot wide. He looked around the cafeteria, glancing quickly at their hands. That was a bad enough idea as it was. He looked hesitant.
“Are you sure? Here?”
“What’d I already say? I’m not ashamed of you.”
“But…”
“You can say no, if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to, but I just…”
Zack smiled softly and squeezed his hand.
“If you’re embarrassed, that’s a whole different thing. That I can work with.”
He hauled Cloud up by their shared hands before dragging them off.
“Oh, by the way, I talked to my friends,” Zack said as they went. “Told ‘em I’d break their legs if they said anything else creepy to you. Let me know if they do, don’t want anyone thinking I’m not good for my word.”
“Zack,” Cloud said, half a laugh in his voice. “I don’t want any legs broken over me.”
“Ah, they’re SOLDIERs, they heal up quick. Besides, it sounds like they had it coming.”
Cloud laughed outright this time.
“Yeah, a little.”
“I’m glad you told me, but maybe don’t tell me exactly what they said, or I’ll end up breaking their legs for what they’ve already done. The only reason I’m going to still hang out with them is because we’re stuck together in the program.”
Cloud frowned.
“I didn’t mean to cost you friends; that’s not what I want.”
“And I don’t want to be friends with people who think it’s okay to say shit like that to anyone much less another one of my friends,” Zack said, but they were finally outside the cafeteria and into an empty hallway. He took the opportunity to crowd Cloud back against the wall, who went willingly, but with a blush on his face. “But I think we have better things to be doing then talking about assholes. Unless you want to talk about—”
“Absolutely not,” Cloud said, grabbing Zack by the front of his uniform and dragging him in for a kiss.
It was everything Cloud had ever wanted. Zack laughed into the kiss, and Cloud got to drink the sound down, their mouths slotting together like they’d been made for it. Things were slow and sweet, tender in a way Cloud hadn’t expected but probably should have. Even when he tried to make things heated, Zack just laughed again and slowed everything back down to honey-paced and honey-sweet.
It was frustrating.
It was maddening.
It was perfect.