![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Negotiations
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Cloud/Zack
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2330
The Mission: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
“So, you and the Generals, huh?” Zack took a good look around the bathroom, resting his eyes anywhere but on Cloud.
“Yeah,” Cloud said, sitting on the edge of the tub. He passed his hand under the stream of water. Just right and nearly done. He sighed. Some night this had turned out to be. All that planning. He fidgeted under the towel in his lap to get the ribbon off. A limp noodle was good for making that easier, at least. He set the ribbon aside and stroked it wistfully.
Zack paced up and down the bathroom. There was a surprising amount of space in there for it. The whole thing was marble and mirrors, with enough splashes of incongruous color here and there to keep it looking actually lived-in. The shelves held elegantly packaged bath products Zack had never seen in any store, and the tub was practically a swimming pool. “Shit, this place looks expensive,” Zack blurted out before he could stop himself.
Cloud laughed a little. “Yeah, Gen doesn’t skimp when it comes to his comfort.” He ran his fingers under the tap again even though the temperature was perfect. Time to get in. He discarded the towel and began the task of hoisting himself over the edge, hissing a little at the motion.
“Hey, let me help you!” Zack was over in a heartbeat with a hand around Cloud’s arm. “Just a little over this way.”
“I’m fine, Zack,” Cloud said.
“It’s just a-”
“Zack, you’re pushing me over!”
“Sorry, just let me-”
“Zack, look at what you’re doing!”
Zack blinked and quite decidedly did NOT look. Cloud huffed. “For crying out loud, Zack, you’ve already seen me naked with a dildo up my ass. How is this any worse?”
Zack chuckled a little, turning pink and not from the steam. “Makes sense, I guess. I just wasn’t sure…”
“I’m fine with it,” Cloud said. “It’s only for a second.”
Zack nodded and helped Cloud step up properly, then held still so the boy could balance on his way down into the water. Cloud hissed when it reached his hips but the grimace soon gave way to a sort of blissful expression that had Zack feeling a little constrained. Cloud moaned happily and turned the jets on low.
“No way, they have bubbles in there too?” Zack stared in wonder, then frowned at Cloud. “You lucky bum, you’re getting all the perks.”
Cloud shrugged and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. “We could trade, if you want.”
“Dude!” Zack looked shocked, then collapsed into light giggles. “That was kind of the plan,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Angeal was planning to introduce me. We had no idea you were involved. How’d that happen, anyway?”
“Seph and Gen?” Cloud shrugged. “They asked me. I said ‘yes’.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Hmm.” Zack perched on the edge of the tub, close enough to be of assistance without getting an accidental eyeful of cadet. “How come, you figure? I mean, not that you’re not a total package. Uh, no, wait, not that-”
“It’s okay, Zack.” Cloud laughed and paddled over to where Zack was sitting. “It’s not like we both haven’t been naked in bathrooms with guys already.”
“Yeah, but I don’t really make a habit of feeling them all up, you know.” Zack got a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall behind the tub. Yep, beet red.
Cloud splashed him. “Extenuating circumstances, SOLDIER. Thanks for the rescue attempt, by the way.”
Zack splashed back and bowed his head. “Well, I guess if I have to be removing strange objects from an orifice, better yours than anyone else’s.” Cloud went up to his nose in the water. “How are you doing, Cloud, really?”
Cloud stretched. “I’m okay.”
“No, Cloud.” Zack was serious. “Really.”
Cloud shrunk back from the scrutiny. “What do you mean?”
“Are they really… good to you?” Zack watched the water churning but he caught the way Cloud’s shoulders drooped.
“They’re not abusing me, Zack.” Cloud tried not to sink lower into the water. They had planned for this eventuality, discussed it and braced for it and hoped it would never have to come to this. Cloud wasn’t sure if the fact that he already knew Zack made things better or worse. “They don’t do anything I don’t explicitly agree to.”
“But they still outrank you. I mean, obviously they take care of you, but it’s not really good footing, is it? I know you said ‘yes’, but can you really say ‘no’.”
“Actually I say ‘banana’,” Cloud said, making a wry face into the water. “And sometimes when they really screw up, ‘strawberry’.”
Zack blinked through the steam. “Your safewords are fruit?”
“You got anything better?”
Zack’s own little signal was at the tip of his tongue but he thought better of it. “Actually, no. That makes perfect sense.” Cloud smirked into the water. “So, it’s all good?” Zack asked, confirming. Sephiroth and Genesis definitely seemed attentive enough when Cloud was hurt, but how often did that happen?
“It’s okay, Zack.” Cloud stirred against the flow of the water to watch the surface swirl. “They take good care of me. Too much good care sometimes. They’d spoil me rotten if I let them.”
“That so?”
Cloud shrugged. “They were willing to let me have a fling with you.” He sank lower into the water again.
”Uh, yeah.” Zack almost tittered. “They were really okay with that?”
“Seph was.” Cloud studied his toes in the water. “Gen came around.”
Seph and Gen. Gen and Seph. Zack couldn’t imagine calling those two so familiarly, though it might have come with time if things had progressed smoothly. “So you just wanted a little fling and they let you have it?” Interesting sort of relationship they had going here. Angeal hardly let Zack out of his sight.
Cloud scooted around in the tub so he could look at Zack more directly. “They were willing to and nothing happened anyway. You know that.” He kept his eyes on the shelf just to the side of Zack’s head. “It wasn’t supposed to be sleazy.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean that. Just… I can’t picture tough guys like that being willing to share.”
Cloud smiled a little. “Me either.” He sighed and rubbed his fingers under the water. Not quite pruney yet. “But they were going to, just because I wanted it.” He fought the urge to swallow at revealing such a thing, but if that didn’t prove the relationship on some kind of decent footing, nothing would.
“Wow.” Zack took a seat at the tub’s edge, stirring the water a little. “I don’t even get how you could have them like that and still want something more.”
“I don’t get it either.” Cloud shrugged. “But you’re just too hot to ignore.” The way Zack looked at him had him burning right up to his ears.
Zack chuckled, looking panicked. “You wanted me specifically?” Him, and not just some different experience? Not just some fling?
Cloud was turning as red as he was. “Yeah. I didn’t know you already had somebody.”
Zack forced his shoulders down. “Why’d you pick me?”
Cloud glanced away for a second. “You look good. And you were nice.”
“Well, yeah, I do look good.” Zack mock-preened. Cloud splashed him. “Heh. You know, the reason Angeal was bringing me up to meet them was so that I wouldn’t have just one somebody anymore.”
Cloud got the picture immediately. “He was coming back? That’s why they came for me in the first place, because they were lonely without him and they weren’t planning to throw me out if he came back.”
Zack laughed briefly, but in earnest this time. “So they were going to share you with Angeal, and Angeal was going to share me with them, and instead of talking it out-“
“They go wrecking up the place.” Cloud rolled his eyes and paddled forward. He came to rest near Zack and set his head on crossed arms. Zack couldn’t help looking this time. Cloud’s back was a smooth expanse beneath the water. Zack cursed the ripples from the jets for obscuring the view. Maybe that was for the best.
Cloud was staring so serenely up at him, completely at ease now. “Could you pass my towel, please?”
“You want to get out already?”
“I can’t stay in here getting all wrinkly.” Cloud pouted in a manner Genesis had unwittingly helped him perfect. He had his lovers’ permission. Zack had Hewley’s, after a fashion. The First Classes had already proven themselves unsuited to working out the details on their own. It was for the common good, really.
Zack gave him a look. “You really want to waste all this good water? With the jets and everything?” Zack was renowned as a master of the art of Puppy Eyes, but Cloud gave him a look that was a clear threat to his rank.
“I’m just tired, Zack. It’s been a long night.”
“Aww.” Zack leaned over and ruffled the blond spikes, earning a splash for his trouble. “Which one is it?”
“The blue set on the end there.” Cloud pointed to the towel racks.
“I see.” Zack had to stare for a while. Three neatly folded towel sets hung over the bars, one black with silver edging, one deep crimson and monogrammed and the other, Cloud’s, a vivid royal blue, and all of them clearly made of the thick, fluffy stuff of a flat broke Third Class’s dreams. “You have your own towel set here?”
Cloud rolled his eyes. “I have my own toothbrush, too.”
Zack looked at the sinks, twin vanities in pale marble with gilt-edged oval mirrors above them. Sure enough, the toothbrush holder in the middle held three, one green, one red and one bright yellow with a chocobo head – shaped handle. “Hey, is that one yours?”
“Yes.” Cloud looked away, grateful he was already lobster red from the water.
“It’s so cute!” Zack cooed. “Suits you to a T, chocobohead.” Now that he looked, the signs were everywhere. The fixtures spoke of opulence, but the non-slip grips on the shower floor were candy-colored and shaped like birds. The bath products came in elegant black containers but there was a bottle of bright yellow kiddy bubble bath high up on the shelf. And hiding under Cloud’s towel was the cutest little chocobo washcloth that ever was. “Hey, is this yours too?”
“Yes.” Cloud sighed. Darn Gen and his themed shopping.
“And that big yellow comb?”
“Yes.”
“That goldfish-shaped bath sponge?”
“Yeah.”
“And the little rubber duckie in the corner?”
“No, that’s Seph’s.”
“… Really?”
“Yeah, Gen thought it would help him relax or something.”
Zack scratched his head. “Does it work?”
“Not really. Can you help me out, please?” No, he was not fluttering his eyelashes at Zack.
“Sure thing!” Zack went over to get the towel, brow furrowing as he tried to remember something. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to take a potion?”
Cloud huffed. This was going nowhere. “I don’t need one.”
Zack drew himself up. “General Sephiroth said to make sure you take a potion and I am not about to disobey an order from him.”
“What are you, chicken? I do it all the time.”
“Don’t you get all smart-mouthed on me, cadet.” Zack marched over to the sink and rustled up a potion. “You’re taking it.”
Cloud backed into a corner of the tub. “I don’t want to. They taste terrible.”
Zack deflated. “Yeah, they kinda do.” Angeal’s voice echoed in his head. “But it’s like medicine, not soda. It’s not supposed to taste good.” He walked back to the tub, loosening the lid as he knelt down. “Come on, you probably won’t even have to drink the whole thing.” Cloud groaned.
Zack studied the bottle in his hand, then looked back and the boy in the water. The boy who was attracted to him. Cloud wasn’t out of reach and a good SOLDIER did whatever it took to get the job done. Zack didn’t make a habit of overthinking. He chugged a big mouthful of potion and grabbed Cloud by the hair.
“Hey, what are you-!” It was rough and messy and some of the potion ran down Cloud’s chin but he swallowed more than he spilled. When Zack reached out with his tongue to tidy up the spill, Cloud reached out with his own.
Cloud tried not to whimper when Zack pulled away. The SOLDIER was pink-lipped and breathless. “Um, we should stop.”
“We don’t have to,” Cloud said quietly.
“I guess, but you’re getting pruney and you could probably use a rest.”
“I suppose.” Cloud rose. Zack held the towel out wide for him. Cloud didn’t move as if he were sore anymore, but the hot bath had made him lightheaded. He wavered, falling against Zack’s chest.
“Hey, careful there.” Zack held him close. “Don’t go cracking your head now that we’ve got the other end patched up.”
“I’ll be fine,” Cloud said, and in the half-second it took him to plant his legs firmly and pitch them both backwards, Zack saw the devil’s light in the boy’s eyes.
Zack came up sputtering and soaked. “What did you do that for?” He kicked water at Cloud but Cloud was too wet for it to matter. “This place is a mess!”
“We can clean up afterwards,” Cloud said, leaning back and looking thoroughly satisfied. “There’s a mop in the supply closet.”
“Yeah, but now I’m soaked through.” Zack tried not to whine. His shirt was heavy with the water it had absorbed. Stupid regulation knits.
Cloud shrugged. “Maybe you should take your clothes off, then. You’re already in the tub.”
Zack narrowed his eyes at Cloud. This night was starting to give him some suspicions. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Cloud’s voice went low. “I told you I wasn’t ready to stop.”
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
Characters: Cloud/Zack
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2330
The Mission: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
“So, you and the Generals, huh?” Zack took a good look around the bathroom, resting his eyes anywhere but on Cloud.
“Yeah,” Cloud said, sitting on the edge of the tub. He passed his hand under the stream of water. Just right and nearly done. He sighed. Some night this had turned out to be. All that planning. He fidgeted under the towel in his lap to get the ribbon off. A limp noodle was good for making that easier, at least. He set the ribbon aside and stroked it wistfully.
Zack paced up and down the bathroom. There was a surprising amount of space in there for it. The whole thing was marble and mirrors, with enough splashes of incongruous color here and there to keep it looking actually lived-in. The shelves held elegantly packaged bath products Zack had never seen in any store, and the tub was practically a swimming pool. “Shit, this place looks expensive,” Zack blurted out before he could stop himself.
Cloud laughed a little. “Yeah, Gen doesn’t skimp when it comes to his comfort.” He ran his fingers under the tap again even though the temperature was perfect. Time to get in. He discarded the towel and began the task of hoisting himself over the edge, hissing a little at the motion.
“Hey, let me help you!” Zack was over in a heartbeat with a hand around Cloud’s arm. “Just a little over this way.”
“I’m fine, Zack,” Cloud said.
“It’s just a-”
“Zack, you’re pushing me over!”
“Sorry, just let me-”
“Zack, look at what you’re doing!”
Zack blinked and quite decidedly did NOT look. Cloud huffed. “For crying out loud, Zack, you’ve already seen me naked with a dildo up my ass. How is this any worse?”
Zack chuckled a little, turning pink and not from the steam. “Makes sense, I guess. I just wasn’t sure…”
“I’m fine with it,” Cloud said. “It’s only for a second.”
Zack nodded and helped Cloud step up properly, then held still so the boy could balance on his way down into the water. Cloud hissed when it reached his hips but the grimace soon gave way to a sort of blissful expression that had Zack feeling a little constrained. Cloud moaned happily and turned the jets on low.
“No way, they have bubbles in there too?” Zack stared in wonder, then frowned at Cloud. “You lucky bum, you’re getting all the perks.”
Cloud shrugged and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. “We could trade, if you want.”
“Dude!” Zack looked shocked, then collapsed into light giggles. “That was kind of the plan,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Angeal was planning to introduce me. We had no idea you were involved. How’d that happen, anyway?”
“Seph and Gen?” Cloud shrugged. “They asked me. I said ‘yes’.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Hmm.” Zack perched on the edge of the tub, close enough to be of assistance without getting an accidental eyeful of cadet. “How come, you figure? I mean, not that you’re not a total package. Uh, no, wait, not that-”
“It’s okay, Zack.” Cloud laughed and paddled over to where Zack was sitting. “It’s not like we both haven’t been naked in bathrooms with guys already.”
“Yeah, but I don’t really make a habit of feeling them all up, you know.” Zack got a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall behind the tub. Yep, beet red.
Cloud splashed him. “Extenuating circumstances, SOLDIER. Thanks for the rescue attempt, by the way.”
Zack splashed back and bowed his head. “Well, I guess if I have to be removing strange objects from an orifice, better yours than anyone else’s.” Cloud went up to his nose in the water. “How are you doing, Cloud, really?”
Cloud stretched. “I’m okay.”
“No, Cloud.” Zack was serious. “Really.”
Cloud shrunk back from the scrutiny. “What do you mean?”
“Are they really… good to you?” Zack watched the water churning but he caught the way Cloud’s shoulders drooped.
“They’re not abusing me, Zack.” Cloud tried not to sink lower into the water. They had planned for this eventuality, discussed it and braced for it and hoped it would never have to come to this. Cloud wasn’t sure if the fact that he already knew Zack made things better or worse. “They don’t do anything I don’t explicitly agree to.”
“But they still outrank you. I mean, obviously they take care of you, but it’s not really good footing, is it? I know you said ‘yes’, but can you really say ‘no’.”
“Actually I say ‘banana’,” Cloud said, making a wry face into the water. “And sometimes when they really screw up, ‘strawberry’.”
Zack blinked through the steam. “Your safewords are fruit?”
“You got anything better?”
Zack’s own little signal was at the tip of his tongue but he thought better of it. “Actually, no. That makes perfect sense.” Cloud smirked into the water. “So, it’s all good?” Zack asked, confirming. Sephiroth and Genesis definitely seemed attentive enough when Cloud was hurt, but how often did that happen?
“It’s okay, Zack.” Cloud stirred against the flow of the water to watch the surface swirl. “They take good care of me. Too much good care sometimes. They’d spoil me rotten if I let them.”
“That so?”
Cloud shrugged. “They were willing to let me have a fling with you.” He sank lower into the water again.
”Uh, yeah.” Zack almost tittered. “They were really okay with that?”
“Seph was.” Cloud studied his toes in the water. “Gen came around.”
Seph and Gen. Gen and Seph. Zack couldn’t imagine calling those two so familiarly, though it might have come with time if things had progressed smoothly. “So you just wanted a little fling and they let you have it?” Interesting sort of relationship they had going here. Angeal hardly let Zack out of his sight.
Cloud scooted around in the tub so he could look at Zack more directly. “They were willing to and nothing happened anyway. You know that.” He kept his eyes on the shelf just to the side of Zack’s head. “It wasn’t supposed to be sleazy.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean that. Just… I can’t picture tough guys like that being willing to share.”
Cloud smiled a little. “Me either.” He sighed and rubbed his fingers under the water. Not quite pruney yet. “But they were going to, just because I wanted it.” He fought the urge to swallow at revealing such a thing, but if that didn’t prove the relationship on some kind of decent footing, nothing would.
“Wow.” Zack took a seat at the tub’s edge, stirring the water a little. “I don’t even get how you could have them like that and still want something more.”
“I don’t get it either.” Cloud shrugged. “But you’re just too hot to ignore.” The way Zack looked at him had him burning right up to his ears.
Zack chuckled, looking panicked. “You wanted me specifically?” Him, and not just some different experience? Not just some fling?
Cloud was turning as red as he was. “Yeah. I didn’t know you already had somebody.”
Zack forced his shoulders down. “Why’d you pick me?”
Cloud glanced away for a second. “You look good. And you were nice.”
“Well, yeah, I do look good.” Zack mock-preened. Cloud splashed him. “Heh. You know, the reason Angeal was bringing me up to meet them was so that I wouldn’t have just one somebody anymore.”
Cloud got the picture immediately. “He was coming back? That’s why they came for me in the first place, because they were lonely without him and they weren’t planning to throw me out if he came back.”
Zack laughed briefly, but in earnest this time. “So they were going to share you with Angeal, and Angeal was going to share me with them, and instead of talking it out-“
“They go wrecking up the place.” Cloud rolled his eyes and paddled forward. He came to rest near Zack and set his head on crossed arms. Zack couldn’t help looking this time. Cloud’s back was a smooth expanse beneath the water. Zack cursed the ripples from the jets for obscuring the view. Maybe that was for the best.
Cloud was staring so serenely up at him, completely at ease now. “Could you pass my towel, please?”
“You want to get out already?”
“I can’t stay in here getting all wrinkly.” Cloud pouted in a manner Genesis had unwittingly helped him perfect. He had his lovers’ permission. Zack had Hewley’s, after a fashion. The First Classes had already proven themselves unsuited to working out the details on their own. It was for the common good, really.
Zack gave him a look. “You really want to waste all this good water? With the jets and everything?” Zack was renowned as a master of the art of Puppy Eyes, but Cloud gave him a look that was a clear threat to his rank.
“I’m just tired, Zack. It’s been a long night.”
“Aww.” Zack leaned over and ruffled the blond spikes, earning a splash for his trouble. “Which one is it?”
“The blue set on the end there.” Cloud pointed to the towel racks.
“I see.” Zack had to stare for a while. Three neatly folded towel sets hung over the bars, one black with silver edging, one deep crimson and monogrammed and the other, Cloud’s, a vivid royal blue, and all of them clearly made of the thick, fluffy stuff of a flat broke Third Class’s dreams. “You have your own towel set here?”
Cloud rolled his eyes. “I have my own toothbrush, too.”
Zack looked at the sinks, twin vanities in pale marble with gilt-edged oval mirrors above them. Sure enough, the toothbrush holder in the middle held three, one green, one red and one bright yellow with a chocobo head – shaped handle. “Hey, is that one yours?”
“Yes.” Cloud looked away, grateful he was already lobster red from the water.
“It’s so cute!” Zack cooed. “Suits you to a T, chocobohead.” Now that he looked, the signs were everywhere. The fixtures spoke of opulence, but the non-slip grips on the shower floor were candy-colored and shaped like birds. The bath products came in elegant black containers but there was a bottle of bright yellow kiddy bubble bath high up on the shelf. And hiding under Cloud’s towel was the cutest little chocobo washcloth that ever was. “Hey, is this yours too?”
“Yes.” Cloud sighed. Darn Gen and his themed shopping.
“And that big yellow comb?”
“Yes.”
“That goldfish-shaped bath sponge?”
“Yeah.”
“And the little rubber duckie in the corner?”
“No, that’s Seph’s.”
“… Really?”
“Yeah, Gen thought it would help him relax or something.”
Zack scratched his head. “Does it work?”
“Not really. Can you help me out, please?” No, he was not fluttering his eyelashes at Zack.
“Sure thing!” Zack went over to get the towel, brow furrowing as he tried to remember something. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to take a potion?”
Cloud huffed. This was going nowhere. “I don’t need one.”
Zack drew himself up. “General Sephiroth said to make sure you take a potion and I am not about to disobey an order from him.”
“What are you, chicken? I do it all the time.”
“Don’t you get all smart-mouthed on me, cadet.” Zack marched over to the sink and rustled up a potion. “You’re taking it.”
Cloud backed into a corner of the tub. “I don’t want to. They taste terrible.”
Zack deflated. “Yeah, they kinda do.” Angeal’s voice echoed in his head. “But it’s like medicine, not soda. It’s not supposed to taste good.” He walked back to the tub, loosening the lid as he knelt down. “Come on, you probably won’t even have to drink the whole thing.” Cloud groaned.
Zack studied the bottle in his hand, then looked back and the boy in the water. The boy who was attracted to him. Cloud wasn’t out of reach and a good SOLDIER did whatever it took to get the job done. Zack didn’t make a habit of overthinking. He chugged a big mouthful of potion and grabbed Cloud by the hair.
“Hey, what are you-!” It was rough and messy and some of the potion ran down Cloud’s chin but he swallowed more than he spilled. When Zack reached out with his tongue to tidy up the spill, Cloud reached out with his own.
Cloud tried not to whimper when Zack pulled away. The SOLDIER was pink-lipped and breathless. “Um, we should stop.”
“We don’t have to,” Cloud said quietly.
“I guess, but you’re getting pruney and you could probably use a rest.”
“I suppose.” Cloud rose. Zack held the towel out wide for him. Cloud didn’t move as if he were sore anymore, but the hot bath had made him lightheaded. He wavered, falling against Zack’s chest.
“Hey, careful there.” Zack held him close. “Don’t go cracking your head now that we’ve got the other end patched up.”
“I’ll be fine,” Cloud said, and in the half-second it took him to plant his legs firmly and pitch them both backwards, Zack saw the devil’s light in the boy’s eyes.
Zack came up sputtering and soaked. “What did you do that for?” He kicked water at Cloud but Cloud was too wet for it to matter. “This place is a mess!”
“We can clean up afterwards,” Cloud said, leaning back and looking thoroughly satisfied. “There’s a mop in the supply closet.”
“Yeah, but now I’m soaked through.” Zack tried not to whine. His shirt was heavy with the water it had absorbed. Stupid regulation knits.
Cloud shrugged. “Maybe you should take your clothes off, then. You’re already in the tub.”
Zack narrowed his eyes at Cloud. This night was starting to give him some suspicions. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Cloud’s voice went low. “I told you I wasn’t ready to stop.”
