Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alpha behavior has only become more of an enigma since meeting one Zack Fair.

“Spike! You’re here,” Zack’s voice rings in the empty hallway as he swings his front door open, his grin growing considerably when their eyes meet. Despite the promise of a long shift at the bar looming over his head, Cloud can’t deny that Zack’s presence has a way of easing it out of his mind, at least for a moment.

And without fail, Zack’s scent sweeps over Cloud like a warm tide, rich and woody in its earthiness, and a little sigh escapes Cloud’s mouth unbidden.

When Cloud had first moved into his cramped studio apartment all but six months ago, he’d never expected to befriend Zack—the confident, spirited, and arguably strange alpha who lives directly across from him—in such a short amount of time. In his experience, his ideal neighbors had been neutral parties at best, responsible and tidy and satisfied with coexisting without disturbing one another more than necessary.

But Zack has become a bit of an exception for him.

He tries not to dwell on how seamlessly Zack fell into his life, and yet here Cloud is, standing outside of his apartment, seeking him out for the nth time this week over something that could’ve easily been done without seeing him face-to-face.

Zack shifts his elbow to lean against the doorway, his lips tilting into an easy smirk. “Is another one of your pipes busted? Or did you just miss my handsome face?”

“It’s actually a secret third reason,” Cloud quips, and he smothers a laugh when he sees Zack perk up at the words, clearly intrigued. “I’m still getting your mail.”

“You sure know how to get a man excited, Spike,” Zack sighs, clutching at his chest in mock hurt. “Is that really the only reason you came over?”

“Were you expecting something different?”

“I guess not,” Zack says, his voice sounding petulant and sulky in a way that Cloud thinks is rare, even for him. “Marle’s some landlord, huh? The two of us having weather-related names must be confusing for her or something.”

“Yeah, because Cloud and Fair are really that similar.” Cloud snorts, reaching for the stack of the alpha’s mail tucked neatly under his left elbow, and he holds it out with an expectant stare. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Zack murmurs, reaching out in a move to take the envelopes, but his hand merely hovers over Cloud’s arm, hesitating. After a long moment, the alpha collects the delivery from his palm, and Cloud’s not sure if he imagines the abrupt flaring of the other’s scent as Zack’s fingers graze his skin. “You know, it kind of sounded like you said Cloud Fair for a minute.”

A small, incredulous laugh bubbles out of Cloud’s lips at the words, but it wanes when he lets himself observe the other more closely. Zack suddenly looks unfocused, dazed, his eyes glassy and darkening into a deep shade of blue, and there's not even a hint of a joke in his expression.

“That’s not at all a weird thing to say.”

“It’s not?”

“That was sarcasm, Zack.”

Although he’s sure Zack hears him, the alpha only chuckles mildly in response, gaze now fixated on an aimless spot on Cloud’s arm. Zack's empty hand once again strays to smooth over Cloud’s own as though compelled by a hidden force, and the omega can do little to silence his sharp intake of breath at the silken touch. He feels rooted in place as Zack wraps his forearm in a loose grip, the alpha's thumb beginning to stroke gentle shapes over the skin of his wrist.

“Maybe it’s weird, but I think it’s cute.”

The words make something lurch in Cloud’s chest, and he yanks his hand back as if burned by an open flame. “Zack! What the hell?”

Zack blinks back into awareness at the tone of his voice, and though the cloudiness in his eyes seems to ebb, he still looks at Cloud without a hint of apology, smile pleased. “Sorry, sorry. Guess I’m just a little distracted today.”

“A little?” Cloud breathes out, his tone pitchy in disbelief.

Instead of replying, Zack draws the front door open further with a quick pull of his arm. “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

Cloud feels heat blooming from his nose to his ears, and he feels at a loss for words as he stands there, rubbing at his wrist absentmindedly. He can’t help but wonder whether Zack was perhaps coming down with the flu or food poisoning or some other brain scrambling condition, because as much as Zack is both forward and amiable in nature, the two of them have always been strictly friends.

Zack’s never made it a point to touch Cloud casually apart from the occasional ruffling of his hair, or refer to him as anything outside of clear-cut platonic terms like buddy or dude or, the newest one in the rotation, Spike.

So what the hell was that?

“I-I guess.”

As Cloud follows Zack through his front door’s threshold, he can see the light of the late afternoon filtering through shuttered blinds, illuminating a mostly barren room in coral hues.

It never fails to boggle Cloud's mind that Zack, a person brimming with personality and charm, is so indifferent to putting in the effort to make his place feel more homely or even vaguely lived-in. Excluding the small chocobo figurines lining his windowsill, a collection courtesy of Cloud, and the stack of folded hoodies set on his leather loveseat, his space feels barely occupied, and Cloud supposes that, beyond the time they spend using the alpha’s TV, Zack really must not spend much time here.

Zack heads in the direction of his small kitchenette, leaning back against the same rustic-looking countertop that Cloud has in his own studio. “The guys down at the brewery are asking about you again.”

“Oh? What about?”

“They’re experimenting with something and want an experienced person in the industry to try it out.”

“Zack.” Cloud complains, knowing that this was most likely Genesis’s doing. Ever since Cloud had convinced Tifa to carry Genesis’s own personal creation on tap, a Banoran crisp apple blend of cider, the older omega had decided outright that Cloud had excellent taste. “Just because I’m a bartender, it doesn’t mean I know shit about beer.”

“I’m pretty sure it does, Spike.” Zack’s smile is large and smug as he watches Cloud, his arms folding over his chest. “I’m not sure you realize how much of a hit that cider became once you started promoting it.”

Cloud scoffs quietly, muttering, “I think saying I promoted it is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Maybe, but you do sell it at your bar. And you underestimate how much work your face does on its own. I swear, you could offer any alpha there sewer water, and they’d—”

“Gods—shut up, Zack.” Cloud presses his hands to his forehead, hoping that he’s doing an adequate job of hiding the flush he knows is once again high on his cheeks.

Zack cackles, and Cloud resents how his embarrassment has become an endless source of amusement for the alpha. “Anyway, they trust your judgment. I trust your judgment. And can you really refuse both Genesis and Angeal when they’ve asked for your opinion, specifically?”

Cloud then lifts his head from the clutch of his hands, fixing Zack with a suspicious look. “What did they want me to try?”

“Another hard cider.”

Cloud can only grumble under his breath, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head away, lips pursed. “Fine.”

Before Cloud can think twice about his decision, Zack is snagging a chilled, unlabeled brown bottle from the fridge, popping the cap off with a small bottle opener, and placing it in his outstretched hand.

It’s hard to ignore the weight of the stare he feels now boring heavily into the side of his face, gauging his every reaction. Cloud sniffs at his drink briefly if only to distract himself, detecting notes of something bitter and fruity like dark cherries, before lifting it to his mouth to take a quick swig.

The bittersweet liquid floods his mouth before pooling, warm and low, in his stomach.

“So? Does it get the Cloud Strife seal of approval?”

“You’re so dramatic,” Cloud utters with the lip of his bottle cradled near his lips, and he still can’t find it in himself to look up and brave Zack’s gaze. “It tastes—good. It’s subtle and tart, and not too sweet. I like it.”

“Genesis will be stoked to hear that. He really likes this one,” And then, as though it’s as natural as breathing, Zack adds, “Thanks, baby.”

Cloud chokes on the large mouthful of cider he’s swallowing down, wheezing against his hand until his breathing finally settles into something raspy and quiet. As he comes to, he realizes that Zack now stands beside him, a sturdy presence, his large hand rubbing soothing circles over his back. The shiver that comes over him is as startling as it is strong.

Cloud wastes no time pulling himself far out of reach.

“Zack, t-that’s—what’s with you? Since when do you—I’m not—”

“You’re so cute when you’re paranoid.”

“Paranoid, my ass.”

And while Cloud can acknowledge that he’s paranoid about a great number of things, he doesn’t think this can be one of them.

Because the idea that he’s wrong, that Zack might be acting like this voluntarily, is as baffling as it is far-fetched.

Toeing off his scuffed boots at the door, Cloud trudges his way onto his modest leather couch despite longing to scrub himself clean of the past few hours, of all of the grime and sweat and stench from working a late shift at Seventh Heaven for three nights consecutively.

It had played out like a typical Saturday night at the bar, really—a throng of people clamoring for their orders to be met, drunk as hell customers that needed to be chased down to close their tabs, alpha after alpha thinking they were privy to his attention because his status as an unmated omega was somehow as clear as day to everyone present.

He’s shocked that he still manages to have the patience for it.

Though he’ll never admit it out loud, there are parts of bartending he’s grown to enjoy, as surprising as that is. The act of creating with his own hands fulfills him in ways that little else does, and he doesn’t mind the pleasant ache that comes from working on his feet all day. And while having to drudge through a seemingly endless number of patrons has become a bit of a personal nightmare, he at least gets a brief respite from thinking in circles for hours on end about subjects he’d rather ignore.

Because he hasn’t even begun to unpack what happened with Zack earlier that afternoon.

Now, in the still quiet of his own apartment, there’s nothing to stop Zack’s words from rattling around in his head in annoying echoes of cute and baby and Cloud Fair.

A small part of him is convinced that the entire ordeal can only be chalked up to a fever dream, because as far as Cloud can tell, Zack has never shown himself to be even marginally attracted to him. He doesn’t think he even knows what Zack’s preferences are, whether omegas are even his thing or if he tends to prefer other alphas exclusively, because neither of them had ever thought to bring it up in conversation.

And of course, there’s always the distinct possibility that Zack could already be seeing someone during the time he and Cloud are not together.

“This sucks,” Cloud groans as he lies prone on his back, unfocused eyes staring upward at the ceiling.

A sharp buzz from his pocket interrupts his train of thought, and thinking there might be something Tifa needs post-closing shift, he feels for the slick glass of his phone with his palm before mindlessly opening his text messages.

Shit.

He should’ve known.

From: Zack ♡ (2:35 AM)

spike… you still awake?

i want to apologize for being a total jackass today

but we can talk tmrw if you’re beat

Cloud winces at the messages, because this exact situation was what he was trying to avoid tonight, and the heart emoticon that Zack added ironically to his contact name only serves as a blunt reminder of whatever weirdness is brewing between them.

He contemplates whether it’s in his best interest to reply, but the thought that his friend is still awake, losing sleep over something as trivial as apologizing to Cloud, gives him the push to begin typing out a response.

From: Zack ♡ (2:45 AM)

it’s okay bud you don’t need to play it down

i didn't realize it until after you left but my hormones are just all screwed up i think

bc i’m an idiot and forgot that well

my rut is soon

Cloud can barely resist the urge to slap a hand over his forehead. While he’s never personally encountered Zack’s rut in the few months they’ve known each other, his easy touchiness and dazed stares and general lack of inhibitions, at least more than usual, make it seem so obvious in retrospect.

Zack's instincts pushing him to latch onto the closest omega in proximity was something proven by hundreds of years of evolution to be innate, mostly out of his control, especially when factoring in the confusion of a nesting period.

And it’s the only believable explanation for his behavior, really.

From: Zack ♡ (2:55 AM)

lmao it can be

would it be okay if i called you?

From: Zack ♡ (3:03 AM)

i know but it’s best if i don’t see you atm

Before he can begin to try to understand what exactly Zack means by that statement, his phone begins to pulse in his hand with an incoming call and the gleam of the alpha’s name on his lock screen. Cloud can only sigh before accepting it with a wary swipe of his thumb.

“Cloud,” Zack breathes out, and while there’s a slightly resonant, distorted edge to his voice through the phone’s speaker, the relief in his tone is unmistakable. “Thanks for picking up.”

“It’s nothing,” Cloud feels abnormally warm as he sits up, adjusting his posture against the back of the couch. “Why are you still up?”

“It’s just—I can’t stop thinking about how I acted today. I was being a mindless, idiotic alpha, and I need to tell you—”

“It’s fine, Zack.” Cloud interrupts, his tone clipped. “You said that already.”

“Well, it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to hear it,” Zack says softly, his voice bordering on a mollifying rumble that Cloud thinks under any other circumstances would make him want to curl up on his side and let his eyes flutter shut. “I’m sorry.”

Cloud can only shift uncomfortably at the words, his finger plucking at a loose thread unraveling on his cargo pants before he mutters out, “Don’t worry about it.”

Zack hums lightly, and Cloud could almost picture the curl of his smile as the alpha says, “But I always worry about you.”

“Zack,” Cloud huffs out at the deep chuckle he hears over the line. “Let’s focus, maybe?”

“Of course, Spike. So yeah, my rut’s coming this week. It’s been a little while since my last one, so I didn’t even realize that I’ve been feeling pretty out of it since this morning. Why is why—well, you know. And usually, I don’t feel this affected by it until, like, the day before.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s not bad, per se. But I’m pretty sure it means that I’m nesting.”

Cloud has to swallow down a sudden bout of nerves, because that is certainly new. As a person with a rather sparse dating history, he’s not intimately familiar with the reality of alphas nesting—but he does understand that while omegas nest to secure a safe, soothing environment for their heats to play out, alphas do so to guarantee themselves an adequate partner for rutting. In all honesty, his knowledge is limited to his one slapdash experience with Tifa on the cusp of his eighteenth birthday, before she thankfully became swept up in anything and everything Aerith.

And while it was a period of time in his life that he'd rather remain unearthed, he can accept that it was, undeniably, a formative one.

During his time with Tifa, she'd mostly wanted to monopolize his time. She was staunchly protective over his every interaction, and her territorial instincts made it close to impossible to associate with anyone outside of his or her families for an entire week.

But she hadn’t needed physical contact from him, no hugs or cuddling or strokes of his wrist, nor did their banter ever veer towards anything remotely flirtatious or romantic.

He merely stayed by her side until it was time for her rut, and then he spent the next few days confining himself to his room and purging his skin of her very potent scent.

In this way, too, Zack is proving to be an anomaly.

“I forgot that alphas even do that.”

“You and me both, Spike. I don’t nest before every single rut, so I’m a bit shit at figuring out when it’s happening. But I can usually tell the further along it is, because it can get… pretty intense closer to the end.”

Cloud has to force himself to relax, to take a deep breath in and unfurl the strong clench of his fingers. “And what do you normally do? When you nest.”

“It depends, but in the past I—I’ve had partners. Having someone around that I’m comfortable with does a ton to alleviate a lot of the, uh, hormonal imbalances that come from it.”

“And they, what? Just hang out with you for a few days?”

“Well, it’s a bit… more than that,” Zack adds carefully, his voice teetering on hesitant. “There’s usually more physical contact involved.”

“Oh.” Cloud rasps out, biting back the itch to ask just exactly what kind of physical contact the other is referring to. “And what if you don’t have one?”

“Honestly? I just take some time off and hole up in my apartment for a few days. It can be a little rough, kind of like not having someone for a rut. But it’s nothing I haven’t handled before.”

The image of Zack, agonized by his own self-imposed isolation, gnaws ruthlessly on every cell in Cloud's body. It’s utterly primal, choking out rational thought, and he doesn’t remember if he'd felt quite like this when Tifa was in a similar state. The feeling only builds the longer he sits, idle and useless, and urges him to do something, anything, to soothe this alpha in need.

“I’m guessing there's—you have someone?” Cloud manages to force out despite the breath stuck in his throat.

A beat of silence passes, and then, “I don’t.”

Cloud doesn’t realize how hard he’s biting his lower lip until he’s blurting out, “Then why don’t I help you?”

Zack's reply is both immediate and frank. “No way, Spike. I can’t do that to you.”

“Why not? We’re friends."

“The last thing I want to do is do something to make you uncomfortable. And I don’t want you to feel obligated to help me with this just because you’re available and we—we’re friends. This is my problem.”

Cloud tucks his legs close to his chest, sighing into the fold of his knees, because as much as he hates to acknowledge it, the rejection stings. “I don’t feel obligated. If you need… a nesting partner, I don’t mind.”

“You don’t understand. You looked like you wanted to bolt when I touched you earlier.” Zack’s distress feels almost tangible over his phone’s speaker, and the sounds of rustling are loud in his ears as though the other is clutching at something strongly. “I don’t want to be the person that makes you feel like that.”

“Well, I don’t want you to feel like shit.”

“I appreciate that, Spike, I really do. But trust me, I can take care of it.”

“I—” Cloud then sinks further into his couch, and he’s unsure of exactly why the mention of trust makes him deflate like a week-old balloon. “Okay then.”

Cloud has never been one to accept help easily.

When Cloud had moved out of his shared flat with Tifa into his first solo apartment, he’d done it completely on his own, refusing all bids of help from his friends beyond the truck he borrowed from Aerith to transport his belongings to his new place.

He was acutely aware of how busy his friends’ lives could get, and he didn’t see the need to burden them with any additional responsibility when he was capable of settling in with his own hands.

But in something like a comedy of errors, he first met Zack on a day during which he was especially down on his luck. A mere two days after his move, he’d woken up to his bathtub swelling with muddied water from his shower drain and showing no signs of emptying out on its own. Despite his best efforts, his landlord hadn’t responded to any of his calls or texts, and with his first month’s rent and security deposit decimating his bank account, calling a plumber was definitely not a viable option for him.

As he’d walked up to Marle’s door that afternoon, desperately hoping that she was inside and willing to help him, he spotted another stranger standing there with a small piece of paper pinched between his fingertips. From a distance, the man looked both fairly tall and built with a mess of black spikes on his head, and Cloud could only let out out a small, tired breath when the unique muskiness of the other’s smell revealed him to be an alpha.

From up close, however, he looked more than a little distracting—the dark hair that fell over straight brows, the clear blue of his eyes, the high cheekbones sloping over a defined jaw—and Cloud had to fight the feeling of his knees locking as he approached.

“Hi there,” the alpha said airily, ruffling the back of his hair with a sheepish hand. “If you’re here for Marle, she’s out of town for the week. Just found out, too, unfortunately.”

“Fuck,” Cloud sighed out as he stared at the hastily written note the other held out for him to see, and before he could reign it in, he was lamenting out loud, “Guess I won’t be able to shower for a few days.”

“Sewage problems, huh?” The other nodded his head sagely, apparently sensitive to his plight. “Happened to me about a week ago. It’s nasty stuff, but I was able to fix it with a drain snake and a bit of brute force. I’m free for the rest of the day if you’d like me to come over with some tools? What floor are you on?”

“The fifth floor,” Cloud confessed, crossing his arms over his chest as he considered the other. He was finding it difficult to not be overwhelmed by the alpha’s presence or his casual offers of kindness. “But you don’t have to—um, I’ll just figure it out on my own.”

“It’s really no problem. And hey, that’s my floor, too! I’m Zack, by the way. And you?”

Cloud’s breath faltered a little at the admission, before regarding the other, Zack, from beneath his eyelashes. “Oh, well—I’m Cloud.”

“Cloud, huh? That’s a—”

“Don’t—” Cloud objected on instinct, and he regretted the outburst almost immediately, the force of his words petering out. “—say it’s a cute name.”

Zack had only laughed out heartily, leaning closer to him from the strength of it, and now it was impossible to deny the considerable height he had over Cloud. “I wasn’t, I swear. I was just gonna say it’s a fun name.”

“Fun? Never heard that one before.”

Zack's smile had widened then, his eyes now creased with a pleased grin. “Good.”

While Cloud would never claim to be as fun as his namesake, Zack had stuck to his word all the same, spending the remaining hours of the day in Cloud’s company without a single complaint. As he steadily worked his tub free of blockages and runoff, he’d also been able to coax out more details about Cloud’s job and hometown and hobbies, even his preferred motor oil for his bike, and the two had found that they had more than a fair share of common interests and similarities.

When all was done and Cloud had asked what he could do to return the favor for saving him hundreds of dollars in repairs, Zack had only glanced at his measly gaming setup before saying, “Play a game of Chocobo Racers with me, sometime.”

And that was that.

Before he could even recognize what was happening, Cloud was showing Zack the rest of his video game collection, and Zack was introducing him to his favorite hole-in-the-wall pizza spot down the street, and his nights not consumed by bartending were soon spent finding endless ways to waste time with no one other than Zack.

Not to mention, Zack continued to bail him out when Cloud, more often than not, suffered from another bad break. He was there when Cloud was short a few hundred dollars of his monthly rent, when Cloud's well-worn console stopped working and multiplayer became their preferred way to play games, when Cloud’s bike required several weeks in the auto shop and he needed more than a few rides to the bar. And it was always done with a generous smile, as if there was nothing in the world Zack would rather do than clean up Cloud's messes.

Cloud still has no clue how he can possibly pay him back for everything the other's done for him.

And in the depths of his mind, he can admit that he still doesn’t quite understand why Zack had settled for him of all people to be friends with. Zack fills his days with humor and levity and inspiration, while Cloud only offers him sarcasm and reserve and the occasional witty remark in return.

But he’s been pulled into Zack’s orbit regardless, and if there was any lesson that his mother had instilled in him, it was to always have gratitude for the good in his life.

So he’ll keep enjoying it while he can.

In the light of the present day, Cloud stands in their shared hallway once again, rapping his knuckles noisily on Zack’s front door. He feels exhausted and irritable today after a turbulent night of sleep, his constant twisting around on his bed doing little to deter the agitated pull of his instincts to seek out Zack and make sure he's okay.

To make sure Zack really didn't need him.

Hands resting on his hips, Cloud can only shake his head, exasperated, when he glances at the space under the front door and finds the silhouette of a person already hovering nearby. “Zack. I know you’re there. I can see your shadow.”

He sees that silhouette freeze in place, before a low, muffled groan seeps through the door’s motley wood, a voice complaining, “What are you doing here, Spike?”

“I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m—I’ll be fine.”

Cloud waits for any sign of movement or for Zack to perhaps invite him inside like the civilized people they are, but to his frustration, the door remains stubbornly unopened. “You can come out, you know. I know you’re not going to maul me.”

“Well, I don’t know that.” He can hardly make out the low, mumbled words, but he understands their intent all the same. And while he knows Zack is trying to be considerate of him, the idea that Zack needs to protect Cloud, from himself no less, makes the omega bristle in displeasure. He’s spent plenty of time with alphas in his lifetime, and if he had to evade and hide from every alpha whose instincts were going haywire, he’d truly never be able to leave the house.

He exhales deeply through his nose. “Listen to me, Zack. You have needs right now, and you said having a friend around helps… calm them. I can do that for you.”

“It’s not that simple, Cloud—”

“I know, you don’t want to make me feel uncomfortable.” Cloud notices the rhythm his boot-clad foot jitters against the floor, and he stops it with a flustered huff. “I hear you, okay? But you’re—you’ve helped me a lot in the past, and now I just want to return the favor. I promise I’ll still want to be friends with you even if you call me strange shit and touch me more than usual.”

Zack says nothing in response, and Cloud would’ve thought the other had left if not for the two feet he sees still lingering a few feet away from him. His face begins to blaze with discomfort; not being able to see Zack's face makes it easier for words to tumble freely from his lips, but harder to bear the answering silence.

“I want to help you, Zack. This doesn’t have to be weird.”

When only more stillness meets his words, his flush spreads wildly across his cheekbones, embarrassment surging through his limbs.

“But i-if you really don’t want my help, or for me to be around, I understand. I can just… leave you alone for the next few days—”

"Wait—” Cloud's senses are suddenly flooded with the alpha’s familiar deep, woody scent as Zack flings the door open, looming over him without so much as a warning. “Don't go, Spike."

Cloud tries not to shrink under the weight of Zack’s gaze now that they can properly face each other.

"Okay?"

Zack exhales heavily from his nose. "I still think you’re way too selfless for your own good.”

“I’m not. You’d do the same for me.”

“True, but I’m selfish.”

What?

Cloud furrows his brows in confusion, unsure whether he'd misheard Zack. Before he can respond, the alpha is continuing, his voice guttural and scratchy as though strained. “I don’t think you understand what you’re agreeing to.”

Cloud makes a small, irked noise, but he knows the frown on his lips is undercut by the way he can now feel even the tips of his ears burn. “I promise I can hold your hand a few times and survive.”

Zack then regards him with a long stare, the bright blue of his eyes unyielding as they contemplate him for a few drawn-out seconds.

“What about if I asked for a hug?”

Something leaps into his throat at the question.

“Gods, you don’t need to test me, Zack. I already made the offer. That’s so—” He doesn’t miss the pinch of Zack’s smile into something apologetic, guilt tucked into the corners of the other’s mouth. “You—you’re serious.”

“So serious. As serious as that time I swore I’d beat all of your fastest times in Chocobo Racers. And hey, I’m, like, halfway there as we speak—”

“Okay, I get it,” Cloud sputters out, startled at the fact that he can no longer mentally prepare himself. He’d really thought they were going to figure out a mutually agreed time before he had to surrender himself to his nesting buddy duties. “Right now?”

Zack then clears his throat, eyes wide and insistent. “I mean, yeah?”

Cloud straightens his shoulders, internally cursing at the feeling of his stomach flipping, restless. This is exactly what he agreed to, he tells himself, and the worst thing he could do in this situation is reject Zack after all of the work it took to convince the other to accept his help. “F-fine. If it helps.”

That same rumbling noise from their phone call reverberates from Zack’s chest at his reply. “You can always change your mind.”

Cloud watches with bated breath as Zack inches forward into his space. He’s never been quite so conscious of Zack’s size, how the alpha’s form seems to envelop and dwarf his own the closer they inch together in the empty hallway. Zack reaches for him, his movements careful and measured, before he brushes his hands down the outer edges of Cloud’s arms.

Cloud can only stiffen as goosebumps break out in their wake.

Seeing as though Cloud has yet to push him away, Zack settles his hands on the curve of his waist, before he slots his arms across the omega’s lower back, grasping him securely around his middle. And then with a final pull, Zack holds Cloud flush against his body, a relieved sigh spilling out of his lips.

“Is this okay?” Cloud hears the whisper against the shell of his ear, but he can barely register what’s being said over the way all of his nerves sing with the feeling of Zack’s body surrounding him. He only just suppresses the whimper threatening to escape his mouth as he directs his own hands to grip at the alpha’s shoulders.

“Y-yeah.” Cloud whispers, his voice airy, shaking.

Helpless to the pull of his instincts, Zack begins nosing at Cloud’s hairline carefully, still unhurried, until he decides to dip further down, pulling at the loose collar of the omega’s shirt. With a reverent inhale, he then skims along the slender slope of his neck until he finds the junction of his shoulder, skimming over Cloud’s scent gland.

It’s only then that Cloud becomes aware of how Zack’s earthy scent now seems to ooze around them, saturating the air with a distinct kind of heaviness that makes his head spin and his knees feel weak.

“It’s crazy,” Zack grinds out, his mouth grazing over the sensitive skin of his shoulder as he draws the omega even closer to him, his nose smoothing back and forth over Cloud’s scent gland as though addicted, intoxicated by his scent. “You smell so fucking good, baby.”

Cloud’s whole body jolts with a strong tremble at the confession, tearing him out of the heat of his stupor, and it’s all he can do to not pull himself out of Zack’s arms.

Fuck.

Maybe Zack was right, after all.

He had no idea what he was agreeing to, and he is far out of his depth.

Chapter Text

“I thought you were getting lemons, Cloud?”

Cloud hears the peal of a laugh from behind him as he turns on his heel for the third time that afternoon, lugging a hefty bag of ice back towards the bar’s refrigerator. He trades it for a bin of halved lemons sitting on a crowded shelf, swearing quietly to himself for being so distracted.

For his mind continuing to stray to the thought of solid shoulders beneath his fingertips and a raspy voice in his ear.

As he sets the bag on the bar top along with a juicer he stores within reach, Cloud pointedly ignores the discerning green eyes that peer at him from across the counter.

He chances a brief glance at the brunette sitting on a bar stool before feeding a halved lemon into the rim of the juicer. “You’re giving me that look.”

“What look?” Aerith questions, the steaming tea mug between her palms doing little to mask the impish smile on her lips.

“Like you’re dying to ask me something you know I’m not gonna like.”

“Aw, Cloud,” Aerith sets her mug down in front of her with a deceptively innocent whine, the beta reaching over the counter to snatch a lemon for herself. She then pinches it over her tea, perching her chin on her folded knuckles. “What if I’m just a little concerned about you?”

The puff of air Cloud lets out ruffles the fringe of blonde hair falling into his eyes. “What’s there to be concerned about?”

“Well, you’re not normally so out of it.” Aerith squishes her cheek against her fist as though Cloud’s an interesting puzzle for her to piece together, humming thoughtfully. “And it’s just, well—you kinda stink.”

Cloud picks at his band tee between two fingers, holding it closer to his nose. “Shit, do I? My shift’s in like an hour. I don’t think I have time to—”

“No, not like that, silly.” Aerith giggles out, running her fingers through the tendrils of hair framing her face. “You smell in a good way. Like a forest, or a really fresh-smelling tree, but with a bit of spice. Sandalwood, maybe? Or amber. I’m not sure, but it’s definitely not how you usually smell.”

The mention of a forestlike, woodsy scent makes Cloud’s stomach twist like the wringing of wet cloth.

Cloud tries to busy his hands by forcing another lemon through the juicer, offering weakly, “I’ve been, uh, buying fancy candles lately?”

“You smell like an alpha.” Another bright voice cuts through, and Cloud can see in his periphery that Tifa’s just saddled up behind Aerith, hooking her chin over the beta’s shoulder. As always, her scent is much more robust compared to Aerith’s, the smell of fresh jasmine washing over his senses. “An alpha that’s full-on scented you.”

“Okay—and?” Cloud mutters, his lips curving downward into a small frown.

“And is there something you need to tell us?” Tifa laughs out as Aerith nuzzles her cheek and coils her arms securely around the alpha’s waist. “Are you, I don't know, secretly dating someone, Cloud?”

“Ugh, gods no.” Cloud groans out, and he can feel his eyebrows pinch together in phantom pain. “I—do we have to talk about this?”

”Well, we don’t have to,” Tifa replies, tentative, and Cloud almost allows himself to feel relieved until he catches Aerith still looking at him, her eyes large and imploring.

Cloud grumbles a few choice words under his breath about emotional manipulation, nudging the adjacent faucet on with his thumb and lowering his now sticky hands into the sink. “I’m just… in a bit of a weird situation right now. With my neighbor.”

“Oh? You don’t mean that neighbor, do you?” Tifa says excitedly, and the slap of her hands on the bar top is so strong, it makes Cloud’s shoulders flinch. “The hot alpha neighbor? The one who works for Banora Orchard Brewing?”

Aerith also clasps her hands together in front of her chest, thrilled. “I knew it! You’re seeing him, aren’t you? I guess it makes sense—you two spend so much time together anyway—”

“For the love of Odin, it’s not like that, alright?” Cloud forces out, shutting the sink off with a curt flick of his hand. “He’s nesting apparently, and I agreed to help him. That’s all.”

Tifa makes a confused noise as she fixes Cloud with a questioning stare. “You’re helping him nest?”

Cloud can only bear to look at the tea towel he wraps around his hands, drying them slowly. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s… I mean I’ve never nested before, but I guess Tifa can be a little overbearing when she does.” Aerith continues logically, her fingers now drumming against the bar top in thought. “But she doesn’t lather me in pheromones until my scent’s not even recognizable anymore.”

Cloud resists the urge to let his eyes roll into the back of his head. “That’s because you two have mating bonds, Aerith.”

“You’re not wrong,” Aerith says sweetly, peeking over at Tifa fondly before glancing back at Cloud with a cheerful, teasing grin. “So you’re saying he’s only doing this until he can bond you?”

Cloud clicks his tongue, agitated, flinging the towel back onto the counter. “I’m leaving.”

“Wait, Cloud,” Tifa presses, and the weight of her tone makes Cloud hesitate midstep. “He didn’t… pressure you into it, did he?”

“Oh, um—no.” Cloud admits, his shoulders hunching closer together, unfailingly uncomfortable at any show of honesty. “He didn’t even really ask me. I’m actually the one who offered to be his—to help him. Don’t worry.”

“Cloud…”

Cloud finally meets scarlet, jewel-toned eyes with a firm gaze of his own. “It’s fine, Tifa.”

Tifa only considers him carefully, unease muddling her features until she murmurs, “If you say so.”

Aerith then stands from the bar stool, neatly rearranging the folds of her pink sundress before leaning over the counter with her fingers splayed. “So what does this mean exactly? Do you get to cuddle often? How often does he scent you? Oh my gods, are you going to help him with his rut—”

“Aerith!” Tifa snickers loudly, her voice both amused and scandalized all at once, tangling her and Aerith’s hands together. “Let Cloud breathe now, okay? He’s still in the middle of prepping for tonight.”

“Fine. I’ll get the dirty deets from you eventually, Strife.” Aerith threatens, pointing her slender finger at him as Tifa pulls her towards the opposite side of the bar. “We just need some tequila.”

Cloud only shrugs mildly in response, nonchalant, before pointing a smug look at her. “I didn’t tell you I’m going dry for the next month?”

Aerith’s gasp is as loud as it is dramatic, echoing in the vacant space. “Oh, you’re such a little liar.”

Cloud smiles to himself, because at least lying is the far better alternative to having to lay bare the truths of whatever's Zack’s nesting period is going to be like.

Because in Cloud’s mind, he’s undoubtedly taking those to his grave.

When Cloud hears two insistent knocks on his door the next morning, he’s still washing away the dregs of sleep from his eyes with a few splashes of water and a small cotton face towel.

“Give me a minute!” He calls over his shoulder, and he whips back to skim over his mirror’s reflection, bemoaning how swollen his cheeks tend to be after a night of relatively decent sleep. He presses at them uselessly for a few seconds before sighing out, tugging at the hem of his sleep shirt in a flimsy attempt to rid it of wrinkles.

With a few more hasty combs through his untamed spikes, he then heads to his front door, pulling it open with a sluggish pull of his hand.

He’s greeted by lidded blue eyes and that same earthy aroma that’s been embedded into his clothes and the strands of his hair since their last exchange.

“Zack,” Cloud croaks, and he coughs past the embarrassment of how rough his voice can sound in the morning. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to see how my nesting buddy is doing.” Zack drawls, leaning against his door frame with crossed arms and a content smile settled on his lips.

“You warmed up to that idea pretty quickly.”

Zack doesn’t hide the way his eyes flicker over the planes of Cloud's face. “It’s hard not to when you look so nice in the morning.”

Cloud glances down at his sweats and the black crew neck tank he hadn’t changed out of since last night, mumbling, “I just rolled out of bed.”

“That doesn’t change anything.” Zack says simply, and his hand seems to twitch as it rests on the fold of his elbow, but he doesn’t move from his spot at the door. “Are you doing anything right now?”

“I’m going grocery shopping before my next shift, but not for a bit.” Cloud sniffs, his forehead faintly creased in question. “Did you need, um, a nesting thing?”

“Something like that.” Zack’s hand brushes over the back of his head, restless. “Would you mind coming over for a few minutes? I wanted to show you something.”

Cloud only wordlessly nods, not trusting his voice with the sudden dryness of his mouth, and he has to stifle a small intake of breath when Zack grasps his hand within his own without a hint of hesitation.

Cloud barely manages to shut his door closed as Zack pulls him along towards his own apartment, the heat of his hand stark against the chill of his own. It’s not for the first time in the past day that Cloud wonders whether he and Zack should’ve set some ground rules around what this week’s supposed to be like, because not knowing what to expect has had his gut tying itself in agonizing knots.

Especially now that lengthy hugs are officially part of the nesting buddy routine.

As they step into the familiar space of the alpha’s studio, the space now bright with the early morning sun, Zack lets go of the omega’s hand to gesture vaguely at the room, posture proud and smile broad.

“So? What do you think?”

“What?” Cloud glances around the room tiredly, seeing the usual leather couch and matching loveseat, the low platform bed tucked in the corner of his room, the barren walls. “Should I be looking for something?”

The hand that Zack rests between his shoulder blades is large and pleasant as he points excitedly at the new spider plant resting quaintly on his humble dining table, and a small cactus now sitting on his kitchen window. “I decided to become a plant parent.”

“Oh.” Cloud can only blink at the two new budding plants, so similar to the ones in his own place.

“I just wanted to make my place a little less bland.” Zack mutters, an odd shyness suddenly present in his body language.

“I’ve never called it bland—just lacking proof that an actual person lives here.” Cloud gripes, but his chest swells helplessly at the thought that Zack’s nesting habits apparently involve devoting time to improving his home decor. “They’re really nice, Zack.”

“I know, right? I figured it was an easy place to start. Maybe you can teach me a thing or two about how to take care of them?”

Cloud hums in thought with his knuckle pressed lightly against his chin. “Honestly, cacti have been a pain in the ass for me. Like, I’ve killed more than one already. But Aerith’s been giving me some tips, so if you’re willing to take the risk—”

Cloud quickly moves to face Zack only to take a step back when he nearly knocks his head into the alpha’s shoulder. Zack merely steadies him with two hands at his shoulders and a small chuckle, his expression open and gentle as he gazes down at him.

“That’d be much appreciated, baby.” Zack says, his voice dipping in volume, and the pet name still brings heat to Cloud’s face, the feel of a blush growing high on his cheeks as unwelcome as ever. With the now routine heightening of his scent, Zack’s hands begin smoothing down Cloud’s bare upper arms. “Can I?”

There’s something mortifying about the way Cloud shifts a little closer at the request, his movements automatic and instinctual, nearly baring his neck with a subtle tilt of his head. A deeply innate part of him wants to preen, and he smothers down the impulse before a reedy whine can escape his lips, uncontrolled.

Instead, he averts his eyes to the wooden ridges of the coffee table, replying clumsily, “Go for it.”

This time, when Zack draws him into his hold, he buries his nose in the wild nest of blonde hair atop Cloud’s head, his arms encircling the omega’s upper back. Cloud can only let out a soft, shuddering breath against the skin of the alpha’s neck, and his eyes struggle to stay open from the onslaught of Zack’s scent, just as dizzying as the last time.

Cloud doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this.

“You have no idea how good this feels,” Zack groans, the words muffled against soft spikes as he slowly nuzzles the skin above Cloud’s ear with the tip of his nose.

I think I have some idea. Cloud thinks, his fingers curving into the back of Zack’s shirt.

“Maybe. But this isn’t a first for me,” Cloud lets slip, thoroughly lax from fatigue and concentrated nesting pheromones.

“It’s not?”

“Nope. But I guess Tifa wasn’t like this when she nested.”

Zack pauses his ministrations for a moment, waiting, before his hands fall soothingly down the length of Cloud’s back. “You’ve… helped Tifa nest before?”

Cloud can feel himself settling into the cradle of Zack’s shoulder, the sensations lulling him somewhere peaceful and sluggish. “Yeah. Back when we were much younger, and a little before she and Aerith became a thing.”

“Ah, I—I see.” Zack mumbles, exhaling a full breath that tickles the shell of Cloud’s ear. "So what was a nesting Tifa like, then?”

“You really want to have a whole conversation like this?” Cloud laughs out before he tries to pull away to look at the alpha directly, but Zack only pulls him further into his arms.

“You’d be crazy to think I’m letting you go right now.”

“Gods, okay.” Cloud scoffs out, but despite his usual stubborn streak, his head finds its place back on Zack’s shoulder, pliant and comfortable. “She didn’t really need any sort of… physical contact or anything like that. But she barely let me out of her sight, that's for sure.”

“Damn, I didn’t know that was allowed?”

“Zack.”

“I’m just joking, baby, don’t worry.” Zack says with a low chuckle, his chest rumbling softly. “But having you by my side all day? I get Tifa, I really do.”

“You’re just as ridiculous as her.”

“And yet who do you spend the majority of your time with?”

The elbow he jabs into Zack’s side does nothing but send the alpha into another bout of laughter, and Cloud glowers, his lips forming a subtle pout. “Shut up.”

They settle back into the embrace, just breathing against each other for a few more minutes. He’s inches from sinking into a mindless trance, but before long, Zack is pulling away with a reluctant, heavy sigh.

“I should probably let you go now.” Zack says, dejected, lowering his arms back to his sides. But before he separates from the other completely, he brushes his thumb across the line of Cloud’s jaw, his touch careful and deliberate. “Really, Cloud. Thank you.”

“O-okay.” Cloud stutters out, stepping away from the other with a scarlet blush once again stubbornly coating his face. “I… guess I’ll get going.”

Without warning, Zack’s eyes light up as if recalling something important, his palm smacking mildly over his forehead. “Wait, I almost forgot! Can I show you one more thing before you leave?”

Cloud halts his walk to the door, confused but still endlessly curious. “Okay?”

Zack hurries over to the east-facing window to shutter its blinds so that the apartment is now dim, lit only by external, diffused light. He then heads to the light switch nearest to his bed frame, turning it on with a flourish. “Neat, right?”

Cloud’s eyes once again dart around the room, a laugh building in his throat as he tries to guess at what Zack’s referring to for the second time that morning. “Uh, what’s neat?”

“You can’t tell?” Zack questions with his lips pursed, looking on the verge of sulking. “I was just thinking earlier that you were right about those other LED bulbs being way too sterile looking. So I decided to change them.”

“You changed your light bulbs?” Cloud questions before another thought registers in his mind. “Didn’t we talk about that, like, weeks ago?”

“Well, it’s been on my mind. The motivation to do it just came to me last night.”

Cloud doesn’t bother to hold back his snort when he sees Zack point to a pile of empty boxes stacked carelessly in the corner of his living room. “Your nesting habits are… something else, Zack.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

Cloud takes a second glance at the mounted light fixture on Zack’s ceiling now emitting a soft, golden light. “They do look a lot warmer. Your place actually looks kind of lived-in now. We’re talking bare minimum, but it’s an improvement.”

Zack looks nothing but unabashedly pleased by his words, the alpha’s hands propped on his hips and a wide grin on his face. “Thanks, baby.”

The smile on Cloud’s face lingers, looking genuine and sweet as he heads to the door, questioning over his shoulder, “Did you want a gold star or something?”

“I mean—I wouldn’t be opposed to one.”

“Okay,” Cloud concedes, the curve of his eyes playful as he flips up his middle finger at the other, laughing when he hears the other shout indignantly in response. “There you go. Have a good day, Zack.”

Cloud sets an orange peel on the edge of a smooth glass before sliding a cocktail over to eager, waiting hands. “One old-fashioned.”

Even for a Monday night, Seventh Heaven is teeming with both familiar and unknown faces, people scattered among low wooden tables, a well-lit bar, and small booths that line the far wall. Christmas lights strung across the ceiling bathe the space in a blue-tinted glow, and Cloud can make out the bassline of some vaguely recognizable disco song playing, a choice from Barret he’s sure.

“Thanks, doll,” The tall alpha across from him leers, propping his elbow on the bar top in an obvious sign of interest. “You know, Biggs mentioned you’re not closing tonight. So I was thinking, maybe after your shift, we could—”

“It’s not gonna happen, Lux.” Cloud says dryly, signaling to another customer that he’ll be heading to them next. He really needs to have a talk with Biggs about keeping information about his schedule private, regardless of whether the customers asking are loyal patrons or not. “Do you want to close your tab?”

“If I keep it open, would you reconsider?”

“No chance.” Cloud repeats, exasperated, before heading to the cash register to ring up the alpha’s order. He hands the receipt over to the other with a blank look, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Guess you’re closing it then.”

“You’re a tough cookie to crack, Strife,” The alpha complains, but his words only seem stronger in their resolve, not defeated in the least bit. “Maybe next time.”

Cloud wants nothing more than to pull at his hair as the alpha slaps a few bills on the counter and excuses himself to another part of the bar. There’s something infuriating about the lengths some alphas will go to keep their pride intact, and he questions bitterly what it’ll actually take to convince someone like Luxiere to take his refusal at face value and move on.

And, Cloud swallows thickly, shouldn’t he still smell like Zack?

“Another rough night?” Tifa greets with a few gentle taps on his shoulder, turning the sink on to quickly wet the clean rag in her hands.

“Just the usual bullshit.”

“Well, some of my new duties include maintaining the ordering budget and the inventory.” Tifa offers with a rueful smile as she begins wiping down the sticky, worn wood of the counter. “You can take over if you’d rather sit at my desk all day.”

“Let me consider it.” Cloud threads his hand through the blond locks that hang in his face, pushing them back with a frustrated ruffle of his hand. “I’d rather wear a skirt to work for a whole month.”

“Don’t let Aerith hear that before she makes it a reality.”

“I’ll ditch this country if that ever happens.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate her if I were you,” Tifa snickers, but then her movements slow and pause, her voice lowering into a tone laden with concern. “But seriously, Cloud—we can kick out anyone who’s giving you a hard time, okay? Just say the word.”

“It’s fine—I’m handling it.”

“Oh? And what are we handling?” Cloud hears someone ask from across from the bar top, and it’s only then that he finally notices the shift in the air—the heady scent of sandalwood and spice.

Zack looks bright-eyed and sleek in a black leather jacket, his jet black hair neatly framing his face. His eyes are much less dazed than they’ve been for the past couple of days, and Cloud can’t help but wonder, a flutter in his stomach, if spending time with him has had something to do with it.

“Zack?” Cloud breathes out, feeling at a loss for how to react with the alpha suddenly in front of him, appearing like some kind of apparition plucked from his mind. “What’re you doing here?”

“Did you not see my text, Spike? I was just… in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hi.”

“I guess I don’t have my phone on me.” Cloud pats at his jean pockets for its solid, rectangular shape. He contemplates slipping away to go look for it in the break room, if only to escape the weight of their attention, until he feels an elbow boring into his side, and it takes him a few seconds to remember that Zack and Tifa have yet to officially meet. “Oh, this is Tifa, by the way.”

Zack’s eyes crinkle into something warm and welcoming, his charm in full force, as he meets her stare with a look of his own. “Ah, the legend herself. I’m Zack.”

“And you’re the infamous neighbor.” Tifa sets one hand on her hips and the other on the bar top, her smile sweet and knowing. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Oh?” The curl of Zack’s smile is as smug as it is curious as he drops down onto the stool directly across from Cloud. “You talk about me to other people, Spike?”

Cloud scoffs, gazing down at the dry glass he takes between his hands to begin polishing. “Just to tell them how much it grates on me having to listen to your music through my walls everyday.”

“Pft, as if I haven’t seen my playlists open on your laptop.”

“He’s just too embarrassed to admit that he gushes about you all of the time.” Tifa quips, leaning towards Zack as though telling him the world’s most obvious secret.

“Tifa,” Cloud squawks, and the scowl that he trains on her is withering. “Just wait until you start managing come Monday—I’ll never restock the ice up front ever again.”

“I doubt it.” Tifa bites back with an uncaring shrug of her shoulders. “I know that’s your pet peeve, too.”

“Oh, right, Spike mentioned that,” Zack interrupts with an excited noise, folding his arms in front of him. “Congrats on moving up! Managing a bar sounds like a handful.”

“Thanks, Zack. It probably will be.” Tifa then perks up with the mention of her promotion, and the smile she sends in Cloud’s direction morphs into something sly and devious. Cloud can only sigh, resigned, at the fact that her scheming is most likely a result of Aerith's influence. “You know, we’re closing early here Wednesday night to celebrate. You should come.”

“Really? Sounds like a fun time.” Zack says, his reply tinged with equal parts excitement and restraint. “I’d love to. But only if that’s something Spike wants, of course.”

The cocktail glass in his palm now gleams mockingly at him, perhaps a little too polished, and he sets it down under the counter, self-conscious. “I don't see why not?”

“Great! I’ll see you there, then.” Tifa chirps from his side, clapping gleeful hands in front of her neck. “It was nice to meet you, Zack.”

“Likewise!” Zack calls out as she heads to another side of the bar, a hand fluttering over her shoulder.

Nerves begin to thrum through Cloud’s limbs as he watches Tifa leave the corner of his vision, because Zack seeing him working behind the bar is still a relatively new experience for them. The last time Zack had visited him at Seventh Heaven was under the guise of a professional meeting, and Zack had barely had to pitch anything to him before Cloud was agreeing to sell his brewery's beer in mere minutes.

Cloud’s hand comes up to rub against the side of his neck to press against stiff muscles, mumbling, “You want something to drink?”

“Sure. Whatever’s your favorite beer. Besides mine of course.”

“I wonder what Genesis’ll say if he heard you say that.”

“I’m sure he’ll just add it to the long list of things he’s already pissed at me about.” Zack says, a smirk betraying his words as he braces his chin on the curl of his fist. “I’m not bothering you, am I? I know I sort of dropped by unannounced.”

“Nah, you’re fine Zack. I’ve been dealing with alphas all night.” Cloud says as he rinses a glass with chilled water and tilts it under the tap to fill it with his favorite Rocket Town pilsner, his smile more coy than he intended. “I can handle a few more.”

But instead of the alpha finding his joke amusing, something in Zack’s expression twists at the words, a rare grimace on his face. “Even though you… smell like me?”

Something in Cloud's stomach swoops at the words, a mere echo of his own thoughts only a few minutes earlier. And yet, he can only peer at the other, unsure of whether he feels flustered or annoyed at the possessiveness in Zack’s tone. “You know how some alphas tend to get. They can be pretty thick-headed even at the best of times.”

“Well, that blows. If you want, I could, like, lend you a jacket or something? Or stop by more often?”

Cloud can’t help but feel even more at odds with himself at the suggestion. Because as much as there’s a hidden, more primal part of him that revels in the idea of Zack intervening in some way, his more rational self can’t let go of what Zack might be implying—that Cloud is incapable of managing this situation on his own.

Cloud’s tone is dull and brusque as he sets the glass down in front of Zack, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “And why would you do that?”

“You know, to really hammer the idea home that no one should mess with you.”

Cloud's fingers begin to dig into the skin of his palms, stinging. “No one messes with me.”

“I know that. It’s just—you shouldn’t have to deal with people coming in and harassing you all of the time.” Zack exhales, now regarding the omega with sympathetic, pleading eyes. “It must be exhausting for you.”

Cloud refrains from groaning out loud. “I have experience dealing with this sort of thing—it’s part of the job.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Zack snivels with a curt sip of his beer, miffed.

Zack’s scent now flares around them in strong, uneven waves, and while Cloud struggles to quell the irritation still growing in his gut, it also serves as a welcome, albeit frustrating reminder. Arguing with a nesting, hormonal alpha is both counterproductive and senseless, and if they continue, they’ll most likely exhaust the same talking points over and over for hours until one side finally gives in.

With a tired huff, Cloud fixes the alpha with a sober, thoughtful look. “Listen, Zack. I’ve been handling this shit for years now. These assholes need to learn how to accept rejection, and they need to hear it from me.”

“Of course—”

“Just because you’re an alpha, you’re not gonna fix all of my problems, alright?”

“I didn’t mean to imply—” Zack’s mouth opens and closes, speechless, before he’s sputtering out, “Shit, baby. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Zack.”

“No, it’s not. I’m such an idiot.” Zack groans out as he buries his hands through the back of his hair, disheveling the once slicked backed locks. “I—I know you can take care of yourself.”

“There’s no need to beat yourself up over it,” Cloud relents, starting to worry his bottom lip between his teeth in regret. “As long as you’re aware of it.”

“Of course I’m aware of it.” The alpha pushes his stool back, standing from his seat with slumped shoulders. “I should probably let you get back to work and get out of here.”

“Oh my gods, Zack—” Cloud rolls his eyes as he grabs onto the sleeve of Zack’s leather jacket, drawing him back towards the bar. “Relax, okay? I know your hormones are doing a number on you right now. I get it. I forgive you.”

“Oh,” Zack breathes out in understanding, lifting his beer to his lips to take another long sip. “Fuck, you’re right.”

Cloud can feel his shoulders sag in relief, replying, “I know.”

“Holy shit,” Zack says with a breathless cackle, something in his eyes easing, softening, as he looks at Cloud. “I am pretty dramatic, aren’t I?”

“Now you get it,” Cloud says with a wise nod of his head, but before he can take his hand back, Zack pulls it from where it’s clutching onto his jacket sleeve, taking it into his palm tenderly.

“So we’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Cloud merely sighs, doing nothing to stop the other from thumbing over his knuckles softly, the tension melting from his torso despite himself. “We’re golden.”

“I’m glad.” The corners of Zack’s mouth tug into a satisfied, dopey smile as he works to thread their fingers together in a slow tangling of hands. “What time does your shift end tonight?”

“Whenever these losers decide to head home.”

And then, as he peers around the room, Zack snickers, “At least these losers seem to be just as dramatic as me.”

The words startle Cloud back into awareness, and his head whips around to find that nearly everyone in the bar is watching them and murmuring to themselves in hushed tones, staring at where their hands are still linked together.

He immediately wrenches his hand back, his heart jolting in his chest, and he once again tries to distract himself with the heaps of other glasses that need polishing.

Because it’s in moments like these where he’s realizing he’s getting more caught up then he should.

Chapter Text

When Cloud tugs his helmet off of his head, blonde spikes tumbling around his face, he tries not to fixate on the texts from this morning that linger unanswered on his phone.

From: Zack ♡ (7:15 AM):

heyyyy spike…

still feeling shitty about last night and wanted to apologize again

but we need to make a few rushed batches tonite so i prob won’t be able to see you until

tifa’s thing tmrw

Cloud knows that he had seen Zack just the night before, that they’ll see each other again in little over a day’s time. But he can also picture the kind of frenzy Zack’s hormones will most likely be in after all of those hours apart, and he couldn’t stop himself when he'd grabbed his keys and roughly thrown on a pair of boots with little thought as to what exactly he was doing.

Releasing a terse sigh, he swings his leg off and over his bike and takes long strides over to the red brick, industrial building sitting at the corner of the street, the words “Banora Orchard Brewing'' painted briskly onto its side. Steeling his shoulders, he pushes through the heavy wooden door at its entrance, walking into a fairly large hall with a large bar wrapped around its center.

Despite the breadth of its size and its high ceilings, the room is quite cozy, plush red rugs and lots of comfortable seating dotted around the space. It brings Genesis to mind, and he's more than confident that the other omega had a heavy bearing on its layout.

As Cloud picks his way through scattered couches and tables, he notices a familiar brunette beta behind the bar counter straighten up at the sight of him, a beanie snug over his shaggy hair and nearly drawn over his eyes. Cloud can’t tell whether the other’s excited or bothered at the prospect of having a customer this early in the day, but he’s always been a bit of an unpredictable mystery for him.

“It’s been a while, Cloud,” Kunsel greets kindly, slinging the towel in his grip over his shoulder as the omega approaches. “Guessing you’re not here for a drink or a quick catch-up with your ol’ buddy?”

“Kunsel, hey.” Cloud returns with a curt nod of his head. “Do you want an honest answer?”

Kunsel takes out his phone with a sly, cloying look. “It’s all good—I already know why you’re here. Want me to fetch Zack?”

Cloud scoffs, considering if he should start coming here more sporadically just to refute the idea that he’d only visit on account of Zack. “No, it’s fine. I can text him—”

“No worries, I’ve got you,” Kunsel says, earnest, as his thumbs fly over the screen of his phone. “I hope you don’t mind, but Zack told me about his situation. Well, your situation. Your, uh, collective situation.”

Cloud reins in the impulse to reply with a cutting remark, crossing his arms in front of his chest in reluctant acceptance. Because if there is anything he can count on the beta for, it’s his near omniscient knowledge of everyone he’s acquainted with at any given time. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t know, honestly.”

“Well, would you look at that—you do know me.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited about it.”

“Too late.” The smile on Kunsel’s lips is teasing, but something about his stare becomes serious, calculating, as he regards Cloud. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Can I ask you something?” Kunsel folds his arms over the counter top, his voice lowering into something speculative. “How’s this arrangement been for you? I can’t imagine it feels totally natural.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… aren’t the two of you just friends?”

“Yeah, we are.” Cloud gripes, his tone biting, and he shifts his feet uncomfortably on smooth concrete flooring. “I don’t really owe you an explanation.”

“Maybe not,” Kunsel says with a shrug of his shoulders, nonchalant, before pushing off from the counter. “It just seems like a big commitment for a friendly gesture.”

Cloud’s teeth clatter from how quickly he clenches his jaw shut. “Whatever you think you know about me, you—”

“So you finally decided to show up, little bird?”

It’s only then that Cloud notices the strong presence that now looms from beside him, and he turns to find a tall omega regarding him coolly from beneath a fringe of glossy brown hair, his long red apron grazing along his ankles.

“Gen?” Kunsel questions, a look of genuine surprise creasing the smooth skin of his forehead. “I swore I texted Zack about fetching Cloudy here.”

“No, that’s correct,” Genesis mutters with an uncaring wave of his hand, the fold of his arms across his chest both impatient and imposing. “But I instructed him to wait in the office and, unsurprising to none, he complied quite easily. Come, Cloud.”

With a swift reach of his arm, Genesis grabs ahold of Cloud’s wrist and tugs him in the direction of a heavy set of doors concealed in the corner of the room. Cloud offers a small parting wave toward Kunsel as he continues to stumble along, the two of them weaving deft lines around long wooden benches and a row of vintage skee ball machines.

“Genesis? Wait, what are you—”

“Yes, yes. It’s been a while.” Genesis dismisses from over his shoulder, the soft swivel of his head elegant. Even his scent somehow remains distinct amid the typical funk of the brewery, the other omega smelling of a wild combination of fresh florals and smoked leather. “I’ve been waiting for you to visit for weeks, to be perfectly candid. Zack’s been quite insistent that you would.”

Cloud fails to notice when they emerge into a more spacious, industrial room, only managing to stutter out, “Zack didn’t—at least I don’t think he mentioned anything—”

“He didn’t tell you that I require your expertise?” Genesis tuts, halting midstep before spinning around to face Cloud, his expression pointed. “There’s not a lot of people who I trust to give me an honest opinion of what I make.”

“Zack’s never—I had no idea anyone wanted me to come here in person.” Cloud falters, his arms rigid and still at his sides. “I can’t imagine I’ve said anything you haven’t heard before.”

“Nonsense, the feedback you offer continues to be insightful.”

There’s a part of Cloud that shrivels at the compliment. “Because I preferred your blend over Angeal’s?”

“You really think flattery is my primary concern?” Genesis counters, his fingers drumming over where they’re placed on his hips. “I was speaking broadly of all of the help you’ve provided. But I’m not here to make you believe in your own attributes. Zack’s at least told you of its success, I hope?”

“Oh, well—yeah, he has.”

Genesis then hums, his eyes narrowed into a look that makes Cloud feel stripped to his barest parts. “You’re quite stubborn, aren’t you? Just like Zack, quite frankly.”

“I guess?”

“And seeing as though you’re hearing a lot of this for the first time, you’re both terrible at communicating.” Genesis continues airily, ignoring his remark in favor of closing his eyes in contemplation. “It’s surprising that either of you have been able to make any progress on your relationship.”

It was a mistake coming here today, Cloud thinks. He should’ve known that Zack’s own circle of friends would have things to say and questions to ask about their "collective" situation.

“Maybe don’t phrase it like that.”

“You’re helping with his mating cycle, are you not?”

Cloud gives in to the need to tuck his arms over his chest. “Well yeah, but I wouldn’t refer to it as… progress.”

“It’s the truth, anyhow.” Genesis says, tipping a smile bordering on smug toward him. “Even though this nesting thing is a bit of a rarity for him.”

Genesis then continues walking further into the sizable room, and Cloud falters a little trying to match his long strides. He does recall Zack mentioning that he doesn’t nest before every rut, but the idea that it might be a rare occurrence gives him pause, his mind struggling to grasp the implication.

“A rarity?”

“Believe it or not, Zack’s alpha instincts are normally quite even-tempered. He’s not the kind of alpha to be swayed by his hormones easily.”

“Are you sure? That’s not what I’ve seen.”

“Believe what you like, but the Zack I know has remarkable self-control. I’ve never known him to do anything outside of his own volition.”

In the time he’s known the older omega, Genesis has shown himself to be honest and analytical and blunt, qualities that have brought Cloud both admiration and discomfort, and he knows he has no concrete reason to question Genesis’s words. And yet, in the past few days, Zack has been driven by and reactive to his every nesting urge, even going as far as to avoid speaking with Cloud face-to-face to curb his own instincts.

Even if Cloud was tempted to believe Genesis, he still thinks it’s in his best interest not to place any meaning on the events of the past few days.

These are simply bodily needs that he’s helping Zack take care of, and nothing more.

“If you say so.”

“I do in fact say so. I’ll let you see him now, as you please. Do be sure to stop by again as soon as possible to try some of our new brews.”

“I’ll see what I can—” Cloud trails off when Genesis whisks away with his apron fluttering behind him, dumbfounded. “—do.”

And then, from a distance, a burly, brunette alpha greets him with an eager wave of his free hand. Angeal’s own apron is neatly wrapped around his form, and the alpha seems to be stirring something methodically in a large, stainless steel barrel. “Hey there, Cloud. It’s good to see you!”

Cloud returns the wave weakly, all of the energy sapped out of him, wondering to what degree Angeal is also informed about his and Zack’s whereabouts.

When Cloud steps into Zack’s office, he finds the alpha focusing on a crisp paper in his hands, the end of a pencil digging into the full skin of his lower lip.

Today, Zack’s hair sits low on his neck, tied into a slick ponytail, and a black muscle tee stretches tightly over his torso. The light peeking through the adjacent window glints over his form as though it, too, wants to indulge—appraising the well-defined angles of his profile, the fullness of his chest, the dips and swells of sturdy, corded arms.

This time, regret burgeons on Cloud's face in the form of ruddy heat.

Zack’s head jolts up at the sound of Cloud’s entrance, his eyes wide in unease. “Cloud! Kunsel told me you were here. Is everything okay?”

Cloud shuffles artlessly into the room, falling back into the dated vinyl chair posed in front of Zack’s desk. His fingers grip onto its armrests like an anchor as he manages to force out, “Everything’s fine. It’s just… you said you’d be swamped until tomorrow night.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Spike.” Zack’s face breaks out into a bright, inviting grin, moving to slip the pencil behind his ear and leaning forward in his own leather chair. “You keep going out of your way for me, and I—that’s really so—”

“I had the morning off,” Cloud interrupts with a small shake of his head. “It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me.” Zack confesses as his scent curls and coils around them in pleasant tendrils. For the first time, Cloud wonders what his own scent must be like at this very moment, whether it mingles with Zack's in pleasant harmony or if they repel off of one another in unfit discord. “Can you believe Genesis locked me up in here? He must’ve really wanted to talk to you.”

“He has a weird way of showing it. He basically gave me shit the entire time for not helping out at the brewery more often.”

“Sounds like something Gen would do. I have a feeling that he just wants you to spend more time here with us.”

Cloud recoils at the admission, reclining back into his chair in surprise. Because what about him specifically would be appealing for someone like Genesis to go out of his way for?

“Really?”

“I’m, like, ninety-nine percent positive. He disguises it as beer talk, but I’m pretty sure he just likes having you around.” Zack says as he stands, rounding the desk to lean against it, his legs now brushing against the side of Cloud’s chair. “So, did it work?”

“You mean, did he sell me on hanging out here more?” Cloud asks, and Zack nods his head, eager. “Hm, I don’t know. I think I still might need more convincing.”

“Oh, yeah? What about if I gave you a ride to and from work everyday for a week?”

“It depends. Would you let me drive?”

“Absolutely not.” Zack shoots back, and Cloud can feel the corners of his lips lift into a smile, having already guessed this very response. Zack’s Chevy Nova was a gift from his father and his own personal labor of love, a vintage piece that the other had pieced together over many years through meticulous research and careful building, and one of Zack’s few possessions that he wasn’t allowed to touch. “You don’t even have your driver’s license.”

“Then, no dice.”

Zack then lifts his hand in front of him for the omega to take, and Cloud’s breath leaves him in a rush when the alpha lifts him from his seat with a strong tug of his hand so that they are standing in front of one another, only inches apart.

Cloud can only peer up at the other from underneath tousled, blonde spikes, rooted in place.

“Help me out then, baby. Give me suggestions,” Zack says, brushing his hand through a lock of hair still hanging in Cloud’s eyes and gently tucking it behind a reddening ear. His fingers stall there as their eyes meet, and there’s something about the gesture that makes Cloud feel as though the very oxygen was stolen from his lungs.

“Pancakes are always a good bet with me,” Cloud murmurs, not entirely sure why his voice drops into a hushed whisper.

Zack’s gaze begins to flicker between his lips and his eyes, the alpha’s pupils dilating the longer they remain standing there in layered silence. Cloud has to force himself to curl his toes in his boots so that he can remain grounded on the floor beneath him, so that he doesn’t give in to the desire to lift himself up, up, up, and—

“So pancakes or driving my car? Those are the only two options?”

Cloud can feel the slow bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallows dryly. “Unless you can think of more?”

A loud, gleeful shout is then heard beyond the door, and the sound seems to spark some sort of clarity in the other's eyes. Zack breaks their eye contact to look at a distant spot beyond Cloud’s head, heaving a sigh.

“I’m sorry, Spike.”

Cloud shakes his head, trying to will away the feeling of fluttering wings still beating a wild tune between his ribs.

“Is this about last night again? I forgave you already, remember? There’s no need to rehash it.”

“Right,” Zack replies, his voice airy and light, but his weak, pensive smile betrays another feeling buried behind the words. “Why don’t we talk to Angeal? He can be pretty persuasive.”

“But, don’t you—” Cloud hesitates, seizing up when Zack places two hands on his shoulders and begins to direct him toward the closed door. “Alright then.”

The following afternoon sees Cloud fidgeting against a stiff kitchen chair, drumming his fingers on his patchy, lacquered dining room table.

“Give me one second, Cloud,” Aerith mutters from where she’s rummaging through a quilted bag with small blue daisies stitched onto its surface. The sounds of plastic objects knocking against one another are loud against the quiet solitude of his apartment, until Aerith snatches something from within the bag’s depths and dangles it in front of him. “Found it!”

The sight of a pink metallic tube pulls a noise of protest from Cloud’s lips. “I thought we agreed on no messing with my eyes?”

“I agreed to no such thing. You only said, ‘Nothing too dramatic.’” Aerith tuts as she takes a seat in front of him, twisting the tube open with a sprightly shrug of her shoulder. “And anyway, don’t you want to make Zack lose his mind a little?”

“He will not,” Cloud frowns when Aerith merely stares at him—a silent request, he’s sure. He then closes his eyes, huffing, before gentle fingers begin dabbing something tacky onto his eyelids.

“I don’t know. From what Tifa described, it sounded like he looked at you, and I quote, ‘with the moon in his eyes.’”

Cloud thinks he might be familiar with this look now—it’s a look that had been painted so plainly on Zack’s face yesterday when they were together in the small, insular world of the alpha’s office.

But then he thinks about the look he had seen thereafter, full of guilt and shame and regret, and the image mercilessly snuffs out the small, fragile flame whose embers only seem to burn in him in flickering starts and stops.

“I think you’re both forgetting something. It’s basically built into his DNA to act like this.”

Aerith flicks lightly at his ear, chiding. “Tifa thought you’d say something along those lines.”

Cloud tries to soften the furrowing of his eyebrows when he feels something pencil-like begin to fill them in, sighing out, “I can’t tell if Tifa’s enjoying this or if she thinks it’s the dumbest idea of all time.”

“It’s actually something else.” Aerith’s movements begin to slow with the words, and a few seconds pass before they seem to stop altogether. When Cloud reopens his eyes, he sees her now settled back into her own wooden chair, rigid. “If I’m being totally honest, she’s just a little worried about you. We both are.”

A sudden dryness grips his throat, his tongue now a thick and leaden weight in his mouth. He had a feeling that this conversation would come up eventually.

“You really don’t need to be. Things are different now.”

“Are they?” Aerith questions, the striking green of her gaze as stifling as it is comforting. “Tifa said she didn’t speak to you for months afterwards.”

His stomach drops and hollows with the reminder, because while he doesn’t like to think of it often, he can still recall that expanse of time in his life in crisp, vivid detail. He can still recall the long stretches of hours he spent just staring at his front door, waiting. The ache of hearing his mom stifling her crying in the adjacent room, thinking he was unaware.

His own unending listlessness.

“There was just… a lot going on then.”

“Have you ever thought about talking to her about it?” Aerith asks patiently, her hand brushing against his elbow, cautious and delicate as though Cloud could run away at any moment.

Instead, Cloud looks away, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “I want to. I’ve been thinking about it.”

"She'd like that." Aerith's hand comes to rest over Cloud's clenched fists, a calming warmth. “I think there’s a small part of her that still feels responsible."

"I know."

“Just... try to be careful. And if things become rough for you again, we both can come over and make you some brownies. And we'll binge watch all of the horror movies you want.”

“Thanks Aerith,” Cloud says softly, his tone laden in sincere gratitude. And Aerith responds in kind, her eyes brightening and crinkling with the curve of her smile.

“Let’s get back to it then!” Aerith says as she draws a soft, bristled brush out of her cosmetic bag, once again tilting up Cloud’s chin with her pointer finger. “Anyway, are you excited about tonight? And are you really taking a break from drinking? If you are, that’s totally fine, of course. But do I think you said that as a way to avoid being honest with me? Well, obviously—”

“You have such little faith in me,” Cloud laments, but he remains still as Aerith begins digging the brush into a peachy pink palette and sweeping it daintily across his cheekbones.

“And we still need to figure out what you’re going to wear. Wait! I’ve got it. Do you still have that mesh crop top you keep in the back of your dresser?”

Cloud’s sigh is both hefty and resigned. “...yeah.”

Aerith's meddled a little too far this time, Cloud thinks.

Cloud feels both too warm and too chilled as he wallows in the low light of Seventh Heaven, his arms coiled over his nearly bare chest. The central space sits empty of its usual tables and chairs, balloons and streamers taking over in their stead, and Cloud can only observe restlessly as the bar becomes slowly occupied by his co-workers and their respective family and friends.

And he’s never regretted going out in public as much as he does now.

The longer Cloud waits, the more the sheer mesh material of his top clings a little too tightly to his middle. Even his chained, silver choker seems to stifle his breathing, and the feeling of mascara on his eyelashes makes him conscious of every blink of his eyes. Worst of all, his nipples won’t stop pebbling against the curl of cool air from the bar’s air filtering system.

He feels exposed.

“Gods, Cloud,” Someone gasps from behind him, and Cloud shifts in time to see Jessie hop onto the stool next to him, the alpha’s brunette hair slicked up into her signature high ponytail. “This is actually getting ridiculous. I’m about to lose my shit, quite frankly.”

“What? Did I do something?” Cloud asks, eyes wide and guileless.

“Besides being insanely hot? No.” Jessie confesses, folding her arms on the flat of the table. “And I can’t even hate you for it.”

“It’s annoying, isn’t it?” Aerith quips as she saunters over to Cloud’s pub table, a wide tray clasped skillfully in her arms. She places it on the table top with an exaggerated sweep of her arms, presenting a small bowl of limes and several shot glasses, each filled to the brim with a clear, unknown liquor. “Here we are! I got one for my dear little Cloud Strife too if he decides he wants one.”

“Oh? Taking a break from drinking, Cloudy?” Jessie asks with a curious tilt of her head.

“There’s no way,” Biggs counters as he slides onto the seat opposite him, taking a slow, deliberate sip from a ribbed cocktail glass already clutched in his hands. Barret must’ve finally unwrapped and scrubbed the set clean for what he considers a very special occasion. “I saw Cloud crack open a beer, like, less than an hour ago.”

Cloud bristles at the admission, his eyes directing a seething look at the other alpha. Biggs only waves his hands at him with a guilty, dismissive grin.

Snitch.

“Who would’ve thought?” Aerith remarks as she relaxes atop her own chair, gratified, distributing some of the small glasses around the table.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cloud grumbles under his breath, snatching an unclaimed shot glass and a lime with deft hands. “I don’t see you drinking one.”

“Because I’m driving you home later! Or did you forget?” Aerith giggles out, preening at her assumptions being correct.

Before Cloud can offer up a retort, he hears a boisterous laugh from the opposite side of the bar, unequivocal in its warmth and tenor. He belatedly turns to look at its source, rousing at the sight of Tifa greeting someone with distinct jet black locks and a familiar, well-loved leather jacket.

It’s only seconds before Cloud’s raising his glass to his lips and downing it in a single, hasty swig.

As though attuned to where Cloud is at all times, that same mop of jet black hair turns in his direction and spots him without fail, his head perking up when their eyes meet. The alpha doesn’t waste a moment before he begins to weave expertly toward him, and Cloud can barely take a breath in before two strong arms are wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him back into a solid embrace.

“Spike!” Zack croons against the skin of Cloud’s reddening cheek. “It feels like it’s been ten years.”

“I saw you yesterday morning,” Cloud complains as he sinks further into Zack’s embrace, stiff as a board. But, while the audience is unwelcome, he can’t deny that the weight of the alpha’s arms feels like a soothing balm, and having him so close makes something wrench and settle in Cloud all at once.

Zack nuzzles the hair behind Cloud’s ear, full of unbridled affection, before breathing out a content sigh. “I know. It’s been agony.”

“Everyone,” Cloud manages to force out, pulling at Zack’s forearms to rest more loosely around his neck. He can feel his face flooded with a blazing flame, and he thinks if there’s any time for the universe to send a meteor hurtling towards Earth, it should be now. “This is Zack.”

Aerith’s eyes positively glimmer as she stands, leaning over the table on her tiptoes and holding her hand out, enthralled. “Hi there, hot neighbor Zack. I’m Aerith.”

Zack doesn’t seem to think twice about the moniker, letting go of Cloud briefly to greet her with a firm handshake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Aerith.”

“Oh shit, this is hot neighbor Zack?” Jessie spits out, thumping at her chest as she chokes on a meager sip of beer. “I guess it’s to be expected, but—Jesus, Cloud.”

“Or you could just say hi to him,” Cloud says dryly, and Jessie’s only response is to stick out her tongue at him in childish retribution.

“I’m Biggs,” The other brunette alpha at the table offers, a confused mutter of a greeting, and Cloud can’t tell if Biggs is bewildered at Zack himself or at the scene the two of them make.

“So Zack,” Aerith begins, gleeful, her palms pressed together in front of her chest. “What do you think about Cloud’s look? Isn’t he so gorgeous?”

Jessie whistles lowly under her breath, adding, “I’m actually in shock. You two look so good to—”

“I need to talk to Zack for a minute,” Cloud falters a little before bolting up and out of his seat, taking the opportunity to reach for Zack’s outstretched hand. He then drags him to a secluded corner of the bar, running his fingers through his mussed hair when they eventually separate.

Cloud averts his gaze back toward a nick of chipped, faded paint on the wall, flustered. “I’m sorry about them. I know that they can be… a lot.”

Hearing no reply, he can’t help but worry that his friends were somehow able to embarrass the likes of Zack, a person normally so self-assured and unabashed.

“Zack?” Cloud turns back to the alpha, a second apology ready on his lips, but he can only flinch when he sees Zack frozen in place, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes unblinking.

Cloud jerks to fold his arms over his chest before he can stop himself.

“I’m—you look—” Zack stammers, and his eyes can’t seem to land on any one part of Cloud, oscillating between his glittering, doe eyes and the peak of his bare midriff and the silver collar now snug around his neck. “You’re so—wow.”

“Aerith went a little overboard, I know.” Cloud sputters, positive that Zack can now see his flush burn a path down the length of his neck and well past his collarbones. “Just ignore it.”

“I, uh, don’t think I can. You’re going to have to give me a minute.”

Cloud’s never needed another drink so desperately in his life.

In a matter of hours, Cloud’s world boils down to a tipsy, balmy haze and an underlying itch simmering under his skin.

He’s lost track of exactly how much he’s had to drink as the night’s progressed, Jessie and Biggs roping both him and Zack into countless drinking games, one after the other. Even now, the two of them lean against the far wall of the bar, only half-heartedly observing as Jessie moves around the pool table, adjusting the angle of Biggs’s cue stick to align a striped ball with a corner pocket.

But being on a losing streak means that Cloud finds the situation funnier than not, the intense look of concentration on Biggs’ and Jessie’s faces both unnecessary and more one-sided than they perhaps realize. Truthfully, Cloud can’t even seem to recall when they started playing this game, how many solids or stripes still remain on the table or if he and Zack even have the slightest chance of winning.

All Cloud can seem to think about is his proximity to Zack.

He’s aware of the richness of his scent, the warmth of his presence, how Zack’s hands are clenched into loose fists, moving restlessly beside him. Cloud’s mind feels agitated from wondering why he hasn’t gotten any closer to him like he had been keen on doing when he’d first arrived.

He had really thought that Zack would’ve been asking for more of his help. If only, he tells himself, so that he can settle the other’s wired, anxious energy.

When Zack finally ducks his head to lean in close, Cloud can’t curb the excited twitch of his fingers.

“Wow, they’re both dying to win this game,” Zack whispers, his voice low and hot in the hollow of his ear. “Did you destroy Jessie’s family legacy in a game of darts or something?”

The snort that Cloud lets out is louder than intended, but the sound only makes both he and Zack break out into even stronger giggles, collapsing into each other from the force of their laughter.

“They’re both wildly competitive. And a little unhinged.” Cloud says, snickers still slipping out between the words. “We probably should’ve split the two of them up.”

“Are you saying I suck?”

“If the shoe fits,” Cloud teases, swatting Zack’s hand away when he receives a pinch to his side in reply. In all honesty, they were both bombing, Cloud’s turns lacking their typical focus and precision. It didn’t help that every time he went to bend low enough to properly line up his cue stick, he could feel the gravity of a heated stare searing into his back.

A shiver zips down his spine at the thought of it.

An elated yell echoes from the opposite side of the table, and Cloud startles a little from the sound, working to bring himself upright from his position against the wall.

“Take that, losers!” Jessie shouts, pumping her pool cue into the air, triumphant. As Cloud once again rakes his eyes over the stretch of pool table, he can spot neither stripes nor the unmistakable, game-winning eight ball on its green baize.

Oh well.

“I’ve never beaten Cloud in a round of pool before.” Biggs mutters, a look nearing awe on his face. “Zack, you need to drop by more often.”

Zack pushes himself off from the wall, not the least bit bothered by the added loss counting toward the night’s tally. “Enjoy it while you can. You’re both lucky I was preoccupied.”

The laugh that bubbles out of Jessie is steeped in disbelief. “Is preoccupied what they call it now?”

Cloud cocks his hip to the side, a hand on his waist, miffed. “Or maybe you both took a silly game of pool a little too seriously.”

“I don’t think there’s a game I would ever not take seriously against you, Cloud.” Biggs admits, jabbing two full shot glasses into their respective hands for the nth time that night. “Bottoms up!”

Cloud stares down forlornly into clear liquor once again, his lips now pursed into a stubborn pout.

“Are you two ready to let us breathe for a second now?”

“Yes, yes, Cloudy. We’ll let you have your space.” Jessie taunts as she shoots one last thumbs up in their direction, spinning around with Biggs in tow. “Have fun kiddos!”

And then, just like that, Zack and Cloud are alone.

“Ugh, I can barely look at it.” Cloud says, wariness churning in the pit of his stomach. He pinches his nose and swallows the liquor down in one painful mouthful. “Fuck. That has to be my last one.”

“Yeah, that one burned a little,” Cloud hears the alpha grunt from beside him, his tone gruff and unsteady.

“Really? The Great Brewer Zack was finally taken down by those two?” Cloud questions through a cackle, collapsing into the nearest empty booth and sliding his empty glass toward the table’s sticky edge. Zack then shifts toward him, and without even a word of notice, the alpha is lifting Cloud’s lower legs and settling them comfortably over his lap, inching his way onto the space underneath them.

“Says the one whose face is already getting red.”

“It is not,” Cloud whines out, petulant, but he still feels flushed warmth under his palms when he pats over his cheeks and ears. He melts further into the creased leather underneath him, because Zack’s right—there’s no way he’s not going to feel this in the morning. “They went a little harder than usual on us, to be fair.”

“Really? Fuck. Do they dislike me?”

“That’s not it. They wouldn’t have done that unless they thought you could keep up.”

Zack chuckles mildly, his head falling back against the tufted booth, sluggish. “Well, I’m glad I’m up to their standards.”

Cloud’s instincts clamor with concern at the sight of Zack's body awash in fatigue. “Are you okay? You seem a little out of it.”

“I’m fine, Spike. S’just… been a rough few days for me.” Zack replies, his head rolling to glance over at Cloud with half-lidded eyes. Armed with a sheepish smile, he makes it too easy to assume that he is being entirely truthful. But Cloud can tell otherwise, the muteness of his scent and the hunching of his shoulders obvious signs of the strain of the past day.

“I’m guessing my visit to the brewery didn’t help much.”

“Of course it helped, baby,” Zack mumbles out tiredly. "I was just—I don't know, in a weird space yesterday."

With a resolved bite to his lip, Cloud then decides to trust the hunch that had been nagging at him from Zack’s first appearance earlier that evening, moving his legs to sit up and face the alpha properly.

“Right. Zack, just, c’mere. Give me your arm.”

Zack finally lifts his head from its perch, expression wide-eyed and bewildered. “Oh, we—we don’t have to, Spike. I know we’re in front of all of your co-workers and, like, almost everyone you know.”

Cloud shields his smile with the curl of his hand, because while the intent was nice, Zack had already contradicted himself when he’d walked in earlier. “You didn’t care about that when you met them for the first time. No need to be shy about it now.”

“Now who’s warmed up to the idea of being nesting buddies?"

“Not me.” Cloud stretches out his arms, the movement undeniably kittenish, and places one on the back of Zack’s neck. “So? Your hug?”

Zack’s response is almost immediate, lurching forward and coiling his arms tightly around Cloud’s waist with all of the vigor of a man starved. Cloud’s back curves into an uncomfortable arch toward him, and their knees lock together in a tangled mess of limbs, but he can still feel his own chest expanding blissfully at the contact.

“Thank fuck. Hardest thirty five hours of my life.”

“Of course you would count, you nerd.” Cloud laughs against the inky, black locks brushing against his cheek. “Is this comfortable for you?”

“Erngh.”

It only takes a few minutes before Cloud begins to feel a sharp twinge in his lower back and the ache of his arms from where they bend at an odd angle around the alpha’s back. He’s not sure if it’s the alcohol steadily working its way through his system or the dimness of the bar, but a sudden surge of something pulses in his gut, heavy and urgent and white hot.

Except this time, he allows himself to surrender to it, to untether the ropes that keep him firmly stuck in safe, commonplace territory, and he pushes at Zack’s shoulders until the other releases him from his hold.

“Why don’t I—hold on, Zack.” Cloud breathes out, and before he can reconsider his decision, he’s rearranging himself and swinging his leg up and over Zack’s hips to settle atop the alpha’s lap.

The noise that Zack lets out is nothing short of a rasping groan, his fingers burrowing harshly into the fabric bunched around Cloud’s hips. He doesn’t give Cloud a moment before he’s once again burying his face under the jut of his jaw, and Cloud’s eyes reflexively flutter closed.

“There. I-is that better?”

Zack’s answering grunt ripples through Cloud’s chest, gruff and honest. “You’re sure making this hard for me, Spike.”

A shaky whimper manages to escape the omega’s lips when Zack pulls him in even closer, their hips now pressed tightly together. Cloud can’t even find it in himself to feel embarrassed at the fact that any of his friends or co-workers at any moment could look over at the far corner of the bar and see him, boneless and keening, on top of an alpha they’d just met.

“How? I’m trying to make this simple.”

“I can barely think when you’re around.” Zack murmurs, the words mouthed over the sensitive bit of skin behind his ear. And now, there’s no mistaking the distinct hardness he can feel growing against his inner thigh, and Cloud feels like he can't breathe from how hard he struggles not to squirm against it with a need of his own. “You—you make my head spin, baby.”

Cloud doesn’t respond, only tilts his head back and lets Zack nose up and down the length of his neck, tempted to discard the chain still there so that he can feel the sensation uninterrupted.

“Are you sure I’m not asking for too much?” Zacks whispers again, this time through the sheer material covering his collarbones.

“I’m the one who offered to help you, remember?” Cloud exhales as if in a trance, his voice sounding short-winded and disoriented even to his own ears. “It’ll all be over soon. Just a few more days.”

“Yeah, but that’s going to fucking suck, too.”

“There, there, Zack,” Cloud hums softly, ruffling the top of Zack’s hair with gentle brushes of his fingers.

Because he knows for a fact that it’ll suck for him, too.

He’s sure of it.

Cloud doesn’t recall the last time he’d felt like this.

His vision tilts and reels and bobs, and although he’s somewhat confident that his front door is slowly coming into focus, he doesn’t quite understand how he’d gotten here. With a few languid blinks of his eyes, he notices that both his arms and legs are slack, and yet there’s something beneath his fingertips that’s solid and warm and moving.

“Ease up, Spike. We’re back home.”

“Zack?” Cloud grouses, his nose still smothered between broad shoulder blades. Dazedly, he nuzzles at the expanse, deep earthiness flooding his senses with comfort. “Wah—? We left the bar?”

Cloud can feel two large hands squeeze under his knees from where they’re settled around Zack’s frame, jostling him playfully on the flat of his back.

“Sure did. We left the bar about half an hour ago. Aerith drove us home, remember?”

“Here we are!” A sweet voice chimes amidst the rattling of a door knob, and before long, a glimpse of pink and red fabric is sweeping into his apartment.

“You’re a lifesaver, Aerith,” Zack rumbles from beneath him.

“W-wait! Let’s go back!” Cloud hiccups out, grasping onto Zack with an even tighter grip as the alpha walks them through the now open doorway. “B-but, Tifa!”

“Sorry, no can do!” It’s only when Cloud’s lowered with gentle precision onto a familiar, frayed brown couch cushion that he becomes aware of how wildly the room seems to spin around him, and he cradles his forehead in his hand against the onslaught.

“It’s just—this was Tifa’s night. And I barely spent any time with her. I’m such a fuckin’ asshole.”

“Spike, listen to me,” Zack insists as he brings one of Cloud’s boot-clad feet to rest on his knee, working to loosen his snug, knotted laces. “She seemed totally fine when we said goodbye to her. She laughed when she saw how smashed you are, and then she gave you a hug. And if she’s upset about it tomorrow, just blame me.”

Troubled by the thought, Cloud places his hands on Zack’s cheeks, squishing them firmly between his palms. “No! M’not blaming you. You haven’t done jackshit wrong.”

“You’re adorable,” Zack murmurs out through the press of Cloud’s hands.

Cloud then squints at the alpha with bitter eyes, pointing his index finger between Zack’s eyes. “You did fuckin’ distract me, though.”

“But I thought it wasn’t my—wait, Cloud—”

“And she’s been worried. She should, like, forget about my shit—” The omega continues over Zack’s rambling, releasing the alpha to slump back into the couch and tangle his fingers in already mussed blonde spikes. He can see Zack sulk at the edge of his vision, now working on taking the boot off of Cloud's other foot.

“Tifa’s fine, Cloud. She’s happy you had a good night.” Aerith says as she steps into view, and while the light swing of her braided ponytail is typically an appreciated sight, her presence only adds to the swell of guilt ballooning in Cloud’s chest.

“Aerith! Why’re you—you should be with Tifa! Fuckin’ shit on a stick.”

“She’ll be okay. We do live together,” Aerith then lifts a chilled glass of something clear into view, holding it up to Cloud’s lips. “Here, Cloud. Drink or you’ll feel even worse tomorrow.”

With an obedient dip of his head, Cloud drinks from the glass, cool water sliding down his throat, until he’s sputtering out, “Wait, that’s it! ‘Course you live with her. Can you tell her I’m sorry? And that the withdrawals will be chill this time. Like, so fuckin’ chill. No ignoring her or spiraling out or anything, I promise.”

“Maybe you should tell her that yourself, Cloud.” Aerith then pats at his head lightly like one would a small, disoriented cat, before springing back up to her feet. “But you bet I’ll describe every bit of this to her in excruciating detail.”

It isn’t until Aerith is waving her goodbyes to the two of them, Cloud’s mind more lucid following two reviving glasses of water, that Zack takes a seat in the space next to the omega, the intense blue of his eyes adopting a solemn, sobering sheen.

“I… didn’t realize it got so bad for you.”

“What?”

“Your withdrawals. After Tifa, I’m guessing.”

“Oh that?” Cloud says as he sits up, and he almost immediately regrets it, clutching at his head, dizzying bursts of light erupting behind his eyelids. “That was so dumb. I was still a teen, then. I didn’t know shit about anything, let alone taking care of myself.”

When Zack only stares at him, his mouth pressed into a look of uncertainty, Cloud continues, “There are, like, pain killers now and even those—what d’ya call them—temporary hormone suppressants? It’ll be fine.”

Zack’s head hangs between his shoulders for a moment, his hands on his knees and his expression obscured by the tufts of hair draped over his forehead, until he is pushing himself to stand. “If you say so, baby. Let me go grab the frozen pizza from my place. Still want a slice?”

The noise Cloud makes is surely one he’ll regret in the morning, but it rings loudly between them regardless.

“Oh my gods, fuck yeah.”

Chapter Text

Cloud wakes to hefty knocks on his front door.

The sounds crack like thunder between his ears as Cloud’s eyes pry themselves open, small and careful against the smatterings of sun that somehow seep past his thick, drawn curtains. His mouth is dry, scratchy like overworked sandpaper, and he smacks his lips as though it might combat the sheer rawness that feels baked into every inch of his skin.

With clumsy movements, Cloud sits up in bed and peels off his down comforter, rearranging his legs to settle onto cold tile. He reaches up to knead at his temples, his head heavy as though it’s chock-full of concrete. But instead of the bare skin of his forehead, his hand meets plush cotton, and he lets out a confused breath when he notices the black oversized hood hanging over his line of sight and the large sleeves enveloping his hands.

And, he realizes with a slow scenting, the hoodie he’s wearing is bathed in notes of sandalwood and amber.

Cloud presses his nose against the soft material, breathing it in with a deep, generous inhale, and the scent does something to alleviate some of the discomfort pulsing through his limbs, if only temporarily. He must’ve gotten the hoodie from Zack at some point last night while he was babbling about how terrible of a friend he is, and the thought makes him want to fall back into bed and groan into his wild stack of pillows.

He remembers far too much of the night before.

He remembers leaning against the coarse, brick wall in the dim light of the bar, the spaces between him and Zack feeling achingly distant. He remembers the exhaustion marring the handsome curves of Zack’s face, remembers the heady thrill of finally letting go and giving in, remembers climbing into a sturdy lap and melting into Zack, needy and overwrought—

“Spike!” A hearty voice calls, muffled from beyond his entryway. “Wakey, wakey! I come bearing gifts!”

“I’m getting up,” Cloud groans out, unsure whether his own ragged voice can be heard from where Zack stands, waiting. He then trudges toward his front door, the hoodie still pulled over his hair and swallowing his more slight of frame, and unlocks it with a feeble flick of his fingers. “I don’t think I can do… talking right now, Zack. Or anything really.”

Zack looks refreshed and well-rested as he holds up a crumpled, brown paper bag up to his face, the black locks kissing his forehead both messy and flattering. Although he’s dreading a look at his wall clock, Cloud can’t find it in himself to be too upset when the other’s grin glitters with satisfaction.

“You won’t think that way when you see what I’ve got for you.”

Cloud ducks behind the door to let Zack make his way inside, leaning back on it and nudging it closed. “You’ve got something to help me travel back in time and make better decisions?”

“I’ve got something better, actually.” Zack reaches one hand inside of the bag, eager, fishing out an unassuming coffee cup and a flimsy, styrofoam container that squeaks as he sets it down on Cloud’s compact dining table. He then moves to the cramped kitchenette, fetching both a fork and small paper towel to place neatly beside the unmarked box. “No pressure, though. You can always say no if you’re not feeling it.”

Slowly, Cloud steps toward one of his vacant chairs, sitting down on its smooth edge, curious. He lifts open the container’s lid, spotting a generous stack of something thick and golden brown.

“You… got me pancakes?”

“Sure did! Courtesy of that new diner down the street. Cid’s, I think it’s called,” Zack says as he takes the opposite seat, as energized as ever, and Cloud withers in comparison—a wilting flower in the heat of a blazing sun. “But I’d totally get if you wanted to just save it for later.”

Cloud takes another glance at the full plate in front of him, and while his stomach still wrinkles with wooziness, the smell of caramelized butter and crisped batter brings a craving so strong and involuntary, his mouth begins to water.

“No, it’s—I’ll eat it,” Cloud replies, relieved that the hoodie is still obscuring the pinkened crest of his cheeks and the warming tips of his ears. “It looks pretty good. Guess I’m hungrier than I thought.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be in the mood to eat, but I figured I’d give it a shot.” Zack crosses his arms over his chest and stretches out his legs to a comfortable length, his ankles bracketing Cloud’s underneath his chair. “I’m glad I got it right.”

“Was I really that far gone?” Cloud questions as he pops open a small container of syrup, pouring it liberally over a heap of fresh berries.

“Far gone enough. You made it pretty difficult to go back to my place. Insisted I stayed the night.”

Cloud’s forkful of pancake and fruit stalls only centimeters from his mouth. “I did not. You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Zack taunts, leaning forward to fold his arms over an empty expanse of table. “It’s why I brought you something of mine.”

At the question, a hazy memory plays within his mind—of swimming in a sea of dark cotton until Zack was tugging the material down and around Cloud’s face. He can see Zack laughing fondly, his blue eyes luminous and his smile full, as he folded the hoodie’s gangly sleeves to sit around Cloud’s wrists, the calloused skin of the alpha’s palms skimming over his own.

He can see himself tugging on Zack’s arm in a pitiful attempt to get him to stay the night.

Cloud quickly takes the bite in front of him, avoiding Zack’s eyes as he chews through sweet pancake and crisp strawberry. “How can I be sure it wasn’t some form of dumb alpha posturing?”

“It’s okay to admit me you wanted me to—hey!”

Cloud snickers as he retracts his foot from where he’d kicked lightly into Zack’s shin, unapologetic. “And how do you look so… okay? I swear you drank just as much.”

“I do work at a brewery.” Zack answers without a hint of haughtiness, the shrug of his shoulders matter-of-fact. “And it helped that I was with you all night.”

Easing at the admission, Cloud lets his feet settle impishly over Zack’s, but he huddles back into his meal at the preening smile Zack sends his way in turn. “If only that logic worked in the reverse.”

“How much of last night do you remember anyway?”

“Not much.” Cloud murmurs against the lip of his coffee cup, and when he moves to take a slow sip, the liquid is bitter and scorching as it grazes the roof of his mouth. He’d rather Zack forget about Cloud’s mindlessness and impulsive behavior and whatever nonsense he managed to spew when he was hammered and loose-lipped. “The last thing I remember is Jessie and Biggs obliterating us at pool.”

“Damn, really? I guess that tracks.” Zack mutters with a laugh, but the lilt of it rings rigid and stiff. “You don’t remember anything that we talked about?”

“Not really,” Cloud stammers, wetting his mouth nervously with the tip of his tongue. “Was it something important?”

Cloud can see the muscles in Zack’s jaw tighten as his teeth click back together. “You just—well, you mentioned something about having withdrawals before, you know… with Tifa, and—”

“Oh, well. That was nothing,” Cloud interrupts despite the guilt that carves trenches through his resolve.

“You said that last night too,” Zack points out, probing, a wrinkle etching itself between his brows.

“Because it’s really nothing to worry about. Withdrawals is a strong word for what happened. It was, like, one or two days of mild discomfort—just my body getting used to not having Tifa around again. Nothing too different from how I feel right now, honestly.”

“Ah, so like a bad hangover?”

Cloud thinks that with the right words, the right look, he could tip over in the blink of an eye, the line between lies and truth a precarious tightrope. “Something like that.”

“Still not ideal, but that’s not too terrible, I guess.” Zack says he relaxes back against his chair, but his calves brush lightly over Cloud’s own, a comforting touch. “You’ll let me know if it gets bad, right?”

“If you want.” Cloud agrees easily, trying not to read too much into the fact that their legs now tangle together underneath lacquered wood. “And I guess more free breakfast wouldn’t hurt.”

“I can do that. Are you sure you’re gonna be cool with me being around?”

Cloud shoves his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, mumbling, “Isn't it obvious?”

A serene quiet falls over the table as Cloud steadily digs through his plate, and while his hunger is close to nonexistent, the meal does a lot to prod his brain back into working order. He swallows one last, large mouthful before balancing his fork on the corner of his takeout container, sated.

Zack is then pushing his chair back, offering, “Hey, if you’re feeling up for it, I was thinking we could go for a small hike? Some fresh air can be good for a hangover. There’s this trail I used to walk when I needed a pick-me-up. Lots of redwood trees, pretty good view of Midgar. Interested?”

“Of course your idea of a hangover pick-me-up is going on a hike.” Cloud ribs, but he tucks a smile away behind the bundled collar of his hoodie, his chest now lightened with something unnamed. “But alright.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, let’s do it. Sounds kind of nice right now.”

Zack chuckles a little at his reply, his mouth twisted in confusion. “You sure you’d rather do that over staying in and playing video games all day? I’d get it.”

“Yes?” Cloud questions as he hobbles to his feet, struggling not to feel too embarrassed by the loud cracking of his knees. “You’re asking like you’re not the one who suggested it.”

“It’s just—I don’t know. You still manage to surprise me.”

“Guess I’m pretty good at keeping you on your toes.”

Zack begins to lead him away from the table by his elbow and admits, smiling honey sweet, “Yeah. You are.”

“Shit, Spike. I forgot how windy the roads are up here.”

Although the car slowly rolls to a stop, Cloud can barely lift his head from where it rests on the knobby notch of his knee. The queasiness from this morning comes roiling back through his gut in a rocky ground swell, the feeling rising and falling in uneven fits. He regrets deciding to leave Zack’s hoodie behind on the foot of his bed, an impulsive choice, when he could’ve at least cloistered himself inside of it for a brief bit of relief.

He’s still not entirely sure what he’s trying to prove to himself.

“It’s fine, I just need to—” Cloud breathes out, and it’s only when he hears the croak of the stick shift switching into park that he’s yanking at his car door handle and pushing out into crisp, afternoon air. He stumbles out onto dusty gravel, reaching out to the nearest timber railing to steady himself as he exhales heavily from his nose, his eyes clenched closed.

Hurried steps come barreling towards him, and Cloud can sense Zack pause at the corner of his periphery, hovering. A firm hand begins stroking over the nape of his neck, mollifying and careful. “I can take us back, if you want? It’s a little bit of a walk to get to where we’re going.”

“I don’t think I can get back into the car.” Cloud mumbles before he manages to raise his head, shifting to peek over at Zack, his vision wobbly.

Zack’s free hand comes up to rumple through black spikes as he combs over their surroundings in search of something, focused. Cloud then lets out a shaky breath, chancing his own brief look around. He takes note of the span of towering redwood trees around them, thick canopies of moss cloaking their knotted roots, and a rusted metal sign designating the beginning of a narrow trail. They’re in some kind of small, derelict parking lot sitting over a plain patch of dirt; save for one other sedan painted in splotches of sun-faded red, it’s devoid of people, comfortable in its own state of natural decay.

“Well, there’s nowhere to sit around here unless you want to hang out in my car.” Zack says, his tone tentative in apology, before he gestures toward his back with a point of his thumb and a questioning raise of his eyebrows. “But I have another idea. How about round two on the ‘Zack Express’?”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Don’t stress, baby. I carried you up like five flights of stairs last night. I’ll barely break a sweat.”

“That’s not what I—” Cloud says, his voice cracking with a small, bewildered laugh. “I can still walk.”

“Don’t worry, it’s basically just the two of us up here,” Zack says as he shrugs, all sharp angles and a stupidly large grin and the earnest set of his eyes. Cloud’s eyes flit down to Zack’s white tee, and he wants to laugh at how it'd somehow escaped his notice—the words “Certified Tree Hugger” are printed on it in a block of loud, colorful text, and he’s almost positive that the other’s wearing it in earnest. Somehow, Cloud even finds the boyish jut of black hair around Zack’s ears completely and utterly charming. “Plus, y’know. If it helps you, it helps me.”

Cloud wonders if he’ll ever have it in himself to tell the other no.

“I guess… if you’re offering.”

Mirroring the night prior, Zack turns around and bends at the knees, his arms splayed outwardly in his direction. With a clipped snort, Cloud stares at his stance, wavering, before slipping his limbs clumsily over broad shoulders and a strong, solid torso. He can’t contain a shocked yelp when, suddenly, Zack is lifting him from the back of his thighs, hauling him over the length of his back.

“See? Light as a feather.”

“You don’t need to lie,” Cloud complains, bringing up his arms to loop properly around Zack’s neck. Zack then begins lugging him toward the unassuming trailhead with no issue, bending at the knees so that they both can duck under low-hanging tree branches. As they walk past its entrance, the trail widens into an ample pathway, a grove of trees expanding around a steady incline and blanketing their every step with cool, scattered shade.

“How’s this?” Zack croons, and the vibration of the question resounds pleasantly down the back of Cloud’s neck.

“It’s… whatever,” Cloud murmurs, his body melting further into the other’s hold with every passing second, his fists unfurling over the planes of Zack’s collarbones. “‘Zack Express’ is kind of a stupid name, though. Maybe rethink it.”

“Are you sure about that? It’s been getting pretty good business lately.”

Cloud deigns to answer, his nose instead moving to burrow into the back of Zack’s neck, drawn to the other’s scent gland with the accuracy of a pin. The tight gnarl of nausea in his middle begins to unwind, and he refrains from groaning—it’s starting to become a little ridiculous how just being near Zack is becoming some kind of weirdly effective cure-all for him.

“I’ve never been up here.” Cloud says drowsily, the words starting to thicken like molasses. “How’d you find this place?”

Only the small trills of warbler birds and the crunching of Zack’s hiking boots over fallen leaves meet his question for a beat, peaceful and distant. Cloud settles his chin on a firm shoulder in wait, eyeing the jagged rocks half-buried in the dirt that Zack treads over. A pancake breakfast and a hike—the combination of it seems fairly simple at face value, and yet it makes his chest throb like a tender bruise when he thinks of it.

It reminds him of Nibelheim.

And then, Zack’s muttering, “Angeal used to bring me up here when I needed space to think.”

Cloud smiles absently at the thought of Zack, young and even more tireless, coming up here to go on mindfulness walks. “There’s a joke in there somewhere about you and thinking.”

“Is that so? Let me know when you find it, baby.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll circle back to it.” Cloud replies with a faint laugh, jumping a little when he feels Zack pinch at the skin under his right thigh. “You know your way pretty well around here?”

“Sure do. I used to come up here pretty often, actually. It’s been a while, though.”

Cloud hums, trying to not become too distracted by the calming rumbling that thrums sporadically through the thin material of Zack’s shirt. “Was there a reason? Something stressful happen at the brewery or something?”

“Not that, no,” Zack’s fingers tighten from where they grip under Cloud’s knees, the movement almost imperceptible. “It was a weird time for me. I was… living with someone then.”

The admission makes something in Cloud pause, a vague ringing of an instinct, and he straightens up a bit from his perch, his eyes widening in question. “You had a roommate?”

“Yeah. Someone I knew back from my Gongaga days.”

A childhood friend?

“Have I met them before?”

“No, it’s been a few years since I talked to her,” Zack notes distantly, and Cloud itches to be able to see his expression as the other says this, beyond the hard line of his jaw and the thick fringe of his hair. “We had a bit of a falling out.”

A small, unintelligible noise leaves Cloud’s lips at the confession. “I can’t imagine anyone falling out with you.”

“You think so highly of me, Spike.” Zack replies with a raspy grain to his voice, sounding unexpectedly winded. “It’s hard to believe, sometimes.”

“Why? Zack, you—”

“Shit, it looks like someone’s already here.”

Belatedly, Cloud realizes that they’ve broken past a threshold of dense forest, their destination a modest log bench overlooking a sweeping vista of tall skyscrapers and its surrounding urban sprawl. A lone man sits there, his arms outstretched over its back with all of the bravado of someone who’s just won the lottery.

Zack doesn’t hesitate before heading toward the stranger with long strides, the stranger more noticeably an alpha from this distance, his scent brash and sharp. Cloud taps at the front of Zack’s shirt, distressed, as though it might somehow slow his approach.

“Oh, let’s not—I’m feeling better now, so we can just turn back—”

“Hey there!” Zack greets warmly, and the stranger whips his head around, his blonde tresses remaining slicked back against his head. “I know this is a big ask, but my mate here sprained his ankle and I was wondering if we could take over the bench? Just so we can rest for a bit.”

“Zack,” Cloud sputters, a burning flush surging furiously down to the ends of his toes.

“Shit, that’s no good.” The stranger replies as he stands up, a concerned crinkle on his forehead. “Does he need help?”

“Nah, we’re good. We just want to chill for a second before I take him home.”

“Are you sure?” The alpha asks, reaching out his arms toward Cloud in a sudden gesture of goodwill. “I can look at your mate’s ankle if you want? I might have something in my car I can wrap it with—”

Zack is then jerking the two of them back a few steps, a snarl escaping his lips, his scent flaring abruptly beyond the strong smell of moist dirt and pine.

“Don’t touch him.”

The stranger then raises his hands in surrender, a twisted sneer on his face. “Okay, man. Gods. Take it, then. Should’ve known that mated alphas are straight up feral.”

“Thank you!” Zack calls after the other’s retreating back, watching as the other alpha tramples down the forested, tapering path, holding a middle finger out for both of them to see.

As Zack moves to place him down on the uneven wood of the bench, Cloud breaks out into bubbling laughter, his breaths stuttering out in both mortification and delight. Zack falls heavily onto the space beside him, the shape of his smirk smug.

Cloud pushes at a sturdy shoulder, scoffing outright when Zack pretends to be wounded from the force of it. “You’re so shameless, holy shit.”

“Got us the bench, didn’t it?” Zack agrees readily as he sits up, spreading his arms behind Cloud’s head. “How’re you feeling now?”

“Much better, honestly,” Cloud reveals, but a small ache prickles through him now that they’re once again apart. “How long are we staying here?”

“We can wait here for as long as you need, baby.”

“Sounds good,” Cloud says as he tips his head against the arm resting above him, cheeky. “And who knows—I might need to stick around long enough for us to see sundown.”

Midgar’s cityscape appears silhouetted in the luster of the setting sun, its many buildings reduced to dark, crisp shapes against a rosy sky.

The bite of a chill evening wind now seeps through the cotton of his sweatshirt, and Cloud finds it an adequate enough excuse to nudge a little further into the weight of Zack’s arm wrapped around his shoulder. His wooziness has almost entirely waned, but he still lets himself sink into the comfort of Zack’s cheek nestled on top of his wind-swept hair, into the addicting rhythm of their chests breathing in and out in tandem.

But, Cloud warily realizes, there’s an unsettling absence of noise—an absence of birdsong, an absence of wind whisking through pine needles, an absence of Zack’s voice and the warm indulgence of his laugh.

Against his better judgment, Cloud questions it.

“You’re a bit quiet there.” Cloud points out, privately lamenting when Zack lifts his head from its resting place at the comment. “Is this that mysterious thinking you mentioned doing earlier?”

Zack hums out a noise resembling a laugh, but Cloud thinks it sounds closer to a untying of some sort—of some tangled, nameless tension.

“Oh? Did you finally find that joke?”

“No. I’m still workshopping that one,” Cloud grumbles quietly, but he can tell that whatever Zack had brought up earlier, his reason for knowing this place so intimately, still weighs leadenly on his mind. His mouth loose with fatigue, Cloud asks, “What was she like? Your childhood friend.”

The silence stretches between them, and when Cloud lifts his head to chance a look at the other, he can see that Zack’s eyes are still fixed on the view. But they look glazed and plaintive, somewhere far removed, somewhere that Cloud can’t reach.

“She was the kind of person that really wanted to understand what made things tick. Crazy smart, and seemed like she wanted big things out of life. Our families were pretty close growing up. I don’t even remember what it was that helped us get along in the first place—hunting around for frogs, maybe?”

“Makes sense. The best kind of backwater shit.”

“Knew you’d get it, my fellow country boy,” Zack says around the edges of a smile, but then it flags into a slow sigh. “My bad, Spike. I should’ve known that being back here would dredge this up.”

“It happens,” Cloud says softly, and it takes him a few seconds to register the movement of his own fingers brushing soothingly over the forearm that now sits cradled in his lap. He’s not sure how he’d feel if Zack decided to remove it from his hold. “Did you both always know you’d end up here? In Midgar?”

“I did, at least. I used to spend so much time talking about this place—coming here and making something of myself, you know? She was always pretty neutral about moving, but I guess I can be pretty convincing.”

Cloud nods nimbly, and he’s starting to think he might know who this person was to Zack. “A bit of an understatement.”

“I just… never felt like the small town life was for me, even when I was a small hellraiser. Was it the same for you?”

Cloud slumps a little further into Zack’s side, muttering, “There was just a point where I couldn’t bear to be in Nibelheim anymore. Didn’t care which city I moved to.”

“Well, fuck. Who do I need to thank that you decided on here of all places?”

“Tifa’s uncle luckily had a basement we could crash in.”

“Remind me to send him a case of beer, or something.” Zack says, and the profile of his grin looks large and toothy, until it once again falls. “When my eighteenth rolled around, we took our savings and found this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place on the east side. Met Angeal not too long after.”

“What happened?” Cloud manages to ask, and he’s not surprised to find his lips beginning to numb. His mind is already brimful of questions, stupid, disquieting questions, about whether she moved with him so that the two of them could be together. Or, he swallows, stay together.

Whether she and Zack were at one point, maybe, probably, quite possibly in love.

“She tried out a few jobs—clerical work, waitressing—but she never really found her footing here. What she really wanted was to take classes, get a degree, but our broke asses just couldn’t afford it.”

Cloud is familiar with this particular feedback loop, has experienced how unbearable it can be firsthand, but he and Tifa had the luxury of getting to mess up time after time without the added pressure of rent over their heads. “Yeah, I get that.”

“I tried to be there for her, I really did, but it definitely felt like… she resented me by the end. Angeal said it was more likely that she resented how isolated she felt here, but, I don’t know. She was pretty miserable. I still feel pretty responsible for it, honestly.”

“That can’t just be on you. You made that decision together.”

“That’s true, Spike.” Zack relents, but his lips then twist into a crooked grimace. “But it’s also true that I was the one who talked her into moving here.”

“I think you’re being unfair to yourself. You were still kids, Zack.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t change that—” Zack’s arm then tightens around him tellingly, the curl of it becoming almost inflexible around his abdomen. And Cloud lets him, his hand now taking Zack’s within his own, steadfast. “—that I just do that sometimes. Rope people into things that make them worse off.”

Cloud wants to convince him differently, to tell him all of the many ways his life has only bettered with Zack in it. But instead his teeth clench and tense, and unable to get the words out, he blurts, “Do you regret it?”

“Regret the move? This might sound shitty, but I can’t get myself to, despite it all. I love… what I’ve built here.” Zack angles his head toward him, his cold nose just barely grazing over Cloud’s temple, and his exhale, resigned, sweeps over blonde eyelashes. “But it kinda feels like it could come crumbling down any second, you know?”

“I know the feeling,” Cloud says, and not for the first time this week, he feels massively in over his head.

“Cloud, I just—I never want to hurt you.”

Cloud breathes out a puzzled little sound, a bit unsure as to how he earned the sentiment. But when Zack works to thread their fingers together, it becomes the most important thing in the world.

“Don’t worry so much, Zack. Trust me.”

“You look well-rested.”

Cloud’s shoulders stiffen as Tifa sidles up next to him, swiping a speckled mug from the shelf sitting above his head. Spotting her from the corner of his eye, he bites lightly on his inner cheek, both relieved and anxious to be able to catch her before his shift starts. It’s only objectively been a few days, but he feels like he hasn’t been able to speak with her in ages.

Cloud props himself up against the counter with his own ceramic cup in hand, watching a thin wisp of steam waft from its surface. “That is what seems to happen when someone sleeps.”

“If the sarcasm’s starting, that means I’m right.” Tifa points out from where she slowly tips a metallic coffee pot over her own mug. “I’m sure it helped that you were trying to climb a certain someone like a tree the other night.”

Cloud’s mouth falls open, his cup nearly slipping from his fingers. The image of gazing down at Zack from atop his lap flashes like a film reel behind his eyes, unsolicited.

“You saw that?”

“No? Aerith just told me you made for a very touchy drunk on the way home.” Tifa says, her tone vaguely scrutinizing as her eyes narrow at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.” Cloud says quickly, his coffee sloshing dangerously as he waves his hands, dismissive. Tifa merely stares at him, a suspecting smile on her lips, as her hand stirs together tawny ringlets of cream and sugar. “Well, something. A few things actually.”

Tifa clicks her tongue as though she knows exactly what Cloud means to bring up—he’s sure Aerith had also recounted to her every fine point of his drunken, guilty spiel. “Don’t even bother, Cloud. It’s fine. It was a party, and I wanted you to have fun. You did, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. But it's still not great—I’ve just, I don’t know, been so wrapped up in my own head. What’s important is that you had a good time.”

“I had a great time.” Tifa chirps, gesturing in the direction of the neighboring room with a quick tilt of her head. Cloud straightens, releasing a reluctant sigh, before following her into her office. “And I know what it’s like, Cloud. I do. I remember wanting to take up every second of your time. Zack’s not unique.”

“I guess.” Cloud mumbles, trying to curb a flustered glower. “Maybe family dinner can be on me next time?”

“I mean, I’ll never say no to that. And neither would Aerith.” Tifa says, shutting the door behind him and weaving her way around her desk. Her new office has been carefully rearranged and fixed up, furnished with picture frames newly hung on the wall, a blood orange rug he’s never seen, small trinkets that Aerith must’ve sculpted at some point—but to Cloud, they serve as stark evidence of just how out-of-touch he’s been lately. “Is there something else?"

“I just wanted to say that—well, things won’t end up like they did. Last time,” Cloud says, his feet shuffling uncomfortably.

The expression on Tifa’s face is warm but perceptive, the kind of look that makes Cloud feel like he’s been transformed into glass, even the grooves of his bones suddenly visible to her knowing eye.

“It wasn’t just the withdrawals then, was it?”

Cloud sinks into a large armchair, his free hand boring into its soft leather. He can’t find it in himself to be too shocked that, after all of this time of believing otherwise, Tifa had so easily figured him out.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“I… had a feeling. Not hearing from you was one thing, but when I stopped seeing Claudia around town, I figured something else had happened. At home.” Tifa confesses, nostalgic, but she shakes her head mildly, hesitant to press too hard.

“You’re right. Something did happen.”

“We don’t... have to go into it.”

“No, we can.” Cloud says as he works around a swallow, his throat clicking with an abrupt dryness. He has to wrench the words from his lungs as though they had been buried in stiff earth, but he thinks of the way Zack had bared himself so openly—and now, at the very least, he wants to try. “There were a few shitty post-nesting days. It felt like the flu, honestly. But it really didn’t last that long.”

“Cloud, you really don’t have to explain yourself. It was years ago.”

“I know I don’t need to, but… can I?”

Tifa’s eyebrows pinch together in worry, but she relaxes back into her own chair, nursing her coffee. “Of course.”

“I didn’t realize it until I got back home from your place, but that’s… when my dad decided to bail. You know, he was always in and out, but he and my mom apparently got into it again. This huge blowout fight, and I guess he decided that it was the final nail in the coffin, or whatever. The irony is that it was probably about the usual shit—that I wasn’t going anywhere in life, that I was useless, only good for fucking around with other alphas. I’m not sure, mom never really told me.”

“I—I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need,” Cloud says softly, his fingers clenching around the warm clay of his mug. “My mom just… needed me to be around then. And I was—I don’t know. Processing, I guess. Maybe it took me a little too long to leave my bed those days. And I needed time to figure myself out. But I shouldn’t have… cut you out like that. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Going through that alone must’ve been so hard.” Tifa says as she meets his eyes, always so kind, too kind, and discomfort grips Cloud’s limbs at the unveiled compassion on her face. “Me and Aerith—we’re always here for you, alright? And I forgive you. I hope you can forgive yourself, too.”

“I’ll—I’ll try. Thanks, Tifa.”

A smile blossoms on Tifa's lips, and with a measured gentleness, she asks, “I know it’s been a long time, but are you okay?”

Cloud laughs a little, pausing to take a reticent sip of his now lukewarm coffee. “I have no idea, honestly.”

Tifa then tilts her head, a subtle shifting in the way she observes him, and her gaze suddenly ripens with understanding. “You have feelings for him, don’t you?”

“I—” Cloud chokes out, strangled, his mouth moving around unsaid words. But when the truth of it settles into him, dissolving past muscle and tendon, he can only accept quietly, “Yeah. I do.”

Tifa bites at her lips as if stifling a swoon. “Oh, Cloud.”

“It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid, not even a little bit. You’re not stupid for having feelings for him.” Tifa insists, her fingers gripped together on her desk. “And I know I’m still getting to know him, but he makes it so obvious that he thinks the world of you.”

“Maybe right now.” Cloud says, a little short of breath, but he stamps down the feeling before it grows into something too expansive for him to manage. “But he’s gonna snap out of it eventually.”

A series of scrawled words openly taunt him, the slant of their letters bold and brazen.

Cloud glowers at the familiar “No Quarters, No Laundry” sign on the adjacent wall, willing it to crumble into ash. There’s even a new addition to it—a fresh scribble of “Don’t bother arguing with me about it!!!” on the corner of its crinkled page, and he can almost imagine Marle, hunched over in this very room and dyed in its bleak, yellowed light, mulishly writing it there without even a trace of remorse.

With a rugged exhale, he digs his hand into the pockets of his running shorts for the nth time, hoping that another quarter might appear miraculously just so that he can finally, finally finish drying his laundry and be done with this day.

“Some landlord, huh?” Cloud grouses, pulling out a handful of coins to place on the surface of a vacant dryer, its white metal battered and scratched with relentless use. He actively dreads the walk up back to the fifth floor, everything cramping in him after the long, grueling shift he’d just had at the bar.

And, rubbing at his eyes, bleary, he wonders if Tifa is angry with him.

He knows she would never admit to it, not about this, but he almost wishes that she would be. That she’d yell at him, or deservedly throw something, because maybe then the part of himself that still writhes with guilt might have a brief respite. Even if she had an inkling about why it happened, even if it was daunting for him to talk about, he’d allowed her to think that she was at fault for it for so long.

He knows he should’ve told her much, much sooner, knows that there is still so much to share with her about it, and yet, he feels muddied from the strain of that kind of vulnerability. He can’t help it—that level of honesty makes him feel like an oyster that’s been pried from its shell and left to blister in the torrid sun, defenseless and naked, and it’s all he can do to sequester himself back inside of its protective walls as soon as he can.

Grumbling under his breath, Cloud begins scrounging through his remaining change, failing to hear the sound of a wooden door opening and closing at the opposite side of the room.

“Fancy seeing you, Spike.”

“Zack?” Cloud springs back in alarm, his hand squeezing at his sternum, rich earthiness thudding into him the further the other walks into the room. His body instantly becomes a loaded, coiled spring, wired with nerves and emptied of almost everything else. “How the hell did you find me here?”

Zack saunters over to the opposite washing machine, his own laundry lugged over the back of his shoulder. His blue nylon bag bulges at the seams from the weight of how many clothes it carries, the knot of its drawstring taut with tension.

“Swear it was an accident. Someone wise once told me, ‘The laundry room is dead empty on Fridays.’ I’m just taking his advice.”

“I thought you’d have something more exciting to do on a Friday night.”

A trembling quirk in his lips, Cloud can barely repress the mirth simmering in his ribs as Zack roughly digs out his clothes, trying to cram all of them into the washing machine’s opening in one massive, tangled heap.

“Than spend time with a sweet thing like you? There’s nothing.” Zack answers, a bit strained, the words tapering off into a hoarse chuckle. His clothes are packed tightly against the door’s glass, and a small splotch of laundry detergent sullies the sleeve of his sweatshirt, but he somehow manages to finish unloading all of his laundry without incident. When he moves to stand, he’s dusting off his hands, accomplished.

“Hold it right there, Casanova.” Cloud manages, but snickers keep spilling out between the words, and a shaking fist to his mouth can hardly contain it. “I’m afraid it’s gonna cost you. Got any quarters?”

“You should hike up your night rate. Your time is worth more than that, baby.”

Cloud leans back against cold steel, heat creeping up his neck as his laughter peters out. “Tell that to my neighbor. I’m supposed to hang out with him later—free of charge.”

“Lucky bastard,” Zack says as he steps over to him, dropping a few quarters into his waiting hand. Cloud then takes them with a small thanks, turning to deposit them and fiddle with a few dials. When he can finally hear the rumbling of the dryer spinning with his own clothes, he glances up to find Zack’s eyes fixed on him, a peculiar look twisting his face.

Cloud pulls himself up to perch on the machine closest to Zack, his feet dangling off of its dented sides. Zack offers him an easy smile in return, shifting to face him properly. His features are thrown into sharp relief from the lamp-glow, appearing gilded and golden where anyone else would look dull and pallid.

It’s more than a little unfair, Cloud thinks.

“Hey—about yesterday.” Cloud mutters, pushing past the lump in his throat. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what? Taking you out on crazy mountain roads when you’re hungover and prone to motion sickness?”

“I got over it, didn’t I?” As if his limbs had a will of their own, Cloud angles himself toward the other, his knee only just nudging the hand that Zack rests beside him. A small, pleased sigh escapes him when Zack responds in kind, placing his palm over the fold of his leg, gentle. He doesn’t know when this closeness became so natural, so habitual that it’s become difficult to picture a life without it, so he does the only thing he knows how—he revels in it. “But actually, it… reminded me of this thing I used to do. With my mom.”

“Really? Back in Nibelheim? Tell me about it.”

“It was this… tradition we had. Every Saturday morning for a few years, we used to take turns making breakfast for each other. My mom always made me pancakes.”

Zacks hums lightly, “That sounds so nice, Spike.”

“It was. Sometimes, we’d even try out the trails behind my house after.” Cloud confesses with a silent bite to his lip as Zack’s hand begins smoothing back and forth over his clothed knee, sensation gentling over his skin like the lick of an ebbing current. “Weird coincidence, right?”

“Sounds like it. Do you miss it?”

“A lot.” Cloud says, his voice barely breaking above a whisper. “But you reminded me of how much I used to love it. So, you know. Thanks.”

“Of course. Anything for you.”

Before he can reply, Cloud spots a wayward tuft of lint in Zack’s hair. With a wry smile, he leans in, plucking it out quickly between pinched fingers.

“Be more careful with your laundry next time, you big idiot,” Cloud snorts, only to startle when he looks up to find the alpha only a fingerbreadth away. Zack looks suddenly thrown, bewildered, his eyes following a scorching path down to his lips before once again meeting his stare. “W-what?”

“Sorry, it’s just—” Zack says, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip slowly as though enraptured by what he sees. As though Cloud is a miracle made flesh. “You’re so beautiful.”

A sharp breath catches in the back of Cloud’s throat. “I just came off like an eight-hour shift.”

Zack barely reacts beyond a fond grin splitting the sides of his face, almost like he’d expected those exact words. “So? You’re stunning.”

“Zack.”

“You don’t like it? When I compliment you?” Zack laughs softly, a small thing for only Cloud’s ears.

“You wouldn’t say that. Under normal circumstances.” Cloud murmurs, huffing, every inch of his face set ablaze. He faintly knows he’s putting up a front, but he can’t let Zack know that the wild clamor of his heartbeat is starting to pulse in his ears, behind his eyes, down the length of his spine, as if each vertebra could shatter apart with even the slightest muttering of his name.

“I’d say it all the time if I could.”

“Fuck off. You don’t really mean that.”

“I do. Sometimes, I look at you and I can’t—I can barely—” Zack laughs again, the sound husky and bright, like he’s not single-handedly unraveling Cloud layer by agonizing layer. “See what I mean?”

“What am I supposed to do with that? Zack—”

“Whatever you want,” Zack whispers, and he’s still wearing that infuriating, gut-clenching smile. The smell of sandalwood and amber is steeped heavily in the air around them, and Cloud’s dizzy with it, he’s drunk, he thinks he could spend an eternity drinking it in.

“Gods, Zack. Just—” Cloud surrenders out a sputter of an exhale, curling all five of his fingers into the collar of the alpha’s sweatshirt, and pulls him so close, too close, until he can feel the heat of Zack’s breath against his face.

“Just…?”

“Fuck, just—just kiss me already.”

Zack makes a devastating, wounded noise, and suddenly they’re kissing, they’re kissing, the press of their lips together burning and urgent and crushing, like this is their final farewell before ill-fated battle. Like if they stopped, they’d cease to exist past the bounds of each other.

Their lips part and come back together, insistent, frenzied, and it rips a high, reedy keen from Cloud’s lips. Tangling a hand into blonde spikes, Zack tilts Cloud’s head back at just the right angle so that he can swallow his cry down greedily, furiously. Cloud grasps at the back of a now rumpled sweatshirt, hands frantic, dragging Zack into the cradle of his spread legs and hiking his knees over his hips.

Cloud can’t think beyond how maddeningly good he feels—the greedy, wet slide of Zack’s mouth over his, the hard planes of his torso under his fingers, the hands that move to grip beneath his thighs to hitch him that much closer. Cloud feels as though he could melt, as though he’s been remade into molten metal in Zack’s arms, and he can only bend to whatever shape Zack finds fit to forge him into. Just the same, he itches and prickles and scorches, a persistent something under his skin that will only settle the more Zack presses against him.

A stuttering gasp against the alpha’s lips, and Zack takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into his mouth, not so much exploring as he is ravaging. Zack kisses like he wants to consume him, all-encompassing, tracing the backs of his teeth with single-minded focus, stroking the roof of his mouth in a way that robs Cloud of his breath.

“Cloud,” Zack murmurs delicately against his lips, like the very word itself is of the divine, nipping at kiss-swollen skin before leaning back in.

Cloud’s sitting on the sleek edge of the laundry machine, his heels digging into Zack’s back desperately. The brunt of his weight falls almost entirely on Zack, and, like this, there’s no hiding that he’s already hard, throbbing in his thin shorts. He knows that Zack can feel it drag against him, but the other simply groans at the feel of it, his own hips cantering against the back of Cloud’s thighs, just as frazzled with need.

The friction against Zack’s sculpted abdomen is mouthwatering, and Cloud’s hips buck into it helplessly, breaking their kiss to bury a choked gasp next to a stubbled cheek. And he thinks Zack can feel it too, that delicious, mind-boggling pressure, because his hands are now splayed over Cloud’s outer thighs, guiding his movements, and he’s mouthing over the unmarked skin below his jaw like he’d crumble if he missed even a single second of Cloud’s unmaking.

Cloud wants to sink into it, wants to let himself feel, wants to—

“W-wait. Zack, I just need to—” Cloud stammers, pushing insistently on Zack’s chest to make some space between them. His mind struggles to focus, because while he’s convinced that this is the one night of the week his neighbors tend to steer clear of washing their clothes, he doesn’t want to take any chances.

Zack lets out a rough, tortured rasp, but leans back at the touch, taking in large mouthfuls of air. His hair is thoroughly mussed, black locks loose over furrowed brows, and the bright blue of his eyes has thinned to a narrow ring amidst dark pupils as he breathes out harshly.

”You want to stop?”

“No, it’s not—give me a second,” Cloud manages as he inches off the laundry machine, his knees wobbling as he all but stumbles to the door at the front of the room.

With shaking fingers, Cloud turns the deadbolt latch, locking it securely from the inside. The sound of it is uncomfortably loud amidst their ragged panting, and it strikes something in him, some morsel of clarity, and he wrestles back enough control to consider whatever the fuck is happening.

Fuck.

This has gone way too far.

He knows he should stop this.

He knows he should.

He knows.

He—

Over his shoulder, Cloud hears footsteps heading toward him, brisk and decisive. When he spins back around, Zack’s broad form is in front of him, all at once, crowding him against the door.

“C’mere,” Zack insists, hoarse, his hands gripping at Cloud’s hip bones and pulling him close. “You’re too far away.”

“Zack—”

“Why’d you try to leave?” Zack asks between the searing, open-mouthed kisses he begins to press down the length of Cloud’s neck. Shuddering, Cloud thinks he can no longer blame mere instinct when he lets his head fall to the side, baring the skin openly for the taking.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

“I-I didn’t. The door—I needed to lock it.”

“Don’t leave.” Zack’s voice borders on a growl, slurred and gritty. Before he can keep working on the vicious bruise blooming under Cloud’s jaw, he groans out, “I want you too fucking badly. Fuck.”

Cloud can’t suppress the croon, raw and deep-seated, that claws up and out of his chest.

“Me too. I—I want you.”

For a breathless second, Zack withdraws, his expression shifting—he looks almost confounded, bowled over by an unseen ton of bricks. And then, they’re careening back towards each other, and Cloud can only surge up onto the tips of his toes, bury his fingers into black spikes, reel into the bruising press of their mouths back together.

Zack’s hands rake hot and heavy down the line of Cloud’s spine before kneading strongly at the swell of skin where thigh meets ass. Zack then hoists him up into his arms, and Cloud’s cry of surprise melts into a trembling moan as the alpha hefts him halfway across the room, the exhilaration of having his feet swept from beneath him flipping his stomach into twisted knots.

“Knew you’d sound so pretty for me.” Zack grunts as he sets Cloud down on a wide, flat oak table in the back of the room, leaning back into him to lick into his mouth, a devouring kiss, and then another. It’s only Cloud grabbing Zack’s hands and bringing them to the hem of his shirt, wordlessly demanding, that gives Zack pause. “O-oh. Can I really—”

A needy huff of frustration slips from Cloud’s lips. “Yes. Please. Fucking touch me.”

Zack wastes no time rucking Cloud’s shirt up and over his chest, dipping his head to lave wetly at the base of his neck, at the ridges of his collarbones, over his pink, pebbled nipples. Cloud’s eyelids flutter closed as he throws his head back, goosebumps breaking out over the backs of his forearms.

“Fuck, gorgeous. You’re unreal,” Zack murmurs as he lets up to grasp at the contours of his waist, sounding close to marveling, his thumbs nearly meeting at the midline of Cloud’s stomach. “Every inch of you.”

But Cloud can barely process the words, rolling his hips against Zack’s firm middle, feeling too much like a taut rubber band ready to snap. He thinks he lets out an undignified beg of a whine, because at the next moment, Zack is pawing at the hem of his shorts and slipping them partially down his legs.

Cloud first feels a brush of cold, the air of the room chill against the small trail of slick already painting his inner thighs, and then the rough heat of Zack’s palm around him. He wonders what kind of sight he makes, his cock ruddy pink and leaking onto his midriff, his bangs sweat-matted and rumpled, a blushing red suffusing down his cheekbones to his chest. But then Zack’s callused grip begins to circle around him, and it’s both jarring and heavenly, ripping a shaky moan from his throat.

“Keep making those sounds for me, baby.” Zack says lowly, reverent, ducking down to take a nipple into his mouth. He only relents briefly to spit into his hand before once again sliding his fingers down the length of him, his other hand clenched around the outer edges of Cloud’s leg.

“Oh fuck, fuck.” Cloud stammers, choking on his own breath when Zack begins alternating between quick twists over the head of his cock and longer, more complete strokes. Cloud’s hips jerk uncontrollably into it, into the blissful, heated grasp that works over him, that speeds up the louder he gasps and stutters and moans.

“That’s it,” Zack bites out, his eyebrows knit together in concentration and his lips reddened and raw. It’s beyond comprehension having Zack, someone so earnest and kind and gorgeous, place all of his focus and attention on him, nothing in his mind beyond making Cloud come. “Let go for me, baby. I wanna see you.”

And he’s already too worked up, wound up like a shaken champagne bottle about to be uncorked, the pressure in his gut building to a fever pitch. It’s only a few heartbeats before he’s coming into Zack’s fist, burrowing his fingers into the other’s shoulders with a stunned cry.

“Gods.” Cloud pants out, his chest working rapidly around his labored breathing. His legs still tight around Zack, he can now vividly feel the outline of the alpha’s hard cock snug against his ass, and it’s almost excruciating the way it exposes just how empty he really feels. Despite just coming off of an orgasm, he positively aches for it. “What—what about you?”

Zack shakes his head dismissively, a refusal, but his hips buck into him at the question. He reaches over to a small wrinkled box behind Cloud’s back to pluck a few dryer sheets from it, cleaning his hand on the material.

“This was about you, sweetheart.”

“We didn’t agree on that,” Cloud mutters as he suppresses the urge to pull Zack into another kiss—something softer, and infinitely more fragile. “I want you to feel good, too.”

Zack grits out a noise from the back of his throat, his scent heightening, and then Cloud’s world spins on its axis as he’s tugged off the table and back onto solid ground. Before he can utter a word, he’s turned toward the table and pressed into it, his shorts still bunched messily around his thighs. “Sorry. Too rough?”

“N-no. It’s fine.” Cloud breathes out, and he doesn’t even try to stop himself from pushing back against Zack’s hips, trembling when their bodies align, flush from head to toe. His skin is still clammy and tender, cooling rapidly with lingering trails of sweat, and the hot press of them together feels electric. “It’s good.”

Cloud’s hands pinch into fists on the table as the nearby washing machine quakes, a mirror of the expectation that rattles through his limbs. Zack then steps away, the rustle of fabric down his legs brought into crisp focus, until he huddles back into him, the alpha’s front molded to his back. Without warning, Zack brushes his cock against the crease of Cloud’s ass, rubbing eagerly against his slick hole, and matching moans ring out between them when the thick crown catches torturously on his rim.

Alarm bells echo warningly in Cloud’s head—this is big, this is important, their first time together might be in a laundry room of all places—but then Zack is slipping his cock through the space between Cloud’s inner thighs, and his mind is again wiped of rational thought. The weight of it is hefty in the seat of his legs, and when Cloud chances a look downward, he can’t help but gape at the way it dwarfs his own more slender dick in comparison, beautifully thick and veiny and sheer alpha.

“Can I fuck your thighs, gorgeous?” Zack rasps against his hairline, grinding slowly against him and smearing something wet across the inside of his legs.

“Fuck. Yeah, okay.” Cloud says throatily, a shiver of want tearing through him. Although a bit premature and a lot pathetic, his cock twitches again in interest against his stomach.

“You really got all ready for me,” Zack says, a little awed, pressing a finger against his hole and gathering a bit of his slick on his hand, using it to coat his cock and ease the slide of it. Smothering a keen between his lips, Cloud presses his thighs together reflexively, startled when it punches out a gruff groan from Zack like an elbow to the stomach.

“K-keep telling yourself that.”

“I’ll remind myself of it until my last breath,” Zack mumbles, and then he’s grabbing at Cloud’s waist and driving his cock between his legs—only a taster of what could've been, but knocking the air from his lungs all the same.

Zack begins to fuck his thighs earnestly, quickly, and Cloud has to brace himself in the sprawl of his arms, clutching onto the borders of the table like his only bearing to the physical world. It’s a fevered, hazy working of hips, and Cloud can feel Zack’s firm, unyielding cock drag against his own, the underside of his balls, the responsive bit of skin in-between. Cloud hardens again in the midst of it, his cock bouncing against his abdomen as he stares ahead, unseeing, the margins of his vision blurring from the reckless, stomach-tightening pace.

“Shit, you feel so fucking good,” Zack scrapes through a cracked moan, his nails digging sharp valleys into Cloud’s skin. Cloud can tell he’s close, and biting his lip, he wonders what kind of expression is on Zack’s face—if he looks just as focused or his face is awash in something more feral and lupine.

“I can’t,” Cloud whimpers out when Zack reaches around and takes him into his hand again, working him in quick strokes that make his thighs shake. He arches into it, his hand lunging out to grab at Zack’s straining arm as his release once again spires and peaks, on the verge of hurtling through him. “I’m—Zack, I’m gonna—”

Cloud’s whole body jolts as he finishes again, his cock only managing a weak sputter over Zack’s hand. He moans weakly as he collapses back into the table, Zack’s hold around his hips the only remaining crutch keeping him upright.

“Where do you want me?” Zack asks brokenly into the shell of his ear, his hips stuttering as they continue to smack against the back of his legs.

Cloud’s eyes flutter closed, his every instinct relishing in the thought of Zack marking him, embedding his scent into his skin for days on end. “Where—wherever. Just… on me.”

Cloud sags into the table further as Zack pulls away, freeing himself from the clutch of Cloud’s thighs, and the sounds of him working his cock in the heat of his own fist are dirty and desperate. With a final, guttural groan, Zack comes undone in a blazing riptide, painting hot ribbons over the cleft of Cloud's ass and his quivering thighs.

“Fuck,” Zack wheezes out from behind him. He rubs his fingers through the bit of white that now dribbles down the back of Cloud’s thigh, lathering it into tender skin with a slow spread of his thumb. “You’re incredible.”

Sounds seep back into awareness as they catch their breath disparately, their chests heaving with shallow, uneven pants. Zack slumps atop him, and Cloud lets himself float while he can, losing himself in the way their bodies fit together, sticky and sated.

He rouses to the chime of the dryer, signaling the end of its run from the opposite side of the room, and he has to push down a whine when it sways Zack to peel himself off from his back. Taking more dryer sheets in hand, Zack then passes a few to Cloud and helps to wipe him down, starting with the mess he’d made of his back. Cloud uses his own to clean his stomach before he gingerly readjusts his clothing, pulling his shirt back down his chest and his shorts back up his legs with slow tugs of his hand.

Fully clothed, he stills—staring ahead at the wall, dazed.

Realization begins pooling in his chest like a sickly disease.

“Are you alright?” Zack asks after a long moment, careful, extending a hand to brush comfortingly over the slant of his shoulder. Cloud can’t help when he seizes up the touch, neither leaning into it nor pulling away, and he remains frozen when Zack quickly pulls back. Cloud feels robbed of speech, like he’s fallen through the cracks of his familiar, corporeal plane of reality, and he’s in some new alternate dimension where he and Zack have been deconstructed and reconstructed into something entirely new—but terrifying and alien.

“I’m—I’m fine,” Cloud breathes out, forcing his body to face the other, but he can’t bear to look at him, to see his reaction, so his eyes dart instead over to the dryer still blinking blaringly in the corner. “We should probably get out of here. If anyone comes, it’ll be… obvious.”

Cloud can see from his periphery that Zack works a hand through a clump of his hair that sticks up haphazardly, a tight, close-lipped smile on his lips.

“I, uh, still need to dry my clothes. Why don’t you go up first and we can meet up again later?”

Cloud worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine. You’ve had a long day.” Zack says, directing a hand towards the clothes that still wait for Cloud, newly dried. “You get your things and go. And if one of our neighbors comes, they can think whatever they want.”

“Okay,” Cloud laughs, but it leaves his mouth strangled and weedy. He then heads toward the dryer stiffly, shoving his clothes into his own drawstring laundry bag. He’s aware that they’ll most likely wrinkle, but the threat of it doesn’t even come close to the tension of waiting here any longer. His choice is easy—he runs. “I’ll… see you later then.”

“Yeah. See you, Spike.”

As it turns out, Cloud doesn’t see Zack again for the rest of the night.

No knocks on his door, no texts, no sudden calls in the early hours of the morning.

The thought stings him, festers in his gut like rotting flesh. But the feeling is hypocritical, he knows, because as he stood under the pummeling water of his shower head after his return from the laundry room, scrubbing furiously at his chest, he’d felt far to mortified and self-conscious to even consider reaching out to Zack after what they’d done.

Instead, after he had dried himself off and thrown on some sweatpants, he lingered in his kitchen with a glass of water in hand, not addressing the fact that it was eerily quiet, his ears trained on any semblance of noise from beyond his front door.

The sound of Zack’s steady, relaxed gait echoed in the hallway about ten minutes later, and Cloud’s heart leapt from his chest when those same footsteps paused directly outside of his door. For a few paralyzing seconds, he could hear the other hesitating in place, shifting from foot to foot as though questioning himself—but then Zack turned on his heel, ambling to his own apartment in the far right of the hallway, and Cloud hadn’t heard a word from him since.

Cloud tossed and turned over it all night, unsure if he had even slept for a full hour—he only remembers rolling over to check his phone every so often, eyes squinting from its blinding glow, and seeing that it was suddenly three in the morning, and then four, and then, painfully, five. Because when he had shut his eyes, his mind could only conjure up images of Zack’s gentle smile, of inky hair over awe-struck blue eyes. Zack’s expression would then melt into a guilty stare, a face that only spoke of blatant rejection, peering at him from his opened front door.

Now, as Cloud paces the length of his apartment, he feels as though he’s caught in a vortex without end, spinning around an endless torrent of the same regrets, and questions, and—possibilities.

He shouldn’t have let them get carried away like that, and there are conversations that need to be had, and now he has no idea what this could mean for them. He doesn’t know if this changes things, if Zack even wants things to change; whether it’d be best if they just pretend it never happened at all, or whether this has fucked up their friendship so royally that they’d never be able to have a amiable conversation ever again.

But he also wonders, his face braced in his palms, if it had maybe… meant something.

Cloud has never let himself even broach the possibility, because it was far too hopeful, too starry-eyed and absurd. But maybe—maybe innate instinct is only a partial explanation for what’s going on with Zack. Hormone-addled as he was, Zack still confessed that he’d wanted him with such intent, such unguarded feeling. Zack held his hand tightly on that mountain slope, as though Cloud might drift away at any moment, and admitted that he never wanted to hurt him. Zack said Cloud’s name so tenderly, so full of devotion, like this precious thing to be held carefully in the palm of his hand.

“Fuck this,” Cloud gripes, throwing his hands out from where they’ve become buried in blonde spikes.

He’s had enough.

He stomps to his front door, swiping his keys from a small terracotta bowl and slipping out into the hallway. Trudging down the stretch of faded carpet, he makes it all the way to Zack’s door before he falters, suddenly overcome with the itch to run back into the safety of his bed. But his arms are willing him forward, his knuckles rapping against smooth wood in spite of the slight quiver of his hands.

The door swings open within seconds, a billowing wave of sweet, spicy musk striking him in a blitz of dense air, and he barely manages not to stagger back from the intensity of it. Zack looks disheveled, like he too had been plagued with a sleepless night, but due to something more distressing, more feverish, his forehead dotted with sweat and fatigue staining the skin under his eyes a faint, muted purple.

And it’s then that it hits him—Zack is in rut.

“Cloud? Fuck, you shouldn’t be here right now,” Zack croaks through a wince, but he doesn’t turn him away, leaving his door open for Cloud to trail in after him.

A breath leaving him in a rush, Cloud rasps, “Are you okay?”

“I’ve really ruined everything, haven’t I?”

“You didn’t ruin anything. I know hormones can be a clusterfuck.” Cloud says, struggling to keep his voice steady and collected. His hands are beginning to shake, and his throat becomes painfully tight as he forces out the one question he dreads the answer to. “Do you need… someone? We haven’t talked about it, but… but if it’s your rut, I can—”

Zack’s reply cuts through his offer like the razor-sharp edge of a knife. “Don’t fucking offer that, Cloud. Please.”

Cloud shrinks back, humiliated, something shriveling within him at the harsh, cutting words of reprimand. He knows he shouldn’t be surprised—he’d just thrown out the offer impulsively, and it’s obvious that only more confusion would come from being Zack’s rut partner. But deep within him, secret and buried, he’d already acknowledged that if Zack had decided that he’d needed Cloud there to help him through it, he’d do it without question. He’d anticipated it, he did, but the refusal still burrows through the pit of his stomach, as raw as an open, gaping wound.

His biological needs at their highest, and Zack didn’t even need a second to consider it.

Cloud shouldn’t have let himself hope.

“Why not?” Cloud bites back, but he can feel his body language betray him, his hand raising to clutch at his opposite arm like some kind of miserable, makeshift shield.

“I should’ve never agreed to this.” Zack groans, burying his hands through his hair, tousling his already unkempt locks. “I took advantage of you and—we had such a good thing going, and I’ve fucked everything up.”

“You didn’t take advantage of me.” Cloud replies heatedly, and even the idea of it cleaves through him, the last thing he wants Zack to believe. “How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t want to see you suffer. I still don’t. If anything, I was the one who should’ve been more level-headed—”

“Don’t try to spin this. It was fucking stupid of me to let it happen.”

“I’m not just some—” Cloud interrupts, his lips nearly curling into a snarl. “Stop saying that. You’re acting like you were the only person involved. It’s pissing me off.”

Zack lifts his head and meets his gaze directly, the blue of his eyes now a darkened, murky storm of color. “No, you—you keep doing that thing where you keep putting everyone else over yourself.”

Cloud’s face burns, singes like scorched earth in flame—from shame or anger, he can’t decide. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“For fuck’s sake, Cloud. You mentioned ignoring your friends and… spiraling out after helping one of them nest, and you expect me to just ignore that?”

Cloud scoffs, his nails burrowing into the skin of his forearms. Before he can rein it in, he snaps, “You sure as fuck ignored it in the laundry room.”

“I know that. Of course I know that. I know I shouldn’t have—fuck, my head’s just so… scrambled around you.” Zack says through a growl, and fittingly, even his scent has turned sour and acrid. “I knew I should’ve just stayed holed up in my apartment.”

Rejection once again gnaws through his chest like acid, eating away at his ability to breathe. He thinks this is almost worse, this sugarcoating of what Zack is really trying to say—that he regrets crossing boundaries with Cloud when it was never his intent.

That he’d entertained Cloud’s little offer of charity, gotten his fill, and then saw him for who he truly was—hopeless and stupid.

“You’re right. I should’ve never gotten involved.”

“Cloud, please. I just couldn’t—I can’t bear to see—”

“Quit trying to act like a nice guy. Just be fucking honest with me for once.” Cloud hurls back, a wild, unruly deluge falling from his lips. “You think I’m some fucking doormat that lets my friends walk all over me whenever they need something, don’t you? Then why even humor me in the first place? Am I that desperate and pathetic to you?”

“What? That’s not—you know that’s not true.”

“Do I? You clearly don’t trust me, or think I can make decisions for myself. Maybe I’m actually doing all of this, because I… because I—” Cloud forces out, knowing that the longer he speaks, the more he can feel a glaring, wet heat throb between his eyes. He shuts them tightly, infuriated and embarrassed, before he turns away, needing more than anything to escape. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”

I’m such a fucking idiot. For thinking I’d be enough for you.

“I know I am,” Cloud hears from behind him, Zack’s tone morphing into something defeated and drained. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

“Obviously, you don’t know shit.” Cloud chokes out as he takes long strides in the direction of Zack’s front door, frenzied. “I can’t believe I came over here to apologize to you.”

“Wait, Spike. Fuck. Let’s not leave it like this. Just… give me a few days for this shit to blow over. I need a clear head.”

“Don’t come by.” Cloud says one final time as he grips the door knob with clammy, shaking fingers. And because he’s feeling cruel, he spits out, “Just—just stay away from me.”

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 misty 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 average 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, “Fuck 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 boredly 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 cocktails 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 cocktail 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, a murkiness in the usual radiant blue of his eyes. 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 shit.

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 alpha's weighty 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.”

“Hey. You called for me, Cloud?” Tifa interjects from a few feet away as she approaches Cloud’s side, worry etched into her tense, muscled shoulders.

“Sure did,” 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 mouth irons 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 shit 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 exhales 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 fucking 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 we talked 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'm not great at this either. 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 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 properly 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 the nerves from 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 merging 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 shit for me, too.”

“I’ve been meaning to reach out to you,” Zack mutters, and from the edges of Cloud’s vision, he notices 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 guilt winding around Cloud’s bones—that he’d done more than his fair share of piling onto their tension.

“I definitely haven’t made it easy for you.”

“I get it. It’s... deserved.”

Cloud raises a hand to offer a light pinch to the skin of Zack’s upper arm, scoffing, “No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, but I...” Zack says with a disbelieving glance at Cloud, his eyebrows furrowed nervously.

“Are you doing anything later?” Cloud chances instead, 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 fucking up around you.”

One finger scratching shapeless forms into his cold water glass, Cloud admits, “You didn’t fuck up, Zack.”

“But, the other day at the bar. And then… before my rut—”

“I’m the one who fucked 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 understand.”

“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 bullshit—”

“Don’t say that. Nothing you say is ever bullshit.” 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 shit 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’s the only one to blame.

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 cocktail 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 cocktail 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.

“Being with you feels like I'm brand new. Can't believe I almost forgot.”

“Brand new?” 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 cocked 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.”

“What changed your mind?”

Tifa snags 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?”

“Not that I know of,” Cloud breathes out for a lack of a better response, avoiding her stare with a pointed look at her now cooling tea.

Because now he has no clue what to do with it—that feeling that winds anew around the notches of his vertebrae, that weaves like wild, blooming vines through every hollow cleft and curve of his body.

“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.

Ducking 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 uneasiness 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.”

“You smell so good, by the way,” Zack mentions with undeniable softness, and it's difficult to tell whether it's simply a trick of the light when the alpha’s pupils expand into ceaseless black, his stare dipping down to Cloud's pink, parted lips.

“I do?”

Zack lets out a frustrated breath before his head falls briefly between his shoulders. “I need to go back out there. 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, finding a home 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.

“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 tricky 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 shook the foundation of everything he’d forced himself to believe about the past few weeks. About what they actually meant to 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 fucking 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.”

“Fuck. I really thought I’d never get to have this again,” Zack mutters into feathered, 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 fuck 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 fucking 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 shitty, 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 fuck things up. Ironic, right?”

“Zack…”

With a careful pull, Zack untangles his arms and draws away from him, setting Cloud back down gently on his heels. But before a distressed whine can be dragged from the omega's 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'd like to think I was still gonna shoot my shot, but I'm not mad at a good kick in the ass.” 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 fucking 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 shitless, 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 Zack's 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking dreaming. Fuck, 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, shit-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?”

“Anytime, baby.”

Tilting his head back, 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, worked up sooner than he'd thought possible. Zack’s mouth then descends lower, closer to his scent gland—so close that Cloud begins pushing at his shoulders, his breath hitching at a particularly harsh nip.

“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 acted like a mindless idiot around you,” Zack murmurs, his hot palms sliding over smooth skin under the back of Cloud’s shirt. Zack's hands on him are as bewildering as ever; and yet, in the few hours they’ve been together, they haven't been able to part from 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!”

Chapter Text

It’s not that Cloud’s grown to enjoy the mundane; rather, he’s beginning to find new meaning in it.

The clamor of Biggs arriving in the next room echoes through the bar’s kitchen door, his greeting to Tifa both hearty and perfectly habitual. Cloud bites away a smile, plucking the dishrag from where it lies crumpled on the counter. His heels ache in that way they tend to when he's been standing on them for about an hour too long. He shifts on them, restless, and wrings the towel a few unnecessary times over the sink as if that could convince time to move that much faster.

Cloud supposes if there’s one thing to appreciate about their new scheduling, it’s that he’s rotating shifts with someone like Biggs. Biggs is annoying, to be sure: he can’t help but barrel into work every day with a strange sort of pride, haughty as though he’s Cloud’s acting patron saint, delivering him from the pits of hell for five days every week. But Cloud can’t seem to find a reason to make a huge fuss over it. Not when Biggs arrives on time without fail.

Like clockwork, the back door swings open, a sluice of orange sunset on its heels.

“Hey, Golden Boy. Looks like your ride’s here,” a brusque voice gripes from behind his shoulder. Cloud tries to play it off with a singular coolness, his gestures slow and precise he returns the towel to its hanging rack.

“My ride?”

“Very convincing, Strife,” Barret continues, the steel of his folded arms the first thing Cloud notices when he shifts to face him. He brushes past Barret without a second glance, opting instead to peel off his apron and fold it into a neat bundle, storing it into his work bag to wash later. Perhaps if he remains on task, methodical, Barret might say what he has to say quickly so that Cloud doesn’t have to endure his grumbling for more than their average back-and-forth. “You need to crate that dog of yours. The fool’s here almost everyday now.”

“Everyday’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Well, four out of five days is still too much. He’s giving our regulars the wrong idea.”

With a weary twist of his mouth, Cloud moves to lean against a small desk layered with crinkled receipts and a timeworn desktop computer. “He’s a good guy, Barret.”

“Obviously. A little too good if you ask me. When our customers come here, they expect a more rough-and-ready vibe.”

A laugh breaks past Cloud’s lips before he has a chance to quell it behind his fist. A benign barb from Barret, in his experience, is an early sign of approval.

“You’re kidding me. You don’t think he’s cool enough to hang out in the parking lot?”

“It’s an easy fix,” Barret retorts as he levels a critical stare at him—that look he dons when he knows Cloud won’t be receptive to his lecturing, but he chooses to prescribe it all the same. “Just tell him to wait inside of his car.”

“It’s not like he’s out there for hours.” Reaching for the desktop’s mouse, Cloud lets muscle memory dictate the movement of his hand as he settles some final inventory purchases and clocks out for the day.

Barret moves to bar Cloud from the back door before he can make his long awaited escape, his arm now bracketing Cloud against the desk. “You’ll need to be aware of these kinds of things once Tifa opens her own bar and has you managing.”

Cloud peers up at him, his eyebrow slightly raised. “I think Tifa loves this place too much to do that.”

“I don’t know about that, kid. We’ve been toying with the idea of franchising.”

“Why? I don’t think Midgar’s in dire need of more dive bars.”

“Open your mind; we could do more than that. You have a whole brewery behind you now, don’t you?”

“...I guess.”

A moment of silence passes between them before Barret relents with a defeated eye roll, shifting his body so that Cloud can slip by without issue. “In a prickly mood, are you? Fine. Just beat it, kid.”

“You got it, Boss Man.”

And then, unexpectedly, Barret throws in, “And tell Zack I say hello.”

“Will do.” A keen smile curling over his lips, Cloud elbows his way past the back door, only to shield his eyes—he’d come to expect that the sun would greet him like this, blinding, as it begins its descent behind the flat tops of buildings and dense elm trees.

“Baby!” A broad silhouette practically sings from afar, two hands cupped around his mouth.

Cloud tries not to let his stride widen too noticeably as he walks, stepping into a curtain of shade and past a row of other seasoned cars; where familiar, calloused hands reach out and draw him in until their feet brush and their arms entangle and Cloud is once again enveloped in rich earthiness.

Today, Zack is speckled by filtered light, grinning a smile so honeyed Cloud can barely manage a little half-caught breath and a small, “Hey,”

“Hey, gorgeous.”

And Zack says it without waiting for a response—at least, not yet. First, Cloud smooths his hands over grooved collarbones, head craning; then, Zack leans down, and their lips find each other. The vestiges of Cloud’s day bleed from memory in the brush of their mouths together, slow and intent, until the sole focus in his mind is the quickening of Zack’s pulse under his fingertips.

Their kiss breaks only when Cloud aches for air. In the space between them, Zack laughs, “How was your day, Spike?”

“Long. Feels like they’re only getting longer.”

His words dissolve into a feigned huff when Zack responds with something becoming more standard as of late—tucking his face into his neck and nosing down the slope of it with an indulgent inhale. Cloud tilts his head back, utterly defenseless against it, and feels his eyes shuttering. When he finds himself clutching at Zack’s shoulders, stifling a deep tremor that strums through his abdomen, he admits that there’s probably more to Barret’s concerns than he’d ever acknowledge.

“Couldn’t agree more.”

Zack’s shoulders stiffen suddenly under his palms, not unlike a small creature realizing they’ve caught notice of a nearby predator.

“What is it?”

“Is that Barret in the window?”

“He thinks we’re driving away customers by hanging out here,” Cloud shakes his head, and from a quick glance over his shoulder, he can spot Barret’s faint outline through the bar’s small backdoor window. Flipping him off feels almost as natural as breathing.

”I didn’t think people cared. Shit.”

“Ignore him. He’s just being overbearing.”

Pursing his lips, Zack lets his head fall onto the cradle of Cloud’s shoulder, grumbling, “I can’t tell if this is a good thing for winning over Barret.”

“I’d say him giving us shit is good. Especially meaningless shit. Besides, he told me to say hi.”

“Okay, hell yeah.” A brief pause before Zack tacks on, “I think?”

Sliding a hand over his jaw, Cloud tips Zack’s head up until bright blue is once again in view. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“There’s no need to thank me. I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

Zack’s thumb strokes over the seam of his lips, a questioning touch, and Cloud doesn’t hesitate to let his eyes fall shut. Silence lingers between them, expectant, but when that touch remains, Cloud reopens his eyes with a curious tilt of his head.

“Zack?”

“Sorry, baby,” Zack whispers, raising a knuckle to sweep under doe eyes. “Don’t mean to keep you waiting.”

To hell with taking their time, Cloud thinks.

It’s not a unique thought that’s crossed his mind these days—not when a brush of lips against his inner knee, a wet heat rolling over ticklish skin, has his whole leg twisting where it’s propped over a strong shoulder. Zack cackles under his breath as he curls deeper into the spread of pale limbs, ducking his head a few degrees and pushing up the hem of Cloud’s cotton boxers to expose even more satin skin.

His movements are slow, intentional, as he drags his tongue indulgently down the inside of Cloud’s thigh into the sensitive crease where leg meets hip. The touch flutters through muscles Cloud wasn’t even aware he had, simmering like a hissing kettle in the pit of his stomach.

“Keep doing that and you’ll get a knee to the face,” Cloud rasps, the words wedged between small pants.

“I’d be into it. If it’s you, baby,” Zack laughs, his broad hand a thorough distraction as it smooths up and down the front of Cloud’s thigh. Cloud has no sense of time like this—sprawled over Zack’s now rumpled bed, the alpha exploring every inch of bared skin, their shirts shirked somewhere at the base of an equally ditched couch.

Cloud can still picture the stupid look on Jessie’s face after his shift at Seventh Heaven had ended: her smirk impish as Zack led him out of the bar into waning daylight, their threaded hands a tightly woven crutch between them, and headed to the Chevy Nova that sat guilelessly parked outside. And when they’d finally reached Cloud’s front door, Zack wasted no time pressing him against it, his lips immediately stealing away whatever Cloud had thought to say next.

“Flatterer,” Cloud says through a shaky breath as Zack begins to mouth at the dip carved by the jut of his right hip bone, searing hands gliding to squeeze and paw at his waist in greedy intervals. His lips are close to bruising as they scorch across goosebump-dotted skin, and Cloud almost pleads for Zack to go harder, use his teeth, do whatever it fucking takes to leave an ache in his muscles that’ll remain for days on end.

“You have a little mole next to your belly button,” Zack says instead, nuzzling his nose over it in a gesture so sudden and chaste it makes warmth creep down the back of Cloud’s neck. “Man, that’s cute.”

“Zack,” Cloud groans, clutching at broad shoulders and pulling until the other’s once again hovering above him, their noses nearly touching. Zack’s then surging down, their lips meeting in a hungry slide, and gods, Cloud doesn’t think he could ever tire of it.

He parts his lips for the spine-rattling thrill of it, the inconceivable novelty that this is something they can just do now. Kissing Zack like this still feels like something beyond what his body should be capable of; his touch is pure, unbridled flame, his tongue almost unbearably hot as it furls into Cloud’s mouth, flicks at the roof of his mouth, strokes along the ridges of his own.

“Don’t get too distracted,” Cloud murmurs once they’ve peeled themselves apart.

“Distracted from what, sweetheart?"

Heartbeat hammering in his ears, Cloud takes Zack’s hands in his own in lieu of a response, pressing them with intent into the waistband of his boxers. Zack’s head snaps up at the motion, the stark blue of his irises shrinking as he considers exactly what it is that Cloud’s asking.

“Fuck. Are you sure?” But despite the hesitation, Zack’s hands are already skirting along a cotton hem with eager fingers, his fingers sliding underneath elastic to press into the slope of his pelvic bone.

“So sure,” Cloud breathes out. And because he’s feeling brave, impatient, he adds just as quietly, “Don’t make me beg.”

“But I’d love to hear you beg, baby. Fucking hell.”

Saliva pools in Cloud’s mouth as both of their hands move to slip cotton past his hips, unhurried but full of thick, stomach-clenching tension. Zack then tugs the rest of the material off—over the planes of his thighs, the muscles of his calves, the slight curve in his feet until it’s entirely off and discarded beneath them.

Clambering back onto the bed, Zack settles back between unfolded legs, sitting back on his heels and tugging at Cloud’s hips so that his thighs are fixed, spread impossibly wide, over Zack’s. The urge to squirm away suddenly churns through Cloud’s limbs, and yet Zack’s muscled torso prevents him from budging even an inch.

A quiet, wonderstruck noise escapes Zack’s lips as if he can’t help but marvel at the display beneath him, Cloud presented and stretched out for nothing but the hungry rake of his gaze. His eyes drag over where his pink nipples remain swollen, still shiny and wet from where Zack had drawn them into his mouth, and down to his hard, drooling cock.

“I didn’t get to see this last time. See you.” Zack murmurs lowly as he lowers his head, nosing over newly revealed skin. “I could look at you for hours. Days. Years.”

“Zack, you need to—” Cloud says at the exact moment Zack chooses to drag his mouth down the length of his hip, over delicate skin already marred with bruises. Wolfish eyes flick up to meet his, only a fraction of his face visible from this angle, as Zack closes his mouth over a small pink splotch and sucks.

Cloud shudders at the pleasure-pain, slick trickling in thin trails down the back of his leg and his dick weeping a telling puddle onto his abdomen. He wants; it’s inescapable when Zack exists in such close proximity. It’s more than obvious when the alpha moves to adjust both of his legs, hooking over his shoulders once more, and Cloud’s scent suddenly flares around them—heady and rich and thick with his body’s intent to lure.

Hauling a labored breath in, Zack looks overwrought, the size of his pupils immense, possessed by the sweet potency of pine and lavender so close. His mouth hovers over wet heat—until just a light graze of his tongue, a whisper of silk, roves over Cloud’s entrance for a fraction of a second before it draws away.

“You taste so fucking sweet. Fuck.” Zack’s exhale is fervid as his breath rushes over wrinkled pink. “Can I?”

“Y-yeah,” Cloud gasps into his clenched fist, shuddering when Zack’s right thumb prods lightly into where he now leaks and twitches in equal measure. “I want that.”

“Eat you out, I mean,” Zack clarifies, his eyes wide and eager.

It feels out of place to laugh when his feet dangle mid-air, but Cloud can’t contain it; one bubbles past his lips, bright and hearty. He would refuse to admit to anyone that he’s endeared by Zack’s casual earnestness, but he has no other word for the weightlessness that overcomes him in these moments—that fills his chest with something airy and buoyant that he barely has any idea what to do with.

“Got that. I already gave you the green light—”

A yelp and a small flail are all that Cloud can manage when Zack spins and shifts him to settle on his hands and knees, rearranging his hips so that they tilt up for him at the perfect angle. It’s so annoyingly hot that Cloud almost chooses to bristle over it; instead, he lets his spine dip and his head drop between his shoulders, cursing, his forehead pressed into tangled sheets.

Zack palms over the span of his ass cheeks, breathing out, “Sorry. Can’t wait any longer,”

“S’fine, Zack. Just—”

And then, Zack’s mouth is on him, his tongue dragging in flat, rough stripes over the snug furl of his hole. Cloud jolts forward with a wavering cry, not expecting the feel of it to be so heightened, to send ripples through his middle like the sharp foreshocks that herald a vicious earthquake. The groan that Zack lets loose against him is positively sinful, famished, as he grasps at squirming hips, securing his hold as he begins to lick into Cloud without interruption.

Zack takes that as his cue to dig in, and there’s no finesse in the way he fastens his mouth over his hole and laps—pulls Cloud’s cheeks far enough apart for tight muscle to yield to the heated slide of his tongue. It’s as though he’s been boiled down to raw, drunk hunger, his movements sustained by the crushing need to devour Cloud down to his very roots.

“Oh—oh fuck… Zack, ah—”

An obscene mix of wet suction and slick lapping noises ring in his ears as Zack burrows into him with deliberate flicks of his tongue, wetness trailing down his chin and the cleft of Cloud’s ass. Zack’s jaw works vigorously, the alpha taking small breaks to skate from his hole to his perineum; it almost feels delicate in comparison, and yet Cloud can feel his knees still clench and squirm in place from the leap in sensations.

Cloud thinks he might be tearing a hole through cotton sheets, biting down a sob when Zack’s tongue delves even deeper into where it curls into him. It strokes and twists against clenching walls, so thorough that he can barely think, barely breathe, barely get enough oxygen in his lungs to form sounds beyond unintelligible cries. His back falls into a deeper arch, he shoves back onto Zack’s mouth in pitiful thrusts of his hips, but like this, he mostly writhes and groans and takes.

Without warning, Zack’s large hand then curls around the base of his Cloud’s cock and strokes downward, twisting around its pinkened head with quick swivels of his wrist. His thumb remains there, attentive, circling its leaking slit until Cloud’s trembling apart, muscles spasming so hard he has to clutch onto Zack’s wrist as he comes all over his hand and the bedspread with a long, quivering moan.

His forehead pitches forward into a pillow, his muscles giving out, while Cloud heaves for breath. Colors flicker in and out of his vision for long moments, and his eyelids feel weighty as they flutter past the flashing shapes that linger behind his eyelids. A shivering whine is pulled from his lips when Zack’s tongue strokes over his hole one final time, cleaning him of any remaining slick.

“Cloud. Baby,” Zack breathes out gruffly into the slope of his lower back, pressing gentle kisses over clammy skin. He then helps to reposition him to lie comfortably on his back, Cloud’s limbs immediately sinking into the bed in the aftermath. “Was that alright?”

“Wuh—what?” Cloud slurs out as Zack crawls next to where he lies slumped in rucked sheets, the alpha perching an elbow next to his prone head and smoothing a hand over his abdomen.

“Was it too much?”

“Not at all. It felt good—really fucking good,” Cloud says, raspy and quiet, his lips stinging as his tongue roves over swelling, bitten skin. Zack eases with a grateful sigh, the tense line of his shoulders melting, and presses that relief into his clavicles with a kiss.

“Amazing. You’re amazing.”

Cloud almost misses the words, his heart leaping into his throat when he notices slick still smeared over Zack’s chin and settled into the corners of his mouth. A heated flush suffusing down his neck, he dabs at the wetness with his knuckles, ignoring the way Zack follows the movement with keen eyes.

“How was it? For you, I mean.”

“Mm. It was… hard to stop. Watching you come apart like that.”

Cloud then slowly sits up, trying not to keel over with how much his bones have liquified in the past hour. The muscles in his legs already pull and ache pleasantly as he folds them underneath himself; it’d be a shame if Zack were to leave his apartment not feeling similarly blissed out.

“I have some time before my next shift. Your turn?”

Zack’s Adam’s apple bobs with the tension of a dense metal spring. “I can manage.”

“You could manage, or…” Cloud says as his fingers fiddle with the lining of Zack’s boxers, deliberately not touching the hard outline that strains against its striped fabric. “I could do something for you.”

Zack’s jaw clenches at the way Cloud’s voice dips, and yet he still hesitates, murmuring, “Are you sure?”

“So sure. If you’d rather not, I’m cool with that too. But…” Cloud swallows heavily, and then, voice throaty, “I’ve been wanting this.”

“Fuck. Okay.”

Slipping off of the bed, Cloud kneels at Zack’s feet and, eyes flicking upward, watches as the other shifts his boxers over his hips and down his legs until they pool at his feet. His hard cock springs up, and it still surprises Cloud by how perfectly it stands at attention, tall and heavy against the defined ridges of Zack’s abdomen.

Cloud sways with the smell of pure, unadulterated alpha, a dizzying force, as he winds his fingers around stiff skin. Pinching his lower lip between his teeth, his once parched mouth now waters from how desperate he is to get his mouth over its delicious veins and thick, ruddy head, and he strokes over it from base to tip with a slow pass of his hand.

“I can’t believe you,” Zack says amidst a shivering moan, his hips jerking into a curled fist when Cloud begins laving over the slit of his cock with indulgent swipes of his tongue. It’s already dripping, threatening to ooze past his lips, and Cloud can’t resist taking the head of it into his mouth, his tongue rolling over its sensitive underside.

When Zack’s fingers begin to clench wildly into his hair, Cloud clutches onto that hand, coaxing it further into the crown of his head and weaving it through tufts of blonde until he hears a surprised groan. Only then does Zack start guiding him deeper over his cock, all choked breaths and shaking hands, still a bit hesitant with how he chooses to maneuver him. But with each of Cloud’s pitchy moans, he drags him up and presses him back down with a little more force, a little more speed, until Zack’s fucking into his mouth in long, noisy slides of his hips.

Cloud gladly widens his jaw and relaxes his throat, reeling with the awestruck eyes that watch him, enthralled.

Cloud thinks that, between the two of them, he’s developing bad habits.

It’s becoming a reflex of the eyes—a spell that muddles the world around him into dappled, watercolor brushstrokes. Zack sits across from him in a snug booth, directing a toothy grin at a vague something said to their right, but Cloud can’t discern what’s being said; doesn’t even try to, really.

He’s too focused on a smaller detail, his gaze caught on something he’d never noticed before: faded sun spots scattered across the tall bridge of Zack’s nose, a feature of his appearance that, for all that Cloud has studied his handsome face, is somehow brand new to him. They’re light and speckled, not quite freckles, but something close. They paint constellations when Zack stumbles over what to say next, when his mouth twitches moments before he’s about to tell a joke he thinks is Gaia's gift to man. When he turns to Cloud, a small dip deepening into a charming dimple on the left side of his smile.

Cloud wants to study them. Endlessly—under unique forms of light, with every kind of setting. But in the same breath, he realizes that Zack might want to study him, too.

He should've realized that Zack could still, in equal parts, find similarly hidden things about him. Parts of himself that he still keeps close to his chest, hidden beyond plain sight. Realities that, when unearthed, could alter whatever version of him Zack had conjured up when he’d confessed to him at his doorstep.

It’s a thought that wrests his throat into strange, erratic shapes.

Or maybe Zack could discover those things—something inevitable in the face of his boundless curiosity. Maybe, Zack would carry them with him carefully, and he’d want to learn their ins and outs; one day, perhaps, he could even know Cloud.

Cloud’s chest constricts at the thought, and he can’t tell if it’s from distress or from a want so buried and deep-seated, he’d forgotten it’d ever held space inside of him.

“Careful there, Spike,” Zack says as he reaches over the table, his thumb delicate as it draws the lip Cloud hadn’t realized was trapped in the nip of his teeth. “Don’t wanna break the skin.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Cloud says, but he knows the stubborn edge of it is softened by the way he lets the touch linger over his mouth before Zack moves to pull away.

“Too preoccupied for a beer, Cloud?” Tifa teases, barely managing to conceal a smirk behind her opened, laminated menu.

“No. But are you sure you wanna drink?” Cloud’s eyes dart over to the retro-looking clock hooked on the far wall of the diner. “It’s not even noon yet.”

“Cloud, c’mon. It was made for you. We don’t really have a choice here,” Aerith chimes from her place beside him, her skirt brushing against Cloud’s ankles as she kicks her heels out.

Group outings with Aerith and Tifa haven’t become less jarring to Cloud as of yet. For one, they never shied from observing his every interaction with Zack with undisguised glee. They never missed an opportunity to order Golden Spike if it was found on a menu. And, of course, joining Zack to single out Cloud for any number of things was always a fun pastime for everyone involved.

“I’ve been thinking—wouldn’t it be cute if Tifa had her own beer? I wonder what it’d be.” Aerith continues, fingers lightly drumming along her forearms. “It should be really sweet and light, but also pack a punch, you know? Just like Tif.”

Tucking a sleek lock of hair behind her ear, Tifa practically beams at the attention. “Maybe something less bitter than Cloud’s.”

Cloud huffs dryly into his fist. “Hilarious.”

“Maybe a cider, then?” Zack offers, his gaze gliding over to settle on Cloud, a sheepish slant to his mouth. “I almost pitched apple cider for Spike here.”

“I could see that for farmer boy.”

“You help your mom with her herb garden a few times and suddenly you’re a farmer,” Cloud retorts under his breath, and Zack’s responding snicker has his stomach clenching with unearned pride.

“I have some aunts and uncles who are rice farmers. So we’re both farmer boys,” Zack adds with a boyish grin. A vibrating phone then thrums from somewhere beneath the table, and he tugs it out of his pants pocket, squinting at the text that glares from his lock screen. “Sorry, I actually need to grab this. I’ll be right back.”

“We’ll be here,” Tifa chirps from beside him.

Cloud stares after Zack’s retreating back as he ambles down the aisle, past the wearied cashier, and through glass double doors. It’s only the sight of Tifa tilting her head into his periphery that snaps him back into awareness.

“So, I talked to Claudia the other day.”

“Of course you did,” Cloud drawls, stealing her menu and starting to leaf through it with unseeing eyes. “Another baking competition show?”

“It’s pottery this time. Anyway, not relevant.” Tifa then leans over the table with her arms folded as though she has the most thrilling secret to tell. “She asked me about how you’re doing, obviously. Promise I didn’t say anything too revealing about what’s going on with you. Or with whom. Just that you’re having fun these days.”

Aerith knocks into his forearm with her fist. “Hell yeah you are.”

At a pair of bubbly giggles, Cloud disguises a rose-red flush with a deep, outward sigh. He can’t help it when he chances another peek back through the diner’s front-facing windows, spotting Zack looking thoughtful as he prattles into his phone’s receiver, fingers threading through the back of his hair.

“Honestly, Tif, you don’t have to be so careful about it. Ma already knows.”

“Knows about what?”

“Knows about Zack. I told her about him a while ago.” Snapping his menu shut, Cloud shrugs, as unruffled as a still lake. “Are you guys getting fries? I refuse to drink right now without ‘em.”

Only indistinct chatter and the ringing of a finished order follow his words for a long moment.

Unnerved by Tifa’s tone of voice, Cloud lifts his head, only to flinch at the stunned looks leveled in his direction. “What?”

Tifa gestures vaguely at him, muttering under her breath, “Are you serious?”

“I didn’t think fries were a controversial choice.” When they both remain speechless, Cloud suppresses the urge to let his head fall into his hands. “Oh, you mean… so I told her about Zack. That’s not a big deal. Right?”

“No, that’s so casual. Not a big deal at all,” Aerith says, sarcasm embedded in the pinch of her brows and the crook of her smile.

“Ma didn’t treat it like it was a huge thing,” Cloud bluffs, because he’s aware of the fact that she did anything but; she very much handled it like something strange and remarkable and worth needling him about. Tifa merely shares a lengthy look with Aerith, one that tells Cloud that they can read his words for exactly what they are—a bold-faced lie.

“You didn’t even tell her about that one inn manager guy and you went out with him for like a year.”

“Do you think I should’ve kept it a secret?”

“Dude,” Aerith whispers, nudging at his calf with the blunt heel of her boot. “You’re missing the point.”

Scoffing, Cloud admits, “And the sky is blue.”

“Sorry, Angeal was getting on me again for trying to get out of—Spike?” Zack’s voice rolls over the table as he approaches their booth, clambering back into the space next to Tifa. “Did something happen?”

Embarrassment still burning at the edges of his face, Cloud shakes his head minutely, but he manages to meet Zack’s eyes through sheer force of will. “Just… really feeling that beer now.”

“Let’s get some then. I’d never turn down a Golden Spike.” With a knowing tilt of his head, Zack makes sure to suggest, “And we’re getting fries, right? If we’re gonna drink.”

Something settles within Cloud’s chest in an instant; he'd find it comical if it wasn't so predictable.

“That’s another vote for fries then,” Tifa relents, grabbing both her and Aerith’s menus to slide them to the edge of the table.

When Tifa and Aerith become briefly sidetracked, huddling over something gleaming from a phone screen, Cloud turns back to Zack with a soft, “How was your call?”

It doesn’t take long for Zack to reach for Cloud’s wrist, something like second nature to him now, his thumb sweeping over the irregular ridges of his knuckles. “So get this—Angeal basically insisted that the two of us spend even more time together.”

“Oh yeah?” Cloud’s narrowed eyes are thwarted by the coy smile that grows beneath. “I swear I heard you saying the opposite.”

“Why don't you ask the big man yourself?”

His grin broadening, Cloud knows it’s entirely intentional when he tangles their fingers together across the table in plain sight for all to witness.

“You’re on.”

“Zack, I’m royally fucking this up.”

Cloud lets his forehead pitch into the steering wheel, its pristine leather clammy where his palms grip at it anxiously. Zack’s coupe sputters into silence beneath him in some kind of humiliating display, stalled in the middle of a nearly empty, residential street. In his rear view mirror, a polished SUV now waits, and despite its tinted windows, Cloud can imagine its driver already crabby and cursing at him under their breath.

“Hey, no sweat. We let this car pass and then we restart just like we practiced,” Zack says, so painfully supportive, his other hand tracing a soothing trail over Cloud’s thigh. Cloud clamps his eyes closed, defeated, as Zack’s free arm motions for the car behind them to pass. “Was it the clutch again this time?”

“Yeah. My white whale,” Cloud grouses, hefting his head up in time to see the other car tear past them and careen down the street. “I have no idea how you haven’t called it a day yet.”

“That’s never been an option, Spike.” An appeasing pat on his knee morphs into a playful squeeze over Cloud’s hip. He can see in his periphery that the beginnings of a smug smile grow on Zack’s lips—the kind of smirk he does when his next words are guaranteed to get a reaction out of him. “Not when you went through so much trouble.”

And if Cloud had armed himself with his best doe-eyed look when he’d once again thrown out the idea that he take Zack’s Chevy for a spin, that was decidedly a different Cloud. A Cloud who didn’t know the muscle-deep, humbling sting that takes root when he can barely get the car past a fifteen mile an hour cruise.

Shoulders stiffening, Cloud shoots back, “You sure you didn’t dream that?”

“Hm, definitely possible. If I did, it was a pretty fucking good dream. Vivid, too. You gave me this look, you know, and then you did this thing with my hair. It was very convincing.”

A flustered groan into his shirt sleeve, and then Cloud acknowledges, “I know—I was there.”

Zack offers one final pinch to his side before he reclines back into the passenger seat. “Good. Let’s keep going, then.”

Unsurprisingly, the words diffuse through Cloud’s arteries like he’d ingested a dose of liquid adrenaline. After all of the time and effort to make this happen, all of this build-up, Cloud couldn’t let himself give up here, in this random suburb that he’ll most likely never traverse again. Pushing out a heavy breath, Cloud resets his shoulders, sitting straight with an edge of determination.

“You’re right. I’m ready.”

“Hell yes! You remember how to get started?”

“I think so.”

“That’s my baby.”

Reigniting the ignition, Cloud pushes the clutch until he can sense that telltale biting point, tapping the gas lightly until the car begins to roll forward at a slow speed.

Sweat builds under Cloud’s hands as the car climbs to a gradual cruise, and he watchfully shifts into second gear. The wide-open roads call for him to floor it, to really test the raw power of a car meant to whip through city streets. But he’s already learned time and again that driving stick shift requires a more patient approach, so he maintains the car’s steady pace until he’s ready to engage the next gear.

“You’re doing it, Spike!”

A current begins to whisk over the crests of his cheeks as they continue to pick up speed, the sprawl of neighborhood oak trees now sailing past them in streaks of evergreen. Cloud allows himself a quick peek to his right—and Zack’s already set his elbow on the opened window, loose black locks whipping around his face, and he turns to Cloud with pride creased in his smile.

A breath hitching behind his teeth, Cloud returns the look with his own sheepish smile; in turn, Zack cups his hands around his mouth and whoops in the direction of passing houses. Cloud laughs heartily at the sound, and the cheer he offers back is every bit as loud and unruly. He knows it's more than a little absurd; they’re celebrating a meager thirty-five miles per hour, and it’s so stupid, but now they’re both laughing, breathless, cackling at each other in a flurry of wind and speed.

Lingering laughter in his breath, Cloud returns his focus to the road—only to spot a small, brown rodent dash in front of Zack’s front tires.

Cursing, Cloud swerves out of the way, jerking the car back into first gear and slamming the brake down. In his panic, he forgets which specific handle is the handbrake, grappling for it blindly until Zack’s arm springs out from his right side. The car then lurches forward before coming to a complete, screeching halt mere steps from the curb.

Hurling the driver door open, Cloud leaps out of the car and sprints to the front of the car, his eyes frantically darting over its hood, bumper, front fender. They all remain thankfully pristine and untouched, and Cloud almost falls over from the sheer relief, exhaling out a frenzied breath as his fingers twist into his hair. In the fringes of his vision, a familiar squirrel now watches them from across the street, seated primly on a low tree branch.

“Are you okay, Spike?”

“I almost crashed your car,” Cloud heaves out mechanically, hands now gripped over his temples.

A hand smooths, featherlight, over the small of his back. “It’s really no biggie, baby.”

“No biggie? I could’ve… what if I…”

“You would’ve maybe dented it,” Zack offers in his most matter-of-fact voice, now attempting to rub the tension from his shoulders.

“Dented—there’s a tree like five feet away!”

A muffled snicker serves as his only reply, and Cloud whips around to find Zack’s head bowed, his shoulders shaking as his entire body is entirely overcome with laughter for a second time. Cloud squawks in protest, a noise that he would otherwise find mortifying if he didn’t find Zack’s reaction so irritating.

“It’s not funny, you idiot. You’ve put years into this thing.”

Wiping a bit of moisture from his eye, Zack offers weakly, “But you didn’t.”

Cloud stalks in the opposite direction, peeved as Zack, still brimming with cackles, chooses to follow at his heels. “My heart almost fucking stopped. I can’t believe you’re laughing.”

“Wait, Spike. You have to admit it’s a little funny—”

“You take almost ten minutes backing out of our parking lot in the morning. And you’re laughing.”

Zack reaches out to tug at his upper arms, his hold steadying when Cloud wobbles at the abrupt change in direction. Slowly, Zack lets his laughter mellow into small titters of sound, his smile placid as he mutters, “Sorry, I don’t mean to. It’s just… blowing my mind a little.”

“It’s blowing my mind too, buddy.”

“No, I mean—I don’t think my old man would’ve ever guessed I’d let someone near this thing. But it makes sense that it’s you.”

Not willing to let his temper settle just yet, Cloud grumbles, “And why’s that?”

“I’m in love with you, for one,” Zack confesses with all of the casualness of ordering a drink at a bar. But as quickly as the words are spoken, his body stiffens in place, his expression now moon-eyed as though stunned by own admission. “Wait, fuck.”

Cloud stands similarly braced—the muscles in his chest tightening so suddenly, a distant ringing begins to crescendo, shrill and high-pitched, in his ears. Zack has an innate talent for this, he thinks: shaking the earth under his feet so abruptly that Cloud is sent scrambling, clambering to find his footing and somehow continue walking on stable feet.

This time, he can’t seem to find his balance.

A breath stumbles out of Cloud, accompanied by a pint-sized, “What?”

The boughs of broad oak trees reel and sway above their heads, caught in a brisk wind-gust. Zack remains slack-jawed, wordless under the quivering of nearby leaves, until he manages to sputter, “Just ignore that. I didn’t mean to say it.”

Cloud’s mouth dries as if he’d ingested mouthfuls of coarse sand. “You didn’t mean it…?”

“I’m really fucking this up.” Zack tangles his fingers into the back of black spikes, as he is wont to do when anxious, and musses through them. “Of course I meant it. I fucking mean it, Cloud. I just wanted to… keep it to myself for a bit.”

An attempt at a small, relieved exhale becomes wedged in Cloud’s throat, and he’s barely capable of croaking out, “Oh. Well, I…”

“I feel like an asshole,” Zack groans, now propping up his forehead in his open palm. “You really don’t need to say anything back.”

“That’s not something an asshole would say.”

“It’s not?”

Cloud shoves tamely at Zack’s upper arm despite himself. “Of course not. You’re the complete opposite.”

Zack lifts a hand to Cloud’s jaw, skims a knuckle over it with a hesitant touch. “I don’t want you to feel pressured, Spike.”

“I don’t. Really, I…” Cloud flounders as his mind travels hundreds of miles a minute, across all of the feasible combinations of things he could say to rectify this moment. The answer lies obviously in front of him, the words, and yet—he’d never really decided how he felt about them. How he feels about them. Even now, he can only oscillate between pure wonder and anxious disbelief at the fact that they’d even been said.

“Are you okay?” Zack whispers, and the guilt of it plummets through Cloud’s stomach with glacial weight.

“I’m okay.”

“That’s good, Spike.” Zack remains cautious, pausing before he cradles Cloud’s chin between his fingers, pressing a brief kiss onto still addled lips. “Ready to head back now?”

“I…” Cloud’s left bereft when Zack steps away and, taking his hand, begins to pull him toward the car. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Cloud continues to turn it over in his mind, slumped next to Jessie on a counter in Kunsel’s kitchen.

Zack had ventured off somewhere in the name of mixing him the “drink of his dreams,” and Cloud should’ve predicted that, when the other had suggested to pop into Kunsel’s party, keeping him within reach for the whole evening would’ve been nigh impossible. Kunsel’s house is cozier than he’d expected it to be, sure, but Cloud’s already growing weary of the crowd and the conversation and the unbearable, unceasing prying into all things Zack.

In any case, his mind wanders elsewhere.

He can still picture it—the genuine surprise etched into Zack’s features as he’d once again tore open his chest for Cloud to either spurn or accept. As if those words spilled out as soon as Zack allowed them to grow too big to be contained within one body.

“You really don’t need to say anything back.”

And yet, Cloud knows his answer. He’s known it for weeks now. For all intents and purposes, he and Zack had already laid everything bare between them in no uncertain terms. But how can he explain to any one person, let alone Zack, that even he doesn’t even fully understand why he can’t reply? That something mangled, burrowed inside of him for longer than he’s been aware of, holds his tongue?

He wishes he could just shed them—the crevices and cracks that have warped him into a person incapable of having the right reactions. Tifa had once told him, jokingly, that he’d always been somewhat difficult to understand; since then, he’d never considered it as anything but objective fact. But maybe he should’ve tried a little harder to subvert and change and wrangle that fact into submission until he became someone different.

Someone less complicated. Someone knowable.

“You done moping over there?” At the thrum of Jessie’s voice, Cloud twists to find smoke coiling from the corners of her mouth. A glass pipe is pressed into his hands, but he lacks the stomach for it, returning it to a bare piece of counter at her side. “We’re at a party if you haven’t noticed.”

Cloud’s index finger picks, mindless, at the frayed edges of his t-shirt. “I had no idea.”

“Would it cheer you up if I told you something I heard?” Jessie says as she swivels to face him, keeping one leg propped coolly in front of her. “It’s absolutely rot-your-teeth-out sweet.”

“You’re not allowed to ask me anything else about Zack.”

“C’mon, hear me out. It’s not a question this time.”

Cloud’s sigh is close to barreling when he replies, “Fine.”

Jessie nods in the direction of the room Zack had disappeared into, her eyebrows lifted suggestively. “You two are morphing into each other.”

And if that’s not a startling thing to hear. Cloud thumbs at blonde spikes if only to confirm that they hadn’t suddenly become jet black while he’d strayed into the void of his own head.

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Oh, it definitely is. For those with eyes to see,” Jessie quips with a playful tilt of her lips. “I don’t remember him being the type to wear all of that silver jewelry. And the way he’s wearing his bangs? Looks like someone else I know.”

“So he borrows some of my necklaces sometimes,” Cloud snorts against the rim of his plastic cup, taking a large pull from it. And perhaps Zack borrows the occasional hair product—truly nothing out of the ordinary.

“How about this, hotshot? I saw you give someone a thumbs up earlier. You had your hands on your hips. It was very ‘motivational speaker.’ Wonder who that reminds me of.”

A sip of seltzer lodges itself in Cloud’s windpipe, inhaled a bit too hastily, and he thumps at his chest with the flat of his fist. “You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t say it like an insult, you know.”

“You just called him a motivational speaker.”

“Like I said, not an insult.” Fixing her hands over her ankles, Jessie levels him with a look that, on anyone else, might look patronizing. Instead, the softening of her expression nears something like sincerity; or at least, reads the most sincere Cloud’s ever seen her. “Listen, I lied a little; that’s not what I really wanted to tell you.”

Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, Cloud says, “What is it, then?”

“Earlier, I was complaining to Zack about how shitty dating is now, and how good he has it, right? And he… it was weird—I really thought he’d offer me platitudes, or just general advice. You know, that whole motivational schtick. But he actually just agreed with me. He honestly seemed, like, really thankful. I’d find it disgusting if it wasn’t so sweet.”

“He did?” Cloud asks, the bite of his teeth once again finding his lower lip. “He didn’t sound... frustrated? Or fed up?”

Jessie scoffs, narrowing her eyes at him skeptically. “What am I missing?”

“Uh. Nothing?”

“Uh huh. He did ask how to keep from laying it on too thick. I told him life’s too short for that.” With leaden movements, Jessie shrugs and slips off of the counter, offering breezy, light-hearted pats over Cloud’s knees. “It’s too exhausting to keep your cards so close to your chest, anyway.”

Cloud hears Zack enter the kitchen before he sees him, and his head moves to follow the sound of his lilting laugh, not unsimilar to a boat finding the radiant shores of a lighthouse.

“Guess my time’s up. I better say hi to Kunsel, anyway. Thanks for the pep talk, Cloud.”

“That was not motivational!” Cloud calls after her, his voice petering out into a grumble the more distant she becomes. When Zack finally reaches him, he leans on the bit of counter near Cloud’s right hip, now soundly in his space, and clutches something in his free hand.

“Giving Jessie a little morale boost?”

“She’d like to think so. That’s still more of your thing.” A sleek silver chain is fastened glaringly over Zack’s neck, and Cloud bites back the impulse to ask him where he’d gotten it from. Instead, he reaches for it, toying with it between curious fingers. “Hey.”

“Hey there, sweetness,” Zack preens, lifting a glass into Cloud’s vision for him to take a proper glance at. “Look, baby’s first Whiskey Sour. Try a sip?”

Cloud’s nose screws up at the sight of solid, yellow flecks that float on top of what would otherwise be impressively whipped foam. “There’s bits of raw yolk in there. Baby’s first might be a big ask.”

“Really? C’mon. Just a teensy little sip. It won’t kill you—” Zack insists as he attempts to bring the glass to Cloud’s lips. Cloud immediately ducks away from it, weaving his head from side-to-side in obvious disgust.

“Zack, no!”

“Not even a small one? You could always use more protein in your diet—”

Cloud lets his head cant forward into Zack’s collarbones, groaning, “Not the daily protein.”

The clink of glass against marble rings from somewhere beside him before Zack thumbs at Cloud’s cheek, sulking, “I thought you said it was helpful.”

“Fine,” Cloud says as he snatches the drink, nose wrinkled, and tilts into his mouth. His eyes squint a little as the taste bowls over his senses, and even though its sourness makes his mouth twist, he still says, “Delicious.”

“You’re wonderful.”

“I’m not taking another sip.”

“That’s fine,” Zack murmurs, a whisper away, his gaze shades of unending blue as it lingers over his eyes, ardent, and then flits down to his lips. "I just wanted you to have one little taste, anyway.”

It’s only moments before Zack leans into him for a kiss, and in the midst of it, they melt into breathy sound alongside thudding bass and rowdy conversation. Their lips move together like the unwinding of a slow sigh after a hectic day, parting and coming back together in languid, unhurried strokes. With a quiet, coarse groan, Zack gives a strong tug to his knee, spreading out his legs properly over the counter, and huddles into him even further.

Cloud breaks from the kiss, smoothing back the stubborn black locks that keep grazing his cheekbones, only to break into a hushed laugh when Zack tucks his face into the slope of his neck. He sometimes forgets that this could happen—his entire world already hazes at the bounds of his vision, reduced to Zack’s shape under his hands, the sounds he presses into his skin.

Hitching his leg a little higher over Zack’s waist, Cloud draws his eyes closed as Zack mouths over sensitive skin, rippling heat etching a path from underneath his jaw to the delicate flesh of his earlobe. Zack skates his palms over the length of Cloud’s legs, floating up the sturdy denim that clings around Cloud’s thighs and rests low on his hips.

Voice syrupy against the shell of his ear, Zack says, “I wanna take you home so fucking badly.”

Cloud quells a cracked whine, his head pitching into Zack’s shoulder. He wants that too; so desperately, he can just narrowly bite out, “Let’s go home, then.”

Without warning, a chill settles over Cloud’s skin. Zack lets up from his position, shifting back several, stinging inches, his rough breaths loosening into a laggard sigh. The kitchen is motionless behind them, and Cloud realizes that at some point between now and Zack’s arrival, it had been steadily emptied of people.

“It’s not… moving too fast for you?”

Sighing regretfully, Clouds falls back onto the hands he props over the counter. It’s perhaps a bit naive to think they could pretend like nothing happened until he figures himself out. But maybe that’s exactly it—they’ve fallen into this loop before. The one where Zack agonizes, and he withdraws, and they forgo their relief to tiptoe around a subject in relentless circles; their miserable, albeit predictable, version of limbo.

Cloud wants them to find their balance. He wants them to move forward, out of limbo, on stable feet.

Barreling past a dry cluster of nerves in his throat, Cloud exhales, “Is this about what happened the other day?”

Zack’s spine stiffens obviously at the question. “You were a bit of a deer caught in headlights, Spike.”

“I really didn’t mean to be.”

“I’d be shocked, too. I really meant for it to come out a little differently, but, well.” Zack rubs at the nape of his neck restlessly. “You know me.”

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Cloud insists, easing himself off of the counter only to flag back against it, cold metal and glossy wood meeting his palms. “It was just unbelievable that you… you would even—”

“Unbelievable? What’s hard to believe about it?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. But I’m still… trying to wrap my head around it.”

Zack's smile nears impossibly adoring. “Well, it’s true. I’m in love with you.”

“Zack.”

“We’ve already rushed through a lot. I get that it might feel too soon.”

“I didn’t think this would be something I’d need some time with, but. Yeah,” Cloud mutters, and a little kernel of something eases behind his sternum from the confession alone. Zack reaches his hand out readily; Cloud takes it with a grateful breath. “I know I can be confusing sometimes. I’m sorry.”

“No apologies needed.” Zack raises Cloud’s hands to his lips, mumbling against his knuckles, “Take all the time you need. Even if you decide it’s never.”

“Yeah right,” Cloud whispers with all of the sarcasm he can muster.

“I wanna take things at your pace.”

“Your pace matters, too.” Cloud inches forward, a mere four steps, but Zack takes it as an opportunity to curl around him, all of the tension seeping from his muscles like water vapor in arid heat. In turn, Cloud settles into his shoulder, voice slightly muffled in the silken cotton of Zack’s shirt collar. “You’re my person. Okay?”

Nose sinking into the pine and lavender of Cloud’s hair, Zack exhales.

“Okay.”

“If I said I still want to go home with you. Is that… still on the table?”

Zack hoists up his head with a speed that Cloud didn’t know he was capable of, hands sliding under Cloud’s graphic tee to grasp at bare skin. “That’s not even a question. Let’s go right now.”

Cloud’s hand lifts to trace over the faint mottling over Zack’s cheek. “You don’t want to stick around for a bit longer?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Snagging onto the front of Zack’s button-up, Cloud hauls him through a still vacant kitchen, past throngs of friends and strangers, and into star-clustered night.

“Oh shit,” Cloud yelps against searching lips as their legs stagger into a strewn kitchen chair, wood screeching against tile. He pulls away to laugh, a side-splitting one that robs him of breath, against the hollow of Zack’s neck.

Bearing a matching, charmed grin, Zack drags the chair away and crowds Cloud against the adjacent wall, swallowing the sound with dizzying speed. Zack kisses him with the same urgency he’d had when they’d first kissed in the yellowed light of the laundry room—breathlessly, as though he’s still struggling to differentiate dream from tangible truth. Cloud meets every pass of his mouth, every press of his tongue, with that same fragile intensity, wanting Zack to taste just how much he sets Cloud’s skin alight; how he makes his body prickle and ache and feel electrified from limb to limb.

He only lets up when Cloud wrests his head back to steal a breath, the cupid’s bow of his lips already reddened and kiss-bruised. With an obvious rasp in his voice, Zack snickers, “You need to get rid of those chairs.”

“Then where’d we eat?” Cloud retorts, but the words break around a hitch when Zack lifts his knee to press exquisitely between his legs.

Zack has always approached touching him with a kind of dogged determination; it shouldn’t be so surprising how Cloud’s legs are already buckling, on the verge of sinking to the floor, and he finds purchase over the nape of Zack’s neck as his single respite.

“On the couch. On your floor. Against the wall, in the shower—”

“Sounds like a different kind of eating.” Cloud teases, trying to yank Zack back into a kiss, only to startle uselessly when Zack grapples under his thighs and hikes him into his arms. The rush of it still manages to uproot a high whine from his lungs, and he buries the sound against Zack’s right temple as they barrel past a second kitchen chair, a pair of discarded shoes, an oddly-shaped ottoman—and at the foot of Cloud’s bed, Zack sets him down on his plush comforter.

Their hands then fumble together to rid Zack of his shirt, scrabbling to undo the line of buttons down his front. Their fingers prove too clumsy, too eager, until Zack decides to tear off the fabric from his own head with an impatient grunt.

Zack sheds himself of the rest of his clothing; he’s even more stunning dyed a soft orange from the lofty glow of nearby street lamps, their warmth flickering in passing shapes across the definite planes of his torso and the strong features of his face.

“How the hell did we wait so long?” Zack asks before leaning forward, lower arms moving to bracket Cloud’s hips.

Dazedly, Cloud lets his fingers wander down the other’s abdomen. When lush muscle shifts and twitches beneath his palm, he smothers a coy smile, murmuring, “Maybe we’re hopeless.”

“Gen would definitely agree.” A tug on the bottom of Cloud’s tee has him lifting his arms, letting Zack peel it over his head and discard it somewhere unseen. “I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty hopeful.”

Wisps of gold fall into Cloud’s eyes in the aftermath, kissing high cheekbones painted in ruddiness and concealing equally reddened ears. Zack then hooks a thumb into the waistband of his pants, and at Cloud’s dumbstruck nod, his jeans and briefs brush past his legs, leaving bare skin in its wake.

The flutter in his stomach has now billowed into a frenzied thudding that echoes past his ribcage and out of his fingernails and into the space between them. Still, he guides Zack with outstretched hands to settle onto the spot next to him.

Cloud plants one leg over Zack’s lap, and then the other, if only to bridge the short distance between them. His head dips; inevitable, the force between them on par with the pull of waves to the shore. Their bare skin pressed against one another renders his baser instincts into a blissful thrumming, and he’s close to boneless, eyes fluttering shut, as he drinks in Zack’s small moan headily.

Zack kneads wildly at his hips, the flesh of his thighs, his twisting waist—before he coils a fist around Cloud’s bare length and gives it a few long, limb-shaking strokes. Cloud tilts his head back, a truly pitiful whimper reeling past his lips.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Zack says gruffly, voice muffled by the sloppy kisses he mouths over Cloud’s pectorals, where rosiness continues to burn and flower. “And you blush so much, baby. Drives me nuts.”

“Because you keep—” Cloud pitches forward, biting back a sharp keen, as Zack’s thumb applies pressure to the slit of his cock.

“Yeah?”

“Y-yeah. You always make me feel—” A thumb comes to stroke down the cleft of Cloud ass—just a light prod into hot slick, and Cloud’s thighs are already trembling with the force of a winter storm. “—ah, Zack. So good.”

“You don’t even need lube, do you?" Zack husks, but even as he leans Cloud down to lie in front of him, he still moves to haul open a drawer in his nightstand and pull out a thin, unassuming tube.

“That’s kinda the whole thing,” Cloud ribs, watching with lidded eyes as cold liquid is squeezed into Zack’s right hand. His fingers are glassy in the light, lube smeared down to his knuckles in a display so transfixing that Cloud only faintly registers when Zack grips his leg and hooks it over his elbow.

Zack makes a noise of unmistakable hunger as his rigid cock digs achingly into the back of a pale thigh, sighing, “Let’s test that out some more later, baby. When I can really take my time. Figure out just how sensitive you really are.”

Cloud’s voice breaks into a cry when Zack, taking a pert nipple into his mouth, slips a slick finger inside of him with no hesitation. It breaches through a ring of muscle and then eases in, past his initial tightness, until it’s finally knuckle deep. He sighs with it, attempting to roll down into the ministrations despite the angle of his body, and trembles with that same deep-seated, instinctual need that Zack always manages to wrench from him.

One hand keeping writhing hips in place, Zack slips a second finger carefully into Cloud, and then a third, goaded by his whines, thin and reedy in the back of his throat. Zack’s brows dip in that telltale they tend to when he’s in deep concentration—biting his lip at the small hitching of Cloud's voice, angling his strokes based on how much they make Cloud write and tense against him. It’s merely a few pushes until he’s jostling into a spot that sends Cloud’s pulse careening in his chest, and he’s digging his head back into his pillow, a blubbering mess.

“Fucking hell. Just look at you.”

“Zack. Just fucking—” Cloud pants, shoving lightly at Zack’s chest until the alpha’s tugging his fingers out, slick following them in a crude line. “I need you to hurry up.”

Before Cloud can call his own impulses into question, he turns around to settle on his knees, one hand straddling the bedspread.

“Is this how you want it, baby?” Zack’s voice floats over Cloud; soft lips trail over the line of Cloud’s shoulders, a hand skimming over the curve of his lower back, reverent. “I can give that to you.”

“Y-eah. Yes.”

Effortlessly, Zack wraps an arm tight around Cloud’s middle, tugging him upright until his back is flush against the hard lines of the alpha’s front. Nose nuzzling into the side of Cloud’s cheek, Zack whispers, “You ready, gorgeous?”

Incapable of words, Cloud simply nods, seizing at Zack’s wrist behind him and pulling until Zack is burying a soft laugh into the back of his hair, slipping his cock into the palm of his hand.

The blunt tip of a Zack’s cock nudges at his entrance; carefully at first, testing, and then in more confident strokes, drawing deliberate, maddening circles into him that make Cloud’s breath falter with every pass, his own cock drooling a sticky pool on the sheets.

With one last, delicate kiss over his shoulder, Zack steadies his cock in his fist, fingertips of his free hand gentling back and forth over a clammy hip, and he’s suddenly sinking in, in, in—and the pressure is scorching, leaping across Cloud’s spine and down the length of his legs, as his body yields around a broad cockhead. Zack bores heavily into him in measured presses of his hips; even when he takes small breaks, Cloud still braces for the next few centimeters, aware of each individual ridge, each vein, as it edges through his entrance and past sensitive walls.

When Zack slides all of the way to the hilt, Cloud’s torso rattles with a throaty, gratified moan, every muscle in his body pulling taut around Zack from the vast, hair-splitting high of it. The breath he’s been trying to heave out splinters into pieces, dissolves into tight breathing, and the small movement sends his hips stuttering further back into Zack’s, the line of their bodies perfectly flush against one another.

Cloud claws desperately at the only things in reach—one hand grasping the forearm slotted securely around his abdomen, the other clinging back onto Zack’s shoulder with the grip of someone on the edge of a mountain cliff. Zack’s own free hand can’t seem to land on any one place, kneading over his nipples and dappling between his inner thighs, before taking Cloud’s straining fingers and lacing them between his own.

“You okay, baby?”

“M’so good. So… full.” Cloud’s brows pinch from how much he struggles to keep his eyes open, vision muddling from the sheer effort, the sharp pleasure. “Keep going. Please.”

“Knew you’d take it so well,” Zack grits out, a harshness underscoring his words as though even speaking wrings pleasure from him. Cloud finds it unbelievably heady to be able to coax out these kinds of noises from Zack—noises that come from somewhere guttural, somewhere even the likes of Zack has no control over. They continue to spill from his lips as his cock very nearly slips out of Cloud, the tip still breaching him, only to drive back in a long, wet slide.

Each thrust sears through Cloud like a flood of molten lava, deep rolls of Zack’s hips that surge in and out of him in waves of mind-bending friction, until his mouth falls open and his eyes are rolling behind closed eyelids. Zack then lifts his hips just so—and punches into something that shudders through every inch of him, pushing Cloud’s body into a tightly drawn arch.

Cloud reaches up to bury his fingers in the disheveled black locks hanging behind his own right shoulder, hauling him even closer. In turn, Zack cradles Cloud’s jaw with one hand and angles him to bring them together in a greedy, fleeting joining of lips.

“Cloud,” Zack murmurs against his lips the moment they separate.

“I’m so—” Cloud cries, jolting into his hold when Zack nails back into that spot that sends a wired current skittering up the length of his torso and down to the tips of his fingers. “S-so fucking… close, Zack—”

Cloud’s erect cock sways and bobs from Zack’s hammering rhythm, evidence of how much he ached, still aches, for this. When Zack reaches one hand between Cloud’s thighs to curl around his oozing cock, it’s over in seconds—he works over it with several hurried strokes before Cloud is tossing his head back into a broad shoulder, eyes sealed shut and Zack’s name loud on his lips, painting his stomach in ribbons of pearly white.

Cloud all but slumps into Zack’s arms; now exhausted and perfectly sated, he lets himself revel in the feeling of them breathing raggedly against one another, slowly slumping into battered sheets. It’s hard not to when, like this, he can hear Zack groan a shivering noise into his ear and feel him mouth at the back of his neck, all teeth and broiling desperation.

“Zack,” Cloud snivels into his surely stained comforter, drool cooling around the edges of his mouth and over the tip of his chin. Zack’s cock remains a large, steely weight inside of him, so deep that he can feel it in the back of his throat. “You’re still…”

“I know, gorgeous,” Zack mutters with a cracked grunt, caressing a thumb over where Cloud’s hole stretches wide around his cock, slick now dribbling down the back of Cloud’s thigh in honeyed rivulets. Except, now Cloud thinks he can feel something massive and fiery, still wildly swelling, at the very base of where they’re coupled, against the raw skin of his rim. “My knot, it’s—fuck, this doesn’t… doesn’t usually happen outside of my ruts.”

And Cloud’s so fucked out, he can barely scrape out a noise, his throat now raw and aching, at the realization that Zack’s knot had somehow formed outside of the clockwork of a mating cycle. That Zack got so worked up from fucking him that his body had no choice but to give in to his most visceral need to claim, to take him apart and put him back together and make him whole until there’s not a single remaining doubt of Cloud being his.

A shaky, frenzied groan is breathed into his ear, and it’s only then that Cloud notices he’s now writhing back against Zack, his inner walls clenching like a vice around his cock.

“We don’t have to—”

“I want it, Zack,” Cloud begs as he clutches his fingers over the hand Zack has planted in front of him. He couldn’t bear it if Zack leaves them like this; he needs to feel him as close as possible, like Zack is molding him to meet his every demand and desire. He needs it like a wolf aches for the thrill of the hunt—needs it like flowers bluster for the fluttering of a bee. “Fucking… please. Knot me.”

“You’re too good to me.” Zack pulls Cloud’s hips up a few inches higher, deepening the slender bow of his back. As if unable to stall for even a brief moment, his hips shift to grind, strong and purposeful, into the velvet clutch of Cloud’s body. “Gods. I need to see your face, baby.”

Teeth gritted fiercely, Zack then slides out of Cloud with a dirty, wet noise, the head of his cock dragging a thin trail of precum and slick over his mess of an asscheek, and flips him so that he’s sprawled onto his back.

“I’ve never…” Cloud says around a dry swallow, and he can’t help but skim his fingertips down the sweat streaking down over Zack’s chest. “I’ve never been knotted before.”

Zack groans aloud, rearranging Cloud so that his thighs are fanned out over the seat of his legs. A large hand cupping one thigh, Zack teases the thick crown of his cock where Cloud is dripping with slick, his hole twitching in expectation. “I’m gonna make it so good for you, baby. I swear.”

Looping his arms around Zack’s shoulders, Cloud pants, “I trust you.”

This time, when Zack’s cock carves its way back inside of him, the rightness of it sings through Cloud, thrumming like a set of notes plucked from an instrument of the divine.

Despite the intense urge to keep his eyes shut, Cloud forces them open—and his unhindered view of Zack’s face is downright stomach-clenching. His forehead lusters with a golden sheen, black locks tumbling into piercing blue, and there’s something about his expression that seems raw, spellbound, as he takes in Cloud with the utmost focus.

Cloud is able to narrowly wrap his arms around broad shoulders before Zack starts fucking back into him in earnest. The sloppy smack of their hips together hurls Cloud beyond rational thought, but it’s really the strangled cry ripped from Zack’s throat that fizzles his brain into a mass of crackling static.

Zack’s hands curve under the arch of Cloud’s back and lift until only his shoulders brush against the bedspread, and at this angle, his cockhead pummels into his prostate like an elbow to the gut. Toes clenched around empty air, Cloud wails from the hypersensitivity—he can feel his cock now once again thick and bouncing between them, and yet he doesn't think he could handle it being touched.

“You’re so fucking perfect like this,” Zack gasps, voice hoarse from exertion and keeping a relentless pace, driving into him more frantically than before.

With an unmistakable, blistering moan, Zack tenders widened flesh against Cloud’s entrance, prodding, before it begins to ease forward and split him open. The stretch of it teeters on overwhelming, and yet he indulges beautifully, obscenely, spreading to accommodate every excruciating, toe-curling inch—as though his body is capable of anything as long as Zack is the one to reshape him from the inside out.

One minute, he’s babbling his gratitude against Zack’s temple, writhing under the onslaught—and the next, his body is swallowing his know in its entirety with a heady pop.

All of Cloud’s muscles snap to a halt as his orgasm hits, and its fallout is so fucking bright that the outlines of galaxies burn in his retinas for a long stretch of minutes—or hours, he can’t tell. In the midst of it, his mouth falls open with a moan so forceful, he fails to make any noise past choked sobs and high-pitched whimpers.

But nothing compares to when Zack finally comes, shuddering over him with his own wavering cry, rolling into Cloud with long surges of liquid heat; it’s seemingly endless as his cock sputters steadily into him, only ceasing when white begins to brim over and spill down Cloud’s shivering thighs. The strength of Zack’s bracing arm around his middle keeps him from melting immediately into the bed in the aftermath, and the sounds of their breathing become faint as his vision wanes into a medley of shapeless color.

When he finally comes to, Zack is stroking over his lower abdomen, whispering tender nothings in his ear.

“Cloud? You with me, baby? I lost you for a bit.”

Blinking the marbled specks of light from his eyes, Cloud rasps, “Zuh—Zack?”

Zack presses his laugh against the grooves of his collarbones, now littered with bruises and sweet little marks Cloud knows he’ll marvel at tomorrow. “You drooled a little bit, gorgeous. How are you feeling?”

“I feel…” Cloud says, his voice nearly unrecognizable from how it collapses around every word. Now, he’s cognizant of the saliva cooling in a line over his jaw, and he whines out in relief when Zack wipes it away with a few swabs of his thumb. “...amazing.”

“Gods. I want to see you like this all the fucking time. Hanging off of me like you were made for me. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, milking me.”

His skin prickles with pins and needles, oversensitive from the continuous pressure inside of him, and yet the words send him reeling with something impressed in his most primal instincts. The mass of want in his gut writhes so intensely that he can barely force his airways open enough to take a breath in, to keep himself from whiting out again from the exquisite torture. Instead, he squeezes even tighter around alpha knot as if to keep Zack there indefinitely.

Cloud’s voice hitches, faint and tinny, as he whines out, “Shut up, Zack. I—I can’t. Please… stop talking.”

The alpha helplessly bears down even further into Cloud, Zack’s moans rattling out in satisfying fractures of his voice. Taking a shaking hand in his, Zack guides it to cradle Cloud’s lower stomach, pressing down on where it swells past its typical lithe shape. “How about this? Can you feel me?”

“Zack,” Cloud sobs, his fingers shaking as they claw into sweaty, corded muscle, his only tether of clarity amidst dizzying sensation.

“You have no idea how you feel right now. How you look. So sweet and incredible for me, and all fucking mine.”

“P-please, Zack.”

“It’s alright, pretty baby.” Zack entwines his fingers into Cloud’s, holds them still against the outline of where his alpha knot remains seated, hefty and extraordinary. “You can come again if you need to.”

As Zack moves to readjust him on his lap, the tip of his cock knocks into his prostate, and a violent pulse of agonizing pleasure streaks through Cloud's limbs. Gasping wetly, he quakes through it, managing only weak spurts of close to nothing over his navel. The shadow of a low-pitched voice near his ear tells him that Zack is equally overtaken by the way Cloud’s body undulates and tightens around him, the alpha’s teeth sinking into the firm bit of skin where neck meets shoulder.

When Cloud surfaces back into himself, he finds two warm palms smoothing over his sides, Zack kissing over his neck with light grazes of teeth and lips. Cloud feels as though his entire body was steeped in molasses, distant and buzzing blissfully, but he manages to lift a hand to slide over Zack’s jaw, guiding him up to face him properly.

They kiss like this, and then they kiss again—so sweet and lulling that Cloud has to swallow down a whimper of protest the second that Zack moves to draw away.

“I kept talking,” Zack admits ruefully into the air between them. “Sorry, baby.”

When their eyes meet, they both break into hoarse chuckles, short-winded, but still full and unrestrained. Zack’s laughter comes across especially buoyant and gorgeous; Cloud wants to swallow the sound down until it melts into his. Instead, he breathes, “S’fine. I knew that’d be a tall order for you.”

“You make it impossible to shut up.”

In his post-orgasm high, Cloud can’t control the movement of his hands; they now thumb over Zack’s eyebrows, caress over his cheekbones, outline the slope of his nose bridge.

“I like it that way.”

Brushing another kiss against his hairline, Zack offers, “How about I help clean us up to make it up to you? Maybe give you a back rub?”

“There’s nothing to make up,” Cloud hums, his fingers now descending to smooth over the line of Zack’s shoulders. “Just… stay right where you are.”

“Done deal, Spike.”

When summer comes, it brings the blanketed heat of humid mornings. Cloud wonders if it only manages to spur them on.

Cloud’s thighs are trembling as he rolls his hips in a slow, unrelenting rhythm, gasping out breaths against the short black locks feathered above Zack’s ears. His back snaps into an arch when a thick cockhead sledgehammers into him at just the right angle—that place inside of him that transforms his vision into sheet lightning, a plane of solid radiance flashing beneath his eyelids. Zack mouths at his scent gland between his own sounds of devastating bliss, his palms spanning across the entire width of Cloud’s slim, sculpted waist.

“You’re shaking, baby,” Zack murmurs against the scarlet skin of his neck, teeth now nipping into hypersensitive skin. “Need some help?”

A throttled moan breaks from the depths of Cloud’s chest, the burn of his leg muscles gnawing as his movements wane into quick little stutters of his hips. “Ah… uh, Zack—”

Zack rasps out a laugh, his fingers lowering onto the sticky skin of Cloud’s hips. “Is that a yes?”

“You dickhead,” Cloud chokes, his voice inches away from breaking when Zack keeps drilling into his prostate with the precision that comes only with constant, ceaseless practice.

“You know I like it when you use your words, sweetheart.”

“Yes, I… take over, Zack. Fucking please.”

A groan gritted from clenched teeth, Zack then begins pistoning his hips up into Cloud, holding him still so that he can do nothing but take the full brunt of Zack’s hammering pace. Mouth smearing hot breath between them, Zack grips Cloud’s cock with an unyielding hand, twisting around its weeping head until the thick white of Cloud’s release begins to spurt over his fingers.

Cloud’s orgasm slams into him with the force of a splintering wave, and liquid heat sputters over his pebbled nipples, his flexing abs, Zack’s coiled fist. Zack fucks him through it vigorously, and the crest of Cloud’s pleasure stretches for long minutes, zipping in white-hot streaks up and down his spine.

When Zack finally comes, it’s in deep, shuddering strokes, a flood of pressure pulsing inside of Cloud in uneven, mouth-watering rushes of heat. Zack heaves out a guttural cry against the underside of Cloud’s jaw, until the sound devolves into devout utterances of his name, of how grateful he is, spoken like they’re the few words Zack’s ever known.

Collapsing against a steely chest, Cloud feels too spent to do anything beyond lave liberally at the base of Zack’s neck, eyelashes fluttering in blissful relief. He can’t help but make a noise of complaint when his hips are lifted and Zack slips out of him in a slick slide, the wetness trickling down his leg obvious against the chill of a morning breeze.

An open window brings the sounds of growing daybreak. Amid the hum of cicadas nesting in neighboring trees, the whir of early traffic rolling over still empty roads, Cloud lets Zack drape him over the cool side of the mattress, a careful ease to his movements, and take a clean towel to his skin. His body feels close to gelatinous, his limbs heavy as though moored in something viscid, but he somehow manages to pull Zack back in between the spread of his legs.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Zack whispers, low and caramel-sweet.

It almost slipped his mind that few words had been exchanged between them prior to this moment. When the glimmer of dawn had seeped through his blinds, Cloud had greeted Zack with a sweet press of lips, a “how was your sleep?” readied on his tongue, but became swept up in his sleep-swollen mouth instead. Zack’s hair mussed between his fingers, the rasping little grunt he made when Cloud rolled into his lap just so—easy kindling that broke into a blazing frenzy.

“G’morning.” Cloud breaks into a giddy laugh that becomes more breath than sound as it’s buried against the slow, intent kisses Zack slots against his lips.

“What’s it this time?” Zack lets his smile grow, as gleeful as a dog with two tails, as he settles his cheek into the small divot between Cloud’s ribs. “Do I look ridiculous again?”

“You look like you’ve been mauled.”

Cloud weaves his hands through a ruffled black mane, snorting when they stand in misshapen clumps in between the gaps of his fingers. Zack lets his cheek sink further into the flat of Cloud’s chest, muttering, “Mm. That’s a good word for it.”

“Oh yeah? I’d call it more of a makeover.”

Cloud startles as his nightstand begins to clatter with the pulsing of his phone. With a small groan, Zack rummages for it with a few pats of his hand and brings it into Cloud’s line of sight.

“It’s your Ma. Want to answer it?”

Cloud considers it briefly before sagging back into plush pillows, waving the call away, uttering, “S’fine. I’ll call her back later.”

Zack takes his cue to nestle back into his previous position, resting his chin on the fingers he laces over Cloud’s abdomen. “You think she knows you’re with me?”

“She probably has some idea,” Cloud mumbles as he twines tufts of black hair that drape over the back of Zack’s neck, forming tight ringlets around his fingers. “She’s known about you for a while."

Zack’s eyes flick up to meet his own, widened and even more transparent in his shock. Somehow, his sun spots look even more charming from this distance, in the morning light, giving shape to his earnest, unbarred attention. They make Zack so much more tangible—so beautifully real. Cloud lets his eyes indulge and draw over them leisurely; he wonders what it means that he doesn’t find them quite as distressing as he once did.

“Really? When’d you tell her?”

“I told Ma about you when we first met,” Cloud shrugs, but his airiness is betrayed by the subtle waver in his voice, in the faltering of the fingers he trails down between Zack’s shoulder blades.

“You’re serious? So I made a good first impression?”

“Hm, well. Actually, I thought you were a little suspect.” Cloud huffs out a laugh at how Zack’s smug smile dissolves almost immediately from his expression. “I didn’t get what you were aiming at. What kind of person cleans out a bathtub for a person they’d just met?”

Sulking, Zack mumbles, “Is it crazy I wanted to keep talking to you?”

“I know that now,” Cloud complains, but it’s difficult to feign annoyance when Zack’s chuckle splits the sides of his face and quakes through both of their chests. “Luckily, she had a good ‘gut feeling’ about you. And to her, that’s basically gospel.”

“She’s a godsend.”

“There were a few weeks where she asked me almost everyday if we were still… friends.” Cloud confesses softly, combing through Zack’s sweat-matted bangs and tucking them behind his ears. “She swears she’s the reason I can be so cynical about people.”

“Really? Your Ma doesn’t seem like the cynical type.”

“You’re right, she’s not. The complete opposite, really. She’s the type to always want to see the best in people. It makes her a prime scam target.”

“Ah, I see. I think you're too smart for that, Spike.”

A soft tap against Zack’s shoulder, and then they’re both shifting to sit up against the headboard, the sheet pooling in silken ripples over their laps. Cloud’s relieved at the crisp breeze that brushes over the light sheen of sweat lingering on his chest; he’s relieved that Zack sits here by his side. They say that time can mend most wounds, and it does in ways. But choosing to pick back through them, unfortunately for him, has its own set of rules.

“Maybe now. I wasn’t always, though. My first boyfriend was definitely a conman.”

“No way. He didn’t steal from you, did he?”

“No, not like that,” Cloud then pauses, only continuing when Zack slides a hand over his forearm and loosely threads their fingers together. “It’s more like… he used to cheat on me. A lot. And I pretty much let it happen. He just had to say ‘I love you’ here and some other sickly bullshit and I’d forgive him just like that. Ma thinks that I kept letting it happen because… she’d taken my dad back so many times.”

“That guy was a fucking loser,” Zack lets slip before he sits stock still, his eyes widening comically. “Wait, sorry. I didn’t mean your dad, I meant—”

“No, you’re right,” Cloud admits with a rueful smile, and with it, he thinks he can feel another kernel of something untwist from somewhere in the recesses of his stomach.

“Was your dad like that too?”

“Yeah, funny enough. He was the kind of guy who could talk anyone into anything. I can understand why my mom believed it. Him. It’d work on me, too. He’d come back to live with us just like that—no arguments, no consequences. It feels pretty dumb in retrospect. He could tell us anything and we’d just buy it.”

The skin between his brows pinching, Zack says, “He’s flesh and blood. I’d believe it, too.”

“Maybe he was being honest sometimes, I don’t know. I never really knew him beyond his anger and his lying and these brief moments where… I mean, those were the few days he really felt like my dad. I guess he just eventually changed his mind about wanting to stick around.”

“Baby. C’mere.” Zack pulls him onto his lap with a battered, honest rasp, curling both arms around Cloud’s back until he’s almost crushed against his chest. Cloud relishes in the strength of it—clutches onto him with an even tighter grip. “He’s the one that missed out. You’re so fucking incredible.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said Ma kept badgering me about you.”

“Where was your Ma when I needed her?”

“I’d really like you to meet her.” Cloud burrows his nose further into Zack’s shoulder, drawing in mouthfuls of sandalwood and amber as though, with enough effort, his scent could permanently coat his lungs.

“I already have days saved to take off from the brewery whenever you’re ready. You just tell me when.”

Raising his head clumsily, Cloud keeps his gaze fixed on the wooden slats of his headboard as he sniffs out, “Sorry for ruining the morning.”

“None of that.” Zack brushes locks of blonde hair from his forehead, ducking his head to meet partially shuttered blue, gaze as unwavering as sturdy mountain peaks. “Nothing’s ruined. I feel lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Zack mutters under his breath, steadfast, “Yeah. So fucking lucky.”

A skeptical, perhaps a touch blubbering, noise shakes out of Cloud’s chest. “Zack, I…”

Cloud can feel the words form into tangible shapes in his mouth—crystalline masses lying dormant under his tongue. Ready to be lurched free with only a small exhale, only a quiet pitch of his voice. It’d be so simple like this: exposed to the hollows of his bones, misshapen, and yet still held.

Arms locking around Cloud’s middle, Zack’s nose bumps lightly into his cheek; grazes a line over the delicate skin under Cloud’s eyes, down the slope of his jaw, against the jut of his chin. Insistent hands bring Cloud even further into him and tip his head into a kiss.

Cloud tumbles into it, into him, and lets whatever he’d had to say unravel back into balmy air.

At the sudden lungful of florals and smoked leather, Cloud nudges his headphones off of blonde spikes to settle around his neck. His belongings are scattered over the bench, the one Angeal had moved into the brewery’s spacious barrel room for their “more frequent visitors,” of whom Cloud was grateful he didn’t specify.

A tall omega towers over him with a look of scrutiny. He merely taps his foot until Cloud gets the hint, clearing the spot next to him of the sizable container of potato chips Kunsel let him poach from the kitchen. Even then, the other remains standing.

Typical.

“What’s up, Gen?” Cloud murmurs, his eyes shifting back to the laptop balanced on cross-legged knees.

“Here again, are you?” Genesis questions as he flicks Cloud’s computer closed with little more than a nudge of his hand. As is customary, he disregards Cloud’s disgruntled noise, continuing, “With how frequently I find you loitering, you may as well consider seeking employment.”

Frowning, Cloud slips his things into the black satchel settled at his feet. “This again? I already have a job.”

“In my most humble opinion, it’s not suitable for you.”

“You? Humble?”

Genesis gestures with a flourish, hand sweeping over the red apron fluttering near his ankles, embroidered with neat, golden lettering. “I am the very picture of humility.”

“No, you’re right. Not flashy whatsoever,” Cloud drones with his flattest expression. He averts his eyes to Angeal in the distance, his bulky figure pouring large white bags of something grain-like into a steel barrel. “You don’t honestly want me to work here, do you?”

“It would make things much simpler, would it not?”

“I think our definitions of simple are very different.”

Narrowed blue eyes once again drill into Cloud’s own before, to his surprise, Genesis appears to deflate with a whole-body exhale. A disdainful quirk in his lip, he picks at the jacket Zack had thrown over the right armrest, flinging it atop Cloud’s other things, and perches next to him on creaking wood.

“If I may grace you with a small tale?”

“You’ve never asked for my permission before,” Cloud says around an incredulous grin.

“You see—when I first inherited this business, my father had recently passed and I was, frankly, ill-equipped to handle such a massive undertaking at the time. If it were not for Sephiroth and Angeal, I have no doubt this business would not be standing as is. And conversely, we’d never have confronted our shortcomings, both together and apart, if not for it.”

“Huh. Zack makes it seem like you guys have always had your shit together.”

“Preposterous. It took time to get where we are now. Zack had arrived shortly after we’d ironed out its… well, our more unrefined creases, so that explains his ignorance.”

Cloud’s eyes flicker with a morsel of understanding. “So you think the same could be true for me and Zack?”

“In the most simplified of terms, yes.” The pinch in Genesis’s brow eases, and from this position, he almost appears wistful, peering at Cloud with the expression of a person who’s known him for lifetimes. “As it would have it, you remind me of myself during that time. I was also quite prickly.”

“Only then?” Cloud questions, but the words lack any genuine bite.

“And exceedingly stubborn. You know, I was becoming impatient watching you and Zack go through the same turmoil that the three of us endured. After all, it’s awfully senseless.”

“About that.” Hiking his foot over the edge of his seat, Cloud coils an arm around his leg, hooking his chin over his bent knee. “I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been meaning to… well—”

“If you’re attempting to thank me for my little impromptu speech, save it,” Genesis gripes as he examines the shape of his fingernails, his attitude dismissive as though Cloud’s gratitude is nothing but empty air. But the proud straightening in his posture, the small curve in his lips, prove otherwise. “I did nothing beyond pointing out the obvious.”

“Well, to two stubborn idiots, it… meant a lot.”

“On account of you admitting your idiocy, I’ll perhaps consider accepting your gratitude. But understand this: it’s beneath me.”

“Roger that,” Cloud says, stifling a laugh with a crooked finger against his mouth. “But I do have to admit something. I think it’d be better if Zack and I didn’t work together.”

A scoff meets his reply before Genesis tuts, “And why is that?”

“I kind of like that Zack has his own thing. He’s into all of this, and I’m still… figuring it out. Plus, I don’t know how productive we’d be.” A beat of silence passes, and then Cloud is clearing his throat with a sudden realization. “Uh, let me rephrase—”

“I suppose that’s astute of you.” Rising from his seat, Genesis crosses his arms over his chest, hurtling out a deep sigh. “At the very least, I’m certain Zack would be happy with whatever decision you made. That boy… I’m sure you know he’s quite determined to do right by you.”

“I do.” Cloud rises to his feet, muttering so softly he’s unsure if anything beyond the wind can make out the words. “I feel the same.”

“Enough of this.” Genesis whips his head in the direction of a far corner, his voice projecting across the space with unsurprising ease. “‘Geal! Would you be a dear and grab myself and our lovely Cloud something to drink?”

Ever so gracious, Angeal’s smile broadens as he shoots back, “You got it, love. Water? Tea? We’ve got some freshly made kombucha in the back—”

“Coworker perks, you see?” Genesis gloats over the space next to Cloud’s ear, preening.

Angeal’s voice follows as he immediately pivots, now striding in the direction of the bar’s kitchen. “—that I could pour into a cold glass if that’s preferable—”

Planting his hands on his hips, Cloud mumbles under his breath, “Well, fuck me.”

Dropping a set of keys over a small metal hook, Cloud unties the knotted laces of his boots, tugging them off and stowing them in Zack’s foyer. A crumb of guilt mars his conscience at the sight of his other oxfords and sneakers scattered at his feet—small examples of the things he can never remember to take with him when he returns home. Still, he tiptoes around them ruefully as he pads down the hallway, tailing the echoes of clinking metalward and shuttering cabinets.

“I’m back,” Cloud says as he spots the back of Zack’s form hovering over his small kitchenette, rustling through large plastic bags and uncovering white styrofoam containers. “You got food already?”

“Baby,” Zack coos, the beaming edge of his grin still visible when he turns ever so slightly to greet Cloud. “So glad you were down for Vietnamese food. Angeal swears by this spot.”

“Can’t wait. M’starving.” Cloud twines his own arms around Zack’s middle, his nose grazing the defined divot between his shoulder blades. At the sound of hefty ceramic settling onto the countertop, he peers over the other’s back, curious at the dark green dinner plates he’d never seen before. “Are those new?”

“Oh yeah! I grabbed them for when your Ma’s in town. Cool, right?”

“They’re nice.” Cloud steps beside Zack, shutting one eye fleetingly where the other chances a quick peck, his lips landing somewhere between lid and brow. As though imbued into his reflexes, Zack’s mouth wanders down Cloud’s cheek before finding his lips, and they kiss like a tender exhale. “I hope you don’t feel pressured to buy more stuff. Ma’s pretty no frills. You’ve seen my apartment.”

“Your place is great, though.”

“It is?”

“Why do you think we’re always over at yours?” Zack mentions, mouth lifted into a charming line.

There’s truth to his words, Cloud knows. At night, when they smooth out the day’s tangled knots together, they often curl up in his time-worn bed until one of them eventually drifts off. Movie nights at his are almost a guarantee considering his much more sizable, and objectively superior, movie collection. And if their friends wanted to visit for any number of reasons—the most common being to plunder their growing stash of free alcohol—they’d usually end up at Cloud’s.

“I’m not doing anything special. Most of my things are just gifts from Aerith and Tifa I didn’t know what to do with.”

“But It just feels so you. I’ve been trying to fix it up in here, but man. It’s a lot of work. You’re much better at it.”

“I can help you, if you want,” Cloud says as he slides open rigid foam and begins to dole out equal portions of vermicelli noodles onto their two respective plates. In between servings, he holds up pieces of lemongrass chicken and sliced carrot to Zack’s mouth for him to try, snickering when the other takes large, grateful bites.

Zack watches him carefully as he eats, chin perched on his fist. Between chews, he utters, “My last apartment felt even emptier. Even with two people in it.”

Cloud pauses at that; it’d been more than a few months since he’d heard Zack’s voice wander into this specific tone.

“Weren’t you and Cissnei pretty squeezed for cash then?”

“Gods, yeah. Sucked.” Zack gnaws on his bottom lip for a long moment, fiddling with a piece of cubed daikon between his chopsticks. “But it was more than that, I think. Neither of us ever really moved in.”

“You didn’t keep everything in boxes, did you?”

“Nah, luckily it wasn’t that bad. But I never… spread out? Most of my things fit into one set of drawers. I always made sure to put everything away. I stopped eating there, so I never had a need for plates. Neither did Cissnei. She never said anything about it, but I convinced myself that being an annoying, in-your-face kinda roommate would’ve just made things worse for her. Walking on eggshells around each other was our thing, I guess.”

“What about when you moved here?”

“Well, I… some habits definitely stuck with me. I didn’t feel the need to spend that much time here until, honestly, this year. Always figured I’d work out instead, or go for a drive, or put more hours into the brewery.”

“Sorry. That must’ve been rough.” Zack leans heavily into the palm Cloud glides over his jaw, always so eager to absorb his affection like a sponge.

“You’ve made it feel much less empty in here, though.”

Cloud swallows around air—thinks about how effortless it is for Zack to turn the conversation around on him on the spot. “You don’t think I’ve left too much shit here?”

“Like what?”

“Like those piles of winter jackets I’ve left in your closet. Or all of my shoes in your hallway.”

“Not at all. I’ve even tried a lot of them on.”

Cloud barely has the wherewithal to shove at Zack’s shoulder. “You’re gonna stretch them out.”

“Jessie would love that, though.”

“Ignoring that,” Cloud scoffs, returning to his plate and popping a mouthful of rice into his mouth. Zack extends an arm out for him to sidle into, and even mid-chew, Cloud doesn’t hesitate to inch over to him, nestling quietly into his side. “Maybe we should spend more time here. Just so you can settle in more.”

Zack’s eyes carry a nakedness that manages to leach all of the moisture out of Cloud’s mouth. “We don’t have to.”

“It’s important,” Cloud exhales, and without much fanfare, adds, “All I really care about is that you’re…”

Arm tight around his middle, Zack grins against a pinkened ear, “What? That I’m there?”

The drag of ceramic against wood is noisy as Cloud pushes Zack’s plate into his abdomen. “Eat your food.”

This is arguably Cloud’s least favorite time of the year barring, well, his heats.

Zack’s window-shoved air conditioner hisses, miserable, from across the room. On a better day, he’d retreat to Tifa’s place, hole up somewhere her central air has rescued him multiple times out of a muggy ninety degrees outside. Today, he languishes in tousled sheets, swathed from head to toe in soft cotton and the scent of sweet spice.

That morning, he’d woken up with a pounding behind his eyes, the sun’s light an unrelenting pain, and an ache in his muscles that was indicative of something more than the usual back pain he’d accepted as just a staple of getting older. In the leaden fog of waking up, he’d somehow managed to tear himself out of bed and lumber to the apartment a few doors down, the keys Zack had gifted him for his past birthday clutched tightly in hand. He’d shuffled into Zack’s apartment, and the line in his shoulders slumped with the remnants of the alpha’s scent and presence seeping through his senses like melted honey.

But even that hadn’t been quite enough to settle that familiar itch that prickles like a dull rash under his skin. He’d taken to digging in Zack’s wardrobe for his most well-worn sweatshirt, changing into it as soon as he possibly could and burrowing himself into creased cotton. Sweat lines the nape of his neck, creeps down the dip of his spine in humid trails, but the fabric still soothes, draped to his thighs and enfolded over his hands; it's so drenched in the alpha’s scent that it’s almost enough to convince his hormones that Zack’s here with him in the flesh.

Mercifully, he doesn’t have to wait for very long.

“Spike!” Cloud hears mere seconds before the bed dips from behind him and a pair of arms snake around his waist, the tip of a cold nose burying itself into the divot behind his ear. The omega's hands shake with sudden, stark relief. “It’s been seven months. Are you feeling okay?”

“Hours, you mean,” Cloud says, smoothing his fingertips over Zack’s forearms. His muscles melt into liquid wax in Zack’s grip. Pressed together like this, the heat between them verges on agonizing, and yet Zack’s touch douses his nerves like a crisp glass of water—every string of mounting tension cut with his solidness finally under Cloud’s hands. “M’fine. Missed you.”

“I missed you.” Zack draws back several inches to examine him, his gaze weighty and burning as it drags over his profile, down his neck, along the line of his shoulders; Cloud’s skin begins to break into gooseflesh from the mere awareness of it. “Seph let me come back a little early when I got your text.”

“It’s not like it’s my heat or anything.”

“Hm, but something close.” Pliant and heavy-limbed, Cloud lets Zack maneuver him effortlessly so that they now face one another, the alpha’s arm slotting under the slope of his lower back. “Besides, now it’s my turn.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Cloud murmurs, but the words fall somewhere breathy as opposed to sarcastic.

“I didn’t think you’d be this cuddly,” Zack says with a gritty exhale, tugging at Cloud’s sweatshirt collar to expose even more tender skin. “And you smell… unreal. My mouth’s fucking watering.”

A sound threatens to claw up and out of Cloud’s chest, one so viscerally pleased with the praise that even his gums throb with the need to let it free. Instead, he croaks, “Not as good as you.”

“Is there anything you need, love?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Something guttural rumbling in his chest, Zack fixes him with darkened, blown pupils. “You know I still want to hear you say it.”

“Of course you do.” Cloud’s voice is weak, nothing more than a cracked whisper, as he hooks his arms around Zack’s shoulders and paws at the heated skin at the nape of his neck. He thinks he should feel humiliated—shuddering when Zack’s hardly touched him, oozing a scent far too cloying to be anything less than pitiful—and he thinks with anyone else he would. But it’s Zack, and Zack always wipes the crust from his eyes after they wake and tells him he’s precious. Zack listens to Cloud recounting his day as though his stories are worthy of history books, and never pries when he's in a mood. Zack talks about them growing old together as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I… I feel sick from how much I want you.”

“Oh, baby.”

“I want you so fucking badly, I…”

“My poor Spike,” Zack croons, pathing rueful kisses from Cloud’s cheek to the edges of his mouth. “Say no more. I’m all yours.”

Zack decides to shatter him apart right there, splayed out in front of him on his hands and knees. A set of teeth latched onto his neck, Cloud scrabbles, his hands useless with nothing but crumpled sheets to grasp onto. The bite pulses with scalding, leg-shaking potency, and yet it’s not quite where he wants it—so close, too close, but several centimeters too high for it to become anything more than a sweet bruise that’ll heal in a few days.

They’ve never quite fucked like this, moving together like animals as though their singular purpose is to rut against each other frantically. To take and own and milk until all of the hollowed spaces inside of Cloud conform to Zack’s shape and weight and heat.

“Need you closer.” Cloud’s words inch toward a sob, a strong hand reaching back to claw at Zack’s arm.

“S’this not close enough, sweetheart?” Zack grits out as he drags his cock in and out of Cloud slowly, torturously, before he pauses to haul their hips flush together. Cloud squirms, twists with desperate little movements of his hips, as if his body can’t decide if it’s too overwhelming to bear or not even marginally close to satisfying enough.

“It’s not. You’re not… Zack.”

A snarl vibrates from the chest curved over his back, and Zack is then snapping into him faster, punchier, pulling Cloud up a little higher on his knees to carve into him in that way that makes his knees buckle and his nerves simmer in mouth-watering torment. Cloud chokes out a small sputter of a breath, like all of the wind has been knocked from his lungs. He can only brace his fingers into black locks and pull as if that is enough to communicate the sheer want hammering behind his teeth, between his thighs, in the base of his gut.

Like this, almost all of Cloud’s weight rests in the hands curved around his trim waist, and he can tell how much Zack savors the sight by the way he curses under his breath, thrusting in more forceful, unsteady jerks of his hips. It’s at that moment they take notice of it—the root of Zack’s cock starting to swell, and Cloud’s instincts burn through him like ignited tinder with the need to be split open with it.

“Fuck. I’m gonna knot, baby. Is that okay?”

“I’ll be so fucking pissed if you don’t knot me. Zack, p-please,” Cloud babbles, sliding his knees further apart on clammy sheets from just the promise of what’s to come.

His world narrows into nothing but Zack driving into him in brutal, hilted strokes, obscene wetness webbing and squelching between their hips—and before Cloud can utter a word, he’s sent careening toward oblivion, every muscle clenching and convulsing like a million tiny detonations are set off in his body all at once.

His cries do little to slow Zack down, and before he knows it, the alpha is pressing his knot into him with deliberate grinds of his hips.

A gritty whine tears from the depths of Zack’s chest, and then the broadened base of his cock begins to edge into Cloud and spread him apart. The stretch of it lasts for what feels like hours as it heaves into Cloud, teeth-clenching, every inch a blistering reminder of how much he’d ached for this since the last time.

It continues to compress his brain into waves of white noise—the knot completely rooting itself inside of him, like a puzzle piece snapping perfectly into place. Cloud writhes with it, wails against the bed as he comes again in trembling, full-body jolts. But he doesn’t feel truly quelled until Zack is also quivering against his back, coming in sharp jerks that flood into him until he’s close to bursting.

“Should’ve turned you around,” Zack groans when his orgasm slows to a spent dribble, his mouth smearing open-mouthed kisses across Cloud’s heaving shoulders.

“S’okay. We can still…” Cloud slurs as he slants his face toward Zack as much as he can like this, digging his nose into defined arm muscle in silent demand. A candied coo meets his words, and then a broad hand tips his chin up, up, up until they’re kissing, Cloud’s pleased whine swilling between the tender glide of their lips.

“Not sure the knot will last for long.” With careful hands, Zack positions them to lie prone on their sides, Cloud’s head cradled on a spare pillow. The length of their bodies are sweetly aligned, and with a ragged sigh, Zack smooths his hand over Cloud’s lower stomach, admiring the slight jut of it in his palm. “But I can give you more of what you need closer to your heat, baby.”

“Don’t care. Just want you.”

“I’m here, beautiful.”

Cloud’s mind sails, floats, in a place that solely manifests in the sublime. His most primal self feels satiated in a way that he didn't think possible—his every passing thought coalescing to sensation, to the euphoria of Zack enveloping him so thoroughly that he can no longer tell where he ends and Zack begins.

It’s in this state that, loose-tongued, he lets slip, “You know, Tifa said it felt incredible. When Aerith gave her the bite.”

A quiet groan is tucked into the soft hair dusting over his nape. “What a time to bring that up.”

With the naked want in Zack’s voice comes sudden, glaring clarity. This is more than a passing thought that plagues dull moments—this is something he never lets himself consider outside of the thoughts he tucks away when he’s alone. It lives in the heart of his most outlandish vision of the future. Maybe he’s being dramatic; it’d only last for a few years at most, but the reality of carrying a more complete form of Zack’s scent still hurtles into him with the full-speed of a moving train.

“Sorry. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now.”

“Thinking about ‘it’?” Zack whispers, his breath heavy in the shell of his ear. “You don’t mean… becoming mates?”

Cloud pushes his tongue against the back of his teeth; his response practically topples out of him in the form of a rasping, “Yeah.”

Zack rises as though he means to sit up, and neither of them can stifle a moan when his knots wrenches at where he’s still buried in Cloud deliciously. “Fuck. This should be a talk for another time.”

In the thick of catching his breath, Cloud manages to quip, “You mean when you’re not stuck between my legs?”

“Cloud.”

Reaching an arm behind his shoulder, Cloud cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of startling clear blue. “You’re right. We can talk about it later, maybe.”

“Maybe? Now that’s all I’m gonna think about,” Zack says as his arms tighten around Cloud’s abdomen. “I’m fucking… floored you’d even consider me.”

“Zack, who else would I consider?” Cloud laughs softly, threading his fingers back through mussed black spikes and tugging at them gently. Their noses graze over each other for a moment before Zack readjusts, slotting their lips together.

When they part, Zack’s voice is thick with honesty. “Anyone. No one. I don’t know.”

“Well, there’s someone.”

Zack’s head then dips, teeth ghosting over Cloud’s unmarked scent gland, and he groans over pebbling skin, “We will talk about this.”

His words burrow into the base of Cloud’s spine and climb up his nerves like a rising flame. Cloud merely shivers out, “Looking forward to it, Cap’.”

They’re blearily regarding their reflections in the mirror when he says it.

Cloud feels curiously at ease. Toothpaste frothing at the corners of his mouth, sleep weighing heavily on his eyelids, he mutters, “Zack… I love you.”

Zack freezes mid-brush, toothbrush dangling past his lips. “M’sorry?”

Cloud hides a small smile into the washcloth he dabs over his lips. “I love you.”

“Wait, hold on. Let me wake up a bit more,” Zack says as he slips the toothbrush out of his mouth, palms slapping over his face in quick, light succession. “Okay, say that again?”

“Zack.”

Zack’s arms enfold around Cloud so unexpectedly, they both teether in place from the force of it. Against blonde locks, Zack is close to singing when he says, “We’re in love. How bonkers bananas is that?”

“Not as bonkers bananas as the toothpaste you're getting in my hair.”

“Just let me have this. Cloud Strife loves me.”

“Yeah,” Cloud whispers from where he digs his nose into Zack’s collarbones, thankful that the other’s hold has yet to lighten up. “For a long time now.”

“I fucking love you, too. So much.”

When Cloud notices the shuttering of Zack’s eyes, the alpha’s head dipping down unhurriedly, he stops him with a hand on his cheek and a thumb on his philtrum, smiling, “Woah there, cowboy.”

“What?” Zack pouts against the palm of his hand. “I thought we could seal it with a kiss?”

Cloud thumbs at the white foam caught in the creases of Zack’s lips, hopes the glassiness in his eyes isn’t too obvious under the bathroom’s amber light.

“Then hurry up and finish brushing.”

When the sun had set its palm on the floor by his boot-clad feet, it had felt final—like it, too, was saying goodbye to an old friend.

The little ceramic dish by the entranceway, his sizable collection of boots, his budding plants—all packed away in cardboard boxes gathered neatly in his foyer, ready to be moved.

He’ll have to adjust to a new one soon, he thinks.

Dulled keys grapsed in hand, he pushes past his front door and prods it closed with a light nudge of his shoulder. He breezes down the hallway marked by cracked wallpaper, rides up the age-beaten elevator, and steps back out onto faded carpeting with a bewilderment to his steps.

As Cloud nears a weathered door, he notices someone leaning against it, their tall figure framed by mussed spikes and built shoulders. The other brightens at his approach, pushing off from Marle’s apartment door, almost transformed by his presence—a nocturnal flower unfurling in the glow of a full moon.

“Baby,” Zack croons as his outstretched arm manages to coil around Cloud’s waist, drawing him in close with satisfying ease. “Decided you wanted to get the keys with me?”

“Figured you needed the help.”

Zack’s smile looks especially unguarded today, and Cloud doesn’t hesitate to cradle his cheek in his palm. Zack leans into it as readily as the wisteria that unfurls over the side of their building, never failing to bloom in the late days of spring.

“Already the most attentive little roommate.”

“Actually, I was thinking the chance of you losing our keys in between here and the new place is more than zero.”

“I don’t know about that, Spike,” Zack says lowly against his fingers, and whatever retort Cloud had readied on his tongue scatters like loose petals caught in a headwind. “I think you’re feeling sentimental.”

Before Cloud has a chance to haul Zack into him, a voice drawls, “You here for the keys to the one-bedroom on seven? You have a week before I take your other sets of keys.”

Only bothering to pull a few inches away, Zack braves their landlord with a bold-faced grin. “Promise to clear out of our places by then.”

“Don’t make me wait,” Marle warns dryly, her expression dagger-sharp and her arms crossing over her chest. “I knew you two idiots would get together. Eventually.”

Zack makes a small noise of curiosity, probing, “How’d you figure?”

“You really think I can’t tell the names Cloud and Fair apart? Please,” Marle scoffs, leaning against her doorframe loftily. She then reaches her arm out, dangling a gleaming set of keys from her pinched fingers.

Cloud takes it with a puzzled stare, the tops of his cheeks painted in layers of salmon-pink. “You’re kidding me.”

“I don’t kid. Had a bet about it with that redhead on the third floor.”

A choked noise stammers past Zack’s lips, and then he manages to ask, “You at least won, right?”

“Don’t you dare mess up that spot on floor 10. It’s one of my nicest units.” Marle then directs one final look at them—one more savvy and prideful than her classic sour. “Be good, kiddos.”

The slam of her weathered door bookends her words, leaving both Zack and Cloud dumbfounded in the wake of her confession.

“Marle, the grand orchestrator?” Zack wonders as he gawks at her door, unblinking.

“When I still lived with Tifa and her uncle, I used to shred almost every piece of mail I got,” Cloud says dazedly, malleable to the pull of Zack’s arms that reposition him to meet his eyes. “Marle really waged her bets that I wouldn’t just trash all of yours.”

“And yet you took it straight into my hands every time,” Zack brags as he enfolds his hands around Cloud’s, the cold metal of their keys warming between their palms. “That wasn’t a fair bet, anyway. She had insider info.”

“What? Has she been spying on us in secret or something?”

“She might’ve figured out I have a thing for you.”

“How? When?”

Shrugging, Zack hums in thought until his smile tilts into something cheeky. “Probably around when I told her about your shitty pipes.”

“Isn’t that when we met?” Cloud asks with an incredulous laugh.

Zack slips his hands back around Cloud in lieu of a reply, gathering him back into the fold of his arms.

A curtain billows where a window has been shimmied open at the end of the hallway. The scent of velvet spice and fresh mountain pine swathes over Cloud with the gravity of an ocean tide—a combination that still manages to confound him when he’s able to catch it on the tail end of a clear breeze. A content breath out, and he lets himself unspool in Zack’s arms.

Curled into Zack’s chest, Cloud whispers, “You want to check out the new place?”

“Dying to,” Zack agrees easily, but his arms remain a crux around him, his cheek sinking into a crown of gold. “But this is so nice.”

A feeling weaves its way through Cloud; he imagines most experience it only on soaring mountaintops.

“Let’s stay like this then. There’s no rush.”