Not Alone
By
S.J. Kohl
Pairings:
Zack/Cloud, Zack/Sephiroth
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zack has
to bring Cloud back.
Disclaimer: sigh I don't own the boys.
Or the game. Or the movie. I'm bereft.
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or any of its characters. I just like to torture them a little every once in a while.
Zack looked down at the limp, pale body in his arms and forced a smile onto his grim face--a tight, pained smile. He stroked a hand across tangled locks of golden hair, streaked and crusted with dried blood, and stared into a pair of glazed, exhausted blue eyes. "It's going to be all right, Cloud. He's gone."
"He'll come back." Cloud's voice was a bare breath of a whisper. Dull and hopeless. "He always does."
Suppressing a shiver of fear, Zack didn't speak, just leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his best and only friend's dry, cracked lips. This happened often now. They'd been in this hell for years--he didn't know how many. And day after day, Shinra's guards would come and they would take Cloud out into Hojo's playground. And lately...when Cloud came back...
Zack swallowed and licked his lips, his breath coming in quick, shallow bursts. When Cloud came back now, Sephiroth was there with him. Sephiroth was him. Those eyes, those glintingly green, serpentine eyes he knew so well would be flickering just beneath the surface of Cloud's vibrant blue. Zack could sense him there, still and waiting, ever patient for the time when he could consume Cloud, could just take Zack's too innocent, tortured charge away from him. And sometimes he tried. On days like today when Cloud was weak and ill from Shinra's thrice-damned scientists, Sephiroth would attempt to wrest control of the slight, fragile shell that was Cloud. But Zack wouldn't let him. Couldn't. Cloud was his and Sephiroth would not take that away from him! Reflexively, he wrapped his arms securely around Cloud's cold, pale form and drew the younger man against him, cradling him in his arms.
He had to. He had to feel that real, solid body against him, had to match his breathing to each hollow, bare swallow of air that passed Cloud's lips because the doubts and the guilt were beginning to stir, writhing in the back of his mind. Accusations. Disgust. Terror. Cloud would fall. Cloud would fall and it would be his fault. Zack's fault. Because he would fail. He couldn't face Sephiroth down, couldn't bring Cloud back. Not again. Zack shook his head, banishing the doubts and the fear. And just to reassure himself that Cloud was still with him, was still there, he murmured, his eyes hot and almost wild, "How are you feeling?"
A shaky, heartstopping smile. "Okay, I guess." The light, spectral touch of a hand against his bare chest. "I'm glad I have you, Zack. I couldn't do this alone."
"I'll always be with you, Cloud. You'll never have to fight alone." Zack swore fervently, quietly, his fingers caressing Cloud's face, tracing the line of a jaw and the high bone of one alabaster cheek. And all the while he prayed he was telling the truth.
A slight nod, a shallow breath. "I know. And I love you for that, Zack. I love you."
Zack's heart twisted viciously in his chest and his throat closed up for one brief, torturous moment. And then he answered with all the longing of his weary spirit. "I love you, too, Cloud. I always will."
Cloud whimpered, a soft, broken sound, and Zack's heart stopped beating altogether for what seemed an eternity. A hoarse, agonized moan. "Zack...he's coming back...I can't...Zaaack!"
"Cloud!" Zack clutched tightly at the rigid, pain-wracked body pressed against him. Not again. Not now. It was too soon, dammit! Cloud's eyes flickered. A touch of green. A hint of dark madness, and suddenly he knew. He knew Cloud wasn't coming back to him. Not this time. A flash of desire. And his veins throbbed with a vicious burst of anticipation, of yearning. "No! I don't want you!" He screamed, his voice heavy and black with denial and conflict. He closed his eyes against the flood of hot tears that struggled to break free. He had to fight. Cloud was his. He loved Cloud. He had always loved Cloud, had always loved... "I don't want you, you hear me!"
The body in his arms went still, utterly and blankly still. Zack froze, struggling to open his eyes and look down into Cloud's familiar, beloved face. He didn't want to look, didn't want to see. No longer even knew what he wanted to see. Blue. He wanted to see blue. Right? Or green? Zack choked. No! No, he didn't want to see green!
Zack opened his eyes. And stared down into a pair of depthless, cruel green orbs, vertical pupils watching him with dark amusement. "Zackary." Cloud's voice, Cloud's perfect face. "I knew I would find you again."
And Zack was caught, trapped by the magnetic green gaze that had been haunting his dreams since he'd joined SOLDIER at age fifteen. No. This wasn't Sephiroth. This wasn't... "Is it really you?"
"It's me, Zackary. I came back to you." Cloud's tongue slid out to lick those lips in a leisurely gesture. Cloud's voice was low and soothing, dark and tempting. With just a hint of the abyss. "And I've missed you. You know I never wanted to leave you."
"But I...I..." The tears rose up again, cold and bitter. Zack couldn't think. The world was spinning and something was missing. Something was gone. But what was it? Cloud! This was wrong. Sephiroth was wrong. A cracked, shattered sob escaped his lips. A surge of unbearable grief and sadness. "You have to leave."
Cloud's face smiled Sephiroth's smile. "Why, Zackary? Don't you love me anymore?"
"No!" Zack closed his eyes to the tempting, familiar green, the green he'd wanted, prayed to see for so long. The green he'd loved and loved still. Sephiroth... "I don't want you here!"
"Oh, you want me, Zackary. You always have." The eyes burned with fierce savagery and Cloud's body whipped into motion, straddling Zack's shaking form and shoving his back against the wall with brutal hunger. Hands--Cloud's hands--fisted tightly in his hair and lips slammed against his, taking his mouth in a feral kiss that held nothing of love and everything of power.
Zack moaned, his eyes sliding closed as the salt of his tears mingled with the hot strength of Cloud's--Sephiroth's--kiss. His arms wound around the slender body pressed against him to dig deeply into sharply defined shoulderblades. He arched his back, thrusting himself up into Sephiroth's--Cloud's--hard muscles with mindless abandon, opening himself to that hot, demanding mouth against his. It was so good, so right. And yet...there was something...No! Zack launched himself forward, shoving against the iron strength that held him with all he had to give. He forced them to the ground, and then he was the one straddling Cloud's thin frame, his thighs pinning Cloud's arms against his sides, his hands fisted in that mass of blond hair. The green filled his vision, beckoning him, consuming him, but he steeled himself against it. "Get out!"
Green eyes glinting with sardonic enjoyment. "But Zackary, it's what you want. I'm what you want."
"That doesn't matter." Zack gritted his teeth. "You aren't Sephiroth. Jenova butchered him long ago. I can't get him back! I can't!" His hands tightened their grip and he leaned down, down, down until the green was all he knew. "But I won't let her take Cloud, too. So go! GET OUT!" He lifted the fragile skull in the death grip of his shaking hands and, tears streaming from his red-ringed blue eyes, slammed it down onto the cold stone of his tiny prison cell, watching and sobbing as the green bled away and Cloud's eyes closed with the dark emptiness of unconsciousness.
Zack didn't know how long he lay there, crouched and sobbing over Cloud's limp body, his hands curled tightly in that head of blood-streaked golden hair--his only link to reality as he was lost in memories of green eyes and endless streams of silver, of loyalty and desire and laughter and madness. Finally, Cloud stirred beneath him, and Zack felt a stab of bitter grief suffuse him as he blinked down into a pair of bright, clear blue eyes.
"Zack?" Cloud whispered, hesitantly.
Zack forced a smile onto his face, banishing the green to the back of his mind where dwelled his doubts and his fears and his ever-present guilt. But as he gazed down into those blue eyes he loved so much, he couldn't suppress a pang of longing, a traitorous desire for the next time to come. The next time he'd get a glimpse of Sephiroth again. He pressed a gentle kiss to the man he loved, the man who held the ghost of his fist love inside him. "I'm here, Cloud. I'll always bring you back."