Genesis is one of those people that reaches for stars and---
The man is pretty like a woman, the kind of woman who isn't all the way woman somehow, either from some lack of softness or gentler manner but Ifrit if Rhapsodos hasn't got that pretty gentle something in his face, or the movement in the hips that is right on. It gives him chills. The bad kind, that makes him want to retch hard enough to break his own neck.
Fuck, he knows those people even though he might be a little naïve sometimes, he knows about people like Genesis who reach for stars and once they touch them---
"Puppy."
Fuckin' puppy. He loves Angeal like the stiff older brother that he is, but what respecting man trying to climb the ranks, wants a name like puppy? He doesn't like that everyone calls him that now, because it sounds different in every mouth it finds. It's morphed into a joke, into a whole persona that has his eyes, hair and even his perfect squat form. But it is not him. It is a smiling, harmless, bouncing ghost of him that has taken on a life of its own, and because there are bigger things to worry about, he doesn't bother to do anything about it.
But Genesis, when he says it, there is some uncovered perversity that makes his skin crawl and he just wants to…smack him. Smack, not punch, something back handed and sharp, a dainty parody of the hard fist he really deserves. Disrespect in feigned restraint, just as feigned as that affected womanly manner. Right across his pretty face, over and over again, for turning his nickname into the mockery Zack already sometimes feels it is, for making him feel as small as he already knows he is, but won't forever be. Genesis has a knack for the bringing the ugliest things out of him. He has no control, and he wants it back. He isn't that person.
But he knows about people like Genesis---
"Puppy."
People like Genesis reach for stars and once they touch them, they suck all the light out.
People like that make him sick. Weren't they all working towards their own dreams? Fighting through blood, sweat, tears and every other clichéd bodily fluid? And one night, after he told Genesis just what he thought/knew, with stars sprawled bright in the black sky, Genesis laughed a jaded, haughty laugh. Said that he did not dream, that his destiny was imminent. And whatever the hell that meant, Zack just knew it was another way of saying that he would find that star and suck it dry.
Zack did dream. And as if Genesis somehow knew this, he found the man standing closer to him, something in his eyes that was dark and seeking, empty and full of all that stolen light. Zack knew then that Genesis' beauty was real, not his own, but real. Genesis' power was real too, and when he said---
"I used to dream." Zack stepped back, from the man, and from the closing gap between them. He wasn't anything like that man. But then when Genesis' surprisingly strong hands pushed him back and into the wall, he felt the force of every dream the man had ever lost, covered up in pretense and text. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to fail.
He never had before. Then Genesis pushed his cheek against his own and said---
"Dreams, like stars, are ephemeral."
Zack fought to wrench his face away.
"That means they die, puppy." He stilled, knowing he had never thought that far, but then that word, that nickname was echoing in his ear with the dragging reverb of a bell, and all he knew was that his fist had found Genesis' pretty cheek, his other fist the ribs and he was turning them around, saying don't call me that, pretending like he didn't know Genesis could wipe the floor with him if he wanted, take all he needed if he wanted, but for some reason was just taking it and smiling.
"Goddamnit, what?" is what he finally asked, his hands full of leather coat.
"That doesn't matter to you does it?"
"What."
"That your dreams will die."
"No." he said breathing hard, "Because they won't." but even as he said this there was this sinking feeling, that maybe Genesis was right, even though he was looking at him both like he would destroy him and devour him in the same moment.
He knew about people like Genesis, and the moment Genesis kissed his lips he knew he was that targeted star.
Most evident in the beginning movement of his own lips was that he actually wanted to be that star.
And he wanted all those fingers, both greedy and hopeful, to reach for him, to take all the light they wanted.
But then some nights later, when he looked into Genesis' greedy eyes and fucked him—teeth bared, hips grinding hips deep into the mattress, grinding the word puppy right out of his vocabulary, replacing it with Zack, he knew he didn't have enough light to go around.
He decided he just liked the reaching.
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Author's Note: So this something I've wanted to write for quite a while, so I'm really pleased a premise popped into my head tonight...er...morning. Again, the only one up in my dorm. Typing away like mad. XD I hope it was enjoyable, I was actually kind of worried about how Zack's character would work in this. And just in case anyone wondered (because I didn't know this until I started searching for an appropriate title) a black dwarf is what is left after a star dies or can no longer emit light. Hope I didn't butcher that definition. Alright, see ya later.