Vanilla with Sprinkles

By: Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Notes: A perfectly normal day for Zack Fair and his new boyfriend. I've been wanting to write something like this for a long time, simply to make myself feel better. There's not a lot of plot, nor sex, but there certainly isn't much angst (except for Zack wanting to bone.) Honestly, this is something I needed to write considering how absolutely wrecked I've been since releasing the latest chapter of Tenacity. It's just... Zack and Cloud having a date. A nice, normal date.

Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its Compilation. I'm a broke college student—that's it.

Vanilla with Sprinkles

Four months, eight days, four hours, and sixteen seconds was the longest Zack Fair had gone without some form of sex since he was fifteen. He could almost feel his poor, aching and blue testicles beg out for forgiveness, despite there being nothing to forgive them over. They did their job like they were supposed to—Zack was the one not doing his natural duty as a man.

But Cloud was worth it.

Zack looked at the clock, the red numbers staring back at him. It was almost dinnertime, and Cloud would be finishing up his last exercises for the day before taking a quick shower down in the barracks and coming upstairs for their date. Zack ruffled his hair and glanced nervously around his apartment. He absorbed the sight—casual disarray. There were dog-eared books, their pages worn by oily fingertips, stacked high on the corner table, a can of soda open half on the coaster. The dust wasn't all that thick, but it wasn't a safe place to perform a surgery (and for some reason Sephiroth believed every apartment should be so clean that Hojo could pull out a gurney and play doctor) and Zack could see the wear in his couch.

The SOLDIER looked at the table and the white bag, dabbled with grease stains and brown Wutaian sweet sauce. He thought about opening up the bag and getting down some of his nice plates (the pretty blue ones his mom sent him from home) but decided to stare gloomily at the bag. Damn bag; damn food; damn sex.

What was he supposed to do? His hand was slowly becoming his most trusted companion.

He sat there in vexation, mindlessly scratching his fingers on the wooden tabletop, feeling tiny splinters get under his nails. They didn't hurt, but they certainly kept him occupied... a little bit.

Oh, who was he kidding?

If he didn't get anything soon he was going to lose his mind.

Zack gathered his energy, focusing on Cloud's smiling face. The kid didn't do it often, but when he did the room shined. He didn't always seem to be happy; Zack could understand why. However, Zack would do whatever he could... but he was getting a little tired of waiting.

There was a knocking on the door, and in Zack's turmoil he nearly ignored it. Was he supposed to ignore it?

The knocking continued to be persistent, and Zack shuffled up to the door, wary of pressing the front of his pants against his aching groin. He opened the door to see Cloud's signature blonde, ruffled hair.

And the pain stopped.

"Hey, Cloud," Zack said, opening the door wider so that the boy could easily slice by, and he caught the smell of Shinra-issued soap and traces of sweat that clung to the edges of his clothes—with how much the grunts worked, the smell was almost a permanent addition.

Zack really didn't mind.

Cloud leaned forward once the door was closed, and wrapped one arm around Zack's neck, the other fighting to take off his shoe. "G'd to see you, too," the boy muttered, and leaned in for a quick peck before using Zack as an extra foot, balancing himself as he kicked off his boots.

"How was training?" Zack asked as he put one arm around Cloud's waist and nudged the door closed with his toe.

Cloud's mouth turned down. "Usual. Green was being a douchebag again and got himself a ten mile run."

Zack didn't let go of Cloud, instead burying his nose in Cloud's hair when he leaned up. "Good you didn't get into trouble." He let his hands rest on Cloud's hips for a moment before letting go. No pushing Cloud, no pushing Cloud. "Anyway, I got Wutaian food—want to grab some plates? I'm sure you've got to be hungry."

Cloud nodded and kissed the tip of Zack's nose. "No problem. Want the good plates?"

"Do you want to eat at the table or put on the tv and watch something?"

Cloud bit his lip and looked over to the well-loved and weathered leather couches. "Can we just be lazy tonight?"

The SOLDIER smiled. "Of course we can."

The two fell into a comfortable silence as Zack pulled the greasy containers out of the bag, wiping his thumb across the top of one of the containers and smearing it across the box. It left a bright streak of color. He raised his thumb to his mouth and sucked. "Hmm, not bad." Cloud handed him the plastic plates and Zack spilled the contents of the containers out onto the plates, haphazardly on his own and in neat sections for Cloud (who hated his food touching in any way.)

A few cans of soda and bottles of beer were in the fridge, so Zack handed Cloud both the plates and grabbed one of each. "Do you want chopsticks or a fork?" He closed the fridge and put the drinks down, reaching into his cutlery drawer. Keep himself occupied.

"Hm... Just grab me a set of chopsticks."

Zack nodded and took out two sets and shut the drawer with a jab from his hip, grabbing the two drinks with his other hand.

Cloud fit in with his couch. It was a really weird thing to think about, but the way his butter-colored hair rested on the leather, how his body molded so easily into the seat just made Zack feel more and more like his boyfriend was supposed to be there, like the very furniture accepted him. Cloud's boots in the corner, one of his books rested next to the entertainment center, and Cloud even kept a toothbrush in the bathroom from the time before they were dating.

"Hey, I was wondering," he started as he sat down next to Cloud. He put the drinks on the table and curled his feel underneath him so he could sit a little closer than necessary to the blond. Sex was awesome and all, but maybe what their relationship needed more than boning was... commitment.

The very idea made Zack twitchy. He'd been in relationships, but not many of them very serious. There had been Aeris, the sweet girl down in the slums that Zack thought that maybe he could have been with before he met Cloud, but no one who'd lasted for longer than a month or two. And certainly, he'd never even thought of asking something as monumental as moving in when they hadn't even done more than kiss, perhaps some heavy petting at the maximum.

"Yeah?" Cloud asked, but Zack waved his hand and sat back, grabbing his plate.

"Nah, nothin'."

Yet, there he was sitting on his couch, less than fifteen minutes after thinking that he was going to drop dead of sex deprivation thinking about the best way to just ask Cloud to move the rest of his stuff in.

Cloud had started to eat, no doubt hungry from his long day at training, but Zack picked at his food with the blunt side of his chopsticks. This continued only for a minute or two before he put his plate back down and leaned into Cloud, resting his head on the blond's shoulder.

"Cloud," Zack murmured, "I was wondering..."

He put his plate on top of a stack of books and ran a hand through Zack's midnight black hair. "What's up? Something bothering you?"

"Well... not bothering, really. Just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself," Cloud snickered.

Zack slapped his thigh lightly. "Yeah, yeah. Keep making fun of me, will you? It's not like I'm not asking you to move in or anything."

Cloud stilled and the SOLDIER lifted his head up when Cloud's fingers ran to the ends and stopped moving. "Well, it's something for you to think about..." Zack looked into Cloud's blue eyes and ran a finger across the boy's bottom lip. He trembled, his cheeks flushing.

"I can't until after I make SOLDIER... Favoritism is the last thing I want..."

"You know it's not favoritism..."

Cloud's pink cheeks flushed. "That's now what other people are saying, you know. They think I'm letting you fuck me so I can get ahead. They keep saying things to me wherever I go." They were doing that to Cloud? It wasn't particularly surprising to hear that they'd caught on, but... there weren't any rules against them from dating, as long as Zack didn't influence anyone for Cloud. Yet... simply being around a SOLDIER allowed his boyfriend to rub elbows with those who were higher-up... like Sephiroth and even the head of SOLDIER, Lazard.

Zack could have hit himself; to him, this was a non-issue, but undoubtedly to Cloud this was something that must have been bothering him for a very long time. How long had this been going on, anyway?

"Look, I can take care of myself," he said as he moved around before resting his hand at the nape of Zack's neck. "I can deal with their jeers, as long as I keep my head down. I know you're not doing it on purpose, and that's all that matters to me. But, I will happily move in here after the exams, okay?" He leaned forward and kissed the black-haired man's face, tracing his lips across the ridges of his eyelids, across his cheeks, down his jaw. His fingers brushed back through his hair, though his left hand stayed behind his ear, gently swiping at the patch of skin, rubbing gently with the pad of his thumb.

"You know I love you."

"Of course I do."

They laid on that couch, curled together for hours, until the television ran out of interesting things, until their mouths were sore and a bit bruised, until Zack felt like Cloud understood what he said and exactly what he meant.

It'd been some odd month, some odd day, some odd hour and he didn't particularly care about the minutes or the seconds, since Zack felt so completely content. It'd been a very, very long time.

Who needed more than that?

I feel gooey, now.

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