"Ifrit Delivery Service. You name it, we deliver."
The young man lounged in a creaky old office chair, his long legs flung up over the worn surface of the desk in front of him. He ran a hand through unruly black hair as he listened to the potential customer on the other end prattle on about drunks or something and turned unnervingly blue eyes on his partner across the room. The smaller, chocobo headed young man was scanning the day's newspaper as he leaned casually against the wall. Feeling his friend's gaze, he looked up, a teasing smirk barely visible on his lips as Zack raised two fingers in the shape of a gun to his temple, the universal sign for "please, for the love of Gaia kill me now". Cloud shook his head and went back to his newspaper. It had been Zack's idea to set up this mercenary, jack-of-all-trades business (under the guise of a delivery service to throw ShinRa off the scent); he could deal with the odd obnoxious caller.
Something hit the back of his head. Cloud turned to see what it was, but there was nothing there. Gingerly, he reached up to his shock of spiky blonde hair and found the crumpled up wad of paper that had decided to lodge itself there. Tugging at it slightly, he pulled it out and unfolded it. The word "traitor" was scrawled across it in pen. Cloud rolled his eyes, crumpled the paper up again and threw it back at its creator. Zack ducked as the tiny projectile came hurtling back at his head. Unfortunately, the rickety old chair was not ready for such a sudden movement, and it went skittering in the opposite direction, dumping the former SOLDIER squarely on his now sore rump. Cloud snorted, trying to suppress the laugh that attempted to force its way out. Zack glared at him as he finally managed to get a word in with his chatty caller.
"Look, sir, I'm sorry but our schedule is completely booked at the moment," he lied. "If you want I can recommend some other good businesses that could help you. Right. Again, I'm sorry we can't help this time."
Hanging up, he used the desk to lever himself upright again, praying that it was sturdier than the chair. Cloud watched, amusement clear on his normally unreadable face.
"You're a cold, heartless bastard, Cloud Strife," Zack said, replacing the phone in its stand.
The other young man rolled his eyes again.
"Says the guy who left me to fish materia out of a monster's gut last week," he replied dryly.
Walking over to the desk, he dropped the newspaper onto it before heading for the door.
"I'm taking the bike out for a drive. I should be back in an hour or so," Cloud waved briefly, not even bothering to look back.
"Cold and heartless!" Zack shouted in mock anger as the door swung shut.
With a sigh and a rueful smile, Zack adjusted the short, loose ponytail that hung down his neck. It was good to see that Cloud had fully recovered from that nasty mako bath Hojo had given them. Hard to believe it's been a year already, Zack thought as he shifted through the papers littering the desk. The past twelve months certainly hadn't been easy for either of them. Although they had escaped ShinRa, Cloud had had the worst case of mako poisoning most doctors in the Midgar slums had ever seen. Despite his fear for his friend's well being, he couldn't help but thank his lucky stars that the mako treatments he'd received as a SOLDIER had kept him from ending up in a similar state. Lucky stars. Zack felt a sudden pang of remorse at the phrase, and the memory of the girl who had used it so often. He sincerely hoped that Cissinei would find a way out of the Turks soon. He hated to think what that line of work would do to such a bright, sweet girl one day. The unexpected thought brought to mind another girl, and Zack felt a lump form in his throat. It had been five years. He doubted that she was still waiting for him. But part of him still held on to the hope: Fool's hope, he chided himself, that she was waiting. He longed to go see her, to let her know that he was all right, but the chances that ShinRa was still on the lookout for him and Cloud were still fairly high. He couldn't expose her to that kind of danger.
"Besides," Zack told himself reassuringly, "Tseng promised to look out for her. And I trust Tseng…even if he is a Turk."
Giving up on whatever he had been looking for on the desk, Zack picked up his mug from earlier that day and walked over to the small kitchenette that occupied one corner, rinsing the mug out before refilling it from the pot of coffee that had just finished brewing. As he took an experimental sip, he glanced out of the window above the sink. Although he had visited the slums numerous times while in SOLDIER, actually living down here had definitely taken some getting used to. Most of the light came from tall street lamps that were as gaunt and dejected as the rest of the slums. What little natural light there was filtered down through cracks in the upper plates. And on top of that, there were monsters down here. So much for ShinRa's grand plan to clean up the slums, Zack thought dryly. Monsters, gangs, no sunlight, it was easy to see why no one lived under the plate because they wanted to. Even in his case, circumstance had forced him down here. The phone's incessant ringing jerked Zack out of his thoughts and back to reality. Walking back to the desk, he set his coffee down and picked up the cordless phone.
"Ifrit Delivery Service. You name it, we deliver. Yeah? That's right ma'am. No, you don't need to pay us until we've accepted the job. Uh huh. Where in Sector 7 are you? Seventh Heaven? Right, I'll give my associate a call and we should be over there later today. No problem. Uh huh, b'bye."
Replacing the phone in its stand again, Zack fished his cell phone out of his pocket, tapping the speed dial for Cloud's phone. It didn't take Cloud long to answer. He must've stopped for something, Zack thought before speaking.
"Yo, Cloud? Time to head back, buddy. Looks like we've got a new job over at Seventh Heaven."