exSummary: A newbie at Avalanche Delivery Services, Cloud expected to suffer through many things. The lecherous, obsessive customers of Floor 42 weren't one of them. AGSCZ
Priority Mail
Chapter Two: Room 4901
To Cloud's surprise and relief he didn't receive a notice to hike his ass over to Shinra Apartment Building until a week after the UI: Unmentionable Incident—the blond had dubbed it himself. A week had been enough for him to slather on some heavy frosting and rainbow sprinkles until the UI was no longer recognizable. Then the poor man in denial had stuffed that Unidentifiable Item into the back of his refrigerator to rot.
But as he stood in front of the familiar elevator doors he could feel it all creeping back. The short man had been rummaging through the fridge of his mind for strawberry milk on the top shelf only to hook onto the cake and have it topple onto his face. Getting vanilla frosting and sprinkles stuck in his nostrils, the lashes of his eyes, and the back of his throat. It refused to be ignored.
And it made Cloud Strife feel dirty and used.
And dramatic, extremely dramatic.
With that clarified, Cloud took one more heart-wrenching look at the elevator doors before side-stepping it and began to forlornly search for the stairs. He certainly couldn't risk another repeat of last week's verbal mocking. Just the thought of silver hair made the poor man's finger itch to tear something out.
Cloud quickly found the door to the staircases and upon opening it, groaned miserably. The endless void of stairs almost had him backtracking to the lovely air conditioned elevator, but the thought of bitter green eyes had him shutting the door fiercely and taking the first step. Besides, Cloud reasoned, staircase climbing would be good for his physique… and it would give him time to prepare himself for his confrontation with whatever evil awaited him at the end of his pilgrimage.
By Floor Five, a fine layer of sweat had built around his temples. By Floor Twelve, he was panting and spitting loogies carelessly. By Floor Seventeen, his legs were shaking and wobbling all over until he was doing the foxtrot. By Floor Eighteen, he had collapsed in a corner: sweating, panting, spitting, shaking, and wobbling all at once. Cloud simply wasn't one for stamina.
"Damn," he wheezed. "Just…damn."
Swept messily into the corner of Floor Eighteen in the Shinra Apartment Building, Cloud Strife began his self-pitying session. His red, red hat lay tragically discarded.
What on the Planet had he done to deserve this? Why did he have to trudge forty-nine flights of titanic stairs? Why did he have to put in effort to avoid abnormally, tall, good-looking, sadistic, silver-haired men? Why was he assigned this accursed zip code?
Why was he wet?
Cloud Strife groaned in frustration for the umpteenth time that day as he hesitantly dragged his eyes down to stare at his lap. In his fit of self-pity, he had squeezed the water bottle he'd been drinking out of much too hard and in a vengeance unheard of, the water decided to squelch out and make its home on his crotch and shirt. His now thin, white, see-through polo shirt.
"Shit," he growled. "Just…shit."
Muttering curse after curse, Cloud frantically searched through his messenger bag for something to clean his mess with—completely deaf to the incessant thumps getting closer to him. He was much too preoccupied with his current, completely horrendous situation. Cloud shoved the palm-sized cardboard box he was supposed to deliver angrily aside and finally snatched the white napkins he got from his lunch at Subways days before.
With the fury and vulgarity of his motorcycle's technician, Cloud rubbed at himself. His face was bright pink from sheer frustration as sweat continued to twist his hair into thick, dirty clumps.
Cloud didn't notice the loud thumps of heavy footsteps until they stopped, leaving the tower of steps unbearably silent.
The delivery boy froze, wishing to whatever goddess out there that if he'd stay still enough he would somehow turn invisible or manifest into a half-decapitated cockroach. Then this stranger would just skip on by and say, "Oh. Look! It's a half-decapitated cockroach" and not "Oh. Look! It's an Avalanche delivery boy who's sweating, panting, blushing, moist, and is ferociously rubbing his wet crotch with a napkin advertising foot longs. Oho! I can see his nipples!"
The equally frozen work boots at the very edge of his vision told him that the Goddess wasn't feeling merciful today.
Coughing his awkwardness away as he usually did, Cloud lifted his head achingly slow. His pink face couldn't resist the all-encompassing cringe. Dark brown boots covering large feet, faded blue jeans hugging thick thighs, powerful arms gripping brown grocery bags, black v-neck hugging a broad chest, stubble dotting an unshaven chin, and absolutely, wholly, stunned eyes.
Fuck, Cloud thought. Just…fuck.
Voice scratchy as if someone had just forced vanilla frosting covered, rainbow sprinkled Unmentionables deep into his mouth, the mystery man spoke first: "I'm sorry for intruding." They stared at each other for another moment before he mirrored Cloud's awkward cough and stiffly continued. "I'll just be on my way."
Cloud watched the stranger slowly tiptoe around his slouched body to the upper floor, unable to properly respond. He was thinking at impossible speeds, thinking impossibly incomprehensible thoughts. And his cheeks were only getting redder and redder.
Of course!
Why couldn't Cloud just explain his situation? It'd be so easy! Just tell the man that he was taking the stairs because he was avoiding a sadistic bastard and had gotten so exhausted because he was never one for endurance and had sat down, thrown off his hat, and of course he would be shaking, panting, and sweating. And while sitting down, he was thinking really, really hard and while he was thinking really, really hard, he had squeezed his water bottle really, really hard and—
"I sprained my ankle," Cloud Strife blurted.
Oh, yes. Cloud Strife, the twenty-three year old, somewhat sexually confused delivery boy extraordinaire, really didn't like being embarrassed—much less staying that way.
Cloud's new deus ex machina stopped mid-step and turned his head to the blond. The two stared at each other for another long moment with a silence so thick Cloud was sure even his flaming headed roommate's pre-ejaculating penis could slice through.
But Cloud neither needed to concern himself with slicing nor ejaculating as the large man abruptly cast his grocery bags sloppily aside into a useless heap. He swiftly kneeled next to the innocent, maimed victim and asked in the most soft, caring voice Cloud had ever heard, "Which foot?"
It was almost all too heroic.
Said innocent, maimed victim answered, "Right" and moaned in utter agony as the older man lifted his foot gently into his lap. Cloud felt like a complete asshole but even so, he continued to whimper and groan spectacularly as the black-haired man tilted his foot to and fro. This was a necessary evil, Cloud convinced himself.
"It looks bad, but not too serious," the older man muttered.
Cloud felt even worse as he caught sight of the cluttered, worried frown on the other's face—lips tugged conspicuously down, eyes narrowed, brows furrowed too close—but he quickly squeezed his lids closed tight again. After all, Cloud was in excruciating pain.
"We should be able to take care of this with some rest and ice."
In a sudden rush of movement, poor, suffering Cloud caught the stranger tossing his cap into his messenger bag and then he swung his messenger bag onto thick shoulders—Cloud did not have thick shoulders. The blond grumbled, "Excuse me, but—"
And then Cloud was flying.
What.
Cloud went wide-eyed. Within the constraints of flesh, his eyes wiggled to and fro frantically, trying to discern what was going on for his sanity's sake. The floor was too far below him, the ceiling not far enough, and the wall to his left was tepid and pulsing as it pressed against his cheek. He caught sight of a fuzzy chin no less than six inches away from his face and then it hit him: this firm, breathing thing to his side was indeed a fine sample of man chest.
Dazed, confused, and more than anything, disturbed, Cloud spluttered, "What are you d—"
"I'm taking you to my apartment to get this ankle of yours fixed. Don't worry; the injury is slight enough that it shouldn't take too long. Proper treatment and you'll be good to go in no time," the man answered. He spoke confidently, but not forcefully.
The delivery boy wanted to inform this Good Samaritan that, naturally, he was much more concerned about being lugged into a suspicious stranger's apartment rather than the amount of time it'd take to heal his nonexistent injury. But Cloud happened to open his lips at the wrong moment.
Stubble, as Cloud named him, had chosen that exact second to jostle his body into a better position and the blond was greeted with a mouthful of cotton. With the reflexes of a cactuar, Cloud jerked his head back, hoping the rubbery nub he had felt against his tongue was not in fact, a nipple.
Stubble might be muscular, selfless, and amiable, but Cloud was quickly tiring with his incessant interruptions. No matter how he went about doing it.
Trying not to let trivialities get to him, Cloud once more attempted to voice his thoughts. "Excuse me, sir—"
"Angeal. My name is Angeal."
Interrupted, again.
"Angeal," Cloud repeated obediently, blue eyes glaring at the fuzzy chin in front of it. "I'm grateful for your help. Really, I am. But I don't think going to your apartment is the best of ideas."
"I understand your sentiments Cloud Strife—" Angeal smiled as said delivery boy quickly fumbled his hands across his chest protectively. He needed to get rid of that damned name tag somehow. "—but I can't possibly treat you here. And most certainly, I couldn't leave an injured man to rot in a corner of a stairwell. It wouldn't bode well on my chest."
Cloud parted his lips to tell Angeal that only thing boding on his chest was him literally, but was, as usual, interrupted.
"You are injured, aren't you?"
That shut him up.
Lips pursed tight, he nodded.
"Right," Angeal started, "I hope you understand Cloud that taking you to my apartment allows me access to the tools I need to properly treat your ankle. Sounds better than hailing an ambulance so you can pay two hundred dollars for letting them stick ice on you, doesn't it?"
Just as rigid as before, Cloud nodded. He still refused to make eye contact.
Angeal chuckled good-naturedly and Cloud tried to ignore the rumbling of the man's chest against his cheek. "If it makes you feel any better Cloud, I promise I won't do anything bad. Or at least, anything of the sort you're worrying yourself over."
How peachy, the blond thought dryly.
Well if this man decided that juggling groceries, messenger bags, and strangers kept bad bodings off his chest, who was Cloud to deny him? Opinion confirmed, the blond allowed Angeal to heave whatever burdens he brought upon himself out the staircase doors, across the carpet hallway, and into a snuggly empty elevator.
Other people in Cloud's predicament might be ferociously thinking of ways in how they could slither out of the situation, muttering excuses or blurting the truth. But Cloud was not a part of 'other people' and instead found himself vacantly gazing at the fluorescent fixtures beyond Angeal's nostrils, occupied with something along the lines of deep fried chocobos and jock straps. He still couldn't quite comprehend how he was chugging water one moment and in the next, was sprawled across a strapping lumberjack's arms. Thinking was never his forte.
Cloud had begun to doze off by the time the elevator chimed and spilled them out on the desired level—that stair hike must have taken more out of him than he thought. Lazily, he yawned. Distantly, leagues away from where Cloud drifted, Angeal was ringing a doorbell and yelling, "Genesis, open the door for me! My hands are full."
After three more persistent shoulders to the doorbell, the door finally swung open.
And that's when everything came crashing down and Cloud finally realized just how big his mistake had been.
It happened as Angeal was jostling him in his arms, palms arranging and rearranging themselves on the bottom half of Cloud's body as he tried to squeeze into the doorway. Having hair pulled out by the door hinge had Cloud snapping his eyes wide and in that single instant, he spotted it.
Off to the side, barely within his range of vision, in elegant bronze numbers: 4901.
Wow, it's been a while. I actually wrote this chapter a couple years ago but never went about uploading it. In a fit of nostalgia, I came upon it again and decided that I might as well put it up if I had it.
Thanks for reading!
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