Wow! Two updates in one night!

I might actually keep my promise and finish this chapter by Christmas! 8D

Same warnings and disclaimers apply.

In this chapter, we explore some of the other characters who will be very, very important to this story.

Chapter 2, Part 2: Be Okay.

Thrust.

Groan.

Thrust.

Groan.

Thrust-

A moan like no other flies from Cloud's lips as his body spasms against Zack's, and he feels the warm fluid trickle down his abdomen, a testimony to his ecstasy.

Zack cradles the smaller soldier in his arms, kissing him softly, hungrily, again and again and again. The blonde soon wraps around him, the scent of sex, sweat, and sandalwood incense engulfs both of their senses.

"I missed you so much..." he whispers breathlessly before he litters Cloud's the soft, tawny skin of Cloud's thin neck with long-repressed kisses.

The man strokes Zack's coarse black hair, smiling in the smallest way. But his eyes are warmer than any fire, and Zack knows that that counts more.

"I missed you, too, Zack...It took so long to get back from Japan..." At this, Zack smiles. "I told you you could sleep with someone else if it would help..."

Cloud frowns softly, an indignant look on his face.

"I would neve-" He is cut off by another kiss from Zack, who offers him a boyish smile when his pink lips curl up in mirth, blue-green eyes like the pristine waters of the ports that Cloud had just sailed from sparkling and shining and all for him. The tiny smile finds its way across his features again. "I know you wouldn't. That's why I said you could." Zack teases, and they kiss once more before laying there, bodies stuck together as if they were welded that way from birth.

"Well, Mister Strife..." Zack finally ventures, stroking his lover's cheek softly, as though he were a porcelain doll, and not a heartless mercenary. "...How did the Japanese respond to a Japanese man with blonde hair and blue eyes? Who spoke English?"

Cloud touches his hand gently, lacing their fingers together. Zack can feel him swallow hard, and he knows that he shouldn't have asked.

"They were...Polite. As ever."

"They also treated you like a demon, as ever." Zack surmises bitterly.

Cloud turns to him with a pained expression, eyes glazed with tears. "I'm almost glad that Roxas is insane, Zack. He'll never have to see...Them..."

"Their eyes..."

A heavy silence falls over the two, and they gaze at each other for what seems like an eternity. Zack knows why.

Cloud had accepted the assignment wanting to believe that there would be some sort of people, somewhere, that would accept him as he was. To accept him for himself, instead of the colours and patterns and shapes of his body. That he had spent so many nights with men who looked upon him as an exotic flower and nothing more in his youth, been shunned by his family, and could only find work as a mercenary for the Shinra had already beaten down Cloud's self-worth image so thoroughly that he would hardly look most people who weren't mutts like him in the eye.

Even the immigrants who lived in the slums would turn their noses up at him.

So Zack holds Cloud tightly, and waits until the smaller man- the man that has shed so much blood, sweat, and saline to defend his comrades and country- stops shaking uncontrollably. For a moment, he imagines that Cloud is only sleeping, but looks down and sees the listless expression and vacant eyes, and Zack knows that Cloud is far away from him. There are no kisses, no words- no caresses that will bring him back, and it frightens Zack.

He knows that, one day, his beautiful doll will get stuck that way, like his brother. Zack doesn't know if he could take that.

He doesn't know if he's strong enough to live without Cloud.

The soldier hugs his lover closer, whispering sweet nothings and holding him in comfort as long as he can. Cloud must report in tomorrow. Zack must be there with him.

He falls asleep with a prayer on his lips that Cloud will be okay.

As it turns out, Cloud is the one who is acutely alert the next day, fidgeting and fussing over Zack's appearance, over his own appearance, and over the meeting they'd have that day. Zack curls his lip and pouts in a very childish fashion, complete with the crossing of his arms. He didn't see why meeting with Sephiroth was supposed to be such a big deal. His big brother, Angeal, was one of Sephiroth's best friends.

Zack had been raised with Sephiroth's little brothers!

So, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what was making Cloud so anxious to please him.

"Cloud, I doubt Sephiroth really cares if you have a single spike out of place." Cloud goes still at the mirror, and Zack is disturbed.

For a moment, he catches the haunted expression on Cloud's face, but it is soon gone, replaced by the obsessive focus on his hair again. It finally dawns on Zack that all the preening is Cloud's way of relieving stress. His way for trying his damnedest to fit in.

So Zack holds Cloud, who goes stiff in his arms, body rigid and cool from the morning air.

"Cloud...You're so beautiful that nothing you could do would ever enhance it. Ever."

But those words- so well intended!- make Cloud even more tense, and he steps out of Zack's grip forcefully enough for it to really, truly hurt.

"Fuck!" the soldier hisses. "What the hell was that f-"

Zack is cut off by Cloud's piercing stare. He loses his tongue entirely. No words had to be said.

He knew.

"I'll be out in the carriage." Cloud tells him in a tone that was born of a blizzard. Zack flinches, ashamed of himself for speaking so rashly.

He can never, he remembers, make Cloud see how valuable he really was.

With a heavy sigh, Zack dons his sword and walks outside, to share a very uncomfortable carriage ride with his lover.

Now, in this room, Zack can see clearly why Cloud was nervous.

As he delivers his report in that soft, warm-cotton voice that Cloud was infamous for, Zack can see Sephiroth's eyes. And everything else.

The way he turns his glass this way and that absently, his eyes focused on the speaker, his mind on something else entirely. Something quite different from the report that 'Mister Strife' (as Sephiroth had insisted on calling him throughout the meeting).

Everything Sephiroth is doing now is meant to have some sexual hint, some sort of undertone- his gaze is stripping enough that Cloud loses his place in a stammer yet again. He apologizes quickly, gazing at the floor, and Sephiroth tells him to continue (again) in the silky, throaty tone that he's been using this entire meeting.

Yes, Zack feels stupid.

For a split second, he thinks of how Cloud is blushing. How haunted his eyes had been that morning. Was it possible that they...?

Zack shakes his head lightly,and blinks a few times. Now shame sets in again.

Of course Cloud wouldn't do that- he didn't have the moxy to look Sephiroth in the eye the first time he met him, much less try to court him to bed. Besides that, Sephiroth was too beautiful for even most women to take a crack at courting, much less someone with severe self esteem issues like Cloud.

No, if there were anything wrong, it would be Sephiroth who initiated it.

Sephiroth's eyes flick to Zack, and for a moment, Zack can see the brazen satisfaction in them. It's infuriating.

In that quick little glance, the silver-haired man tells Zack that Cloud jumps when he snaps his fingers- like Zack does when Angeal snaps his. He tells him that Cloud is his, if he so chooses.

For a moment, he imagines that Sephiroth is, perhaps, not saying these things.

But as the two continue to stare at each other, Sephiroth discreetly mouths three words, almost unnoticable to anyone around the table but them. To Zack, they're like fire against the night sky.

"He is mine."