A smell entirely unlike anything Cloud had ever attempted to smell hit him as soon as the door opened. With it, a thick, acrid smoke billowing down the hall. It took him a substantial amount of time to sort of identify it as burnt popcorn, but by then he'd already pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose. Why the hell weren't the fire alarms going off? Why the hell was popcorn on fire? He did his best to not think to hard of it, entered the dorm, turned a sharp left away from the origin of the smoke and made for a stairwell.
One story up. First door. Cloud pounded his fist on the thick wood a moment before the knob clicked to the side in front of him and opened. Standing in the doorway was Zidane, his shirt also up over his nose, waving franticly inward with his hand. Cloud looked down the hall a moment and ducked inside. The door slammed shut behind him.
For one, Zack and Zidane's room was far smaller than Seifer's house, obviously, if that wasn't stupidly obvious. The walls were completely covered, every spare inch, with magizine clippings, computer print outs, and posters. The ceiling light was either blown or off, and most of the light in the room came from a series of christmas lights strung back and forth across the ceiling. Their beds were pushed against opposite ends of the wall, two desks against the wall between them. The room, actually, was of the same makeup as Cloud's own. The closets on the far wall, the flat dresser area. The difference was in how the older students presented it.
Reclining dangerously far back in a chair, his head hanging lazily over the back and hands dangling in the air, was Zack. The window was open, and a large plastic square fan was jammed in its frame. Cloud guessed it was to get rid of the burning smell that was permiating the dormitory. But, "What the hell is making all that smoke?"
Zidane pushed past Cloud, his tail slapping against one of the bedposts as he went. "Art students," He replied cheerfully, plucking a jacket off his bed and a backpack from underneith of it. Cloud looked at the blonde techi for a further explanation, but Zidane just shrugged and brushed past him again, backing to the door. "Catch you two later," He declared, waving a free hand.
Zack flopped his arm lifelessly in Zidane's direction, probably an attempt at waving back. "Have fun."
"Ah, with a musical? We got an old solution for those." Zidane grinned, opening the door. "Gasoline on the gel frames!" And with another wave of the acrid popcorn smoke, the tailed wonder was gone, the door clicking behind him.
There was a slight moment's hesitation before Cloud opened his mouth, preparing to ask a question, but Zack cut him off. Lifting his head and sitting up normally, he volunteered the answer Cloud was thinking. "Gel frames go on the front of the theatre lights. If you put gas on them, the heat from the lamps would catch on fire, and drop on the actors," He shrugged and chuckled slightly to himself. "Techis are sort of bitter towards musicals."
Cloud was taken aback by this little insight into the theatre world, because in his mind, the stage crew and the actors had always gotten along fine and were in agreement. So the fact that there might be some points of tension or bitterness was slightly surreal, especially to hear that one side was plotting to rain fire on the other. So his response, understandably, was, "Oh."
"Don't look so shocked, it's only a joke," Zack actually looked surprisingly worried about Cloud's reaction. He picked one foot up off the floor and folded it under himself, holding onto his knee. "Seriously, techis are good guys. You should get into it sometime, maybe."
"Are you in technical theatre?" Cloud tried to shake off the feeling he'd just been pulled out of reality into a little rabbit hole. He wasn't exactly sure after just hearing that techis often thought about setting other people on fire that he wanted to be involved, and knowing Zack, he could be completely making it up anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Zack held up a finger and looked very seriously at the blonde. "Maybe."
Cloud raised an eyebrow curiously, but Zack offered no further reply. In fact, the only thing he did do, was wave his hand in the same limp half-alive manner he had done to Zidane and tell Cloud he was welcome to throw his bag on the bed and take a seat anywhere.
"Anywhere but the ceiling."
"Gee, thanks. That was my first choice," Cloud tried to keep his sarcasm out of his voice, wondering if he could meet Zack on his same level and rant nonsensically. "Whenever I get stressed out, I just shoot right up onto the ceiling and start wandering around. It's refreshing, being upside down." It was comforting to hear that Zack was laughing to himself as Cloud crossed the room and climbed onto the bed, curling his feet underneith himself. Zack's laugh wasn't earth shaking or rachous or amazing or anything...if anything it was subdued. But at least it wasn't a glare.
Zack stood and made a sweeping motion towards Cloud, indicating he scoot over a bit. The matress squeaked as Cloud moved, made a groaning sound somewhere in the metal springs. The dark haired student flopped stomach first onto the bed, his feet stretched out, soles in the air. Twisting his arm as one only does when flopping around on a bed, Zack reached between the wall and the mattress, pulling a thin black object free with a scraping sound of plastic on drywall. Cloud realized it was a laptop. It had probably slid behind there during the day, the blonde reasoned. Zack made another shooing motion and Cloud moved aside as the sophmore wriggled his entire body onto the bed and lay on his stomach, opening the notebook.
"You got a computer here? What's your e-mail?" Zack had to turn his head to talk to Cloud, who was now nearly falling off the bed, perched on its edge. "Oh come on," He rolled his eyes. "Don't be an uke about it."
Cloud raised an eyebrow, only able to guess at the meaning of Zack's words. "A what?"
"Uke. It's a fangirly term. Look, I'll speak English," Zack folded his arms under himself, propped up on his elbows and closed his eyes to speak with exaggerated slowness. "Cloud," he started. "Don't be a pussy. Sit someplace where you're not falling off the bed."
"Fuck you!"
Zack smirked and shook his head. "Come on, you look stupid. Sit someplace where you don't have to pull a balancing act."
Cloud started to leave the bed, had one foot on the floor with full intentions of going to sit on Zidane's mattress. He was going, when Zack reached out and tugged at his arm.
"Nonono, don't go over there. I'm not gonna shout to talk to you."
"Well where do you want me to go, then? I'm not sitting on the floor-"
The dark haired student released his arm as his face split into a grin. "Well, at least we're not going to enact 'Citizen Kane.' So sit on the bed then."
There was a little dangling string in the back of Cloud's mind, right between everything else. It was a giant annoyance. It was exactly what Zack was being. A damn pointless dangly obnoxious string. "You're taking up the whole damn bed lying on it."
"So sit on me."
Cloud wanted to slap himself. Zack's logic seemed to be rooted in the learning of camels from Jupiter. It would have been a self prepetuating cycle to argue. It would have been an even bigger argument to just sit on the floor or the other bed. So, giving up and giving in to the faulty logic, Cloud picked himself up and turned around, sitting on Zack. Right in the center of his back. For a moment, the sophmore made a grunting sound and Cloud could feel him trying to breath at the same time someone was squashing him. Well, who cared. He was the idiot who started it.
"See," Zack said after he got his breathing back under control, "It's better, right?"
Cloud rolled his eyes. "You're off your fucking nut. What if Zidane walked in?"
"He'd probably tell us to open the windows afterwards."
"...I hate you."
"No, you don't," Zack laughed quietly, letting it shake his shoulders where it wouldn't hurt from Cloud's weight. "C'mon then, what's your e-mail?"
It was made very clear to Cloud when he left home he would not be taking a computer with him. He hadn't had one at home, why should he have one now? His mother was vehemiently against the machines, his father kept his own locked away in the office. Cloud's only real experience with computers had been on the frustrating and severely restricted machines in his high school computer lab. Why he couldn't take one to college, he couldn't readily explain. His parents' excuse was that he'd use it to play and never get any work done. He'd gotten through high school writing his papers by hand, he'd use the goddamn dictionary if he wanted to check spelling. So... "I don't have one."
"What?" Zack seemed genuinely shocked. Cloud wasn't surprised at his reaction...he'd seen it before from the few fair-weather friends he'd had. "That's insane. Why not?"
"I don't have a computer."
There was a pause where Zack looked over his shoulder before turning back to his laptop and giving a shrug. "Well, that'll do it." There was another silence in the room, one with only the tiny pumping sounds Zack's fingers made on the laptop keypad and the scraping of his fingernails on the touchpad. Cloud glanced at what he was doing, but didn't recognize the website he was at. No surprise there, either. Cloud hated his parents more every ten minutes. He'd managed to just get himself alienated from someone who had insisted he sit on him. What the hell...just because he had no computer. Cloud put his hands down on the bed on Zack's other side, leaning until his head rested against the wall. This was retarded. And Zack was really boney and felt weird to sit on. He could feel the dark haired man's ribs slithering under his skin when he breathed. Eerie.
"Can I ask," Zack spoke after Cloud's head connected with the wall, his speech now broken up, though it could have been from either distractions at the computer or from Cloud crushing the air out of him. "Why not?"
The blonde shrugged, rolling his head against the wall. He could hear the sounds his hair made between it and his skull. Though he couldn't see it, he guessed that his hair was fluffed out like a malformed dandylion after that shower. "I never had one. Parents would never get me one."
Zack snorted. "That's balls." With both hands, he reached up and folded down the laptop, its screen slowly winking away until it was just a thin plastic square again. Zack pushed it away and lay on his stomach unmoving and silent a moment. Cloud watched, shrugged again, and looked to the far wall. Zidane's posters had a theme to them. That theme was 'theatre ladies.' Cloud didn't know a lot about theatre, but there was really no way to mistake the Phantom of the Opera. Who knew when the poster was from, but a busty looking girl was running from the ominous masked figure in the background. Other poster and clippings showed a heavily makeuped man and a done up dancer together, a bunch of art-student looking guys and equally bohemian girls. Maybe it should have struck him as odd, that he was sitting on someone who he knew was gay, staring at pictures of hetero relationships. Maybe. It just felt detatched though, like walking into a room and seeing it through a glass box. Everything was an arm's length away.
It felt eerie, it felt good, Zack breathing. He could feel him begin to talk, it vibrated down through his body and buzzed against Cloud's skin. "Look...I need to tell you about something."
It should have felt odd...
"I'm not good at talking about this stuff. I wanted it out, like in writing, so I don't sound like a moron. Listen..."
He was listening anyway.
"Shit...I like you, alright?"
No shit.
"I like you, and I don't want to see you getting hurt. I don't mean beat to snot either. But this isn't a safe place. The school I mean. There's these guys...the Weapons. They're not...Look, you'll know them if you see them, and they're really fucked up. There's that...There's-"
Zack wasn't making sense. He was right, it would have been better to get it on paper. Cloud couldn't understand him very well, other than the fact that he was worried for his wellfare. He knew that already, too. Where was this going?
"Cloud, keep away from Seifer, okay? That's what I'm trying to say. He's just-"
Hold the phone. That came out of nowhere. "What?" Cloud sat up from the wall and stared down at the back of Zack's head. "What the hell do you mean? What the fuck do you know?"
"Look, it's just...he fucks around with you. It's just not a good idea to-"
"Yeah, you maybe. But no offence, I'm nothing like you."
"Sure, now...Listen to me." Zack seemed to come out of the shakey state he had been trying to speak with, his voice deadpan. "I used to date him. I know what he's like, and I know the way he opperates. You just don't want to get mixed up with him. The minute you piss him off, you're fucked, end of story."
Cloud snorted and leaned back again. "Which is why you beat the snot out of him, right?"
Zack's voice raised into the joking territories again. "I can handle myself, kid, you've already gotten wasted in front of one of the biggest narks on campus."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch."
The sophmore sighed, Cloud could feel his muscles working to pull the sigh off and lift him at the same time. "Seriously...I can't stop you. I won't try to. I'll warn you is all. Help you if I can. I'm worried for you, alright?"
The person he'd picked up at the airport and exchanged for the scared boy with the evenly cut hair wanted to take this and use it to his advantage. But Cloud was begining to realize that certain parts of that person, he didn't like either. That when people offered to hold out a hand to you, you didn't try to cut it off at the wrist and sell it on the black market...so to speak. Zack did care, or at least thought he did.
And if Cloud didn't care, wouldn't he have left by now? Wouldn't he have at least gotten off the sophmore and gone to sit across the room, or on the floor, or in the chair? This was obnoxiously alien. Cloud stared at the posters on the far wall, felt them staring back. He didn't know, he didn't understand. He had no fucking idea what he was, anything at all.
And it didn't matter. It didn't matter, because it didn't matter. The person he was trying to be could shut up for now. Could shut up, and go to hell, and leave him alone for a few hours.
Zack was another person, alive and breathing, warm through the layers of clothing. Cloud's family didn't hug, didn't have much contact. The feeling of another person seemed to fit into a groove he didn't know he had in himself. So the posters could stare, and the feeling of Zack breathing could feel eerie, but it was only because he was unused to it.
"Did you hear me?"
"Alright."
"Look...it's nearly dark soon, Seifer's probably going to be looking for you..." Zack's voice when he talked about Seifer was quiet, like he was afraid of starting a fight.
Cloud shook his head and slouched downwards, feeling their cloths twist and bunch up as he did so. Zack winced for a second and had to readjust the way he was breathing again. Now Cloud could feel Zack's breathing at the very base of his spine. "He already found me."
It was very quiet in the room a moment, the sounds of someone swearing down the hall quietly intruding and making them both snort a laugh. Zack shrugged. "You hid it, right?"
"Still have it."
"In that case, you deffinitly shouldn't be going back. You don't want the RA to see you or anything."
"Do they do random searches?"
A long, awkward pause. "...No."
"You just don't want me to leave, do you." It was a statement, not a question. Zack shook his head and laughed quietly again, his shoulders shaking. Cloud looked at the far wall and smiled slightly himself. "It's okay, I don't want to either."
"Stick around. Zidane won't care."
Cloud pushed away from the wall, doubled forward and stretched his feet out behind himself until he was lying nearly diagonal across Zack, his stomach on the sophmore's back and his head at his shoulder. "You're a fucking bastard, and I'm sleeping on the floor."
"Yeah, right." Zack reached for the laptop again, flipping the top open and waiting through the startup. A muffled and alien voice played tinny from the notebook's speakers, humming. Zack's fingertips wrapped round the edge of the computer, his face pointed down, eyes closed. When he spoke, Cloud couldn't help but pay sudden attention, because his voice was so far away and so strange...it didn't sound like Zack at all. "I'm glad you're here, Cloud."
The blonde didn't say anything, but folded his arms on the bedspread and lay his chin down on them, watching Zack's face through a curtain of dark hair.
Down the hall and outside, other people were talking.