Warm arms were wrapped around Cloud when he awoke, and he opened his eyes slowly, blinking to focus them. What he saw surprised him, but only for a moment as he remembered what had happened last night. He was rather shocked at the memory of what he had done, but realized that, truthfully, he would have done it again if given the chance.
He yawned into Zack's chest, noticing how well-muscled it was. It wasn't like Sephiroth's, yet it probably looked more muscled than his own would ever seem. The arm on his shoulder reached up to run it's fingers through Cloud's once-again spiky hair, and Cloud sighed. "'Morning Zack." he said through another yawn, "When's breakfast?"
"Starting about now." Zack's voice replied. "Though it depends, what did you want for breakfast?" He added in a hinty voice.
"Wasn't last night enough?" Cloud asked, before sitting up. He winced and made a small grunt of pain as his nether region protested the movement. He still felt rather drained and his behind was very uncomfortable.
Zack laughed, "Do you need some pain killers?" He seemed to know everything about sex, didn't he? Of course it was because of his experience Cloud supposed, and nodded.
Zack shifted, standing up and grabbing a bottle from beside his bed, which rattled. He opened it, pouring a couple pills in his hand and giving them to Cloud. Cloud took them gratefully and swallowed them immediately, not wanting to wait to get a drink. He slowly stood, grimacing at the pain that it caused him. Making small sounds of discomfort, he hobbled over to his side of the room and pulled some clothes on, wincing every time he moved in a painful way, pointedly ignoring the looks of mirth that Zack was giving him.
"You gonna make it, honey?" Zack asked him playfully, to which Cloud scowled at him.
"I'll be fine." He replied, though the pain in his nether region was telling him otherwise, but he tried to ignore it as much as he was ignoring Zack.
At breakfast, they went over to where Seymour was already sitting, Laguna joining them seconds later. Cloud chose to ignore the triumphant grin that Zack gave Laguna. He now had a pretty good idea what they were gesturing about, and fought the heat creeping into his cheeks, losing somewhat.
As he struggled to sit down comfortably, he kept his mouth firmly closed and face blank as he tried not to show any signs of the pain that it caused him. He caught Zack's eye and blushed. Quickly looking down at his plate of 'food', he tried to act like nothing was going on whatsoever.
To do so, he decided to strike up a conversation with Seymour, asking, "How are you today? Feeling better?"
Seymour just shrugged in response, his face still taken over by his now-usual gloomy cast.
Cloud shook his head, "Haven't seen Rufus yet, then?"
Seymour nodded, not offering more than that.
Cloud was unable to think of anything else as a possible topic for conversation. Even if he did, he didn't think that Seymour would join in. So, sighing, they finished their meal in silence. Well THEY were silent, and Cloud focused on Zack and Laguna's mindless chatter to distract him from the pain of sitting. The pain-killers were taking their own sweet time getting to work.
Finally, they both stood to go to training, Cloud unable to keep himself from wincing at the sudden change in position, and tried to look like he was walking normally as they headed towards the elevator.
"Well, if it isn't mister skipper." A voice called, and Cloud looked up to see one of the older trainees in his year leering at him. "How are you going to get out today? You have an appointment with Tseng, too?"
"W-what?" Cloud managed to say. If there was one thing he was worst at handling, it was bullies.
"Don't give me that!" The older boy said, glaring at him, "After you left, the instructor was so mad he made us do twice as much as normal! And it's all your Choco-headed fault!"
Cloud blinked, not really liking where this was going. "I-it wasn't my choice." he stammered.
"Like hell it wasn't! I seen the way Hojo gets all exited whenever somebody mentions 'Strife'. You're sleepin' with him, aren't ya? Fag!" The boy yelled in his face.
That struck Cloud. It would've been almost funny, the idea of him sleeping with Hojo, if at least part of his insult didn't ring true. He WAS rather intimate with Zack... He had absolutely no idea what to say to that, and just stood there, dumbstruck.
Then, it was Seymour to the rescue. With a loud 'smack!', Seymour slapped the boy hard in the face. In an almost deadly tone, he said, "Don't. Talk. To. My. Friend. Like. That."
He was rewarded with a glare. "My mistake, SHINRA. You're sleeping with the little whore, too, huh?" The older boy said, but didn't strike back. The name Shinra did carry a lot of weight in the building, and Seymour wasn't afraid to use that advantage.
"What did you call him?" Seymour asked coldly through gritted teeth.
Cloud felt awful that he was once again relying on a friend to bail him out of a mess. "C'mon Seymour, let's just go." he muttered.
"No way." Seymour said in his deadly calm voice, "Did you even hear what he just called you?"
"I don't care, let's just go." Cloud said, worried.
Since he couldn't take his anger out on Seymour, the older boy took this opportunity to shove Cloud roughly to the floor, where he landed with a thud right on his behind, sending an unwanted groan of pain out of his mouth.
Seymour's rage was visible, and if the lights were turned off, Cloud would've sworn his eyes were glowing red. He stepped right up into the boy's face and seemed to look down on him, even though he was a few inches shorter. He didn't even say anything, and instead delivered a powerful punch to the side of the older boy's face, making him stagger back.
The expression on his face was livid, and he seemed to be seriously considering hitting Seymour back. The fear of Shinra's wrath, though, was enough to stop him from physically fighting back, so he chose to fling verbal assault at him instead. "Bitch! You're both a couple of cheap whores! Wonder what your mom's would say if they saw ya' now, huh? Wait, they're probably just as skanky as you!"
Cloud could only imagine how much that hurt Seymour. Probably more than a punch ever would. He watched all of Seymour's muscles tense from his position on the floor. Shinra or not, Seymour would get in massive amounts of trouble if he unleashed all of his anger on the boy, and Cloud didn't want to see that happen. Just as Seymour was about to spring, Cloud reached a tentative hand forward and placed it stayingly on Seymour's lower leg, not trusting himself to stand just yet. "Seymour...please, just let it go. He's not worth it. Please?"
Seymour stayed like that for a while, and the tension radiated out from him into the very molecules of the air. Then, he slowly relaxed and took a deep breath, turning to look at Cloud on the floor. "...You're right. Let's go." He held out his hand to Cloud, offering help up.
Cloud reached his arm up, grabbing Seymour's hand and allowing him to help him up. He winced visibly at the pain and ignored the questioning look Seymour gave him. They both ignored the insults being thrown at them and entered the elevator, Cloud allowing himself another quiet grunt of pain.
Cloud was extremely grateful to his friend. "I...uh...thanks, Seymour. Sorry that you were dragged into it. I mean...well, you didn't-"
Seymour cut him off with a shake of his head. "Don't thank me, it wasn't anything, really. I just couldn't stand him calling you a whore like that! Hey, Cloud...are you all right, today? Did he hurt you when he pushed you or something?" he asked suspiciously.
Cloud's face reddened and he shook his head quickly, "No, nothing's wrong, I'm alright."
"Uh-huh..." Seymour said, unconvinced, "Come on, Cloud, what's up?"
Cloud looked at him carefully, wondering if he should tell. "You tell me what's been up with you, and I'll tell you."
"Me?" Seymour asked hesitantly, "I've already said; I hate it here."
"Yeah, but why?" Cloud pressed.
His younger friend sighed, "I guess it's the whole trapped feeling I get here. Like, I have no choice in anything I do anymore, no freedom. At least out there I could choose what to do with my life, even though there weren't any good choices. Plus, I hate the feeling of working for the person who's fault it is that my mom and I had to do whatever we could to stay living. It's...it's just so FRUSTRATING!" Seymour balled his hands into fists as he glared at the door of the elevator.
"So, if you got out of here...would you be able to go back to the life you had before?" Cloud asked him, "You would want to?"
Seymour's face suddenly turned downcast and he looked utterly miserable. "No...I, don't think I could... I don't want to go back to that kind of life, but I don't think I could live here for long either. I'm stuck." He leaned his head on the wall, eyes closed.
Cloud rested a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sure you'll figure something out. You still need to talk to Rufus."
He felt Seymour sigh and say quietly, "Yeah, I know." Then, he turned to Cloud, "So, you never told me what was up with you."
He could feel the embarrassment radiating out from himself, "Oh...yeah. Well...I, uh..."
"Yeah?" Seymour prompted.
Cloud let his eyes drop to the floor and his face became even hotter, "I...slept with Zack last night." He admitted.
He lifted his eyes up slowly to catch a somewhat troubled look on Seymour's face, which quickly turned to a grin. "Did you really?"
In answer, Cloud just let his eyes drop again and scuffed his foot in embarrassment.
"I don't blame you. He is good looking and an extremely shameless flirt. Don't be embarrassed. Let me guess, he's been coming on to you for a while?" Seymour asked in a voice that contained no hint of embarrassment about the topic.
Cloud smiled at him, his embarrassment fading. "Yeah. One of the first questions he asked me when we met was if I had laid anyone before."
"And had you?"
"Not you, too?" Cloud asked, though he wasn't really annoyed, "No, I hadn't. Hey, why do you even care?"
Seymour shrugged, "Just curious I guess."
The doors opened on the training floor, and Cloud realized that he had quite a punishment coming. If the instructor hadn't been mad before, he sure would be now. They walked over to line up for role, and Cloud was feeling a bit better, since the pain-killers were taking effect.
He could have sworn he saw the instructor foaming at the mouth a bit when his name came up. Fortunately, no questions were asked and to Cloud's surprise, no punishment set out. After they had done preliminary stretches, Cloud was still baffled on how he had escaped even a word of punishment.
The answer was soon revealed, as their instructor directed their line of sight to a previously unnoticed corner of the room, where a couple of chairs were set up. One of them was occupied by a lazy-looking Hojo, and the other one was presumably for the person standing behind it. That person who was none other than The Great Sephiroth. "Today we have a couple of guests who will be monitoring you today to scope out what ShinRa's got going for new recruits. We'll be starting on weapons today. Grab a wooden sword from the rack that you'd prefer and then get into pairs and await orders." The instructor told them.
Cloud barely heard him, or saw the sometimes angry looks that some of the others gave him. He was watching the tall form of Sephiroth, who's eyes swept the area uncaringly. His attire was as usual. The cross-straps on his chest revealed just a teaser to what he looked like fully without his coat, which hung in graceful folds. The black leather pants clung to his hips before flowing downwards to touch black, sturdy-looking boots. Cloud had a sudden urge to become those pants and cling just as tightly to Sephiroth's flawless waist. The green orbs stopped watching the area indifferently, however, when they lit upon Cloud. He realized he was staring at the silver-haired image of perfection, and looked away quickly, to see that Seymour had been trying to get his attention.
"...all day, Cloud?"
"Huh?" Cloud asked him.
Seymour rolled his eyes, "You've been staring at Sephiroth for the past few minutes... You LIKE him, don't you?"
"W-what? I...uh..." Cloud stumbled, his face reddening once again. He really needed to stop blushing so much.
His younger friend laughed at him, "Don't blame you. He IS the deity of sexiness, which automatically makes him out of anyone's league. Anyway, we're supposed to be pairing off and getting swords."
They both grabbed wooden swords, pairing up with each other without having to think about it or say anything. Cloud felt rather lucky. His spar yesterday with Zack probably just put him ahead of anyone else in the class, and Sephiroth was watching, too!
They went through a few basic poses, all of which Cloud knew from the day before, so he did them with relative ease, even though the Mako had run itself out by the morning. For some reason Cloud found himself thinking that if he hadn't slept with Zack, he probably wouldn't have gotten to sleep at all last night. Mako was like a pure shot of caffeine or something.
They eventually progressed into actual striking and parrying, and Cloud still was able to do everything simply, and he was thanking Zack profusely in his head. More than once he found himself watching Sephiroth, almost hoping that he would acknowledge that Cloud was doing a good job. A couple of times he did find that Sephiroth was watching him, but he made no gesture to acknowledge Cloud's presence.
Even later, they were moving at a much faster speed, and Seymour had to ask to stop for a bit a couple of times. "Man, Cloud, what is with you? You're crazily good. Are you on Mako or something again?"
"No, I just practiced yesterday with Zack, remember?" Cloud told him.
"Well, yeah, but that can't be it...you were on Mako yesterday, too, yet you're still doing really well now. I think you have what they call, 'natural talent'."
"Really?" Cloud asked, pleased with the complement. Now that he thought about it, it didn't make too much sense how he was doing well now. He thought he was relying on Mako yesterday, but Mako only enhances what was there already, such as things like endurance, senses and strength. It shouldn't have anything to do with talent.
Class ended, and everyone went to put their swords away, but before Cloud could, a very cool, almost serene voice came from right behind him. "Strife." It said simply.
Cloud felt that he had jumped a foot in the air, and when he turned, he found himself face to face with the most gorgeous person on the face of the earth. Well, almost face to face, considering that Sephiroth was considerably taller. "G-general, Sir?" He sputtered, his blue eyes meeting unfathomable, alluring green ones.
A brief shadow of uncertainty flickered across Sephiroth's face, before it returned to it's normal distant look. "I'd like you to meet me in my office after your dinner. Here's the keycard." He handed it to Cloud, before walking away without another word of explanation.
Cloud just blinked and stared at the retreating form of perfection, the silvery hair swishing quietly in an unseen wind as it brushed his tightly-clad behind. "What was that all about?" He asked himself quietly after a minute, feeling very odd.
Cliffhanger! I'm SOOO evil! You people who've been begging for more Sephiroth/Cloud stuff have caused me to switch some of the storyline around, so parts of this chapter and the upcoming chapter weren't originally going to happen 'til later. Thanks again for all your reviews, especially you persistent reviewers! See, when you review, you actually have a chance to manipulate the storyline! Really, If it hadn't been for reviews, parts of this story would have been different. If you've been reading this story and NOT reviewing, shame on you. So, um, what was it I've been trying to say? Oh, yeah, REVIEW! Hey, people...would you be interested in another story I'm working on? It'll probably just be a oneshot yaoi in a Kingdom Hearts setting, but that's all I'm gonna say about it for now, muahahaha!