Gomengomen! *bows* I have no excuse, Lola's just a fickle bastard. XD Glass half-full, this glorified drabble has a PLOT! Everyone do the plot-hula! *hulahulahula*


"You're not Aerith."

The words, mumbled into his hair, brought Cloud into a state of semi-wakefulness.

"Really?" he replied drowsily, "What was your first clue?"

"Your boobs. Or lack thereof."

He let out a small chuckle as he made to unwind his arms from around the taller man. He had taken Cissnei's advice and put out the fire several hours before sunrise, and then with hardly any reluctance at all, had curled up next to Zack to share his own meagre body warmth. As he shifted, he hissed, the action bringing to memory the many unhealed scrapes and bruises he had recieved.

"You ok?" Zack's voice was laced with concern. Cloud let out a short laugh.

"I'm not the one who needed a potion-bath to stay alive. How are you?" With that, he finally woke his arms up enough to remove them from his friend's waist. Zack groaned.

"You're not getting up. Tell me you're not making us rise at this unholy hour after what we went through yesterday."

"Sorry buddy," the blonde laughed, "no lie-ins today."

He tried to sit up, to stretch and yawn, but found himself pinioned by a muscular arm curling over his hip.

"Zack," he reasoned patiently, "we can't stay. Turks are looking for us right now."

"I don't caaare!" the black-haired man gave a petulant wail, and Cloud shoved at his shoulder lightly.

"Yes you do. Now get off me and get up."

"Yes, sir!"

Slowly, with much hissing and groaning as various wounds made themselves known, Zack and Cloud pulled themselves into sitting positions and yawned, rubbing at sleepy eyes.

"When did you get so bossy?" the older man asked, eyeing his friend with something close to a pout. Stretching his arms high above his head, he arched his spine until the muscles in his bare chest tightened, setting the skin rippling in a most intriguing way.

"Around the same time you started acting like a six-year-old," Cloud managed to choke out, tearing his eyes away to twist his head until his neck popped.

Zack gave his friend a soft punch in the arm.

"One of us has to lighten the mood, or we'll both end up like Tseng. All work and no play, and all that."
"I thought your version of playing involved raising the death rate by at least fifty percent."

"I can do other things for fun, y'know." The comment shouldn't have sounded so dirty, not when they were both not an awful long way from death's door, but still the blonde felt an uncomfortably warm flush across the bridge of his nose.

"Shut up," he managed to grate out, throwing the blanket at him, "and wrap up before you end up even worse off."

"Cloud, it's a freakin' desert out here."

"Exactly. Deserts have sand. Sand gets into wounds. Wounds get infected. I haul your dead weight to the nearest hospital and sell them one of my kidneys to get you treated. Put the damned blanket on."

Startled laughter bubbled forth from Zack's lips, and he followed the younger man's advice.

"Something really has changed about you, you know," he commented. He sounded oddly pleased.

"Nah, you're imagining it."

"Yeah, because you were always ordering superior officers around, back in ShinRa." Laden with sarcasm, Zack's voice carried a note of amusement as well. Shrugging, Cloud gave him a careless little smirk.

"Yeah, well. It's not like rank matters to us any more. And I can't exactly be embarrassed around you, you've already seen me naked."

To his surprise, the black-haired man's cheeks took on a pink tinge, and he glanced away, chuckling awkwardly.

"So...you remember that, huh?"

"All of it."

Silence fell between them, neither willing to meet the other's eyes, then the blonde let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, for the love of Shiva. I think it's a little late to be having an awkward moment right now, don't you?"

"Ah, you're right." Zack waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. "That's done with. The real question is, what now?"

"You're asking me?" the ex-infantry man gave him a blank look, "me who was in a coma until yesterday? How the hell should I know?"

"I'm not even gonna start on your grammar in that sentence." Indigo eyes were dancing. Cloud wondered if their sudden freedom was the cause of his lightness. "But you're not in a coma any more. Thus, you get a say." More gently, he added, "no more orders, Cloud. We make our own decisions now. Together."

"Well, I vote we eat something first. Then, you let me look at those wounds. Then we can have a look at our options."

Zack nodded, then frowned.

"Only if you let me return the favour with the nursing. Shit, you look a state." His tone was more concerned than taunting, and the younger man felt a rush of warmth.

"I'm fine, Zack. Really. But we can argue the point over breakfast."

Breakfast was a simple affair, the two of them munching on the last crispy slices of dried-out dumbapple and sipping from the water canteen. Cloud filled his friend in on the finer points of what had happened after his head had met so unfavourably with that gun, taking delight in the way Zack's jaw dropped at the tale of meeting with Cissnei.

"You said that?"

The blonde nodded. "Hell yeah."

"Wow. Shit, Cloud. I've half a mind to take you to the Turks, just to watch Tseng's face when you say that to him."

"Ah, no." He waved the idea aside hurriedly. "I think the last of my backbone is gone, what with trying to keep you from lapsing into puppy-mode."

"Pup-What is it with everyone and the damned dog-references? Did I grow a tail when I joined SOLDIER or something?"

Cloud laughed at his friend's apparent despair, especially when the man contorted his torso into strange angles, trying to check to see if he had, indeed, grown a tail. Then the older man paused, hissing.

"Aw, crap."

"What is it?" Cloud immediately shifted closer, worried.

"Nothing. Just..." as he tried to straighten himself out without wincing, Zack admitted reluctantly, "probably a broken rib, actually. But hey, nothing I can't handle."

"Damnit, I'm sorry." The blonde's eyes dropped as he wrestled with a brief surge of guilt.

"What the hell are you apologising for?"

"I never even thought of internal injuries. You could have hemmorhaged or anything while I was busy mouthing o-"
"Shut the fuck up."

His mouth shut with an audible click. Zack's fingers curled under his chin, forcing his head up to meet stern indigo eyes.

"Listen to me, Cloud. You did damned good. You stopped me bleeding out, kept me warm...and look at me. Nothing wrong with me that a potion won't fix. So don't you dare start guilting yourself."

The blonde swallowed, blanching under that look, and managed an awkward nod. Sighing, his friend pulled him into a hug and ruffled his hair, almost hard enough to hurt. "You did good," he murmured again.

They both leaned back against the rock face then, shoulder to shoulder.

"So...what now?" Zack was first to speak, though his words were slightly clumsy, voice deeper with fatigue.

"Now I'm gonna have a look at the mess that those cannon-fodder made of you yesterday," the younger man replied.

"Can I sleep while you do that?"

He laughed. "Yeah, sure. Let me at least look at your back before you lay down, though."

"Deal." So saying, the ex-SOLDIER discarded the blanket, swivelling around to present Cloud with his back, the flesh marred by damage both old and new. A disturbing amount of blood stuck to what was left of his shirt, sticking it to the raw flesh. Taking up the water bottle, the blonde dipped the corner of the blanket into it and started to wipe away the worst of the red mess, revealing skin that didn't look much better without it. Carefully, he removed the tatters of fabric from the edges of the larger wounds, his ministrations drawing soft hisses from the other man, as the muscles beneath his fingers flinched automatically away from his touch.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Stop apologising."

"Yes, sir."

"And stop being sarcastic."

"Shut up."

"Better."

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had missed this. With deft movements, he cleaned away the last of the blood, then tossed the blanket over a low rock to dry out. Uncapping a potion, he poured some into his left hand, placing it on the ground next to his knee. He dipped his fingers into the green liquid and grimaced in sympathy.

"Brace yourself. I don't have to tell you this is gonna sting." He brushed a cautious fingertip over the top edge of one of the deeper wounds, and Zack's flinching was more pronounced, his entire upper body skewing away from the contact and a particularly vulgar epithet emerging from between gritted teeth.

"I told you," Cloud said, his voice carefully neutral.

"I think I liked it better when you were apologising, jerk."

"Aww, poor baby. Want me to kiss the big nasty sores better instead?"

Silence. He caught the flash of indigo eyes, as the other man glanced over his shoulder briefly.

"Since you're offering..."

"Shut up." Heat rose in waves up his cheeks, and he was sincerely grateful that Zack couldn't see his expression. Shaking his head slightly to rid himself of the sudden rattling of his thoughts, he again brushed his potion-covered fingers over the wound. Zack's squirming was less pronounced, he managed to hold himself still enough for Cloud to continue his ministrations, though not without many little pained noises.

Halfway down the potion bottle, and the older man's breathing was heavy, the effort of not screaming taking its toll on him. The blonde made a silent resolution to finish faster and touch lighter, but both were difficult to manage. He was barely touching as it was, and using such delicate motions required a lot more control than just slapping it on irreverently. His fingertips gently massaged potion into a large bruise over Zack's lower back, and his thumb brushed over a slightly raised line of skin. A scar he'd never noticed before. Curious, he stroked over it again, feeling skin tremble beneath his thumb.

"Where did you get this one?"

"Sephiroth." The other man's tone was noticeably dull, even as it was strained.

"So-"
"What did I say about apologising?"

"Ok, ok. So you got it fighting General Psychopath?"

Zack let out a little laugh at that.

"Yep, he caught me as I turned. And you can take your hand off it any time now."

"Sorry." He snatched his hand back as if burned.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't mind. But that bruise is really quite sore."

Cloud froze at that, thoughts coming to a screeching halt somewhat like Midgar's train when someone pulled the emergency brake chain.

Don't mind? He thought. Don't mind me being curious, or don't mind me touching...?


Mweeheehee. I will try my hardest to not leave it that long again, but I have other fics that demand attention, and the small, tiny matter of College.