Cloud dropped the weighted backpack he'd been given to carry during these tests as soon as he saw someone else doing the same. It was all too obvious that he was in the worst physical condition of the new SOLDIERs 3rd class; he just didn't have the same stamina they had, not when it came to running or obstacle course, because he'd spent the last month in the labs. Most of his training there had been in swordwork, and working on his strength and co-ordination and getting used to his new strength and reflexes and the rest of the group had started training almost a month before him. Although it did seem as if some thought had been put into scheduling his enhancements, since when Daniel had taken him to pick up any messages for him he'd been sent to join the new SOLDIER intake that morning for the first standardised tests during their training. In a week they'd be split up into two groups of ten, instead of the twenty of them training together now, based on how well they did in all of the tests.

"Go get something to eat and report back in an hour." Cloud followed along with the crowd when the sergeant dismissed them, hoping no one was going to say anything about his performance or ask where he'd been since the Exams. Not that there was any chance of him avoiding questions, not really, but he could still hope for a while; although the alternative really was for everyone to ignore him, and he wasn't sure he wanted that.

"Cloud? How the hell did you manage to get past being interviewed by Gregori?" Damon had taken almost as much abuse from the instructors as Cloud had, over his long hair rather than Cloud's height and lack of obvious muscle, and he'd claimed the only reason he didn't quit was that Cloud hadn't, even though he had to deal with more abuse. "And if you managed to get past that how come you're joining us so late?"

"I didn't get past him, but Professor Hojo apparently kicked up a fuss that Gregori hadn't obeyed his implied orders and passed me through regardless of the results of the interview and demanded that I be made a SOLDIER anyway, so he could run an experiment on me." Cloud paused, and injected a wistful note into his voice before he continued speaking. "What's a real interview like anyway? You had SOLDIER 1st class Angeal for yours didn't you?"

"Hard. He wanted to know all sorts of things, why I wanted to join SOLDIER, what made me think I'd be any use to the program, if I'd ever encountered monsters besides the 'chaperoned training exercises we put on for cadets' - his words not mine."

"What chaperoned training exercises? I remember being split into groups of six, taken somewhere there'd been reports of monsters, given a rendezvous point and time and dumped with orders to kill at least one monster each, and bring back evidence." They'd barely survived - and that was only because Zack had lent Cloud a nearly mastered Restore the day before the exercise. Three of Cloud and Damon's team had quit after that and Sinon had quit a week later after their sword master had ignored his opponent attacking when his back was turned once too often.

"Maybe a couple of the instructors were travelling with us, but without letting us know they were there? They could have only been supposed to do anything if we really needed their help?" Damon sounded hopeful, but not as if he really expected that to have happened; there'd been one too many occasions when they'd really needed help, but hadn't got any for either of them to believe that.

"What are you two talking about? We had an instructor with us the whole time!" Harry and the other nine from their class who'd got through hadn't been among the few favourites Gregori had; oddly enough none of the cadets who'd taken advantage of the way Gregori ran his program to bully Cloud and Damon when they could had got through the Exams. Cloud reached through his link with Sephiroth to check he wasn't going to be interrupting anything and contacted him while he left Damon to respond to Harry.

"You might have had an instructor with you, and the other eight groups might have, but our group didn't."

'Sephiroth, something else came up; in the training exercises where cadets are supposed to face monsters, for the first time officially, nine out of ten of the groups in my class had an instructor accompany them, my group didn't, and we included all the 'pretty' cadets or cadets with long hair.'

'Thank you, I'll get Zack and Angeal to check up on that too, and I'll see if I can find any recorded evidence of that. If there's any reports of cadets being killed in that exercise...' Sephiroth trailed off, as if he didn't want to disturb Cloud with what he'd started to think, but Cloud had thought Gregori had been trying to kill them with that exercise since the first time he'd resorted to using the Restore materia. He'd cast a Cure2, at the limit of his abilities because he hadn't wanted to believe he'd need to use a Cure earlier, he'd wanted to believe there was an instructor monitoring them who'd intervene if they needed the healing they didn't have the resources for.

'You're welcome. And...we only survived because of the Restore Zack lent me, he can give you the details.' He'd ended up mastering the Restore during the exercise, and Zack had said he could keep the newly spawned materia.

"You did notice that half of our group quit after that little episode didn't you? Apart from Cloud they're the ones who came closest to being killed on that 'training exercise' and Cloud almost killed himself healing us all since not one of us thought about asking to use his Restore to give him a break until it was almost too late. I swear that bastard looked disappointed we'd managed to avoid getting killed."

"Damon, enough. He couldn't have known about how we were treated." Cloud was surprised that his friend listened to him, falling silent and looking away from Harry, focusing on Cloud instead. "And it wasn't his duty to know." It wasn't Sephiroth's either; there were a couple of layers between the General and the workings of the training branch, but even Gregori hadn't been able to totally stuff his training group with sadistic bigots, and one of the halfway decent instructors should have noticed and reported his perversion of proper training. "So, eleven of us were trained in Gregori's latest class; what about the rest of you?" It worked to change the subject at least.

xoXox

'Sephiroth," He did his best not to let it show that he'd just heard Cloud's voice in his mind, but his sudden stillness seemed to alert Angeal and Zack anyway. "something else came up; in the training exercises where cadets are supposed to face monsters, for the first time officially, nine out of ten of the groups in my class had an instructor accompany them, my group didn't, and we included all the 'pretty' cadets or cadets with long hair.'

'Thank you, I'll get Zack and Angeal to check up on that too, and I'll see if I can find any recorded evidence of that. If there's any reports of cadets being killed in that exercise...' It would give him some extra ammunition against Gregori, even if it did come at the cost of the lives of men who deserved better than they'd got. And he could see if anyone had said anything about this to anyone outside Gregori's sphere of influence now, or at least make a start.

'You're welcome. And...we only survived because of the Restore Zack lent me, he can give you the details.'

"Angeal, when you were interviewing the applicants how did they react to the question about facing monsters outside the training exercises?"

"Did you mean any applicants in particular? Or do you want a run down of how all of them reacted?"

"The ones Gregori was in charge of training; you had what, six of them to interview?"

"Yes, and I found three of them were worth being made into SOLDIERs. I'm not supposed to be dismissing half the applicants I see at interview, but two of them were all too obviously bullies and the last one was a bit too reserved for me to get a good feel for him." Sephiroth had to wonder how many bullies Gregori had put through when he did his interviews but he could find that out by asking Cloud later. "Most of them had pretty normal reactions, either their experience with monsters was limited to the training exercises or they'd had to run away from something before they entered cadet training. But there was one of them, a redhead called Damon, who looked surprised at how I described the training exercises. He said they were his only experience in facing monsters, and that he found the teamwork Cloud had encouraged to be the best way for unenhanced men to face them."

"Cloud encouraged the teamwork? He's almost as antisocial as you are Sephiroth." He couldn't blame Zack for his shock, and...

"Cloud attributes their survival to the Restore you lent him...did he say anything to you about that?"

"He said he'd needed to use it a lot during the exercise, and he tried to offer me the materia that had spawned during it. He must have been facing a lot of monsters, because I didn't think it was that close to being mastered." Sephiroth had expected a bit more in the way of detail than that but...

"Did he say anything else to you about the exercise?"

"No, except that all his team had survived it. I lent him the Restore because he'd been worrying about that, but I thought his comment about them all surviving the exercise was a joke. Are you saying it wasn't?"

"Apparently his team didn't have an instructor with them to guide them on the exercise." Sephiroth really wasn't happy about that and he let it show. "When you ask your questions I want you to also ask them about that exercise, and find out whether they had an instructor with them, and if they tried to report it if they didn't."

"Yes sir."

"Angeal, I have a list that I want you to question, the question I wanted you to ask was when they found out that they could apply for the SOLDIER Entrance Exams more than once, and how they learned it. But now I also want you to ask about which instructors they had with them on the monster training exercise."

"I can do that. You want me to scare them a bit?" Angeal had an almost feral grin on his face at the idea, and Sephiroth returned it with a smile of his own.

"Please do. Find an excuse to come to my office and I'll give you the list then." Sephiroth hesitated...if Damon had been in Cloud's group he had to be either pretty or long haired and he shouldn't ask which, but he felt oddly jealous, even though there was no rational reason for him to be. "Do you know why Gregori would have had problems with Damon?"

"Long hair - to his shoulders the way mine is."

"His usual stupidity then."

"Indeed." Sephiroth agreed with Zack quietly and decided to change the subject. "Does it bother you two that Cloud takes priority over you? I know you'd made plans for yesterday evening." Even if he hadn't agreed to them and had told his lovers that he wanted to wait for his keeper's decision.

"Not really. We made those plans to help Cloud learn how to take care of you, and at least he's made sure you'll take care of yourself now. We've had more time with you over the past three weeks than we usually get. And besides, I think Cloud will be too busy with the tests he's doing to spend much time with you this week."

"Probably." And it would most likely affect his results negatively if they tried to find time to spend together. Bad enough he'd kept Cloud last night, especially considering the first day of tests was the most demanding physically, or so he understood, but they'd needed the contact, their need wasn't as urgent now. Or at least his wasn't, and from what Sephiroth understood about Hojo's work his need for Cloud's touch was supposed to be greater than Cloud's need for his. Sephiroth vowed to do his best to keep his lover from tiring himself out unnecessarily for the rest of the week; he could settle for mental contact if he had to.

xoXox

Cloud wasn't sure it would be polite for him to contact Sephiroth while he was eating with the rest of the group, but they were mostly leaving him out of the conversation, since he'd been the one most tired out by the day's tests. He needed to make sure that Sephiroth wasn't going to be expecting him tonight anyway, so that he could spend time with his other lovers if he wanted to, since Cloud wanted to be rested up for the next day of tests.

'Sephiroth.' He could tell that his lover was alone in his office when he contacted him and Cloud wasn't sure he liked that, even if it was convenient for him to communicate with him. 'You're still working?'

'I've got a list of people for Angeal to investigate, but I don't want anyone to see me give it to him since we're not supposed to be playing politics inside the army and I don't want Gregori to have a chance to fake evidence to defend himself. So we're pretending that today I "forgot" my new resolution to stop overworking myself and they're taking turns to drag me away from the office. How did the testing go today?' Cloud wished Sephiroth hadn't brought that up because he'd performed so poorly, but he'd answer honestly.

'I was the worst in the group, the slowest and I've got the least endurance. I'm probably going to end up in the bottom group...that's going to mess up what's planned for me isn't it?' He didn't like the idea that he was going to disappoint Sephiroth, but if he was expected to be good enough to promote to SOLDIER 2nd class without it looking suspicious in five months he wouldn't be able to avoid it.

'Not necessarily. There are four parts to the tests; the running and obstacle courses you did today, a "tournament" tomorrow in which you'll spar with six different opponents for no more than an hour each time, a small unit tactics computer simulation scored by the computer and a two day monster hunt with up to four Regulars under your command. Your placement will be based on how you do in each area.' That was a relief...with the teachers Cloud had been working with over the last month his swordwork was at least as good as the rest of the group's, or it should be, and he thought he was pretty familiar with the computer simulation Sephiroth was referring to.

'What do you mean when you say "tournament"? And I take it the computer simulation test will be like the simulations I've worked on in the labs? The tech said they were the same as the ones you worked on when you were ten.'

'You'll fight two rounds where the winners of each spar are grouped together and so are the losers, giving four groups of five, then in each group every SOLDIER will spar all other people from that group and the ranking within the group will be decided by the observers.' So, they'd probably spend seven to eight hours on this tournament, but what if... 'None of them are connected to the cadet training groups though, so you don't need to worry about Gregori's prejudices affecting your chances.

'The computer simulation test uses the same software as the simulations you trained on, but there are a few differences. In the morning the test will be like the simulations you're used to, but in the afternoon you'll be split into two sides and assigned an overall commander, usually from one of the more advanced groups.' That sounded...really interesting actually. Cloud had the suspicion that the third day of testing was going to feel more like a game, to him at least.

'Thank you for the warning. Do you need me to stop distracting you then?'

'It would be helpful. I do need to do some work to explain why I'm here at the moment, even if I am stealing time to start checking Gregori's history with the monster hunting exercise.'

'I'll contact you at lunch tomorrow if I want to see you that evening, otherwise I'll contact you around ten in the evening.' Cloud hesitated in case Sephiroth wanted to 'say' anything else then stopped using their link to stay in mental contact with Sephiroth. Now he began pushing himself back into the conversation, interjecting comments and questions where it was appropriate.

"Anyone got any clues what we're going to be doing tomorrow?" Cloud decided to stay silent for a while, to find out what the others knew.

"I heard we get tested on swordwork, tactics, the obstacle courses and monster hunting. Don't know what the order is though."

"I heard the monster hunt's last because it takes two day. How they're going to do the tactics testing..."

"Does anyone have any ideas about that?"

"I do. Tactics are tested using the computer simulations the General trained on when he was ten, and that's the day after tomorrow." Cloud wasn't going to say anything else about that, he'd be too likely to give something away, but there were things he could say safely enough. "I did some work on them in the labs, so I'm looking forward to that. And to the swordwork testing since Zack's been training me to within an inch of my life there."

"You'll need to do really well to get them to overlook how much you screwed up today."

"Yeah, but I think I've got an advantage in the simulations, and in tomorrow's swordwork tests. I know my teacher's better than yours is."

"Lucky bastard, studying with a SOLDIER 1st class." Cloud wasn't sure who said that, but he laughed and agreed anyway.

xoXox

Sephiroth had a faint smile on his face as Angeal 'dragged' him out of his office. It had sometimes been a bit of a game for him, making one of his lovers prove that he mattered to them by coming and getting him when he stayed late, but he'd generally not dared to stay working late if they let him know they had plans for him. He glanced at his one-time teacher, an eyebrow raised in inquiry as they turned towards the SOLDIER sleeping quarters not the SOLDIER 1st class mess, and Angeal smiled at him.

"We arranged for a meal for the three of us to be served in my quarters."

"I see." Sephiroth's breath caught in his throat for a moment as he responded, he knew what that meant, and it was one of the games he enjoyed most, making him feel pampered and treasured, like he was a real person, not just ShinRa's pet monster. Angeal looked at him with obvious possessive approval, ignoring the fact that people were around to see them, something he'd become more conscious of lately. Apparently it was 'common knowledge' that Sephiroth was in a relationship with the other two men, or so Zack assured him, so they didn't see the need to be as discreet as he had to be with Cloud. He just hoped that his keeper didn't become angry or jealous about that.

Angeal didn't say anything else as Sephiroth walked with him to his quarters, and Sephiroth worried at the question of whether he should ask Zack and Angeal to be more discreet from now on. He still loved the two of them, and he didn't want to hurt them, upset them, or drive them away, but now in a lot of ways his world centred on Cloud and the situation wasn't fair on him. It bothered Sephiroth too...what if he forgot that he was only supposed to let people see he was in a relationship with his less important lovers and displayed his intimacy with his most important lover without thinking? He could use that argument if he brought it up, but not today, in a more...neutral situation; and...he probably shouldn't tell Angeal and Zack that they were less important to him than Cloud was, even if it was the truth.

Sephiroth began to remove his coat once the door was closed behind them, but Angeal took hold of his wrists and he stopped, letting his lover start undressing him instead. Zack stepped up to him and pulled Sephiroth's head down for a kiss while Angeal stood behind him, then he reached up and fastened the blindfold he'd been holding onto him. He relaxed instantly, the voluntary loss of his use of one sense telling him that he was somewhere safe, with someone he could trust to protect him if he needed it, that he didn't have to focus his senses to make sure he wasn't taken by surprise or attacked.

He let Zack lead him forward and tie his hands together behind his back with a scarf before helping him lie down on the cushions Angeal kept scattered across his floor. Then Zack pulled away and he could hear quiet sounds as Angeal sat by him, stroking his body gently, treating him as if he was fragile for just a little bit, and he could feel some of the day's tension leave his body.

"Don't say a word." Sephiroth purred in acknowledgement of the instructions Angeal whispered into his ear, and leaned into his older lover's touch.

He recognised Zack's lips on his mouth and obediently opened his own lips, the signal for Zack to let the wine he'd been holding in his mouth dribble into Sephiroth's. He swallowed it and then just waited, knowing that however his lovers chose to surprise him he wouldn't be hurt and enjoying the prospect. He opened his mouth when he felt fingers at his lips, holding a piece of chicken that had been cooked with garlic and paprika and he took the opportunity to suck on Angeal's fingers for a moment, doing the same with every piece of food he or Zack gave to him, and moaning in occasional pleasure.

"Up." Angeal was the one to speak to him again; Zack tended not to speak to Sephiroth during this game, although he was perfectly happy to speak with Angeal without involving Sephiroth, and Sephiroth liked that a bit, especially since they tended to comment on how beautiful he was and how much he pleased them. He co-operated as much as he could as his lovers got him to his feet and moved him through to another room, untying his hands and lying him down on the low bed Angeal preferred.

Someone took hold of his wrists, pulling his arms above his head and tying his wrists to the bed frame, leaving plenty of slack. He caught the scent of bitter chocolate as warm oil was poured onto his chest and he felt Zack's strong, skilled hands massaging his chest, releasing more of the day's tension as Angeal lay beside him, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear. He gave soft moans of pleasure when Zack found particularly tense muscles and eased them into relaxation; the younger man liked to have plenty of feedback when he did this, even if it was all non-verbal and to encourage it he tended to 'pause' if Sephiroth didn't respond. He liked that, being expected to show how he felt, instead of being expected not to trouble real people with his emotions or needs, it told him that Zack cared about how Sephiroth felt and wanted him to feel good; that he was willing to work to make sure Sephiroth felt good.

"I've finished the front. Help me roll him over onto his stomach?" Sephiroth didn't even try to resist as his lovers rolled him into the new position, and he kept on making small noises of pleasure as Zack finally worked out the last of the day's tension before he started preparing him. Angeal still whispered to him, keeping him relaxed, and then he was rolled so that his back was to Angeal while Zack lay down on his side in front of Sephiroth and kissed him as Angeal began pushing into him. He could feel it as Angeal stretched him even more as he pushed in almost torturously slowly, and it comforted him that Angeal cared enough to put his own pleasure aside to avoid hurting him, at least at first.

Zack slid his hand between their body, aligning his cock with Sephiroth's and jerking the two of them off irregularly, kissing Sephiroth, and bringing the two of them to climax shortly after Angeal's seed filled Sephiroth. He could feel Angeal's hands at his wrists, untying him then removing the blindfold as the man kissed the nape of his neck affectionately while Zack's lips moved down to explore his throat first, then his nipples as Zack's hands roamed over Sephiroth's torso.

"Let's get you clean." Sephiroth relaxed as Angeal lifted him into his arms, enjoying the chance to let himself be weak for a while, and he luxuriated in the feel of Angeal's hands on his body, washing him clean, including his hair. Then when Zack joined them Sephiroth watched as the two of them washed each other clean before turning their attention back to him.

"You can speak now if you want." Zack confirmed the game was over as he began to dry Sephiroth down, towelling his body dry, and helping him put a robe on before he started using a hairdryer to deal with Sephiroth's soaking hair.

Except there wasn't anything he needed to say, and he let Zack's casual gossip wash over him, following him back to Angeal's bedroom and joining his lovers in bed. It almost felt better than the sex, sleeping between his lovers, wrapped in their arms and knowing that he didn't have to be the one who stayed alert for threats, that he didn't have to keep his defences up even while he slept and he was allowed to sleep deeply.

xoXox

By the time he'd taken the SOLDIER Entrance Exam Cloud had become used to being at or near the bottom of the class in everything, and despite knowing about Gregori's prejudices he'd still feared it was because he truly was the weakest cadet. Even though the mere fact that he'd been supposed to only have an interview as a 'formality' indicated that he'd done really well on the other tests he hadn't quite been able to make the mental adjustment. So it had shocked him a bit to win his first spar within twenty minutes, especially since he'd been fighting cautiously, so he'd still be fairly fresh for his later spars. His opponent had seemed to be moving really slowly to him, but then Cloud had spent the past month sparring exclusively and pretty intensively with SOLDIERs 1st class and Sephiroth.

"Get a drink you two and wait here. You'll be matched up against the next pair to finish sparring. Oh, and you can go to the toilet if you want to." The instructor seemed to be surprised at how quickly they'd finished, but they just saluted and went to get their water bottles.

"I guess I'm not much challenge if you're used to sparring with SOLDIERs 1st class." Cloud's opponent sounded just a little bit bitter at that.

"I'm pretty sure they held back for me, but you have had longer to get used to your enhancements than I have, so they had to work me harder." He wasn't going to mention that he'd been fighting cautiously, not when his opponent looked as if he'd been fighting full out, even if Cloud hadn't realised it before, while they were sparring.

"Do you know how many spars we're meant to do each?"

"Six. Two that split us up into the final groups, then we each spar against all the others in our group."

"Then I'm probably going to be in the bottom ten for this test."

"I don't know. But it's not like they're going to tell us how we did until the end of the tests." Cloud shrugged and took another drink, just before another instructor came in with a new opponent, and hauled Cloud off to spar with his next opponent. It wasn't Damon, and Cloud couldn't remember his name, but this time Cloud didn't bother trying to conserve his strength, he was pretty sure he'd get a chance to rest for a bit if he defeated this opponent quickly.

And he did get a chance to rest, for just over half an hour before regulars came and collected the two of them, taking Cloud to a new room, telling him that this gym was equipped to record his spars, meaning all forty of these spars could be judged by the same person if they had to be. This opponent was the best yet, and Cloud only just won, pulling a move he'd never have risked against Zack or Angeal near the very end of the hour.

"You two can go and get something to eat now. Be back in forty minutes."

"I can't believe how good you've got in the last two months." Scott sounded astounded. "I really thought I had you there for a moment."

"When you're facing two SOLDIERs 1st class on a daily basis you either get good really fast or you give up." Cloud hesitated, but he was pretty sure he could soothe Scott's wounded ego, as long as he didn't catch the implications behind his next words. "And I had a bit more rest than you had before our match, I think you could have won if we'd been equally rested."

"No, I wouldn't. You only tried something like that because you could see I was getting tired didn't you? If I'd been able to rest between my rounds you'd have settled for a draw or a victory by points wouldn't you?" Cloud was struck speechless for a moment by that, the assumption that Cloud was the one in control throughout their spar, and that he would have won on points if he hadn't gone for that risky feint.

"I don't know. I was working on the assumption I'd have to go straight from this into my next spar. We should eat quickly, to make sure it doesn't interfere."

"Yeah." They ate together quickly, and reported back well within their time limit.

"Does one of you want to volunteer to take this next spar? We'll be letting your opponent go for lunch after this."

"I'll do it." Cloud wasn't entirely happy about the idea of facing an opponent now, just five minutes after he'd finished eating, but it would be good practice since he couldn't be certain he'd have time between eating and having to fight in real life. He'd got more rest than Scott had so far, and this would get one more of his spars out of the way with. Except apparently he'd have to wait for his opponent to finish because they were still waiting on two pairs to finish their second spar.

His opponent was Damon, and Cloud would bet that his friend had been as eager to prove himself as Cloud was, so this would be one of the most challenging spars he'd get. On the other hand he couldn't have had much in the way of rest between his spars if he was the last one to join Cloud's group. And Damon would probably make assumptions based on how Cloud had fought before he'd been enhanced, he'd been fairly cautious then, all too aware of how much stronger Damon was. Not that Damon had been taught any more effectively than Cloud had, always the last to get any individual attention, and never as much or as focused as they needed. Cloud used that ruthlessly, attacking and defeating him swiftly, in only fifteen minutes, focusing on the areas he knew Damon had been strongest before on the basis that his weak areas would have been improved and stronger now than the defences he'd learned with Cloud.

"I thought you were crazy attacking where I was strongest, but...I wasn't strongest there was I?" Cloud did wish that Damon hadn't lingered after he'd been told he could have lunch, he wanted to see who else he had to fight.

"Not anymore, but you'd been so used to knowing those were your strong points..." Cloud shrugged and changed the subject. "Go and have lunch now, you only have forty minutes total."

"Sure." Scott got to spar the next one of their group who got back from lunch, Cloud wasn't too sure about his name because he hadn't been trained with Cloud, and Cloud ended up facing Harry when he got back ten minutes later.

"So runt, you think you can live up to your boasts?"

"Let's see." Cloud knew he was grinning; Harry's challenge had stirred up instincts he wasn't sure he'd ever had before Hojo got his hands on him, but now that they were there he was going to use them. The better he did here the faster he'd get good enough to protect his lover and perhaps be allowed to kill the bastard who'd broken him.

Finally he had to face the stranger and it ended up taking the whole hour, and Cloud wasn't quite sure who'd won at the end, or even if there had been a winner. But either way he was free to do whatever he wanted, and he was pretty certain he'd placed highly in this test, so he decided to put in some work on his running.

He only remembered his promise to contact Sephiroth as he went to bed, but curfew was around ten anyway, so he reached out to his lover once he was lying in bed and hoped he didn't fall asleep in the middle of it. Sephiroth was with Zack, but they weren't doing anything; Sephiroth was just lying in Zack's arms, so he opened contact through their link.

'Sephiroth?'

'Yes Cloud? What did you wish? And...how do you think you did today?' There was a hesitancy in the last part of Sephiroth's response, and Cloud could 'hear' him telling Zack that Cloud had contacted him.

'I was just checking in like I promised. I won all my spars except for the last, so I must have scored pretty highly, right?'

'Almost certainly. Do you want me to try and find out what sort of marks you got?'

'Don't bother.' It wasn't worth it and it could raise suspicions. 'Have fun with Zack, and I'll contact you again this time tomorrow.' He pulled out of Sephiroth's mind before the General could respond to that and stopped trying to stay awake any longer.

xoXox