Hey, Cloud… can I kiss you?

That's how it should have gone. Zack pulls away, dread gathering where elation had been. Cloud's eyes are blown out and fearful as he blinks, as his hand rises to touch his own mouth.

A tight, hot feeling constricts his chest. He got it wrong.

He should have asked, but he didn't and now it's too late. The truth is a dead bird shot in the air, falling between them.

Zack likes him, has always liked him. More than he should—more than was appropriate for their respective ranks, and much more than was appropriate for a guy with a beautiful, perfect girlfriend—and now Cloud knows.

"Sorry," Zack chokes, unfolding his legs to go… nowhere. As far as he can go in a prison cell. Cloud tackles him first, pushing him back in a tumble of limbs.

"No—" He wheezes, shaking his head in a blur of blonde panic. His mouth shapes around a silent tirade that quickly gives way to another strained, emphatic, "No."

And then he dives into Zack's mouth like they're going over a waterfall; terrifying, thrilling, unstoppable once it begins. His hands are everywhere, his kiss rushed and clumsy. It reminds him, hilariously, of a middle manager scrambling to catch an elevator while the doors close in front of him.

It's Cloud, in a word. The most harried, earnest, awkward first kiss. Blind affection stuns him, then spreads through him like a fire.

He kisses back softly, demonstrably slow, and hums when Cloud catches his signal and synchronizes.

Their touch becomes liquid. The warm-blanket feeling of their minds brushing sweeps over Zack's skin.

"Cloud…"

They separate for a breath—a searching look that mirrors shock, joy, terror, and need back and forth between them in a deafening echo chamber—and then they're crashing back together like an atom bomb.

Cloud's intensity is back but smoother this time, his lips slick and searching as he cups Zack's face with both hands. Suction pulls on his bottom lip and sends shivers down to his toes. He traces thin cotton and knotted ties up Cloud's back, dipping into the gaps to find torn bandages and smooth skin.

A timid lick sets a fire in him and Zack opens, hungry for it. He wants to drink him down and build a fortress between their mouths.

He presses ten fingertips to the valley of Cloud's shoulders, begging with his body for the other to fall into him. A cautious tongue slides past his lips, and heat melts the border between their minds like candle wax.

Thoughts and flashes of feeling pass through him. He opens his eyes to find his feet affixed to the ceiling. Cloud stands across from him, barefoot in an elite security uniform. Zack looks down to see he's dressed in SOLDIER blues.

White nothingness spans in all directions. No walls. No doors, only the black plane of the ceiling and a check-pattern floor extending into eternity. Their bodies are twined together there, statues frozen in place, seeking solace in each other's mouths.

Zack blinks. He must have blacked out or something, this can't be real.

His heels start to come away from the ceiling. Cloud grabs his wrist.

"Don't. Don't think about it."

"Where are we?" Zack feels light, insubstantial.

"I said dont!"

That scares him back onto the upside-down ground.

"We're… in the other place," Cloud says.

Zack gives him a baffled look.

"The Void. It's where I go when I'm away. But it doesn't normally look like this."

"Why are we on the ceiling?"

Cloud chews his cheek. "I dunno. It's usually all white. Nothing to judge directions with."

"And those are—" He looks up, or is it down?

"Yeah. I think… if we lose our connection we'll fall back into them."

"Our bodies." Zack clarifies with a queasy feeling.

Cloud's fists curl at his sides. "Yeah."

"We look frozen."

"We're not. At least… that's not how it's been. It can feel like no time's passed, but then I wake up and it's been days. Or the other way 'round."

"Shit. That's—"

"You get used to it." Cloud cuts off his sympathy. Zack reaches for him, and finds his hand as warm and solid as usual.

"Do you think," Zack swallows, looking around, "maybe it looks different because we're still inside?"

"Inside?" Cloud lowers his brows.

"You went outside your mind to find me. And then you got lost coming back. But if we never left our minds…" Zack waves his hands at their surroundings.

Cloud's face lights with recognition. "I pushed through. When we, uh—"

He averts his eyes and rubs the back of his neck. It's the most adorable thing Zack's seen him do. Affection runs rampant in his chest, and wild bursts of color stain the white room. Autumn red and saffron yellow. Fiery flashes of red-orange where they meet. They both stare in wonder.

"What was that?" Zack asks.

"I dunno. Did you…?"

It's Zack's turn to look sheepish, which adds a flicker of ocean blue to the graffiti, and eliminates any doubt. A wry smile turns up one side of his mouth.

"Okay, so this is my mind," he says. "Sorry it's so depressing. Never been big on interior decorating."

Color creeps into the bedspread and over their petrified bodies, or at least, what little color exists in the cell.

Cloud turns a slow circle with his mouth hung open. "It's so colorful. I've never—"

The ground shakes. The bodies on the bed start to stir. He and Cloud make eye contact just in time to watch each other fall.

Sensation slaps him back into reality like a bucket of cold water. Cloud stares at him, lips flushed and pupils blown wide.

What's left of their breakfast floats in a ring around them—napkins, bread crumbs, salt packets, utensils. The halogen lights crack and flicker in time with an ear-slipping feedback from the intercom speakers.

It comes to a stop between one breath and the next. The plastic tray clatters to the floor amidst a shower of garbage. One of the lights explodes into sparks. Guards rush in before either of them can get their bearings.

"Hands up, freaks. Up high, where I can see them."

The usual parade of armor and weaponry makes him jerk Cloud towards the wall to put himself in the line of fire.

Voices clash discordantly within Zack's head, one of them his own internal monologue, the other one Cloud's. What now? Not again. They can't take him. I won't let them. Shit, shit, shit, please, no. I can't—

Emotions batter him from all sides. Zack tightens his hold on Cloud. He tries to calm the sea.

We did it. Hojo saw it. He'll have to keep us.

It's not Sephiroth. He won't care.

He will. Don't think like that.

More orders wash past his ears unheard. Their internal world is too loud to ignore.

Cloud hides in Zack's neck when an imposing figure steps forward. Zack blinks twice before his overburdened brain recognizes Roche. A light touch settles on his shoulder.

"Are you two all right?" the SOLDIER asks.

"You can't take him," Zack growls. He can't stop himself. There's no presence of mind left, no mind-mouth filter. It's everything he can manage just to distinguish between the voice in his throat and the one in his head.

Roche nods, his face serene and body at ease. "I have no reason to. You're both to be taken to the same place, and kept there together. Is that agreeable?"

See, they're terminating us. Electric current, poison injection, firing squad—

Roche wouldn't. He's decent.

SOLDIERs follow orders, Cloud recites from the Public Defense handbook.

"It's not far," Roche assures.

Zack swallows, and pulls Cloud's arm over his shoulder. They sway like drunkards as they limp after Roche, neither of them entirely seated in their own skin. Zack's vision bends and warps in a sickening slosh.

It's a good thing Roche didn't downplay the distance, because they couldn't have made it through the Cradle like this. He marches them to the back corner of the atrium, where dusty crates and empty kennels are stacked to the ceiling.

Bennet's there, overseeing two other scientists' effort to attach a thick hose to the fitting of a specimen tank. Cloud closes his fist in the fabric of Zack's shirt, and their tangled, dark emotions bleed together like spilled ink.

There's a tarp crumpled at their feet which must have covered the tank until recently, because the glass and metal are immaculately clean.

A loud click denotes the attachment of the hose, and the two scientists pat each other on the back. Bennet clicks her tongue and sends them away.

"I'm sure you're wondering what's going on," she says.

Zack rankles at the obligation of answering, and his inability to do anything but agree. Cloud bathes him in a cool mist of patience.

You're right. They aren't killing us, he reasons. It's everything Zack can do to answer calmly.

"At this point, I don't bother," he admits. "It's not worth the energy."

Bennet purses her lips and pushes her glasses up her nose. "Into the tank, then. If you require assistance, Roche will aid you." She busies herself with a control panel, and Roche looks at them with poorly veiled concern.

An experiment? Cloud asks.

Zack shakes his head. Too soon. They just saw us merge. Shouldn't they want samples?

The SOLDIER clears his throat, and Zack forces his legs into motion. A guard insists they strip.

Maybe it's a sign of their decline that they don't even consider resisting. They kick off their shoes in unison, and turn to help each other work the garments over their heads.

The nakedness isn't even demeaning anymore. Those two days in the children's lab changed him. He'd been raised to believe that a body was sacred, that it housed and protected the soul.

But there was no dignity for Cloud when his soul had vacated his body. There was nothing sacred about Zack chewing up food and spitting it into his mouth, and nothing at all holy about wiping his ass when that meal came out the other end.

Now he knows that a body is just a vessel. It can be respected, but it isn't guaranteed anything. In the hands of doctors and psychopaths, a body is just a means to break the soul inside.

Being stripped is just a temporary signifier of a constant truth. Whether they're wearing clothes or not, they are always naked in this place.

Cloud picks at the tie of the bandage around his chest. His fingers shake like leaves. Knowing how cheap the fabric is, Zack just tears the bandage open and helps him unpeel it from where the blood has affixed it to his skin. The wound is almost healed, just a little pink around the scabs.

Once they're naked, Roche gestures toward the edge of the tank. A ladder gives access to the open hatch, but there's no soft landing on the other side. He opts to go first, so he can catch Cloud when he comes through.

The tube is wide enough for him to stretch without touching either side. In short order, they're both trapped in it.

Bennet keys in a sequence of codes, and confirms the order with a scan of her face. She gives Roche a curt nod, and levels a carefully neutral expression on him and Cloud.

"It's been a pleasure working with you," she says.

The doctor turns on her heel and walks away.

"Auto-fill protocol activated. Commencing operation," the console chirps merrily. The hatch closes off the exit with a snapping of locks.

"Hey, hold on a second!" He bangs his fists on the glass. "Come back here, talk to me. What did we do? Bennet!"

To his credit, Roche looks genuinely remorseful. His voice is garbled and distant through the glass.

"Hojo leaves for Midgar within the hour. The project is on hold. You're to be stored in stasis until further notice."

"What do you mean stasis ? You can't just leave us here. We did everything you assholes asked for, this isn't fair!"

Cloud makes an awful noise, the kind of noise a child makes while caught in a nightmare. His knees give out, and Zack's too far unraveled to hold him up. They cling to each other as they slide down the glass, every drop of emotion doubled and amplified by their connection.

This is it. The end of the line. Nothing more for them to do, no more stalling or bargaining.

Roche eyes their intimate embrace, and orders the guards back to the doors. Clearing his throat, he clasps his hands at his waist and turns his back toward them.

A motor pumps pale blue fluid up from the floor. It fills faster than mako, thin and slippery on their skin.

Cloud's breathing turns frenetic and his thoughts disintegrate into chaos. Zack pulls him tight against his chest.

"We're okay," he whispers. Cloud rocks compulsively in his lap, hiding his face in his neck, and Zack pets his hair even as dread tightens his muscles into lead. "We're okay, just breathe deep. Take it fast and it'll hurt less."

You won't, Cloud says.

"Yeah, well." Zack gasps as the cold water reaches his neck. "I think we've established that I'm not the amazing role model you wanted me to be."

I didn't want a role model. Cloud kisses around the metal collar, up his neck and along his jaw. I wanted this. I just didn't think you'd ever—you were so perfect. Why would you want a loser like me?

"I never thought that," Zack swears, rocking with Cloud now, opening his heart so Cloud can feel how wrong he is. "I was jealous, you idiot. I would have killed to be normal again, like you. I wanted you to stop putting me on a pedestal and just be my friend."

So… we were both wrong.

"And stupid." Zack tips his head back on the glass as the fluid threatens to pass his chin. "Imagine if we hadn't wasted what little time we had."

Then kiss me now, Cloud begs. Kiss me 'til it's over.

Thin lips press and pull at his own, and Zack tilts his head to deepen it. He reels Cloud in, inviting him to finish what they started in the cell.

He's so overcome by the first brush of their tongues that he almost doesn't notice the water cresting their lips. He jerks, rising to stay over the surface, but Cloud coaxes him down

Together. You promised.

Firm hands cup his face. Zack shudders. He opens, and lets Cloud breathe water into his lungs. He convulses and flounders, fingers dug into round shoulders. It's only a moment, a lightning bolt of drowning, choking, gonna die, before his lungs find sweet oxygen in the fluid. He coughs up a flurry of bubbles, and the next mouthful from Cloud is a kiss of life.

Their bodies lift from the floor, slowly unwinding as the fluid approaches the lid. They hold each other, chests flush and legs intertwined. A strange lassitude stills the vibration of their thoughts.

Zack forces his eyes open. They feel heavy as bricks. Cloud does the same.

They look at each other. They think no thoughts. They blink.

Abruptly, the lights outside the tank go off. The world outside contracts.

Time passes. It drips and drags with no sight, no sound, no smell. Their consciousness becomes a weightless, timeless Nothing.

In a frenzy they come together, needing sensation to withstand insanity. They find it with tastes of skin and drags of teeth, with hands scraping over deprived nerves and hips grinding reflexively towards fleeting pleasures.

Zack anchors himself in Cloud's body and Cloud's spirit, clinging until that body feels like part of him. And then, after an eternity of darkness and silence, he catches a flicker of light. A pinprick in a sea of Nothing.

He reaches, fingers outstretched. A warm, soft hand slides into his.

He opens his eyes to a blazing sun. Even with his hands over his eyes it still stings. For the first time in eternity his skin feels warm and dry. He blinks.

A field of wheat blows in a summer wind all around him. Fluffy white wisps float in an endless blue sky. Zack breaths until he can't hold any more air, nose tickling with the scent of wood smoke and grass.

"Zack!" Cloud calls. He spins three times looking for him among the reeds. Cloud calls his name again.

Suddenly there's a cottage out there, far off in the field. It's made of stone on the first floor, plaster and crossbeams on the second. The shingle roof is old but orderly, with a picture-book window peaking out one end. It's a sturdy, unpretentious old place, the sort you see in any mountain town, complete with a chicken coop and a precarious garden wall to keep the wildness of the field at bay.

Ribbons of smoke loop out from the stone chimney, reaching into the sky where a black inverted tube hangs over everything. It's dark, but he can see their bodies twined together inside, the smoke a kind of umbilical cord linking them loosely to the house. Zack has to concentrate to keep his feet in the dirt.

He doesn't run for the cottage because doesn't have to. As soon as he sees it, he's there in a blink.

Cloud pushes his hair out of his face, fighting a losing battle with the wind. The smile tucked under his freckled nose is the biggest Zack's ever seen.

"You're here," he beams. Zack stares at a face both foreign and familiar. His eyes are a softer, darker blue, the same as his faded jeans. His face is narrower and shoulders leaner, enough to make the t-shirt hang loose over his chest. A little pony tail peeks out from the fringe at the back of his head that Zack wants to tug and play with like a cat.

Cloud has freckles, for fuck's sake. Freckles. All over his nose and cheeks. Not fair, how is he supposed to play it cool when his friend's soul is so unfathomably cute?

Zack laces his hands behind his head, trying not to be weird by admiring the gabled roof and lush garden. It's so sudden but sweet to be here, that he doesn't care to question anything. A matching smile pulls at his lips.

"I guess I am," he says. Cloud grabs his hand, and drags him impatiently towards the porch.

The door swings open before either of them touch it. Zack blinks at the surprisingly sparse interior. There's a few windows, a brick floor, a fireplace and some stairs. No pictures, no furniture, no household objects. Cloud pulls him insistently towards the stairs.

"Don't look at that, I haven't gotten there yet. Come on, the good part's upstairs."

Zack follows, a little whiplashed by the sudden color and life of his surroundings.

'Upstairs' is all one big room. There's an alcove with three windows and a bench. A trunk lies open nearby, surrounded by discarded clothes. A handful of books are stacked near a regiment of army men on the wood floor, under a large poster of a Hardy-Daytona motorbike.

Cloud pulls him to the other side of the room, toward a plush round rug and a bed of ridiculous proportions. The Buster Sword leans against the wall next to it. A framed photo of himself winks up from the bedside table.

"Well," Cloud asks. He looks nervous now, not quite meeting Zack's eyes. "Is that it? Did I remember right?"

Zack picks it up like a relic of a lost civilization, amazed by the realness of the weight and the smooth texture of the leather hilt wrap. He gives a test slash and feels the recoil in his joints.

Cloud rocks on his toes, his face flush with anxiety. Zack swallows down a wave of emotion and nods, blinking rapidly.

"Yeah—" he chokes, rubbing at his face to keep from misting. "You… did this all for me?"

Cloud crosses his arms, all surly, and looks at his bare feet.

"I guess. Yeah. For… for us both."

Zack looks down at Angeal's legacy, lost for words. He sets it back against the wall, and opts to thank Cloud in the language he prefers. The other man gives a surprised oof at the force of his hug.

His body tenses up—which Zack is coming to understand is just his automatic reaction to everything—and then melts into it. He brings his hands up to Zack's lower back and squeezes.

"Needs more books," he decides. Cloud huffs.

"Better get writing then, 'cause those are blank inside. Can't remember them."

"Just my luck." Zack shakes his head. "I liked reading in school, but my writing is chicken scratch."

"We've got time," Cloud shrugs.

That they do. Zack tries to remember all those Loveless lines Genesis used to quote, and comes up empty.

"Let's worry about that after the downstairs is furnished."

Cloud shifts, and Zack's uniform turns into pajama pants and a cableknit sweater. He rubs his face in it and worms his hands under the hem at the back.

"In a minute," he mumbles. "I'm busy right now."

Zack rests his chin on Cloud's head. "I can see that. Poor thing, so much to do."

Cloud pinches the small of his back, growling. Zack huffs indignantly, and does his best not to make him mad by laughing.