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*hugs FL* Told you I'd do a ZackAlive fic. *hugs again* Got it done. Been a shitty day, but I got it done.
The first bullet tore through his calf. The second grazed his head. Number three caught him solid in the shoulder. Rest of the bullets made a faint sound as they rushed past him.
Once upon at time, Zack would have been pissed at the targeting deficiency of the Shinra troops. In that long ago time, though, when he had been depending on those shots to keep him alive. Now he was thankful for such shoddy marksmanship. Thank the gods that Cloud had been given better training than that.
/CloudgetClouddon’tletthemgethimhavetoprotectCloud/
The way his right arm was dangling told him that the bullet had done some damage. Either it had hit the nerve or shattered part of the bone. Given how fragile said bones had gotten while in the tank, Zack suspected the latter. Especially since he could literally hear something grinding, and feel pain shooting down the arm. Oh, not the nerve then. Hurt too damn much for the nerve.
Damn Hojo. Damn him and his tanks and his experiments. He broke Cloud, broke Zack, and got Zack’s bones broken.
Another burst of bullets, once again missing for the most part as Zack forced his exhausted body to move. A few more grazes, but no solid hits. Good, good, but he knew this wouldn’t end well, couldn’t end well. He was bleeding and hurting and not fully together in the head himself, though he was much better off than Cloud, who was sporting that empty, blank stare and....
He shook himself. Now was not the time to lose it like that. Spotting the place he had left his friend, the edge of the cliff and Midgar beyond it, the SOLDIER realized something.
It was time to do something incredibly, extremely, insanely stupid.
Darting forward, ignoring the pain in his leg, his body, his mind, Zack pulled Cloud up with his good arm. “This is gonna hurt,” he muttered as he lunged forward one more time.
Another bullet brushed through his hair, but gravity had already grabbed the escaping pair.
The most important aspect of Zack’s plan was that the cliff they were on wasn’t really a cliff. It was just a really, really, really steep hill. Rocks and outcropping protruded all over the place, and when he had started losing the fight, a crazy idea had sprung fully grown in his head. One he hoped they both survived.
Curling around Cloud as best he could, Zack still cried out when they hit the ground with a bone jarring thud. He barely had time to suck in air before they were tumbling down the slope at breathtaking speed. Luckily, all the activity of the last few weeks had brought his reflexes back up to almost normal, and he kept track of the outcrop he was looking for. It required a few deft kicks off of some rocks, but he hit the place he wanted.
He hadn’t planned on hitting it as hard as he did, though. With a crunch that jarred Cloud loose from his arms, Zack felt his ribs give as his body wrapped itself around the rock. All his motion stopped, and he forced himself to stay limp and loose. More than a little dazed, he felt relief when he heard Cloud’s soft moan. Oh, good, he thought airily, Cloud’s still close.
Then he focused on his hearing, trying to catch the voices of the troopers above him.
Thankfully, the still air was good for carrying their voices down to him, and Zack listened close.
“I’m not going down this for two almost dead bodies.”
“But we can’t get a clear shot, and the Professor....”
“The Professor wanted them dealt with. They are dealt with. Blondie is so out of it that he didn’t event try to run, and the other guy’s bleeding out right now. Besides, they can’t get up or down, so they’ll die of exposure if they don’t bleed to death first.”
A long pause, and Zack found himself willing the other trooper to accept it. He also barely restrained the urge to jump up and shout “Don’t mind us, we’re dead.” Gods, the blood loss was getting to him, though it seemed as if the stubborn trooper hadn’t worked with a SOLDIER before. Otherwise he would have known that while it looked bad now, people with as much mako in their system as Zack could and would get up from these types of injuries. Hell, it’s what they were designed for.
“Fine. We can report them back as destroyed. The Professor won’t expect bodies back then, right?”
Oh, that young hopefulness. Cloud used to sound like that. Wonder what he would sound like now.
Zack would find out later. After the troopers left, after they got to Midgar, to help. Then he’d find out what Cloud sounded like after five years lost.
///
There was something in the air.
It tugged at her, and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was going to happen. Unsure of what to expect, she let her instincts lead her where she needed to be.
That was how Aeris found herself roaming the church.
The unease wasn’t helped by her flowers and that was when the young woman realized that it wasn’t unease at all. At least not her unease.
Someone was coming. Someone important to her. She could taste it. Taste the blood, pain, and fear wove over a familiar taste. A taste of bitterness and laughter, and a rich, deep love.
Zack was coming. After over five years, Zack was coming home to her.
Heart twisting in her chest, Aeris concentrated all her considerable focus on Zack. He wasn’t alone, she could tell that much. Someone he cared for, loved, was with him. She couldn’t find out who it was, though. When she reached out, her mouth was filled with such bitterness and pain that she gagged and barely fought off the urge to vomit. Taking a moment to spit the taste out, Aeris sent up yet another brief wish that her gifts had taken on a different form, because this thing of tasting her power really sucked at times.
Urge to be ill gone, she reached out again, skirting around the knot of sickness at Zack’s side, and tried to find out where her lost one was.
Close, oh so close. She could taste the thick darkness that was Midgar under the plate, slick with despair and hopelessness. She pushed past that, trying to find the flavor to tell her where under the plate he was.
A taste of green. Just a bit, but fresh and bright on her tongue, tasting of clean and a tiny shard of joy.
He had just passed someone carrying one of her flowers.
She had only sold one, between her home and here. Where was it...?
The taste again, so strong she sighed as she felt refreshed, as if she could take on anything. Fresh and green and so full of life it made her snap open her eyes.
And there was Zack, leaning against the doorway of the church, limp bundle topped with light hair against him, both of them covered in blood and filth.
“Hey, Aeris,” he said, and then he smiled at her, the same bright, sweet, loving smile she remembered. The same one he had given her the last time she had seen him, and she found herself smiling back.
Then he was sliding down, both he and the other falling to hit the floor without a sound.
///
He had gotten to see her face, her beautiful smiling face. That bit of what had been normal, had been safe had stolen the last of his energy. He remembered that bright smile as darkness swarmed in.
Zack felt lost in the darkness. The last five years had never been dark. Hojo hadn’t liked not being able to study his subjects at all hours. Even the last week had always had light. City lights, the moon, oh he missed the moon with her beautiful pale face. Ship lights and cars and the stars. Always shining their tiny colors down on him, reminding him of something besides harsh lab lights.
This darkness was complete. Zack couldn’t remember this kind of dark. The rare snatches of sleep had been so heavy he literally remembered nothing besides closing his eyes and opening them again.
There were hands touching him and for a moment he withered away. They weren’t going to touch him again. Not with their needles and blades and cold, plasticy fingers.
But the fingers were warm, and a voice came with them, soft and familiar and he remembered love when he heard it. So he allowed them to touch him, and they took away the pain instead of adding to it.
He remembered this. This was.... This was safe.
Once he realized that, even the darkness vanished, and he knew nothing.
///
Humming softly to herself, Aeris made her way towards the back of the church. It had been two week since Zack and Cloud had shown up. She almost didn’t recognize the blond when she had been tending to the injuries he had picked up. He had slimmed down and grown up. Of course, so had she. The past was coming back, it seemed. Her boyfriend and his boyfriend. All three of them had been so close in age, and it was odd to look at them and realize that five years had changed them all. She wasn’t the only one to mention it. Zack had as well as he had danced her around the church upon waking.
Cloud hadn’t said anything on it yet. He still hadn’t stirred from the trap his mind had become.
Aeris wasn’t surprised what she saw when she peeked into the door of the room Zack had cleaned up for a living space. On the pile of padding that was the bed, Cloud laid stretched out, Zack curled around him.
They looked almost cute, almost normal. Aeris did have to admit, it made her smile a little to see the two men together. But not like this. Zack was asleep, and she knew he had another job in an hour or so. She came over to watch Cloud, to make sure nothing happened. Zack had tried to pay her, but she had waved the money away. She knew he was trying to save up enough that he could get a real place for him and Cloud. She also knew he was hoping she’d join them, though she didn’t tell him she was thinking about it.
In his arms, though, Cloud stared out into nothingness with his eyes mostly shut. Occasionally, she had seen him with his eyes shut as he slept, but that was rare. Right now, they were just cracked open, the faintest sliver of glowing blue in the dim light of the room.
It hurt. And no matter how hard she tried, how deep she reached, she couldn’t reach him. The bitterness that was mako had long ago soothed down to the levels that Zack had, and she could almost taste the Cloud she remembered. The taste of sun baked grass and warmth. It was almost there, but now it was carried the bitter after taste of the mako, and something else. Something like smoke and fire. Another familiar taste, though she couldn’t place it. Clinging to the taste of smoke was something burnt, and it tried to cling to her tongue every time she tasted it.
Aeris realized she was staring at the blond again, and shook herself. She needed to wake Zack up, so he could make it to the job on time. While he was gone, she would try to reach the younger man once more. She loved Zack, and he loved Cloud just as much as he loved her, and it was killing him for the blond to be like this. If there was any way of bringing Cloud back, she was going to try, if only to make Zack happy.
She walked in with a smile.
///
There was something there. Something that wasn’t the harshness of the lab. Something that was different. He blinked, slow, and only once. A figure before him, who turned quickly and was staring at him. Her lips moved, and he could see them, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
His mind tried to slid away again, back into the nothingness he had been in. The nothingness didn’t hurt, but it didn’t have anything in it. It was.... Nothing.
Nothingness as nothing. It connected in his mind, and he remembered how to think.
Before him, the girl stared, then smiled. Again she moved her lips, and this time, he let himself hear the faintest of noises.
No lab. No lab meant what? He had known this, once. No lab meant....
Freedom.
Freedom was tied to only one other concept. Zack.
His lips moved. He could feel them, feel his face shift as the muscles changed the shape of his lips. A whisper of his own, and he knew what he was saying.
The girl’s /whowassheheknewherhowhowhow/ smile grew, and she nodded. Lips moving again, and this time, he heard the noise. Heard what she said.
“He’ll be home soon, Cloud.”
Cloud? Familiar, so very familiar, he knew that word. It meant something. Meant something to him.
Him. Cloud was him.
Things were connecting, repairing, reviving as self-inflicted withdraw ended, and he crawled his way out of the safety of nothingness. Nothingness had nothing, and he, Cloud, needed something. Needed someone.
Cloud needed Zack.
The girl /aerisaerishernameisaeris/ laughed, voice soft and nice and not grating on his ears.
“Yes, Cloud. You need Zack. And he’s going to be happy to hear it.”
That was good. Zack being happy was good.
And that was enough to make Cloud want to stay here.
///
Stretching and feeling his spine pop, Zack cheerfully called out a hello as he strolled into the church. The night had gone better than planned, and he was thrilled to have pleased the bar owner so much the guy had doubled his pay and offered the same gig twice more the next week and a letter of introduction to some of the other bar owners under the plate.
“Oh, Zack, you’re home. I have something to tell you....” Aeris almost sang as she literally bounced over to meet him. Laughing, Zack caught her and swung her around.
“I have to tell you something as well, hon,” he crowed after stealing a kiss. “I got enough.”
Green eyes blinked as Aeris tried to figure out what he was talking about. Then she gasped. “You got enough for the apartment? How?”
Grinning, Zack told her. “Turns out old Jonesy forgot to mention a detail or two. And when said detail came to trash the stuff, I was able to take it down fast. So fast that it didn’t have time to destroy anything. After that, guarding the shipment was easy. He must have seen that I was a bit upset, because he doubled the pay. And that’s all I needed to have the down payment and first month’s rent.”
He stopped, violet eyes going serious as he looked at her. “Please, hon? I love you, Aeris, and I love Cloud, and I know you guys got along before, and I want you to be with us in our home. Please? I love you both so much that I don’t know what I would do without either of you....” His voice trailed off.
“We love you too, Zack.”
Aeris wasn’t the one who spoke.
Zack did feel a bit guilty over the fact he almost dropped his lady love when he spun around, but his reflexes were still good, so she ended up pulled close to his body. But he didn’t pay any attention to the feelings of guilt, his eyes focusing on the owner of that voice.
When he had first come in, when he had seen Aeris working on her flowers, and Cloud sitting by the patch staring at them, he hadn’t really paid attention. He had come across that scene more than once so he really hadn’t payed attention.
Now Cloud was looking at him, looking so sleepy and soft and there that Zack was afraid to blink and find out he was dreaming.
“Cloud?”
Oh, that sweet, sweet smile. The one Cloud used to give before the lab, the ones he still had given after bad tests to let Zack know he was all right. Zack had started to think he was never going to see that smile again. Not letting go of Aeris, he took one step, then a second, then scooped her up full and ran to Cloud’s side. Kneeling, with one arm around her still, he reached with the other and pulled Cloud to him, and the dark haired man never realized he was crying until Cloud reached up to wipe away the tears.
“I came back,” the blond in his arms whispered before leaning into the kisses Zack was raining down on his face. Aeris was hugging both of them, and Cloud was awake, and everything was right and good and fair in Zack’s world again.
This was his life. This was what made his life worth living. Right here in his arms, both of them smiling and leaning against him.
Still crying, Zack held them tight. He could do anything now, and it would be all right. Anything at all.
This was his real freedom.
This one comes in at2913 longer since I added new things. Still over twice as large as my average fic. Your fault, FL. All yours.
The first bullet tore through his calf. The second grazed his head. Number three caught him solid in the shoulder. Rest of the bullets made a faint sound as they rushed past him.
Once upon at time, Zack would have been pissed at the targeting deficiency of the Shinra troops. In that long ago time, though, when he had been depending on those shots to keep him alive. Now he was thankful for such shoddy marksmanship. Thank the gods that Cloud had been given better training than that.
/CloudgetClouddon’tletthemgethimhavetoprotectCloud/
The way his right arm was dangling told him that the bullet had done some damage. Either it had hit the nerve or shattered part of the bone. Given how fragile said bones had gotten while in the tank, Zack suspected the latter. Especially since he could literally hear something grinding, and feel pain shooting down the arm. Oh, not the nerve then. Hurt too damn much for the nerve.
Damn Hojo. Damn him and his tanks and his experiments. He broke Cloud, broke Zack, and got Zack’s bones broken.
Another burst of bullets, once again missing for the most part as Zack forced his exhausted body to move. A few more grazes, but no solid hits. Good, good, but he knew this wouldn’t end well, couldn’t end well. He was bleeding and hurting and not fully together in the head himself, though he was much better off than Cloud, who was sporting that empty, blank stare and....
He shook himself. Now was not the time to lose it like that. Spotting the place he had left his friend, the edge of the cliff and Midgar beyond it, the SOLDIER realized something.
It was time to do something incredibly, extremely, insanely stupid.
Darting forward, ignoring the pain in his leg, his body, his mind, Zack pulled Cloud up with his good arm. “This is gonna hurt,” he muttered as he lunged forward one more time.
Another bullet brushed through his hair, but gravity had already grabbed the escaping pair.
The most important aspect of Zack’s plan was that the cliff they were on wasn’t really a cliff. It was just a really, really, really steep hill. Rocks and outcropping protruded all over the place, and when he had started losing the fight, a crazy idea had sprung fully grown in his head. One he hoped they both survived.
Curling around Cloud as best he could, Zack still cried out when they hit the ground with a bone jarring thud. He barely had time to suck in air before they were tumbling down the slope at breathtaking speed. Luckily, all the activity of the last few weeks had brought his reflexes back up to almost normal, and he kept track of the outcrop he was looking for. It required a few deft kicks off of some rocks, but he hit the place he wanted.
He hadn’t planned on hitting it as hard as he did, though. With a crunch that jarred Cloud loose from his arms, Zack felt his ribs give as his body wrapped itself around the rock. All his motion stopped, and he forced himself to stay limp and loose. More than a little dazed, he felt relief when he heard Cloud’s soft moan. Oh, good, he thought airily, Cloud’s still close.
Then he focused on his hearing, trying to catch the voices of the troopers above him.
Thankfully, the still air was good for carrying their voices down to him, and Zack listened close.
“I’m not going down this for two almost dead bodies.”
“But we can’t get a clear shot, and the Professor....”
“The Professor wanted them dealt with. They are dealt with. Blondie is so out of it that he didn’t event try to run, and the other guy’s bleeding out right now. Besides, they can’t get up or down, so they’ll die of exposure if they don’t bleed to death first.”
A long pause, and Zack found himself willing the other trooper to accept it. He also barely restrained the urge to jump up and shout “Don’t mind us, we’re dead.” Gods, the blood loss was getting to him, though it seemed as if the stubborn trooper hadn’t worked with a SOLDIER before. Otherwise he would have known that while it looked bad now, people with as much mako in their system as Zack could and would get up from these types of injuries. Hell, it’s what they were designed for.
“Fine. We can report them back as destroyed. The Professor won’t expect bodies back then, right?”
Oh, that young hopefulness. Cloud used to sound like that. Wonder what he would sound like now.
Zack would find out later. After the troopers left, after they got to Midgar, to help. Then he’d find out what Cloud sounded like after five years lost.
There was something in the air.
It tugged at her, and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was going to happen. Unsure of what to expect, she let her instincts lead her where she needed to be.
That was how Aeris found herself roaming the church.
The unease wasn’t helped by her flowers and that was when the young woman realized that it wasn’t unease at all. At least not her unease.
Someone was coming. Someone important to her. She could taste it. Taste the blood, pain, and fear wove over a familiar taste. A taste of bitterness and laughter, and a rich, deep love.
Zack was coming. After over five years, Zack was coming home to her.
Heart twisting in her chest, Aeris concentrated all her considerable focus on Zack. He wasn’t alone, she could tell that much. Someone he cared for, loved, was with him. She couldn’t find out who it was, though. When she reached out, her mouth was filled with such bitterness and pain that she gagged and barely fought off the urge to vomit. Taking a moment to spit the taste out, Aeris sent up yet another brief wish that her gifts had taken on a different form, because this thing of tasting her power really sucked at times.
Urge to be ill gone, she reached out again, skirting around the knot of sickness at Zack’s side, and tried to find out where her lost one was.
Close, oh so close. She could taste the thick darkness that was Midgar under the plate, slick with despair and hopelessness. She pushed past that, trying to find the flavor to tell her where under the plate he was.
A taste of green. Just a bit, but fresh and bright on her tongue, tasting of clean and a tiny shard of joy.
He had just passed someone carrying one of her flowers.
She had only sold one, between her home and here. Where was it...?
The taste again, so strong she sighed as she felt refreshed, as if she could take on anything. Fresh and green and so full of life it made her snap open her eyes.
And there was Zack, leaning against the doorway of the church, limp bundle topped with light hair against him, both of them covered in blood and filth.
“Hey, Aeris,” he said, and then he smiled at her, the same bright, sweet, loving smile she remembered. The same one he had given her the last time she had seen him, and she found herself smiling back.
Then he was sliding down, both he and the other falling to hit the floor without a sound.
He had gotten to see her face, her beautiful smiling face. That bit of what had been normal, had been safe had stolen the last of his energy. He remembered that bright smile as darkness swarmed in.
Zack felt lost in the darkness. The last five years had never been dark. Hojo hadn’t liked not being able to study his subjects at all hours. Even the last week had always had light. City lights, the moon, oh he missed the moon with her beautiful pale face. Ship lights and cars and the stars. Always shining their tiny colors down on him, reminding him of something besides harsh lab lights.
This darkness was complete. Zack couldn’t remember this kind of dark. The rare snatches of sleep had been so heavy he literally remembered nothing besides closing his eyes and opening them again.
There were hands touching him and for a moment he withered away. They weren’t going to touch him again. Not with their needles and blades and cold, plasticy fingers.
But the fingers were warm, and a voice came with them, soft and familiar and he remembered love when he heard it. So he allowed them to touch him, and they took away the pain instead of adding to it.
He remembered this. This was.... This was safe.
Once he realized that, even the darkness vanished, and he knew nothing.
Humming softly to herself, Aeris made her way towards the back of the church. It had been two week since Zack and Cloud had shown up. She almost didn’t recognize the blond when she had been tending to the injuries he had picked up. He had slimmed down and grown up. Of course, so had she. The past was coming back, it seemed. Her boyfriend and his boyfriend. All three of them had been so close in age, and it was odd to look at them and realize that five years had changed them all. She wasn’t the only one to mention it. Zack had as well as he had danced her around the church upon waking.
Cloud hadn’t said anything on it yet. He still hadn’t stirred from the trap his mind had become.
Aeris wasn’t surprised what she saw when she peeked into the door of the room Zack had cleaned up for a living space. On the pile of padding that was the bed, Cloud laid stretched out, Zack curled around him.
They looked almost cute, almost normal. Aeris did have to admit, it made her smile a little to see the two men together. But not like this. Zack was asleep, and she knew he had another job in an hour or so. She came over to watch Cloud, to make sure nothing happened. Zack had tried to pay her, but she had waved the money away. She knew he was trying to save up enough that he could get a real place for him and Cloud. She also knew he was hoping she’d join them, though she didn’t tell him she was thinking about it.
In his arms, though, Cloud stared out into nothingness with his eyes mostly shut. Occasionally, she had seen him with his eyes shut as he slept, but that was rare. Right now, they were just cracked open, the faintest sliver of glowing blue in the dim light of the room.
It hurt. And no matter how hard she tried, how deep she reached, she couldn’t reach him. The bitterness that was mako had long ago soothed down to the levels that Zack had, and she could almost taste the Cloud she remembered. The taste of sun baked grass and warmth. It was almost there, but now it was carried the bitter after taste of the mako, and something else. Something like smoke and fire. Another familiar taste, though she couldn’t place it. Clinging to the taste of smoke was something burnt, and it tried to cling to her tongue every time she tasted it.
Aeris realized she was staring at the blond again, and shook herself. She needed to wake Zack up, so he could make it to the job on time. While he was gone, she would try to reach the younger man once more. She loved Zack, and he loved Cloud just as much as he loved her, and it was killing him for the blond to be like this. If there was any way of bringing Cloud back, she was going to try, if only to make Zack happy.
She walked in with a smile.
There was something there. Something that wasn’t the harshness of the lab. Something that was different. He blinked, slow, and only once. A figure before him, who turned quickly and was staring at him. Her lips moved, and he could see them, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
His mind tried to slid away again, back into the nothingness he had been in. The nothingness didn’t hurt, but it didn’t have anything in it. It was.... Nothing.
Nothingness as nothing. It connected in his mind, and he remembered how to think.
Before him, the girl stared, then smiled. Again she moved her lips, and this time, he let himself hear the faintest of noises.
No lab. No lab meant what? He had known this, once. No lab meant....
Freedom.
Freedom was tied to only one other concept. Zack.
His lips moved. He could feel them, feel his face shift as the muscles changed the shape of his lips. A whisper of his own, and he knew what he was saying.
The girl’s /whowassheheknewherhowhowhow/ smile grew, and she nodded. Lips moving again, and this time, he heard the noise. Heard what she said.
“He’ll be home soon, Cloud.”
Cloud? Familiar, so very familiar, he knew that word. It meant something. Meant something to him.
Him. Cloud was him.
Things were connecting, repairing, reviving as self-inflicted withdraw ended, and he crawled his way out of the safety of nothingness. Nothingness had nothing, and he, Cloud, needed something. Needed someone.
Cloud needed Zack.
The girl /aerisaerishernameisaeris/ laughed, voice soft and nice and not grating on his ears.
“Yes, Cloud. You need Zack. And he’s going to be happy to hear it.”
That was good. Zack being happy was good.
And that was enough to make Cloud want to stay here.
Stretching and feeling his spine pop, Zack cheerfully called out a hello as he strolled into the church. The night had gone better than planned, and he was thrilled to have pleased the bar owner so much the guy had doubled his pay and offered the same gig twice more the next week and a letter of introduction to some of the other bar owners under the plate.
“Oh, Zack, you’re home. I have something to tell you....” Aeris almost sang as she literally bounced over to meet him. Laughing, Zack caught her and swung her around.
“I have to tell you something as well, hon,” he crowed after stealing a kiss. “I got enough.”
Green eyes blinked as Aeris tried to figure out what he was talking about. Then she gasped. “You got enough for the apartment? How?”
Grinning, Zack told her. “Turns out old Jonesy forgot to mention a detail or two. And when said detail came to trash the stuff, I was able to take it down fast. So fast that it didn’t have time to destroy anything. After that, guarding the shipment was easy. He must have seen that I was a bit upset, because he doubled the pay. And that’s all I needed to have the down payment and first month’s rent.”
He stopped, violet eyes going serious as he looked at her. “Please, hon? I love you, Aeris, and I love Cloud, and I know you guys got along before, and I want you to be with us in our home. Please? I love you both so much that I don’t know what I would do without either of you....” His voice trailed off.
“We love you too, Zack.”
Aeris wasn’t the one who spoke.
Zack did feel a bit guilty over the fact he almost dropped his lady love when he spun around, but his reflexes were still good, so she ended up pulled close to his body. But he didn’t pay any attention to the feelings of guilt, his eyes focusing on the owner of that voice.
When he had first come in, when he had seen Aeris working on her flowers, and Cloud sitting by the patch staring at them, he hadn’t really paid attention. He had come across that scene more than once so he really hadn’t payed attention.
Now Cloud was looking at him, looking so sleepy and soft and there that Zack was afraid to blink and find out he was dreaming.
“Cloud?”
Oh, that sweet, sweet smile. The one Cloud used to give before the lab, the ones he still had given after bad tests to let Zack know he was all right. Zack had started to think he was never going to see that smile again. Not letting go of Aeris, he took one step, then a second, then scooped her up full and ran to Cloud’s side. Kneeling, with one arm around her still, he reached with the other and pulled Cloud to him, and the dark haired man never realized he was crying until Cloud reached up to wipe away the tears.
“I came back,” the blond in his arms whispered before leaning into the kisses Zack was raining down on his face. Aeris was hugging both of them, and Cloud was awake, and everything was right and good and fair in Zack’s world again.
This was his life. This was what made his life worth living. Right here in his arms, both of them smiling and leaning against him.
Still crying, Zack held them tight. He could do anything now, and it would be all right. Anything at all.
This was his real freedom.
This one comes in at
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though, when he was
/CloudgetCloudeon’tletthemgethimhavetoprotectCloud/
deon’t <--typo, you mean don't right?
would have know that while it looked bad now
known
you act like you're doing something other than encouraging me here
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*Goes off to memorize*
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Besides, I don't have any ideas on how to do it (a plot).
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Just because Tifa doesn't meet Cloud there, it means nothing. *grins* They live in the same area, kinda, and Zack does have that letter to meet other bar owners.... *grins*
Now that Cloud is getting better, I can see him and Zack taking on stupidly dangerous jobs.
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Loved this take on Cloud slowly coming back to Zack and Aeris. Aeris's "taste" senses were really neat, a very sublte and complex power. She knows how her boys are doing by what flavor thye are... :D
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I'm happy with how the Aeris tasting came out. I had seen, in a Mercedes Lackey book, where someone mentioned people could hear magic, see magic, and even taste it. I stole the idea for taste, and tada! It'll be fun when she comes across things that she doesn't know, and trying to figure them out by taste.
And, oh, the ways she could play with that power.... *leers*
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I just lucked out that the smut came out on V-day. Mostly because I sat up last night and wrote it.
Glad you liked this one, and I do hope you enjoy my other stuff.
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I will never get tired of 'Zack survived' stories. Never, ever. He should have survived, damn it! *sniffles* This was lovely.
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... Is it bad that that particular line stuck with me through the entire thing? Its so Zack. >> And I never really imagined I'd see Zack crying as IC, but here we go!
I should make a tally for the number of times you've managed to kill me.
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Woot! I was proud of that line. It was very Zacklike in my head, especially now that I have a voice for him. *pets the man*
Dead people don't get to read more fics. >.>
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Dead people especially can't make lame attempts to write out their own bunnies spawned by reading lurvely goodfic. >>