Archive of Our Own

The thing one has to know about Zack Fair is that he’s like the sun. All life on Earth needs the heat of the sun—don’t they? That’s what makes Earth so special, so different from all the other planets.

Cloud wants to bask in the warmth of Zack Fair.

To stand close enough to see the crinkle in Zack’s eyes as he smiles. To breathe in the scent of the musky cologne from his neck. To feel his fingertips run soothingly through the back of Cloud’s head, or over his cheek, guitar-calloused fingers scraping soft skin.

Like the sun, everyone else revolves around Zack.

Walking beside him, Zack can’t go even just a few steps on campus without a friend cheerily stopping by for conversation, beaming up at him like plants reaching towards the heavens.

It irritates Cloud. That his attention will then go to them, while he stands quietly by, like the moon, invisible during the daytime. Only Zack’s light, reflected onto him, gives him any glow at all, but Cloud is content with that. The moon would be such a cold and dark place without it.

He doesn’t know what life was like before meeting Zack Fair. Everything from before is a blur and meaningless. Cloud can only remember how life is like now, with every waking thought consumed by him, and he likes it that way.

Something keeps eating away at Cloud, though, this yearning to get as close to him as possible, because the need isn’t being fulfilled.

If he could become a part of Zack—be just like him, indistinguishable, inseparable—Cloud could die happy.

And even if that meant being singed by the flames for coming too close, Cloud wouldn’t mind the burn.

He’d welcome it, like the light of a dying star. Like the only thing that gives his universe any meaning.

“Hey, Spike.” Zack’s wearing a big grin, slinging an arm around his shoulders so carelessly, without any idea of what it does to Cloud.

Even on good days, he can barely stand the sight of Zack doing the same thing to others—touching them, acting so affectionate. Although, he’s not heard Zack give anyone else such a special nickname—for example, Kunsel is just ‘Kunz,’ and more than one person calls him that.

But only Zack calls him Spike.

“You should try out for the team,” he says, a bit breathless from running to catch up to him. “There’s an opening. One of the players dropped out.”

“Oh, who?” Cloud doesn’t even care for basketball, and doesn’t think he’d be any good at it, but the idea of having a more legitimate excuse to spend time with Zack perks up his attention.

“Biggs? Not sure if you know him. Think he got a better scholarship offer, so he’s transferring to another school.”

Of course he knows who Biggs is. He knows about everyone who Zack shows any interest in. As another star player, Biggs is someone good at sports, unlike Cloud.

But he says nothing, so that it’s not obvious how much attention he pays.

“Oh. I’d try out, but I’d probably suck,” says Cloud, drooping his head a little. A shiver runs through his spine as Zack takes the cue, just as intended, brushing fingertips lightly along his neck.

“Hey, if I can make it, you definitely can too.” He winks, in a way that has Cloud’s stomach crawling with butterflies. “I could give you some pointers, if you want. We could practice.”

“Just you and me?” The syllables roll around in Cloud’s mouth, and he likes the taste of them. Likes the taste of Zack’s name, too—how he has to clench his teeth to say it, and then has to open his jaw to finish; the way the ending of it rolls to the back of his throat, then forward over his tongue—Zaack.

He’d lie in his own dorm, saying his name over and over, quietly, filling the air with the sharp consonants of it.

“Yeah, just you and me, Spike.” Zack smiles again, tilting his head a little. A finger trails over his earlobe. “Hey, when’d you get this?”

Cloud sucks in a breath sharply. Of course he’d notice, even though he purposely tucked over a long blond strand to obscure it. “Oh, I went to the mall last week. Passed by one of those piercing stands and got it on impulse.”

A flattered grin spreads on his lips. “Oh, it looks good on you. Looks just like mine.”

His toes curl inside his sneakers at the compliment. Heat rising in his cheeks. “Thanks. So later, we can practice?”

“Yeah, come by the gymnasium around four? Or text me around then.” Zack drops his hand from Cloud’s ear, and it brushes against Cloud’s hip briefly.

“Okay,” Cloud beams, then waves goodbye as Zack heads off to his next class.

He wishes he could hide in the locker room somewhere to take pictures. In Cloud’s mind, there’s all these images of Zack coming out of the shower—Zack’s hair wet and slick, muscles rippling as he struts out, wearing only a towel around his waist. Maybe not a towel, even—half-hard despite the cool air triggering goosebumps.

It’s frustrating, because the images in his mind are fleeting. If he could have real pictures, they’d be solid and permanent; Cloud could look at them whenever he wanted, and there wouldn’t be any inaccuracies. How Zack really looks undressed—the size and shape of his cock, the shade of his nipples, what scars or birthmarks there might be.

Maybe if he could sneak in there before four, he might be able to catch a tantalizing glimpse.

To his great disappointment, Zack didn’t get changed into his uniform for this. Cloud likes watching him play, the back of his wild black spikes partially hiding the FAIR on the back, lucky number 07 below it. Cloud shows up to every game.

Mostly disappointed because he did wait quietly in the locker room for a half hour, but no one else showed up.

Zack sets his bag down on one of the benches. Cloud follows suit. Then, before he can react, an orange ball hits him on the shoulder, and it bounces off.

“Ow,” he mutters, rubbing his upper arm.

“You were supposed to catch that,” Zack says, laughing.

“I wasn’t even looking,” Cloud protests, scrunching up his nose. “You caught me off guard.”

Zack walks over, picking up the basketball. Slips a hand up his arm, fingers going underneath the sleeve of his white t-shirt. Two fingers pressing down against his skin. “Did I hurt you?”

The fingers stroke the bruise forming there, lightly, and it stings. But it’s a good sting, because Zack’s looking at him with concerned eyes, pupils dilated and black. They drift back down, trailing over his forearms. “Sorry, didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s fine,” Cloud shrugs.

Zack picks up a second ball, and they head out near the hoops. “Here, let me show you how to toss.” Effortlessly, he gets the ball in the net, the aerial curve of the throw so certain, so precise, no matter where he throws it from. “Just figure out how much strength you have to put into it from where you’re standing.”

Picking up a ball, Cloud tosses it, and it bounces lamely off the board and back at them. He picks it up again, and on the second try, it rolls off into the distance, thudding against a far wall.

“This is hard.”

It’s not an act. He just sucks. But Zack comes over regardless, places the other ball in his hands, tugging at his waist to adjust his stance. Smooths his rugged warm hands over Cloud’s, demonstrating how high he should bring up the ball before letting go of it. Goosebumps prickle down his arms, and a thick coil of heat curls in his gut.

On the next throw, the ball skids around the rim of the net, teasing at going in, before dribbling off the side.

“Better! That’s not bad, Spike. You just gotta keep practicing.”

“You really think I could make it?” Cloud bites his lower lip.

He steps closer, placing the retrieved ball in his hands, and the smile he flashes is like staring into the sun. Like Cloud might go blind if he looked at it for too long.

“Yeah, I think so. You’ve got more potential than you think.” His fingers trail softly over Cloud’s hands. Zack’s just a handsy guy—he does this to everyone. Cloud wishes he didn’t. Wishes the bright smiles were just for him, that Zack’s hand on his back or chin meant something special.

“Wish I could be like you,” he says instead, wistfully, and Cloud’s not sure which sentiment is more true—whether his obsession with Zack comes from the fact that he’s everything Cloud wishes he could be, or because he wants Zack to want him. Maybe a little bit of both.

“You can,” Zack says, smiling. “You can be just like me. Just believe in yourself.”

“Okay. I’ll keep practicing,” Cloud murmurs, lowering his eyes, “if you could keep teaching me.”

“Of course,” he says, a satisfied glow in his eyes, reaching up to ruffle his blond spikes.

Cloud lies back on his bed, holding his phone over his face.

His body is like a god’s. Better than he ever imagined. Broad and bronzed and rippling with muscles, cock thick and slightly dark with arousal.

Hiding in the locker room didn’t really work: there were always too many guys around—and they’d all know that Cloud had no real business being there. No, Cloud found something even better.

He watched carefully as Zack unlocked his phone with a passcode after restarting it once. Memorized the numbers. Repeated them in his mind, over and over, until he could write them down in private.

Then, while watching Zack at practice, with everyone distracted, he slipped Zack’s phone out of his bag, heart thumping wildly, browsing through his photo album quickly. In a panic, he just selected a bunch of photos and sent them silently to himself over Bluetooth—so there wouldn’t be any record of it, no email or message log.

And he happened to have hit the jackpot. His mouth’s watering just at the sight of it.

It looks a little vain, actually, Zack standing in front of the mirror, flexing, sporting a full-blown erection, taking a selfie, lips faintly smug. But he assumes he took these for some girl. Or some guy.

The thought of it alone is making jealousy ripple in his gut—why do they deserve to see that, and not Cloud? It’s not as if Cloud’s ugly. People think he’s a fucking weirdo, yeah, with no ability to actually socialize properly, but anyone not yet aware of that usually hits on him almost immediately.

Because he’s hot. Objectively. And they’ll be interested, until someone whispers in their ears that he’s cute but a psycho, just because Cloud never says much to anyone, besides Zack. Or they’d heard the rumors.

But Zack never makes a pass at him. Not really.

Only ever dangles the possibility of it in front of him, maybe not even aware that he does that. Cloud highly doubts that he’s completely oblivious to Cloud’s crush, though Zack clearly doesn’t know how deep his love for him runs.

Flipping through the pictures, he jealously examines them. There’s that Biggs guy, smiling next to Zack on the basketball court, their arms around each other. He’s wearing a red bandana that’s supposedly for good luck that Zack bought for him.

It took a lot of self-control not to express his upsetness at hearing that. He’d given another one to a girl named Jessie, whom Zack mentioned was an old girlfriend from high school. She’s smiling and hugging Zack in some of these pictures too—wearing it around her neck, or maybe it’s a handkerchief. They went hiking, apparently.

This girl he dated briefly named Aerith—she’d been pretty nice to Cloud for the three months she was with Zack, which only made him hate her more—she has a pink ribbon, another special gift from Zack.

Zack never got Cloud anything like that.

Maybe Zack fucked them, but he’d never fuck Cloud, so he doesn’t get any special thing to wear. Instead he had to buy this stupid earring himself, had to pore over endless selections of silver studs to try to get one the exact same size and shade.

Perhaps he’d just been too impatient. With enough time, Zack would give him a special gift too, something to wear for luck, to remind Cloud of him. It’s true that he’s friendly, popular with everyone, but he seems to pay a little extra attention to Cloud—just a sliver more, if he’s not imagining it.

Cloud stares at Zack’s mirror selfie. Simply looking at his big red dripping cock makes his own jump in his boxers. He tucks a slender hand down into the open flap, running fingers along his own length.

Zack’s fingers would be rougher. Callused from basketball and guitar playing, not soft and smooth and pathetic like Cloud’s. They’d run over him just like this, a thumb rubbing against the head of his cock gently, smearing the drops of precum, while Cloud’s hips twitched.

He flips through more of the photos. Eyes growing round, Cloud realizes that this thumbnail of some blurry indistinct colors—has time stamps. It’s a video.

His heart skips a beat, overwhelmed with the possibilities.

Pressing the play button, Cloud licks his lips eagerly with anticipation. Could be it’s just an accidental video, shuffling sounds, blurry shapes, like someone accidentally turned it on in their pocket.

But then it shifts into the clear view of Zack, smiling, leaning back against his headboard. Cock in hand. Giving the generous length of it a few slow strokes, up and down.

“Hey babe,” he says into the camera. “Figured you’d miss me while I’m away, so thought I’d leave you with something to remember me by.”

Cloud bites into his lip. It’s okay, it’s okay. He can just pretend Zack made this for him. Make himself ignore all the raging thoughts towards the formless silhouette of whoever Zack sent this to, and how Zack calls them “babe.”

Gazing into the camera lens, Zack’s fist goes down his cock, swallowing it down, wrist flicking as he hits the base, then back up. His sleepy blue eyes relax, a smile curling up onto his lips.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you plenty of this when I come back.”

In the video, Zack’s breathing gets more and more shallow, and Cloud’s stroking himself in time with the video—it’s almost as if he’s a mirror of Zack, like they’re the same person. Like this is a video to himself.

“And if you’re very good, and very patient, I’ll give you an extra special treat. You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”

Their wrists are moving faster and faster, Cloud’s breath syncing along with Zack’s in the video, accelerating, the slick wet noises of their cocks getting more vulgar.

“Ah… hh… hng… fuck you so good, just like this. Wish it were you around me right now. Wish I could come inside you nice and deep.”

It’s strange, but Cloud doesn’t feel quite himself anymore. He feels like he’s Zack, at this very moment. But then, who is he making these promises to?

“Want you so bad, Cloud. Wait for me.”

Cloud’s breath catches in his throat, and he comes just as Zack does in the video; they both groan, hips twitching up with the aftershocks of pleasure. Cum spurts up onto Zack’s perfect abs in thin strings, dripping onto his chest and down his tan navel, pooling into the little recess. White streaks continue to ejaculate over his torso like ticker-tape, or the making of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Smiling, Zack’s hand reaches towards him—towards the camera, covering it—and the video ends.

The fuck. Did he make this video, thinking about Cloud? That doesn’t seem right. Like he knew Cloud would end up seeing it, somehow? Or maybe he never got the nerve to send it.

But the dialogue doesn’t make sense.

Swallowing, he presses his finger to the left, sliding the video time marker slightly before the moment Zack comes.

“Want you so bad. Wait for me.”

He could’ve sworn Zack said his name. Feels like his brain is playing tricks on him.

Cloud watches it again, and again, but he doesn’t say Cloud’s name again.

Sometimes, Cloud wonders if he’d gotten attached so hard simply because Zack’s the first person besides his mom to be nice to him.

None of the kids really accepted him growing up. All he wanted was to be friends with them, but they made fun of him behind closed doors, played mean jokes, and laughed at him while he cried.

He sat at lunch everyday alone. All twelve years.

Then, here, Zack’s bright, sunny face seated itself across from him, showing an interest in Cloud for no reason. And was kind to him.

It was almost enough to make him cry.

But of course, Zack’s also everything Cloud always wished he could be. Popular. Charming. Athletic. Outgoing. And he’s got both women and men swooning, known to date both.

He’s perfect. The very pinnacle of perfection.

For a long time, Cloud figured if he could be like that—perfect, likable, a somebody—no one would ever be mean to him again.

But by the time he moved out from his small town, it didn’t matter that he finally grew out of his mousy ugly duckling phase, with his stupid girly ponytail. It had already done too much damage, and now Cloud’s too offstandish, too weird; still can’t make friends, or gather the nerve to go out on any dates.

Cloud’s a pathetic virgin.

But Zack’s the only one he’s interested in at all. He doesn’t want to settle for anyone else. Plenty of people want to fuck him as a hook-up, despite any gossip, but Cloud doesn’t want them to have that. He wants Zack to have it.

And maybe if he were just patient enough, Zack would finally look at him like that too.

Every night, he masturbates to the thought of Zack, and it’s only gotten worse since he stole those pictures from Zack’s phone. His imagination must have gone overboard—Cloud wished so hard that the video was for him, wished for the languid syllables of his name to come out of Zack’s mouth, as he touched himself, that he actually heard them.

Could swear that he did.

The past couple of weeks, Cloud’s been working really hard to try to get better at basketball, because he’d like to make the team—to be just like Zack, and have a good excuse to spend more time with him. Tryouts are coming soon, and Cloud’s been spending every evening practicing, even when Zack’s not there to guide him.

Lately, he’s been pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion. Skipping classes just to keep practicing. But all he can think about is how Zack would beam at him, look at him fondly, if he actually got in. Cloud wouldn’t be such a loser anymore. He’d be like a wilting plant finally taken out of a dark closet, allowed to drink in the sunshine outside, like everyone else.

Tonight, though, he’s not practicing. He’s tailing Zack quietly in his car.

Strangely, Zack doesn’t live on campus, like almost every other student does—it’s a requirement for freshmen, actually—so Cloud figures his parents must live nearby. No point in wasting money on dorming fees if his house is right here.

His car follows behind Zack’s all the way to his house, which seems to be a simple ranch-style one. One like this would be considered modest for this area, but back home, only Tifa would have a house this nice, because her Dad’s the mayor of their dinky little town.

He had once obsessed over Tifa just like this—she was always so pretty, so popular, so well-liked and admired by everyone else. And it was that same feeling of not knowing whether he wanted to be with her, or wanted to be her.

Back then, he’d been just as creepy, peeking into her windows. Rummaging through her drawers when she wasn’t home. Running his hands over her piano, plinking the keys. Smoothing his hands over her panties. Cloud stole one pair as a keepsake—a small white one, with a little pink bow. It gave him immense pleasure to own an item of hers; like he’d always have a piece of her, and such an intimate one.

She never gave him the time of day, though. Not like Zack.

For a few nights, Cloud just watches, from a distance. It doesn’t seem like anyone else lives in the house. Zack cooks a huge pot of stew one day—meal prepping, maybe, for the whole week. Usually watches TV during dinner, a cop drama, he thinks.

On Thursday nights, Zack isn’t home, because he has musical rehearsal with his bandmates.

On Thursday night, is when Cloud breaks in.

He doesn’t waste time—Cloud immediately goes for the spare keys he had observed Zack checking on through the window. It’s underneath a flower pot on a bookshelf, and he carefully notes the position of it before picking it up and placing it in his pocket.

Then Cloud leaves out the front door, instead of through the window he crawled into that was left half-open.

He heads to the nearest hardware store nearby, and in just fifteen minutes, picks up a brand new brass copy of the keys.

Before Zack returns home—he never comes back before ten at night on rehearsal days—Cloud carefully replaces the keys back underneath the flower pot. Takes care to arrange them in the same exact position—like the hands of a clock at four-thirty.

As much as he’d like to explore the house more, that would be cutting it too close, and Cloud nervously checks that everything looks the same as it did when he first came in, prior to leaving.

A couple of nights after that, he drives over to Zack’s street in the middle of the night. No lights are on in the house, so Zack’s most likely asleep. That’s what Cloud is counting on, anyway.

Quietly, he pads towards the bedroom. It’s dark inside, but he can still see faintly in the low lighting. The bedroom’s plushly carpeted, and that helps silence the sound of each slow footstep.

Zack’s curled up in a white t-shirt, peacefully slumbering. He’s apparently a side sleeper. Cloud doesn’t know why, but he feels the desperate need to mentally catalogue these things about Zack—has to know everything about him.

Only someone close to Zack would know that much about him, and Cloud can’t stand the idea of anyone else knowing more about him than he does.

Like his birthday. Zack’s never told him his birthday.

Picking up the wallet on the dresser, Cloud squints at the driver’s license in the low lighting. Zack’s still snoring slightly, blissfully unaware.

Zack Fair. Six-foot-three. Black hair. Blue eyes. The year catches him off guard—Zack’s older than Cloud had thought. As a sophomore, he figured Zack was a year older than him. But he’s five, actually. Twenty-three, if he’s calculating right.

That’s weird. He must’ve taken a few years off. Oh, there’s a veteran designation on his card. That explains it—though it seems strange that Zack’s never brought the topic up, ever.

Bad memories, maybe—or perhaps he didn’t trust Cloud enough to share that with him. The thought makes the corners of his mouth turn downwards, a familiar bitterness in his chest forming, tinting his blood black with it.

He walks over, standing over Zack while he sleeps, and just stares for a while. At the slow rise and fall of his breath.

There’s no one else who could love him as much as Cloud does. No one who feels it like this burning in their chest, like a barren winter, waiting to be unfrozen by the light of his smile.

Moonlight filters in softly through the gaps in the window blinds, pouring over Zack’s perfect cheekbones, the small scar at his jaw, his soft lips.

They belong together, like the sun and moon. Even if Cloud’s the exact opposite in many ways, it feels like Zack’s gravity inevitably pulls at him, shaping him into something else, and that’s how it’s meant to be.

Cloud starts taking an item or two from Zack’s house. A framed photo of a young Zack with whom Cloud assumes must be his parents: the same dark hair and bright smiles. A dirty t-shirt on the floor. There are so many, so Zack’s not likely to miss one, especially not a plain one that he owns more than one of.

As for the cologne, there’s only one bottle of that, so Cloud takes note of the name, and buys himself a small vial of it at the mall.

Back in his dorm, he takes the white v-neck—still unwashed, Zack’s sweat and musk on it—and dabs the vial on his fingers, smoothing the scent around the neckline.

Then he takes all his clothes off, and pulls on just the t-shirt. It warms up Cloud’s insides, inhaling the scent. He can see the crinkle of friendly blue eyes, a blindingly white grin, shoulders so much broader than his own, when the scent hits his nostrils.

Cloud stands in front of his own floor-length mirror. The shirt is too big on him. It covers the very tops of his thighs, just over the tent of his erection. For a moment, he looks into the reflection and expects to see someone else—see black hair, or longer, thicker arms.

Then he snaps out of the weird sensation—that Cloud’s looking at himself from a distance, an observer—and just as quickly walks back over to his bed. He angles the closet door outward, so Cloud can see the side of his body in the mirror.

Turning his face towards it, gripping his cock, he thinks that maybe Zack would like the sight of this, Cloud wearing his shirt. Hanging off him loosely as if on a hanger, touching himself in it.

He watches his own face flush deep pink with arousal, hand going underneath the hem, fingers grazing over his opening. He spreads his legs wider, circling a finger lightly around his rim.

Cloud’s never put anything inside. He wants the first thing inside to be Zack’s cock. Wants to be filled with it. His other hand picks up his phone, and he pulls up the video of Zack.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you plenty of this when I come back…”

The metadata says the video was created the day he had stolen it, so it must not be the original date. Cloud wonders when it was filmed. Maybe it was during deployment? Maybe Zack sent it to a girlfriend or boyfriend while he was on active duty.

Cloud could recite it by now, word for word, what Zack murmurs to his lover in this video, but he still pretends every word is for him.

After his hole puckers and pulses from being played with, Cloud squeezes a little more lube onto his fingers, and onto his cock too. With a thumb, he circles around the head of his cock, heat throbbing down the length, whimpering like a slut.

His other thumb brushes softly against the peaks of his nipples, and it’s almost too much—stimulating three sensitive areas at once, the pleasure gathering like liquid heat low in his body.

If only Zack could see how good Cloud would be for him. How easily he would spread his thighs, and give Zack anything he wanted. All of himself.

“Ah… hh… hng… fuck you so good, just like this…”

“Yes,” Cloud moans out, and again, he comes simultaneously as the Zack in the video, hot stripes of cum landing on his bare abs, the shirt pulled all the way up to his armpits.

“Fuck, fuck, yes,” Cloud whimpers like a whore, and turns to the mirror again to see his own expression—twisted in beautiful agony, between the throes of pleasure, and his eyes follow as a few last spurts come from the reddened tip of his cock, landing on bare skin.

His entire body slackens post-orgasm, a peaceful glow thrumming through it, and he contentedly inhales the scent of Zack and Zack’s cologne on his shirt.

“Wait for me,” Zack says to him from the video.

“It’s okay,” says Zack, an arm curled around his slumped shoulders.

“I practiced really hard,” Cloud says miserably, not lifting his head.

“You did,” he reassures. “And you improved so quickly, Spike. It’s really okay. Nothing to be ashamed about.” His hand drifts from the back of his scalp down to his neck, feeling hot against his skin. “I’m proud of you for trying.”

A hiccup racks through his ribs as he sniffles. Cloud’s so stupid. He didn’t even care about basketball. All he actually cared about was impressing Zack, or feeling like he’s good enough for him, but he can tell that Zack doesn’t really mean what he’s saying.

He thinks Cloud is a loser too.

“You can always try again next season, okay? I’ll help you with training if you really still want that.”

His muscular, broad body cages around him, and Zack murmurs soft reassurances into Cloud’s hair while hugging him tight.

Zack’s so nice. Anyone else would’ve made fun of him for crying like a stupid baby. They always made fun of him for that.

“Thanks,” he says, sniffling, breathing in the familiar, warm cologne, taking comfort in the scent filling his lungs. “Thanks, Zack.”

On Thursday evening, Cloud walks right through Zack’s front door, turning the key in the lock. He even bought the same keychain holder as Zack, a little frog.

In the bedroom, he finds Zack’s playing jersey. There’s a spare, but they’re both clean, to his dismay. Cloud would’ve preferred one that still carried his scent.

Smoothing his hands over the shiny, mesh-patterned material, shades of navy blue, Cloud lays it out on the bed, and starts taking off his clothes.

The jersey’s hanging off Cloud after he puts it on, making him look shorter than he is. For a guy, he’s not actually that short, but next to Zack, Cloud looks pathetically small.

Still, even if it doesn’t quite fit, Cloud likes wearing it. Likes walking around the carpeted bedroom, pretending he had made the team, so that they could stand side-by-side in the same navy uniform.

He could take a smiling, victorious picture with him, just like Biggs did with Zack.

Cloud grabs a tissue from the Kleenex box nearby, and lies down on the bed.

Since he doesn’t want to lose track of time, Cloud jerks off quick-and-dirty, his goal being just to orgasm, and he does so with a low cry, writhing over Zack’s rumpled sheets, holding the tissue over his tip to collect the come into it.

Afterwards, he carefully removes the uniform and folds it neatly, putting it back where he found it.

He goes into the bathroom to flush the tissue away—but then he spots Zack’s toothbrush.

It’s giving him thoughts.

Cloud rinses the toothbrush under warm water. He squeezes a lump of toothpaste out so that it’s not quite so full, onto the bristles, and on impulse, begins brushing his teeth with it.

This must be Zack’s daily routine. He looks into the mirror, into blue eyes and blond hair, and, for a few seconds, doesn’t recognize himself.

After a minute or two, the feeling subsides. He spits out the toothpaste and rinses out his mouth. Carefully, he smears a little bit of his ejaculate from the tissue into the opening of the toothpaste. It blends in with the rest of the pearly, minty white. Pleased, Cloud screws the cap back on.

Once again, he places everything where he found it, and wipes down the wet sink with more tissue, which he then promptly flushes.

It’s not weird. Guys who have sex with guys probably swallow. Cloud would swallow for Zack. He just feels the need to have a little part of him inside Zack, the same way it feels like there’s a little part of Zack inside him.

Totally harmless. At least, that’s what Cloud says to himself, because if he thinks about it too hard, he might feel bad about it.

On his way out, he hears a noise.

It freaks him out for a moment. But no one’s come through the front door. Seemed more like it came from within the walls, actually.

Thump. Thump.

Then, silence.

Maybe it’s some weird furniture settling thing. Wood floorboards expanding or something. He doesn’t know.

Cloud glances at his phone. It’s getting late, so Zack might be back soon. He wants to look around a little more, but the risk of getting caught is too high, so he quietly slips back out the front door.

In some Wiccan book Cloud picked up from the school library, it said that if you feed someone semen or menstrual blood on the full moon, they’ll be bonded to you in a romantic sense.

Well, it makes sense that the toothpaste did nothing, because it was neither the full moon, nor does anyone normally swallow toothpaste, so.

Cloud decides to rectify that with a protein smoothie he prepares for Zack. He puts in extra sugar and vanilla extract to disguise any salt and bitterness.

He masturbates in his dorm room, watching the video again, closing his eyes and listening to the words through earbuds as he comes—

“Wait for me.”

It’s maybe two, three tablespoons of salty cum in the paper cup, and Cloud scoops it into the blended smoothie, stirring it in.

At lunchtime, he pulls it out of his backpack. “I made this for you.”

Zack smiles widely. “For me?”

“Yeah, you have a big game tonight. Thought you could use some extra energy.” Cloud zips his backpack back up.

“Thanks, buddy. You’re coming, right, Spike?”

Buddy. What is it about Cloud that he finds so unfuckable. Without letting any of that show on his face, Cloud says with false cheer, “Wouldn’t miss it.”

After the game, Zack comes up to him on the bleachers, all sweaty and pink, hair wet.

“Hey, have you seen Aerith?”

“No, why?”

“She said she’d come for the game tonight.”

“Oh.” It’s not like Aerith is his friend; just an acquaintance, and whatever, he doesn’t like the idea of Zack and her getting friendly again after the breakup, because what if they get back together? “That’s too bad. Guess she’s kinda flaky.”

Zack seems to pick up the bitterness in his voice, and tousles Cloud’s hair. “You look cute tonight.”

Smiling, he runs off to catch up with his teammates, heading off to the locker room.

When he leaves the building, Cloud inhales the cool night air, glancing up at the round moon, glowing softly with its borrowed light, shivering.

“Hey, if you could be any animal you wanted, what animal would you be?”

They’re stoned right now. Seems like a stoner type question. So the answer doesn’t need to be that profound.

Cloud still thinks about it for a moment, blowing a breath out. “A wolf. How about you?”

Taking another drag of his blunt, Zack squints one eye at him. He passes it to Cloud when he’s done. “A tiger, maybe? They’re the strongest in the jungle,” he chuckles. “Why wolves, for you?”

His lips wrap around the blunt that’d just been inside Zack’s mouth, and Cloud’s eyelids flutter at the taste. The wet paper, as if sharing a vicarious kiss.

“Oh. I dunno. Like a lone wolf. Like, it would be nice to have a pack, but they can survive alone, too.”

Zack sweeps some of Cloud’s bangs aside. “You don’t have to be alone, Spike.”

Then he holds out his fingers, asking for the blunt again. Cloud returns it to him, and they lie back down on the grass, gazing up at the stars, and the waning, yellow moon.

Zack notices something that Cloud himself does not.

“You’re so cute, Spike.” He brushes his knuckles against Cloud’s cheek. “When’d you start doing this two-finger salute?”

“Oh. I dunno.” Now that he thinks about it, that seems more like something Zack would do, and not him.

He recalls recent instances of laughing while rolling his head back, scratching nervously behind his neck, digging a hand on each side of his waist, standing with his chest puffed out. Those aren’t his own mannerisms at all.

“I must’ve picked it up from you,” Cloud says, shrugging exaggeratedly, and that’s not him either.

“Guess I’m starting to rub off on you,” he smiles. “Hey, I got you something.”

“You did?” His heart skips a beat, electric with promise.

Cloud’s cheeks heat up as Zack steps behind him, looping the thin silver chain necklace around his neck, a little wolf pendant dangling from the center, fingers brushing the back of his neck as he closes the clasp.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” he murmurs, and a small, pleased look spreads over Zack’s face.

It’s frustrating, because while Zack’s gotten flirtier, more handsy, he hasn’t gone beyond that.

Hasn’t asked Cloud out.

Cloud wonders if he should concoct another smoothie for the upcoming full moon. But without a game coinciding with it, it might come off as weird or suspicious.

On Thursday night, he waits for Zack’s car to drive away before walking up to his house. This is the earliest he’s been here, with the sun dangling just along the horizon, red and simmering, so there’s a little extra time to explore.

Cloud decides to put back the picture frame he stole on one of his previous visits, worried that its absence would be noticed. It was tucked behind a game console next to the tv, so Cloud figured it’s not something Zack looks at everyday.

Now that he looks around more thoroughly, though, there’s really not very many pictures around at all. Just one group picture of the basketball team, and one of a golden retriever.

He looks in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. There’s nothing interesting to note, just some old prescriptions of antibiotics.

Cloud peers inside the fridge, wondering what he could jack off on where it’d be the least conspicuous. His wolf pendant dangles as he lowers his head, peering at the refrigerator shelves, and he absentmindedly rubs it between two fingers, feeling the soothing grooves.

A quart of milk. Perfect.

He goes off to Zack’s bedroom and jerks his cock rough and fast, imagining that it’s Zack’s hand, Zack murmuring behind his ear, unrelentingly moving up and down his cock, until he gets Cloud to come. With a pitchy moan, he shoots cum into a little paper cup.

Zack has this silky polyester blanket throw that feels like heaven as he writhes on it. He wonders if this is where Zack jerks off too. And who he thinks about, when he does it.

After washing his hands, he takes a spoon and scoops the sludge of semen, tucking it into the mouth of the carton. Then he closes it, shakes the container a few times, and places it back in his fridge.

He knows that Zack takes his coffee with two sugars and milk, and that he drinks coffee everyday, so hopefully he’ll drink some of this tomorrow.

Satisfied with completion of that task, he decides to go exploring in the bedroom a little more. He hasn’t looked in the walk-in closet yet.

Pulling on an overhead switch, the bulb lights up an orangey-yellow glow over the space. It takes a moment for Cloud’s eyes to adjust.

He opens the drawers—ties, socks in one. Shirts and jeans in another. Pretty standard stuff. In the bottom drawer, there are more trinkets, and he crouches to examine them.

There’s a pair of dog tags—from his time in the military, he guesses. Zack’s name is imprinted on both of them. A pair of leather gloves. There’s a heart-shaped cardboard box that perhaps once housed chocolates. He pulls it out to examine.

There’s a red bandana. No, two of them. A pair of aviator sunglasses. Some plain gold earrings. A pink ribbon.

Is this where he keeps little gifts for people? He’s relieved to see that there are no animal pendant necklaces. He wouldn’t know how he’d react if Zack had just given him some stock gift. Something he could have easily given anyone else.

Just the idea of it fills him with such hurt that he quickly pushes the idea out of his head.

Cloud picks up the pink ribbon. It looks just like the one he gave Aerith. Apparently, she got overwhelmed and decided to take a leave of absence from school.

It’s stained with something brown at the edges. Carefully, he puts all the items back in the box, and he remembers exactly what position everything was in.

As he puts it back in the drawer, another box in there vibrates. Nearly gives him a heart attack.

It vibrates again.

He pulls out the black box, certain that it’s not filled with explosives, because that would be a dumb thing to keep in your house. Lifting the lid, he sees that it’s filled with old cell phones.

The one that’s buzzing, he checks the screen. The wallpaper is yellow lilies—he remembers that was what Aerith’s phone had too.

An uneasy, sinking feeling starts flooding his gut.

A few notifications pop up from someone whose contact is named Mom #2.

Hello?? I know you’re having a hard time, but don’t ignore my messages

We’re not disappointed, sweetie

Call me soon

A voice says behind him, calmly, “What are you doing in my house?”

Zack stands at the doorway of the walk-in closet, nearly filling the entire door frame. He hadn’t even heard him coming.

Cloud puts the phone down back into the box and stands up, just staring at him for a moment.

Then he tries to bolt for it, run past the sides of Zack, underneath his armpit, but Zack grabs him roughly, spinning him around, knocking his head up against the wall.

He stares at Cloud: this cold, calculated look in his eyes. “Kunsel was sick, so rehearsal was cancelled.” His thumb brushes over Cloud’s trembling lower lip.

“Always knew you were a little fucking weirdo. But didn’t expect this.”

“Zack,” is all he can say, voice cracked. It’s pathetic, but that hurts him more, scares him more, than seeing Aerith’s phone, or the rough way Zack threw him against the wall.

The idea that Zack doesn’t love him. Or like him.

“You poked your nose where it doesn’t belong, Spike.” His hand tightens around Cloud’s throat.

The air leaves his lungs and it doesn’t come back. Everything gets blurry, and the world goes dark. The pain throbbing at the base of his skull fades away blissfully, and Cloud falls and falls, into an endless dark well.

When Cloud comes to, he opens his drowsy eyes to the sight of a spare, dank room. It’s dimly lit, and Zack’s a tall shadow standing in front of him, looking down.

He flinches back, and it rattles the chains around his wrists, cuffed to one of the bars on a dirty, rusty headboard.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty,” says Zack lightly, turning around to pick up a glass of water. He holds it up to Cloud’s lips. “Drink this.”

Cloud eyes him, then the colorless liquid, and flicks his gaze back up. “What is this?”

“Just water.”

He takes a sip, and that doesn’t seem to be a lie, so Cloud sips more greedily, because his throat and lips are parched.

His neck’s still sore from where Zack had squeezed it with his hands. “Okay, that’s enough now,” Zack says, pulling the glass away.

“Do you like me?”

Zack seems flabbergasted by the question. “Excuse me?”

“Did you ever like me?” Cloud asks, a sad note to his voice.

“I have you chained up in my basement, and you want to know if I like you?” he asks with narrowed eyes.

“Didn’t know you had a basement.”

“How many times did you break into my house?”

Cloud shrugs.

That’s apparently the wrong response, because Zack slaps his cheek, hard.

“How many?” he repeats.

“Six? Seven? I dunno.” Cloud rubs at his cheek, shrinking smaller into himself. The chains are longish, giving him some minor freedom of movement.

“How did you get in?”

“Made a copy of your spare keys.” Lowering his head, he says, “Sorry.”

Zack just stares at him, an incredulous curl to his upper lip. Then he pulls out Cloud’s phone. “Look at me,” he says.

He holds it up to Cloud’s face to unlock the facial recognition on it, and then Zack goes to work, tapping away. “How often do you text your mom?”

Cloud swallows. “Like, every other day. Or every two days.”

“What’s your birthday and social security number?” Zack puts Cloud’s phone back in his pocket, then pulls out his own.

When he doesn’t answer, Zack looks up expectantly. “I’m waiting, Cloud.”

Cloud can’t help the horrible pout forming on his lips, or the tremble in his voice. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” he says, and it sends a chill down his spine.

He mumbles out what Zack wants to know.

Zack takes a step forward, running a hand through his hair. Tilts up his chin. “I never pick anyone I don’t like, Spike,” he says.

He still leans into the touch, soaking it up like water by neglected soil, or rays of sun after a harsh winter.

Walking up the short steps, he locks the door behind him, leaving Cloud alone.

Later in the day, Zack finally appears again, cracking open the basement door, light flooding in, bringing down a tray with him.

“Oh, you’re awake. Brought you dinner.”

He sets it down on the nearby table, then turns to Cloud, eyes drifting briefly over him. “Good boy. Didn’t piss yourself. Do you need to go?”

Cloud really, really does, actually. He’s been holding it in all day. He nods, slowly.

“Mm. Forgot to give you a bucket. I’ll let you use a real bathroom, if you promise not to do anything stupid.”

Just like that, he unlocks the cuffs on Cloud’s wrists, and he rubs the raw and reddened flesh around them. As promised, he takes Cloud upstairs, to the bathroom.

“Well, go.”

Cloud looks back at him. “You’re staring.”

“Yeah, I am. I don’t trust you. So go, unless you want to keep holding it.”

He unzips, and stands there a painfully long moment, and nothing happens. His eyes drift over to the shelf above the toilet. Just toilet paper rolls and shampoo. Nothing that could be used as a weapon, or to defend himself with.

His mind finally gets distracted enough for a little to trickle out. Heat crawls up his cheeks. It’s extra humiliating, for some reason. Standing there, doing this base, involuntary act, with Zack calmly watching.

Cloud finally gets the rest of it out, then shakes himself dry and tucks himself back in. “Can I wash my hands?”

“Yes, you may do that.”

He shakes his hands dry too, wiping them on his shirt, and then Zack’s guiding him back. The door was a hidden panel in the walk-in closet. Most people, looking at it, wouldn’t realize there was a door there at all.

Staring down at the dark basement steps again, a sickening feeling twists in his gut. He doesn’t want to go down there again. But Zack’s kicking his feet forward slightly, until he walks down the first step.

He rechains Cloud to the bed, then goes back to the tray. It’s a slice of ham and cheap-looking mashed potatoes—as if they’d used more water than milk—with gravy. The kind of thing you’d find in a microwaveable TV dinner.

“Aah,” he says, like a doctor might, and scoops a mouthful of potatoes into Cloud’s mouth. He was right. It tastes watery. But things could be worse, he supposes.

Zack must still be fond of him. Or he wouldn’t bother with even that, would he?

The thought makes the bland potatoes taste better. The ham is overly salty but starts tasting better too.

Then Zack gives him a juice box to hold, the straw already stuck into it. “Give the straw back to me too after you’re done.”

He sips it slowly. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You don’t have to suck up to me. It’s not going to help.”

“I’m not. Just saying thank you.” Cloud drinks the last of the apple juice, loud and dry slurping sounds as he gets to the bottom of it, and hands it back to Zack, who sets it on the tray.

Then he walks back up to Cloud, standing uncomfortably close, which is a strange feeling, because he’d normally love to be this close to Zack.

But his body’s sending off alarms, because it finally senses that Zack’s a predator.

He tucks a lock of hair behind Cloud’s ear. “You ever suck dick before?”

A hand tightens at the back of Cloud’s head, grabbing a fistful of blond, and his lashes flutter, startled and blinking rapidly. “No.”

He runs a thumb across Cloud’s lower lip with his other hand. Then taps on his teeth with two fingers. “Open.”

Cloud opens enough to allow the two fingers in, and they sink inside easily, rubbing back and forth over the surface of his tongue. The fingers withdraw, then thrust forward again.

“Keep your teeth off them,” Zack says.

He thrusts a little deeper, and Cloud’s lashes flutter again. They go even deeper, until Cloud finally chokes on them.

“Pretty good gag reflex,” he remarks, wiping his wet fingers on his jeans.

Cloud licks his lips, the taste of Zack’s callused fingers still on them. Salty sweet, with the tang of sweat.

“Wanna thank me properly? Do it with your mouth.” Zack grips his chin.

“Can I?” Cloud asks, eyes round. He had dreamed of this for so long. And he wants so much to prove to Zack that he’s grateful, that he loves Zack, and deserves to be kept around.

“Can you?” Zack repeats. He shakes his head. Pulling out his cock, he rubs it over Cloud’s cheek. Tapping the head of it on his lips a few times, and he darts a tongue out, eager to taste Zack’s skin, catching the drops of precum.

He holds underneath Cloud’s jaw with his fingers, then slides his cock into his mouth a few inches. “Move your tongue around.”

Cloud presses his tongue against the thick column of flesh, on the underside of it, the sides, against the tip, as Zack thrusts his hips slightly.

“Good boy,” he groans, thrusting deeper. “Use your hand where your mouth isn’t touching.” Obediently, Cloud reaches his free hand up to stroke the base of Zack’s cock.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs, and Cloud feels a shiver of frisson go all the way through his body. The new nickname makes his heart feel a size or two bigger.

Not even the person mentioned in Zack’s video got to be called that.

He does what he’d previously seen in porn—sucks around Zack’s cock, hollowing his cheeks, lavishing licks along the length, then around the head.

“You’re just a dumb little slut, aren’t you?”

Zack’s the dumb one. Cloud could’ve bitten his cock off by now. He once bit off a neighbor boy’s thumb during a fight, and had to transfer schools again after that.

Never heard whether they managed to reattach it or not. Cloud just remembers spitting it out, teeth stained with blood, smiling while watching him cry.

“Yeah, you want this,” Zack whispers darkly. Thrusts his hips more frequently. Shoving a little deeper towards his throat.

Cloud’s getting hard from this. The memory of making his bully cry just gets him even harder.

Zack’s panting is getting more labored, fist gripping tighter into Cloud’s hair, and he yanks Cloud’s head forward onto his cock to take him all the way in. Coming with a groan, he forces Cloud’s head to stay there, nose pressed up against Zack’s groin.

Choking on it, Cloud coughs while his mouth’s full of cock, and it expels the cum forward, as if he had sneezed, spilling out from the corners of his lips. It’s hot and salty and bitter as more lands on his tongue.

“Swallow as much as you can,” Zack says patiently, and doesn’t ease his warm hand off Cloud’s neck until he takes a couple of swallows. “Good boy.”

Hoarse, and lips bruised, Cloud asks in a tiny, nervous voice, “I did well?”

“Practically a pro, champ.” He wipes at Cloud’s mouth with a tissue, then crumples it, depositing it on the tray. Zack takes it and starts heading upstairs.

“Wait,” Cloud calls out anxiously.

“What?”

“Can I watch TV if I get bored?”

Zack tilts his head to one side, then takes one step back down. He grabs a remote from a drawer and tosses it onto Cloud’s lap.

“Don’t bother turning the volume up, though, to get attention. This room is soundproof.”

Then he goes back up the stairs, shutting the door with a low creak.

After a week or so, Cloud’s proved himself to be fairly well-behaved, so Zack acts slightly more lenient. Slightly.

Tonight, he takes Cloud to the upstairs bathroom and pulls the toilet lid down. Then he cuffs Cloud to it, and starts undressing.

His eyes follow as Zack pulls his shirt over his head, revealing taut, tan muscle. A little smile plays on Zack’s lips, like the same ones he used to flash at Cloud all the time. “Like what you see?”

Cloud nods, mouth slightly parted as Zack removes his pants, then his patterned boxers. Zack steps into the tub, not bothering to pull the shower curtain closed.

He adjusts something at the drain hole, then turns on the showerhead. Sudsing his hair with an ocean-scented shampoo, scrubbing down his muscular thighs, he turns to give Cloud a little wink.

Zack doesn’t let him shower every day, presumably because it’s too much of a hassle, Cloud guesses, but every other day seems generous enough. As kidnapping situations go.

When he lets him shower, Zack usually sits in the same spot he is on now, on the toilet lid, watching Cloud scrub himself down, and rinse off the cum and grime with an inscrutable expression.

Today, though, for some reason, he wants to do the reverse.

Zack turns off the water. Then he braces one palm flat against the tiled wall, hair all damp and tousled, and with his other hand, starts jerking off.

He makes a few grunts and moans as he does it, and Cloud’s hard-on is bordering on painful, trapped underneath his pants, trying to escape. Stroking faster, then, faster, Zack comes with a low groan, and he directs his cock downward so his jizz hits the shallow pool of water surrounding his calves.

Rinsing off quickly again, Zack steps out and gets dressed in a wife beater tank and gray sweats. He finally directs his attention back to Cloud, uncuffing him, and leads him by the upper arm to sit by the edge of the tub.

Zack picks up a paper cup from the shelf and walks back over to the tub. He scoops into the cloudy white bathwater until the cup is full, and hands it to Cloud.

“Drink it.”

Cloud’s eyes lock onto his. He doesn’t move.

“I said drink it.”

“Why?”

“You think I didn’t notice you tried to fuck with my milk? Worst fucking coffee I’ve ever had.”

Anxiously, brows pinched, Cloud takes a sip. It’s not that bad. The soap portion in it is probably the worst ingredient by far. But not enough to be toxic, he thinks.

Zack’s pupils dilate at him, blackening, while he slowly drinks the rest of the cup. When it’s empty, Zack takes it from him and scoops it in the bathwater, refilling it. “Drink,” he orders.

Cloud starts pouting again, and trembling. He takes the cup and obediently gulps down the second serving.

His stomach’s starting to hurt, sharp, intermittent pain, like small pinches along its edges.

Then Zack takes the empty cup, refills it again with another scoop into the tub, and hands it to him.

“The soap tastes bad,” he whispers.

“One more. Last one. Be a good boy, and drink it all.” A satisfaction lights his eyes as Cloud downs the third cup, reluctantly.

Then he drags Cloud by the hair to the toilet, and lifts the lid. Sticks his fingers far back enough to play with the dangling bit of flesh at the back of Cloud’s throat, the pads of his fingers jiggling it, pushing against the soft wet walls behind there.

That does it—he holds back Cloud’s hair slightly while he vomits up bubbles and water and the cereal Zack let him have for breakfast.

Acid burns his lips as it comes out, but the queasiness in his stomach feels better, at least. Zack props him up and brings him over to the sink, allowing him to rinse his mouth out.

Zack leans down over his curved back to speak into his ear as he does. “Say thank you.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles, spitting out another mouthful of water.

A few nights later, Zack asks for a blowjob, like he often does after dinner.

Cloud licks his stiff cock as if it were a delicacy, a dessert after a meal, and takes it sloppily into his spit-slicked mouth.

“That’s right,” Zack groans as Cloud stares up at his aroused face, tongue flattened, dragging slowly up the underside of his cock, from base to tip. His grip tightens at the back of Cloud’s head. “Just like that.”

Cloud slides his tongue along the slit, flicking it back and forth at the tip, lapping up the clear fluid coming out of it. The cock twitches, slapping gently against his nose and cheekbones.

“Fuck,” he hisses, “fuck, that’s good, baby, suck on the tip for me.”

A certain euphoria settles over him whenever Zack praises him, calls him ‘baby’. It had been so upsetting to know that he had made Zack so displeased.

Although he doesn’t want to drink bathwater again, Cloud would rather drink a whole tub of it than have Zack unhappy with him.

When he’s somewhat pleased with Cloud, Zack will jerk him off afterwards, because he always gets hard from this; sucking dick.

“Keep your mouth open,” he says.

Cloud does as asked, mouth coming off of Zack’s cock with a wet pop.

Humming, he runs a thumb along his lower teeth, passing over the molars, caressing the grooves of them.

“Did you lie to me, baby?”

His brows crease. “About what?” Cloud tries to say, but it’s muffled against Zack’s callused thumb stroking his tongue.

“Am I the only cock that’s ever been in this mouth?”

Cloud nods, looking up at him with shiny eyes. Of course. He wouldn’t want anyone else to be there.

“I believe you.” Zack’s fingers drum underneath his chin. Huskily, he says, “Finish me off now, baby.”

So Cloud bobs his head back and forth, sucking and licking and tightening his mouth around the stiff cock. Hand stroking the base, so that it twitches involuntarily, rising up against the roof of his mouth, leaking drops of precum. Then Zack pulls out.

A hot liquid arc marks across his face.

“Open your mouth,” he moans, mid-orgasm.

More spurts onto his tongue, salty, and Cloud sticks it out like he’s trying to catch snowflakes as they fall from the sky, waiting patiently.

Zack lets out a series of groans, rough and hoarse, and a hot, thin spurt shoots against the back of Cloud’s throat, like an arrow at a bullseye.

“That’s it baby, take it all.”

He strokes himself rapidly, trying to get out every last bit onto Cloud, and a gob of it lands on his cheek, sliding downwards. More flecks along his chin, his brow, his nose, the long locks at the sides of his face.

After Zack tucks himself back in, the cum’s already begun to cool over his skin, getting itchy.

Cloud wishes Zack would kiss him. Not specifically at this moment, but just in general. He likes spilling cum into his mouth, but Zack hasn’t tried to actually fuck him, or anything.

He wonders how many of the others gave him blowjobs, and whether they were all just wet mouths to him, each one indistinguishable from the next. Disposable. Replaceable.

Dropping his head, Cloud stiffens when Zack’s fingers press lightly underneath his chin, tilting it back up.

“Take your clothes off.”

A hopeful thrum of excitement runs through Cloud, but he’s disappointed when Zack just lies next to him, giving him a perfunctory hand job, eyes roaming over his face.

“You’d come if I just looked at you the right way, wouldn’t you?”

Zack pulls up one of his knees slightly, angles it, exposing him, and reaches down between his thighs with his other hand.

He doesn’t touch Cloud’s hole. Zack just hovers the pad of his finger over it, displacing the air at the entrance, heat coming off his skin like a furnace.

“Wish I would give you my cock here, baby?”

Zack’s eyes are half-lidded, a smirk on his lips when Cloud comes, spilling onto himself with a whimper, hole pulsing and grazing Zack’s palm, while a thumb continues circling the skin surrounding his rim.

“Maybe when I feel like you deserve it,” he murmurs, removing his hands.

In Zack’s eyes, he’s still disappointing. Still untrustworthy. He lowers his head, chin quivering at the thought.

Cloud hadn’t meant any harm about the milk. He just wanted Zack to love him, that’s all.

Upstairs, Cloud stands in the middle of the bathroom uneasily, recalling the taste of soap burning down his esophagus from the last time. Still undressed, he shivers, goosebumps erupting down his spine.

Zack walks over to draw a bath, turning only the hot faucet.

He lets out a wordless, anxious whimper. Looking over to Zack’s impassive expression, brows furrowed, Cloud then turns back to the steam rising from the water. His arms tighten around himself.

It’s better than ice cold water, at least. That would be far worse, wouldn’t it? Cold water could lead to hypothermia. All this would be is a slight scalding and reddened skin—the water never gets boiling hot, not really.

That must mean he cares. Of course. Just like how he made sure to force Cloud to vomit up the soap water. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t care.

He just wants to get Cloud extra clean, that’s all.

Zack sits on the toilet lid, as he usually does, eyes drifting over him as Cloud’s shoulders curl in on themselves, knees pressing together, body shrinking smaller. Staring back at him with blackened eyes, while steam fills the air around them over the deafening roar of the spout.

Cloud glances at his own reflection in the mirror above the sink. Pale and pretty, but his lashes are damp, large blue eyes surrounded by pink puffy skin. Zack’s cum stains his cheeks, with some of it crusted onto a few blond strands.

Pathetic. He feels so pathetic, and he knows Zack thinks so too. All he can remember is the way Tifa shrank at the sight of him, and the friends surrounding her calling him a freak. For following her around, leaving notes, messaging with an anonymous account.

All he ever wanted was to be accepted by the others.

The sight of his own miserable face slowly mists over, as more steam from the hot water fills the air, and the image disintegrates, until Cloud can’t see himself in the mirror anymore.

When the tub is about halfway full, Zack walks back over to the bath. He turns off the hot faucet. Unexpectedly, he turns on the cold one. Then Zack sits at the edge of the tub, waiting, wading his hand in it, sleeves rolled up, checking the temperature until it’s just right.

A lump of gratitude gets stuck in his throat. His mom used to do the same when he was little.

“Come here, Cloud.”

He lowers himself into the bath, into the perfect warmth of it, sitting with his knees up and arms wrapped loosely around them. Zack takes a hot washcloth and sluices water over his back, his shoulders, and his hair.

Then Zack squeezes out some ocean-scented shampoo, running soothing fingers through Cloud’s scalp. “I got some in your hair,” he murmurs, almost apologetic. “Lean your head back.”

Instead of watching Cloud scrub the cum off his face and body himself, like he usually does, Zack sits on the ledge, doing it for him.

All of the attention makes him feel so loved. Zack holds the warm washcloth and carefully wipes it against Cloud’s face and forehead. Detangling a crusted lock of hair, then sudsing it between his fingers.

The kindness feels as warm as a summer rain, when all there had been was a drought and dry, parched fields.

Zack cradles his jaw lovingly, rinsing off the soap gathered at his collarbones, off his back, while resting a hand on one of Cloud’s knees, stroking the bone slightly with a thumb.

He smiles, the same enigmatic little smile that Cloud first fell in love with, the one that made his heart thump and skip a beat in his chest.

The one he’d first seen when Zack slid down opposite him in the lunchroom, after Cloud had spent so many years always sitting by himself. Said hi and introduced himself.

A moon that had lived in a sunless world, not knowing anything different, until the rays of the sun warmed its surface for the first time.

It’s etched in his memory, indelible; Zack’s warm smile that made everyone fall in love with him so effortlessly. Cloud wasn’t the only one. Beguiling, like the Mona Lisa. Like the Adonis statue, perfect in every way.

Cloud would do anything to be on the receiving end of that smile.

“Put this on.”

Zack throws a peachy-pink babydoll lingerie dress at him, and two faux blond braid clip-ons.

“What for?”

“Wanna breed you, baby.” Zack’s eyes rove down over his body.

At the nickname, Cloud shivers at the sound of it. It sounds extra special tonight, as if he’s special to Zack. Like Zack’s finally decided to fuck him. “Can we do it upstairs? In your bedroom?”

“Why?”

“It’s just nicer than down here,” and Cloud forms a sad pout that he can’t help, and begins pulling his shirt over his head.

This is the moment that he’d dreamed of ever since the day he first set eyes on Zack.

Except he doesn’t want to lose his virginity in the basement, where light doesn’t reach and the sheets are starchy. Cloud wants it to be more special than that.

“How do I know you won’t try to run out or get the neighbors’ attention?” Zack frowns.

“I haven’t tried to leave so far.” Cloud pulls the peach lace and tulle over his head, then smooths it out along his stomach, the short hem of it just long enough to preserve his modesty.

It’s true. Cloud has made no attempts. It feels so good, to finally, finally get Zack’s attention. To feel the heat of the sun on his back, his thighs, in his mouth, on his face.

Mulling this over, Zack says, “Okay.”

He never wants to leave. Has no interest in leaving.

As long as he’s by Zack’s side, and Zack wants him there, he’ll be content. Cloud blushes hotly when Zack sits down next to him, helping clip in the braids behind each ear.

Zack’s fingers rub the wolf pendant still dangling around his neck, then his hands brush softly down Cloud’s bare shoulders.

“You look so beautiful, babydoll,” he says, smiling. When it’s spoken through Zack’s mouth, he really does feel beautiful.

He takes Cloud up into his bedroom, and Zack tells him to face the vanity mirror on the dresser.

Objectively, Cloud looks pretty. They used to call him pretty as an insult. Because he’s slim and delicate and androgynous-looking. But Zack must like how pretty he looks, or why would he ask him to wear this dress?

In the glass of the mirror, he watches as a shirtless Zack crawls onto the bed behind him, grabbing roughly onto his waist, pulling Cloud down onto his lap. Zack sucks at the skin of his neck, leaving bite marks on his shoulders.

After unzipping, Zack pulls his hard cock out. He gives Cloud’s a quick squeeze too, underneath the translucent dress. Fingers press up underneath Cloud’s knees, lifting them to his chest, exposing his small pink hole. He watches all of this in their reflection.

“Is this your first time?”

Cloud nods reluctantly. Two fingers, coated in lube, draw circles around his hole. Then go inside, spreading more lube, and it hurts a little, so he whimpers.

“Breathe deep, baby. Let me in.”

He tries to relax, and the tension uncoils after a while. Zack lifts his hips up, then positions his cock right at his rim.

“Watch the mirror, baby. Watch my cock fill up your virgin pussy.” Cloud does as instructed, whimpering as it slides into his hole. “That’s it, baby, let me make it good for you.”

If Zack wants to pretend he’s a girl, that’s fine. Cloud doesn’t care, as long as Zack will fuck him. Zack starts thrusting his hips up into him, and it surprises Cloud that something so big could fit into his hole, but it accommodates Zack’s girth on every thrust, molding to its shape. Zack slams up into him harder, grunting, spreading Cloud’s thighs up and wider so that they can see everything in the mirror.

“Knew your pussy would be tight.”

It’s better than any of the times he’d thought about Zack by himself, fantasizing, because he’s not alone anymore—Zack’s moving as if they’re one, as if Cloud is a part of him.

Lewd slaps fill the room as Zack’s hips hit up against his ass, and Cloud focuses on the area where their bodies are joined—the column of flesh sliding in, again and again, into his wet hole, marveling at how arousing it looks.

“You’re my breeding bitch,” Zack murmurs into his ear, tickling the inside of it with the heat of his breath. “Gonna empty my loads in you. Knock you up.”

The thrusting and gasps and grunts ascends to a fever pitch, and Zack snaps his hips up extra hard, twice, stilling, his cock buried all the way into Cloud, groaning with satisfaction. A minute later, a few drips of cum leak down the sides of his hole, where their bodies are still conjoined.

“Did you come yet, baby?” he murmurs.

Demurely, Cloud shakes his head.

“No?”

Zack lifts the hem of the dress over his pale hipbones, revealing his erection, and gets Cloud to kneel, and then kneels behind him—slipping his cock back inside. Thrusts back up into him, frantic, his hand stroking Cloud’s cock to the same rhythm.

“Who’s breeding you good, babydoll?”

“You. You are.” Cloud’s lustful moans come out almost as sobs, from the intensity of the rapid thrusts, and Zack’s warm, rough fist sliding up and down the silky skin of his cock.

It doesn’t take long.

Coming with a loud, helpless cry, Cloud grasps hard onto Zack’s forearms, chest heaving, ejaculating pale white streaks onto the dress and Zack’s rough hands.

Zack grabs his chin, and kisses him over a shoulder, hot breath and tongue, sweet and tender, while he comes down from it.

In the mirror, he looks again, and he sees two people, not one; but they’re like two sides of a coin. Inseparable—an indistinguishable line between where one begins and the other ends.

Cloud moans while Zack fucks him savagely, full of raw strength and desire. Hands like hot knives sliding along his skin, his chest, while mounting him on all fours.

He’s wearing nothing but the clipped-on braids, now with lacy white bows tied to them, and white thigh-highs.

“My sweet little wife,” he grunts into Cloud’s ear between thrusts. “Waiting for me all day to come home and take care of you, fuck you nice n’ good.”

“Wait for me.”

“Do you wish I was a girl?”

His lips tremble a little, because he just wants to be what Zack wants. There’s all this talk about knocking him up, but Cloud can’t actually do that. He doesn’t have the right parts.

Zack’s nose nuzzles against the back of his neck, and he plants a kiss at the nape of his neck. “You look good either way,” he murmurs, and the tension releases from his shoulders.

He continues pounding into him, breath hoarse, accelerating in a way that’s just short of violent; burying himself deep into his hole, before pausing with a loud groan.

It’s rougher than usual, and borders on painful, but Cloud’s hard all the same.

“Spread a little more for me, babydoll,” he says, slapping the side of his ass. Obediently, Cloud shifts his knees further apart.

Slap, slap, slap. His balls slap against Cloud’s ass, heavy and full, and Cloud clutches the coarse sheets, dick drooling onto them, white-knuckled, gasping between thrusts.

“Gonna empty my load into you, sweetheart,” he groans sweetly. “Gonna fill you up with all my cum.”

His cheeks heat up, feeling privileged that Zack finds him worthy enough to receive all of his raw desire.

Then Zack grunts, pulling out suddenly. Rubs his cock along the rim while Cloud moans, each press against his hole feeling impossibly good. The tip teases at his pulsing entrance, running down along his taint, underneath his balls, then back up again. Sensuous and slow. Zack does that a few times, and Cloud thinks he might start coming from just that alone.

“Open yourself up,” he murmurs. “Show it to me.”

Cloud’s not certain exactly what he means by that. But he rests his face against the mattress, and reaches behind himself to spread his cheeks, hoping that’s what’s been asked of him.

A pleased hum comes out from behind him. The cockhead’s playing at his entrance again, tracing it in light circles. “So tight,” Zack murmurs. “Like fucking a virgin every time.”

He shivers with pleasure, because Zack seems so pleased with him, and Zack starts dipping the tip of his cock in and out of his hole. The rim expands around the broad head of it, then tightens to swallow up the shaft each time it goes in; skin snapping sweetly as it goes back out.

Zack presses a thumb to circle around the slick rim as the tip dips in again. It feels obscenely good, but not enough to come, and Cloud starts whimpering along with his moans.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, pulling out again, leaning back over his body to mouth at Cloud’s neck.

“Your cock,” he shudders out, feeling the hard column of it sliding between his cheeks, questioningly.

“No, baby. What did I say?”

Cloud shrinks slightly, shoulders dipping, trying to remember. “Your cum,” he corrects himself.

“Mm,” he murmurs. “That’s right, and what else?”

“Want to be filled with it,” Cloud gasps, and Zack finally pushes his cock back in. Snaps his hips forward, groaning. Every thrust relieves the ache that had been building, the feeling of Zack’s cock dragging along his walls, fitting into all the empty spaces inside Cloud.

“Just like that,” Zack grunts, pumping lewdly in and out of his hole. “Fuck, that’s good, takin’ me so good, swallowing me up whole, baby.”

Each thrust gets harder and harder, furious and accelerating, until Cloud cries out just as Zack does, shooting semen onto the thin, harsh sheets, hands white-knuckled and gripping onto them, without having his dick touched. Hot liquid spurts inside of him, leaking down the sides of his rim.

“Take it baby, take my cum,” Zack huffs out, hips continuing to smack harshly into his ass, pushing some of the hot stickiness back inside his hole, one hand gripping Cloud’s hip, the other tightened in his hair. Then he curls up behind him.

For a few seconds, they lie there, spooning, Zack kissing behind his ears, hips still pumping slowly into him as they ride the orgasm out. Then Zack gets up abruptly, and starts pulling his pants on.

It leaves Cloud with an ache, all the sunny warmth leaving his back and his insides.

To his relief, Zack doesn’t always make him wear these things while fucking him. He seems just as content when Cloud’s dressed as a boy.

The next night, he gives Cloud a sweater and sweatpants to wear, and crawls into bed with him.

“Can we do it upstairs this time? Like the first time?” Cloud asks, hopefully, fingers trailing over Zack’s forearm.

But Zack shakes his head, lips pursed. So Cloud doesn’t ask again.

Though Zack doesn’t feel the need to chain him up anymore, allowing him to roam freely downstairs, he still keeps the basement door locked.

One day, he seems to forget to, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Cloud’s not stupid.

He knows it’s a test. Zack must be expecting Cloud to run out of the house, or to the neighbors, or call the cops. Zack would probably be waiting somewhere, ready to snatch him back, drag him back downstairs, and punish him for his disloyalty.

What he doesn’t understand is that Cloud has no interest in any of that. He would like to go upstairs more, just because there’s sunlight, but he has no desire to ever leave Zack’s side.

All day, he’s probably waiting for Cloud to make a run for it. But he doesn’t, and just lies on the bed, flipping endlessly through the channels. Jerking off a few times when whatever’s on gets too boring.

He still mentally pictures Zack’s video. It’s not necessary to have his phone anymore; it’s imprinted permanently into his mind by now.

Now that it occurs to him, that video was probably meant to play on this very television. Probably on a loop.

Wait for me.

That, or just sexting whoever was his sweetheart while on active duty. Cloud tries not to think of the video as made for someone else.

Finally, in the evening—or what Cloud is pretty certain is the evening—Zack pushes the door open, creaking sounds, footsteps down the stairs.

He stares at Cloud, lying blithely against the headboard, in one of Zack’s old shirts and shorts. Swimming in them, because they’re too big.

“Did you open the door?”

“No. You left it open.”

“Did I?”

He walks over to Cloud and grips his chin, tilting his head up.

A sudden spray of saliva hits his face; it globs onto one cheek, dripping down towards his jaw. Cloud blinks, staring back up at him, lashes misted with tiny droplets, watching as Zack’s pupils pulse and dilate while they examine him.

The grip at his chin tightens. “Open your mouth.”

Obediently, Cloud drops open his jaw, nice and wide, dumbly, as if he’s ready to take a cock.

Leaning down, Zack spits another glob of saliva directly into his mouth. Cloud flinches as it hits his tongue, sliding, viscous, down back to his throat, but other than that, he doesn’t move.

His dick’s getting hard. Tenting up in Cloud’s soft shorts. The grip on his jaw tightens, forcing his head back a little more.

Zack spits in his mouth again. Then looks at him incredulously while Cloud swallows it down, gazing up at him as if he’s asking for more.

“You like that, don’t you? God, you’re pathetic. I’ve never met anyone so desperate to be the ground I walk upon.”

His trembling pout finally returns. That’s the only thing that really hurts him. Zack will see, though, see how devoted he is, see that Cloud’s not a loser, and how much he loves Zack. All Cloud wants is to be a part of his orbit.

“Lie back,” he orders.

Zack pins him down and fucks him like an animal that’d been kept in a cage, feral, like he’s losing himself to all base instinct. He draws moans and cries out of Cloud like a howling wolf, like Cloud’s a bitch in heat, pounding and pounding his hole until he’s spent, leaving a trace of himself inside Cloud for a brief, exhilarating moment.

He wishes he could keep a piece of Zack inside him forever. A real one, and not just the abstract piece that’s already there. But it drips out of his hole, down between his thighs, then onto the sheets.

Tilting his chin up towards him, Zack kisses his mouth, the movement of them now less hungry, more satisfied. Mouth drifting along his neck, lips grazing over his collarbones.

“Fuck, that was good.” Stroking fingers through Cloud’s hair, he buries his face into Cloud’s neck, and his still-hard cock back into his ass.

“I usually kill them,” he whispers into Cloud’s ear, making him shiver, “but you’re different. Special. The shine in your eyes hasn’t dulled, even after seeing who I really am.”

Moaning, hips bucking, Cloud’s overwhelmed at being called special by Zack. The pleasure of it traveling all the way to his ears, the tips of them growing hot.

“Your love for me is still there, isn’t it?”

Cloud nods. Salty tears brim over his eyes, spilling down onto his cheeks. Because Zack can finally see it, see Cloud’s love, how different he is from the others.

Fucking Cloud until he cries helplessly and comes everywhere, Zack cuddles with him for a while after, warm breaths and bare skin, interlocked legs and arms.

Then Zack goes back upstairs, returning with a tray, and feeds Cloud his dinner, even though he can do it himself.

One evening, Zack throws a jacket at him and Cloud’s own pair of jeans, along with a hoodie sweatshirt.

“Get dressed,” he says, smiling brightly, “We’re going outside.”

At this point, Cloud has earned the privilege of getting to stay upstairs most of the day, though confined mostly to Zack’s bedroom, so that he isn’t seen through the windows.

So to be asked to go outside is so exciting. Enough to make his entire day—no, entire week. Cloud has been deemed trustworthy enough to go out with Zack somewhere. Feels like he’s really starting to see Cloud differently.

Like an equal, even.

Once they’re in the car, Zack opens the glove compartment, digging through the assortment of items inside. There are several gloves in there, along with needles and vials in ziploc bags. He picks up a pair of leather gloves and tosses them onto Cloud’s chest. “Put these on, too.”

Sliding them on dutifully, Cloud then cracks open the window a bit on his side, the cool breeze rushing in. It’s nice to get some fresh air.

During the drive, Zack turns on the radio to an oldies station, humming along to the tune.

“Where are we going?” Cloud asks, beaming.

“You’ll see.”

They’re on a quiet part of the highway for about twenty minutes, headed towards the suburbs. There’s nothing around but trees. They loom tall and jagged in the darkness, below a midnight-blue sky, twinkling with stars.

Zack drives down a small road through a clearing in the forest, then stops the engine when they’re deep into the center of the woods. He keeps the headlights on, though.

He gets out of the car, and opens the trunk.

“Get out of the car, Spike.”

Cloud pops the lock on the passenger side and steps out. Crickets chirp in the night air, unseen insects and birds creeping into the woodland sounds.

Shutting the trunk quietly, Zack walks over to him.

He’s holding a shovel.

“Zack.” Cloud’s lips are trembling.

With unreadable eyes, he holds it out towards Cloud. “Start digging,” he says, as if he’s asking Cloud to pass the potatoes.

Taking it with shaky hands, for a very brief moment, he imagines hitting Zack violently over the head with it.

But the thought of that hurts him too much.

So Cloud walks over, dragging the heavy shovel with him, and stabs it into soil. Picks up a mound of dirt, throwing it to a pile to the side, through tears blurring his vision.

Zack leans against the hood of the car, legs and arms crossed, watching him work silently.

All the while, Cloud cries. Because Zack’s making him dig his own grave. He can’t believe that, after all he’d done to prove how much he loves Zack.

Maybe Zack doesn’t care. Doesn’t care about his love. Maybe it was never returned.

For a while, there’s nothing but the chirp of crickets, a lone owl’s coo, and Cloud’s pathetic sniffles.

“Please, Zack,” he says through hiccuped sobs. “I love you. No one could ever love you as much as I love you.”

“Dig.”

“I would never run away. I don’t want to be anywhere else. You don’t have to worry about that.” Cloud wipes at the sweat coming off his brow with a sleeve, then down his face, smearing the salty, sad tears.

“I know. Dig.”

After some time, his arms are starting to hurt from the effort, and he’s insulted that Zack doesn’t even think highly enough of him to help dig Cloud’s grave too. Instead, he’s making him do it all by himself.

“Please, Zack, all I want to do is be with you. I’ll do anything you want, I’ll be good.” His throat is hoarse from crying. Eyes puffy and stinging like salt in a wound. “I’ll prove it to you, I love you, you don’t have to get rid of me.”

At that moment, Cloud stops digging, because he’s exhausted, and looks up at Zack plaintively. Cloud knew he was cruel, knew that from the moment he picked up Aerith’s phone. But that didn’t matter to him, not even if he wanted to be cruel to Cloud, as long as Zack loved him.

And Cloud thought he did.

It’s a shallow grave, maybe a little less than four feet deep, but it’s enough to cover his body. With a shaky breath, eyes creasing shut, he asks, “How are you going to do it?”

At least Zack cares enough to do this personally. If he has to die, at least it will be at Zack’s own hands. The thought, in its own way, is oddly, morbidly comforting.

“This isn’t deep enough. Keep digging.” Zack continues to stare at him, poker-faced.

With a whimper, he picks up the shovel again, and continues to dig deeper, even though his arms feel like breaking off, and his heart feels like breaking in half.

“You know why it’s called six feet under, right? Don’t want animals or torrents unearthing the body.” Zack ignores the way he’s crying.

It gets to the point that Cloud has to step into the hole in order to keep digging. He keeps sniffling, wiping his eyes on his sleeve the whole time, and doesn’t try to argue with Zack for a while.

Then it strikes him, like a discordant note; terror at the thought of being buried alive. Zack wouldn’t do that, would he? Let nature get rid of him instead of having to do it himself.

He owes Cloud at least that.

Finally, Zack says, “Okay, that’s enough.” It’s not quite six feet deep, but Cloud is only five-foot-seven. He can’t get out. Peering out of the grave with sad eyes, he looks up at Zack’s standing, looming form.

Then Zack crouches down, extending a hand out. Reaching for his.

Cloud takes it, gratitude mixing with the overwhelm, and Zack helps pull him out of it. He stands at the edge of the grave, shoulders hunched.

Afraid to look up, he stares at the soil and dirt and twigs on the ground, the hole he just dug for his own burial, and sobs. Closes his eyes tight. Expecting to hear a gunshot, expecting to be put out of his misery any moment now.

“I just want you to know that I love you, Zack,” Cloud says, shaking, looking into Zack’s cool, impassive eyes, face miserable with tears, confessing with all his heart and soul. “I love you more than anyone. I always have.”

Shutting his eyes tight again, he waits.

“Wait for me.”

The crunch of Zack’s footsteps crackle on the ground as he heads towards the direction of the car. Cloud timidly opens his eyes again, heart still thumping wildly.

Zack pops open the trunk. He takes out a second shovel, planting it into the ground with a firm shove.

“I know you love me, Cloud. I just wanna know how much.”

With those words, he picks up something large and heavy out of the trunk and dumps it to the ground.

The bundle stirs. Starts speaking. It’s a man—blindfolded, with a dyed crimson pompadour, ugly tattoos, and a bared chest beneath a tacky denim shirt.

From what Cloud can decipher, he’s begging for his life, babbling endlessly, both arms tied behind his back.

Zack drags him by the collar, walking back up to Cloud, and throws him to the ground next to them.

“Please,” the man begs. “Don’t kill me, please, let me go, I won’t—”

“Shut up, Johnny.”

Eyeing Cloud in a measured way, Zack flips his hand out. A knife, handle-first.

Cloud looks back into Zack’s eyes with a new trust and understanding, grateful, and takes it. He walks over to stand over Johnny, then kneels to straddle him.

Johnny’s confused, breath shortening, unsure of what’s happening.

Turning to Zack, Cloud looks up at him with narrowed eyes. “Did you fuck him?”

“No, baby. Haven’t fucked anyone besides you lately.”

“Why him, then?”

“This idiot almost blew my cover. Plus he’s just annoying, I guess.”

Johnny’s sobbing, whimpering in a way that even Cloud finds pathetic. “Please, I’ll do anything, I won’t say anything to anyone, I swear, just let me go, please, please.”

A hesitation keeps Cloud’s hands utterly frozen. This feels like a crucial, important moment.

Like a fledgling butterfly, needing to fight its way out.

That was something he’d once read about butterflies. Part of metamorphosis involves the struggle to break free. Only by going through that struggle, would a butterfly gain enough strength in its wings to fly.

If someone were to cut the chrysalis, as a way of assisting, the butterfly would not complete its transformation. It would emerge weak, incomplete, small; unable to survive. That act of kindness would unknowingly doom them.

Some never emerge at all. They die before they get a chance at breaking free, or transforming into what they were meant to be.

This is what Cloud had been waiting for all this time.

To be changed. To be molded anew, and transform into someone worthy. To become someone like Zack.

Cloud doesn’t need to make the basketball team to impress him.

This is what he has to do.

Johnny’s still begging for his life. The incoherent babbles fill the forest, getting higher and higher pitched, shrieking, until the words abruptly turn into bubbling, choking sounds.

Cloud’s holding the knife still, staring at the line he drew across Johnny’s neck, a red waterfall spilling from the thin gash.

With a morbid curiosity, he lifts the blindfold, and watches with fascination as some light dims in Johnny’s eyes, this candle that would never be lit again, until everything falls quiet, besides the crickets.

It’s a feeling he can’t quite name. The closest would be power, maybe.

A hand skims over his cheek, stroking it softly. “Give me the knife, baby.”

He gives it to Zack, who places it inside a thick plastic bag and puts it back in the car. Then Zack pulls the second shovel out of the ground.

Gently tousling his hair with a hand, he murmurs, “I’m so proud of you, baby.”

Nudging at Johnny’s lifeless body with his shoe, Zack kicks it until it rolls into the ditch. Then they both start shoveling dirt over it, side by side.

“You really are like me,” Zack murmurs, eyes sliding over him as they continue shoveling. “I thought you weren’t. But you’re different from the rest.”

Cloud beams inside, feeling loved in a way he had never before.

It’s far quicker to bury the dirt than it was to dig it, especially with the two of them working together. Zack pats the surface with the flat part of the shovel, smoothing it over. Then he kicks a few twigs and rocks over the area, until it looks indistinct from the rest of the ground.

Zack slinks an arm around his waist, and they haul the shovels behind their backs, walking towards the car. He takes both shovels and places them back in the trunk.

Then he shoves Cloud against the passenger door, and starts kissing him desperately, teeth scraping skin, tongue running over Cloud’s.

“Fuck, I’m so turned on right now.” Zack pops open a button on his own jeans, unzipping, eyes wild. Feeling blindly for the handle, he opens it, shoving both of them into the backseat.

“Wanna fuck you so bad, baby.” Zack rips off his gloves, then tears open a packet of lube. Presses fingers into him, like he’s bursting, like it’s killing him every second he’s not inside Cloud.

With Cloud’s jeans pulled down around his ankles, Zack grabs onto them, pressing Cloud’s sneakers against the ceiling, pushing Cloud’s knees back against his chest, exposing his hole to him.

“I think I’ve found my soulmate,” he says, eyes blacker with lust than he’d ever seen them, and then Zack’s shoving a hard cock into him, hot and sweet, groaning on each thrust.

“Me too,” Cloud gasps out between moans, and he could die happy if his life ended at this very moment.

“Love you, baby,” Zack groans out, smacking his hips against the back of Cloud’s thighs. “Fuckin’ love you so much.”

Letting out a slutty whimper, he spreads his thighs more, inviting Zack to pound into him harder, more frantically, chasing the peak of pleasure, and Zack takes it, slamming into him with such lust that he might burst.

“What happened to you in the army?” Cloud asks, rolling his head back as Zack’s cockhead rubs up against that spot inside him that feels so heavenly sinful.

“Why do you wanna know?”

“I want to know everything about you.”

With a rueful, lopsided grin, Zack says, “I was discharged for being too good at my job.”

“Too good?”

“The other side sent two hundred foot soldiers after me.” Another groan as he shoves deep into Cloud. “Killed ‘em all.”

“All by yourself?” Cloud breathes out.

Zack’s chest curves, hips thrusting with pride, like he knows Cloud’s impressed, and not horrified—like how all the others must’ve reacted. “Of course. Why do you think they sent that many?”

“They didn’t stand a chance,” he murmurs, and Zack, pleased by the praise, fucks him harder, harder, until Cloud’s spilling cum against his own navel with a loud cry, hips bucking as he covers himself with pearly filth.

“I’m a one-man army, baby,” he moans out, cocky, pounding into him in a way that’s overwhelming as Cloud lies dazed and blissful.

Groaning over him with urgent slaps of his pelvis, Zack comes inside him too, thrusting with measured, sharp movements, as if he wants to fuck the cum into Cloud as deep as he can.

For a moment, he halts inside Cloud, gazing into his eyes with a strange intensity. “You really do love all of me, don’t you?”

“Love you, Zack,” Cloud says breathlessly, still coming down from his orgasm, and Zack lets his legs down, leaning down to kiss his forehead. “All of you. I always, always will.”

“I know. Love you too, Spike,” he says with a brush of his lips.

The sun loves the moon so much, that it takes a step back each night, dimming itself so that the moon may shine too.

Still, it leaves a soft glow, kissing the moon with its heat, warming what would otherwise be cold and lonely and barren.

Together, they pull on the tides of the earth, waves cresting and falling at their whims.

Though the moon cannot shine without the sun, it reflects the light it has been given, circling patiently within the pull of the sun’s gravity.

And in this way, the moon casts a little light, into what would have been complete darkness.

Cover illustration