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At first it was a coincidence, or maybe more of a convergence. Coincidence is a meeting of points. Points have no direction, no velocity. They don’t come from anywhere or go anywhere. He and Zack aren’t like that. They’re constantly moving, changing, on a collision course with each other.
The meeting (when it happens) is both protracted and inevitable. If either of them were deep thinkers they’d have seen it a mile away, but they aren’t, and so they come crashing into the vanishing point like a bicycle flying off a pier.
Cloud is nervous, laying on his back with his wrists strapped to his knees because he (apparently) can’t deny Zack anything. His boyfriend stands over him with dark glee oozing out of his pores, every bit the hungry wolf that Cloud imagines him to be.
Zack had wanted to try something new (wax) and Cloud had eagerly agreed because (duh) and he’d really meant it at the time (honest). But that was two weeks ago and now… now he’s getting cold feet.
Anxiety isn’t a consenting partner in this relationship, but when it decides to assert its control over Cloud it doesn’t give him aftercare or safewords like Zack.
It settles over him like a weighted blanket and holds him in place until someone pulls him out. So by the time he and Zack are free at the same time, his feelings on the idea have changed.
He still wants to do it (the wax) really (probably), his consent has just gotten less (hasty) enthusiastic. What if it’s too hot? (It’ll burn, dumbass.) What if he doesn’t like it? (He probably will.) Will Zack be disappointed if he safewords? (No.)
So Cloud lays there waiting (spiraling) while Zack melts the specialty wax over a hotplate, getting gradually worse as the build up stretches on.
It’s part of the appeal, usually, the way his anxiety gets twisted up in their game and transformed into something fun, but sometimes (often) he forgets that in the heat of the moment.
Zack carries on with the scene unawares, because he isn’t (as Cloud so often fantasizes) infallible and omnipotent. He can’t read Cloud’s mind, no matter how much they both wish he could, and so he does what doms do and trusts Cloud to stop him if he goes too far.
At times like this, Cloud isn’t sure he’s worthy of that trust.
After a quick test with his pinky finger, Zack wipes his hand on a rag and tugs Cloud to the edge of the padded table that they both insist is workout equipment to their friends (but which is really only used to workout Cloud’s cheeky ass and Zack’s right arm). The room flips upside down.
That’s where it happens—the convergence, the point where Cloud’s anxiety intersects with Zack’s uncanny ability to solve problems before he even knows they exist.
Zack has a well-documented obsession with Cloud’s mouth (biting it, kissing it, gagging it, fucking it) so even if the scene isn’t supposed to involve that, he’s never going to pass up the opportunity. Cloud hangs there (lips parted, heart racing, insides squirming) knowing Zack wants it, wanting to give it.
Unlike the wax, he’s confident about this. He knows he’s good at sucking, and he knows exactly how to tempt Zack into it. It’s easy, comfortable. Pulling at his wrist bindings, he arches his back to put his mouth closer to Zack’s form and slides his tongue over his lips.
“Please—” he moans. Gravity pulls his hair back and Zack follows the fall with his fingers, gathering wayward strands from his forehead and gripping, tugging.
“Aww, baby,” he says. “Want it that bad?”
Understanding flickers between them, a little message hidden within the game. Beg for it, it says. That’s one thing Cloud’s never had a problem with.
Teasing and coy, he sticks out his tongue and licks the fly of Zack’s jeans. It earns him a slap, wide and dizzying across his cheek.
“Slut," Zack smiles proudly. He’s put a lot of work into chipping away Cloud’s shame. The word sends shivers straight to his cock.
Three fingers delve past his lips, pressing his tongue flat and hinging his jaw wide open. He imagines how he must look, spread out naked while Zack looms, still in his uniform with his dick tenting his pants.
A mewling, desperate noise vibrates out of him, muffled by Zack’s lips and his broad fingers. He kisses the stretched corner of Cloud’s mouth.
“Fuuuuck, baby, look at you,” he whispers, pumping in and out, spreading his fingers to stretch out Cloud’s lips. “Playing me like a fiddle. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Mmhmm—” Cloud keens, pleading with his moans, his fists clenching white around the straps. The room goes fuzzy as he gets lightheaded, upside-down furniture cutting odd shapes out of a window tinted green by reactor haze.
Zack unzips his fly and trades his fingers for his dick. Heat spears Cloud’s lips, sweat-sticky and saline, dragging heavy along his tongue. He sinks in, in, in, and time becomes liquid.
“Good, so good—” His dom groans. He braces himself on his outstretched arms, and the table dips on either side of Cloud. He starts thrusting. Slow, indulgent, overwhelming.
There’s no space for worry after that, no room for conscious thought. Cloud’s focus narrows to the pressure in his throat, the looping repetition of push, swallow, suck, pull, breathe, repeat.
“Ugh, the things you do to me. Fuck—”
Cloud’s toes curl, his abs twitching and trembling. The aching pressure between his legs consumes him. It spreads up his stomach and down his legs, clenching and hungry like a beast in a cage. He'd do anything to get Zack to touch him, anything.
After a minute or two of that he’s completely forgotten about his nerves—about the entire wax dilemma, really—until the first drip pools between his ribs. He jumps at the surprise, letting out a guttural, animal noise and choking around Zack’s cock.
He gasps when his partner pulls out.
Laughing eyes gleam with mirth and Zack tips the bowl over again. Stinging heat splashes over his stomach. His partner wraps his fist around his cock so he can slap it against Cloud’s face with a mean grin. Spit and precum smear his cheek.
“Forget something, baby?” Zack coos, rubbing the head over his puffy, wet lips and groaning when Cloud sucks and licks at it. “How did it feel, taking that for me?”
Words fail him when he’s like this, when he’s stretched out like taffy and his head’s a fog of need. He answers with his body, arching and squirming, knees spread wide in an unspoken plea. If Zack doesn’t touch him, he really will lose his mind.
“Cloud?”
The wax is nothing. He’s gotten worse from the kitchen stove. Already the first drip is cold, cracking and flaking from the way his chest quakes, but he can’t describe what it did to him. He can’t explain the swirling concoction of fear, pleasure, and stinging heat that’s making his head spin.
Zack’s face softens, his eyes narrowing into something cooler and more calculating. He sets the bowl on the counter and cups Cloud’s face in his hands.
“What’s your color?”
“Green,” he says immediately. They just got started, but his voice is already wrecked.
“Okay.” Zack grins, a little shark-like, a little manic. “The guy at the shop said it gets hotter if you pour it closer. Want to see how close we can get before ‘green’ becomes ‘yellow’?”
Cloud’s dick answers way before his mouth can, jumping up from his belly like some eager puppy trained to do tricks. Roll over, boy. Sit. Shake. At this point, he’s lucky it’s just his dick. There’s no doubt in his mind that Zack would love to sprawl out on their couch like a king and bark out stupid orders just because Cloud would obey.
Even so, Zack wants a verbal answer. He can see it in the expectant slant of his brow.
Cloud swallows, shivering under his scrutiny.
“As long as I can suck you while you do it,” he rasps.
“Fuck, baby—” Zack pumps his cock hard with his fist. His eyes roll back as he slides them closed and hangs his head back. Something primal and possessive in Cloud’s chest surges. “That can be arranged. That can definitely be arranged.”
“Come on, man, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
Zack follows him as he circles the island, around and around. (Down, down, down.)
“I told you it’s nothing.” (It’s not.)
“Okay, so it’s nothing. Can I do something about it?”
“No.” (Yes.)
“Cloud—” Zack’s hand snags his wrist. His momentum spins him around, makes him face Zack from across the island with the granite edge digging into his hips.
Sharp eyes drill into his and Cloud just stands there paralyzed. His head is a swarm of insects, a buzzing mass of irrational fear. He can’t think straight, can’t breathe right, can’t do anything but walk circles and silently beg Zack to do something. Smack him, bind him, fuck him rough while he begs him to stop—things nobody’s supposed to want on their best day, but that he wants twice as much on his worst.
“Just… distract me,” he says, finally, unable (afraid) to meet Zack’s eyes. The recruiter’s cold words echo back to him, ghostly and reverberating with the emotion they ignited. ‘You think you’re cut out for SOLDIER? You can’t even ride a helicopter without chucking cookies.’
Zack doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t have to, not really. He knows Cloud’s head is a bagful of cats, and somehow (miraculously) that hasn’t scared him off yet.
“What’s your safeword?” He asks, but Cloud knows what he really means. (You’re scaring me.)
“Red,” he says, hoping Zack knows what he really means. (Please, I’ll be good, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I’m like this, please—)
Zack meters his strength, but it’s still on the edge of hurting when he drags Cloud around the island and pushes him to his knees. He rips open his fly and tugs his underwear down, hooking the elastic under his balls and jutting his soft cock off.
“Get me hard,” he says (orders). Cloud shivers, scared and relieved in equal measure. He reaches to stroke him, and gets a sharp slap to the face. “No hands. And make it look good, ‘cause I’m really not in the mood.”
“Yes, sir,” he murmurs, pressing his face into his partner’s hip. He inhales his scent and tries desperately to grab hold of his wits.
“Sir?” Zack scrunches his face and crosses his arms. (Scared, again.) They agreed on their first date several months ago that it would be bad to bring military lingo into this. Cloud cringes with his whole body.
“Sorry,” he says, rushing to get his mouth on Zack in the (misplaced) hope that his mouth will cover up his misstep. His knees complain on the tile floor, but he doesn’t mind it. (He deserves it.)
Zack’s dick is pliant and soft under Cloud’s lips, not exactly unheard of, but certainly not what he’s used to. Zack’s quick and energetic about most things in life. Sex is no exception. By the time he has his pants down, nine times out of ten he’s raring to go.
It feels strange and… vulnerable, touching him like this. Like he’s the one making things happen, instead of just laying there and letting Zack play with him like his own personal life-size action figure. Cloud’s carrying the scene this time, and that makes it feel dangerous. (Exciting.) Calculatedly risky. (Mind-quieting.)
The skin is loose and tacky without anything to slick it, but it’s too soft to lick it wet. He settles for wide, open-mouthed kisses peppered delicately along the shaft. Wandering downward, he gives the same treatment to his balls, kissing them soft and slow, almost reverently.
“Mmm, that’s good. Suck ‘em. Go on—” Zack gasps as Cloud obeys. “Good. Good boy, fuck—”
Tension unwinds from Zack’s body, bit by bit. Cloud can feel it, his own energy calming to match. With breathless need he sucks and swirls, watching his partner twitch and swell to half mast. His own cock stirs in his pants. Tenderly, he wraps his lips around the head, stroking and dipping his tongue into the hood of foreskin.
Zack shuffles his feet further apart, moaning softly. His eyes go molten and intense, almost glowing in the dim light of the kitchen. He leans back against the counter and grips the granite with both hands.
“How is it that having a dick in your mouth calms you down?” he asks with a crooked, mystified smile. Cloud furrows his brows, pulling away even though he’s just gotten settled and really wants to keep going. A silky strand of spit trails from his lip when he pulls away.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, uh…” Zack rubs the back of his neck, searching for words. “Sex for most people is like, super exciting, you know? Gets your blood pumping and your brain firing on all cylinders. But you—” He pauses, like he’s realized too late that Cloud might take offense.
Cloud frowns indignantly. “I get excited. This is just… I dunno. Different. I’m concentrating.” He clears his throat, shrugging. “It’s meditative.”
“Sucking dick,” Zack deadpans.
Cloud rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I’m focused on doing a good job. Stop judging me—”
“I’m not, I think it’s cute!”
“Cute?” Cloud sneers.
“You’ve got a fetish. It’s like a secret weapon. Next time my fussy baby’s unhappy…” Zack wiggles his eyebrows and his dick at the same time. Cloud growls, shoving Zack’s leg as his boyfriend snickers.
“You can’t have a fetish for blowjobs, idiot. Fetishes are for objects, like women’s shoes or latex or… I dunno, balloon animals.”
“Balloon animals? Where the fuck did you see that?” Zack snorts, but then Cloud starts to stand up and he pushes him down by the shoulders. “Okay, okay, not a fetish, a… fixation.” Zack winks. “An ora—”
“Don’t say it!”
Zack snorts, carding his fingers through Cloud’s hair and nudging him back towards the object of his ‘fixation.’
“Whatever it is, hurry up and indulge it. You can’t get me all worked up and leave me hanging.”
“Sure I can,” Cloud says, lifting one eyebrow in challenge. “I have a safeword, don’t I?”
“Ah—” Zack gapes in horror. “Don’t you dare! Safewords are for safety, not cockblocking.”
“Re—” he starts to say, elongating the ‘e’ indefinitely.
“Cloud, no! I’m not joking, I will punish you. I dunno how to punish a masochist, but I’ll figure it out.”
Smirking, Cloud puts his lips to Zack’s base and gives him that coy, wide-eyed look that never fails to drive him crazy. He finishes saying what he always intended to say. “Re—ady to beat my ass yet?”
“And fuck that smart mouth when I’m done,” Zack mutters, dragging Cloud up by his hair to their mutual delight. “Bed. Now.”
“Yes, daddy~” Cloud coos.
He doesn’t quite run fast enough to evade the first smack.
The next time is less dramatic.
The pattern has been set and observed, they just haven’t synthesized it yet. Haven’t had cause to use it.
That changes one stormy afternoon in spring, when the whole city is soggy and the rain against the window pane makes it sound like the sky is falling.
Cloud has already been home (moping) for a while when Zack enters (crashes) through the apartment door. He listens as the other man kicks off his shoes and discards his keys. Padding footsteps carry him to the kitchen, to the cupboard, to the sink to fill a glass.
Cloud lays on the sofa, curled up and morose. He wants to crawl into Zack’s lap but his partner’s steps are buoyant. Zack’s happy, Cloud can tell just by the sound of him. He’s been training with the Firsts all day, living his dream.
Cloud’s going to ruin it. He’s going to take one look at him and shatter his entire week.
A good boyfriend wouldn’t need to be coddled. A good boyfriend would compartmentalize and deal with his problems on his own. But Cloud’s not a good boyfriend, and his own dreams were shattered today, so he stays where he is, hoping Zack can fix this like he fixes everything else.
Zack chugs the water at the sink and lets out a satisfied sigh. The clink of the glass on the granite countertop makes Cloud flinch. His partner notices, sauntering to lean over the back of the couch with an assessing gaze.
“Bad day?” he asks.
Cloud shoves his mouth deeper into the pillow he’s been strangling. His partner’s face falls.
“That bad, huh. Is this about the advanced tactics exam?”
“Forty-seven point two,” Cloud mumbles.
Zack winces. A passing score is seventy-five. (Zack got a ninety-four.)
“Wanna go out for dinner?” he asks.
Cloud blinks rapidly as tears well up. Something about Zack’s voice breaks the dam inside him, and he struggles to hold it all back. Sniffling, he shakes his head.
“Want me to make you something?” Zack tries again.
“I’m not hungry, I’m pissed off!”
He throws the pillow as hard as he can. It doesn’t even have the decency to break anything, it just falls pathetically to the ground and sulks (like him).
“Okay…” Zack nods cautiously. He rounds the couch and retrieves the pillow, working his jaw and fluffing up the stuffing between his hands.
“Wanna suck my dick?” he asks, soft-faced and sincere.
Rubbing at his eyes roughly, Cloud nods. “C-can I?”
“Of course, why didn’t you call me? I’d have come home sooner.”
“I just—” Cloud stutters, gasping around his sobs. “I didn’t want to interrupt your time with your friends.”
“Ah, baby, Sephiroth would understand,” Zack kneels in front of him, grasping his hands supportively. “He ditches me to suck dick all the time.”
Squeezing once for comfort, Zack drops the pillow onto the carpet next to him and moves to sit up on the sofa.
Cloud rips Zack’s pants open and sucks like a drowning man sucks air.
“And then I said—yes, sir! Of course I’m interested, I’d love a chance to re-apply.” Cloud says, hopping energetically between playing two sides of a conversation that he’s already relayed to Zack three times. “But then he said—”
“No, no, my boy, you misunderstand,” Zack quotes, putting on a stuffy, self-important voice. “I mean to make you a commissioned officer, sonny! No applications needed.”
He leans back on the sofa and crosses his hands behind his head, tracking Cloud’s excited loops with weary eyes.
“Cloud, I love you man, but I heard you tell this story to every single person we passed on the way home. I get the gist.”
“But—damn it, you weren’t there! You didn’t see his face. It wasn’t pity or sympathy, he really thinks I’ve got something.”
“I know, and I’m so stinkin’ proud of you,” Zack says. “But if you don’t calm down, I’m gonna throw you out that window. It’s four in the morning. You need sleep.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to sleep like this?” Cloud throws out his arms and starts pacing. Again.
“Babe,” Zack says.
“The Brigadier General. The Brigadier fucking General—”
“Babe,” Zack says more firmly.
“—asked for me. Me! Personally! To clerk for him!”
With a put upon groan, Zack spreads his legs and unzips his fly. Cloud’s erratic path reroutes at the sound of the zipper, his legs carrying him to stand between Zack’s spread knees without any sign of him consciously choosing to do so.
Zack snags the unfortunate pillow that’s been designated the ‘cum cushion’ and drops it at his feet. Cloud kneels.
“The Brigadier General’s aide, with my test scores,” Cloud shakes his head wondrously, his eyes glazed.
“You didn’t suck his dick, did you?”
“Zack!” Cloud scowls.
“I’m just asking! Wouldn’t judge you for it either, as long as we talked about it first.”
“I would never sleep my way into a promotion! That’s disgusting.” Cloud huffs, even as he drags Zack’s pants over his hips and then all the way off. “You just can’t handle me being happy for a change.”
“What?! That is not—” Zack stutters as Cloud swallows him whole, losing his train of thought momentarily to the slick, hot tingle of Cloud’s tongue working his slit. His eyes cross for a second, before he shakes himself back to his senses. “—f-f-fair. Shit, baby, fuckin—I love you being happy! Happy is great. Insomnia is where I draw the line.”
Cloud would undoubtedly argue, if his mouth weren’t occupied doing better things. He seems to channel his frustration into that, which Zack is definitely not complaining about. He’s hard and leaking in less than a minute.
“Gods, you're good at this,” he sighs, melting steadily into the couch with every bob of Cloud’s head. His hips stutter and jerk towards that tight, wet heat and Cloud synchronizes easily, sucking and slurping until his nose brushes Zack’s pubes.
It won’t be slow, not this time. Not with Cloud so wound up and Zack’s energy burnt out from training. He rests his hand on his head and lets him do his thing, half-hypnotized by the rhythmic sounds and the up-down piston swing of his baby’s pretty, pouty lips.
Cloud’s a force of nature that night, even better than usual. He pulls out all the stops, pumping and twisting Zack’s base in time with his strokes and teasing his balls with his other hand. Every once in a while his eyes flick up, and Zack’s hit with a lightning bolt of desire, devotion, want. He loses control every time, his hips snapping up abruptly, and every time Cloud rolls with it, taking him all the way.
As tired as he is it doesn’t take long, but Cloud’s become a dick whisperer these last few months. Each time he gets close Cloud just seems to know, squeezing him suddenly and pulling off with a sinful smirk.
“No—” he pants, lips swollen and eyes sharp. Zack’s body lurches, seizing, trying to come, and Cloud just holds.
Red stains his pale cheeks, his carefully styled hair incurably mussed. By the third or fourth time he has to pull off so quick that thick, stringy spit coats his lips.
“No,” he whispers, over and over. “No.”
“Baby, baby—” Zack’s eyes are red, his nerves shot. “You’re killin’ me, please, fuck, come on…”
Cloud’s hips snap against his leg, where he’s been rubbing for most of their session. A gasp comes out of him like he got punched.
Seeing his chance, Zack presses his foot flat against his cock. Cloud shudders, coiling, eyes shuttering closed.
“That's it, baby, come for me. Hump my fuckin' foot like a dog,” he babbles, saying anything that comes to mind. He rubs fast at the cloth-covered bulge. Cloud comes. Hard. Whining.
“Open your mouth. Take it—”
Cloud does, like he was born to do it—eyes glazed, tongue out, moaning, twitching, still coming himself. Zack paints those flushed lips white, dots and streaks splattering over Cloud’s narrow nose and proud cheeks.
Still holding him by the scruff, he pulls him down and plows past raw, slick lips to shoot his last twitching spurts down Cloud’s throat.
He feels hollow by the end, like his baby turned him inside-out by his dick. Cloud’s writhing under his foot turns slow and erratic, dragging out the pleasure. He feels vaguely proud of himself for making a grown man cream his pants.
The thought makes him chuckle, staring at the ceiling, fucked stupid. "Holy shit."
"Mmhmm." Cloud’s body slumps across his lap, limp from orgasm. He keeps sucking like he isn’t quite ready to let go, fondling Zack's balls and playing with the foreskin like it exists to amuse him. Zack squirms.
“Cut it out. It’s done. You killed it.”
Cloud snickers, lapping kitten licks at the slit and milking out the last drops of come. Zack kicks him in the side and pushes his head away. The snickering becomes full-out laughter.
“The fuck’s gotten into you,” Zack grins, slouching into the sofa. It’s hard to stay mad when Cloud's eyes are twinkling with mischief and his face is slathered in jizz. He lays his head on Zack’s thigh and blinks innocently, which is a hell of a contrast to the utter sin of him licking come off his lips.
He wants Zack to ask the obvious question. He’s waiting for it, impish. Blame it on the endorphins or the exhaustion or, fuck, whatever other dumb excuses come to mind, but Zack decides to humor him. Reaching for his discarded pants, he makes quick work of wiping the mess off Cloud's face.
“Fine, I give. What is so fucking funny?”
The other man blinks, slow and dreamy with post-nut drowsiness.
“Do you remember ordering me to do that, like at all?” he slurs sleepily.
Zack furrows his brows, and comes up blank.
“Cause you didn’t. I just—” Cloud loses it. Just curls up into a ball between Zack’s legs and cackles. “You pulled down your fly, and I just fucking started doing it.”
There’s no denying it, after that. Zack’s got him trained.
It has its uses when they’re both too worked up to articulate what’s upsetting them. It also has downsides, like when Cloud’s anxiety spikes at work and he has to spend the rest of the day warding off intrusive thoughts about mainlining Zack’s dick.
But mostly it becomes routine. Neither good nor bad, just a staple of their lives together.
They do it in the mornings whenever Cloud can manage to wake Zack before his alarm. They do it in the shower when he doesn’t, or in the supply closet outside the Brigadier General’s office when Zack’s feeling frisky.
But his favorite time, if someone put a gun to his head and made him choose, would have to be their time in the evenings on days when work was stressful or the weather was a little too grim to ignore.
Zack will come home to Cloud unwrapping takeout containers, naked except for sweatpants and a headband holding his hair back. He’ll say hello like everything is normal, but Zack’s body will stir in anticipation all the same.
They exchange a heated stare, a hello kiss. Zack’s hands wander more boldly than usual, down Cloud’s smooth torso and then sneaking under the elastic band. Cloud will scold him and slap his hands away, even as his face flushes and his eyes shine.
“Watch it, mister. You’ll pay for that,” he says.
“Can’t wait,” Zack replies. He’ll be pushed away with an eye roll, and take a quick shower while Cloud eats.
Afterwards they’ll move to the living room, and Zack’s pants will disappear somewhere between the bedroom door and the couch. He’ll sprawl out with Cloud between his knees, eating his dinner and rambling about his day while the other man takes his dick out like he owns it and gets right down to business.
It’s a weird ritual—there’s no debating that—but it works for them. It makes the hard days manageable. Cloud’s anxiety becomes less troublesome. Months later on one such day, when the days are getting shorter and brisk Northern winds dust the reactors with frost, Zack lounges languidly with a pair of chopsticks in his hand.
“Hey, Cloud, can I ask you a question?” He slurps a long noodle and licks up the sauce that gathers on his lip. Cloud does much the same below, but to a very different result. Zack blinks, holding his concentration around the wave of pleasant tingles.
Cloud stares up at him, indolent and hazy although they’ve only just started. He gets like that some days, though Zack’s not exactly sure why.
“I know, I know, I already did,” he rolls his eyes, gesturing emphatically with the chopsticks. “But humor me. What’s the deal with this? Why blowjobs and not… I dunno, massages, crochet…. lavender scented candles.”
Cloud lowers his brows, unimpressed. He licks a long, slow stripe up Zack’s cock.
“Seriously,” Zack says. “I wanna know.”
His partner breaks eye contact and starts moving his head with intention. It’s a decent strategy. It would work for almost any other conversation that he might have wanted to avoid, but Zack’s dead set today. He’s got a wild hair, or however the expression goes.
“Baby,” he coaxes, putting his takeout carton aside and jabbing the chopsticks into it. He cups Cloud’s face and makes him sit up. The man looks mutinous, his eyes sharp and mouth a stiff, annoyed line.
“Yes, daddy,” he says dryly, like it’s a big joke and not something he yelps in the bedroom at least once per week.
Zack pinches his nose, purely because he’s learned that Cloud hates it. His partner bats his hands at him and jerks out of his hold.
“If I knew, don’t you think I’d have told you already?”
“I thought maybe you were embarrassed,” he shrugs. “Figured you’d tell me when you were ready, but you never did.”
Cloud looks down, color tinting his cheeks. He works his jaw and picks at a loose thread in his sweatpants.
“Why do you like hitting me? Why do I like it when you do it? Why do feel… sexy and proud when I walk around with your marks under my clothes?” He shrugs again, and forces himself to meet Zack’s eyes again. “I dunno, I just do. I’m good at it, and you really like it so… what does it matter?”
It’s more words than Cloud usually says about anything, especially bedroom things, and so it settles on Zack like a divine prophecy.
Smiling, he tucks a loose lock of blonde hair behind Cloud’s ear.
“Fair enough."
Cloud purses his lips. Nods. He wants kiss.
Zack grips his chin and bends forward, angling his head so their lips interlock. He presses soft and sweet, but pulls away quickly, wincing. Cloud smacks his lips and grimaces, reaching for his glass on the side table.
“Note to self,” Zack says for the both of them, going just as eagerly for his abandoned food carton to cover up the taste. “Lo mein and cock—not a great combination.”