raisedbymoogles (raisedbymoogles) wrote in areyougame, @ 2009-02-27 11:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | *final fantasy vii, author: raisedbymoogles |
Elusive Words (FF7, Zack/Cloud)
Title: Elusive Words
Author/Artist: raisedbymoogles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mild sharp-things play
Word count: 1337
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII, Zack/Cloud: xenokink - "You're the fulfillment of a fallacy/A creature from fantasy"
Summary: Waking from his mako-sickness on the way back to Midgar, Cloud finds that a lot of things have changed.
Author's Notes: Zack's changes are modeled after a dragon, of sorts; Cloud's are modeled after a fu, the Tibetan lion-dog that guards their temples.
Cloud dreamed he was a fish, and then a frog, and then a dragon. Scales, feathers and fur fought across his skin, making him twist weakly and twitch his fingers in an effort to scratch. The green that filled his head didn't know what it was, and there wasn't enough left of Cloud to tell it.
"Ah, geez, Spike, that's the third shirt you've ripped..."
The sound made him twitch and jerk again, but the meaning behind it was lost in the green. That green was the only constant, even when his eyes and mind didn't have the right structures to process color. He twisted, bending his spine - or whatever took its place - to the side to ease a pressure he couldn't name.
"Okay, Spike, I know, shh. I know it hurts. Ride it out."
Something twined with his digits, giving them shape and form. They moved on their own, four - no, five, when joined by an opposable thumb that grasped. Muscles shaped themselves around bones, skin over muscles. Cloud opened his eyes.
Green-shadowed shapes resolved themselves into a smiling face haloed in darkness, with too-bright violet eyes with slit pupils like a cat's. Cloud dug through memory - most of it was even his own - and came up with a name. "Zack...?" he croaked.
Zack lit up like a lantern. "Cloud! You remember me!"
Cloud turned his face away from the intensity of his smile. "Like I could forget you," he rasped. "Dork."
Zack crushed Cloud close, surrounding him with the smell of sweat and dirt - weeks of it, and Cloud realized he reeked just as strongly. Their surroundings smelled too, but it was almost a homey smell, hay and wood and chocobos, the air thick and still with it as only enclosed spaces could be. Cloud's body was slow to respond, weighed down by atrophy and unfamiliarity, but he managed to force one hand up, drag it through the long spikes of Zack's hair. It was longer than he remembered, stiff with tangles and oil. "How long," he tried to ask, then found words slipping away from him again. He frowned at himself and patted at Zack's hair again, feeling it bristle against his palm.
Zack laughed quietly and shook his head. "We've been on the road for almost a month, Spike. You've been in and out all that time. I was starting to think you didn't want to see me," he teased, but the pressure of his hands told Cloud how worried he had been.
Words returned. "Zack," he said, squinting against a sudden blur of tears. "I'm sorry. I couldn't - I got you into-" Zack shushed him, running his nails through Cloud's hair. Cloud shut his eyes tightly and clung, burying his face in the crook of his friend's shoulder.
The skin was rough there, dusty and rough, like... Cloud drew a breath, shoulders hitching. "Zack?"
"Sorry, Spike," Zack murmured into Cloud's hair, his voice thick with sadness. "You haven't had a chance to see all the changes."
"Changes?" Cloud pulled back, forcing his lethargic body to obey. Zack helped him sit up so he could look.
The color of Zack's skin hadn't changed, but as the older man moved Cloud could see patches of pebbled skin - reptilian scales - on his neck and arms where he wasn't covered by his uniform. The shape of his eyes had changed, become more almond-shaped with dramatic brow ridges, and there were two wicked-sharp black horns sweeping back from the crest of his hair. As he watched, Zack grinned a fanged grin and lifted a hand, displaying ragged yellow claws.
"You're a dragon," Cloud heard himself say. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth.
Zack blinked twice and cracked up laughing. "Okay, that was better than I was expecting." He leaned in and ruffled the younger man's hair, careful with his claws. "Gods, it's good to see you awake again."
Cloud ducked, bashful-growling like a sensitive new recruit. "I get it, I get it," he muttered. "Zack...?"
"Yeah?"
"Do I need to steel myself before I look down at me?"
"Well, personally, I think you're adorable," Zack drawled, almost succeeding at masking his worry, "but you've been known to disagree with me on that."
"Don't even start." Cloud took a deep breath and ran his hands over his hair, fully expecting to find horns or bristles or pleaseShivano bald skin. When his hands encountered silky softness, he blinked, confused. A quick glance at Zack confirmed that he was supposed to find something out of the ordinary, so he tried again, being very thorough about it.
He found more hair than he remembered having before, but he didn't get it until his fingers wrapped around two soft, thin flaps. "Zack?" he queried.
"Ears," Zack explained with a crooked grin. "I told you you were cute."
Ears. Doglike ears, and claws - shorter and blunter than Zack's, but claws nonetheless - and when he turned around Cloud saw a tufted tail that he couldn't quite accept as his. He twisted back around, moving forward on his hands and knees in the dirt and hay, and peered up at Zack. "The mako?" he guessed.
Zack reached out to him, clawed hand cupping his cheek. "That or the scientists. I don't know. It doesn't matter right now."
It does too matter, you idiot! Cloud wanted to say, but words left him again, and all he could do was pounce on his friend and - giving in to his new body's instinct, whatever it was - bite him hard on his rough-skinned neck.
Zack growled like a dragon, rough and nearly subsonic, and drove his claws into Cloud's shirt. Cloud rocked back against them but didn't let go, and after a moment Zack's touch softened. "Gods, Spike, you think this is easy for me either?" he groaned into Cloud's hair - fur? The question was academic anyway, as long as Zack understood him without him having to chase down those elusive words.
"Idiot," Cloud growled back around his mouthful of skin, "give me time-" and Zack was rolling onto his back with Cloud on top of him, rough hands roaming up under his shirt as Cloud worried at the rough fold. Cloud's tail lashed, gold and bronze in the corner of his eye, and wrapped around Zack's bent leg up to the knee. "Right there," he muttered, and Zack laughed into his hair.
"You know I might draw blood," the Soldier warned him, flexing his claws against Cloud's skin.
"Mhrrr," Cloud said, or something like it, and let go of Zack's neck to bite his earlobe. The skin along the outer curve of Zack's ear felt almost thorny, the scales growing outward into spikes, and Cloud ran his agile tongue along them. Zack gasped and raked bright lines of pain down Cloud's back.
They remained that way, rocking and thrumming with tension, clinging fiercely to each other as scales and fur and skin bristled all over. And yes, Zack hurt him with his claws, and Cloud hurt Zack with his teeth, blood for blood and scrape for scrape. It was only when Cloud's muscles began to stiffen and tremble with exhaustion that Zack pushed him away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered as Cloud whined and clawed feebly at him. "Not here. Not now."
"Want," Cloud managed, too desperate to notice how easily that one word came to him.
"We're being hunted," Zack explained desperately, and that made Cloud stop, though he wouldn't let go of Zack's wrist and his tail tightened around the Soldier's leg. "We'll find someplace safe - then, I promise."
"Remember you promised," Cloud growled, but it was a resigned growl, and he let Zack help him to his feet. The night air hit him like a waterfall, cool and fresh and strong, as Zack nudged open the barn door. It was all Cloud could do not to bound out into the darkness, but he had his pack to think of.