Neither man could be described as the cuddly sort. In fact, Sephiroth realized as he settled back into bed, he and Jameson weren’t even anywhere near one another.

Such was his life, Sephiroth lamented silently to the chilly room. Always wanted close, but never wanted too close. Jameson was sprawled out, flat on his back breathing the deep breaths of one locked in sleep.

But it was still damned cold in the room. Tossing and turning, Sephiroth couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t engineered to take this sort of torture. Even with an extra blanket, chenille and smelling inexplicably but thankfully faintly of flowers, sleep proved elusive.

Looking one last time at the red-haired mage beside him, Sephiroth rose and dressed, not bothering with any of the formalities of letting his lover know where he was going. It wasn’t as though taking the chance of being seen leaving in the morning was a good idea anyway. At least at night he could say they’d been up late discussing something.

Like his leaving for a couple of months.

The door to Jameson’s apartment clicked shut softly, and the hallway seemed abysmally devoid of any form of life. It certainly was not a wing for partiers, Sephiroth thought, barely suppressing a smirk when he realized that perhaps he’d best take Jameson to his place from that point on. The mage wasn’t loud, per se, just... vocal.

A trunk, half packed already, greeted him once inside his own part of the complex. Two months on the other continent would be downright heavenly. Just the thought of it was a bit of a joy. And all he had to do was waste a few hours a day on extra training to up his certification as a reactor technician.

The whole thing was bullshit anyway. Busy work. Honestly, Sephiroth knew that ShinRa didn’t know what to do with him and they knew that left alone too long to fester, their willing pawn would start to get ideas.

The idea of packing was not a compelling one. And he had not been particularly sated by his last physical encounter, either. Despite it being the middle of the night, he felt downright... awake.

Ryan was the one who staggered out of bed to answer the pounding on the suite door. He stumbled into the wall once, cursing on his way.

He was not expecting a pair of second class SOLDIERS in full uniform.

"Is this the room of Zack..." the first began.

"Shut up, we know it is," the second interrupted, pushing into the room. "Get him up now!"

"Yes... Sirs," Ryan replied sleepily, seemingly taking a moment to remember just exactly who Zack was.

But it didn’t much matter. Zack had barely been asleep anyway. With too much on his mind, restful sleep was not an applicable blessing for the evening.

He was wearing only a trashed pair of fatigues and his hair was still damp. He made it into the main room a moment before Cloud appeared.

Blinking, the pair regarded each other for a hazy moment before looking to the uniformed pair.

"Zack, you need to get dressed. There’s been a bit of an incident and your assistance is required," the second soldier stated, sighting. "It’s going to be a long night."

"Don’t I get that line?" Zack asked, quickly heading to his room to grab the first shirt he could find. "I mean, after I know what’s going on?"

"I think that distinction already went to Doc Amma," the first soldier replied as Zack pulled on a tight black workout shirt. "No points for stating the obvious."

"Fine, fine. I suppose the General is already there."

"He’s the one who send for you."

"Is there anything we...?" Ryan began before being cut off.

"Have a pleasant night," the second soldier said firmly before marching Zack out the door.

"You’re killing me here," Zack muttered, trying to walk his way into a pair of dress shoes. Without socks, they bit at his feet.

And the dark hallway looked endless.

"Not like we really wanted to do this either," the first soldier said. "This place is getting damned scary."

"Okay... Crème, Adams, what is going on? There wasn’t..." Zack paused. Apparently, from the looks he was receiving, he was not an appropriate diversionary tactic.

"A third-class," Adams said. "There are a handful in this hall."

"Someone got a third class. He’s alive, but barely," Crème chimed in. "You better keep an eye on those little guys you’re living with."

"Yeah..." Zack said, the depth of the situation sinking in. "I will... I will."

Suddenly there was one hell of a lot of lights. Zack squinted and raised a hand to block their brightness. A strong hand pulled him aside.

"You two are dismissed." Zack knew the voice instantly, even before his blue eyes adjusted to the glowing halogen bulbs.

"Sir..." Zack found himself staring into eyes the color of Mako.

"I would assume you were too busy settling in to notice any suspicious activity," Sephiroth stated, keeping Zack in what was an increasingly uncomfortable space between body and wall.

"That would be correct," Zack replied, painfully nervous. It kicked in that he really shouldn’t have been off fucking the daylights out of Sine and should have instead been doing his assigned job function.

Panic hit him when he realized he’d basically disobeyed orders. But no one knew besides Sine and his roommates. Hopefully, hopefully no one would squeal.

Without even knowing the current situation in any clarity, the complications were growing.

"Apparently we didn’t move quickly enough," Sephiroth continued, apparently not doubting his subordinate’s story. "And since the victim is a SOLDIER, waves will be made."

There was a brief pause.

"I’m going to be on a mission for the next two months, leaving Jameson in charge of the committee. I expect not to have any more problems." Sephiroth stared directly at Zack.

"Yes, Sir." Zack winced inwardly - Sephiroth had just assigned that infernal mage as his direct superior.

Hopefully nothing too troubling would develop - the idea of being court-martialed for punching a superior was not on Zack’s current itinerary.

"Before we go any further, we really should be discussing a stepped up prevention plan..."

Some stepped up prevention - Zack groaned as he fell back into bed. At least he’d been relieved of all extraneous duties besides monitoring the hall and twice daily check-ins with the hall’s newest resident: A Turk.

And certainly there was no reason to consider messing with a Turk, a skillful trained assassin specializing in intelligence. Not the best in a battle but perfect for this sort of thing.

They’d met briefly in the stumbling dawn, the young men nearly colliding before being introduced. Then Jameson was there, smirking, and Doc Amma. And that miserable research assistant, and...

All he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep would be blessed - he could hear Cloud and Ryan getting around for the day and once they’d vanished to classes and training, silence would be his - the Turk, Kysi, had volunteered to take the first eight hour shift.

If nothing else, the man was interesting, hair bleached almost white and with piercing green eyes full of energy and just a bit of menace.

Ugh. Sleep... not anything else... body to sleep... Zack found himself fighting off arousal anyway, deciding it much safer to count chocobos looping around the track at the Gold Saucer.

Sleep...

"Come on, there’s something fishy about this," Kysi said, taking another long hard drag off of his cigarette. "To start with, ShinRa’s waffling on this. Either they don’t care, are generally perplexed, or have some much bigger concern.

"I mean, no offense, pal, but we ain’t exactly top notch in this field, y’know?"

Zack nodded. Kysi was hitting upon way too many valid points.

"Get enough people involved, confusing everyone and POW! Easier to cover up." Kysi mashed out his cigarette with his fingertips, unflinching. "Fuck, pal, but they got enough big shots involved... Sephiroth, Doc Hojo, Doc Amma, that Saydhe bitch, Resi, Jameson..."

"You can’t count Hojo - he went to all of one half of a meeting before being called away and dumping the entire thing on Saydhe..." Zack put a hand over his mouth. That was also info gleaned from one of the underground rags, probably reported by a guard or something.

"I wouldn’t make you quote sources - fuck... I think most of what I get is on the down low," Kysi said, grinning wickedly. "I already know a decent bit about you - SOLDIER First Class, heavy blade, also scored in the 92nd percentile of your class for firearms, seven notes in your record for disciplinary problems, amazingly low for someone of your... reputation."

"Odd of you to suddenly go for euphemisms," Zack deadpanned. He was not amused. At all. Bastard Turk knew way, ay too much - probably had read his entire file. Files, damn... There were a whole helluva lot of files he’d love to see.

"Sometimes it’s wise to watch my tongue. But personal history aside, I think we only have one option here." Kysi gestured to the space around him. "We gotta get the whole hallway here, see how they interact, see everything."

Zack looked around the underused common room they were sitting in. He hated to admit that the Turk had hit upon a really good idea, but after realizing a couple of hours prior that this was more in his hands than he thought, good ideas were scarily appreciated.

And fuck, Sephiroth had up and taken off for two months, leaving Jameson as the liaison for this entire disaster. That meant the damned mage would have to approve everything, would have his nose in all of it. It was the worst timing and planning and everything in the world just seemed to be going wrong within a very short period of time. Somewhere, in some nice air-conditioned truck somewhere, Sephiroth was probably having a good hard laugh at just what he’d been lucky enough to leave behind.

"You think it’s someone here? There was sixty-seven, well, sixty-one cadets, four third classes, and two of us on this floor, plus the two floors above making nearly two-hundred in the wing..." Zack trailed off. At least he knew that breakdown, saving him from a bit of embarrassment. "What about anyone more... outside?"

"Start close, right?" Kysi asked, producing another cigarette and casting a tiny spell to light it. Damn. Another mage - probably one of Jameson’s at that. "I mean, we could suspect every person who has anything to do with this compound but then we’d be at a standstill, just like the big shots. And in the meantime, more boys get seriously fucked up at the hands of whomever the fuck is doing this."

"So I’m throwing an ice cream social and you’re stealing records?" Zack surmised, trying not to watch Kysi’s lips wrap around the cigarette. The man was young and attractive - Zack couldn’t pinpoint his age at all. He had the same over-Mako’d je ne sais quas that Sephiroth had, save that Zack knew Sephiroth’s age.

It was all that damned mage’s fault, after all; he and Sephiroth had been so much closer before the whole fiasco started... friends even.

"You have an interesting way with words yourself," Kysi commented, chuckling. "But essentially, that is the plan."

Zack found himself chuckling as well, especially at the mental image of sixty-one cadets with ice cream on their faces.

"You know," Kysi said after a moment of silence. "Maybe when this mess is sorted out, maybe I can find out just how accurate your reputation is."

Not saying a word, Zack vowed celibacy until the end of this entire damned mess. No way was he going to fuck up again and no way was he going to end up doing anything else he’d live to regret.

"Anyway, pal, I’ll see you in a few hours. Have a good patrol." And in a lingering cloud of smoke, Kysi left to settle into his newly shared room with a pair of likely annoyed cadets at the other end of the hall.

Celibacy was grotesquely overrated, Zack decided after camping out in the corner of the locker room to read the latest issue of the Fake and make notes of everything he knew. He was glad to be sitting, because peering over the top of the paper to watch cadets in varying stages of undress had made his cock impossibly hard and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Soon, soon though it would be midnight and Kysi’s turn would come. Strange, mysterious Kysi who hadn’t volunteered a bit of info about himself, save for that spark of fire from his fingertips.

Sephiroth was not far from the port on his way to Costa del Sol when suddenly everything seemed a little fuzzy... again. But this time, he was alone.

Cloud tried not to glance over at Zack in the same manner that Zack had been trying not to glance at the cadets. He was frustrated because Zack was sexy and no matter what he told himself, he couldn’t help it. And now he was also doubting some of his other thoughts, especially those of his idol, the man who haunted his dreams - Sephiroth.

Maybe it was normal - normal to want to fuck the General like Ryan wanted to, like so many others wanted to...

But really, would anyone like Sephiroth ever have anything to do with him?

Kysi gave Zack a knowing glance as they passed in the hall.

"Boring night?" Kysi asked, smirking.

"Uneventful," Zack replied, fairly sure he knew what was coming.

Kysi laughed. "I know the feeling, pal. Go to you room, lock the door, and beat off to the most glorious fuck fantasy you can come up with. It might help for a few minutes. Or sneak into the city and find a girl... Probably don’t have time for that, though."

"You’re an annoying bastard," Zack grumbled, pushing past Kysi. It had been awhile since he’d had a city girlfriend and he certainly wouldn’t mind having one again.

But he had his damned self-imposed vow of celibacy. And he’d stick to it - it might even be good for him - at least as long as his hands didn’t count as a partner.

Neither Cloud nor Ryan seemed to be awake as Zack slipped into the main room. The better for them, he thought, since he was in no mood to deal with anyone.

Between his desperate need for release and his absolute dread of going to see Jameson after his next on-shift, Zack was sure he’d do something if regrettable if either of his roommates appeared.

Instead of even bothering with his bed, he softly closed his room door behind him and sank to the floor, unbuttoning his weathered fatigues as he went.

Glorious fuck fantasy, huh? If he could even get that far...

Maybe Kysi - Kysi with those lips that toyed with cigarettes, Kysi who must have his materia hidden somewhere obscene, close but not visible, probably turning the freaky bastard on all day.

Zack was hot, sweaty from the locker room but the thought of a shower was repulsive - he already felt permanently damp. Sweat was a decent lube anyway, making the movements of his hand over his cock easy, fast.

Kysi would kneel before him, naked, hands tied behind his back with his own damned Turk jacket, stripped of his materia and rather harmless, other than those lips.

Those lips would take him in, that mouth capable of pissing him off would just fill with him, sucking and licking while happily taking Zack’s not so gently thrusts... Kysi would just worship him - he’d have to. If Kysi ever wanted relief to his own arousal, amusingly flushed compared to Kysi’s light skin tone, Kysi would have to be a giving little bitch.

Yes, those lips around his erection would be bliss, but he was really just inside his bedroom door, arousal in his own hands, moving faster and harder, gripping himself and just wanting to come, needing relief.

He didn’t even bother to muffle his own cry as he came, just sitting there once sated, letting his semen cool on his hands and pants.

Not one of his better moments.

And what he didn’t know was that his blond roommate had stumbled towards the bathroom for a glass of water and had spilled most of it on himself upon hearing that startled cry of release.

As Zack finally crawled into bed, he was hard again. This time he had lube - it would be different, he could imagine something new. Anything - every single damned cadet on the floor, if he so wanted, Sine, one of Hojo’s perky-breasted research assistants, even Sephiroth. He could... Now that he’d dealt with his mental Kysi, he could have anyone.

Out on the sofa in the main room, Cloud whimpered and brought one of the end pillows to his mouth, embarrassed and confused as he thrust a hand down into his pajama bottoms, again needing to take care of yet another erection caused by yet another man.

He just... didn’t quite know anything all of a sudden.

And down just outside of the locker room, Kysi sat on a low stool and lit another cigarette, laughing to himself.

What fun this all was. What fun...