You Remind Me

When he first saw him, Zack just knew the gods were playing with him.

It had been, what, almost nine years since Cloud had died right in his arms? Zack remembered screaming, the horrible sound tearing from his throat. He’d made his way to Traverse Town and back with the rest of them, seeking refuge from the surge of Heartless. He passed his time taking out Heartless, teasing and sparring with Yuffie, and flirting less than whole-heartedly with Aerith. He joked with Leon (or, at least it was the closest anyone came to actually joking with Leon, since it was mostly Zack saying stupid things just to get a snort out of him) too, but since they were the only ones actually running from something they maintained a sort of camaraderie.

That all changed when he saw the petite blond in a long black coat wandering the streets confidently, somehow beyond the periphery of everyone else in the town, with a lanky redhead in tow. Zack stopped dead in the street, jaw hanging open as he tried to process the sight.

He couldn’t have been much older than Cloud when they’d met; a little shorter maybe, a little thinner, but Zack could almost picture the muscles shifting under his skin and coat as he moved that coat was so tight. His hair, a little darker where Cloud’s had been ice blond, framed his face and spiked up just like Cloud’s, but it was the eyes that caught him. They were clear, bright blue, not sad and dying like the ones that haunted him. The blond and the red-head meandered down an alley, and Zack snapped out of his trance to jog after them, pushing people aside as he went. But when he reached the alley he was sure they went down, they were nowhere to be found. Zack asked some of the townspeople, but none of them recalled seeing a boy with his description in the district.

Zack deflated miserably, and went back to combing the streets for Heartless.

**

He saw him again a week later on his rounds through the canyon, alone this time. Zack watched from afar as the young blond expertly dispatched Heartless after Heartless, executing maneuvers with a cold precision that reminded Zack of Sephiroth. The kid was a natural.

Making a split-second decision – impulsive puppy, he heard Angeal’s voice scold him – Zack leapt from his position and landed in the midst of the Heartless, not far from the young blond. Whipping the Buster sword from its holster across his back Zack began taking out the Heartless in his path, making his way towards the blond. With a quick maneuver once he was within the blonde’s battle area, they fought back to back taking down Shadows. The blond seemed to accept his presence in his personal space, and Zack quickly deduced that the kid had fought with a partner before; his timing was perfect, and he seemed to have no problem fighting alongside Zack.

“You know,” Zack threw over his shoulder, smirking, “you’re pretty good.”

As if to prove his statement the blond snorted and cut down the row of Heartless surrounding him. “Why are you here?”

“To help you,” Zack answered, one of his trademark grins floating over his face.

“I don’t need your assistance.”

“Maybe not,” Zack conceded. “But I could use a sparring partner, and you look like you’d give me a run for my money.”

“I have missions to accomplish, why should I waste my time sparring with you?”

Zack shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, I am SOLDIER first class. I could probably teach you a thing or two. What’s your name?”

“Roxas,” the blond grumbled.

“Well Roxas, I take it upon myself to be your mentor!” Zack grinned triumphantly, slicing through another group of Heartless. “I’ll teach you everything I know!”

“I don’t need or want a mentor,” Roxas snapped. “And you’re annoying me. I should kill you and take your heart as it is.”

“Aw, please?”

“Why?”

Zack looked away, throwing all of his concentration back into fighting. “You remind me of someone,” he answered. Two seconds later Zack’s eyes widened as he felt a hand grab the collar of his sweater roughly, and he was tugged through a portal of darkness. The blond dragged him through and shoved him out; Zack stumbled slightly on a cobblestone in the new area, but the blond caught him, grabbing the front of his uniform and pushing him back against the wall.

“I’ve heard that before,” the blond hissed, eyes flashing as he held Zack firmly against the wall. “Other people, other worlds.”

“If you have, it’s not the person I’m thinking of. I’m the only one who remembers him.”

The blond let him go, his hostile expression fading into one of . . . vague curiosity. It’s a Cloud expression Zack recognizes, and before he can even finish his own thought (Oh fuck it) he’s captured the blonde’s lips and maneuvered him back against the wall. He caught the blonde’s wrists as they flew on a collision course for his face and pinned them, too.

Roxas grunted and struggled against him, eyes wide and staring confusedly. Finally he broke the kiss, tearing away from Zack’s mouth to glare at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Well, some cultures call that a kiss,” Zack quipped.

“And did you do that to this other person -”

“Cloud. And yes.”

“You only want me because I can make you feel like you’re with him.”

Zack flustered at this; he hated being called out on something like this, it was embarrassing. He was still cataloguing the feel of Roxas’ body pressed intimately against his, the softness of his skin, the taste of his mouth (salty sweet), the way his lips parted as he gasped for breath –

Oh hell.

“And?” he whispered, tilting his hip just so and rubbing against a hardness underneath the blond’s coat. Roxas drew in a ragged breath and wrapped his legs around Zack’s waist.

“I’m not him,” Roxas hissed. “But you’re not going to stop until you fuck me, are you?”

Zack answered with a hard kiss, reaching between them to undo the blonde’s pants and shuck them down as far as he could with Roxas’ legs around his waist. When they were bunched up around his thighs Zack shifted his weight and the blond, and replaced his tongue with two fingers inside Roxas’ mouth. Zack rotated his hips, grinding into the blonde’s bare ass as he laved the older man’s fingers with his tongue.

“Mmm,” Zack hummed, and slipped his fingers from the blonde’s mouth. He reached down, sliding his saliva-soaked fingers down the crevice until he reached the boy’s puckered entrance, teasing the muscle and feeling Roxas writhe in his arms. Zack pushed one finger inside, then a second, and after some maneuvering managed to press against the bundle of nerves deep inside.

Roxas bucked against him and groaned, “Fucking get your fucking pants off, now.”

All coherent thought disintegrated in Zack’s brain. He wasn’t sure how or when he managed to get his pants at least partially removed, or if he prepped the kid enough.

Where the hell did the bed come from, anyway?

What he does remember is the hot slide into the blonde’s body, walls clenching around his shaft, the friction between their bodies as he thrusts in and out, and the accompanying throaty moans. Zack closed his eyes and imagined that it was Cloud’s flushed face and lust-clouded eyes beneath him, his legs thrown over Zack’s shoulders as the older man bent him further, pounding him into the mattress. Imagined that it was all those years ago, just him and Cloud at the inn in Nibelheim, and what would have been their first time together, had Zack not backed out.

Here and now, as far as Zack was concerned, he was fucking Cloud like he’d wanted to nine years ago.

Roxas tightens around him and convulses, riding out his orgasm with a low moan as Zack pounds his prostate repeatedly. Zack comes a minute later, howling as his decade of unfulfillment is finally satisfied; he collapses on top of Roxas, breathing hard, and closes his eyes.

**

The voices are muffled, like he’s hearing them through gelatin.

“Well, was it good?” Dry sarcasm, a hint of jealousy.

“I just wanted to see what it was like.” Calm, even. Roxas.

“To fuck a man with a heart?”

“To be something to another person, even if it was fake.” A pause. “Come on, let’s go.”

“What about him?”

Rustle of clothing, maybe a shrug. “The Dark City never killed anyone.”