FFVII: Clack - Repose

<sub>Repose

By: UshiUshi - aka Rina
Summary: The Lifestream was curious. Then again, so was being dead.
Genre: Longing/Romance
Character: Zack's POV, but heavily Clack-filled.
Setting: After Crisis Core
Rating: Teen
Type: One-shot
Disclaimer: Yeaaah, the battle for me buying rights to Crisis Core still isn't going so great...
Prompt: Vanilla Twilight - Owl City

When violet eyes get brighter, and heavy wings grow lighter...
-o-o-o-</sub>

His shoulders had felt so heavy. Like everything from the past months had just piled on top of him, clawing to get to the top. When something new was added onto his already heavy burden, he could feel himself sink down even deeper. He wondered out loud often times if real physical pain could come from something that was more psychological than anything. Of course, no one answered. He wasn't even sure if the man he brought along with him would know the answer. No … the blond beside him would look up at him when the question was posed, and smile that shy awkward smile he had.

"Where do you get these weird thoughts from, Zack?"

And Zack, well, he would return that grin and laugh it off, not quite sure where the idea came from. However, that was what had been. Right now, in this very moment, he felt his heart beat slow. He felt the rain filling his mouth – the final burden on his shoulders pushing him below, drowning him. The sticky warmth of blood and bullets mixed with the piercing cold of the rain. This was the end.

Was it wrong he didn't feel bad? The pain had long since numbed, and the rain had created its own silence. He could feel the weight on his shoulders melting in the rain. Maybe it was his time to go. He … couldn't quite remember who he was … or why he was here …

"Z-Zack."

Oh. That was his name … that's right. He saw a head of spiky blond, and those sad, confused eyes. Cloud. Cloud Strife. His student, his best friend, his lover. He remembered every little detail about him. The smell of his hair, his smile, the way his legs looked when he wore nothing but a baggy old t-shirt.  Everything about the boy in front of him seemed so prominent in his head, but the rest seemed to slip away. Faster and faster until all he knew was Cloud. He was telling him something. Telling him to be strong. Giving him his sword. Zack wanted to kiss him. Just ... once more. That's all he wanted. But the strength had been washed away by the rain with everything else, and the hand that had been brought up to Cloud's head merely brought him to his chest.

Zack wasn't sure if his heart was beating. But when his fingers left Cloud's hair, and then Cloud's head rose, now covered in his blood, Zack wished to stay. He didn't want to feel this serene, because he knew with the serene feeling came the repose of the Lifestream. And suddenly, that was the opposite of what he wanted. Because Cloud wouldn't be there. He didn't care how much it would hurt, or how much pain he'd have to feel on his shoulders. Those pains wouldn't just disappear, someone else was going to have to take them up. They seemed to follow the sword …

He was going. It hurt to breathe, and everything was blurring. Cloud was alive, he would be okay …

"Goodnight, Zack."

Yes … it was time for sleep. He would see Cloud in the morning, like all those nights before, looking up at him with those tired eyes, whispering good morning. The morning would be warm.

…

He saw him. Not Cloud, no. Someone just as important to him … an angel. His name had disappeared from his head, but this man had helped him so much. The wing was immaculate, and the look he wore on his face was filled with pride. Zack held his hand out to him, and he suddenly felt the strong grip he had known in his past pulling him up into the brilliant warmth.

Angeal. That was his name.

"You did well," he said, wrapping his arm around Zack's waist as they rose higher, the Planet falling away below them.

He was dead. But he felt … strangely alive. His mind was clear, he felt no pain, and his shoulders … there was not a thing resting on them. Zack couldn't force himself to remember all that had been a burden.

But he still remembered one thing. One person. The Planet's hero.

He asked Angeal about it once. They had been in the Lifestream for a while now, but Zack wasn't sure how long. Time seemed irrelevant up there. Everything did, as a whole. To each soul, however, there was something they clung to. Cloud was his, Angeal told him. That's why everything about him remained clear and honest. It was when he was the happiest.

Zack wanted to ask Angeal of his own, but refrained, as most often, it was something private.

Days and months passed by with little interruption. For the most part, Zack was just another soul floating in the sea. He met other souls, some even more lost than he was, the thoughts they clung to depressing and sometimes horrifying. But they were souls, and souls alone. Zack could manage, when he wanted, to keep a sort of solid shape. Angeal, too. He wasn't sure what separated them from the rest,  but it was such a nice sensation to be able to look into his mentor's face again.

The girl who was afraid of the sky joined them one day. Zack had been watching the adventure of his lover from above, albeit sad about the fact Cloud had forgotten who he was, but at the same time, extremely proud.

But the story was getting darker, and Zack found his mind drifting away from the now, and returning to the past.

It was lonely being dead. Granted, he had Angeal, and now Aerith, but being dead could never match up to being alive, Zack thought. He got quite restless sometimes, to the point where he would abandon the Lifestream for his own memories.

They were never special memories. Zack was sure some people would choose to revisit their weddings, or the first time they had sex, or a birthday, or whatever. Some big moment in their life when they felt happy. But for Zack, he didn't care to remember the big things. Angeal had told him once, quite a long time ago, to do the small things better. He wasn't doing anything right now, per say. But focusing on the smaller things … that really made the larger things easier to bear.

Zack found himself swimming through the memories he had spent together with Cloud. Just small ones – blowing bubbles on a balcony, waking up next to each other, the many times he had nearly burnt down his apartment trying to make them a meal. None of these memories were important, none of them defined a chapter in his life, but they made him feel so warm and happy, the loneliness he felt inside drifted away a little bit.

And as much as he missed Cloud – as empty as his hands felt without Cloud's there to squeeze, and as much as he wished every moment to see that awkward, sweet smile again, he knew that he was going to have to wait. Zack would be damned if he allowed Cloud to join them up here this soon. He was young – he had his whole life to live. When he retrieved Cloud, it would be so very far from now. Zack would be nothing but a small memory in Cloud's mind, a distant smile that had saved him so long ago. As sad as that was to think about, at the same time, Zack was happy.

He sat at the edge of Cloud's bed, watching as the young man prepared himself to sleep, pulling back the covers and burrowing himself between the mattress and the sheets. It was early still, but Zack assumed Cloud had a delivery to run in the morning. The man was growing, changing. After everything, he was so different from the boy he had known and loved, yet exactly the same. It was hard seeing someone grow up and not growing with them.  

The lamp was switched off, and the entire room fell into a dark blue hue, making Cloud seem ghostly. Zack would leave now. He never stayed to watch him sleep, only to say goodnight. He knew the blond couldn't see him, or hear him, or feel him, or anything. There was a silvery sheet in between them, so thin and frail, yet impossible to break through. It was possible to lift the sheet every once in a while, he had done it once to give Cloud a boost of confidence when he needed it most. He hadn't tried again since.

Because it really was time to leave the past where it was. For Zack, he was suspended in Cloud's past, as his past would forever be Zack's present. The now for Cloud would never be a good place to spend forever. That was why he had to keep moving forward. There wasn't any room for him in the Lifestream right now. But even though Zack knew all of this, it didn't stop him from pressing a ghost of a kiss onto Cloud's temple, whispering to him softly, "Oh, darling, I wish you were here."