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-- Literacy--

“Zack?”

He felt groggy and hated himself for it. Scrubbing the sleep from his eyes, he tried to shake off the remains of his nap. It was always a little disorientating to wake up in a bed other then his own. The fact that the darker man’s room was full of a dizzying array of things didn’t help. Sephiroth spared a glare for the large black and white poster of a random rock star until his eye’s remembered how to focus. Naps always left him feeling slow and stupid. Normally he avoided them.

“Oi, don’t kick me.”

Trying to get his bearings, he accidentally thumped his friend again. The general winced in sympathy at the pained grumbling. “Sorry.”

Looking out the small window didn’t help to narrow down what time it was beyond ‘late.’ The sky was an indeterminate hazy dark; a combination of the starless expanse above the city, and the thousands of lights casting a glow on the streets below. Zack’s alarm clock wasn’t in its usual place by the bed. He blinked a minute before having the presence of mind to check the floor.

“Good morning, sleepy-head. Or should I say ‘good night?’”

Even in nothing more than a rumpled t-shirt and boxers, Zack looked sinfully good. The light from the small reading-lamp threw weird shadows around the bedroom and caught in his hair while leaving his face in shadow. Sephiroth appreciated the view a moment before remembering to answer. “Why are you all the way over there?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“How long did I sleep?” The alarm clock was where he thought, but in falling it had become unplugged and so was useless. He reached for his watch only to remember it was in the small apartment’s living room, along with the majority of his clothes.

“Only three hours or so. I just woke up myself.”

The general dismissed the pacifying comment, knowing full well the man had probably been up the whole time. “You should have woken me up too. I don’t like making you tip-toe around your own home.”

“Like I moved far…?” Zack gestured to the generous space between them on the bed with a grin. “I just felt like reading a bit and I figured the light would bug you.”

Yawning, the pale man simply shook his head in disbelief. “Hanging over the edge of the bed like that can’t be comfortable.” He moved to slide over the side, gathering his loose mass of hair into a crude ponytail at the base of his neck.

“Where are you going? The night is young yet and all that crap.” The feeling of Zack’s luminous eyes on him left him warm beneath his skin. He refused to look back, to be tempted by the welcome being offered.

“I know when I’m underfoot.” He illustrated the point by poking one of the offending appendages. Sprawled out, his partner was taking up more than his fair share of the bed. Having slept curled up into one corner of the mattress probably explained why his neck felt stiff and cramped.

“You’re always so grumpy when you wake up. It’s no wonder you never keep a lover long.”

“I never keep ‘a lover’ at all, you mean.”

“Well that’s a lifestyle choice now isn’t it?” The matter-of-fact reply was softened with an audible smile and relenting, Sephiroth turned around. There were dozens of words he could use to describe the man playfully studying him from across the mattress, but ‘lover’ wasn’t one he felt he ever deserved to claim. It implied more than he had a right to, certainly more than he could ask for. What they had was an ‘understanding,’ a partnership perhaps, but it would have been unfair to brand it as ‘love.’

// Oh and ‘pity sex’ has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think? //

It was best not to think too hard about it. Zack had a knack for reading emotions, especially on nights like this. The general decided he didn’t need another ‘talk’ just yet. Sometimes it was just best to not count the teeth of a particular gift-horse. Taking naps left him slow, and also easily flustered. He frowned for the lack of a better expression to hide his unsettled mood. “It’s my life, Zack. But thank you for… your time.”

Anything more explicit seemed impolite, or at least impolitic. He still didn’t understand why his friend put up with his occasional and completely unreasonable requests. Certainly the dark-haired man had explained his position, but Sephiroth still wasn’t sure he believed, or even believing, thought it was a logical solution to anything. It made no sense that a man so otherwise enamored with women could just put them aside for the sake of someone else. He shook his head, knowing he was being read like a book.

“This whole ‘guilt’ thing, it’s not like you.” The gentle tease made him snort in amusement.

“Leave me be, Major. You complain that I don’t allow myself emotions, and when I do, you complain they’re the wrong ones. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Touche.” The shaggy hair moved as if it had a life of its own as Zack scrubbed his hands through it. “Seriously, don’t go. You’ve been practically invisible all week! Stick around, talk a bit… Prove that this relationship of ours isn’t just days filling out paperwork and the occasional illicit shirking from more of the same.”

“… illicit… Heh.”

“The lengths a fellow has to go to in order to guarantee a little privacy in this building are getting positively absurd. If the geeks get any better at making surveillance equipment, we may have to just up and relocate.”

“Strategic withdrawal?” Sephiroth teased.

“More like a full-route and retreat to a fortified encampment, sir. This here is enemy territory. Stupid fucking Shinra” His friend grumbled.

“I think it’ll take them a while to replace all the fuse boxes on this floor. New surge protectors are expensive.”

The dark-haired man rolled over and stretched, “It’ll happen eventually. Besides that whole ‘blowing the fuses’ trick… It’s hell on my appliances. I mean sure it detonates little microphones like pop-corn, but think of my refrigerator!”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Well for one thing, unlike yours mine is full of I dunno… food?”

“Beer is hardly a food group.”

“Sure it is. Carbohydrate. Bottom of the little pyramid, right next to the note saying ‘six-to-eight servings a day.’ And I don’t know about you, but cloudy beer pisses the hell out of me.”

Sephiroth rolled his eyes. “God save you from the threat of warmed beer.”

“Damn straight.”

Zack was right about there being no need to run off. It was still early enough. He had spent dozens perfectly innocent Saturday nights hidden in Zack’s apartment before. No one could say anything if he didn’t stagger out until dawn again, not that they would dare to. He let his wrinkled pants slide back down onto the floor, surrendering to the siren call of the warm mattress. His friend wouldn’t complain about boxers-in-bed, but always teased him about the leather.

His friend noticed his return and even humored him enough to return to the top half of the bed, bringing lamp and book along with him. Had anyone presumed to guess what went on behind the closed doors, they would have assumed the shorter man to be the more passive force in the relationship. Sephiroth was surprised himself at how easy it was to slouch down onto the bed just enough to rest his forehead next to Zack’s shoulder. Propped by the muscled arm and the forgiving wall he closed his eyes and enjoyed the quiet.

Usually there was music, a radio, a cd, a movie forgotten but still playing somewhere in the background. Sephiroth thought a minute before remembering the small alarm clock had been doing double duty until a careless fist had sent it on its trip to the carpet.

// I should plug it back in. //

He couldn’t help having an almost compulsive need to check the time. After a lifetime living by other people’s schedules, and then making schedules of his own, being ‘on time’ had become something of a covenant. Even Zack had adapted to his time-centric craze, at least a little. The soldier was even occasionally successful, but only when the pale man managed to set his friend’s clock five minutes faster without him knowing. Remembering Zack’s frazzled expression at the discovery, he smiled slightly.

Paper rustled, pages turning at regular intervals. It seemed his friend had been telling the truth about reading. He opened his eyes, curious. “… What’s it about?”

“Ancient civilizations and their sexual exploits.”

“Prowling the housewives’ romance section of the bookstore, are we?”

“Ha ha… no actually this is a library book. Non-fiction… ‘just the facts’.”

The muscles in the man’s arm twitched as he moved to idly thumb through the pages. Zack had already tackled over half of the boring brown colored tome. Holding up one of the pages to show the contents, he displayed an image of a piece of pottery. Painted stylishly on the side were two young men very obviously in the throws of passion. “Absolutely amazing what they’ll let you check-out of a library these days,” he chuckled.

“Indeed.” Sephiroth wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed or amused by his friend’s interest in the subject. It was a fair assumption to say that he was the inspiration of the dark-haired man’s current hobby. He kept his tone light. “It’s not pornography if it’s historical?”

“The hell it isn’t. Who ever painted that knew damn well what he was all about.” The southerner sniggered again. “Bet it was a best seller among the housewife and secretary set.”

“Just as much as the ones with pretty girls were popular among the bachelor crowd?”

“Everyone yearns for a bit of excitement now and again…” Trailing off as he found his place, Zack continued to read. The angle wasn’t good enough to read along. The general considered sitting up a little higher, but it would require sacrificing the comfortable warmth of his friend’s shoulder.

“It’s not just about ‘sex’ really… there’s some really interesting stuff in here about society and military crap.”

“…like what?” Curious despite himself, he slouched closer.

“Well like… Not only was sex among men not banned in the army in some places, but it was actually encouraged by some cities… It increased ‘brotherhood’ and crap like that.”

“Strange.”

“I dunno, it makes a sort of sense… who would you rather watch the back of? Some complete stranger, or a guy you have gotten to know and even shag a few times?” Realizing who he was talking to, the southerner shook his head and sighed. “Don’t bother to answer that.”

“I don’t think sex has much of anything to do with it. It only tends to complicate things as far as I can tell.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But here, check this bit out…” Flipping back a few chapters, Zack looked for another interesting fact. “There was once this entire elite squad of fighters made up of nothing but pairs of lovers… it was so effective that they had a winning streak that lasted for like 50 years.”

“… ‘must have lover to join’? That’s silly.”

“I dunno. It’s sorta neat I think. One hell of a way to share your life with someone.”

“Brings whole new meaning to the phrase ‘dying for love’…” His cynical comment earned him an ungentle poke from Zack’s elbow. “Ow.”

“You don’t have a sentimental bone in that over-grown body of yours, do you general.”

“Perhaps not. But I don’t see what difference sleeping with your teammates has to offer as far as being a better military. Trust is trust.”

“It’s not about military, dumb-ass. And it’s not indiscriminate. It’s forming… I dunno… relationships with someone… and that whole ‘two heads being better than one’ thing, instead of ‘everyman for himself’, or beating your troops until they’re just soulless automatons. Let them live and love and be merry! It’s human thing. People want to be happy. They work best when they strive for the sake of a loved one, and when they know they too are loved.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“One of these days I’m going to find that test tube that’s got your heart stored in it, and steal it back from the geeks for you.”

“Ha ha.”

“Until then, just try and humor me?”

“Yes Zack.” It wasn’t surrender, more of a cease-fire. He closed his eyes and was rewarded with a gentle kiss on the head. The dark-haired man’s breath was a warm tickle on his scalp, an almost paternal gesture.

“Now shut up and let me read my damn porn.” Chuckling at his own joke, the major returned to his book.

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