Disclaimer: Final Fantasy belongs to Squaresoft and various other interested parties, not me. I'm not making any money from this, and no infringement of copyright is intended. This is a work of fandom, intended as appreciation of the original work.

Chapter 12

Taking deep breaths to calm himself had stopped working about half an hour ago. At this point Cloud was just trying to keep from descending into a full blown panic attack as he reviewed his notes over and over.

Zack was pacing, but it was less out of nerves and more a matter of his normal inability to sit still for long. Every so often the older boy would do some knee bends or push ups, but mostly he was just roaming aimlessly in small circles. He seemed much more composed than Cloud, though - hell, more composed than most of the men waiting with them.

In less than half an hour, they would all be admitted to the examining room for the written portion of this year's SOLDIER exams. Cloud wasn't sure exactly what the tests would be composed of; when he'd asked the others in their company who'd taken the exams before, they'd shrugged and told him to just study everything. He and Zack had put countless hours into taking notes and drilling each other on everything they could think of. In the last week Cloud felt like they'd hardly slept at all because they'd spent so much time huddling up on Zack's bunk with a flashlight and a textbook, trying not to disturb any of the others.

Opinions were divided on whether the written portion of the exam or the physical portion was more difficult, but either way if he didn't pass this part, he wouldn't be allowed to continue on to the physical exam. Cloud had always done reasonably well on tests in school, but the importance of this exam was enough to make him hyperventilate every time he thought about it too hard.

"Ramuh, Cloud, will you calm down?" Zack said plaintively, pausing in front of him. "You're making me tired just watching you, and you're not accomplishing anything!"

"I'm studying," Cloud gritted out through clenched teeth. He glared at his friend, unable to understand how Zack could be so cavalier about this. "You should be, too!"

"If you don't know it by now, then you don't know it," Zack proclaimed firmly, plucking the sheaf of paper out of Cloud's hands and ignoring his outraged cry. "The only thing cramming accomplishes at this point is to confuse you, panic you, and muddle the things you do know."

"I can't just stand here and stare at the walls!" Cloud protested. At least muttering his way through his notes had kept him occupied enough to stop him from truly panicking.

"Relax, Cloud," Zack coaxed him, his tone even and soothing. "Breathe, kid, you're going to pass out. No, don't hyperventilate," he added as Cloud started to do just that. "Just breathe. Nice and slow. Look, let's do some drills, okay?"

"Drills?" Cloud stared at Zack, certain he'd misunderstood. Either that, or the older boy had lost it. "Drill is the one thing we aren't going to be tested on, Zack!"

"Exactly," Zack said, as if that should have made perfect sense to Cloud. "We're not being tested on it, so you don't have to strain yourself trying to make sure it's perfect. You can just relax into the rhythm, and stop thinking so hard. Don't look at me like I've grown a second head," he finished, amused. "I'm serious."

"You're crazy," Cloud said flatly. He made a grab for his notes, but Zack held them back out of his reach. "Zack! Give me back my damn notes! Just because you're too lazy to study doesn't mean I should be!"

"It's not laziness, it's knowing when you're doing more damage than good," Zack countered. With a quick twist that Cloud wasn't fast enough to block, he dumped the papers into one of the waste bins. The lid on it was designed so people wouldn't be offended by the sight or smell of the garbage, and it didn't come off. Cloud wouldn't be able to get them back.

Dismayed, Cloud kicked at Zack. When the older boy blocked what had become an expected attack, Cloud punched him in the ribs instead. Hard.

"Ow!" Wincing, Zack rubbed at his side. "Damn it, Cloud. You trying to break my ribs? I need them in one piece for the physical exam!"

"You deserved it, you jerk," Cloud fumed. "How am I supposed to study now?"

"You're not," Zack informed him, totally unrepentant. "You're going to practice drill with me." Glancing around with a grin at the rest of the room, where most of the people were blatantly watching the two of them, he added, "Anybody else who wants to join in is welcome. Attention!"

"You are completely out of your mind," Cloud said, shaking his head. "What makes you think I'm going to go along with your insanity?"

"Because now that your notes are gone, it's either participate or sit staring at the walls and go nuts anyway," Zack reminded him, still grinning. "At least my brand of insanity is more fun. Now look alive there, trooper!"

Well, he had a point. Resigned, Cloud snapped to attention, and Zack started barking out drill commands in a voice that was only slightly quieter than it would have been on the parade grounds.

Cloud had expected the others in the room to complain about the disruption to their own reviewing, but to his surprise most of the waiting men seemed to take Zack's words to heart. Someone raided a supply closet and came up with a supply of brooms and mops, the handles of which were quickly cut down to the appropriate length to allow them to substitute for rifles or swords. In minutes it had become an impromptu competition, and Zack willingly got into the spirit of things by calling out the orders for the more complicated drill routines used in formal parades.

3rd Rifle's bravo company prided itself on having one of the best drill squads in Shinra, and the whole battalion was a bit drill-happy. Zack and Cloud had spent hours practicing these moves on boring patrols and sentry duty, and the familiar routines soon absorbed Cloud. The fancy drills were difficult enough to require complete concentration, especially since the broom handle substitutes were hardly ideal copies of a real rifle's heft and feel.

"Aaaand... halt!" Zack called. Everyone participating snapped back to attention, 'rifles' resting against their shoulders. Cloud blinked as he was thrown out of the almost trance-like state he'd been in, and abruptly remembered where exactly he was.

One of Heidigger's subordinate clerks was standing in the doorway to the exam room, gaping at them all in astonishment. Cloud's face went beet red as he wondered what the man must be thinking, to see them all goofing off like little kids instead of applying themselves seriously to the last minutes they had to study. He could only hope they wouldn't be disqualified then and there.

The clerk either wasn't inclined to do so or didn't have the authority, though. He just cleared his throat, and moved out of the doorway. "They're ready for you now."

"See?" Zack clapped Cloud on the shoulder, and winked at him. "Now you're not panicking, and I bet you're remembering what you already know more clearly, aren't you? Let's go kick some ass."

Grudgingly Cloud had to admit that he did feel a little calmer as they filed into the exam room. Desks had been set up for the participants, spaced far enough apart that they would have needed to have eyes on extendable stalks if they wanted to copy someone else's work. Cloud took the first seat he came to, and Zack took the one next to it.

There was a man in the uniform of a SOLDIER 1st Class standing at the front, his hands tucked behind him in the 'at ease' position. When everyone was seated, he nodded to acknowledge them. "Welcome to the written portion of the exam for SOLDIER applicants," he said. "Your test papers are already on the desks. Do not turn them over until we indicate you should do so. You will have four hours to complete the test. If you finish early, you may leave." His tone indicated he didn't think such a thing was likely, unless it was because you'd given up. "Pens and pencils have been provided; if you need more, raise your hand and one of the attendants will come to help you. Speaking for any reason from the moment the test begins is an automatic failure. Anyone caught cheating will be facing a court martial."

Fisting his hands in his lap, Cloud stared at the stack of papers face-down on the desk in front of him. This was it; the moment of truth. Some men took years before they successfully passed this exam. Others tried their whole lives, and never made it.

From the corner of his eye he saw Zack flash him a thumbs-up, and he gave his friend a weak grin in reply. "Begin!" the SOLDIER said, and there was a rustle as everyone in the room turned over their papers.

Scanning the first couple of questions, Cloud felt his heart rise up in his throat and threaten to choke him. 'Show the exact chemical process involved in creating a Fire materia from raw mako.' 'Write a brief paragraph describing the duties and responsibilities of a lance corporal in the mounted chocobo division.' 'List all SOLDIERs currently on active duty, alphabetically by name'.

Everything was either technical and difficult to the point where he would have needed a degree to know the answer, or completely irrelevant material that he would never have thought to study in a million years. Flipping to the second page, he saw that it was more of the same, as was the third.

"This is bullshit!" someone behind him exclaimed, echoing the thoughts in Cloud's head perfectly. Shoving his chair back with a scraping sound, the man slammed his hand down on the desk. "Nobody could pass this! You're rigging the exams, giving impossible tests to people you don't want to pass."

Wondering if that was true, Cloud tried not to panic again. Glancing over at Zack he saw the older boy was scribbling away, a slightly amused smile on his face the only indication he was even listening to the man's diatribe.

"Stand down, sergeant," the SOLDIER at the front said coolly. "You're dismissed."

The man stormed out of the test room, slamming the door behind him. Swallowing hard, Cloud turned his attention back to his test paper, and summoned every bit of will and determination he possessed. This might be a rigged test, but be damned if he was going to give up without even trying! There had to be something he could answer.

Flipping through the pages, he scanned each one carefully, his panic growing with each question he had no idea how to answer. Finally, at the top of the sixth page, he found something he knew. 'Describe the conditions under which it is permissible for a SOLDIER to grant a promotion in the field to a trooper.'

Hell, every trooper knew that list off by heart, because every one of them was hoping it would happen. Cloud wrote out the various conditions, and glanced at the next question. 'List ten different magic materia, and the spells available in each. Do not use Fire, Lightning, Ice, Restore, or Revive.'

He knew the answer to that, too! Blinking, Cloud scanned down the rest of the page, then flipped it over and looked at the next one. He knew the answers to most of these questions, and they were all things that were perfectly reasonable for them to be tested on. Flicking rapidly through the rest of the stack, he saw that the rest of the exam was the same.

All of the questions were hard, but not impossible. As his breathing slowly calmed and his pulse returned to something resembling normal, Cloud realized it had just been another kind of test. The sort of person who would give up just because a task seemed impossible at the outset was not the sort of person Shinra wanted in SOLDIER. Feeling much better about the whole thing, he went back to page six and got to work.

The SOLDIER called out the time every half hour, letting them know how long they had left. Cloud almost wished he wouldn't, as it was just a distraction that added to the pressure he was already under. In the last ten minutes the count-down changed to every minute, and everyone started scribbling frantically to get a few last questions done. Cloud hadn't finished everything, but he was only a few pages from the end of the test and he'd answered the vast majority of the questions up to that point. As the SOLDIER called "Time!" and everyone set down their pens, he prayed it would be enough.

"That's it!" Zack exclaimed, bouncing up out of his seat. "We're done! C'mon, let's get the hell out of here before I go stir crazy."

"You are such a little kid sometimes," Cloud said, but he didn't fight when Zack grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up out of his seat. "Let's hit the mess, I'm hungry! I was too nervous to eat breakfast."

"Yeah, me too," Zack confessed, which made Cloud stare at him in astonishment. He'd been so busy reviewing his notes he hadn't paid any attention to what his friend ate, but he'd assumed the older boy was packing away the food with his usual gusto. Zack certainly hadn't shown any other evidence of nerves. "What, I'm not allowed to be nervous about something this major?" he asked with a mock-pout when Cloud stared at him.

"You hide it well," the younger boy replied, shaking his head. "So, let's go then. I'm surprised I couldn't hear your stomach all the way from my desk."

"Yeah, I'm all for food, but not at the mess," Zack proclaimed. "We're off duty until the exams are over or we're disqualified, and they're not going to post the results of the written until tonight. Let's hit the city for lunch and spend the afternoon wandering, it'll take our minds off worrying about whether we passed. Not like we can do anything about it now."

The idea of getting off the base and away from everything that would remind him of the exams was actually fairly appealing. "So long as we stay above the plate," Cloud said firmly. "It's a nice day today, smog notwithstanding. I want to enjoy it."

"Aw, you just don't want me to drag you down there to meet Aeris," Zack teased him, and Cloud flushed. That was, in fact, part of why he was so reluctant to go down beneath the plate when they had leave. For all Zack's assurances that she would love Cloud and that there had never been anything serious between him and her, Cloud was more than a little wary of meeting his 'boyfriend's girlfriend', if either of those terms could be said to apply.

"Above the plate, or you can go without me," Cloud insisted, and Zack capitulated with a shrug.

"Have it your way," the older boy conceded. "But either way, let's go before I start swooning like the heroine in a bad drama. I'm starving!"

The gate guards gave them no trouble when they flashed the badges that identified them as exam participants, and they headed out into the city. Upper Midgar was actually a pretty decent place, though Cloud had been told the air pollution problem was getting exponentially worse every year. There were lots of quaint shops and cafes lining the main streets, and men in Shinra blues were always welcomed.

They descended on the first decent-looking restaurant they found, and proceeded to put away enough food to feed a whole squad. The waitress seemed amused by them, saying something about 'ravening teenage boys' and then dimpling when Zack complimented her outrageously.

Cloud sometimes wondered if he ought to feel jealous when Zack did things like that, but... it was just Zack. He flirted with everyone, not in any kind of serious way but just to let them know that he was paying attention, and thought they were worth his time. And as bright as the smiles he gave other people were, they had nothing on the brilliance of the one he seemed to reserve for Cloud. How could Cloud be jealous?

After they'd satisfied their hunger they wandered the streets, talking about anything and everything but SOLDIER. They'd been so tightly focused for so long that it almost felt strange to talk about anything else. Strange, but good.

Passing a hotel, Cloud glanced at it and flushed, remembering things Zack had said in that dark alley weeks ago. They'd found a few rare opportunities to indulge themselves since then, but never in a place where they could safely go further than a furtive handjob. It wasn't really satisfying, and they had hours yet before they had to be back on base.

"Hey, Zack?" Cloud asked softly, his voice a little husky. When his friend looked at him curiously, he tipped his head at the hotel and tried not to blush. "Didn't you say something about your plans the next time we were in the city?"

Looking from the hotel back to Cloud's flushed face, Zack groaned. "Hades, don't tempt me like that," he said, his voice rough as well as heat flared in his eyes. "Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more, but... do you really think that'd leave us in any shape to take the physical exam tomorrow?"

Thinking of various dirty locker-room jokes he'd heard since joining the military, Cloud winced. "No, probably not," he conceded reluctantly. Damn, but now that he'd thought of it his whole body burned with wanting it. He wasn't sure exactly what the appeal to having another guy shove his cock up your ass was supposed to be, but if it was Zack then he was more than willing to try it and find out. And even if it didn't turn out to be all it was cracked up to be, just having an opportunity to take their time and explore each other was pretty much Cloud's idea of heaven right now.

Growling under his breath, Zack grabbed Cloud's arm and yanked him into an alley, behind some crates and garbage bins so they were out of sight of the street. Before Cloud could voice a question or protest, Zack had him up against the wall and was kissing him silly.

"Damn it, don't look at me like that when I'm trying to be virtuous," Zack panted when he finally pulled back. Cloud stared at him, dazed and trying not to think about the last time they'd been in this position. "Tomorrow, once the physical portion is over and we know we've made it, then we'll celebrate," Zack promised him, his eyes darker than usual with lust.

"Sounds good," Cloud gasped, fighting the urge to rock against him. He knew Zack would be hard too, and he also knew that if they started now, they probably wouldn't stop. Getting arrested for indecent exposure while in uniform might well be a black mark on their record that would keep them out of SOLDIER. "Uh, Zack? You'd better let go of me, then."

With a visible effort, Zack stepped back and tugged on the hem of his uniform tunic to straighten it. Cloud ran a hand through the spikes of his hair, checking that they weren't in any more disarray than usual. "Let's go before I jump you again," Zack sighed, turning and leading the way back to the street.

The tension between them was high after that, but they were kind of used to it at this point. If nothing else, it served as a good distraction from thoughts of the exam, and Cloud couldn't resist the urge to walk a little too close so their arms would brush with every step.

As the sun started to make its way down to the horizon, they turned to head back to the base. The results would be up by the time they made it back, and despite his best efforts Cloud's stomach started to tie itself in knots.

"Stop worrying," Zack ordered him as they walked. "Either we made it or we didn't, and worrying about it now won't accomplish anything. Anyway, I'm sure we both made it."

"Easier said than done," Cloud retorted. "How do you just stop worrying about something like this?"

"You distract yourself, which is what we've been doing all afternoon," Zack said, glancing around. "Short of giving in and dragging you to that hotel, though, I'm not sure what else we could... oh, hey, that's perfect!"

Following his friend's line of sight, Cloud frowned as he saw a garishly decorated tattoo parlour. "Zack, no," he said, dismayed. "I don't know what crazy idea you have in your head, but we are not getting tattoos."

"Nah, that can wait until after we make it into SOLDIER," Zack teased him, grinning. At least, Cloud thought he was teasing. With Zack, it could be hard to tell. "Something a little less permanent, for the moment. Come on!"

Not giving Cloud any further chance to object, Zack hauled him along into the building. The walls were covered with samples of the tattoo artists' work, and there was a man in a chair getting an addition made to his already heavily tattooed body. Looking around nervously, Cloud wondered just what the hell Zack had in mind.

"Here," the older boy said, leading him to a glass case where little bits of colour gleamed against a black background.

Earrings, Cloud realized. "You want to get our ears pierced?" he asked, stunned. Regulations permitted troopers to wear one small stud, and he'd seen some of the SOLDIERs wearing more elaborate ones, but he'd never really thought about getting one for himself.

"Yeah, sure," Zack nodded. "It's like, a bonding ritual or something. Not that we really need to be much more bonded," he grinned, "but still. You pick one for me, I'll pick one for you."

Studying the case, Cloud thought about it. All things considered, he actually thought Zack would look pretty damn hot with an earring. He couldn't picture one on himself, but he didn't think it would look horrible. "Why not?" he shrugged, and pointed. "That one," he said, indicating a pale amethyst stone set in silver that he thought would look good on his friend.

"Looks good," Zack agreed. "And you're totally getting that sapphire one. It'll match your eyes and your uniform."

"Not that I'm going to be wearing this uniform much longer," Cloud reminded him with more confidence than he felt.

"True enough," Zack laughed. "All right, let's do it." He waved the attendant over.

Cloud watched a little nervously as the woman loaded the sapphire stud into something that looked disturbingly like a gun. "Now, just hold still," she said, swabbing his left earlobe with alcohol. "It'll sting for a second, and then it'll just be a bit of an ache for a few days."

Closing his eyes as she lifted the gun to his ear, Cloud braced himself. There was a snap as the spring-loaded needle pierced his ear, and the promised sharp stinging pain washed over him. The woman lowered the gun, and smiled at him. "There! Perfect," she proclaimed. "Take a look."

Glancing at the indicated mirror, Cloud blinked at his reflection. The sapphire and gold stud actually looked pretty good on him, despite the redness of his ear around it. "My turn!" Zack declared, all but shoving him out of the way.

Cloud was happy to see that Zack flinched a little as the piercing gun went off, too, but when the woman lifted it away the amethyst stud shining there looked good. "I like it," he said, smiling when Zack opened his eyes to grin at him.

"Told you," the older boy said, hopping off the stool they'd used. "Thanks!" he said to the attendant, flipping her a gil piece that was more than enough to cover the charge. "So now that we've got our badges of courage, let's go make sure they didn't accidentally leave our names off the list!"

By the time they reached the base again the pain in Cloud's ear had settled to a tolerable ache, though he couldn't resist reaching up to touch the stud every so often. It felt strange to have it there, but he thought he was glad Zack had talked him into it. At least concentrating on it gave him something to think about other than the exam results.

There was a crowd around the bulletin board when they reached it. Those participating in the exam wanted to know their results, of course, but most of the candidates had support from their units as well. Zack and Cloud had to shove and elbow their way close enough to the front to see the list, and by the time they got there Cloud was shivering with nerves.

"There you are!" Zack crowed, pointing to the top of the list. Cloud's name was third from the top, as the list was organized alphabetically. All the air rushed out of his lungs as he saw it, and was replaced by a giddy feeling of joy. He'd passed!

"And there I am," the older boy finished, his finger dropping to the end of the list and a note of triumph in his voice. "We did it!"

Exuberant as always, he grabbed Cloud around the shoulders and ruffled his hair vigorously. For once Cloud didn't even try to protest, too busy laughing with relief and happiness. The first hurdle had been passed; now all they had to do was get through tomorrow's physical exam.

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