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Chapter 5

In an environment where everyone showered and slept together in a big open room and privacy was more precious than gil, it was an unspoken rule that you just turned your head and pretended not to hear if someone started moving in their bunk in the night. So long as nobody actually saw you doing it, you were safe from teasing on the subject.

When Cloud had first realized just how things had to work, he'd been mortified and certain that nothing would ever induce him to be the one squirming around where a dozen guys could listen to him. That resolution had lasted about a week and a half; he was a teenager, after all.

The next day he'd found himself blushing horribly if anyone so much as looked at him, especially Zack. Nobody had said anything, though, and eventually he'd resigned himself to the situation. After that he generally gave in to his body's needs a couple times a week, and felt much better for the release.

It was also an unspoken rule that you didn't indulge yourself if you heard someone else going at it. Cloud wasn't sure how he was aware of this rule, but he was certain of it. Maybe it was just that he'd never heard two people at the same time. Or maybe it was an instinctive knowledge that something like that would be frowned upon as if the second person were getting off because of the first, not just because of a need that happened to crop up at the same time.

Never mind that sometimes, lying in the dark listening to someone's strangled breathing and faintly creaking bunk, it did make him hard. How could it not? Cloud was sure he wasn't the only one thus affected. The moment he heard someone else doing it, his subconscious bombarded him with images of doing it himself, and his body responded. He couldn't help it.

Generally he just buried his head under his pillow and refused to listen, and often the problem would be taken care of as he drifted back into sleep. If not, he would just wait until a decent amount of time had passed since the last guy stopped, and then take his turn. Sometimes a whole string of guys would go in turn, with a few minutes pause between each so they could all pretend each incidence had nothing to do with the others.

Tonight, though, nobody else was stirring as Cloud lay staring blankly up at the bottom of Zack's bunk, trying to control his breathing. He hadn't actually touched himself yet, was in fact struggling to ignore the urge in a way he hadn't bothered to since he'd first gotten here, but it was a battle he was already pretty sure he was going to lose.

The reason he was fighting it tonight had everything to do with the cause of his tightly wound state, and it wasn't something he wanted to think about. They'd spent the afternoon doing hand-to-hand drills. Cloud was so much smaller than just about everyone else that he tended to come out of those drill sessions aching and bruised, so Zack usually partnered him. It wasn't that Zack went easy on him, exactly, but the older boy did pull his punches a bit more than the rest of their toonmates.

They'd been at it all afternoon, learning various grappling techniques and how to overcome each. Everyone had stripped down to his fatigue pants and sweaty undershirt, and some had even abandoned the undershirts. Zack was one of the latter, his having been torn when Cloud had kept too tight a grip on it after successfully heaving Zack over his hip and flipping the bigger boy onto his back on the ground.

And Cloud, much to his horror, had realized that wrestling with a half-naked Zack was having a very profound and disturbing effect on certain portions of his anatomy. Objectively, anyone would have had to admit that Zack was beautiful, with his golden skin and muscles sculpted by more than a year of hard work down beneath the plate. Subjectively, though, he shouldn't have been paying so much attention to the way Zack's slick skin felt as he grappled with him, and his body certainly shouldn't have been reacting in entirely inappropriate ways.

Somehow Cloud had managed to make it through the session without anyone noticing his predicament, though Zack had been concerned enough by his distracted performance to ask if he was feeling all right. Bless the baggy design of the fatigue pants.

That had left him with a not-so-small problem to deal with, however. He'd managed to force the reaction down enough to get him through the rest of the day, but the moment he crawled into bed and glanced over to see Zack - in nothing but boxer shorts - hauling himself up to the upper bunk, he'd been right back where he started.

So now he was lying there, struggling to keep his breathing slow and steady even though he wasn't doing anything, his cock hard and aching as his subconscious mind pelted him with memories of the afternoon. The quickest and easiest way to deal with it would have been just to deal with it, to let himself take care of it and get it over with, but Cloud felt wrong at the idea of jerking off to mental images of his best friend. There had to be something wrong with that, especially when said friend was sleeping just above him!

At this rate, though, he was never going to get to sleep. And anyone awake enough to hear him probably thought he was going at it anyway, hell they were probably wondering what was taking him so long. Maybe someone else out there was lying there aching and waiting impatiently for him to finish, and he was just being selfish.

He was also rationalizing, he fully realized as he gave in and reached down beneath the blankets. Well, a little rationalization wouldn't hurt him. It wasn't like anyone was ever going to know what he'd been thinking about. This would just seem exactly like every other time he'd given in to his body and touched himself at night.

The rough weave of the starched cotton Shinra-issue sheets wasn't exactly silken against Cloud's skin, but as worked up as he was any extra stimulation just added to the heat pooling in his gut. He was in his boxers too; most of the guys slept that way, though some few went commando. It was too hot in the summer for anything more, never mind that their employer was a power company and you'd think they wouldn't begrudge air conditioning for the barracks. As Cloud slid his hand down, the fabric rubbed against his arms and chest, sensitizing what seemed like half the nerves in his body.

He rubbed himself through his boxers first, biting his lip to keep the incipient moan trapped in his throat. The callous that had started to build on his hand from sword and rifle drills caught on the softer cotton of his shorts, adding an extra edge of sensation as he stroked himself slowly through the fabric.

Almost immediately he knew this wasn't going to be quite like the other times. He was already so hard it almost hurt to touch, his body rocking up into his hand no matter how hard he tried to keep it still. The more he fought against images of Zack, the more strongly they came to him.

Zack grappling him from behind. Zack pinning him to the ground, and Cloud knew he should have tapped out much sooner each time but oh, the feel of that strong body over his. Zack kissing him, the image hazed with alcohol and uncertainty.

Zack's hand wrapping over his, guiding it down into his boxers and encouraging him to stroke directly on his cock. Zack touching him directly, his hands larger and stronger than Cloud's, but calloused just the same. Zack touching himself, lying up there in the bunk and doing exactly what Cloud was doing now; Cloud had felt the bunk shift a few times in the night, but Zack was apparently quieter at it than Cloud was because he'd never actually heard anything.

He wondered what the older boy would sound like. Zack had a smooth voice that had settled nicely into a rich deep tone, unlike Cloud's that would still sometimes crack unpredictably. What would it take to get Zack to make noise? Had his girl down in sector 5 ever heard him gasp and moan with pleasure? Cloud burned at the thought, and he knew he shouldn't be picturing these things, but he couldn't stop himself now.

Maybe Zack would moan softly in the back of his throat, letting the sound build inexorably until it escaped him in a muffled groan. With his eyes closed and head thrown back against the pillow, an expression of stifled passion on his face, he would look like some kind of erotic god.

The image was so provocative Cloud had to still his hand and just lie there for a moment, his breath caught in his throat. If he so much as shifted his fingers he was going to come, and as much as he knew he shouldn't be indulging himself while thinking about Zack, he couldn't bear to let it end so quickly.

In that moment of stillness, he heard something that shocked him so deeply he couldn't quite believe it. The desperately stifled moans weren't a product of his imagination, and the slight shivering of the bedframe wasn't all his doing.

The first thought that managed to make it through his muddled mind was a horrified awareness that Zack was definitely awake and probably listening. He jerked his hand away from his cock, and he must have made some kind of startled noise because suddenly the soft sounds from above stilled as well.

At which point Cloud finally connected the noises with the knowledge that Zack was, in fact, breaking one of those unspoken cardinal rules. He wasn't just listening to Cloud, he was touching himself at the same time.

Shivering with unfulfilled need, Cloud lay staring wide-eyed up at the bunk above him. He wondered what was going through Zack's mind at that moment. Maybe, impossibly, Cloud had actually been quiet enough that Zack hadn't realized what he was doing?

That seemed the most likely explanation; that Zack had simply been so caught up in his own pleasure he hadn't been aware of what was going on below him. Silently Cloud prayed that none of the others were awake to hear this. Nobody had ever broken the rules before that he knew of, and he wasn't certain what would happen if the others realized he and Zack had.

From above came a whimper so soft Cloud wasn't sure he'd actually heard it, and he knew Zack must be as close to the edge as he was. At this point it was physically painful not to continue, and Cloud had to clench his fists in the bedsheets to keep himself from giving in to the need to continue. His whole body ached with the desire for release.

What were they supposed to do now? Cloud didn't think he could bear to do the relatively acceptable thing and let Zack finish, then wait a few minutes before finishing himself. And even if he managed to hold off, how could they possibly look each other in the eye tomorrow morning and pretend absolutely nothing out of the ordinary had happened the night before?

Zack gave another of those tiny, choked off moans, followed by an almost inaudible gasp. The bunk creaked softly, and Cloud knew Zack had started touching himself again. He could almost picture it, just from the quiet chorus of sounds. The creaking of the bed was when the older boy arched his hips up into his hand, unable to keep himself from bucking. The gasps came when Zack pulled his hand back at the end of the stroke, when there was almost no contact before he plunged his fist back over his cock. And those little moans were surely the moments when Zack rubbed his thumb over the tip, collecting the slick drops of precome from his slit to help his hand glide more easily.

There was no way he was going to last even until Zack was done, let alone until five minutes afterwards. Biting his lip, Cloud gave in to the inevitable and snaked his own hand back down under his shorts. Anyone listening had already heard them doing it at the same time earlier anyway. Since they were both in the same bunk, maybe they'd get lucky and it would just sound like only one of them was doing it and they were just making a little more noise than usual.

His cock was almost shamefully wet when he touched it again, dripping with enough precome that he didn't even need to rub over the slit first. He did anyway, just because it felt so good, like little shocks all along his nerves.

He knew his attempt to muffle his groan in his pillow had failed when he heard another soft whimper from Zack. He shivered, knowing the older boy was listening to him, aware of every move Cloud made just as Cloud was aware of him. The only way they could have been more intimate without actually touching each other would have been if they were watching each other; staring blindly up at the bunk above and picturing Zack in his mind's eye, Cloud almost felt like he was anyway.

Unconsciously Cloud matched his rhythm to what he could hear from above, or maybe Zack was the one matching him. Either way they fell into synch without meaning to, and once there Cloud couldn't seem to break the rhythm. He'd never had sex, but he thought it might be something like this, two bodies moving together in a dance as old as time itself. All they needed was physical contact between them. The image of sex with Zack was far more arousing than it should have been.

Together they rushed headlong into orgasm, and Cloud could feel the waves of pleasure rising to engulf him. His muscles tightened, his balls pulled up close to his body, and his breaths came in harsh little pants. Normally he wasn't this loud, but then again it usually wasn't anywhere near this intense. When it crashed over him and the knot of coiled tension within him exploded, it was all he could do not to cry out.

Heat licked over his body as his veins sang with electric energy. At that moment he almost felt like he could cast a spell without even needing the materia, just the sheer energy of his own release. He came hard, gobs of sticky white fluid spurting over his hand and stomach, leaving him feeling limp and wrung out.

When his ears stopped ringing and he became aware of his surroundings again, he could hear Zack's muffled moans much more clearly. It sounded like the older boy was biting his pillow in an attempt to stifle himself, but it wasn't quite working well enough. After a minute Cloud heard his breath hitch once, then again, and then stutter to a stop altogether.

For a long moment there was silence, before Zack finally drew in another gasp of air. Sprawled bonelessly over his narrow bunk, Cloud lay still and listened to Zack try to catch his breath. He thought he heard the older boy mutter a soft curse, but it might have been his imagination.

Neither of them said anything. That would have been blatantly breaking the rules; not only would it force them to acknowledge what had just happened, but it would have opened them up to unending teasing from everyone else. Assuming, of course, that they weren't going to be mercilessly teased anyway. Cloud's throat ached with unasked questions, and he desperately wanted to know what Zack was thinking. At the same time, he really didn't want to know, didn't want to have to think about any of this or its possible implications.

Not quite five minutes had gone by before he heard someone else start up, a few bunks over. Wryly Cloud reflected that the others really didn't have any room to tease, since he was sure that wouldn't be the last person to go tonight. Above him there was a soft snort of amusement, and he knew Zack was thinking much the same thing. Oddly, the moment of connection made Cloud feel just a little bit better about the whole mess.

Sighing, he forced himself to roll over and face the wall, staring at the rough plaster in the dim light. A soft rustle above told him Zack was doing the same thing. He wondered if either of them would be able to sleep tonight.

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