Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from FFVII. As usual, Square-Enix has hogged them all.

By the way… THIS STORY CONTAINS SHOUNEN-AI AND YAOI IN LATER CHAPTERS.

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What Little Boys Are Made Of

Chapter 1: A Meeting

It was a well-known fact that the ShinRa Electric Power Corporation was the largest company in the world. The power and money it held behind its walls of concrete and steel would have rivalled that of the combined resources of the remainder of the world, never mind any single metropolis. The company claimed to be a benefit to the world, providing power, and thus life, where others could not, and in many ways this was true. What the company often failed to mention, however, was the small matter of the death of the Planet.

For a long, long time, people had debated the effect of the company on the planet. Many people were convinced that the drain the mako reactors had on the Planet was minimal and that she would regenerate herself over time. Others, however, saw the electric company as a planet-killer, slowing draining the life from her until she would no longer be able to support the souls which lived upon her.

It was over one such debate that ShinRa was now at war with the continent to the west, Wutai, and a First Class Soldier who simply went by the name Zack was now sulking in an unusual melancholy fashion in the ShinRa common cafeteria.

Zack had never been particularly averse to a good romp on the battlefield, but this was an especially bad week for such a thing. He had just ordered a new entertainment system from the electronics company at the other end of the Plate, and they had said that they would have the order customized and ready to ship in a week and a half. With free installation, nonetheless. And here he was, suddenly scheduled to leave for Wutai in a measly eight days. Life really sucked sometimes.

Picking at the food on his segmented steel tray, he vaguely wondered if the supposedly nutrient-rich grey mush located there was actually edible. ShinRa was, of course, using this amorphous food-like substance as a substitute for actual food only because it cost less and was apparently packed full of essential vitamins and minerals. Obviously, whoever had come to the decision to force low-cost healthy eating upon them had not factored in whether or not the Soldiers would actually eat the stuff. Zack would have kept prodding at it, entirely expecting it to come to life at any moment, if something else hadn't caught his attention instead.

It seemed that the new recruits that had come in only a half week ago were on their lunch break from training, as evinced by the tired, shuffling way in which they filed into the cafeteria. It hadn't taken the black-haired First Class Soldier long to determine that they were a rather pitiful bunch. Comprised mainly of small-town boys with big dreams, it was nonetheless true that they were all incredibly young. In previous years when ShinRa had recruited, the boys had mainly been older, usually late teens to early twenties, but now that the electric company had used up all of that particular resource, they had opened their doors to boys who seemed like they had barely reached puberty.

These kids… some of their faces still possessed the soft roundedness of childhood, their muscles and bones still developing and growing. Zack felt like he'd be able to snap one in half if he so much as accidentally bumped into one. One boy in particular looked especially unfit for such a profession, considering the fact that when he'd accidentally stepped on one of his older classmate's shoes, the owner of those shoes had flat-out knocked him onto his ass with nothing more than a half-hearted shove.

The other Soldiers in the cafeteria quickly quelled any ensuing hostility on the older boy's part, and the little one, a blue-eyed blonde kid, scampered back to his place in line, looking rather like he wanted to curl up in a corner and die somewhere. Which might just happen if he ate any of the food that was currently being slopped onto his tray.

Zack watched him for a bit as the boy looked around, trying to find a free spot to sit amongst his classmates, but every time he found one, he was either roughly pushed aside by a larger boy, or the boys surrounding said free spot slid over to make it considerably less free. God, young boys sure could be assholes before they learned the meaning of "fair play."

"Hoi, kiddo," Zack called, gesturing for the blonde to come over. He watched as said blonde gestured to himself with his free hand, silently asking if the Soldier was really talking to him, and then looked around to make sure that there was no one behind him that might have been the recipient of the call instead. "Yeah, you. C'mere."

The black-haired man grinned as he watched the recruit shuffle over timidly, head lowered as if he thought he were in for a scolding. With another gesture, Zack managed to make him take the seat across from him, and then he leaned forward toward the boy, pushing his own tray to the side as he did so.

"How old are you, kiddo?" he asked, his voice betraying some of his Gongagan accent. Most of the women thought it sounded "sexy," but when he spoke with his fellow Soldiers, it, along with the untamed mess that was his hair, was often the butt of many playful jibes. Some of his comrades had even taken to calling him the "Redneck Hedgehog." He'd promptly punched them in the face. They'd promptly stopped calling him that.

"Sixteen," the blue-eyed boy replied quietly. To Zack's request to repeat that, he cleared his throat and raised his voice a bit. "Sixteen, sir."

The Soldier laughed, the rich sound filled the room, causing a few people to look over. "Really? You look younger than that. Like, twelve, or something." Seeing that his comment had not sat well with the younger man, who was looking somewhat offended, he waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "Hey, hey, I was just kidding, okay? What's your name, anyway, kiddo?"

The blonde had begun to prod at his food nervously, not having had a chance yet to become accustomed to speaking directly with superior officers. "Strife, sir."

For some reason, Zack found that extremely ironic. Although he didn't have a lot of time to read, he still knew the definition of the word "strife," and the kid sitting before him really didn't look like the type to be putting up any kind of a fight over anything. "And your first name?"

The boy moved his eyes from the sludge-filled tray up to the darker blue of Zack's. "It's Cloud, sir."

"Cloud, eh? That's a good name," the First Classman responded with a warm grin. "And you can stop with the 'sir' stuff. I'm not into that rank and domination stuff …unless the regular ranks try to top me in bed," he added with a playful wink, his smile widening.

Cloud's entire face turned a bright shade of red that clashed horribly with the platinum blonde of his hair and the medium blue of the uniform that the regulars wore, and Zack got the impression that the boy had never had any of those immature friends that liked to tell naughty jokes.

"…I was just playing, kiddo," he said blandly, trying not to outwardly give the impression that Cloud had to be gullible to the point of retardation to believe that he was being serious. He was about to ask what Cloud was staring at him like that for when he realized that the boy wasn't staring at him, but just to the side and behind.

"At least you claim you were," a voice suddenly drawled from right beside Zack's ear, causing the black-haired Soldier to instinctually connect his elbow to what was likely a chin with enough force to cause a resounding crack. It was soon followed by the sound of a body falling over a table, hitting the floor, and then letting out a colourful string of inventive curses. "Holy FUCK, Zack!"

"Oh, it's just you, Reno," Zack responded, having turned about in his seat and poked his head over the back of it to see who had startled him. "What are you doing here?" he asked with no regard for whether or not the red-haired man was going to live or not. Reno was tough, anyway. He'd be fine. The Turk had survived the last six times he'd done it, so this one shouldn't be any different.

The fiery Turk picked himself off the floor, ignoring the stares of the others in the cafeteria, and brushed himself off as if nothing had happened. Of course, the fall had done nothing to improve his normally messy appearance, but that was to be expected considering Reno wasn't considered the most… Well, one could say that he times he made his superiors proud of his behaviour were few and far between. He was effective in his own way, though, and that was probably what mattered most, considering that Turks weren't often in the public eye anyway.

"Here on business, yo," he commented as he smoothed some of the larger wrinkles in his navy suit. His two agile hands lazily found their way to his forehead where they adjusted the goggles sitting just under the bright red strands he called hair. "I'm supposed to tell you who you're being bunked up with."

Ah, that's right. Zack remembered now. With all the new recruits coming in, ShinRa didn't have enough beds for them all, so over the past few days the First Class Soldiers' nice suites had been intruded upon by a second bed that was supposed to be filled by the end of the week. However, as Zack had understood it, he and the other First Classmen had first dibs on who they wanted to bunk with. The spiky-haired man had already asked one of his fighting buddies to bunk with him, and arrangements had been made to move his friend in with him tomorrow afternoon. "I've already picked someone, Reno. You can't just tell me who's going live in my place."

"The hell I can't. It's orders from the higher-ups, Zack, so it's not my decision to make." Pulling a mangled piece of paper from his pocket, Reno looked at it, reading something on its crumpled form. "Here. Says the guy's name on it, but I wasn't given a physical description," he said, handing Zack the messily-folded item. Then, with a mischievous smile and a wink to the boy who had been sitting quietly across from Zack the entire time, Reno sauntered out of the cafeteria, swiping someone's unattended sandwich on the way.

"Who was that?" Cloud ventured quietly, seemingly in an attempt to not further irritate the already agitated Soldier.

Zack let out a sigh and turned himself back around in his seat before seeming to acknowledge the question. "Oh, that guy? That was Reno, a member of a group called the Turks. You've probably heard of them." He shrugged. "They mostly specialize in doing ShinRa's dirty work for them. Espionage, assassinations, that sort of thing. Apparently, 'messenger boy' has been added to that list," he added in an unimpressed tone as he looked down at the folded paper still clutched in his hand.

Cloud seemed as if he'd heard of them, as his eyes widened slightly at the mention of the Turks, and he had whipped his head around in the direction that Reno had left in. "Um. I should probably go now. Thanks for your company though, si—Zack." His cheeks flushed a bit as he had narrowly avoided calling his superior 'sir' again, and he picked up his tray and its uneaten contents. Stepping away from the table, he hurried nervously out of the cafeteria, depositing his tray on a cart as he went.

Zack couldn't help but chuckle at the kid's antics. Cloud was obviously the shy type, but he'd lose that sooner or later if he kept working for ShinRa. It was a shame, really. Turning his attention back to the piece of paper, he unfolded it and read the name written there. Then he read it again. And then a third time, just to make sure that his eyes weren't deceiving him.

Apparently he'd be seeing Cloud again a lot sooner than he'd expected.

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Note: I'll be revising and completely rewriting the three chapters that follow this. And then I'll probably write a new chapter or two. :3 Look forward to it!

Oh! And please leave me a review!