[Fic] - Life in the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee (Chapter 4)
A face full of fairy wasn’t exactly what Leon was expecting to wake up to, that’s for sure. Well, it would have been perfectly acceptable if the fairy in question had been Cloud…
No! Wrong kind of fairy! Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! Leon smacked himself in the head with a pillow, much to the bewildered amusement of Yuna, Rikku and Paine.
“Hey Leon, aren’t you going to ask us why we’ve come back to visit?” Rikku floated up and tugged at the fur of his jacket.
“I think he’s too busy hitting himself in the head,” intoned Paine.
“Leon? Why are you hitting yourself in the head?” Yuna looked at him curiously.
At this point, Leon knew that his plans for a restful nap were already completely shattered, so there was no way that this could be more uncomfortable or awkward.
“I had a bad dream,” he muttered.
“Aw, that’s too bad.” Cloud appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, grinning at Leon as he leaned on the doorjamb. Just the grin would have been enough to make Leon weak in the knees, but the fact that Cloud was wearing the jeans just about made him run for a cold shower.
The jeans weren’t anything out of the ordinary, really. Just a normal pair of jeans that had been worn for so long that the fibers were all soft and comfortable and were absolutely molded to Cloud’s ass and thighs, nearly to the point of being skin-tight. And as if all that weren’t enough, there was a large rip across one thigh that showed a milky sliver of Cloud’s skin. The sight of the oh-so-touchable flesh didn’t help Leon’s self-assertion that he was not, in fact, aroused by a pair of jeans. He was also totally not interested in having his metaphorical brains screwed out by the man wearing them. ….Right.
“Why do you care?” Leon was finally able to speak again after a few moments.
“If you were having a bad dream, you were obviously not dreaming about me.” Cloud shrugged and grabbed his bowl of cereal. “Everyone should get to dream about something sexy.”
“I have plenty of sexy dreams,” retorted Leon.
“But I bet they’re not about me.” Cloud smirked at him. Nothing was more fun than teasing Leon, especially when he was already grouchy.
“How would you know? They could be!” Leon snapped.
Four pairs of eyes had fixed themselves on Leon before the unfortunate man realized exactly what he had said. Cloud looked down at his bowl to keep from laughing and turned back into the kitchen to finish his cereal. The three fairies simply floated in the air, looking at Leon with expressions that ranged from amused to perplexed.
“I’m going back to bed. Permanently.”
“Wait, Leon!” Yuna grabbed his coat, jerking him back with surprising strength. Leon took a quick step back to steady himself and then looked back at her with annoyance.
“What?”
Yuna floated around so that she was hovering right in front of Leon. He noticed in his usual apathetic way that her eyes were wide and especially bright and she seemed even more fluttery than usual.
“Who was that man? The blonde one.”
Leon glanced back into the kitchen. Cloud was sitting in a chair, leaning way back so that the chair was balanced on only two legs. A hint of a blue-black wing peeked out from under the hem of his shirt. The sight calmed Leon, though he couldn’t say why.
“That’s just Cloud.”
“Cloud…” Yuna repeated the name slowly, as if tasting it. “But I’ve never seen him before. Where did he come from?”
Leon shrugged. “He’s been around. You probably just haven’t seen him since he likes to hide.”
Yuna’s mis-matched eyes held a sudden frown in them. She glanced over at Cloud and then looked up at Leon.
“What’s he hiding from?”
The question was one that Leon had wondered himself. The details of exactly what had happened to Cloud during the years that he was gone from Hollow Bastion were extremely fuzzy. Cloud wasn’t exactly offering up information about his time in the Underworld and nobody was all that willing to try to press him to talk about it.
“Cloud’s…”
“Hey everybody! We’re back!”
At that moment, Yuffie, Tifa and Aerith all walked into the house, each bearing huge bags laden with food, magical jewelry, potions and other typical supplies that the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee needed on a weekly basis. Most of it was food, of course. Between Yuffie, Cid and Leon (who could pack away more food than almost all of them, despite being such a quiet guy), the Committee went through a truly spectacular amount of food every few days. In fact, Merlin could often be heard muttering about it under his breath.
“Thank goodness those blasted Heartless drop Munny,” he’d say. “Otherwise, these blasted teenagers would eat me right out of house and home.”
The arrival of the girls filled Leon with a distinct sense of relief. He’d had his daily dose of awkwardness already that morning and wasn’t interested in making an even bigger fool of himself today. Now that the rest of them were back, they could deal with these… fairies.
“It looks like Leon and Cloud had some company while we were gone.” Tifa smiled as she saw Yuna, Rikku and Paine floating in the air in front of Leon.
“I didn’t invite them.”
Cloud walked into the room, now fully clothed. Leon eyed him, still feeling somewhat defensive,
“And you think I did?”
“No one invited us!” Rikku chimed in. “We just decided to show up! We don’t really have anywhere to go now, so we thought maybe you guys would let us stay here? Pleaaaaaaaaaaase?”
“Yes, please?” Yuna added, looking plaintively up at Tifa and Aerith. She glanced over at Paine, as if to try to get her to enforce their point. The third fairy was far too stoic to say anything, but she also looked up at the two young women.
Confronted by three tiny pleading faces, Tifa and Aerith turned to one another. This certainly wasn’t a situation that the three of them had been prepared for, especially not during Merlin’s absence.
Finally, Tifa went down on one knee so that she was more or less face-to face with the three Gullwings.
“Well, this place doesn’t exactly belong to us. It belongs to Merlin, so we can’t say whether you can stay for sure or not since he’s left on a trip for a while. But,” Tifa raised a brow at their momentarily dismayed expressions. “It’s okay with us if you stay until he gets back and then he can decide whether it’s okay if you stay for good or not. Sound fair?”
“Hooray!” Yuna and Rikku cried in unison and danced around in the air while Paine stood by, looking somewhat pleased.
“Wait a minute. Don’t get too excited.” Leon stepped forward. He thought it would be a good idea to set some ground rules down now before this entire situation got out of hand. The three girls stopped and looked up at him attentively as he folded his arms across his chest.
“First of all, this isn’t all fun and games. If you’re going to stay here, you’re going to have to be a part of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. You have to take orders and work hard and not cause trouble. You think you can do that?”
The three fairies saluted in unison. The action reminded Leon of Sora, Donald and Goofy so strongly that he found himself wondering when the silly trio would return to Hollow Bastion.
“Well, now that that’s settled, I think we should start on dinner. We have three more mouths to feed, after all.” Aerith winked at the three fairies and then turned to Yuffie. “Yuffie, it’s your turn to help with dinner. Come with me please.”
“Hey!” Yuffie protested loudly. “I already had to help in the kitchen yesterday! That’s no fair!”
“You’re still being punished for nearly killing Cid, remember? So no protesting or you’ll get solo clean-up duty for the rest of the week. Now march!” Aerith pointed to the kitchen.
Yuffie grabbed her bags of groceries and slunk into the kitchen as if she was trudging down to her doom in the Underworld. Aerith followed, looking rather pleased with herself.
“What the hell is all the racket in here about?”
They could hear Cid’s voice before they saw him. The old pilot could hobble around now thanks to a steady regimen of hi-potions and enforced bed rest, but he still wasn’t completely back to his old self. The result was that he was still grouchy, but now he was mobile enough to be grouchy and within constant earshot.
“We got some new members,” Tifa told him cheerfully. She was unruffled as always by Cid’s bad attitude. “The Gullwings are going to be staying with us for a while at least.”
Cid turned a suspicious, weathered eye to the three fairies. The sight of their bright, shining upturned faces made his stomach lurch. This would only end badly, the curmudgeon within growled. More annoying, conniving young females? He was better off going and camping in Rising Falls and trying his luck with the Heartless and Nobodies.
“Hmph,” he glowered at them as if the power of his gaze would physically push them away. “Are we takin’ in anyone now? I didn’t think this was a charity organization.”
“Cid, we’re rebuilding an entire world by ourselves with no hope of being compensated for all of our hard work. Of course it’s a charity organization.” Leon gave the pilot a look while Cloud tried not to let his amusement show.
“Shut up,” muttered Cid crankily as he sat down at the computer console. “If you’re so damn dedicated to the cause, why don’t you go do somethin’ for a change?”
“Cid has a point,” Tifa stepped in before Leon could get offended. She raised a brow and looked at the two young men. “You two have been in here all day. Why don’t you go patrol the town for baddies real quick before dinner? The sun’s setting, so you won’t make your sunburns any worse.”
There wasn’t any good reason to protest, so Leon turned and shrugged at Cloud.
“Sure, why not?” Cloud wrapped his red scarf around him as Leon slipped on his jacket. The two of them started towards the door.
“I’ll send the girls out out to get you when it’s ready,” Tifa called after the two of them. After they left, she looked at the Gullwings. “You three can do that for me, right?”
“Of course!” Rikku chirped. Tifa smiled and walked off.
Once they were gone, Paine seized the opportunity to pull Yuna and Rikku aside to an empty corner of the room. She turned to them with her customary apathetic expression and folded her arms across her chest.
“We have to make this work. If we get kicked out of here, we have no place to go. What can we do to make sure that they like us enough to let us stay here?”
Yuna pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, it’s only the guys that don’t seem to like us here. Maybe we just have to get them to like us and then they’ll be okay with us staying!”
“That sounds like a good idea,” agreed Paine. “There’s the dark-haired one, the spiky blonde and the old guy. We can each take one and follow them around. Who wants which?”
“I’d like Cloud.” Yuna tried to sound casual, but failed miserably. Rikku and Paine both gave her identical looks.
“Yunie, you have a crush on him!” Rikku teased her fairy cousin, causing Yuna’s cheeks to turn a pinkish color. She coughed and turned away from her two comrades.
“I just… happen to like guys with spiky blonde hair…” She looked down at the ground.
Paine rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Rikku, what about you?”
“I want the old guy! Cid!” Rikku exclaimed. “He seems really fun!”
Neither Yuna nor Paine could understand what about the grouchy mechanic would appeal to Rikku as ‘fun,’ but they had long since learned not to protest when Rikku had announced something like that.
“Then I’ll take Leon.” There was a note of relief and (just perhaps) a hint of happiness in Paine’s voice. She could definitely think of worse things than having to follow around a tall, dark and handsome man like Leon, that’s for sure…
“It’s settled then,” she said to her fellow Gullwings. “Starting tomorrow, we’re their shadows.”
~
Meanwhile, Cloud and Leon were walking along the bailey, watching the sunset and vanquishing the few heartless that were foolish enough to skitter out of their hiding places and attack them. For the most part, the two of them walked in silence. They knew each other well enough that it wasn’t necessary for them to fill the short space between them with words. Every once in a while, however, one of them would remark something. Usually it was thoughtful and poignant as befitting two men who had experienced more traumatic things than most. Theirs was a bond forged of mutual tact and wordless understanding and the ability to perceive the other’s moods when others couldn’t. So what happened next managed to give Leon one hell of a heart attack.
“You’ve been acting really fucking weird.” Cloud told Leon flatly out of the blue.
“What?” Leon stopped in his tracks and stared stupidly at the blonde. Why was he never able to maintain his cool and aloof persona when Cloud ambushed him like that? Around anyone else, he could stay calm and on top of things, but not with Cloud. For some reason, Cloud managed to reduce him into a stuttering moron every time.
“You’ve been acting fucking weird,” repeated Cloud. He didn’t even look over at Leon as he said it - just said the words as if they were a fact and not an opinion.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anxiety twisted Leon’s guts into a knot. He was a bad liar and he knew it. Cloud knew it. Hell, everyone knew it. However, Leon decided to cling with his fingernails to the last desperate shred of denial that he had.
“I’ve been acting the way I usually act.” Leon’s posture was stiff - it always was when he was uncomfortable. Shoulders, arms and torso tightened like a bowstring. What he didn’t realize was that Cloud could see the tenseness, could tell that Leon was on edge.
Swinging the buster sword up to rest on his shoulder, Cloud fixed an amused, if exasperated look on his friend.
“Leon, you’re a horrible liar.”
At that, Leon bristled sharply and glared over at Cloud.
“I am not a bad lay!”
See Leon. See Leon look at Cloud. See Leon wish that a Fat Body would appear out of nowhere and crush him into an unrecognizable pile of goo.
To his credit, Cloud didn’t burst out laughing or start teasing Leon… Well, not immediately. A grin curled his lip and he ducked his head so that Leon couldn’t see that he was snickering under his breath. Leon, to his immense horror, felt a burning sensation creep up his neck to his face. His ears felt like they were on fire.
“That’s not what I meant,” Leon crossed his arms over his chest and tried his best to look stern and impassive, as if assuming a Very Serious Pose would counterbalance the idiocy what he had just said.
A snort from Cloud was his only response. “Yeah right.”
Leon snapped his head up to look at Cloud. His eye twitched involuntarily - a sure sign of ire. Cloud, however, seemed unconcerned.
“Leon, you’re a bad liar. Just stop.”
As Leon was about to utter a no-doubt brilliant rebuttal, but slinking movement glimpsed out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. A Shadow Heartless crept out of the stone wall that encircled the postern and began to creep up behind Cloud. Suddenly serious, Leon drew his gunblade and aimed it at Cloud.
“Don’t movie.”
The bullet whistled so close to Cloud’s face that he could fee the wind of it on his cheek as it passed by. It impacted with something behind Cloud with a muted thud and a hiss. The blonde turned around in just enough time to see the remains of a Heartless dissipate and a pink heart rise and vanish into the dark sky.
“Nice shot.” Cloud turned back to face Leon.
The other man lowered his gunblade and looked over at Cloud.
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve seen me shoot before.”
The blush that had been receding from Leon’s face flared up again with a vengeance once he realized quite how homoerotic that sentence sounded. A quick glance at Cloud told him that Cloud noticed as well. The blonde was smirking.
“I’m going to shoot you,” Leon told him flatly. He began to walk off.
“Yeah, I bet you’re just dying to blow my head off.” Cloud picked up his sword and began to follow him.
“Of course I want to blow you.”
A low snort from Cloud was all it took for Leon to want to crawl into a hole and die from embarrassment.
That’s it. I’m going to go and live in the cave under Traverse Town and never come out again, he thought.
~
“So what do you think of our new little friends?” Tifa looked at Aerith over the pot of water they were boiling to make pasta. The two of them were standing over the enormous stove in Merlin’s kitchen.
The kitchen of Merlin’s house was large, much larger than the outside of the house allowed for. It was popularly believed that Merlin had enchanted the house so that he could add any necessary extra rooms he wanted without having it take up space on the outside. It was a good thing, too, since there would have been no room for Merlin’s many houseguests otherwise.
The room itself had the same comfortable, cluttered look and feel that the rest of the house did. Copper pots hung from a rack on the ceiling and dinged against each other like a culinary wind chime whenever there was a breeze. The smell of just-baked goods always wafted in the air. There was always a bowl of fresh fruit on the table and a large jar of chewy, piping-hot cookies in one corner. A battered old enchanted tea set had taken up residence on the counter beside the stove and was ferociously guarded by its militant sugar bowl.
When Aerith didn’t respond, Tifa waved a hand in front of her face.
“Aerith? Hello?”
The brunette jumped and blinked at Tifa’s palm.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Tifa! I was kind of spaced out!”
“No kidding.” Tifa reached over and stirred the pot of noodles. “What’s on your mind? You looked like you were worlds away.”
Aerith blushed a bit across the bridge of her nose. “I was… in a way. I was thinking about Traverse Town.”
“Traverse Town?” The surprise that Tifa felt was evident in her voice and raised brows. “That certainly is different.”
“I know. I was just wondering if it’s still there.” Aerith turned and began to dice tomatoes for the sauce. “If it’s a world where all the refugees of all the other worlds go, then what if it disappeared because all the worlds were put back together again? Isn’t that what should have happened after Sora beat back the darkness?”
“Hm.” The bartender mused. “…I guess so. I hadn’t even thought about Traverse Town since we finally made it back here. Maybe we should ask Sora to go check and see if it’s still there next time he comes by.” Tifa paused there and slid her gaze over to fix on Aerith. “…But that’s not really what you were thinkin’ about, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.” Aerith continued to dice the tomatoes and refused to look at Tifa.
“You were really thinking about something else entirely, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It was something filthy, right?”
“…I wouldn’t exactly say filthy…”
“Was I close enough?”
“…Yes.”
“Was it Cloud ‘leaving a trail of delicate, but heated kisses down the smooth skin of Leon’s throat?’” Tifa grinned evilly at her best friend and was triumphant when Aerith’s blush spread to her cheeks and ears.
“Not so loud!” Aerith pleaded with Tifa, glancing around to make sure nobody was in earshot.
“You are such a fangirl.” Tifa teased her, amused to no end by Aerith’s reaction.
“So are you!” Aerith said.
“Mmhmm. But I don’t blush whenever anyone says something about it. Then again,” Tifa smirked. “I also don’t ask Tron to post my writing up on questionable sites.”
“Are we talking about Aerith’s porn again?” Yuffie strolled into the kitchen at that moment, causing Aerith to look pained.
“I do not write porn,” she said.
“Close enough. You’re lucky that the guys think it’s just mushy poetry and never try to read it.” The ninja stood still on one side of the kitchen, eying the cookie jar. Only one thing stood between her and her prize. Her opponent was a small, round, blue piece of crockery with the reflexes and steely demeanor of a true warrior. Yuffie and the sugar bowl locked eyes and the sugar bowl slowly drew its spoon. It was on.
“Oh no, here we go again.” Tifa backed away. “I’m not getting in the middle of you and that sugar bowl again. I still have spoon imprints on my skull from last time.”
“Good, don’t get involved. This will be a fight to the death.” Yuffie drew her shuriken. The sugar bowl readied its spoon.
“Fight to the death my foot.” Aerith grabbed Yuffie by the headband and yanked her away from the sugar bowl. “First of all, young lady, Merlin said that there are to be no more bouts of mortal combat in the house. Second of all, you’re still on probation and you’re supposed to be helping with dinner.”
Once the whiplash wore off, Yuffie turned and glared spectacularly at Aerith.
“Hey! This is between me and that bowl!”
“Yuffie, just go and set the damn table.” Tifa placed a bunch of utensils in the ninja’s hands and shoved her out of the kitchen. “And no using them as projectiles!”
The two young women could hear Yuffie’s complaint of “Aw maaaaaaaan…” as she walked into the main room. Tifa laughed now that Yuffie was out of earshot.
“Only Yuffie would get into a blood-feud with a sugar bowl, I swear…” She paused and looked around the kitchen. “Everything looks like its pretty close to bein’ ready, so I’m gonna go ask the Gullwings to get the men. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Sure! Go ahead.” Aerith said. Tifa exited the room to find the fairies and Aerith let out a sigh of relief. She was just glad they were no longer talking about her porn.
~
“C’mon, I think they went this way!” Rikku raced through the narrow streets of Hollow Bastion so fast that her wings were a red-orange blur. Out of the three Gullwings, she was always the most cheerful and energetic, rather like a firefly hopped up on sugar.
“Why do you think that?” Yuna called ahead to Rikku.
“I dunno! I just do!” Rikku shouted back.
“Typical Rikku,” muttered Paine.
Despite the fact that Rikku’s customary method of navigation involved a lot of “Oooh this way looks fun! We should go this way!” and “Wait! Something’s telling me that we should go over here!” it had proven to be surprisingly successful. Yuna and Paine generally put up with it as long as they eventually found what they were looking for. Since what they were looking for was generally treasure and Rikku had a nose for “shinies” as she called them, it worked more often than not.
Rikku led them away from Merlin’s house and up to the bailey. Her instincts were proven correct when they began to hear voices.
“Yay, we found them!” Rikku burst out onto the bailey with a huge grin. “Hey Cloud ‘n’ Leon, we found - Huh?”
Yuna and Paine joined Rikku on the bailey, staring with mixed confusion and shock at the two men they’d been sent to fetch.
Cloud was in back, Leon in front. Limbs were entangled. There was… thrusting. And noises. Strange noises.
“Come on, already!” Cloud growled at Leon, who could only respond with a strangled response. Their bodies jerked. Neither of them had noticed the Gullwings.
“What the hell is going on here?” Paine was the first to break out of the spell.
At the sound of her voice, Cloud and Leon looked up. Cloud looked annoyed while Leon’s expression was a combination of horror and extreme discomfort. He also looked a little blue around the edges.
“What does it look like? This idiot here choked on something and I was trying to give him the Heimlich, but he keeps trying to push me away. It’s not my fault if he dies.” Cloud gestured to Leon with obvious exasperation.
“…That’s not what it looked like.” Paine said.
Leon opened his mouth to protest, but he could only choke and cough, trying desperately to suck air into his lungs.
“Well, that’s what it was.” Cloud told Paine. “He’s too damn stubborn.”
“What happened?” Rikku asked curiously.
“I have no idea. I said something about how I should do a striptease as a joke for Tifa during the strip-poker game we’ve got planned and he just started choking.” Cloud shrugged.
“…Should you hit him on the back or something? He looks like he’s about to fall over.” Yuna pointed out.
“…Oh yeah.” Cloud looked back over at Leon. At this point, Leon was a little blue around the mouth from lack of air and really was about to collapse. Cloud slapped on the back with such force that Leon stumbled forward and braced himself against the bailey wall. He gasped for air for a few moments, cleared his throat and then turned and glared over his shoulder at Cloud.
“Thanks for nothing!”
Cloud shrugged again. “Not my fault. If you’d just repress your gag reflex, you wouldn’t have that problem. Is dinner ready? I’m starved.”
To be Continued…
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