KH2 fic: 'Something' Series I - Steel and Sparks
So I finally finished the fic that prompted my year-long writer's block. Hooray and TAKE THAT, MOTHAFUCKA. It's shorter than I hoped, but fuck it all to hell, I don't care, it's fucking WRITTEN.
Yes, I curse a lot when I'm happy. Deal with this. XD
Title: Steel and Sparks
Pairing/Characters: Cloud/Leon, Radiant Garden crew mentioned.
Warnings: Language and truckloads of UST. Beta'ed by dear ascattereddream up to a certain point, remaining mistakes entirely mine to blame. First fic in a series of eight.
Word Count: ~3730.
Rating: PG-13 for language, and maybe a couple of thoughts here and there. Mostly worksafe. Rating will skyrocket in future parts.
Summary: The first step is always the hardest to take, no matter how slow and gradual is the realization for the need - or want - to take it.
A.N.: Written for the otp_100 challenge, under theme #63, Heat. Something Series is a canon what-if continuum of eight fics, posted in chronological order. This is Part I.
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Aerith turns pleading eyes on him, and Cloud tries to hold onto his unimpressed expression for the grand total of five seconds before sighing.
"He can take care of himself, Aerith," he says even as he rises from the couch, picking up his ever-loyal buster sword from its place against the wall. He really doesn't want to leave Headquarters and its brand new air conditioning system for the harsh summer outside, but dealing with Aerith's sad-puppy look can be no better than frying his brains under the sun.
She rolls green eyes at him, placing her hands on her hips in a very no-nonsense pose. "I'm not doubting of Leon's abilities and you know that," Aerith replies in a huff, and it's almost unbelievable how a woman in pink can seem so absurdly threatening with just the right tilt of her frowning face. "You know what the southern section is like. No one is supposed to go there alone."
"Funny how Leonhart thinks he's above his own self-preservation rules," Cloud snorts, swinging his sword into the harness on his back. He forecasts life-threatening physical exercise under the baking sunlight in less than an hour. How delightful. "Taking a thrasher from the Heartless would teach him a thing or two."
He lifts an eyebrow as Aerith slaps his shoulder lightly, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor while she pouts. "Nobody takes a thrasher from the Heartless and comes back to tell of lessons learned. Now you please go lend him a hand, or I'm going and you stay in charge of feeding this Committee dinner."
Cloud lifts his hands in defeat, nodding in spite of his mild irritation over being sent to accompany Leon in a routine Heartless cleaning. With a slight nod to his once-lost friend, he walks out of the cramped little living room of the Radiant Garden Restoration Committee Headquarters, and into the sunny streets of the half-rebuilt city. The world reborn months ago from Hollow Bastion was but a memory, a project of something it had once been - it wouldn't come back to its past glory so easily, regardless of how hard its inhabitants and Sora fought for it.
The only thing given back to them was the general idea - they've been doing everything from scratch ever since.
Cloud doesn't mind the work, in all truth - it's certainly out of the ordinary for him to be constructing something instead of slaying it to shambles. This world has accepted him back, taken him in despite of all his misdeeds, so he's got to show a little gratitude. Radiant Garden now stands for home. It's his duty to take good care of it.
That doesn't mean he has to like everybody in town.
The girls are wonderful, of course - Yuffie drives everybody and their mom bonkers at least once a week, but she's competent and helpful when it comes down to business; Aerith and her sweet, thoughtful soul help stabilize and weave tighter the thin, desperation-generated relations that formed the Restoration Committee in the first place. And Tifa... well, Tifa is Tifa - his closest, oldest friend, the one he doesn't have to protect from himself, the light that will always remind him he can also shine. In short, it's hard not to feel just fine amongst his sisters.
Besides them, there's little else worth high mention - Cid is and has always been a guy to admire in his gruff, veiled-caring way. The Gullwings are frankly annoying, but their retriever skills are quite useful when he loses his earrings. Old duck Scrooge one day or another will have the unpleasant end of the buster sword pointed at him for trying to rip Cloud off. The oncoming refugees don't mess with him, so he doesn't mess with them.
All in all, Cloud keeps those who matter close to his heart, and does his best to ignore whomever else. It's hard not to make exceptions when they parade around swinging their gunblades, though.
It's not that he hates Leon - when it comes down to it, there was only one man who could truly make Cloud hate him, so much that he became the very personification of Cloud's darkness; but by now Sephiroth is history, well locked inside his memories. No, Leon has gone not a whisper out of line, therefore he stands as no reason for Cloud's hate.
Cloud just... dislikes him. A little. Or something. That's all.
"Going somewhere?" a smooth baritone calls out for Cloud as he walks onto the heat-hissing main street, and the blond turns on his heels to face the door of the Item Shop. Leon stands there, leaning lightly against the door sill as he slots recently bought Potions and Ethers into the curves of his multiple belts. His figure seems aloof, almost nonchalant, but that doesn't prevent Cloud from seeing his hand hovering ever-ready near the handle of his weapon.
His vigilance fails not for a single second, and somehow that rubs Cloud all the wrong ways - even though he never lets his own sword out of reach, as well.
"Baby-sitting duty," Cloud answers with a nod and a significant look in Leon's direction, before turning yet again to keep on moving towards the southern border of the town. He's somewhat satisfied to hear Leon's scornful snort, and it doesn't take long for the brunet to catch up with him in sure, long strides.
"You should be helping Tifa today," Leon says with a lifted eyebrow, and Cloud wonders how the hell the guy wears fur under that weather and manages not to soak it in sweat.
"She's negotiating with Scrooge for supplies for the bar," Cloud informs even as his face closes out of its own. "Not that I owe you any account of what I do."
Leon's face also pinches into a frown, and his jaw works despite his tightly closed mouth for a second. Cloud may have taken a place into the Restoration Committee, but it's the almost-unspoken agreement that he's not under Leon's orders. The gunblader is the rightful leader of the others - he put this project together back in Traverse Town, he's coordinated their work in Hollow Bastion, he's the natural choice of a strong man to run to when his people need the most.
Cloud arrived later, and he's always walked alone. He doesn't need someone to follow after, and it doesn't take a genius to realize Leon has no use for competition as the alpha-male in this group. Cloud is just fine working as a freelancer, when and because he wants to.
Or that's what Cloud tells himself, but that's not really to be questioned at this point in time. There's this... tension, or something of the sort, cracking with static whenever they brush closer than necessary to each other's space. There's no need to make it any worse.
"Whatever," Leon drawls in a monotone, tossing a pair of vials for Cloud's automatic grip. The blond looks at the Potions warily for a moment, before he turns his sight in time to see the other man shrugging with disinterest. "You'll need these if you're coming with me."
A small nod of thanks swings Cloud's head for a fraction of a minute, and he pockets the restoratives safely - his prowess with spells isn't much to speak of, so one or two Curagas are more than enough to leave him drained of all his magic power. It doesn't hurt to have a few back-up items when roaming the most Heartless-infected zone of the world, especially since Leon is no better a magician to count on when in dire need of healing.
"I'm not leaving all the fun for you," Cloud says with the barest of smirks as they walk onto the emptiest area of their world, where it still looks much more like Hollow Bastion than Radiant Garden. The rock of the cliffs and valleys ahead of them shines grainy under the merciless sun, a desert of royal blue stone engulfing the town, harboring the pests that thrive on human hearts.
It's their mission to make that wasteland a beautiful world once more, and it's not the uneasy company that will stop either of them of getting the job done.
Cloud draws his sword from his back, feeling its welcome weight in his palm as they step deeper into the southern section. "Ready?" he asks Leon as the quiet noise of the universe convulsing onto itself whispers around them, repeated over and over as each Heartless is spewed out of the Realm of Darkness to hunt. The gunblade glints harshly under the sun as Leon flips it into his grip, pointing it to the path they've just walked without looking.
"Whenever you are," comes the short reply before a shot rings through the stonewalls, and as one lone heart flutters up into the sky, a swarm of many other entrapped ones descends upon them.
There's this familiar rush of adrenaline making his ears rumble and his eyesight sharpen, and Cloud knocks two-five-eleven-nineteen-many Heartless with the flat of the blade against the blue outcroppings in broad, open sweeps. He cleans a path through the weaker ones before doubling back with a sharp thrust against the Neoshadow that creeps to his back, but the momentum as the creature fends off his strike sends him upwards - so he hikes through the air as he slashes flying enemies. Gravity takes its toll after one very delayed while, but then he plunges down on the very same Heartless, sword-tip first into its nonexistent spine.
This is what he does best - Cloud knows himself better when he's got his sword raised and there's no doubt in his mind that the target deserves what it's about to take. There's freedom in slashing and striking and parrying and ducking and driving himself to the maximum, especially with a reason such as wiping his world clean of parasites. He feels like what he's doing is right, and worthy, and essentially good, and that's such an amazing novelty in all of his hard-fought life.
The heat of battle pours from his bones into his blood and flesh, coming out to meet the light sheen of sweat painting his outline over his skin. The sun glares down onto the valley but Cloud can't really care, his muscles pumped to higher temperature anyway by the exertion. He breathes deeply but evenly as his movements cut the air into whiny howls to fulfill the demise of the mute, slaughtered Heartless.
Something solid bumps against his back, and Cloud has to hold the reaction of his sword-arm short as the telltale whisper of fur against the nape of his neck identifies the presence as that of an ally. Studded belts dig against his hips as he presses closer still to Leon, and the flex of the other's back muscles as they move together feels strangely warm through their sweaty layers of clothing.
"You faring alright?" Leon asks quietly as they circle slowly over their spot, surrounded by a second wave of even tougher enemies. Cloud considers the blood rushing madly through his veins and the white ache of his arms and the glint of the buster sword under the sun and the hot, never faltering, never yielding, taut-tense press of Leon fighting by his side - and suddenly there's this smile he doesn't want to begin comprehending tugging on his lips.
"No worse than you," Cloud says, because he knows Leon is pounding the Heartless to the ground without ever losing his poise - and under normal conditions it would annoy him, irritate him, miff him to no damn end... but this isn't normal conditions yet. They've only so much as started, and Cloud will enjoy the fight the best he can.
He'll have the time to feel challenged by Leon's mere presence later on - but only after he's thanked Aerith.
There's this ripple of contained energy, a prelude of movement as they press even harder against one another - something coils tighter than his own muscles around Cloud's bones, something akin to euphoria but not quite, something at the same time more sedate and more intense than plain battle drive - and then they burst.
His blade cuts through non-matter in a flurry of steel paced by rhythmic gunshots, and there's no way the Heartless could ever take his heart again - not with the way it's racing in his chest, so fast Cloud himself doubts he can catch up with it. His vision melts into sun rays as they filter through by ebbing Darkness, dancing light and heat as Leon moves with frenzied precision on the extreme corner of Cloud's eyesight.
The closer the Heartless come, a third and a forth wave crashing down on them, the faster both fighters react, with more intent, more naked impulse. At a point along the way Cloud tosses one of those Potions down his throat, a long gash now tearing his left pant leg. He's sure he hears Leon summoning a nearly desperate Thundaga at some point - static pulses through the air, tingling faintly on his nerves and fading all too soon… and that's such a close relation to something Cloud doesn't want to think about just then, he just aims a very resolute Sonic Blade to the one Neoshadow that prompted the spell out of Leon.
The brunet just lifts him an eyebrow and nods, before shooting a Heartless behind the blond's shoulder, right between its beady yellow eyes.
They are things of battle, them both - and though Cloud knows only what everyone else does of Leon's past, it unsettles him tremendously that a man scarred to such a degree walks so steadily upon the world. Cloud knows all too well his pain, and far, far beyond that - but seeing Leon carry himself upright, with Radiant Garden whole in his arms to boot, he sometimes can't help but feel like he's not doing enough.
Cloud's got more to overcome. More to prove wrong. More to make up to. He can't and won't rely on anyone else's strength - not anymore... though it's hard not to like a bit too much that warm, irrationally satisfying feeling of having Leon by his side.
There's something wrong with enjoying his company that much, so Cloud will fight it until he can no longer.
The gunblade opens the last Heartless clear in two, and a fragile heart reflected in two pairs of hardened eyes climbs up to restart its journey. The wide expanse of smoldering rock seems suddenly too small around them, stuffed and uncomfortably hot as the freedom of slashing shit up disappears.
Cloud's breathing is slightly hurried, and his fingers cling to the buster sword in ever-persistent hope for completion that he knows won't ever be granted him - if not by the sword, then by nothing else. His eyes settle upon Leon, if only because there isn't anything more catching around to rest his sight on, and the brunet seems no better than him. Sweat sticks his shirt to his torso, his hair to his face; and he holds the gunblade as though it were an extension of his body.
Cloud doesn't want whatever it is that drapes itself to the space between them, trying to close that distance until the tense pressure becomes physical - tight ripple of muscles and sweat and drive and impulse and not going down that path, so not going... And Leon doesn't seem to want it either, if the way his throat works as they glare at each other for longer than necessary says anything.
It's bad enough already that they're both aware of that… something. Then it can't be just Cloud's imagination.
Proffering words just for the sake of it doesn’t actually do Cloud’s style, but he's almost stating the general idea of heading back to the HQ or other such nonsense - a desperate attempt of erasing the awkwardness thickening on the air. Cutting through the silence that is just as not eloquent as the two men immersed in it isn't as easy as flicking his sword, though, and the seconds stretch with only ragged breathing to punctuate their little staring match.
The ground suddenly shakes in a very noisy, very meaningful way, and Cloud can only be grateful for being spared the laborious task of expressing himself.
It's still an universal irony how they gravitate towards each other, light-years more daring and courageous regarding action instead of talking. It shouldn't feel that natural when their arms touch in their ready poses, quiet strength flowing like a hot flux between them through the little patches of skin that rub together - yet it does. Cloud knows he could take that rising atrocity alone and so could Leon, but it's still nice to have his solid presence just there where it is.
He shouldn't get used to this easy trust, this silent reassurance. He doesn't need that. He shouldn't have a place for it.
The boss Heartless reveals itself fully, and it reminds Cloud of reports brought from Traverse Town he's peeked through - the gleaming dark armor floats about a foot above the ground, with no connection between its members, each limb working independently. However, this one is pitch-black, highly horned, and it has a dragon tail and talons. It also smokes green fire from the helmet - and sports a majestic, deadly angel wing from its right shoulder-guard.
How fucking suitable.
"Maleficent and Sephiroth's illegitimate love child?" Leon snorts, aiming for the center of the black helmet. Grey eyes gleam more dangerously than the enemy flames ever could, and the blond tries to ignore the jolt of excitement that brings into him.
"The Heartless has a lousy sense of humor," Cloud snarls, fingers tightening on the sword handle, blood rushing even faster than before through his body, ready once again to war. This joke of a high-level enemy has no business impersonating the worst ailments Radiant Garden has endured and gotten rid of. The mere sight of those black feathers puts Cloud on such a level of tension that he may snap at the slightest prompting.
A huge armor-arm descending towards his skull stands for more than enough prompting in Cloud's book.
He dodges, green-black steel breaking the slight spell of touch he'd been immersed in with Leon. The loss of that quiet heat by his side drags extra strenght from him, blasting the Heatless with his blade with such speed and aggression it would seem like the creature has interrupted something important. Something special.
He feels dumb, and confused, and there's a pull on the back of his stomach calling him to Leon's side like a magnetic field - Cloud grits his teeth and strikes harder against the armor, faster and stronger and more desperately and he knows it's too strange and he can't care. He almost loses it everytime he sees a flash of the brunet hitting another part of the enemy, just a flurry of gleaming black and silver, blurred past heat-wavering air.
The Heartless twists upon itself, center part turned into a cannon, and Cloud's heart stops altogether in his chest as Leon is hit with a blast of energy that sinks him half a foot into the surrounding rocks. He doesn't stand up.
Fuck. He's felt like this - empty, heart-stopped, useless, totally powerless - one time too many. This battle's not worth it. Leon's not worth it. Nothing in the whole damned universe is worth being crippled from inside, unable to fight it. He can't live without fighting.
Cloud can't fathom the reason why he dishes out a Sonic Blade that pushes the armor to the other side of their battlefield, then bends over Leon with a Curaga already on his lips. Maybe because deep in his gut, he knows the gunblader can't spend a second of his life without fighting, as well.
Green blessing flows from his body into the unconsciouss man, sapping Cloud of all his magic. Grey eyes part open slowly, and for a second Cloud sees Leon's face clear, marred only by his scar and a confusion almost fitting to a child - before the Heartless recovers from the strike with a loud rumble, and Leon's ever-present frown etches itself on his face as he stands up.
Cloud's mouth has gone dry, all the same.
With a shake of his head and a stern lashing to his uncontrolled emotions, Cloud makes it to stand up as well - only to be hit alongside Leon right back onto the rocky background. Suddenly he's pressed against the stone wall, Leon nothing but mounted on top of him - he's all hard muscle and thick leather and heat, so much fucking heat that Cloud's vision isn't swimming thanks only to his near-KO status, and something bursts inside him harder than a supernova.
He wants something, anything, everything - he wants Leon but he doesn't want to get him, so he fights.
At least, Leon does the same.
The Limit Break erupts into both of them as though rehearsed - Leon rolls off him to stand on the edge of the buster sword, and all of Cloud's tension and confusion and control becomes sheer brute force as he spins his weapon around, sending the brunet up into the air - away from him by his own will. The momentum of the twist brings him closer to the Heartless, and he breaks a combo faster, crazier than Omnislash on the central body, while Leon plunges from the sky, implaing the boss with the pillar of light his gunblade has become. Steel meets steel in the dark insides of the enemy - they're brought together by fight, no matter how far apart they go - and in a full-body twist of both, they rip the dark creature to shreds, black feathers and green fire fading around them as they lean against each other.
It feels so good that something's gotta give, and Cloud has nothing left to pay with.
He lets himself step back, eyes closed, body trembling. The loss of Leon's warmth is more like a physical hit than the damage he's taken - maybe that's why he takes the last of the Potions offered to him and drinks it as he goes away, head down, silent under the scorching sun. He can't bring himself to look back - not on this.
There's something definitely wrong with him.
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So, this is the mother of all of my big-ass projects. Comments and criticism DEEPLY appreciated.
X-Posted to otp_100 and leonxcloud.
Yes, I curse a lot when I'm happy. Deal with this. XD
Title: Steel and Sparks
Pairing/Characters: Cloud/Leon, Radiant Garden crew mentioned.
Warnings: Language and truckloads of UST. Beta'ed by dear ascattereddream up to a certain point, remaining mistakes entirely mine to blame. First fic in a series of eight.
Word Count: ~3730.
Rating: PG-13 for language, and maybe a couple of thoughts here and there. Mostly worksafe. Rating will skyrocket in future parts.
Summary: The first step is always the hardest to take, no matter how slow and gradual is the realization for the need - or want - to take it.
A.N.: Written for the otp_100 challenge, under theme #63, Heat. Something Series is a canon what-if continuum of eight fics, posted in chronological order. This is Part I.
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Aerith turns pleading eyes on him, and Cloud tries to hold onto his unimpressed expression for the grand total of five seconds before sighing.
"He can take care of himself, Aerith," he says even as he rises from the couch, picking up his ever-loyal buster sword from its place against the wall. He really doesn't want to leave Headquarters and its brand new air conditioning system for the harsh summer outside, but dealing with Aerith's sad-puppy look can be no better than frying his brains under the sun.
She rolls green eyes at him, placing her hands on her hips in a very no-nonsense pose. "I'm not doubting of Leon's abilities and you know that," Aerith replies in a huff, and it's almost unbelievable how a woman in pink can seem so absurdly threatening with just the right tilt of her frowning face. "You know what the southern section is like. No one is supposed to go there alone."
"Funny how Leonhart thinks he's above his own self-preservation rules," Cloud snorts, swinging his sword into the harness on his back. He forecasts life-threatening physical exercise under the baking sunlight in less than an hour. How delightful. "Taking a thrasher from the Heartless would teach him a thing or two."
He lifts an eyebrow as Aerith slaps his shoulder lightly, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor while she pouts. "Nobody takes a thrasher from the Heartless and comes back to tell of lessons learned. Now you please go lend him a hand, or I'm going and you stay in charge of feeding this Committee dinner."
Cloud lifts his hands in defeat, nodding in spite of his mild irritation over being sent to accompany Leon in a routine Heartless cleaning. With a slight nod to his once-lost friend, he walks out of the cramped little living room of the Radiant Garden Restoration Committee Headquarters, and into the sunny streets of the half-rebuilt city. The world reborn months ago from Hollow Bastion was but a memory, a project of something it had once been - it wouldn't come back to its past glory so easily, regardless of how hard its inhabitants and Sora fought for it.
The only thing given back to them was the general idea - they've been doing everything from scratch ever since.
Cloud doesn't mind the work, in all truth - it's certainly out of the ordinary for him to be constructing something instead of slaying it to shambles. This world has accepted him back, taken him in despite of all his misdeeds, so he's got to show a little gratitude. Radiant Garden now stands for home. It's his duty to take good care of it.
That doesn't mean he has to like everybody in town.
The girls are wonderful, of course - Yuffie drives everybody and their mom bonkers at least once a week, but she's competent and helpful when it comes down to business; Aerith and her sweet, thoughtful soul help stabilize and weave tighter the thin, desperation-generated relations that formed the Restoration Committee in the first place. And Tifa... well, Tifa is Tifa - his closest, oldest friend, the one he doesn't have to protect from himself, the light that will always remind him he can also shine. In short, it's hard not to feel just fine amongst his sisters.
Besides them, there's little else worth high mention - Cid is and has always been a guy to admire in his gruff, veiled-caring way. The Gullwings are frankly annoying, but their retriever skills are quite useful when he loses his earrings. Old duck Scrooge one day or another will have the unpleasant end of the buster sword pointed at him for trying to rip Cloud off. The oncoming refugees don't mess with him, so he doesn't mess with them.
All in all, Cloud keeps those who matter close to his heart, and does his best to ignore whomever else. It's hard not to make exceptions when they parade around swinging their gunblades, though.
It's not that he hates Leon - when it comes down to it, there was only one man who could truly make Cloud hate him, so much that he became the very personification of Cloud's darkness; but by now Sephiroth is history, well locked inside his memories. No, Leon has gone not a whisper out of line, therefore he stands as no reason for Cloud's hate.
Cloud just... dislikes him. A little. Or something. That's all.
"Going somewhere?" a smooth baritone calls out for Cloud as he walks onto the heat-hissing main street, and the blond turns on his heels to face the door of the Item Shop. Leon stands there, leaning lightly against the door sill as he slots recently bought Potions and Ethers into the curves of his multiple belts. His figure seems aloof, almost nonchalant, but that doesn't prevent Cloud from seeing his hand hovering ever-ready near the handle of his weapon.
His vigilance fails not for a single second, and somehow that rubs Cloud all the wrong ways - even though he never lets his own sword out of reach, as well.
"Baby-sitting duty," Cloud answers with a nod and a significant look in Leon's direction, before turning yet again to keep on moving towards the southern border of the town. He's somewhat satisfied to hear Leon's scornful snort, and it doesn't take long for the brunet to catch up with him in sure, long strides.
"You should be helping Tifa today," Leon says with a lifted eyebrow, and Cloud wonders how the hell the guy wears fur under that weather and manages not to soak it in sweat.
"She's negotiating with Scrooge for supplies for the bar," Cloud informs even as his face closes out of its own. "Not that I owe you any account of what I do."
Leon's face also pinches into a frown, and his jaw works despite his tightly closed mouth for a second. Cloud may have taken a place into the Restoration Committee, but it's the almost-unspoken agreement that he's not under Leon's orders. The gunblader is the rightful leader of the others - he put this project together back in Traverse Town, he's coordinated their work in Hollow Bastion, he's the natural choice of a strong man to run to when his people need the most.
Cloud arrived later, and he's always walked alone. He doesn't need someone to follow after, and it doesn't take a genius to realize Leon has no use for competition as the alpha-male in this group. Cloud is just fine working as a freelancer, when and because he wants to.
Or that's what Cloud tells himself, but that's not really to be questioned at this point in time. There's this... tension, or something of the sort, cracking with static whenever they brush closer than necessary to each other's space. There's no need to make it any worse.
"Whatever," Leon drawls in a monotone, tossing a pair of vials for Cloud's automatic grip. The blond looks at the Potions warily for a moment, before he turns his sight in time to see the other man shrugging with disinterest. "You'll need these if you're coming with me."
A small nod of thanks swings Cloud's head for a fraction of a minute, and he pockets the restoratives safely - his prowess with spells isn't much to speak of, so one or two Curagas are more than enough to leave him drained of all his magic power. It doesn't hurt to have a few back-up items when roaming the most Heartless-infected zone of the world, especially since Leon is no better a magician to count on when in dire need of healing.
"I'm not leaving all the fun for you," Cloud says with the barest of smirks as they walk onto the emptiest area of their world, where it still looks much more like Hollow Bastion than Radiant Garden. The rock of the cliffs and valleys ahead of them shines grainy under the merciless sun, a desert of royal blue stone engulfing the town, harboring the pests that thrive on human hearts.
It's their mission to make that wasteland a beautiful world once more, and it's not the uneasy company that will stop either of them of getting the job done.
Cloud draws his sword from his back, feeling its welcome weight in his palm as they step deeper into the southern section. "Ready?" he asks Leon as the quiet noise of the universe convulsing onto itself whispers around them, repeated over and over as each Heartless is spewed out of the Realm of Darkness to hunt. The gunblade glints harshly under the sun as Leon flips it into his grip, pointing it to the path they've just walked without looking.
"Whenever you are," comes the short reply before a shot rings through the stonewalls, and as one lone heart flutters up into the sky, a swarm of many other entrapped ones descends upon them.
There's this familiar rush of adrenaline making his ears rumble and his eyesight sharpen, and Cloud knocks two-five-eleven-nineteen-many Heartless with the flat of the blade against the blue outcroppings in broad, open sweeps. He cleans a path through the weaker ones before doubling back with a sharp thrust against the Neoshadow that creeps to his back, but the momentum as the creature fends off his strike sends him upwards - so he hikes through the air as he slashes flying enemies. Gravity takes its toll after one very delayed while, but then he plunges down on the very same Heartless, sword-tip first into its nonexistent spine.
This is what he does best - Cloud knows himself better when he's got his sword raised and there's no doubt in his mind that the target deserves what it's about to take. There's freedom in slashing and striking and parrying and ducking and driving himself to the maximum, especially with a reason such as wiping his world clean of parasites. He feels like what he's doing is right, and worthy, and essentially good, and that's such an amazing novelty in all of his hard-fought life.
The heat of battle pours from his bones into his blood and flesh, coming out to meet the light sheen of sweat painting his outline over his skin. The sun glares down onto the valley but Cloud can't really care, his muscles pumped to higher temperature anyway by the exertion. He breathes deeply but evenly as his movements cut the air into whiny howls to fulfill the demise of the mute, slaughtered Heartless.
Something solid bumps against his back, and Cloud has to hold the reaction of his sword-arm short as the telltale whisper of fur against the nape of his neck identifies the presence as that of an ally. Studded belts dig against his hips as he presses closer still to Leon, and the flex of the other's back muscles as they move together feels strangely warm through their sweaty layers of clothing.
"You faring alright?" Leon asks quietly as they circle slowly over their spot, surrounded by a second wave of even tougher enemies. Cloud considers the blood rushing madly through his veins and the white ache of his arms and the glint of the buster sword under the sun and the hot, never faltering, never yielding, taut-tense press of Leon fighting by his side - and suddenly there's this smile he doesn't want to begin comprehending tugging on his lips.
"No worse than you," Cloud says, because he knows Leon is pounding the Heartless to the ground without ever losing his poise - and under normal conditions it would annoy him, irritate him, miff him to no damn end... but this isn't normal conditions yet. They've only so much as started, and Cloud will enjoy the fight the best he can.
He'll have the time to feel challenged by Leon's mere presence later on - but only after he's thanked Aerith.
There's this ripple of contained energy, a prelude of movement as they press even harder against one another - something coils tighter than his own muscles around Cloud's bones, something akin to euphoria but not quite, something at the same time more sedate and more intense than plain battle drive - and then they burst.
His blade cuts through non-matter in a flurry of steel paced by rhythmic gunshots, and there's no way the Heartless could ever take his heart again - not with the way it's racing in his chest, so fast Cloud himself doubts he can catch up with it. His vision melts into sun rays as they filter through by ebbing Darkness, dancing light and heat as Leon moves with frenzied precision on the extreme corner of Cloud's eyesight.
The closer the Heartless come, a third and a forth wave crashing down on them, the faster both fighters react, with more intent, more naked impulse. At a point along the way Cloud tosses one of those Potions down his throat, a long gash now tearing his left pant leg. He's sure he hears Leon summoning a nearly desperate Thundaga at some point - static pulses through the air, tingling faintly on his nerves and fading all too soon… and that's such a close relation to something Cloud doesn't want to think about just then, he just aims a very resolute Sonic Blade to the one Neoshadow that prompted the spell out of Leon.
The brunet just lifts him an eyebrow and nods, before shooting a Heartless behind the blond's shoulder, right between its beady yellow eyes.
They are things of battle, them both - and though Cloud knows only what everyone else does of Leon's past, it unsettles him tremendously that a man scarred to such a degree walks so steadily upon the world. Cloud knows all too well his pain, and far, far beyond that - but seeing Leon carry himself upright, with Radiant Garden whole in his arms to boot, he sometimes can't help but feel like he's not doing enough.
Cloud's got more to overcome. More to prove wrong. More to make up to. He can't and won't rely on anyone else's strength - not anymore... though it's hard not to like a bit too much that warm, irrationally satisfying feeling of having Leon by his side.
There's something wrong with enjoying his company that much, so Cloud will fight it until he can no longer.
The gunblade opens the last Heartless clear in two, and a fragile heart reflected in two pairs of hardened eyes climbs up to restart its journey. The wide expanse of smoldering rock seems suddenly too small around them, stuffed and uncomfortably hot as the freedom of slashing shit up disappears.
Cloud's breathing is slightly hurried, and his fingers cling to the buster sword in ever-persistent hope for completion that he knows won't ever be granted him - if not by the sword, then by nothing else. His eyes settle upon Leon, if only because there isn't anything more catching around to rest his sight on, and the brunet seems no better than him. Sweat sticks his shirt to his torso, his hair to his face; and he holds the gunblade as though it were an extension of his body.
Cloud doesn't want whatever it is that drapes itself to the space between them, trying to close that distance until the tense pressure becomes physical - tight ripple of muscles and sweat and drive and impulse and not going down that path, so not going... And Leon doesn't seem to want it either, if the way his throat works as they glare at each other for longer than necessary says anything.
It's bad enough already that they're both aware of that… something. Then it can't be just Cloud's imagination.
Proffering words just for the sake of it doesn’t actually do Cloud’s style, but he's almost stating the general idea of heading back to the HQ or other such nonsense - a desperate attempt of erasing the awkwardness thickening on the air. Cutting through the silence that is just as not eloquent as the two men immersed in it isn't as easy as flicking his sword, though, and the seconds stretch with only ragged breathing to punctuate their little staring match.
The ground suddenly shakes in a very noisy, very meaningful way, and Cloud can only be grateful for being spared the laborious task of expressing himself.
It's still an universal irony how they gravitate towards each other, light-years more daring and courageous regarding action instead of talking. It shouldn't feel that natural when their arms touch in their ready poses, quiet strength flowing like a hot flux between them through the little patches of skin that rub together - yet it does. Cloud knows he could take that rising atrocity alone and so could Leon, but it's still nice to have his solid presence just there where it is.
He shouldn't get used to this easy trust, this silent reassurance. He doesn't need that. He shouldn't have a place for it.
The boss Heartless reveals itself fully, and it reminds Cloud of reports brought from Traverse Town he's peeked through - the gleaming dark armor floats about a foot above the ground, with no connection between its members, each limb working independently. However, this one is pitch-black, highly horned, and it has a dragon tail and talons. It also smokes green fire from the helmet - and sports a majestic, deadly angel wing from its right shoulder-guard.
How fucking suitable.
"Maleficent and Sephiroth's illegitimate love child?" Leon snorts, aiming for the center of the black helmet. Grey eyes gleam more dangerously than the enemy flames ever could, and the blond tries to ignore the jolt of excitement that brings into him.
"The Heartless has a lousy sense of humor," Cloud snarls, fingers tightening on the sword handle, blood rushing even faster than before through his body, ready once again to war. This joke of a high-level enemy has no business impersonating the worst ailments Radiant Garden has endured and gotten rid of. The mere sight of those black feathers puts Cloud on such a level of tension that he may snap at the slightest prompting.
A huge armor-arm descending towards his skull stands for more than enough prompting in Cloud's book.
He dodges, green-black steel breaking the slight spell of touch he'd been immersed in with Leon. The loss of that quiet heat by his side drags extra strenght from him, blasting the Heatless with his blade with such speed and aggression it would seem like the creature has interrupted something important. Something special.
He feels dumb, and confused, and there's a pull on the back of his stomach calling him to Leon's side like a magnetic field - Cloud grits his teeth and strikes harder against the armor, faster and stronger and more desperately and he knows it's too strange and he can't care. He almost loses it everytime he sees a flash of the brunet hitting another part of the enemy, just a flurry of gleaming black and silver, blurred past heat-wavering air.
The Heartless twists upon itself, center part turned into a cannon, and Cloud's heart stops altogether in his chest as Leon is hit with a blast of energy that sinks him half a foot into the surrounding rocks. He doesn't stand up.
Fuck. He's felt like this - empty, heart-stopped, useless, totally powerless - one time too many. This battle's not worth it. Leon's not worth it. Nothing in the whole damned universe is worth being crippled from inside, unable to fight it. He can't live without fighting.
Cloud can't fathom the reason why he dishes out a Sonic Blade that pushes the armor to the other side of their battlefield, then bends over Leon with a Curaga already on his lips. Maybe because deep in his gut, he knows the gunblader can't spend a second of his life without fighting, as well.
Green blessing flows from his body into the unconsciouss man, sapping Cloud of all his magic. Grey eyes part open slowly, and for a second Cloud sees Leon's face clear, marred only by his scar and a confusion almost fitting to a child - before the Heartless recovers from the strike with a loud rumble, and Leon's ever-present frown etches itself on his face as he stands up.
Cloud's mouth has gone dry, all the same.
With a shake of his head and a stern lashing to his uncontrolled emotions, Cloud makes it to stand up as well - only to be hit alongside Leon right back onto the rocky background. Suddenly he's pressed against the stone wall, Leon nothing but mounted on top of him - he's all hard muscle and thick leather and heat, so much fucking heat that Cloud's vision isn't swimming thanks only to his near-KO status, and something bursts inside him harder than a supernova.
He wants something, anything, everything - he wants Leon but he doesn't want to get him, so he fights.
At least, Leon does the same.
The Limit Break erupts into both of them as though rehearsed - Leon rolls off him to stand on the edge of the buster sword, and all of Cloud's tension and confusion and control becomes sheer brute force as he spins his weapon around, sending the brunet up into the air - away from him by his own will. The momentum of the twist brings him closer to the Heartless, and he breaks a combo faster, crazier than Omnislash on the central body, while Leon plunges from the sky, implaing the boss with the pillar of light his gunblade has become. Steel meets steel in the dark insides of the enemy - they're brought together by fight, no matter how far apart they go - and in a full-body twist of both, they rip the dark creature to shreds, black feathers and green fire fading around them as they lean against each other.
It feels so good that something's gotta give, and Cloud has nothing left to pay with.
He lets himself step back, eyes closed, body trembling. The loss of Leon's warmth is more like a physical hit than the damage he's taken - maybe that's why he takes the last of the Potions offered to him and drinks it as he goes away, head down, silent under the scorching sun. He can't bring himself to look back - not on this.
There's something definitely wrong with him.
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So, this is the mother of all of my big-ass projects. Comments and criticism DEEPLY appreciated.
X-Posted to otp_100 and leonxcloud.