a/n; Since psych is on hiatus and I've got psychfic to satisfy my needs anyway, I've been getting back to my roots, or rather, replaying all the Kingdom Hearts games that I own. Which leads to me writing things.
You have to cut me some slack; it's been a while since I've written them, so they're bound to be at least slightly out of character. Hey, I tried.
pairings: implied Clerith, Leon/Tifa if you squint real hard.
disclaimer: Like everyone else on this site, I don't own these people.
They allowed themselves one night a month off, simply for sanity's sake. Though the night was normally spent sleeping, it also served as a time to summarize what had happened that month, and plan ahead.
One side of Merlin's house had been cleared of the rickety chairs and tables, instead replaced with plushy seating and a single, long coffee table. Leon and Tifa were shoved up against each other on a sofa, with Yuffie hogging most of the space - her legs were draped across theirs. Cloud and Aerith shared the loveseat, with Merlin to their direct right in a massive leather arm chair. Cid remained at his desk, a beer in hand and an eye on the claymore activity.
As usual, the conversation veered abnormally off topic. They were discussing a construction incident that had happened earlier in the week that had nearly killed Cid and Merlin, and Yuffie started relating it back to their time at Traverse Town.
"It's almost like that time you pulled the gates off of the waterway," she said with a snicker, almost spilling her soda all over Tifa. "We were cleaning up the alley for days."
"I still have the mark on my head," Cid growled.
"Blowing it up was certainly not your smartest idea," Aerith quipped quietly, sipping at her tea. Leon nodded in silent agreement. While this conversation occurred, Cloud and Tifa could do nothing but look perplexed and try to follow the collective train of thought.
"Oh, goodness," Aerith said, noting the looks on their faces. "You guys never got to see Traverse Town."
Cloud pursed his lips. "Believe me, I'd rather have been there than where I was."
"Seconded," Tifa put in. "You guys have to tell us what it was like."
And tell them, they did. As they had all lived there for nine years (with the exception of Merlin, who was only there for a few months until they permanently moved to Hollow Bastion), there were quite a few things to say about it.
"It was filthy," said Yuffie, scrunching up her nose. "It was kinda like a refugee camp for people from all kinds of different worlds. And we were generally the ones cleaning it all up."
"A lot of hard work and fighting," was Leon's input. "The town was a wreck. It was essentially made of fragments of worlds all smashed together. Naturally, it became a cesspool for the Heartless. We only managed to secure one of the three districts."
Merlin, though he lived there the shortest, had a bit to say about it as well. "Victorian buildings and passageways everywhere," he rattled off, leaning back in his chair with a huff. "A right pain to navigate through, and that's not even mentioning the Heartless."
"I learned a helluva lot about business and Moogles," Cid grunted, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on his desk, "but I ain't saying it didn't come at no cost. Running a store sucks ass when no one's got munny, and even worse when you lend the space above your store to the Moogles, and they start a synthesis shop, and the store is about a thousand degrees all the time and they advertise at all the wrong the times." He huffed, the toothpick shooting straight up in his lip. "I'm so glad they're got their own shop now."
"It was always night," Aerith said with a frown. "Constantly waking up to darkness was never fun, but I'm assuming that was the universe being ironic? Dark skies over a dark town. Imagine how it felt when you were trying to change the place for the better."
And the short comments turned into a long drawn-out discussion over what the town had lacked during their stay. Cloud and Tifa listened acutely, catching every detail they could in order to visualize it all better, to catch up on the nine years they had missed. Yuffie went as far as to drag the blackboard over - the side that wasn't covered in patrol/training schedules was used to draw a detailed diagram of the town, describing the horrendous layout and the spots that troubled them the most.
Along with some horror stories about the residents they had encountered there, and some awful tales of encounters with crumbling buildings and Heartless attacks, the discussion as a whole was very informal and very, very bitter. As the talking died down, Leon quietly added, "But it was home."
Aerith confirmed with a nod. "Like it or not, it was the only thing we had for a long time."
"Yeah...remember the owner of that restaurant in the First District?" Yuffie added. "I never had to pay for a meal there."
"And Geppetto?" Cid shook his head. "Dude was a diehard Gummi enthusiast. He wasn't half bad at designing, either. Wish I could've seen how his other ships turned out."
"We met Sora there." Leon, leaning against the wall next to the blackboard now, shook his head. "That's where a lot of this mess started."
The reminiscing took a turn for the better. Complaints melted into high praise and fond memories, topped off with lengthy stories of the positive aspects of the town and all the friends the crew had made there.
"Sounds like my kind of place," Tifa commented, once the storytelling started to die down.
"Really, the way you all just started gushing about it makes it seem like you all miss it quite a bit," Cloud remarked, now sitting with his arm around Aerith. "How come we've never visited?"
Silence met the question. Leon glanced over at Merlin, who heaved a sigh.
"Shortly after Sora finished up his business with Xehanort's Heartless and the King sealed the door, Traverse Town just...vanished." Merlin's brow furrowed. "Nothing would pick it up."
"Chip 'n Dale have been keeping watch over the entire realm of light," Cid added, "but haven't found any trace of it. We left the town with defenses, and the Keyhole was sealed and all that, but it's gone."
A low murmur of disappointment followed this information.
"But, y'know, we've learned how important memories are," Leon said after a few moments, staring at the ground. "We might not be able to visit Traverse Town, but we won't forget it. I'm positive of that."
The others agreed silently; Leon was correct. They may not have called it home at first, and they may not call it home now, but the town served them well.
a/n; Keep an eye out; I'm bound to write more about this crew soon.