Originally written for the Strifehart Kink Meme... some time way back last year. Now that I get some time to myself, I felt this sudden urge to organize all my stuff. Look out, guys, long overdue uploads coming through!

Prompt: "Cloud is a member of a crime syndicate. Squall works as their informer. Bonus: Other people mistake Squall as the older one due to the two's height difference."

I was a rookie then, and Firion was somewhere between being a rookie and being someone who "knew what he was doing". Cloud was way out of our league, the best of the best and one of the boss' top men.

And boy, did he hate us.

For some reason or another, the boss made us his apprentices – or interns or sidekicks or something – and had us tag along with him on every job they sent him to do. And he succeeded, whether we were there to watch or not, whether we were there to slow him down or not.

He didn't hate us because we were in his way – he hated us because … well, I just assumed he hated everyone. He was the kind of guy you took one look at and thought, Loner. Big time. Too bad.

And Cloud was just that: he was a one-man-show, and he was really good at it. So good that he started one-upping himself each time. The boss trusted no one like he trusted Cloud. I didn't think Cloud trusted anyone.

So when I followed him to his latest job – meeting with an informant – I carelessly asked him if he was going to pop a cap in the guy's ass once he was done with him. His eyelid had twitched, and that should have been my clue to shut up. I didn't – I asked if I could loot the body once he finished with it. If Firion had not stepped in, I would have lost half of my teeth, both eyes, my job – maybe even my life. I just know it. I owe Firion for that – haven't found a way to repay him yet, though.

Cloud left me alone after that, and I did my best to stay out of his way. Wasn't hard when we were sitting down in a tiny cafe off the corner of Sanctuary Street with our van parked outside. Was hard when every time I accidentally met his gaze he tried to Medusa me into stone.

That was when the informant showed up. I had been excepting a ratty figure. Literally ratty, you know the kind – hunched inward, wild beady eyes darting about, nose always quivering in search of either a tasty morsel or a dangerous trap, teeth always chattering. A typical rat. So yeah, I wasn't expecting this guy when I saw him.

He was a wiry sort, much thinner than many street guys I'd seen, only because he was solid muscle glued to bone. He still had a boyish sort of face, but the way those frosty blue orbs stared at you, you'd swear you were going toe-to-toe with a mountain lion. He stood with his back straight and his head up – not fearless or reckless, but always wary for trouble and confident that he was ready to handle it. He wore a biker's jacket over his frame – a jacket that looked to be a little big for him – and peeking from under the additional space was what I recognized to be a gun.

Cloud did not even acknowledge him. He just slipped a little to the left and let him sit down. Next to him.

"Boys," Cloud spoke then, "this is Squall."

That was how we met him. No one shook hands, and immediately we went straight to business.

It was our first time running with the big boys, and so Cloud insisted that we pay absolute attention to what his informant had to say. The guy was good – really good. He did not just tell us that he had found a mole in our system – he told us who the mole was, where he would be that night, and how best we could engage. He had everything worked out for us. He gave us no excuse to fail. He was a miracle.

He was also giving me weird, weird vibes throughout the debriefing. Not in the bad way, but it was still weird. I figured it was because he was so close to Cloud, in a spot where no one else would be allowed. Not even the boss, and Cloud really respected the boss. But here was this guy, completely comfortable in his seat next to a man who hated everyone, ignoring him on most part. And Cloud let him, lounging back against the plush seat that smelled of mothballs and cardboard, one hand nursing a cup of coffee while the other stretched across the length of headrest behind the informant's head.

It was weird to see Cloud act like this.

Firion didn't think so.

Then Cloud wanted to speak with the informant in private about something or other. That left me alone with Firion to talk a little more freely.

"Are they brothers or something?"

Firion snorted. "Do they look like brothers to you?"

"Maybe one of them is adopted."

"Maybe, but they're not brothers," Firion answered. "They're colleagues. They're a team. They've always been since I was a rookie myself."

"So you know this guy?"

He shrugged. "Enough to know I should keep my questions and judgment to myself."

Tight lips. This was getting interesting.

"So how old is this guy, anyway? Cloud's twenty-three, right? So that could make him … I don't know, twenty-five? Twenty-six?"

"Seventeen."

I turned to find Cloud standing over me, his expression far from amused and just a little off from wanting to kill me.

"He's seventeen," Cloud repeated icily. "Now get up. We're working."

I hustled to follow him out the door. I didn't notice until much later that his informant was gone.

The job was simple enough: storm the area, find our guy, take him out with as much lead into his chest as possible. Cloud was the one who did the whole lead-into-chest thing anyway; we were just there to watch and learn or back him up. Whichever proved more useful to the situation.

"… did you know the guy's only seventeen?"

"No."

"A little young to be working the streets for rival gangs, don't you think?"

"I don't," Firion answered evenly. "Neither should you. Let it go."

A crackle on our radio. Cloud was speaking before we could even pick up.

"Boys, move," he snapped urgently. Cloud never did urgent. "Now."

We met him at the other end of the gangway. He never broke stride.

"The Chaos Remnants sent the mole as a decoy," he growled. "They knew."

That meant something had been compromised. That was never good.

A long drive, back toward Sanctuary Street. Cloud directed me to turn off at a warehouse. Then he got up, and then he went in. Alone. Firion sat back, his hands playing with his switchblade. From the look on his face, this was anything but a game.

Then I heard it – one thump. Another thump. Thumps raining down hard over and over and over. I heard strangled shouts, and then I heard a softer snarled curse. What sounded like a bone-shattering beating continued for several agonizingly long hours into the night.

Then a gunshot.

Then another.

Then nothing.

Five minutes later, Cloud returned holding something … no, someone. Firion opened the doors for him, and Cloud laid his informant down on the floor before stepping in after him. The kid was a mess of bruises and blood. A fresh wound had been dealt to his head, forming an impressive looking line of red between his eyes. He seemed unconscious, his breath harsh and shallow.

"Drive."

I didn't ask where. I just knew.

For the first time in my life – I swear, I know it – I shut up. I stopped talking. I let Firion focus on patching the kid up. All throughout, Cloud was silent. He was too busy holding his hand.

We dropped them both off at Cloud's place, and that was the last I saw of him – either him – for many weeks.

News reports came in the morning about what the police had found. There was hardly anything left, but with what they could, the police managed somehow to identify the dismembered, thoroughly mutilated corpse as that of Kuja, one of the high-ups for the Chaos Remnants that the kid had been tattling on.

"They knew."

And so they took it out on the kid who ratted them out.

And Cloud who hated everyone paid them back in full, plus interest.

I had always known the blond was a dangerous guy, but never before had I considered him willing to make someone suffer ten ways of hell for any reason. I never considered that he might actually have a reason. For those tense, silent weeks following, I had wondered if that reason was lost.

And then, one fine day in the same cafe on Sanctuary Street, when I found Cloud sitting at his usual seat near the back and a kid with a scar on his face showed up to join him, I stopped wondering.

Cloud was a loner. Big time. Squall was all he wanted by his side.

Too bad for everyone else.