Disclaimers apply.

Post FFVII Compilation, KH2 and KH3D spoilers.

Because the world needs more friendship fics.

Strife Delivery Service

Cloud had made up his mind.

He was going to employ some help.

The core of his delivery service had moved to the western continent in recent years. The WRO had most of the postal routes covered on the eastern continent. Edge was quite close to Kalm anyway, and the Chocobo Farm could handle their own deliveries. Junon, Fort Condor, and any other small settlements that had sprung up spontaneously were being taken care of by the WRO. Reeve had not been kidding when he offered to help Cloud with his delivery service.

Thus, Cloud had moved to the western continent and set up shop at his Costa del Sol villa. It's not like he'd been using it for anything else, anyway.

The western continent was home to many old towns and cities and was therefore much more populated than its eastern neighbour - especially with the recent destruction of Midgar, which saw people leaving the eastern continent in droves, hoping to restart their lives in new lands. Needless to say, postal service was in great demand there, though delivery of any sort would take someone days across vast wildernesses where monsters and highwaymen lurked.

Which was why Cloud's delivery service was such a smash hit with the locals.

Whole towns were contracting him to deliver entire sacks of letters which sometimes took him across continents. He tried his best to do everything quickly, but the workload was getting too much for him to handle. It was getting harder to do his deliveries in a timely manner, and even though the senders were more than happy to wait as long as the mail eventually got to the receivers (any other delivery service on the continent had a more than 50% loss rate, apparently), it still bothered Cloud tremendously that he was holding on to so much important stuff.

So he manned up and admitted that he wasn't going to be able to do this alone.

The next weekend morning, he was out and about, pasting recruitment posters downtown. The weather was as sultry as it always was in the resort land, so he was in his usual beach wear - T-shirt, bermuda shorts, and slippers. It wasn't even noon, and he wanted to go back into hiding in his office already. He still had a few more posters to go, though, so he picked up his bucket of glue and turned to head in another direction.

It was then that he heard it.

"Aaah!" someone was shouting very loudly. "It's Cloud!"

Cloud snapped his head towards the direction of the voice. A red and black blur was bouncing towards him at such great speed, he was sure they were going to collide. Fortunately for the both of them, the red and black blur managed to stop in time.

The blur - a boy, now that he had stopped moving - scrutinised Cloud from head to toe. Then he broke into a wide grin and turned around to call out to someone from behind. "Riku! Riku! I found Cloud!"

Somewhere behind, another boy separated himself from the crowd that was milling in the Costa del Sol square and started heading this way. The both of them were teenagers, if Cloud could hazard a guess. The peppy one had brown hair and the one that was approaching had silver. Silver? Cloud narrowed his eyes cautiously, although he schooled his features soon after that. The boy's aura was completely different. Still too early to say whether they meant him harm or not, though.

Especially when they seemed to know his name and he didn't know theirs.

As if on que, the boy in front of him announced, "Oh yeah! I guess you technically don't know us, huh? My name's Sora! Nice to meet you!"

Cloud just stared at him.

The other boy had reached them by now, and he lifted a hand to bop the one who had introduced himself as Sora on the head. "Sorry, I think he got the wrong person," he gave the excuse without looking at Cloud in the eyes.

Cloud snorted to himself inside. How many blond-haired Clouds were there in this world? They knew him all right, but they also knew that he didn't know them. Although, something stirred in the recesses of his heart when he looked at the one called Sora. Even though he was sure he'd never met him before, something about him just seemed so familiar.

The other boy, the one Sora had called Riku, was staring at the posters Cloud had in his hands. Something flashed in his eyes and he finally looked up to face Cloud. "Are you hiring?"

Cloud glanced at his recruitment posters, then back at the two boys. "You boys interested?"

The boys exchanged a look that seemed all too happy. It was, of course, Sora who replied, "You bet we are!"

"Follow me, then," Cloud beckoned with a slight tilt of his head. Might as well get them into the house so that he could question them further about how they knew his name. Besides, the sun was killing him.

The villa was a short walk from the main square. He ushered the boys into the sitting room where he usually entertained clients and told them to wait for a bit. He went into the adjacent washroom to clean out the bucket, then down into the basement to put the extra posters away. Satisfied that that was all for now, he returned to the ground floor, meaning to finally talk to the boys.

As he rounded the corridor and moved towards the door to the living room, he could hear them talking among themselves with his enhanced hearing. Apparently, they were talking about him. He slowed down slightly.

"...so it seems like he doesn't remember you or Hollow Bastion. Their memories are probably reset when they return to their original worlds."

"It doesn't make sense. Why aren't our memories reset when we return to our original world?"

"Keybearers are supposed to traverse worlds, Sora. Might be a problem if we end up forgetting everything upon returning."

"Okay, then... why are their memories reset?"

"I'm not sure... maybe... to protect them? After all... not all of them come from worlds familiar with the kind of battles we had to face..."

"Oh..."

Cloud blinked and shook his head. That was not a conversation between a couple of normal teenagers. Who were these people? He deliberately made his footsteps heavier to inform them of his approach. As he had expected, they immediately stopped conversing.

Opening the door, he gave them each a brief glance over. "Sorry for the wait," he said, settling himself down in the couch opposite the one they had taken. "I'm Cloud Strife. I run a delivery business and I need some help at the moment, as you already know. You boys think you're up to it?"

"Course we do!" Sora leapt onto his feet and thumped a fist on his chest. "We can start right away! What do you need us to do?"

"Slow down," said Cloud. The enthusiasm of the boy was tiring him before they had even started on anything. "First I'll need to know your names, ages, and if you've gotten your parents' permissions to take up part-time work."

That cause them both to stop and stare, first at Cloud, then at each other.

Eventually, it was the taller boy who answered. "This is Sora, he's 15," he waved at his brown-haired friend, who was now back in his seat, "and I'm Riku, 16. We, umm... our parents aren't... in this world..."

Cloud had to stop himself from twitching. Orphans? He decided not to press. "Sorry I had to ask, but it's just standard procedure, you know," he paused for a moment to compose his voice. "All right, let's get you guys briefed then."

"So that means we're hired?!" Sora literally brightened.

"You don't want to be?"

"No! I mean yes, we want to help, I mean..."

"Sora," Cloud sighed, not noticing that the boy brightened even further when he heard him say his name, "just shut up for a while and listen to me."

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see Sora grinning wider instead of taking offence. "Okay!" Sora sang, and Riku was smiling beside him.

Cloud proceeded to go through the basics of his delivery service with them. There were no major deliveries in the foreseeable future, so they were going to be going around the Corel area for the next few days. He wasn't going to ask them to go too far, though, just within Costa del Sol for now. He needed to keep them close by so he could figure out who they really were, anyway.

Cloud concluded the briefing by asking, "You know your way around this town, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Sora, ever the social boy, quickly answered. "We've been here for a few days."

"Sora..." Riku groaned.

"What do you mean?" Cloud pounced on that gaffe. "You're not from around here?"

"Umm..." Sora scratched his nose. "No... But we've been here for a while! We can figure out where the deliveries go! No problem!"

That wasn't really what Cloud was most concerned about. "Where are the both of you staying?"

Dead silence.

Cloud folded his arms across his chest and stared long and hard at the two sheepish boys in front of him. "Where are the both of you staying?" he asked again.

Sora was cowed, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Riku stomped on his foot. "We don't have enough for an apartment yet. That's why we're looking for jobs," he hastily blurted.

Cloud was unconvinced. So, two orphan boys wandering around without a place to stay, looking for odd jobs. "I do not employ delinquents," he said in a gruff voice, and he saw that Sora visibly deflated, disturbing as the image was, "so you'll be staying in this villa until you earn enough for an apartment. And I set the house rules while you're here. Deal or no deal?"

After a short pause of disbelief, he received his answer when Sora pounced on him for the bear hug of the century.

ooxxooxxoo

Over the next few days, Cloud sent the two boys on daily rounds in Costa del Sol while he covered the area outside the resort town. He also made them clean the villa in their free time, do the grocery shopping, wash the laundry, and basically anything that might qualify as work. When they first moved whatever little belongings they had into the room on the ground floor (Cloud had modified the basement so that he had his personal room there), Cloud managed to get Sora to spill that they had been roughing it out in a cave near the beach all this time.

Which made Cloud all the more glad - secretly, of course - that he offered them shelter on gut instinct.

He talked to the boys daily to get their reports on how their work was going, and of course, to find out what exactly was going on with them. So far, he wasn't finding anything of importance, except that they weren't dangerous at all and posed no harm to him, or anyone else for that matter.

To be honest, that was really the only thing he cared about knowing.

Sora was a bundle of energy from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed (sometimes forcibly). Cloud didn't question how, but the boy had managed to get his hands on a skateboard, which he was using to do the deliveries. In the mere few days he had been on the job, he was already charming the residents of the town. A few had dropped by after his working hours to offer him the odd candy bar or two, much to his delight. The villa, which had been one of the less frequented places of the sunny town, was now a tad livelier thanks to Sora and his magnetic personality.

On the other hand, Riku was a boy of few words who usually only spoke when spoken to, although all bets were off when there was something he was interested in. He wasn't as cold or distant as Cloud initially thought he was, though he was constantly pensive. He smiled very lightly in acknowledgement when smiled at and was reserved and subtle in his mannerisms (except when he was trying to hammer something into Sora's head), but never ignored or talked down to anyone. In fact, Cloud was surprised to observe that Riku was seemingly the less streetwise of the two.

Well, what was it they said about books and their covers?

In the end, the both of them were doing such a good job that Costa del Sol's several months backlog of deliveries were finished within the week. Cloud was impressed. The next round of deliveries was to and within the North Corel area, and he wasn't sure if he wanted them to tag along. If they didn't, though, there was nothing for them to do in Costa del Sol except housework. That might not keep them busy enough until more deliveries for Costa del Sol came in, and who knew what kind of trouble two energetic teenagers could create in his absence?

So he decided it was time for a staff meeting.

"Okay, so here's the thing," Cloud laid out a world map on the table and cut to the chase. "Costa del Sol's done for now. I'm moving on to North Corel next. Monsters still lurk the region, so it's dangerous. I can outrun them on my bike, but I'm not sure about you guys," he didn't want them to know that he did monster hunting as a sideline. Not yet. "So the obvious solution is to leave you guys in Costa del Sol for a week or two. You think you can keep the villa standing in one piece until my return?"

Sora, who had developed a rather horrified expression on his face halfway through Cloud's explanation, suddenly stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "Monsters!" he exclaimed. "We'll protect you from them, Cloud!"

Because he looked so serious about it, Cloud couldn't find the right words to say immediately.

"That must be what we're here for!" Sora turned to address Riku this time, oblivious to Cloud's growing astonishment. Riku slowly nodded.

"What are you talking about?" Cloud's astonishment had turned into bewilderment.

"Nothing!" Sora beamed. "We'll protect you from the monsters, Cloud! Don't worry!"

Cloud looked at Riku.

"I think he means he wants to go with you," Riku obligingly explained.

"Thank you," Cloud mumbled under his breath. He cleared his throat. "There will be no fighting with monsters. I can easily outrun them on my bike. Speed of delivery is usually more important than monster head count in this line of business, in case you haven't already figured that out."

"But you might still need help!" Sora insisted.

"With deliveries, not monsters."

"Oh, well, we can do that too!"

Cloud shook his head. "I won't have space on the bike for either of you after it's loaded."

"I have my skateboard!" Sora exclaimed. When he saw Cloud giving him the evil eye, he quickly added, "Or, or we can rent another bike! Please? I wanna come along!"

"You might as well let him," Riku interrupted, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "You know he's going to bug you until you say yes."

Cloud recalled the past week with Sora in the house, and decided that Riku was probably right. "What about you?" he asked Riku.

"Of course I'm coming along too."

"Right, why did I even bother to ask?" Cloud sighed. "Fine, you can all come along if," he raised his voice to stop Sora from entering his triumphant pose too soon, "if you can find your own transportation. We leave in two days."

After that, he collected the map and swept out of the room, leaving the boys to their own devices.

Well, at least he didn't have to worry about his villa being razed to the ground while he was gone.

Over the next two days, he watched in amusement as the boys scrambled all over town looking for something they could use as transport. Riku had dragged a slightly battered tractor and caravan into the side yard on the first day, and they were doing all they could to whip the vehicles into shape. All things considered, they were actually doing quite a good job. He briefly wondered why they hadn't just gone ahead and rented a buggy or a bike like Sora had initially suggested. Then it dawned on him that they were operating on a rather thin budget - all the gil they had earned from their work so far. For a while, he was slightly annoyed that they didn't just ask him for money. Technically, this was company affair, so they had every right to.

But then again, that was what he liked about the two boys too.

The day before their scheduled departure, Cloud was preparing dinner in the kitchen when he overheard the boys talking in the side yard.

"Okay! So the caravan's ready to roll, right?"

"Not yet, Sora. We still need to fix the tractor's engine."

"What?!" The sound of something falling unceremoniously on soil and grass. "I don't know a thing about engines! We never needed one for the raft!"

"Yes, the waves kind of just pushed us along, but this is different."

Cloud popped the marinated meat into the oven and sipped on a cup of coffee. So they had been drifting on a raft before they reached Costa del Sol? Must have been some adventure. Actually, how were they still alive?

"I don't suppose you have any gummi blocks handy... or something?"

Riku actually laughed a little. "Sorry Sora," he sounded amused all right. "Maybe we can check out the local garage for some spare engine parts. I think we just need to fix the ignition and the fuel tank."

"All of this would be so much easier if Cid was around..."

Cloud choked on his coffee. As he was hacking up a storm in the kitchen, Sora's head popped up from outside the window.

"Whoa, Cloud! You okay?" asked the boy with worry on his face.

Still coughing, Cloud held a hand up and nodded to indicate that he had the situation under control.

By this time, Riku's head had popped up as well. He didn't say anything, but his concern was palpable enough.

"I'm fine, boys," reassured Cloud, when he had recovered enough to give a hoarse reply. He straightened himself and walked over to the window. "Okay, I guess I'm officially curious," he admitted, trying to keep the reluctance out of his voice. "What on the planet have you two been up to in the side yard for the past two days?"

Sora and Riku looked at each other, then broke out into mischievous grins and knowing smiles. They both turned to look at Cloud at the same time, and the bubbly happiness they radiated was almost too much for Cloud to bear. "We're fixing up our caravan!" Sora stated the obvious. "Wanna see?"

Cloud knew that wasn't really a question, so he sighed inwardly and told them to wait for him.

Going to the side yard from the villa's main entrance was a bit of a bother. The fastest way was to jump out of the window, but the yard was actually one level below the ground floor. It wasn't that Cloud had any compunctions about that, but he knew the boys had pushed the caravan against the window side of the wall, so if he did jump out of the window, he might destroy the thing with the combined force of his weight and gravity alone. To get there on foot, Cloud had to exit the house, walk down the stairs, and then go further down a slope and turn right just before he reached the town exit.

When Cloud pushed open the brittle fence leading into the wildly overgrown side yard, he realised that this was the first time he was even stepping into this area. He looked down at it from the window all the time, making mental notes to get a gardener to fix some of the more dangerous looking plants, but never actually bothering to implement the plan. Ever since the boys laid claim to it, however, the garden was starting to look slightly better. They had to clear away quite a bit of overgrowth for a proper working space, after all.

After he had finished his brief analysis of the garden, Cloud turned his attention to the caravan proper. Sora was still standing on the roof, his arms akimbo and a bright smile on his face. So that was how they had reached the kitchen window, which was one floor above.

"Behold!" Sora announced, spreading his arms out in a flourish. "The caravan that will take us around this world!"

Cloud looked at the caravan, in all its reinforced steel glory, and had to admit that it did look rather travel worthy. The rusty parts he had spotted when they first pulled it into the garden had been replaced with shiny new parts. The gapping holes in the roof had been patched up with a few large pieces of canvas. It would hold up in a rainstorm.

The tractor, on the other hand, had seen better days. The boys had been cleaning it, since it wasn't crusted with mud anymore. The engine flap was open, and Riku was standing beside it, though he wasn't doing anything to it at the moment. There was a toolbox at his feet.

"The caravan's a good idea," Cloud remarked offhandedly. He had been turning down large item delivery requests all this time since they wouldn't fit on Fenrir or in any of its compartments, but if he had something like this... As soon as the idea came, he shook his head to dismiss it. He had already decided, when he started the business, to keep things as simple as possible, since he was a one man show. The boys would move on once they had earned enough. No point taking on more requests he wouldn't be able to continue fulfilling down the road, much as he hated to see the disappointment in people's eyes whenever he had to reject their requests.

Sora had leapt down from the roof of the caravan by now, landing very lightly on his feet. "We're almost done! We just need to fix the engine... or something."

The engine was old and charred. "Or something," Cloud agreed. He took a screwdriver from the toolbox and poked at the machine. The machine gave an indiscernible groan and squirted some black particles at him. "Hmm," Cloud tossed the screwdriver back into the toolbox, his eyes still on the engine. "I don't think even Cid can help you out with this one." Being that he was looking with great displeasure at the completely bungled engine, he failed to notice Sora's eyes growing comically wide. He continued, "I have a better idea."

"What better idea?" Riku asked, almost too quickly. When Cloud turned, he saw that the boy was looking at Sora with a warning glint in his eyes. Cloud recognised this look. It was Riku's trademark Sora-shut-up-or-you're-going-to-make-things-worse glare. He wondered why the boy was wearing it now. Deciding it was none of his business, Cloud shrugged and moved on to examine the caravan's attachment part. Then, he paced along the length of the caravan, under the inquisitive eyes of his two employees.

"All right," he finally said, turning around to face the boys. "Sora, go get the garage guy here. We have some modifications to do."

"Uh?"

"Just go get him."

"Uh... okay?" Sora scratched his head, but toddled off obediently.

Cloud caught Riku's eye and said, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

He walked around the corner to the attached backyard, where his own garage was, and pushed Fenrir out from its home into the side yard. Riku blinked in surprise upon seeing the vehicle, but said nothing. The boys had seen Cloud riding off on the bike a few times in the past week, so it wasn't exactly a novel sight. Still, Cloud could sense his curiosity.

"I was thinking we should ditch the tractor," Cloud explained, when everyone (including the local car guy Sora went to get) was assembled, "and just hook the caravan to my bike instead."

While Sora and Riku both gaped in surprise, the local car guy laughed and gave Cloud a pat on the back.

"Finally gonna cash in on all those favours I owe you, huh?" the man grinned.

"I intend to pay," Cloud said, sullenly.

"After all that you've done for the town, I think we can call it even," the man gave him another pat on the shoulder. "I've always wanted to tinker with that baby anyway... and I've got just the thing for this project. Hold on a sec. Sheesh, you could've just told me right from the start and saved me the extra trip, you know..." the man grumbled his way out good-naturedly.

"Cloud?" Sora asked, once the grumbling man was out of earshot. "Are we really going to hook the caravan to your bike?"

"You wanted to come along, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but..." Sora gulped. "What if it damaged your bike?"

Of course he would be worried about damaging someone else's property. Cloud sometimes wondered if the boy had a single opportunistic bone in him. He shrugged, saying, "Then you can pay me back by delivering more items for me, I guess."

This time, Cloud was fast enough to avoid the incoming glomp attack.

By the very next day, they were on the road as planned.

The car guy had installed a sidecar on Fenrir to give it enough stability to carry the weight of the caravan on the go - which was especially necessary when navigating sharp turns. He'd even done it so that the sword compartment in front wouldn't be hindered in any way. Not that Cloud needed the sword compartment for now, since he had locked all his swords together and was letting it sit snug in just one of the slots designed for his swords. The rest of the slots were stuffed full of delivery items. Necessity is the mother of invention, indeed.

As Cloud concentrated on speeding through the Corel wastelands as quickly as he could, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Sora - the self-nominated passenger of the newly attached sidecar (Cloud had forbade him, but was eventually no match for those puppy eyes) - was scanning the terrain with an uncharacteristically grave look on his face. It would appear the boy was taking his promise of "protecting" Cloud very, very seriously.

Somewhere deep inside Cloud's battle-hardened heart, something tickled.

Was this what it was like to have an annoying younger brother who still looked out for your back nevertheless? Cloud could get used to this. For now, however, he had to concentrate on getting them all in one piece to North Corel.

After Meteor, and after the WRO was founded, the town of North Corel had received a large subsidy for rebuilding their town, which they promptly put into good use. The old, rickety train tracks were torn down to make way for paved roads. Better rails were also installed along the asphalt roadways to facilitate heavy industry transportation. Mt. Corel was now a major trade route between the eastern and western parts of the west continent. The area was slowly but surely regaining its former glory before Shinra's interference.

The industrialisation had forced some of the more dangerous monsters off Mt. Corel into the wastelands. A few of them could be spotted lurking in the shadows of the craggy terrain, waiting for their chance to strike.

Soon, one of the braver monsters started running after the group. Cloud noted it with mild interest, but knew from experience it would not catch up with them at this speed.

Sora, however, had no such experience to draw from. He sat up straight in the sidecar and gripped the hood excitedly. "There's a monster coming after us!"

"Relax, it won't reach us!" Cloud shouted over the roar of the passing wind.

"Riku!" Sora shouted, completely ignoring Cloud.

From his side mirror, Cloud saw the older teen who had been at the visible edge of the caravan entrance disappear into the back. Then, streaks of neon laser lights veered across the barren land and slammed into the monster, rendering it incapacitated.

It took Cloud a short while to realise that Riku had probably activated one of the projectile machines the boys had installed on the side of the caravan. "Just in case enemy ships show up," was Sora's cheerful but cryptic reply when questioned.

The monster pack apparently took the downing of one of their own as a guantlet of challenge. More and more of them began trailing the caravan and its residents.

Fortunately, none of them were a match for Riku and his homing lasers.

Unfortunately, there was also another wave of monsters approaching Cloud's motorcycle from straight ahead.

"What the..." Cloud was surprised. He had never seen the monsters on the western continent behaving so aggressively before, and he had been plying his trade here for quite a while. He tried to gauge if he could navigate his bike and the caravan away from the incoming throng, but gut instincts told him it would be an exercise in futility.

He sighed inwardly, his thumb hovering over the button that would release the side compartment containing his sword. He really didn't wanted to scare the kids off his business so quickly - he was actually starting to enjoy their company - but it didn't seem like he had any other choice.

He had to pause, however, when Sora suddenly leapt onto his feet and stood on the sidecar with one foot on the seat and the other on the hood.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Cloud shouted, thinking mundanely to himself that had he been normal, he would most probably be having a heart attack right about now. "Sit down!"

Sora just grinned at him, and a giant key appeared in his hand in a bright flash of light.

"Don't take your eyes off the road, Cloud!" the boy urged, sounding way too chipper for a young boy facing a horde of ghastly creatures.

Cloud stopped gaping at Sora and looked ahead, just in time to avoid being decapitated by the aerial slash of a giant praying mantis-like monster. He spared the monster a brief glance as it lost its balance and tumbled away into the dust of the caravan. Beside him, Sora was using the giant key - the giant key, because it just had to be said twice - to whack mobs away from the motorcycle.

And the incomprehensible part was that he was doing a mighty fine job of it.

The monsters would burst into dark tendrils of energy when the giant key touched it. This lowered visibility, but Cloud's enhancements more than made up for that. He continued to deftly navigate Fenrir and the caravan (which Sora had christened Gummi) through the wave of monsters, until they finally broke through the pack and could see the distant mountains again.

Cloud looked at the side mirrors to check if the monsters had turned around and were coming after them or not. Some of them indeed were. His attention, however, was more on the figure standing on top of the caravan roof, back against him.

It was Riku. And he had a giant key too.

"Get 'em, Riku!" Sora, who had turned around and was now facing the caravan, cheered.

Riku glanced over his shoulder and smirked at his friend.

Then he disappeared, and all the remaining monsters vanished at once into a cloud of massive darkness that marked their obliteration.

When Riku suddenly appeared back on the caravan roof, Cloud stopped looking at the mirror and told himself to concentrate on the road ahead.

He was kind of surprised at how calm he was feeling inside.

Well, he reasoned with himself, wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've ever seen before.

The rest of the trip to North Corel was uneventful. The boys had either cleared out the whole area's worth of monsters, or the monsters had learnt their lesson. Cloud knew Barret was away on vacation with Marlene and Denzel. They were probably somewhere in Wutai at the moment, bothering Yuffie and being bothered in return. Whatever it was, he was glad he came at a time when the brash man wasn't around. He wasn't so sure how he was going to introduce his two new hired hands to him.

At North Corel, after he had driven into his usual motel and made sure everything was safe and secure, he got the boys to stand in a line and gave them both a long, hard look.

The boys, for their part, had apparently figured out that he was displeased with them (although it didn't seem like they knew why he was displeased), and were giving each other furtive, sheepish glances.

Noticing that they were attracting the attention of quite a lot of passers-by, Cloud decided that he could interrogate the two boys later. He sighed under his breath and gave each of them a firm hand chop on the head.

"Don't ever scare me like that again," he scolded. As he let that out, he could feel his tensed muscles finally relaxing in what must have been relief. He suddenly felt very old.

Sora looked astonished, as if he didn't really understand. Riku's face was poker, but if Cloud looked closely, he could see a very faint, knowing smile on it.

"Come on," Cloud instructed, gesturing towards the motel. "We've got mail to sort."

29 April 2013

AN: Sora and Riku in the eyes of post-FFVII Cloud. Random piece of fluff that has grown out of control. Shout out to Don'tClimbOnThat for putting the idea of Sora the delivery boy in my head. :)