"Have you found your Light yet?"
It was a cool morning in Radient Garden. It'd finally been restored to it's previous splendour, the heartless and nobodies had been defeated, and Kingdom Hearts had been locked once again. Sora, the young teen who had been the one to wield the Keyblade, stood at the very top of the stairs of the borough, sea-blue eyes fixed on a dark figure.
Cloud Strife stood at the borough, hands on the short, smooth stone wall in front of him. His unearthly blue eyes stared over the clear, purple rocky landscape underneath him until he looked over his shoulder at the teen standing behind him.
Almost artificial-blue eyes squinted as though it was painful to see in the direction of the teen, before they closed smoothly, golden eyelashes fluttering against smooth cheeks, and the eyes opened again; normal, impassive, emotionless.
"Why do you ask?" Cloud murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. He eyed the teen over his shoulder, who fidgeted slightly.
"Well," grinned Sora, scratching at his arm, "Radient Garden is all pretty again, Xemnas has been defeated, Sephiroth is dead, and yet," those large blue eyes stared at the older warrior, so full of heart and emotion; so different from the eyes staring back. "You're still alone."
The blonde man closed his eyes and turned his face away, leaning a little more against the stone wall in front of him. "I've found it," he whispered finally, blue eyes still closed.
"Really?" urged Sora, hurrying forward to the blonde's side, filled with a timorous wonderment, his hands gripped together. "Who is it?"
Cloud's eyes opened and he stared emotionlessly into the distance, almost seeming to ignore the teen beside him completely. It was none of his business. Even if the child had saved them. "No one special," the blonde whispered breathily, the side of his mouth twitching up in a coy smirk for a bare second.
"Do they know?"
The tiny glow of happiness melted from the blonde's face at those words. Replaced by cold, frigid, prickling indifference. Looking down at Sora, Cloud fixed the teen with an almost detesting expression- before that too disappeared under a cold façade.
"I don't like having light too close," Cloud stated. He didn't know why he was speaking on such a tender matter to Sora; the blonde supposed it was just the teen's natural talkativeness affecting him.
"Why?" the teen asked. Innocent curiosity.
Licking his lips slowly, the blonde warrior looked back to the horizon, blue eyes; far too sharp for such a person- eyed the rocks, the pebbles, the tiny cracks far, far in the distance. "Are you good at imagining things, Sora?" he whispered.
Even though the blonde was not looking at the boy, he could feel the wide, beaming smile that spread across the little brunette's face. "Oh, yes!" gushed Sora. "I'm really good at that!"
A small smile flickered across the blonde's face and Cloud nodded. "Good."
Raising a hand and looking at the teen once again, the blonde placed his hand over the boy's eyes and gently closed them, light, leather-clad touches dancing over the boy's cheeks before the warrior let his hand retreat.
Sora opened his mouth to ask what was going on, his eyes still closed, but Cloud cut the boy off, looking back to the horizon, his voice still soft and breathy, but seeming weighed down with something Sora couldn't identify.
"Imagine yourself in a dark place," Cloud murmured. "You're not sure if you're in a room, outdoors, or in a cave. It's too dark to see anything at all. You can't hear anything either." The blonde let out a quiet sigh. "You're alone. It's like that for a long, long time... You get used to it."
The teen let his mind wander, listening to the blonde's words; shadows painting themselves in his mind, Sora imagining himself in the exact conditions that Cloud described, his whole body relaxed. It was like Cloud was letting Sora absorb his situation; like the boy was watching a movie.
"I like to keep my Light –any Light– at arm's length," Cloud told the teen, eyes roaming the horizon, but seeing nothing. "I'll show you why."
With a slow breath, Sora felt shadows and darkness around him; cocooning him. It felt nice. Safe. "Okay..." he whispered.
"A lightbulb turns on."
Sora shrieked, flinging his arms in front of his face. Cloud didn't even flinch at the sudden sound; he'd expected it. The teen wrenched his watering eyes open, tears streaming down his face, rubbing at them violently with his gloves, staring at the blonde.
"That hurt," the boy croaked, eyes still watering as he rubbed at them, sniffing. The lightbulb had snapped on in his mind; quite a few metres away from what he could tell in the split-second that Sora could stand in it's blinding light, but, it hurt. So far away, but it hurt.
It was so bright.
"That is how you are to me."
Eyes snapping up, the boy stared, watery-eyed, at Cloud.
The blonde warrior ignored the boy's unwavering stare, but looked at Sora anyway. The boy noticed the slightly pained squint that he received, before the blonde closed his eyes and opened them again. Normal. As though nothing was wrong.
"That's how nearly everyone is to me," Cloud said, his voice quiet again, almost the same as when he was telling Sora what to imagine. "My Light isn't as bright- it's got a bit of darkness around it, but I like it that way. It hurts less."
Eyes now dry from tears, the teen stared openly at the blonde. "But, if you like your light like that, shouldn't you let it get closer?"
A wide, mocking grin spread across Cloud's face and he let out a quiet exhale of breath through his nose. His own little amused snort, if you will. "Close your eyes," he stated. After a second of hesitation, Sora did as he was told.
"You're back in the black place," the blonde said, eyes watching the boy for once as the teen imagined. "Everything is black: the lightbulb is gone." The boy let out a quiet sigh of relief. "There's a candle in the distance."
Sora's head tilted to the side, eyes closed, but a small smile spread across his face.
"It's a pinprick compared to the lightbub from before," Cloud told Sora. "It's pretty, isn't it?"
The boy nodded, his smile widening.
"The candle is gone." Sora's smile dropped, a small pout melting onto his plump face. "Now, it's in front of your nose."
Sora shrieked again, throwing his arms in front of his face, stumbling backwards and falling into a crumpled heap on the stone floor.
The boy pushed himself into a sitting position, tears streaming down his cheeks again, not making a move to wipe them away, staring up at the blonde man. "That hurt!" cried the boy. "It's so bright-- So hot-- It burnt me!"
"Exactly."
The brown-haired teen stared up at Cloud, blinking away his tears. The blonde man just stood there, leaning against the stone wall, an impassive expression on his face. Sora put the pieces together. The candle-- it was Cloud's Light.
"You don't want to tell your Light, because you think it'll hurt?" he asked.
Cloud's lips thinned. The boy had unwittingly called him a coward. "No. I know it will hurt."
The boy swallowed. "Burns usually heal, and when they do, the skin is stronger."
Cloud turned away. "I don't heal well."
Sora stared silently, still sitting on the ground, his cheeks wet with drying tears as the blonde warrior walked away, his thick-soled boots clunking on the stone as his belts and sword jingled- the man disappearing down the dark tunnel to the bailey.
"Get closer to the candle!" Sora cried desperately. "Please!"
Cloud was family. Family shouldn't be miserable.
It was in the early hours of the morning –the sun hadn't even come up–, when Leon awoke. The brunette lay on his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, his blanket thrown over his bottom-half, his stormy eyes staring up at the ceiling.
Why was he awake?
A scent danced past his nose kittenishly and the brunette frowned. It took a moment for him to distinguish the smell –it was so weak, so distilled, he could hardly tell what it was– but the moment he did, he pushed himself off the bed and frowned.
Smoke?
Rising to his feet and exiting his room, Leon wandered down the hallway to the kitchen, where the faint scent of smoke was coming from. What was burning?
The moment he entered the kitchen, he saw a what it was.
A single candle lay upturned, on it's side, on the table that lay in the centre of the kitchen. Somehow, the wick was still alight, and a pool of perfectly clear wax was slowly growing around it, becoming ever so slightly opaque at the edges.
Stormy eyes looked up at the sound of running water, and he saw Cloud standing by the sink, his back to the brunette- and the candle.
With a quiet click of his tongue, Leon alerted the other of his presence; the blonde doing nothing- the water simply continuing to run.
Advancing on the blonde's back, the brunette looked over Cloud's shoulder to see one of the warrior's hands was placed under the stream of water flowing from the tap. A red mark spanned across three of the man's fingers, almost as though someone had slashed at it with a taught piece of leather. Leon's stormy eyes flickered back to the candle, which burnt contentedly from the table.
Sighing gently, the brunette removed a mug from one of the cupboards, and shouldered the blonde gently to the side. Cloud simply moved away, ignoring the brunette as he filled the mug with water and turned the tap off.
Grabbing hold of the blonde's wrist, however, got a reaction from Cloud, and the blonde let out a sharp grunt of annoyance and tried to yank his hand away. Leon's grip only tightened and he gave the blonde a warning glare.
Giving the brunette a loathing, hateful glare of his own, Cloud reluctantly let Leon lower his burnt hand into the mug of water.
"Still water irritates the burn less than running water," Leon told him simply.
The brunette didn't really know why he said it. Probably just because the house was so quiet. The only sound was the two men's breathing and the sound of the occasional splutter or hiss from the candle.
With a grunt of what seemed to be very, very mild thanks, Cloud let out a quiet sigh when Leon let go of his wrist. Moving away from the blonde and toward the candle, the brunette eyed the swaying flame.
"You shouldn't play with fire, Strife," he said.
Blue eyes stared down at the submerged hand, and slowly closed. "I know," Cloud murmured. "I won't, next time."
Nodding, Leon licked the pads of his thumb and fore-finger and pinched the wick.
Just like that, the candle went out.
((END. This idea has been wafting in and out of my head for a while now, and I thought I'd write it up, even though I really don't have time. I write this rather quickly, actually. Lucky me. Enjoy.))