A/N: I thought this up with a friend about a month or so ago...and due to the heavy load of angst that's on this site (don't get me wrong, I love angst, but laughter is cool, yanno?), I thought I'd write something happy and humorous with Cloud and Leon. This is dedicated to the beautifully wondrous Static Lull, who's Noein ficlet is one of the best things I've ever had the pleasure to read. And yeah, that was some straight-out pimpin' for Spaffy.
A Glitch in the System
[Cloud/Leon]
There are those who would question the attachment of one person to another. There are many people that she could list by name who were perfectly happy being single, despite them being in the prime of their youth (otherwise known as fresh out of college), relatively good-looking, financially sound, and without any major personality defects. There are even people who even live out their entire existence without becoming romantically super-glued to their significant other, and really, that other human wasn't as significant as one might think; in the grand scheme of things, they were naught but bundles of skin and bones.
Cloud paused in his devouring of his second pint of ice cream (third, actually, but when she had remarked on this, he'd snarled at her) and said kindly, "Aerith, you're full of shit."
Aerith favored the blonde with an understanding smile usually given to rambling senior citizens and the mentally unstable. "Look, Cloud, I can understand you're upset, but—"
"Who's upset?" Cloud sneered, gesticulating wildly and upending a few scoops of Dulce de Leche on her dress. "Maybe you are, but I'm not. I'm just peachy." He shoved another spoonful into his mouth, chewing vehemently. "Peachy, dammit, I'm so fucking peachy I could double as a frigging peach factory." He then proceeded to nestle further back into the fort of pillows he'd constructed an hour prior and gave a loud, angry sigh.
Bitch, please, thought Aerith as she primly wiped the ice cream off of her lap. "Cloud, I know you're taking this break-up hard, but—" here, she paused to pat his shoulder and counted the seconds that she'd need to look concerned so that he'd think she was sincere. Cloud gave her a look that said he'd like nothing better than to drop-kick her out the front door. "Honey, there are other fish in the sea." she stressed, kneading his shoulders with her fingers.
Cloud stared at her. "…Could you go be heterosexual somewhere else? Please?"
The two spent a few minutes having a staring contest, fueled by the desire to shove the foul creature back to whatever hole it had crawled out from. As only good friends can do, they entertained the thought of killing the other person just to shut them up, but didn't act on it—at least, Aerith didn't, if only because she genuinely loved Cloud and made herself remember the "good ol' days" of their childhood, where they'd spent every day laughing themselves sick and smiling.
(This, of course, is the result of several aspirins taken to relieve the walking, talking headache that is Cloud Strife. Aerith had no happy memories of Cloud because he spent the majority of them being sullen and pretending to be apathetic. Not too different from the how he was now, actually.)
Cloud beat down the desire to maim her beyond recognition (that would leave stains all over the couch, and he'd only just bought it) and attempted to amend his former reply. "Sorry, that was rude. What I mean to say is, get out of my house. Please and thank you." He smiled and settled back into his cushions.
From the kitchen, a watch beeped.
"Time's up!" Yuffie cawed, striding into the living room. She planted a hand on a bony hip and smirked at the brunette. "Aer, baby, you're gettin' old. The Cloudster here has been wrecked by your crap 'words of wisdom', and as a result, wants nothing to do with you. Shame, shame." She sashayed her way over to the couch and hip-checked the other girl out of the way, planting her own behind down. "Now, C-man, let's talk relationships!"
The blonde man fidgeted and wished that he had the ability to fall through the floor by the sheer force of will. "No."
"ANYWAYS," Yuffie said loudly, "There are the basic facts; number one being that Leon has dumped your emo ass for something nicer. You can't compete and so, what do you do now?"
Cloud wasn't going to answer, but Yuffie gave him an expectant look so he said reluctantly, "Cry and eat ice cream? Cyber-stalk him?"
Yuffie snorted. "Be a man, Strife. Yeah, I guess you could say there are men who cry and stuff their faces with Haagen-Dazs after break-ups, but those men are called pussies. Are you a pussy, Cloud?"
"Yes."
"FUCK NO!" Yuffie roared, leaping on top of the chair. She teetered to the side slightly and Aerith caught her elbow, rendering her physically (if not mentally) stable. "You are a man's man! You must fight the good fight, Cloudster, and get back at the slimy bastard who done stole your man! Strangle him, smother him, it's all good—I'll even help you hide the evidence for a tiny fee—"
"—Like hell you will." Tifa interjected smoothly, practically waltzing in from the kitchen, cell phone placed to her ear. She muttered something to the person on the other line and then called to Cloud, "I will sell both of you out if I see any missing person ads in the paper, do you hear me?"
"Snitch!" Yuffie hissed, settling herself back down. "Don't worry about her; I can take care of her. See, what we need to do is—"
"Yuffie!" Tifa barked from the kitchen's doorway, the younger girl's bag in her hand.
"What?"
"Don't you have a date with Kairi? Like right now?"
Yuffie blinked. "…Shit." She hopped up from the chair and seized her satchel from Tifa's grip and said, "Well, blondie, the best I can advice I can give you is to get over it, and soon. Or, yanno, kill Leon and his squeeze, but I totally can't bail you out of jail if you do so. Kairi's been costing me a fortune." She pulled on her sneakers and waved, fairly whirling out of the door.
Aerith gave Cloud a warm smile. "Now, Cloud, I think that you ought to—" Her phone vibrated, and she flipped it open, scanned the screen and continued with, "Got to go, sorry about the break-up; I know you really liked him," before she too, rushed out of the apartment.
Cloud stared woefully at Tifa, the last of his so-called "friends" left in the room.
Tifa shrugged. "I have a date with Reno."
Cloud leaned forward, blue eyes widened and tearful.
"No, you can't come with me."
[--]
It had all started when Leon began coming home late and tired—not that the man had ever been energetic—and cranky, muttering under his breath about how he wanted to kill everyone who breathed irregularly. He had never snapped at Cloud but instead had grunted and blinked at him over his usual glance of Hello, I missed you and I love you that only Cloud could decipher. The blonde had given him his concerned dose of three blinks in rapid succession, meaning You're acting weird, what's up but Leon had ignored all eye movement in favor of collapsing on the bed.
And then, there was the talking. He wouldn't have minded, but it was all about work (Leon managed a cleaning business) and some errant employee who didn't dust properly. Leon would stab at his pancakes before muttering darkly, "Riku" and puncture everything in vicinity with his fork. There had even been one time when, after a long day's work, Leon had come home, howled, "RIKU!" and absolutely destroyed the vase that Cloud's Great Aunt Maleficent had given them last Christmas. Thankfully, this could be easily explained away by the mischievous cat that they didn't own (a large part due to that Cloud was an excellent liar and Great Aunt Maleficent was 95 percent blind), but he'd begun to get a bit worried. He leafed through one of Aerith's mushy, let's-talk-about-our-feelings books and started approaching his boyfriend with questions like, "Do you want to talk about it? Is everything alright?"
But the worst was not yet to come.
On March 28th, at precisely six hours, twenty-five minutes, and eleven seconds, Leon Leonhart looked Cloud Strife straight in the eye and said solemnly, "…I'm leaving for a cleaning convention for three weeks."
He choked. "What? When?"
"…Now?"
That settles it, Cloud had later sobbed into the phone to a patient Tifa, Leon must have a mistress!
"He's gay, Cloud, he has a mister, not a mistress." Tifa said lazily. She was currently having her back massaged by her compliant slave (read: boyfriend) and was not given to ridiculous conclusions.
"He's cheating on me!"
"I would too, if I was dating you."
"A cleaning convention, Tifa! I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist!"
"Probably not."
"What am I going to do?"
"…Cry about it?"
And so began Cloud's hourly sobbing jags and pillow-hugging, only interrupted by the barging-in of the Devilish Three (a nickname for the unfortunate combination of Yuffie, Aerith, and Tifa; he'd come up with it himself and felt quite proud) and the occasional phone call from The Family.
Speaking of which, he rolled over on his couch and pressed the button on the answering machine. His reward was Sora's cheery voice chirping, "Hi, Cloud! Heard from the girls that you were feeling down, so I decided to call! I just wanted to say that even though Leon came up with a totally lame excuse to not date you, there a plenty of eligible bachelors in the city, so don't worry, 'kay? In fact, I know this one guy named—nggh, Tidus, stop, I'm on the phone!—um, anyways, he's this really nice guy and I—stoppit! Go sit over there, you're distracting me!—really think you guys would…..oh my god. Sorry, Cloud, gotta go."
The next was from Roxas, who's voice breezed into his tiny living room with, "Hey, Cloud, Axel says hi. Heard Leonhart dumped you, whatever. You'll get over it, you were tons better than him anyways. Tons, okay? Here, Axel wants to talk." And then Roxas's irritable boyfriend filled the room with his even more irritating voice, saying, "Hey, C-man! Dude, I know a place where you can go, if you know what I mean. Dem told me about this place where all these guys wear are bow ties and knee socks, their bodies are totally—uh, I should stop talking, right? Right. Because I love Roxas and would never remark on the body parts of other men. He is much better than the stinking hos at Seventh Heaven. The end."
There was a garbled message from his mother that he didn't even attempt to figure out and then he sighed, pushing the erase button with an index finger.
Life sucked.
[--]
On day five of Leon Dumped Me and I Spend Twenty Two Hours Crying and Binge Eating-week, Cloud went for a walk. The streets were alive with his friends and their boyfriends slash girlfriends, ambling about and looking disgustingly happy. There was Yuffie sitting with Kairi over by the fountain, feeding her frozen yogurt. Tifa was bossing Reno into buying her a new purse, and Aerith and Zack were over by the pet store, admiring the new "Couple's Sale" on the puppies. Wakka and Lulu, joined by Rikku and Paine, were sucking face by the library. Even Larxene and Marluxia looked content, instead of vaguely homicidal.
He ran screaming all the way back to his apartment.
[--]
Day twelve was met with a phone call from Sora, who invited him over for "Twister Night" with him, Tidus, Roxas and Axel. "I'll make brownies." He coaxed.
Cloud said a great deal of words that cannot be printed legally or understood by the general masses and slammed down the phone.
[--]
On day eighteen, Cloud was beginning to address his toaster as his "new boy toy".
When Aerith came to visit with Tifa and Yuffie, he fingered the plug lovingly before cooing, "Me and Frederick are just fine together, aren't we, Freddie?" He batted his eyes at the silver toaster before planting a kiss on the plastic handle.
"That's fucking gross." Yuffie said calmly, staring at him.
He glowered. "Don't be rude. Freddie has feelings, too."
"He's an appliance, Cloud." Tifa said desperately. "Used for making bread warm!"
Cloud winked. "I know. Between you and me, Tif, sometimes he's just too hot to handle! Isn't that right, you bad boy?" He smacked the toaster lightly and giggled.
Aerith felt a very strong desire to run, run and never look back.
"Leon's coming back." Yuffie interjected, leaning forward. "Whaddya think of that?"
Freddie the Toaster dropped to the floor, where he broke into pieces. No one noticed.
"What?" whispered Cloud, looking slightly saner. "What?"
"In three days, duh. And let me tell you, he's not gonna be happy to see that he's been replaced by something that doesn't even have a brain."
"Leon replaced me with Riku. Some under-aged little boy who probably has acne and didn't pass Pre-Calculus!" Ignoring the mutterings of the Devilish Three (Cloud, you didn't pass it either, and what're you calling those zits on your forehead? Beauty marks?), he pointed dramatically towards the door. "Out!"
The Devilish Three got out, and Cloud stepped over the remains of the toaster. Who needed Leon? He had Freddie! Well, no, not anymore, but he had…Helga! His refrigerator, which always contained the things that made him smile (ice cream, lemonade, and turkey). Helga would be a far better partner than Leon.
And then he noticed that Helga sported a magnet featuring the Traitorous Ho and himself, smiling cheerily. He ripped off the magnet and tossed it into the trash. "Skank," he sneered.
[--]
Day 21. Or D-Day, as Cloud had so cleverly nicknamed it—although he had a feeling that it wasn't as original as it could be. He had barricaded the door to prevent the Devilish Three from intruding (if tossing a couple of textbooks and Tupperware containers in front of the door counted as a barricade, and he wasn't entirely sure that it did), and had cranked up his stereo so that he could hear Jack Off Jill in any portion of the rooms. It was due to this variety of moany goth-rawk that he didn't hear the doorbell or the jiggling of the doorknob as it opened.
While Cloud twitched around the room groaning the lyrics to the couch, Leon stood in the doorway, clutching a t-shirt that read "CLEANING EXPO '09" and a small figure of a mop. He stared at his boyfriend for a few moments and then asked lovingly, "What the hell are you doing?"
Cloud paused in his manic dancing and gasped, "You."
"Yes, me," agreed Leon, tossing the shirt on the floor. "Were you expecting someone else?"
"I dunno, but maybe…maybe I was expecting someone else." Cloud said viciously, stabbing at the air with his outstretched finger. "Maybe a non-cheating boyfriend? Eh? Maybe someone who doesn't leave for three weeks for a cleaning expedition?"
Leon shrugged and held out the figurine. "Brought you a mop."
"I DON'T WANT A FUCKING MOP!"
"It's a nice mop." Leon replied, feeling insulted. It was made out of platinum, with little suds glittering about it. "Riku made it."
Cloud sneered. "Oh, if precious Riku-wiku made it, then fine! FINE! I should accept someone's sloppy seconds with open arms!"
"What are you talking about?"
"You gave me a shitty excuse and left me for some knock-kneed piece of jail-bait with an overbite! Cleaning convention, my ass! Of course, you were hooking up with your precious Riku…probably necking in the closet, am I right?"
Pause.
Leon looked as if he was wrestling with the urge to smile, but he simply countered, "That's retarded" before crossing the space between them in a single stride and giving him a kiss.
[--]
Later that night (it being Couple's Night at the bar that Tifa worked at), Cloud and Leon joined their siblings, the Devilish Three, and their prospective counterparts for an evening of imbibing snacks and alcohol. Reno stood over by the counter, trying to bribe Tifa into passing him free cocktails while Roxas and Axel (aided by Sora and Tidus) performed a complicated looking tango/salsa/limbo dance on the floor. Leon's younger sister, Selphie, was doing a series of eye-inappropriate acts involving a small blonde girl's neck in the back of bar, while Yuffie and Kairi lounged at the counter, singing along to the jukebox and waving their shot glasses in the air. This was all capped off by the benevolent stare of Aerith and Zack, who probably felt all high-and-moral just because they weren't necking in public.
Cloud turned to Leon and said, "Didn't you say your half-brother was coming? Um…Kiru or Urik or something, right?"
Leon nodded and motioned towards the door. "He's over there. Hey, Riku!"
Cloud felt the urge to slam his boyfriend's head into the table top, but managed to resist, instead choosing to turn around. In had walked a tall, thinly-muscled boy who seemed to be both very stylish and very gay. He had his arm around a harried-looking boy with a paperback in hand and droopy hair that shimmered and caught on the lighting whenever he turned his head. Riku sat down next to Leon, pulled the boy close to him and said, "This is Zexion. Say hi, Zex."
"No." Zexion said petulantly. He opened his book and began to read.
Cloud felt the urge to slaughter Riku pass away and he reached across the table to shake his hand. "Hi, I'm Cloud, the boyfriend." Just, you know, in case he was getting any of those nasty incest ideas. Although that wasn't legal in Radiant Garden…or anywhere else.
Leon gave him a sideways glance and nudged his boyfriend's side. "Now, you've met Riku and can stop twitching every time I mention his name, okay? Besides, Yuffie told me that you'd taken up with someone named Freddie…?"
Cloud squawked.
A/N: I laughed to myself as I wrote this, and I'm proud of it. So, darlings, since you're already at the bottom, you might as well review, right? It's the Good Neighbor thing to do--haven't you ever seen Mister Rogers' Neighborhood? He had puppets! And trains! And fish, and the weird picture on the wall, and--er, but that's besides the point. Review, yes yes?