I have finally gotten the sequel up. My apologies to everyone. I burnt out, had major writer's bloc and am trying to juggle my AP classes, Honors classes, Lacrosse season, and kung-fu teaching. It's…difficult. lol. But, I am back and chapter 2 is already in the works. For anyone who hasn't read "The Wolf and The Lion," you don't' really have to, but it'll clear things up for you. Alright, enough of my babbling.

Disclaimer-I do not own any of FFVIII, FVII, FX or Kingdom Hearts, or anything else Square Enix or Disney for all intensive purposes. The games, their character, storylines, weapons and monsters all belong to their respective owners. So please don't' sue me and leave ma lone. Thanks.

Waiting for Cloud to show up was very boring. I thought he would have been a better tracker, but maybe not. He had given me an hour's worth of a head start. Though, by the sun's position the hour was up and it had been another hour, more or less. I didn't even hear or smell anything of Cloud which would, or should, come way before sight as I'd learned. Laying down I sighed, my senses still alert even as my mind wandered.

Something started to rustle behind me and I jumped up, ready for whatever was there. To my surprise, Cloud leaped out at me, hitting me full in the chest and pinning me to the ground as my breath flew out of me. Never underestimate the enemy. Rule number one, damnit. And never let your guard down was rule number two. I had obviously ignored both, and Cloud had taken full advantage of it. He knew I hadn't been paying attention.

He nuzzled me in the neck, biting gently before jumping off and grinning wolfishly at me. Which would have been hard not to do considering he was a wolf, as was I. With a growl I jumped at him, but he danced out of the way and took off. Damn, now I was chasing him. Bolting into the woods on his trail, I had to rely on my nose since any noise he was making was overshadowed by the noise I was making. Every so often I'd catch flashes of his golden fur before he disappeared into the green again. After a few more minutes, I got the distinct feeling that we were just going in circles.

This was all still new to me and I hadn't quite grasped the concept of watching, listening, and smelling the multitude of things to sense all at once. It was also weird seeing in only washed out colors. Yes, the answer to the question that everyone seemed to want to know. How do dogs see? In washed out colors, people.

Paused and panting I looked around, ears pricked up and listening for him. I didn't have to wait long though because he crashed into my side, sending me sprawling again. "You're not very good at this," he barked at me. Cloud padded over to me, barely winded.

"You just have more experience," I whined. Yes, it came out a whine. But the vocals of a wolf are a lot different than a human's. A wolf whine isn't the same thing as a human whine. And I'm not just trying to defend myself here. Cloud howled a laugh as I glared at him. While he was distracted in his laughing at me, I took advantage and pounced on him. Surprised, he struggled underneath me as I growled, "I believe I just won." Cloud started to change underneath me, and I changed above him. Fluid, effortless, and completely painless. Of course, the first change, and after he'd bitten me, had been worse than hell, as he'd promised. But the way I saw it, it was all worth it.

Cloud made a face at me, before grinning and saying, "Do you remember where our clothes are?" Wow, what a question. As if I could, or would, remember at this point. Shaking my head, I leaned down and kissed him hard on the mouth and he moaned, grabbing my bare sides tightly and pulling me closer to him.

"Damn it, I've been tracking you guys for hours, where the hell have you… Oh." I jerked away from Cloud and looked up to see who had come and interrupted us. This was the whole reason we ran into the forest so much; to avoid things like this. Cloud pushed himself up on his elbows as I slid off of him.

Raising an eyebrow he said, "Tifa." Though his tone was hard, his eye danced and his eyebrow arched invitingly. "Care to join us?" A smile spread across his face as Tifa's face changed from embarrassed to annoyed.

"No, not really," came her flippant reply. She looked from me to Cloud and back before saying, "Cid wants you both back now. Clothed, preferably." Tifa grimaced as Cloud jumped up with a laugh.

"Awww, don't worry Tifa. We'll be back and we won't wander around naked. I promise."

POV

Squall and I hadn't exactly gotten back as quickly as Cid might have wanted, but that was his problem. And Squall and I had had fun so it was all good. Even if Cid didn't think so. When we finally made it to Cid's room – we'd made a couple of short "stops" on the way – we saw that the door was open and everyone was lounging around on all of the open furniture. So me and Squall stood as Cid glared at us with his arms crossed over his chest.

"And what took you guys so long?" Tifa gave Cid a warning look and Yuffie giggled. Tidus looked absolutely clueless as he whispered something to Sora and Riku. Yuna smiled knowingly at me and Squall before putting a hand on Tidus' shoulder who still looked absolutely confused. I found it funny how everyone but Tidus seemed to have caught on to Squall and me. It wasn't as if we were extremely open about ourselves, but it was enough for someone who'd known us to realize what was going on behind the scenes. I guess Tidus was just…special.

I threw Cid an amused look, amazed that this kind of opportunity had actually come up. "Well if you really want to know Squall and I were – " Comprehension suddenly flooded Cid's face.

"Uh, never mind. Just, get here faster next time." I nudged Squall in the stomach and he grabbed my ass. I tried to hold back a laugh as Cid went into Army Commando mode.

His hands went to his hips, with his elbows bowed out as he stood as straight as possible. He chewed on his cigarette as one hand momentarily left his hip to agitatedly adjust his goggles. "Now that you're all here," he directed a glare in my direction specifically. As if Squall had not willingly stayed with me. If anything, I was the victim. "A couple f people have gone missing in town. One of whom, is a good friend of mine."

"Is it your lady friend?" Yuffie swooned to Cid, her eyes big and puppy-dog like. Cid threw a blue ceramic mug at her which shattered on the wall and put a dent in said wall. Smooth Cid, real smooth. "You could have just said "No," Yuffie whined slightly and started to pick up the remains of the mug.

As much as well enjoyed harassing the "old man" we didn't enjoy seeing him upset. And while he sometimes threw inanimate objects at us because he felt like it, I think he had actually wanted to hit Yuffie. Good thing was, her Great Ninja skills had actually been useful in helping her to duck the flying object.

"We were asked to look for them and I said yes." If it wasn't obvious before, it was obvious now that Cid's "lady friend" was missing. The town people had asked us to do random odd search jobs before because we were just cool like that. Oh fine, it was because we were kind of like, unofficial protectors of the town since we were the only one's who actually knew how to use something other than a pitchfork for self-defense. Strangely enough, Cid had let us fall into that position, albeit grudgingly. I'm not too sure about the whole story since it happened before I got here, but it was certainly something that I was going to find out about in the near future.

"The people's families are going to make sure that they are in fact missing tomorrow. And then the day after, we're gonna go looking if the people haven't turned up." Cid stood strong, but his face was creased with lines of worry. Whoever this woman was, she better be worth all this worry or I was going to have to have a talk with Cid. Which also meant that I had to talk to Yuffie. That girl seemed to find out everything about everyone sooner or later. Well, I guess sooner rather than later, but, let's not get into technicalities.

Everyone took Cid's ensuing silence to mean that the meeting was over. Yuffie left first with Tifa, followed by Riku and Sora, and then Tidus and Yuna. Stepping towards Cid, I put a hand on his shoulder. "Cid, don't worry so much… We'll find her." Cid turned to look at me to see if I was trying to joke with him. "Look, if you can give me and Squall something that smells like her, or the other people, we can find them." I smiled and Cid seemed to brighten and look less haggard. "You can count on us." I grinned at him, and for a moment Cid grinned back and became his old self again.

"Aright, now gi'out of my room before I kick you guys out." I was about to protest and give Cid a hard time but Squall pushed me out of his room.

As Squall closed the door I said, "What was that all about? He needs a good laugh. Or, at least be able to throw something at me."

Squall gave me a look that could peel paint off of walls. "Cloud, you are such…a naïve person sometimes." He shook his head as I gave him a push. "And an immature person, as well."

"Why do you say that?"

"Use your head," he poked me in the side of my head and I tried to bite his fingers. "How do you think I felt when you were missing? I wasn't eating or sleeping or anything." He paused, as if waiting for me to say something. Or maybe just waiting for everything to be absorbed into me head. "Cid is going to be the same way, and joking around with him isn't going to make it better."

He pushed the door to our room open. We shared a room now, having grown tired of switching back and forth. Squall's old room was vacant for whoever else might come by and decide to stay. "Reassuring him like you did at first was good." He ducked his head to look out the window. "And then when he told us to get out, we should just leave. Not make commentary." I scowled at him, even though he did have a point. I would be the same way if Squall disappeared. Thing was, the bad stuff seemed to happen to me most of the time.

"You understand?"

With a heavy sigh I said, "Yes, now please stop lecturing me." The scowl changed to a grin as Squall tugged off his jacket and then pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his muscled back to me. Although, revealed is kind of a term used to show discovery. And I was quite familiar with Squall's body. Every dip, curve and line it had to offer.

"It's night," he said looking at the darkened window. Well if that wasn't going off on a tangent, I don't know what is. "We should go to sleep." He put one booted foot up on the chair to unlace the boot, and followed with the other.

Cocking an eyebrow I said, "And when has the fact that it's nighttime ever affected anything we do?" Tilting my chair backwards and crossing my arms over my chest, I waited for an answer to my question.

"Well," he kicked his boots off into the corner of the room. "For one thing, tonight will probably be the last time we get a good night's sleep." Squall turned around to look at me. "After tomorrow we'll probably have to go and find these missing people and we'll be getting up early." He stopped talking there as if that answered everything. I must have been looking at him as if I were waiting for him to continue because he gave an exasperated sigh and said, "That means that we should get a good nights sleep now so we don't have to worry about it later."

So he did have a point, but really, what difference does it make? "I think I like you better when you don't make sense." I grinned at him.

"If I was all that logical, I wouldn't be in love with you." He rolled his eyes at me.

"That's not true," I protested and kicked my boots off at him. Squall ducked them easily.

"Yes it would. Because normally, guys don't fall in love with guys."

"And normal people don't turn into werewolves and howl at the moon."

"Touché," he said. "I think you've just proved that you do have a brain."

My mouth dropped open and I shouted, "Hey!" Squall however, seemed quite indifferent to my protests. So, I did the next best thing: I jumped at him.

He stepped to the side and grabbed my arm, pulling me into a bear hug. I felt his breath on my neck as his head dipped down and his lips touched my neck. One of his hands slipped under my shirt and rested on my abdomen, just above my pants. He pressed his teeth gently into my neck.

"Come on, let's go to bed."

POV

I was having a very interesting dream. I was sitting in a chair in the middle of nowhere and someone was pounding on my head. Except, it didn't hurt, but it made loud, echoing sounds in…wherever I was. Or maybe the echoing sounds were in my head. And then someone was pulling my eyelids open.

"Oh shit!" I leaped off the bed and saw a surprised looking Cloud staring at me.

His face became amused as he said, "And I though I was the only one who had nightmares." And then I realized what the banging was about. Someone was banging on the door. "If I'd known you were going to react like that, I would have opened the door." He flopped back onto the bed and stretched with a groan. "But since you're up, you can do it." He grinned at me with his tousled hair and the sheets down around his hips and I almost got back into bed with him.

Almost.

It took me a couple of seconds to locate a pair of boxers, but I pulled them on and went to the door. As I opened it, I had to duck away from a volley of Yuffie's fists which she was supposed to be directing at the door. Because the door wasn't there, she fell forward and toppled into me where we both ended up on the floor.

I looked up at her as she supported herself above me with her hands on either side of my head. "Can I help you?"

Yuffie scrambled up and pouted at me. "If you would have just answered the door when I first knocked, Squall." She said it with particular malice but I couldn't help correcting her.

"Leon, Yuffie. It's Leon."

"What – ever, Leon." Someone had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. "One of the townspeople said that they saw some black shapes at the edge of the forest."

"Wait, you don't mean…Heartless do you?" Cloud appeared at my side, with boxers on thankfully. He had a tendency to forget his clothing and walk around naked when he first woke up.

Yuffie nodded. "That's exactly what I mean. Or, at least that's what Cid is telling us to view them as right now." The Ninja shrugged. "It could just have been some drunk guy, or a person with an over imaginative imagination. But Cid is upping things a bit." Now Yuffie grinned and I knew something bad was coming. "He wants you guys to go out and track them and get rid of them. If they even exist. Have fun!" She grinned and ran off down the hall, leaving me and Cloud to our fate.

"Well, isn't this a wonderful start to the morning?" Cloud's cheerful voice caused me to turn and look at him. Never had I seen him happy about taking on a mission. "What? I haven't ever had the opportunity to track something like this. You were easy to track." I glared at him and went to search for my clothes. "But only because I knew you," he amended. "And because there are only so many places you can go in the town."

I pulled out my white t-shirt and my black leather pants. "These guys were seen right on the edge of the forest, near town. You don't think they'll be easy to find?"

"No, but the difference is, the forest is a more…feral setting. I like it better."

And with that, he started to change into a wolf.

"Maybe the person who told us about this was drunk," I said, slicing at a tree branch with my Gunblade. The cut was clean and smooth, and the branch fell to the ground with a leafy thunk. Cloud barked at me, and I took it for agreement. I had been following him and he'd been following some kind of scent for a while now. It also didn't help that I had to lug around his Buster sword. His explanation was, in case he had to change back for some reason and needed. I think he just enjoyed seeing me sweat.

Suddenly, the golden wolf leaped forward and crashed through the bushes. I took off after him, hoping that he'd finally found something of the "Heartless" we were supposed to be finding. Following him I saw Cloud suddenly leap and pounce on something. A high pitched squealing filled the air and I wondered what the hell he had found.

Coming to his side, he picked up his head and showed me his prize. "A rabbit?" I snarled. "You made me run that distance for a stupid rabbit?" Cloud shook his head and jumped from foot to foot, causing the little creature to flop around in his mouth. "No, I don't want to share." He looked forlorn for a moment but then began to munch on the rabbit and quickly ate the whole thing.

"Let's go back home, I'm hungry too. We'll come back out later." Cloud nodded his wolf head and bounded to the forefront. He glanced back at me before continuing forward, much more slowly than before.

After we had been walking for a while, I suddenly noticed how quite the forest had gotten. Not that quiet, peaceful forest quiet with the soft chattering of birds and the sound of running water. This was utter, dead silence like everything had suddenly died. "Cloud…" I said softly. But he seemed to have picked up on it as well. He was standing stock still except for his ears and nose which were twitching.

Abruptly, he turned to his right with a snarl and leaped at…a shadow? No, not a shadow because he'd clamped his teeth around the neck of whatever it was and had pinned it to the ground. Then I noticed the familiar heart shaped design on its chest.

Heartless.

So the person had been right and not drunk or over imaginative. I pulled out my Gunblade as the Heartless Cloud had pinned to ground burst into smaller shadows and disappeared. Turning around, I heard a low growling and saw what looked like ten or fifteen pitch black wolves surrounding us. Except, the hearts on their chests instantly gave them up as Heartless. The creatures' lifeless white eyes looked like holes in their heads, while their yellowed teeth clicked and dripped saliva.

All at once, the circle of wolves leaped at us. Dropping to my left, I swung Gunblade in an arc to take out three wolves. Two of them burst into shadows, and one at the end was thrown backwards into a tree. The other wolves sailed over my ducked body and I slashed at their backs. Two more burst into shadows and one that I hit and didn't die emitted an unearthly howl. It then leaped at me with a savage snarl. I swung the sword up, straight in front of me and caught the Heartless wolf in its belly and chest.

Cloud slammed into one of the wolves coming at my right and I turned to the left. But I was too late and the wolf on my left sank its teeth into my thigh. With a yell, I slammed the hilt of the Gunblade into its head and it promptly let go. Flicking my wrist, the tip of my sword sliced open the wolf's head and that was the end of that.

I made a circle in place, surveying the area for any other Heartless that might be lurking around. Nothing moved except for Cloud who was changing into a human. Satisfied that nothing was gong to be leaping out at us again anytime soon, I looked down at my leg.

"Shit, what the, what the hell is that?" Black shadows were oozing out of my thigh like diseased blood and wrapping around it. A burning sensation started in the bite holes and started to work its way down my leg and then up to the rest of my body, causing it to seize up.

I must have fallen because Cloud had grabbed me under the arms. I couldn't see who it was, but it had to have been him since he was the only other person there. His voice was calling my name, but he sounded so far away. I hadn't even realized that I couldn't see anymore, either because my eyes were closed or because I'd been blinded. The only thing I was really conscious of was the constant burning that turned into sharp pains as it neared my chest. And then, on top of all that, it felt like I was slowly being crushed under a boulder. The amount of pain would have had even me screaming, had I had enough conscious control over my body to open my mouth and have been able to scream.

Amidst the pain, my mind feebly formed questions that I couldn't have answered even if my mind had been working properly.

Was I turning into a Heartless? Was my heart going to pop out of my chest and condemn me to eternal darkness?

And then as quickly as all this had started, the pain started to recede from sharp, crushing pains into a burning sensation, away from my chest and back down to my leg. Gradually, Cloud's voice became louder and my vision began to clear. "Squall, damn you, you better not die on me now." His arms were wrapped around my shoulders and he had my head to his chest, and his head was to mine. I knew he was listening to my heart; to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it had to have been otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see any of this. I looked down at the leg to see the last of the shadows slide out of the puncture wounds and disperse. Fresh blood began to drip from it. And it was red blood, to my immense relief.

"Cloud…" It didn't come out as strong as I had been hoping. My voice sounded more like a croak than anything else, and my throat closed up because it was suddenly so dry. I wasn't sure if he had heard me and was preparing to say his name again, but then he looked up at me, his blue eyes pained and full of worry.

"Oh my God, Squall. You're okay." His voice cracked and he held me even tighter. "I…I thought you were going to die, that you were going to be a Heartless."

I pushed myself up, slowly at first, but then with more authority as I realized that I wasn't going to collapse and I could support myself. "Cloud, I'm here, everything's fine now." That might have been a lie, since I certainly had no idea what the hell had just happened, or even what would happen. But Cloud's distress was more important to me now than what might happen.

I disentangled myself from his arms and wrapped my arms around him. In truth, I was very surprised to realize that Cloud was…crying. It had never struck me that Cloud would ever cry, that I was worth crying over, that he'd ever cry over me, for me.

Cloud buried his head in my chest as his body shuddered. "You were gone, Squall." The gravity of what had just happened hit me like a ton of bricks. What would have happened if I had died? Or become a Heartless? Or…whatever the hell that thing had done to me.

I came to the sudden conviction, as I kissed the top of Cloud's head and breathed in his scent with new meaning, that yes, I guess I was worth crying over.

And yes, Cloud could be my reason to cry too.

I hope you guys liked it. My beta is stupid and has had the story for over a week and still has not read it. So I proofread it myself. –ponders- I know Yuna isn't in Kingdom Hearts or Kingdom Hearts too, but I really like her and she plays a part in the story soooooooo… It's just like how some people make up their own characters. No bid deal I hope.

--Todpirscher