A/N: Hello! Sorry I haven't been posting much these days, I've been mega busy with my original piece and I'm kinda getting obsessed with it. However, I read this poem by Lang Leav and I just had to get to a computer quick and write this little thing down. I hope you like. Enjoy Y'all. Xxx

Hireath: – (n.) A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past. (Origin: Welsh)

Disclaimer: All places and characters belong to Square Enix and/or Disney. No infringement intended, no profit made.

Time.

You were the one

I wanted most

To stay.

#

But time could not

Be kept at bay.

#

The more it goes,

The more it's gone,

The more it takes away.

#

- Lang Leav.

Hiraeth

Leon looked up and out towards the horizon and the slowly pinking sky. It was dusk and the warm breeze carried the first hints of chilly night; the first stars blinking to life underneath the fading sunlight. Behind him night had already risen and above him, the two worlds collided, indigo twilight clashing with burnished orange. The cliff top was quiet and lonesome, the rock beneath him warmed from the day's summer sun, the bluish grey of the granite turning dark and silvery.

Leon sighed, the tiny gush of wind escaping his lips in a small effortless rush and he felt his cheeks burn. Telling himself it was too much sun, he ignored the way the rest of his body burned with the same heat – the same fire. It was a longing, a type of homesickness that would never be quenched. How long had it been now? Two, three, no… nine years. Nine years!

The landscape around him shifted and slipped into shadow, the last sliver of brightened sun slipping below the horizon and took with it, another day. Another day on this world. Another day lost to his own.

The brunet clenched his jaw and thought about his friends. Would they even recognise him now, if he somehow found his way back to them? Was there even a way? Some days, Leon hardly recognised himself. Nine years of being Leon had erased all but the scars from the gunblader's identity. He had grown, he was a man. The parts of him that had made up that confused and lonely boy had dissolved – dissipated under the weight of the cosmos and the events that had unfolded. It was funny when Leon really stopped to think about it. All it had taken, for everything about him to be scrubbed away was time. Time and pressure.

Unbidden, memories of Rinoa, of Seifer, of Selphie and Irvine and Zell flickered through his mind, shapes of moments long supressed and with them, terrible, haunting feelings of longing and home. Some days, like today, the pain of knowing he would never see them again was just too much. The only thing time had not managed to erase, were those feelings.

In the glow of the fresh, pale moon, a shadow fell beside him. Elongated and warped from the difficult angle, the shadow rose and fell away over the lip of the cliff edge and a figure – warm and comforting came to stand at his side.

'Is it today already?' the shorter man asked cryptically, his deep baritone peeling softly into the quiet night.

Every year for nine long years Leon had held this vigil on this day of this month. Every year. It was only in the last five years that Cloud had joined him. The younger man had a lot to atone for, himself.

Stillness crept back over the cliff top and both men were quiet for a long time. Eventually, Leon spoke, his voice stiff and dry, his throat closed and awkward. 'It's funny,' he began, feeling no humour despite his words. 'The more time passes, the stronger it gets.' This small admission left him feeling weak and heavy, the weight of his lost world resting fully on his tired shoulders. 'I thought time was meant to make it easier.'

Leon knew time took a lot of things; Hyne fucking knew, it took most of everything. But this suffocating loss, this indescribable hiraeth felt as permanent as the rock beneath his feet and the blacking, bruised sky above him.

The younger man turned to him, raising a gloved hand to brush back the sable bangs that obscured his face and ran a leather clad knuckle along a soft cheek. 'Time does take everything,' he said, allowing the older man to turn his head to look at him, his cold slate eyes glassy. 'But you have to let it.'

Leon knew he wasn't ready. Chances were he never would be. The thought of letting go of those ghosts felt too much like giving up and that was one thing both Leon and Squall had never been very good at. So what was left? After time had taken the rest?

Leon lifted his hand and laced his fingers with Cloud's, pressing his lips to the palm of the man's hand before pulling the shorter man into a gentle hug. He pressed his body up against his other and felt a calming, reassuring coolness dampen his lament. Cloud had always had that effect on him.

The blond swordsman was the first to pull away, pressing a soft kiss to Leon's mouth, before looking up into grey eyes that had paled with the receding memories. 'Same time next year?' he asked, his tone light and the hint of a smile turning his lips.

Leon chuckled despite himself, and lowered his forehead to rest against his lover's.

'Yeah, let's go home.' He agreed, feeling like he'd finally had enough for one night.

Time was an obscure and unreliable thing. Some moments it passed by fleetingly and others it never ended. In the end, it took all with it, whether you wanted it to or not. There was nothing Leon or Squall could have done about the inevitability of that, and Cloud often wondered when the older man would stop trying. But for now, he was content to stand by his side and help him pass that time, until it came, and went.