A/N: Hello again! Even though "Not Who We Used To Be" only concluded like...last week, I've already got a short story for you! A good portion of this was already written long before the last of the story was released, so I'm excited to finally be able to share it with everyone. And hopefully it's just the first of many. :)
If you haven't read my previous fics, welcome! But you'll almost certainly want to read "Missing the Sun" and "Not Who We Used To Be" first, or this fic will make very little sense.
As with "Not Who We Used To Be," this fic is a collaborative effort between myself, nerdforsale, and http : / / chaosxthemailman . tumblr . com / (who does not have an ffnet account). Thank you and enjoy!
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His lower half was over the edge, and Leon had only a moment of scrabbling, just long enough to see Isa frozen between himself and the giant Heartless that had sent Leon flying, before his upper body followed. He managed to catch his fingers around an uneven stone, just barely stopping his momentum before he could fall to his death. His gunblade wasn't so lucky; it tumbled end over end for a few seconds before clattering to the stone a hundred feet below. Leon's feet dangled in the open air. The section of floor he'd fallen from was more of an outcropping then a cliff. There was nothing to brace his feet on to push himself up. It was all he could do not to panic. He broke out in an instant cold sweat, barely keeping from hyperventilating. Leon tried to haul himself up, but he couldn't get enough leverage. He couldn't lift his weight with just his arms while barely clinging to the stone by his fingertips.
Oh god, there was no way he could save himself. His fingers were burning from holding his weight; he couldn't possibly pull himself up like this. It had only been a few seconds, but already his hands were starting to sweat badly. He wouldn't be able to hold on more than a minute, if that. But he could still hear the redhead calling for help; there was no way Isa would abandon him, trapped in the Heartless's clutches, to save Leon. No way.
He was going to die. Oh god, he was going to die. Leon clenched his eyes shut, feeling his fingers start to give. There was no way Isa could rescue the redhead before Leon fell. He wasn't coming for him. Leon was going to-
"Squall!"
Strong hands clamped onto Leon's forearms, yanking him up a bit. Leon gasped, his head snapping up; Isa was there, keeping him from falling, looking as frightened as Leon could ever remember seeing him. But...what? This didn't make any sense. Wasn't-?
Isa grabbed the back of Leon's jacket, hauling him back up onto solid ground. Leon ended up half-sprawled on the paving stones, gasping to catch his breath after that fright. He jerked his head up to look at his brother, to ask him- but Isa was already on his feet, lunging for the claymore that had been dropped where Isa had stood when Leon went over the cliff. Lea was still yelling, squirming to try and free himself from the Heartless' grasp. But as desperately as Isa ran, it was clear he wouldn't be in time; Leon watched in frozen fascination as the Heartless reared back, ready to dash the redhead against the groun-
A Fire spell slammed into the Heartless, and then suddenly a blitz of flashing metal had it on the defensive. It dropped the redhead in the face of Sora's' assault, needing both forelimbs to try and protect itself. But it was no use; the Heartless stood no chance against the Keybearer, and the fight was over nearly before it had begun.
Isa skidded to a stop beside where the redhead lay sprawled on the ground. He dropped a hand onto Lea's back, bending over him worriedly.
"Lea! Are you alright?"
The redhead grumbled to himself, digging his fingers into the ground at Isa's touch. He swatted the other's hand away and promptly stumbled to his feet. He spoke quickly, an unusual iciness in his voice.
"Just peachy."
Isa frowned guiltily. "Lea-"
Lea refused to make eye contact. Instead, he stalked off, waving his hand in dismissal.
"Lea!" Isa rose to his feet, reaching a hand out and making an abortive half-movement after the redhead. After a moment, he let his hand drop, frowning deeply.
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It wasn't long before Isa caught up with the redhead. He'd given him a little while to cool down, but Isa didn't want to let it go for too long. He found Lea sitting on a broken ledge looking off into the canyon, his back to Isa as the man approached. Isa stopped about ten feet behind the redhead, frowning deeply.
"...Lea, please be reasonable."
"Buzz off, Isa. I don't wanna hear it."
Lea kicked his feet against the rock beneath him, watching intently as a stone rolled down the cliff. After a moment of silence he turned his head, glaring at Isa.
"Well? Get lost," he spat. He eyed the other for all of two seconds before snapping back around, fixing his gaze on the landscape ahead of him.
Isa sighed. "Lea, please. I understand why you're angry, but-"
"I SAID GET LOST. I don't have anything to say to you."
Isa's frown shifted into a scowl then. "Lea, you cannot possibly be taking this personally. It isn't as if I deliberately abandoned you."
"Oh?" Lea picked himself up, turning slightly to Isa, fists clenched. "That's a good one, buddy. Then what happened back there if you weren't turnin' your back on me? Maybe I'm just blind, Isa. Please, enlighten me, since I'm just taking a life or death situation personally."
Isa's first instinct was to glance away from Lea's eyes, but he squashed that feeling down. He wasn't going to evade this.
"Lea, it wasn't a conscious decision. He was falling and I reacted. I was coming back for you."
"Nice to see I'm not your 'conscious' priority then. Do you really think that's makin' me feel any better? Sheesh, leave me to rot why don'tcha."
He shifted his glare to the ground.
"Not like it's anything new for you," he hissed under his breath.
Isa reeled back for a moment as if he'd been slapped. His mouth worked silently for a moment as he stared at the redhead.
"...Lea, how can you say that?" Isa stepped forward as his brain chugged back into gear, gesturing helplessly with one hand. "I left everything behind to help you! Do you even know what-" Isa cut himself off, scowling. He'd never spoken to Lea about what had happened between when Axel had faded and when Lea'd been restored, and he wasn't about to start now.
"I can say whatever the hell I want! Since you're apparently willing to toss everything out the window for just about anyone it seems! Don't I feel ~special~."
He opened his mouth to spit out more venom, but exhaled loudly instead. Fuming, he put his hand to the bridge of his nose, clenching his eyes closed in pain.
"Just leave me alone already."
Isa glared. "You cannot possibly stand there and tell me that if that had been Roxas, you wouldn't have done the exact same thing."
Lea's eyes flickered open. Isa went and lit the match.
"How DARE you bring up Roxas! How..." he stalked towards Isa.
"...how dare you bring up Roxas, when he's GONE. At least you have me! At least you have your family. I'm all out of people to just carelessly toss aside, unlike you! Do you feel like the bigger man now, Isa? What point are you trying to prove here, other than your complete insensitivity," Lea seethed, intent on holding Isa's stare. And Isa didn't look away. He matched Lea's glare with his own stern look, staying silent for a long moment.
"...knowing how it feels to lose a child, how can you expect me to have let Squall die?"
Lea stepped back.
"Go. Now."
Isa closed his eyes with a soft sigh. Then, he turned and walked away.
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"Why would he save me first? It doesn't make any sense."
Aerith frowned, setting a cup of tea in front of Leon before sitting down with her own.
"Because he loves you, Leon. He loves all of us."
Leon snorted, glancing off to the side and muttering. "Not as much as he loves that-..."
Aerith's frown turned into a scowl. "That's not true and you know it. Or at least you should."
"Isn't it?" Leon returned her scowl with one of his own. "He's always been...obsessed with him. And the minute that Nobody showed up, he ran off and abandoned us, didn't even pop by to tell us he was fine-"
"That's not fai-"
"It is fair! It's the tru-"
"No, it's not." Aerith was actively glaring at Leon now. "Squall, he was unconscious for three weeks because of that back wound. He couldn't come back. You'd know that if you actually asked him where he was instead of just picking fights!"
The words Leon was about to say died in his throat. He scowled, pacing a turn around the room for a moment, before turning back to Aerith, pointing at her.
"I tried to talk to him. He didn't want to talk."
Aerith just batted Leon's hand away from her face. "No, you attacked him the minute he walked in the door. How did you think he was going to react?"
"So you think it's fine, then! That he just- threw us away for that guy, even once he was gone-"
"Of course I don't think it's fine!" Aerith had shot to her own feet, her voice cracking. "Do you think it didn't hurt me, too, watching him fall apart? Knowing there was nothing I could do? I'm not saying he was right. But attacking him wasn't going to help things, Squall!"
Leon's eyes dropped to the floor and he gritted his teeth. "You don't understand-"
"What don't I understand?" Aerith demanded. "What it was like to be too wrapped up in how upset I was to see how badly hurt he was? He talked to me, Squall. He talked to me, because I actually listened and didn't judge him. I'm sure he would have talked to you, too, if you'd been willing to hear him." She frowned as Leon turned away, scowling. Aerith walked to his side, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"...it's not too late, you know. I know you were only trying to fix things. He does, too. You just...were going about it the wrong way." Leon scoffed softly, and Aerith frowned. "I'm serious. I can tell you how I think he felt all day, but it won't mean as much coming from me. Go talk to him. You haven't since he came back."
Leon just frowned. No...he guessed he hadn't.
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Leon found him in the study under the castle. The irony wasn't lost on him; the last time Leon had been here was the last time he'd tried to talk to Isa, before everything with Sora and Lea and everything had happened. And look how that went, said a little voice in Leon's head. You tried to help him and he threw you into a wall. It wasn't like-...
Isa was sitting at the desk; the cage that had held the Red Nocturne was still there, but the Heartless was gone. Well, naturally. He had a book in front of him, but Isa wasn't reading it. Instead, he was staring off into space with a light frown on his features, deep in thought. When Leon entered the room, though, he looked up. Isa said nothing, waiting for Leon to speak. Leon scowled.
"...why did you save me?"
Isa let out a deep sigh, one hand coming up to massage the bridge of his nose.
"...Squall. I cannot believe this is even a question. Have you lost that much faith in me, that you think I wouldn't?"
"What am I supposed to think." Leon scowled, leaning against the doorframe and not looking at the older man. "It's always Lea this, Lea that. You left us alone for months over that guy and he wasn't even around. So why would you choose to save me over him?" Despite himself, Leon's eyes snapped to Isa's face then, and he was shocked to find Isa looking directly at him, frowning sadly.
"...to be honest, I didn't think about it. I saw you go over the edge, and the next thing I knew I was there." Leon glanced away in discomfort. Isa stood, moving to stand in front of the brunette.
"Squall, all I've ever done is try to protect you and the girls. I would never stand by and let you die."
"You left us." Leon bit out, voice cracking.
"To keep you safe!" Isa scowled then. "Do you think I wanted to do that? I was nearly killed by the Organization; how could I bring that danger to your doorstep?"
"You let us think you were-"
"I sent Sora to tell you as soon as I was able."
"You could have come and told us yourself!" Leon snapped, darting a glare at Isa. But the older man just frowned.
"No, I couldn't have. Do you really think I didn't want to do that, as soon as I learned? Before then, even. I never wanted to leave in the first place. But the Organization was watching the house. If they knew how important you all were to me- how could I live with myself if they hurt you to get to me...?"
Leon looked away from Isa, giving a light scoff. But...he was having a hard time keeping his expression controlled. What Isa said...if it was true, then he really had been thinking of them. Maybe they hadn't been abandoned as readily as he'd thought. But it was hard to let go of his anger. So Leon just stayed silent, unable to look at Isa.
Isa sighed and started to move back to the desk. But before he could sit down, Leon's mouth opened.
"...were you...really planning to kill yourself?"
Isa stopped, hand halfway to the back of the chair. He stayed frozen for a long moment, saying nothing. Leon sucked in a breath; Isa couldn't lie to save his own life. The fact that he wasn't denying it-
"...why...?" The brunette's voice was strangled, barely able to get even that one word out.
Isa sat down slowly, resting his elbows on the desk. He interlaced his fingers, resting his forehead against his hands in silence. After a few moments, he let out a heavy breath through his nose.
"...I don't have an answer that would satisfy you. Anything I could tell you would only sound like an excuse."
"I don't care!" Leon exploded, taking an aggressive step towards the older man and throwing one of his arms out wide. "You owe us an answer! Why would you- how could you even-..."
Isa closed his eyes tight, face still resting against his hands. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet.
"...Can you really not understand...? You, who went so far as to change your name from the shame of losing our homeworld."
Squall flinched back.
"...can you not understand the shame of failing a second time...? Of watching your second chance to redeem yourself fade to nothing in your hands? Knowing that you live only by the sacrifice of that precious thing. Could you bear that so easily?"
That was not the answer Squall had been expecting to hear. He'd been expecting- that Isa couldn't live without Lea or-...or that he thought no one cared about him or-...or something! Squall didn't know. But not that. Not-...
Isa dropped his hands then, still not meeting Leon's eyes. "...yes...I almost made a terrible mistake. But Lea stopped me. That at least should be enough to make you hate him a little bit less."
Leon's hands balled into fists. He clenched his teeth, clenched his eyes shut tight.
"...do you even understand why I hate him...?" Isa looked up at the strangled sound of Leon's voice.
"He came around and...and suddenly everything was about him. Did...did you even think about how we felt...? Getting dropped like we were hot the minute he was back in the picture...?"
Isa frowned. "Squall-"
"You didn't want to live for us, but you would for him?" Squall snarled, raising his eyes to Isa's. Tears stood in his eyes. Silence filled the room, stretching between the two for what felt like hours. Then-
"...he was the one I'd failed." Isa almost whispered, his eyes on the desk. "...he was the only one who could offer me forgiveness."
That took Squall aback. It took him a moment to find his voice.
"...forgiveness? For what-?"
Isa closed his eyes, squeezing them shut. "...I led him into danger and he paid the price for my foolishness. All I could even try to do to redeem myself was to free his heart, but that...it wasn't enough." Isa paused, almost started to say something more than once before he continued. "It was- ...hard not to believe...that everyone would have been better off without me. You and the girls, too."
Squall just stared, betrayal in his eyes. "How could you even-... do you have any idea what that would do to us...?" Isa stayed silent, refusing to meet his eyes. Squall slammed a hand on the desk. "We need you! How could you even think of letting us down like that?"
Isa gave a single chuckle, then burst into an unpleasant laugh. He shook his head, resting his forehead in his hand as the laughter subsided. Then he gave Leon a bitter smirk.
"That is what I do, isn't it? Fail the people who matter to me."
Leon turned away in disgust, storming from the room.
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Leon returned to the house to find Sora sitting in the main room, along with Aerith and a boy with short silver hair that Leon was unfamiliar with. Good; there was something he wanted to ask the Keybearer. Ignoring Aerith and the strange boy, Leon made a beeline for Sora.
"What happened at that castle," he demanded. No beating around the bush.
Sora blinked. Not even a hello before Leon started questioning him. And about the happenings at the castle, of all things. He had thought Isa had filled them in, buuuut... apparently not.
" ... what specifically do you want to know?" Sora asked. "Kind of a lot happened, so unless you just want me to tell you everything," he shrugged, "I'm going to need something more specific than that."
"Everything," Leon demanded. "I don't even know what to start asking about, since the only thing we were told was that Axel got shot."
"... Oh. Well then." Well that only left a lot to tell. "That's actually pretty close to the beginning. We showed up and were almost immediately jumped by Nobodies. Then... I'm not sure. Xigbar shot Axel, or tried to shoot Isa and Axel got in the way. Something like that; I was preoccupied with the Nobodies and didn't see it happen." He scratched his neck, then glanced over at the strange boy. "Riku might be able to tell you. I think he might've seen it."
Sora decided to skip over his whole unpleasant meeting with Roxas; that wasn't going to be relevant to his interests, and really, Sora didn't remember it well enough to say anything. "Isa got mad and went after Xigbar- like, really, really mad. Madder than I think you guys have ever seen him. And he fell into the Darkness, a bit, so that wasn't making things better. We met up with Riku and Kairi, and went through some weird room with red headstones that were markers for the Organization." He hesitated for a moment and then continued.
"I fought one of the Organization, we ran into the King and Ansem... something happened that fixed Isa and Riku's whole Darkness thing." He shrugged. "Maleficent showed up, we left her to deal with some Heartless that showed up and fought our way to the top of the castle where we thoroughly beat Xemnas."
Leon's glance flicked to the silver-haired boy. So that was Riku.
"You saw it? Which was it? And what the hell is this about falling into Darkness?"
Riku, who had been watching Sora as he talked, glanced up at Leon. "Xigbar tried to shoot Isa, but Axel saw him in time and intercepted the shot. As for the Darkness..." He was of the opinion that it was really something Isa should tell them.
But they should know, and there wasn't any guarantee that Isa would say anything. "Isa has a deep Darkness in his heart, and he's been living with it for longer than you've known him; he got it the day Lea died, when he got that scar on his face. It's why he's so resilient and powerful. But," he went on to explain, "Using the Darkness is a constant battle to not fall into it. Especially when you start using it more for things like portals, which Isa did. When Axel died... Isa stopped fighting it. As simple as that." That probably wasn't going to be what Leon wanted to hear, but Riku wasn't going to lie to him about what went down.
Surprisingly, it was Aerith who spoke up then, as Leon was taking a long moment to process that. She set her teacup down, frowning worriedly.
"What does that mean for him, to give in to the Darkness?"
Riku shifted, a little uncomfortable with the conversation. "It depends on how deep the Darkness is and how much control someone has over it. You're never quite as in control as you think you are, but practice and strength of heart do play a big part. For Isa... All things considered, it was a fairly minimal change; he was extremely powerful, but there were a few minor cosmetic changes and a drastic shift in personality." He paused for a moment, then continued. "It could have been worse. Much, much worse. As it is, he's more or less fine now."
Leon stared down at the table, thinking. A drastic personality change...
"...so the way he was acting after he came back from the castle...that was because of the Darkness?" Riku hadn't been here; he didn't know what he was talking about. Isa had absolutely not been 'more or less fine.' Far from it.
"I don't know." Riku replied bluntly. "I know what happened recently, but I wasn't here and neither was Sora for anything before that. I only have a rough idea of how Isa was acting between the events at the Castle and now. I'm willing to give you an answer, but you're going to have to tell me what was going on."
Leon glanced away from him, trying to decide what to say- and once again Aerith was the one who spoke up.
"He...wasn't himself." She looked down at her hands as she spoke. "He wasn't eating or sleeping very much, and he barely spoke to any of us. He was rarely home, and even when he was physically there, it was like he was...empty. Then he found Lea's Heartless and he and Leon fought, and he stopped coming home at all. He just holed himself up in the castle with it until Sora came and killed it. But..." Aerith raised her eyes to look at Leon, who looked away. "...I don't think that was because of the Darkness."
Riku was quiet for several long minutes, just staring at a point on the wall. Then after a while he sighed. "You're right, it wasn't because of the Darkness. Just something almost equally as consuming. It's odd, though." He glanced between Aerith and Leon "I'd have thought, after losing your world once and believing Isa to be dead for a time, that you would know what grief looks like." It was a comment directed more towards Leon than Aerith.
Leon's face twitched oddly, and he got up and walked out of the house. Aerith just sighed.
"...I'm sorry about him. He's...been having a hard time accepting Lea. I'm sure he'd much rather believe that there was some external force making Isa act that way than to think he could be so affected by losing Lea."
"It's alright. Everything's been thrown for a loop around here lately. It'll take some time for him to adjust. He's going to have to get use to Lea being around someday, though. But... even if there was something making Isa act that way, I don't think it would be the Darkness." Riku frowned lightly. "It does a lot of things to you, but all of your actions are still your own."
Aerith gave another soft sigh. "That is one thing that's never changed."
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Lea leaned back, tracing out the shapes in the clouds, now seemingly ablaze as the sun was setting. He probably should have headed back home already, he was significantly calmer than before, but he honestly didn't feel like seeing Isa's face quite yet. He was intent on staying out as long as he could, or at least until his eyes were less inflamed. The redhead didn't have any desire to explain himself, unless perhaps the person asking was...
"What an idiot," Lea mumbled to himself.
Suddenly, there was a painfully firm grip on Lea's shoulder. Leon spun him forcefully around to face him, then, without any warning, hauled off and decked the redhead in the face.
Lea swung backwards at the hit, bracing himself with an arm as he nearly toppled over. 'Okay, wasn't expecting that one'. He pushed himself off the ground, eyeing his assailant with a fiery stare.
"Wanna give a guy a warning next time, tough guy?" Lea spat, swinging a fist at Leon.
"Fuck you!" Leon snarled, ducking to the side before taking another swing at the redhead. "I've had it up to here with your shit."
Lea took the hit, bracing himself better this time. He swiped at his face, hiding a bit of shock when there was indeed blood present.
"Oh no! Whatever can I do to help baby with his temper tantrum?" A confident grin swept over the redhead's face as he stepped back, getting ready to take another shot.
Leon snarled, barrelling full-on at Lea in an attempt to knock him down. He knew he had a good few pounds on the redhead, so if he could just get him pinned- But Lea wasn't exactly ready to play around with someone who could break him in a heartbeat. Though if there was one thing he was good at, it was running away. The redhead awkwardly sidestepped the attack, running back for more distance from the seething brunette.
"What the hell's your problem anyway? I'm not in the mood to start with your little kid games, buddy."
He could feel blood trickling down his face again. Well, at least he didn't have to worry about puffy eyes being such a distraction.
"Well? You wanna talk like a big boy or what?"
"'What the hell is my problem'! What the fuck do you think is my problem!" Leon snarled, jabbing an accusing finger at the redhead. "I dunno who the fuck you think you are, that you can just waltz in here and pull Isa away from us for months, but he spends all of 30 seconds helping somebody in his goddamn family and it's boo-hoo, poor you, let's all sit back while you sulk like you're so goddamn important!"
"Get outta here, kid. Sounds to me like you've got some insecurities," Lea let out a bitter laugh at that. "I didn't 'pull Isa away'. He chose to get involved. So get your fuckin' story straight if you've got somethin to prove."
Lea let out a sigh, stepping back from Leon, but still eyeing him cautiously.
"It's tough bein' lonely, isn't it?"
Leon was taken aback for a moment. Lonely? Was this guy for real? Leon quickly recovered himself, glaring.
"I don't want to hear that from you, seeing as you're the one who caused everything."
"I'm tellin you, yer blaming the wrong guy. If you hate havin' me around so damn much, why don't you go make a case about it to Isa. He's the one who c-cares..." Lea stumbled over his words for a moment. Damnit, now was not the time to get all soft.
"...He's the one who cares about me so damn much. He's the one who wouldn't let me go. I fuckin' knew I was no good from the start, and he kept trying so much it nearly killed him. And hell, if him saving your own life back there ahead of the man he nearly died for himself wasn't proof enough- If it wasn't proof enough that he cares just as endlessly for you- you fuckin' brat. Well then I guess you're just as selfish as I am, kid.
"Don't go around pointing fingers when you're just as fucked up as I am," he growled, shifting his glare to the sun finally setting. The thought finally fluttered in his head that Isa might be worried, if he even had it in him after their argument earlier.
Leon glared at Lea through his whole speech; when the redhead finished, though, Leon was left with nothing to say. He grit his teeth, then after a moment, glanced away with a derisive noise.
"What's so special about you, anyway." he muttered petulantly. "I'm not about to make any case like that to Isa. He'd just leave with you, or he'd go back to the way he was when he came back from that goddamn castle."
"I could say the same thing about you, sheesh," Lea narrowed his eyes, before a light flickered in his expression. He grinned, slapping Leon on the shoulder- before nervously withdrawing.
"Heh, oh no. Looks like we might have to be friends," the redhead cooed, sarcasm very apparent. "Besides, Isa isn't going anywhere, you idiot. Man, is this what I sounded like earlier? Ughh. That was a joke by the way," Lea blinked, hoping he wouldn't be bracing for another smack in the face.
Leon curled a lip in annoyance, just barely avoiding batting Lea's hand away from him. He glared for a moment, then let out a clipped, annoyed sigh and turned to walk away.
"Make up with him," he called back over his shoulder. "Otherwise he'll end up sleeping at that lab desk until you do."
"Yeah yeah, don't tell me what to do!" Lea huffed. "Fuckin' teenagers," he muttered, before he found himself grinning. Leon was right, Isa was definitely stubborn enough to forego sleep until the redhead made amends. Before he knew it, his feet were already carrying him back home.
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"Hey Dr. Jekyll, you down here?" Lea's voice echoed down the steps. The castle's basement wasn't as eerie as he expected, but it was still not a... very friendly atmosphere. Aerith insisted Isa would be moping down here though. The redhead peered through the doorway, looking around for a familiar bluehaired figure.
Isa was still sitting at the desk in the study; he'd been leaning on the desk, lost in thought, but he sat up straighter when he heard Lea's voice. He turned his head to look at the redhead. But he stayed silent, waiting for Lea to speak first. Honestly, he was a little afraid to break the silence, after what had happened earlier.
"H-hey there, I'm not interruptin' some momentous scientific discovery am I," Lea joked, trying to ease the uncomfortable silence.
"...No." Isa replied hesitantly. "...why are you here?" he asked after a moment.
"Oh. Uh, well I was just checkin' up on you. Ran into Leon before, worked things out like reasonable adults y'know," he laughed. When Isa's expression didn't budge a bit, Lea continued in a half-grin.
"Thought maybe I shouldn't..." he sighed. Jeeze this was tougher than he thought it'd be. "I shouldn'ta been so- I'm sorry about before. I was out of line," he finally said, wincing a bit.
Isa blinked in surprise. "What in the world did he say to you?"
"Well, it's not so much what he said," the redhead replied nervously. Isa just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I dunno man, the kid's got a serious attitude problem! Anyway, me and him are pals now! Y'know, nobody can resist my charm, huh?" Lea walked over cautiously, pausing a few feet from the desk.
"I'm sorry, Isa."
Isa stood up slowly. A moment of silence, and then his eyes dropped to the desk.
"...I'm so glad you're alright."
In an instant, the redhead rushed forward, embracing the other.
"Idiot," he muttered, ruffling Isa's hair. Isa's arms came up to wrap around Lea's back.
"...that's my line."