A/N: I'm back. Again. Please bear with me, as all my writing now is done with my phone.
Prompt: "Powerful attraction + language barrier = ?"
I like you.
Three words. How ridiculous is it that they are so hard to say?
He watches as the tall broad man clomps around their small cramped living space noisily - he can't help it, his boots are heavy. His fingers work desperately over his pendent, scratching the smooth beveled lion head. He wonders if this is one of those times he should leave it, or step in.
The scratching continues, escalates. The fingers start jerking in the direction of the man's bare neck, and he goes for it.
"Leon," he calls sharply. The man's fingers freeze. Good. "Did you forget something?"
"... No," the man - Leon - mutters back with all the finesse of a toddler caught red-handed. He goes back to scratching.
Cloud sighs. They do this little merry-go-round every morning, every time. It should be easy.
It still isn't.
"Leon, if you can't tell me what's wrong, I won't be able to help you fix it. You know that."
At least, he hopes he does. There are days when something this logical doesn't quite slide in place, and he can only hope today is not one of those days.
The tall man shifts uneasily from one leg to the other. The scratching continues.
"Leon," he tries again, more sternly. The other sighs and gives in.
"I can't find Rain."
Ah.
Rain, at least, is something Cloud understands. Rain is a small lion doll with a sparse mane and brown acrylic eyes. Rain fits perfectly in Leon's pocket, and goes everywhere with him. Sometimes, Rain is the one thing in the world that keeps Leon calm.
He finds the little bedraggled lion under the bed, dropped or knocked there by a sleepily swiping hand the night before. He offers it, and Leon immediately stuffs the fuzzy thing down his pocket.
"Maybe you should give your toy a break, it could use a wash," Cloud says; Let me help.
As usual, Leon doesn't understand him. He frowns and protests: "I need Rain... and he doesn't need washing."
"Lee, he sits in your sweaty pocket six days a week. He is smelly."
"He is not," the man insists stubbornly. There is a reason behind Leon's stubborness, Cloud knows that. He just doesn't understand it.
"Alright, but try not to drop him down the shaft or anything."
It's cruel of him to say that, and he notices perfectly well the sudden widening of pale gray eyes in irrationally scared panic. The hand immediately shoves the poor lion deeper into the pocket, before patting around for any possible holes.
He had hoped that it would be enough to convince the man to leave the precious toy at home.
Please trust me. He hopes the other hears him.
He doesn't.
"I have to go now," Leon states, still looking a little flighty with his hand pressed firmly over his pocket.
"Okay then," Cloud relents. It takes two minutes of shuffling around before Leon finally steps out into the hallway, bag over his shoulder, keys chained to his belt.
It is so very ridiculous, how hard it is to say so few words.
Leon can't understand - he is literally incapable of the challenge against his mental capacities.
Cloud doesn't know what his excuse is.
It's not exactly right to say the man is intellectually disabled (both men hate the word "retarded"), but there is little else to describe it. Leon is twenty-five years old and stands as tall and proud as a comic book hero, but he can't think beyond the age of seven. He usually gets away with it because he is quiet ("shy" sounds like a girly word) and always listens while barely saying anything.
But he gives himself away in the most absurd of things (their first meeting was the brunet curiously watching the blond take a piss in an alley). When he does talk, he is soft-spoken and struggles to use his words right. His speech is as simple as it gets, his knowledge on expression and figures of speech are simpler still.
But his eyes are clear and sharp, and when he stares those eyes burn with the intensity of fuel from an observant, thoughtful mind. And they catch everything, taking it all in with no hint of sluggishness, even if there is the slightest hint of frustrated confusion of how what he is seeing makes any sense.
It isn't exactly right - it isn't fair - to say he is disabled when those eyes clearly see the world with no less intelligence... they just see it all differently.
(And the brunet, bless his innocent heart, saw nothing wrong in letting a homeless blond stranger through his door and feeding him, on aforementioned stranger's offended demand that if he was taking his pants off, he'd need to be somewhere warmer.)
He nevertheless has his share of problems, and who could blame him, really, when his young mind was forced to handle an adult and largely perverse world? He is a nervous picker and habitually scratches (sleeves cover the map of scars down his arms), his pendent a secure "scratching helper" that, like the lion, never leaves his person (he has to scratch it instead of his skin because it makes Aerith sad to see any new marks).
He is usually wary of those he doesn't know, and he doesn't open up easily to others - not even with the bribery of his favorite sweets. According to his childhood best friend and most frequent caretaker, he just doesn't like meeting new people all that much.
It doesn't explain their first week, where Leon sat next to Cloud on his usual park bench, listening earnestly as the blond pointed out and commented on passersby. He had watched intently, nodding with a childlike desperation to prove he totally got whatever they were talking about. He didn't, of course, but it was always A for effort.
Leon accepts Cloud, he makes that clear. Of all the people in the world, he chose to have Cloud as his friend. It was irrational, it was naive - but it works for the both of them.
(And he always, at day's end, let Cloud back into his home - their home. He didn't assume he was staying, they just accepted Cloud was here.)
I like you.
Maybe it is so hard to say because he knows Leon won't understand what he is trying to tell him.
Leon likes him the way a boy likes a girl, with trinkets instead of confessions. He has a weird taste in what counts as giftworthy, but it doesn't stop him (Cloud has a box full of coat buttons, another full of can tabs, and the largest collection of orphaned keys known to Man).
I like you. The quiet brunet says it in every shiny object that he offers Cloud with those hopeful wide gray eyes. He says it in every soft smile when Cloud thanks him and keeps the gift.
It is so hard to like him back.
He isn't entirely comfortable with hugs, and squirms away from even a chaste kiss. He refuses to touch hands where others can see, and he is confused by shoulder bumps and friendly punches.
("I like you," Cloud said to him once, as direct as he could get.
"I like you too," Leon answered with his small smile, hands busy with a brush and paint. "And I like Aerith, and Aerith likes me. Because we are friends, right?"
Cloud didn't try again.)
I like you.
Like my friend?
More than that.
How much more?
More than anything.
"Give me the fucking lion, Leon!"
"No!"
He is being difficult, really. The lion fell down the elevator shaft after all, and the poor thing is gray with dust and stinks of piss. Even now his master will not let go.
Cloud swipes at the toy as Leon tries to keep it out of reach. Cloud is frustrated, Leon is angry. Between them the lion sends dust flying all over the freshly dusted room.
"It's just taking a dumb bath, okay?" Cloud growls. "Just one lousy night without it!"
"No!" Leon insists again.
"LEON!" Cloud loses his temper and snaps.
"NO!"
The lion's tail comes away in Cloud's hand, the seam ripping up and across the toy's back. Stuffing joins the dust and dirt.
Leon doesn't scream. He stares, face pale as a sheet. He does not breathe.
Cloud is still frustrated, and the guilt pushes it into fullblown anger.
"Happy now?" He shouts at the other, tugging the lion from his grip. "You're a grown man, not a fucking child! ACT LIKE ONE!"
"I hate you."
The door slams.
Leon doesn't come back. Cloud doesn't call Aerith to ask if he went to her.
Everything Cloud owns fits in a box.
Everything that Leon gave him is too heavy to take with him.
I like you.
I hate you.
No you don't.
You hurt me.
Yes I did.
You are mean.
I am sorry.
It takes Cloud two nights: one to wash, one to mend. He bears with Aerith's scoldings and several stabs to the fingers to get it done just right.
He leaves the lion at the foot of Leon's bed with a note.
I'm sorry.
He doesn't make it pass the front door.
Leon is out there, slumped by the wall and asleep between his knees.
Don't go. His writing is a struggling scrawl on a torn sheet.
Stay with me. I need you.
I need you, too.
Why didn't you just say so?
A/N: I have no real plan for where this is headed, but I'm interested in expanding. Go ahead and prompt me for future chapters - I'll check the reviews here and browse the Strifehart Kink Meme.
Cheers!