A/N: This is dedicated to my wonderful friend, Kai-Chan94, who never fails to keep me uplifted. I hope this is warm and tender yet still distinctly Cleon enough for you. Sometimes it's so hard to get the balance right!
This was inspired by my husband, who often leaves me little notes here and there when I'm on nights and we pass like ships. Although, due to his somewhat unique sense of humour, these would-be love notes often turn out to be lyrics from Snoop Dog, ODB or NWA. The sentiment, however, remains the same… more or less.
I hope you all enjoy. (It took me ages to reference all these quotes!)
Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to Square Enix and/or Disney. No infringement intended, no profit made. All quotes belong to their respective authors.
"The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them."
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Love Letters
It had begun as a little ritual, whenever Cloud went away. It had been a pleasant surprise and a touching afterthought to what was usually a night of not much thinking. And although Leon had been perturbed and not a little offended to wake and find the other half of his bed empty of the warm body that had occupied it the night before, his disappointment was coyly replaced with a spreading warmth after he read the note that had been left on his neighbouring pillow, right where the golden head of spikey blond hair should have been.
"Each time you happen to me all over again."
The Age Of Innocence - Edith Wharton
And the older couldn't help the slight upturn of his normally taciturn lips, nor the goose bumps that had spread out over his flushing skin. He scoffed, that a man such as himself could be reduced to such… such a female reaction. As reluctant as he was to dismiss it, he discarded the paper, but kept the words close to his heart.
Cloud returned and the ritual would begin again. A shadowed and bluish morning, a figure stealing away, a soft kiss and scrap of paper placed beside of warm and tempting body. Leon awoke, his heart heavy from knowing he would be alone though beating heavily for what he would find next to him in the space where he should have been.
"I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed."
Possession - A.S. Byatt
And Leon had to agree, it was a lot like burning - this feeling that crept over him whenever Cloud was near, and even when he wasn't - just at the mere thought of him and what they did together in the quiet closeness of the night.
Leon sat, in the transparent softness of pre-dawn and let his mind wonder over the words on the paper, the way the script was scrawled, messily and childlike, slightly slanted but whole and earnest and meaningful. They had not been chosen at random, nor for the pleasing way they sounded on the tongue. These words were not just a postscript to the night before it but where meant as a sacrament. Something from which, Leon was meant to draw strength, until Cloud returned; because Cloud didn't just return when he had nothing better to do. He returned only when he could – when it was safe to - because he couldn't keep himself away.
Leon was always half tempted to mention the small fragments of affection whenever Cloud came home. Just a whisper of acknowledgement against warm pliant lips to let him know what they meant to him. But for some reason he always held back. Leon eventually realised that some things were just more when they remained unspoken.
When he was lucky enough, he got to keep Cloud by his side for three whole days or more. Waking to find the younger beside him instead of the authored notes was a pleasant confusion and Leon wouldn't question it. However, it never lasted.
Upon his reluctant parting, Cloud wrote him again:
"You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought."
The White Company - Arthur Conan Doyle
And as much as it chaffed at Leon's masculine sensibilities, he couldn't deny that Cloud was on his mind too. His only occupying thought, really. And it was only after a while that he began to wonder where his lover's inspiration was coming from. Cloud, who would gently mock Leon for his own bookishness, could not have read all of these stories, Leon was certain of it. Although he eventually conceded that it didn't much matter.
The only confessions that were ever spoken between them happened in the blackest part of the night, after desperate aches and trembling touches had been sated and they both lay replete. Wondering fingers would play over hard muscle and soft flesh, tracing freckles, scars and sweat trails, followed by an eager and knowing tongue.
"Don't go this time."
"You know I have to."
A breath, soft and resigned and full of a longing neither of them knew how to express, was sighed across pale skin, damp with exertion.
"I know."
His disappointment was always tempered with another confession, hastily written but sincerely meant.
"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."
Prometheus Unbound - Percy Bysshe Shelley
And Leon was satisfied. With this way that they loved one another, it was the only way they could form. Cloud could never have spoken those words out loud and Leon could not have borne them anyway. It was better this way; easier on both of them. The inertia of their lives, their reticence to push further, to demand too much from the other was the thing that kept them together. And Leon would not change it, would not question it or mock it. They had learnt through hard lessons to never take anything for granted and to appreciate every little scrap of love they could, spoken and unspoken, written and unwritten.
"Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh."
A Drinking Song - William Butler Yeats