Stubbornness and Deference

Disclaimer: I dont own anything but the story

Summary: A conversation between Cloud and Leon at the edge of the city.

Notes: an old story from the folder, edited some parts. Beware of OOCness from both characters but this is generally how I perceive their relationship to be; a sort of extreme fondness of each other from being so similar to each other, rather than being in love with each other. Anyway enjoy.

"...What are you afraid of losing?"

The question caught him off guard, but what stunned him even more was the fact that it had come from the lips of that stoic man who had never once seen the point of partaking in social small talk. Said man stood before him now, determination brewing in the storm of his gunmetal eyes. He shivered and shifted uncomfortably as they focused on him.

"What are you talking about?"

There was a grunt as the gunblader lifted Lionheart onto his shoulder.

"You're hiding from something. It's in your eyes." He murmured, keeping up that heated gaze, "What happened today... just know that I don't tolerate you holding on to secrets that will cause harm to a city I've been trying for three years to save."

Cloud didn't like where the conversation was heading.

"You don't have to worry about it. I won't be intruding in your city for long." He growled and moved to walk away when a heavy hand fell onto his shoulder, jerking him back. The grip tightened almost painfully as he rebelled against it.

"Stop running after your past. It'll haunt you everywhere you go; every place you visit."

He knew that it hadn't been an attempt to infuriate him but Leon's bluntness and utter lack of tact was something he would never truly get used to.

"Shut up! You know nothing about who I am and you have no right to preach. I will fix what happened at the market and I'll get out of your hair by tomorrow so fuck off." He flinched at his own outburst. It stung more than he would let himself acknowledge.

Leon didn't even bat an eye as he droned on.

"You have nowhere else to go and you know it. This has been going on for far too long. We're dealing with this right now."

Not good. He was losing composure; the fine tendrils of self-control began to slip from his grasp.

"Go away!"

"Cloud."

"I said leave me alone!"

"No."

He broke down. Leon doesn't get it. Cloud has had enough of mind games. He just didn't want to think anymore.

"God just- what the hell do you want me to say huh? I'm fighting my own battles my way. What the fuck else do you want from me?"

"You call foolishly chasing after a shadow, and putting your life, and the lives of others, in jeopardy, a good idea?"

Every sentence, and every word, stabbed right past the denial and into his very soul. It hurt because underneath it all, the truth laid raw and bare right in front of him. It was suffocating.

"There's no other way! I'll set things right. You don't even- you don't what it's like to have lost everythin-..." He stopped abruptly, knowing that he was just about to unhinge a lever that opened the flood gates of a pain neither of them could endure at the moment.

"... I do know..." the reply was devoid of its previous hardened edge.

"Sorry, I didn't mean..." he trailed off, at a sudden loss of words as the tirade in his mind hit a blank wall.

Stormy eyes finally dropped away and directed it's intensity to the dust-covered floor.

"It's ok. The point is, after all has been said and done, then what?" It was barely a whisper, but Cloud heard every word. "What's next? What about the future? What happens after Sephiroth is dead, Cloud?"

Suddenly, he was caught off-guard again. The brunet had an uncanny ability to twist the situation and throw him all around without ever lifting a finger. He pondered over the question, mind reeling. It was something he had never bothered to contemplate about before.

"The future...? I'll... I'll think about it when the time comes..." He gulped. "What's happening now is more important."

"Wrong."

Cloud blinked. "What?"

"You're wrong. It doesn't work out that way." Leon's bangs tickled the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. "It never works out that way when all you're doing is blindly charging towards a single direction. Once you hit a dead-end, you'll never recover fast enough to start over."

He absent-mindedly traced the groove of his scar, eyes glossed over as if recounting events from his past. "Sometimes, you may not even recover."

Cloud studied the lines of his companion's face. He'd be damned if he was going to admit to the man that he had managed to hit home far more times in one conversation than Tifa had managed to do in two years.

Unfortunately, that also meant that his level of preparedness for said conversation was close to zero percent.

"... I... Then what the hell do you want me to do? I can't involve anyone in this, Leon. In case you've missed the past couple of weeks, people tend to get hurt." In the past, and even now, countless friends and comrades who have slowly been plucked away from him and fallen into the Lifestream – Cloud does not know if he could handle another lifetime of that.

"... Then don't involve just anyone." The words filtered into his consciousness almost startlingly. When he looked up, the pair gunmetal eyes were back on him, drilling holes into his soul.

"You... are you actually volunteering to be my support?" The idea was so foreign and unthinkable that it took awhile for Cloud to get his mind around it.

A hint of a smirk and a playful glimmer entered the brunet's eyes before it was gone in a flash. "I think I'll be better than just a support."

Cloud shook his head.

"I can't involve you."

"I won't force you to."

"Then- "

"But if you're chasing after that past, don't expect a solo journey."

The whole conversation was turning into a frustrating tangent that seemed to lack escape routes. Cloud was dangerously close to approaching the end of a pitifully short list of reasons why he should not just drive First Tsurugi into the object of his newfound irritation at the moment. He struggled for words to counter the growing silence.

"I can't involve you."

He groaned inwardly. Was that how a broken record sounded like?

Leon unleashed a full-blown smirk as he tilted his head to the side. "I won't follow you to the bathroom if that's any consolation. Just enough that you don't end up lying in a trench, half-dead somewhere."

Cloud was desperately grabbing at straws and Leon knew it.

"... Look I appreciate the thought but it's better if I fight my darkness on my own. I don't want-"

"I'm a big boy, you know." A soft voice interrupted him, "I can hold my own. But if there's one thing I've learnt from... bad experiences... it's that no one can truly fight alone." The brunet straightened up, "and your choices may not be looking too good right now but I'm sure you'd care less if I get a paper cut than if it were Tifa."

Cloud gave up. He figures the stubborn bastard would gradually see the errors of this impulsive decision sooner or later.

"Fine, I'll go along with this charade... but it's your funeral. Don't say I didn't warn you." He half-glared at the frustrating gunblader, searching for any sign of hesitation or regret that could be exploited.

Leon just grinned as they headed back to headquarters.

...