It is to the sound of glass shattering that Cloud's eyes snap wide open. He sits up abruptly when he hears a familiar voice softly trying to pacify his way out of something. It takes but a bare few minutes (too many minutes) to grab a proper pair of pants and a decent enough shirt before hurrying to open the door.
"What do you mean it's not your fuckin' fault!" an alcohol-slurred voice belts out immediately into his still sensitive ears. "Keeping the fuckin' elevator working is your fuckin' JOB!"
"But I did fix it!" Leon is protesting. "It was working, but you pushed the emergency stop button so it's not moving now."
"Don't you fuck with me!" the other man spits furiously in his face, finger up and jabbing offensively into Leon's shoulder. The bigger and broader of the two, Leon only flinches back a little. "You calling this MY fault, retard?"
"You were still pushing the button when I found you-" No more is said as a fist wraps tightly (too aggressively) into navy blue fabric. Cloud sees a flash of red before his head clears again. He steps out of the apartment.
"Hey!" He barks. The drunk turns his attention to him. "You're drunk, asshole. Go home."
"And who the fuck're you?" the other demands in a growl.
"You know who I am, Axel," Cloud growls back. "I live here – with him – so take your hands off him before you do something you'd really regret."
There is a moment of tense, angry silence. Then, slowly, that fist gloved in black leather loosens its grip on Leon's overalls.
"… Oh yeah, I remember now. You're the deadbeat hobo he picked up." And then the man with his fire-red hair turns back to the brunet he had been shouting at. "Finally found a wet nurse you could hold onto, eh?"
"Leave him alone, Axel."
"Bet he tastes real good when payday comes around-"
And then he stops talking as Cloud grabs his shoulder and shoves him across the hallway. Axel stumbles, recovers, and finds himself suddenly the one with a fist in his shirt and another raised and aimed between his eyes.
"I told you to back off, you drunk piece of shit," Cloud hisses.
"Cloud, no."
The fist stops short as Leon's hand closes around its wrist. Without another word, Leon tugs until Cloud gives in and drops both hands by his sides. For a rare moment, Leon's eyes burn with intensity as he looks from one angry man to the other.
"No fighting in the building," he warns them both. "Aerith's rules."
Reluctantly Axel grumbles something about not wanting to climb fifteen flights of stairs and stumbles back out the door and down the street. Cloud has the sense to feel a little chastised before noticing that his wrist is smeared with blood. An emptied beer bottle is a scattering of jagged shards across the carpet, and Leon has fingers applying pressure to his palm.
"I'm okay," he mumbles quickly at the other's worried look.
"I don't believe you," and Cloud puts a gentle hand to his shoulder and guides him back into their shared home. "Let's clean it up, at least."
"I'll get a broom-"
Cloud sighs and keeps Leon from turning back to the glass. "Not the floor, Lee. Aerith won't want you getting more blood all over the place, right?"
"Don't tell her?" Leon asks quietly. It takes effort for Cloud to not look at those scared, pleading eyes and cave in to anything the other desires.
"… we'll see," he compromises.
It is to the collective relief of both that Leon's cut was superficial and free of glass, and while a bit of a bleeder probably did not need stitches after all. They don't talk about what happened, and Cloud already knows by heart all their previous arguments about these damned situations (history repeating itself for shits and giggles).
Axel isn't really a bad guy (he's actually one of the nicer tenants in general), Leon has told him repeatedly, but he just gets so angry when he's drunk (only when he's drunk), and when he sobers up and remembers what he did he's so apologetic and falling all over the place desperate to atone that you can't help but forgive him just to make him stop. But he still drinks, and Leon still forgives him for all the bruises and mean words because at the end of all things, Axel can't properly hold his liquor and Leon can't properly hold a grudge.
So instead Leon puts his gloves on (if only he had done that earlier), and soon enough he is busying himself with getting the hallway swept clean and the elevator working again. Cloud is still too wired from the earlier conflict to stay in the apartment where he knows he would have spent that entire time juggling his anger and his worry (and the guilt, so much guilt, for acting like a thug when he promised himself he could be a protector instead).
So instead he goes out again, cigarette smoke filling the cold crisp air about him; in its sharp acrid tang he finds himself thinking about his life – his past, his present…
Is there a future? Does he want one yet?
Has he finally earned the right to it?
Leon emerges from the building and sits next to him, his gaze fixated upon the stars above them. He fidgets. Cloud knows why that is.
"Go back to bed, Lee," he tells him. "It's too damn early and you'll need to get up again for work later."
"But you're out here," Leon points out.
"I just can't sleep, that's all. I'll go in when I get tired, so just go on ahead."
But he doesn't. Leon stays there, still fidgeting, and Cloud goes back to smoking (damned if he cares about Aerith finding out, he needs this right now).
"… I'm sorry."
Cloud sighs wearily, sending another cloud of smoke floating into the darkness. "Come on, don't do that. Do you even know what you're sorry for?"
"I know you wanted me to punch Axel… and maybe I should have. And… I didn't help you when you wanted to punch him either," Leon struggles to explain himself, "I… I wasn't being a good friend."
"Leon-"
"I don't like hurting people," Leon stammers on, and his fingers twitch in his frustration. "I… don't like hurting anyone… but you come first, so maybe I should have."
It finally clicks in Cloud's exhausted mind (he just about kicks himself for not figuring it out sooner) and he turns to look the other in the eyes. "Damn it, Leon, I'm not mad at you."
"But you're out here," Leon points out a second time.
"That's not because of you!" Cloud answers angrily. "You didn't do anything wrong, not one part of it. I'm not out here because I'm mad at you, I'm out here because… I'm mad at myself, okay?"
"… okay."
As Leon falls silent beside him, Cloud wonders if it's Leon who is mad at him now. But the silence drags on, and the air grows cold again as his cigarette goes out.
"… just go back inside, Leon," he tries again, quieter, and gentler.
"I don't want to leave you alone," Leon answers just as quietly.
Neither says a word more.
Eventually, no more than an hour later, Cloud still catches Leon stifling his yawns and nodding off. Despite himself, he smiles (it's impressive the other lasted this long).
"Go to bed, buddy," he coaxes. "I'll be right behind you, I promise."
"…'kay," Leon agrees sleepily (by now he's sleepy enough to agree to anything). He staggers to his feet and wobbles back into the building. Cloud watches after him, waiting until he is out of sight. Then he reaches into his pocket and digs around to pull out a zip-lock bag – except the bag is empty with but a few dusty crumbs. He's out again.
Cursing under his breath, Cloud crumples the bag in his fist before shoving it back in his pocket. He finds himself lighting a second cigarette, glaring into the darkness at how it's just not the same. Then the cigarette eventually burns itself out, and he lights another. He's still sitting there as the sun finally winks into the edge of the horizon.
He does finally find his way back to his futon, falling asleep instantly. Leon says nothing when he gets up and steps around Cloud's sleeping form, he just lets him sleep.
He does however come back a couple hours later and gently shakes him awake, and in his usual ramble announces that he is free now and could they get something to eat, because Zack and Riku have invited them for breakfast at a new place with good fruit, Aerith isn't feeling well, and Zack really isn't allowed to be alone with his son for extended periods of time without supervision.
Cloud thinks of nothing else, except that it sounds good to him.
Over warm rice balls and fresh sliced fruit Zack is his usual beaming, overly cheerful self. Cloud as usual tries his damndest to bypass his attempts at conversation and ignore the way the man looks at him. Their charges don't even notice.
As they all head out together, Riku suddenly drags Leon and consequently the rest of the group toward a convenience store and begs his father to let him get something – Zack relents all too easily. As Leon follows Riku through the aisles, Zack and Cloud hang back to stare with disinterest at several brands of water. Cloud senses the other wants to talk to him; he dreads it.
"How have you been, Cloud?" the man finally asks. Cloud sighs.
"I'm fine."
"You really think so?" The comment chafes at him, and he barely keeps himself from snapping.
"Yes," he grinds out.
"Cos' you don't look it," Zack tells him with a solemnity that is strangely foreign. "You look like you are itching to get high, sooner rather than later."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
Zack sighs and puts the bottle he was cross-examining back in its place. "Cloud… can I tell you something? I used to work in law enforcement, so I do know what I'm talking about. I've seen enough kids who looked just like you fall so hard and so fast that we couldn't help them in time… so as a friend I must tell you this – please don't bullshit me."
"…so what?" Cloud finally finds his voice to utter angrily. "You going to tell your wife? Maybe tell your kid to stay the hell away from me so he doesn't catch 'junkie'?"
"No, and it's insulting that you'd think so low of me," the other tells him with the firmness of a senior toward a junior. "All I'm asking is that you be careful. Seriously, be careful… and even if you ignore me and do it anyway, please – if you have any respect for us at all – don't do it in front of my son, or Leon. Don't hurt them… Can I hold you to that, at least?"
"… Yeah."
Zack nods gratefully. They leave it at that… except…
"So when did you stop being a cop? Why?"
It's Zack's turn to look uncomfortable, but he answers truthfully: "We were in the final stages of Riku's adoption. I remember getting the voice mail from Aerith, and she was so happy she was crying… and that whole time she was telling me how she couldn't wait to see me when I got home, panicking that we didn't have enough of the house baby-proofed… I was bleeding out on the ground from multiple gunshot wounds. I would've died if my buddy hadn't gotten me to the hospital himself rather than calling an ambulance."
"So you left the force because you wanted to live."
"I've had worse and come back stronger. No, it was the guys who shot me… they were barely teenagers. They were kids… and seeing them with those guns in their hands broke something inside me," Zack continues. "I couldn't stop thinking about what if… that one day I'd be staring down my own son with a gun in his hands. I didn't quit to live – I quit so I could be his father full-time, and if he ever needed me I could be there with no strings attached."
He pauses. He laughs. "You must think me a coward now."
"Maybe," Cloud answers, "but I also think you're a good father. And a good husband. Aerith and the kid are lucky they have you."
And when he feels Zack's eyes on him again, he sees they are brimming with gratitude… and… relief?
"Thank you, Cloud," Zack tells him in a rush of breath – how long had he been holding it for? Cloud shrugs.
"Don't ever pat me down for substances and we'll call it even." It earns a chuckle from the man.
"Fair enough."
"We're ready!" At Riku's exclamation both men turn to find him rushing back to them with Leon a few steps after. In one of Leon's hands is a large tub of ice cream; the other balances an equally large jar of pickles.
"Aerith needs these," Leon explains. Riku nods with equal certainty. Zack has at least the decency to cough and twiddle his thumbs as Cloud looks from tub to jar to tub, then back at Zack with a most incredulous expression on his face.
"We were kinda hoping to keep it a secret for a while," he finally admits sheepishly. And then, with a barely withheld eagerness, "and the doctor is about sixty percent sure it's a girl."
Cloud isn't sure if he wants to offer congratulations or sock him.
