AN: This is for that one anonymous review before Christmas that reminded me it existed, and appreciated the beginning enough to mention it. Happy New Year.

Chapter Ten: Embrasure

"Riku, what are you doing here?"

This day had not gone well for Edea at all. She was running on no sleep, Sephiroth was still recovering from his…lapse, and she'd had to deal with no less than three visits from Leonhart that morning. She'd granted his request for Strife's new toy on the third visit on the sole condition that he handle the situation on his own from now on by taking the man under his wing.

Squall could train the man to fill various roles, and in return, she hoped the blond would act as a positive influencer on Squall's own anti-social streak.

Edea knew she had too much fondness for her unit, but then, she'd always had a weakness for taking in the lost and confused. The majority of her soldiers she had trained from a young age, the others, she had shaped from broken pieces. Some were still volatile.

Happening across the pale form curled in a corner of her office clutching at a black stuffed mouse only underlined that. Her hand was already on the phone.

The trio had been terribly dangerous when they first arrived, each possessing a secondary personality that would appear at random – not all of which got along or even held the same conscience. They had extreme difficulty in distinguishing make believe from reality and like as not would see one person as a threat one moment and an ally the next. She couldn't remember the number of times they had called her an evil sorceress in those first few months. Or the number of times since she had caught Sora referring to someone or thing he had taken to calling Jiminy whenever he was upset. She had a sneaking suspicion Leonhart had something to do with that, but he refused to comment on the issue.

"Don't. I'm not going back." He didn't sound confused, Edea rationalized, though he was still holding Lulu's present tightly to his chest.

"I don't have time for this, Riku. Half of the team is out of commission; even Sephiroth won't be active for quite some time." Whatever Rinoa had done to the blond had left the silver general unbalanced and irrational; he kept mentioning things from his past – things that were never on his file. He was hiding something and Edea planned on spending the next few weeks finding out.

But the real question was whether little Riku, so like the older man, was as volatile now as he had been in the past.

"Then use me. Send me out. Anywhere."

"Why should I. Your previous demand was to stay near Sora." It might be helpful. Riku had a place in the Organization; he was recognizable. He had experience, and was an invaluable operative.

But if this was simply a misunderstanding between the two boys, regardless of severity, the child might quickly come to regret this choice and that could compromise a good number of plans.

"I'm not staying here, Edea. It's just me in here," he tapped his head, pulling himself from the floor, "but Hojo doesn't know. Doesn't care."

She held his stare a moment longer before letting her hand slip from the phone. It was worth the risk. "I have a task for you then. I want you to find Ansem. You will gain his confidence, and act under his command. No one else will know of this; you will disappear until such time as I call you back."

"…not even Sora?"

"Not even Sora. We will be using Roxas rather extensively. You may cross paths." She bent to his level, holding his eyes firmly. "I need your word, Riku. Even if you miss him, even if you miss Kairi – or I will frogmarch you right back to them now."

"I'm enlisting, Edea. I'm not a child anymore."

"Good. Then you won't be treated as one." The Matron of the barracks wondered if their gracious benefactor would approve.

…

This wasn't dignified. There was no way this was dignified.

It didn't suit him, regardless of the traitorous whispers in his head, and most certainly regardless of the cooing adoration from the female population of the barracks.

So…so much purple. Yards and yards of it, draping and piling about his ankles.

The shoes weren't a problem. No, he was surprisingly comfortable standing in high heels, which came as a bit of a shock. Perhaps more to Yuffie and Selphie than himself – they, it seemed were looking forward to having to teach him how to not fall on his face. Which brought him back to the main issue at hand.

Why everyone else knew he was going to be stuffed in a dress before he did.

And Leon still wasn't quite looking at him. Hadn't since he'd first emerged from behind the changing screen in the old fey women's cottage.

His shoulders were cold, ringed with scratchy, starched and frilly trim. Long sleeves covered his arms and knuckles, making him feel slightly restricted, but not any more than the tight fitted waist and awkward padding bound close against his chest. It wasn't much, but enough to make the area feel uncomfortably warm in comparison. It was a little difficult to breath, on the whole.

There was a thick red satin ribbon tied off center at his neck, partly to obscure his neck, partly, he knew, because they wanted to put as many feminine touches on him as possible. There were a couple of touches he wanted to put on them too, but none of them would be described as feminine.

As for the skirts…they were made of layer upon layer of bunched taffeta overlaid with thick silk. It held its shape, yes, but it felt…wrong, open, vulnerable. He wouldn't be able to run very well in such a heavy garment.

They had even provided him with a blond wig with long curls hanging to his waist. Selphie was having fun with it. He'd have rather tied the hair back; split and braided it to stop the unfamiliar weight from resting against his neck. That, however, was dashed when Leon, in his rare moment of speech, commented on how long hair was more elegant, and how it was better to obscure his sharp angles.

Well, the girls had just run with that. He was forbidden from touching the hair under threat of very painful, unspeakable things involving Tifa's fist, Selphie's models or both.

And for some reason, they'd insisted on some ridiculously lacy and very uncomfortable lingerie. It 'completed the package'. Frankly, he didn't want them anywhere near his package, but they had stolen all his boxers when he wasn't looking, Leon's room was locked, and Vincent, it seemed, didn't wear any.

Which was vaguely disturbing in itself.

They hadn't trusted him with a handbag.

…

The moment the blond met his eyes across the room, Leon knew he was in a difficult spot. A tight spot, or soon to be one - certainly by the end of the evening.

"You can't just tie a shoe lace in your hair and be on your way!" Selphie was playing with Cloud's long curls, arranging fistfuls in elaborate displays while the blond steeled his expression and closed his eyes.

He realized too late that he too should have shut his eyes, because there was something utterly fascinating in watching the play of light across varying exposures of skin. Exposed – now hidden. The subtle curve of a neck arching to the side in exasperation.

He'd touched that skin before. Moved against it in mock intimacy; tasted it momentarily in such acts.

Leon had been thinking about that off and on for some time now, more since spending time with Cid and his unfounded declarations and colourful language. He could still feel the weight of the man pressing up against his back, arm twisted at a painful angle, mind still reeling from the shock. There was something odd in that; that he would remember being thrown off guard far more vividly than the twisted mess in Aeris' domain, where hands and…

…and in the midst of his muddling through his thoughts, he realized that Tifa was asking him a question, watching him with a suspicious sparkle in her eyes.

It was something to do with Cloud's hair. Did he want Cloud's neck to be exposed to distract him? His bare shoulders open to be considered and fantasized and imagined elsewhere?...No. Better to be covered and away. Seeing a mass of long flowing hair was easier to ignore than the curve of his back.

Stop looking…stop looking - stop. He crossed his arms, leaning back against a wall as he pointedly stared at the floor. It was probably because he was in a dress. He looked so much like a woman, it wasn't that hard to forget. The glaring eyes he could feel made it a little more difficult.

He hadn't had this sort of distraction with Tidus, or with Tifa, for that matter. In fact, he couldn't remember being this distracted since school, and that had turned into a remarkably bad situation. At least he wasn't seeing anyone this time around.

"Why is it that he gets to wear a uniform?" the blond grumbled, hands fisting in the ample skirts.

Tifa just rolled her eyes. "Because he graduated top of his class from Balamb Academy, and they like to be elite sons of bitches. Now shut up and look pretty."

…

The Golden Saucer had started out as a small racetrack on the outskirts of the city. At the time, it had boasted a grand total of sixteen chocobos competing in two different weekly races for the excitement of its few loyal patrons who stopped by for drinks after long shifts at work.

That was long before Luxord won the deed in a poker hand late one Saturday evening. Or perhaps early Sunday morning, Axel never could remember.

It had since undergone a rather large transformation, every few months a new addition appeared overnight until it was a sprawling wonderland, each layer perched precariously upon the other like a stack of cups at a mad hatter's tea party.

The racetrack had suddenly become a more than a simple dash to the finish. It now wound around and through the building visible from every floor, surrounded in elaborate decorations (and sometimes live animals) meant as much to entertain and delight spectators as distract potential jockeys unfamiliar with the track. Luxord, while he enjoyed a good gamble, when it came to business matters left nothing to chance.

He had turned a humble establishment into an amusement complex designed specifically to enable the fastest means to part a person from their wallet. He had wanted to call it Luxordland - Luxord World, even – but he had been talked down from that idea rather early on by one Zexion. He had worked out a deal that the blond Demyx would be willing to provide one free performance every third Friday of the month on the stadium stage on the seventh floor - but only if he wasn't playing in something named after Luxord or a land mass. It didn't stop the rest of them from still calling it Luxord World behind his back.

Somewhere along the line he'd also picked up a few mascots that ran the space shooter game on the third. Axel rather thought they were meant to be chipmunks.

After the first week of opening the hotel on the south side, he had fully believed that Luxord would regret permitting Larxene design rights, but at the time he had little choice and she had threatened disembowelment with a garden hose if Luxord broke their arrangement. Since he knew her better than to disregard her threats, Larxene had happily gone on her way and created the horrendously chintzy Haunted Mansion Hotel. Fortunately, ghosts and ghouls and iron maidens happened to turn the Haunted Mansion into one of the highest grossing accommodations on the continent.

But Axel wasn't thinking of how financially successful Luxord's establishment was when he finally caught sight of a short blond teen skulking around the overly bright and colourful entrance way – nor was he thinking of Demyx upstairs preparing for his concert or the unfortunate man mucking out the chocobo stalls in the basement. That thing in his chest that he'd nearly forgotten about had started pounding, and he was still convincing himself that he wasn't hallucinating. He honestly hadn't fully trusted that the boy would show up at all, and frankly he was a little worried about how relieved he was that Roxas did.

He wasn't going to deny the fact that if he were to give into his baser urges, he would make a complete fool of himself- a process that would no doubt embarrass not only himself and Roxas but quite possibly the small family of four next to him giggling over the small plush chipmunks in their hands as well. So rather than rush over, likely trip, cause a calamity and risk Roxas Never Speaking to Him Again, Axel crossed his arms (mostly to hold himself in place as much as to strike a casual appearance) and waited until he couldn't wait any longer.

At that point, he hurled a wadded up flyer at the back of his head, silently cheering at his impeccable aim. The look he was rewarded with was priceless. To his shock, despite the angry glare the kid actually went to the trouble to swipe up the ball of paper before storming over, clutching it tightly in one fist.

"You couldn't just walk over and say hello like a normal person?" Roxas fumed.

"Didn't make you any friendlier last time, now did it?" he shot back.

"Last time you pulled out a couple of cheesy pick-up lines and tried to fill me with liquor."

"Yeah, well...Scrooge's new skateboard simulator is opening in exactly seventeen minutes in the arcade which means we don't have time for a Q and A." Axel crossed his arms triumphantly and smirked. "Thanks to my fabulous connections, we've got the first run."

"When are you going to give me what I came for?" the boy asked accusingly, though it was clear that his mind was already centred somewhere around the fifth floor.

"All in good time, buddy. You can't rush a good thing – and really, we're good together so let's make this last."

...

He could no longer remember the man's true name. The world couldn't remember his name. It had disappeared sometime in his youth, never to return.

Leon doubted even the man's wife ever knew it.

He had once been a vicious businessman, with little to no regard for morals or ethics. Still was, in some ways. In his long reign, he had managed to accumulate an empire, a fortune and an unforgiving reputation. He was known now only as 'the Beast'.

How he ended up with a spouse like Belle was beyond Leon, though he heard it had something to do with her father, blackmail and a local upstart from her hometown.

He didn't like guests. His estate was his domain, and his alone. In fact, until just recently he had made ample use of his private rights to prosecute without trial all trespassers. This was the first time he had opened his doors in ten years.

The Beast was suspicious and paranoid by nature, and trying to pass off Cloud as a woman, regardless of how alluring he seemed in a dress, was…a dangerous business. Thankfully they would only be in his company for a short while, and during that time he could keep Cloud close at hand, and in the background. He was only a placeholder, after all.

This was the plan, these were the instructions, and this was how it was meant to be.

So it came as some surprise, unpleasant and cold, to discover a slight change to said plans.

A stout, brown-haired servant was bowing and professing his services and that of the rest of the house staff, and a tall, elegant-speaking flatterer was kissing Cloud's hand, and wrist, and forearm – Leon had cleared his throat at this, frowning disapprovingly as he pulled the blond tightly to his side – as this was happening, his mind latched on the words the fat man was trailing on about.

"Your room has been prepared for this evening,"

Cloud wasn't paying attention. His eyes were wandering across the ornate detailing of the massive entrance hall, lingering at the top of each stairwell that led to the East and West Wings as though something fascinating might lie there. He was even ignoring the proximity Leon was still keeping, and the arm wrapped protectively around his waist. That worried him a little.

The blond pulled away just far enough to give a perfect curtsy to the man who had been kissing his skin just moments before, saying in a soft voice a few octaves higher than his own that, yes, he'd be delighted if the man –Lumière – would escort them to the main hall, and that he was ever so excited to be introduced to the others.

Good, he was performing well.

Lumière offered an arm to him, and Cloud giggled. Giggled. Leon was disturbed. The blond didn't take the arm though, he was shaking his head in a perfectly amiable disapproval now, and Leon found himself the recipient of an expectant look. Before it even registered, he held out his own hand and was leading a princess to a ball.

Strife was too good at this.

…

The lanky servant led them to a large set of doors directly across from the entrance hall, giving the pair no chance to snoop into private rooms, should either man have been inclined.

As the grand doors opened, Leon felt a little pleased when he felt Cloud recoiling slightly at the onslaught of light and laughter that came with it, pressing closer against his side. A feeling he immediately pushed to the back of his mind, unwilling to consider the meaning of the petty triumph he experienced in Cloud's discomfort.

"Madames et monsieurs, may I present our special guest this evening Monsieur Loire and his ever beautiful companion, the lovely Cloud." There was a small applause as the man bowed, and Leon found that they had been separated as the blonde was swept away by a group of chattering girls. No less than four of Triton's other six daughters flitted around him and Leon felt his stomach clench briefly for the other man before his attention was stolen by a firm hand on his shoulder.

Turning, he was met with a smiling face and a rock glass of scotch.

"Charming, wasn't it?" Leon hazarded a guess as he accepted the drink. It was hard to tell these men apart without their female counterparts he found, but two of them at least were Charmings so it was as good a guess as he was going to get.

"You have a good memory."The man chuckled good-naturedly, and Leon mentally rolled his eyes. "It's good to see you hitting the circuit again."

"Everyone loves a good party." He heard himself force out.

There was a hearty slap on his back and a grinning tanned face appeared at his side. "Good choice of parties; Jasmine tells me Belle has a whopper of a night planned. Is it true that the Disney Darlings are taking the stage?"

Charming laughed, and Leon found himself anxious to find Cloud again if only to save him from having to exchange further conversation with these men.

"The girls have been haranguing us for months to have duets like the old days -- Ah, that's my cue." Charming gave the two men a small bow. "Belle's convinced the other Darlings to start off the night, and I fear you will have to put up with Cinderella and I for the first dance."

"Aurora looks like she's getting ready too."Aladdin noted with a grin. "I should be finding Jasmine before their song starts - was it Cloud?"

Leon gave a start, turning back to the tanned man. "What?"

"The beautiful woman you brought with you. Tall, blonde hair, blue eyes? She looks like she gets on well with Snow and Aurora." He clapped Leon on the shoulder. "We'll have to have you two over sometime. Now, however, I must see to my lady."

He nodded to Aladdin as the man departed and found himself searching out the blond among the women.

It was then that he saw Rinoa across the dance floor, gesturing towards Cloud in the arms of a man with long dark hair and an easy smile. He wasn't sure at what point he himself had begun to scowl.

Before he knew it, he found himself gripping the blonds' forearm, staring the man down as the first chords of familiar music began echoing through the hall.

"I believe it is customary at these occasions for the man who brought a lady to have her first dance." he said in a low tone, unable to stop the steel that lined his words. He honestly didn't want to dance - had never enjoyed such things, and both Rinoa and her date knew it. But damned if that man didn't make him feel possessive all the same.

Laguna had a small smile on his face that did nothing to ease the irritation Leon felt, as though the older man knew something he was missing. "I wouldn't dream of stealing such a special moment. Please, the first dance is yours. Miss Heartily?"

Cloud was staring at him as the dark-haired man led a smiling Rinoa onto the dance floor, arm around her waist and laughter on their lips.

"If I was as delicate as the women here, you'd have given me a bruise, honey."

"Don't even start." He dragged the other man after him as they entered the fray, pulling him close and sliding Cloud's hands into the correct spots.

"So Time is Love."

"What?" His unwarranted frustration at that man was fading as he tried to concentrate on nothing but not stumbling in half-remembered steps. The last thing he needed was a repeat of the last time he had danced.

"The song." For some reason it surprised him that Cloud knew the duet, which was ridiculous - it had been one of the most popular love songs released by Charming Studios. It helped a great deal that it had come out during a massive scandal involving some tripe about true love.

It was calming though.

To think that he could feel calm while dancing - his father, ex-girlfriend and possible new sibling dancing somewhere in his peripheries - with an explosive blond stuffed in purple taffetta. He realized he was smiling, and he found that he didn't mind.

The look on Cloud's face when he noticed - and then quickly focused on something over his right shoulder - even brought out a small chuckle.

If this was any indication, the rest of the night was going to kill him.

...

"You said you were worried about your son."

Laguna was silent for a moment, enjoying the sense of ease from a night away from work. "Hm? He's more mature than his old man, what have I to be worried of?"

The beautiful girl in his arms laughed, and the sight made him smile, twirling her in circles around the other dancers.

"You're right. Besides," she gave him a wink that he knew by now meant she had been getting into trouble, "I think he's finally found what he's been needing."

He caught sight of Squall's uniform through the sea of bodies and nearly missed his next step. "Is he..."

"Told you so."

His son was smiling. He couldn't remember the last time he had see that - in fact he was quite certain he had never seen it. The sight was remarkable. It had to be the woman in his arms that was responsible for such a miracle, and damned if he was going to let the boy behave as he had with the Lockhart girl."...I have an idea."

"Squall's not going to like it, is he." she said as she leaned closer conspiratorially.

He gave her a wide grin before kissing her swiftly as the first chords of Once Upon a Dream filled the air. "I'm going to need your help."