Sitting in the kitchen of Merlin's house Leon nursed his cup of coffee and stared blankly at the empty chair in front of him, thinking.
I'd been three days since he'd come back. Three days since he and Cloud had had their impromptu groping-session.
Three days since he'd seen the blonde.
Cloud had disappeared after their little game of tonsil-hockey, and hadn't been seen by anyone since. Leon glanced out the window to see the stars twinkling in the sky. It was night. Around ten or eleven.
During those three days, and after his very horny make-out session with the blonde, Leon's feelings had simmered down, much to the delight of the brunette. From pure, lust-filled, horny, hormone-infested desire; just to wanting kisses, touches, wanting to make the blonde happy.
Placing his chin in his hand, Leon sighed, a lock of hair falling into his eyes.
He was in love.
Staring blankly out the window, he just sat there. He wasn't even gay. Not even bisexual. Cloud was just an exception, apparently.
The world 'Cloudsexual' passed through his head and he chuckled.
Lust turned into Love.
Who would've thought?
Leon had thought about the reason the feelings had started. He'd known the blonde for a long time, and, at first, had thought it was just a passing desire. But, as he reflected back to all his memories of Cloud, he found one pattern.
They never stood really close, face-to-face.
Sure, they were always back-to-back when they fought together; so close the blonde would occasionally comment that Leon should cut his hair because it kept on brushing against the back of his neck, but-- never face-to-face.
Until their fight in The Great Maw.
They'd stood so close that they could feel each other's heat, energy. Burning like two suns that are much too close. Making them sweat. Drawing each other in. Leon supposed that was what triggered his feelings toward the blonde. He'd always thought Cloud was an ass, but a good fighter. That respect seemed to have grown into love.
The brunette wrinkled his nose slightly. He didn't idolise Cloud. He still thought the blonde was a bastard and deserved a kick up the ass, but...
Leon looked down at his cold, half-empty coffee. Cloud was beautiful. And broken. Someone should love the blonde, and try and heal him.
He sighed. If Cloud would accept it, of course.
Cloud hadn't outright rejected him, but, Leon still didn't understand. The blonde liked him; Cloud had said that easily, but, it was almost like he had unfinished business and needed to finish it before--
"Help!"
Leon's thoughts imploded at the muffled cry, accompanied by a bang on Merlin's front door. Everyone was asleep. Hurrying to his feet, the brunette quickly moved over to the door and wrenched it open.
Oh God.
Sora blinked into the light of the house that streamed around Leon's edges and through the doorway, red smears across the Keyblader's cheeks and staining his clothing, clutching something limp, black, and soaked in red.
Cloud.
Dropping to his knees, Leon helped Sora lay Cloud onto the ground. The blonde was covered in cuts, most of them deep and bleeding profusely, a single one going strait through his abdomen, and out the other side.
"Get Aerith," Leon whispered. Oh God, oh God, oh God...
The little Keyblade-master nodded and scampered into the house, still covered in Cloud's blood, banging at the bedroom doors, crying for help tears in his eyes, his whole body shaking.
Meanwhile, Leon just knelt by Cloud's prone figure, fingers placed securely on the blonde's cold neck, only just able to feel a single weak beat before he had to wait for another. "Don't you die on me, asshole," he whispered, his throat tight, his hair swaying around his ears in the cold night air.
Considering the fact that the person he only just figured out he loved was dying in front of his very eyes, Leon thought he was holding it together rather well.
There was the sound of hurrying feet and Leon didn't even look up, Aerith collapsing by Cloud's side, dressed in her pink dressing-gown, looking panicked. "Oh, no..." she murmured, hands ghosting over Cloud's pale, bloody face.
"Can you heal him?" Sora gasped, kneeling down beside the pretty brunette, biting his lip, the smudges of blood across his face and body seeming to go unnoticed. Poor kid. He was only sixteen, and he had to drag a near-dead corpse here.
Aerith nodded. "I'll try," she stated, blinking back tears, before raising her hands above Cloud's heart.
The healing was hard on Aerith, but, after she had finished, panting, a whole fifteen minutes later, glittering magical leafs and petals fluttering to the ground and disappearing, Leon felt another single beat of Cloud's heart, and it felt just that little bit stronger.
Swallowing, Aerith placed her hand on Cloud's bloody, but healed cheek. "We should move him," she murmured, "get him out of the cold.."
Carefully shifting around and slipping his arms under Cloud's limp, cold body, Leon slowly lifted the blonde up, Sora watching, terrified, beside Aerith, who watched intently.
"Inside."
After Aerith had got Leon to move Cloud to the blonde's room, she cleaned the blood off his now-woundless body and changed him into some clean clothes, she ushered the two brown-haired males back into the room, gently stroking the blonde's fringe idly.
"Is he all right now?" Sora mumbled, wringing his hands. The young boy had come to know everyone from Hollow Bastion like family, so, finding someone like he had found Cloud, upset him. Leon rose a hand and patted the short brunette on the head absently.
Giving the young boy a small sad smile, Aerith sighed. "He's alive, but he lost a lot of blood. My healing can do many things, but, I can't regenerate blood."
Something clicked in Leon's head. "What type is he?"
Aerith blinked.
"Blood type," Leon explained, letting his hand drop from Sora's messy head of spikes, taking a step forward.
"AB, I think," Aerith murmured, watching Leon who immediately started rolling up his sleeve, Sora staring at the older man with wide, blue eyes.
"I'm AB."
Leon held out his arm.
((TBC. This is basically an explaining-filler-chapter-thing. Sorry about that. Cloud is actually AB, but, wikipedia didn't say that type Leon was, so, I used that to my advantage. Don't worry. The next chapter is better. I was in a slump when I wrote this. Read and review, if you like.))