The night went slowly, Leon sitting silently on a chair beside Cloud's bed, a book on his lap, his arm placed against the bed beside it, a long thin tube connecting his inner-elbow to Cloud's, bright red blood flowing through it in a steady line, the colour slowly trickling back into the blonde's cheeks.
Eyes floating from his open book, Leon looked at Cloud's other arm, where a large, black-green scab covered quite a lot of the pale skin. 'What is it?' he had asked Aerith when she was slipping the needle into Cloud's healthy arm.
'It isn't my business to say,' was her reply, before thanking him for doing this, and slipping the needle into his own arm.
Flipping the page of his book, Leon read on.
There was a quiet grunt an unrecorded time later, Leon raising his eyes from his book, which he had nearly finished, to see Cloud staring blearily at the tube in his arm though his eyelashes, a small frown on his face.
"Oh God," mumbled Cloud, closing his eyes again and groaning. "I've got your bloody cretinous DNA running through my veins... I'm contaminated!" he moaned, rolling his head away from Leon.
"You're welcome," chuckled the brunette.
Cloud waved his free arm noncommittally. "Meh," he replied.
Sighing gently, Leon looked back down at his book. Cloud was all right. He just needed a little more of Leon's blood, and he would be up and about in no time. Turning his page, he ignored it as Cloud shifted on the bed a little.
"How did you come to be so cut up, Strife?" Leon asked after a moment, eyes on his book.
"Isn't it against the alpha-male code to be worried about a competitor?" Cloud asked, a smirk forming on his lips, changing the subject fluidly. Leon glanced up from his book, before looking back down, a smirk of his own melting onto his face. He knew Cloud wouldn't answer. Oh well.
"Well," he hummed thoughtfully, "as far as I'm concerned, you're not a competitor."
The blonde rose an eyebrow, grinning. "I'm part of your harem, then?"
The smirk widened. "You said it, I didn't."
Chuckling, Cloud looked up at the ceiling, making no move to get up, move, or try to remove the tube in his arm. He wouldn't deny the fact that being in Leon's bed interested him. Finally, after a long moment of content silence, the blonde looked back at Leon, who was on the last page of his book.
"About before..." he murmured, instantly getting the brunette's attention, Leon looking up, watching him expectantly. "I just can't right now," Cloud finished quickly.
The other blinked. "You actually want to?" Leon asked. He thought Cloud did, but he wanted to know for sure.
The look he got in return was one that easily translated into 'Are you insane? HELL YES.' Trying to bite back the smug smirk tickling at the edges of his mouth, Leon looked back down at his book, reading the last few paragraphs. He felt Cloud's eyes still on him, but he didn't really mind.
Cloud rose his free arm to touch Leon's hair. It looked exceptionally silky right now, but, the moment his arm passed his vision, he stopped. Finishing his book and closing it, Leon looked up, to see Cloud staring fixedly at the black scab on his arm, which was held in front of his face.
He knew it wasn't his place to ask, so, he went back to the conversation they were having before. "What do we do until then?"
Lowering his arm, Cloud quickly slipped it under the sheets, shielding it, hiding it, before looking back at the brunette. "Hm?" he asked.
"If not 'right now'," Leon murmured, running his fingers over the book in his lap, "what do we do until then?"
Frowning a little, it took a moment for Cloud to figure out what Leon was talking about. Averting his eyes to the ceiling, the blonde thought about it for a second. "Forget about it until then?" Leon asked.
He was replied with a quiet scoff. Cloud looked at him, a crooked smirk on his face. "Last time I checked, you didn't have much self control," the blonde snickered, not exactly sounding unhappy of this fact.
"I do believe you're still wearing clothing and as 'innocent' as a person like you can be," Leon returned, raising an eyebrow before gently removing the tube from his arm. Cloud glanced down at himself and let out a quiet, impressed hum.
"Well," he sighed. "So I am. Fuck you."
"I do believe it'd be the other way around," the brunette returned offhandedly with a barely controlled smirk, slipping the tube out of Cloud's arm, before dropping it into the small basin of cold water by the bed, pressing his finger on the tiny bead of blood that had wept from where the tube used to be.
Cloud scoffed quietly, but didn't argue. That just caused Leon's smirk to widen.
"Anyway, what makes you think you've got more self-control than me?" the brunette asked, tilting his head to the side a little.
"Well," chuckled Cloud, looking smug. "I've kept my..." he frowned a little, not using the word, just waving his hand in the air to symbolise using it, "... for you secret for as long as I've met you. I think I can keep from ravishing you for a while longer."
Leon blinked. "For as long as you've known me?" he repeated, smug.
He received a small warning look. "Gloat, and I'll kill you."
Chuckling and finally standing up, his book in hand, Leon dropped Cloud's arm and slipped his free hand into his pocket. "So, we just forget about it?" he sighed as the blonde lifted himself onto his elbows.
Blue eyes bored into his own, before Cloud finally nodded. "Yeah."
Nodding, his eyes falling to the floor, Leon walked around the bed and to the door.
"Just a second!"
The brunette looked up, his hand on the doorknob, eyebrows raised. Cloud slipped himself off the bed, ignoring Leon's hurried objections, and staggered over to him, nearly falling onto him, grabbing hold of Leon's arm to steady himself.
Leon stared at Cloud, who just stood there for a moment, as though he was thinking, before the blonde leant forward and pressed his lips against Leon's.
It was gentle, soft, barely sexual at all. Leon sucked gently on Cloud's lip and the blonde pressed a little closer, running a hand through the brunette's silky hair as Leon slipped an arm around Cloud's waist. After a moment, the two of them moved back and Leon gave Cloud a small smirk. "What was that for?"
The blonde shrugged innocently. "Just so I know what I'm missing," he smiled.
Smiling despite himself, Leon leant forward and pressed a soft kiss against Cloud's lips, before pulling back again. "Right," he murmured, his lips brushing against Cloud's teasingly. The blonde pressed a few kisses against the edge of Leon's mouth before smiling sadly.
"Hopefully, it won't be that long," Cloud murmured, stroking the back of his thumb over Leon's jaw.
The brunette shrugged weakly. It wasn't that he wanted to wait, but, if it made Cloud happy, he'd do it.
Urgh. God. He was starting to sound like one of those sappy Romeos who'd cross seas and cut out their organs for their beloved. Pressing a last kiss on Cloud's lips, Leon drew back, opening the door and letting it swing completely open.
Turning away, Leon felt one of Cloud's hands against his arm, warming him, soothing him, before it disappeared; the brunette walking through the door and closing it with a click behind him.
Cloud was out of bounds now.
In the passing weeks the two males ignored their feelings for each other like they were never there. They acted like they used to. They argued like they used to, they swore at each other, fought, swapped banter, and without even a glimpse of their feelings for anyone else to see, or each other.
Sometimes it scared Leon what good actors the two of them were.
If you keep acting a certain way, eventually, you'll convince yourself too.
Eventually, he forgot of his feelings: just knowing that he never meant what he said to Cloud, and that the little tickling sensation at the back of his mind whenever Cloud brushed past him, shouted at him, or swung his sword, meant that the blonde was very, very important to him.
Four months passed by, Cloud had come and gone numerous times– sometimes for weeks, sometimes for days. But, every time he got back, within half an hour, Leon would find himself on the receiving-end of a vulgar greeting and/or insult.
At the sound of one of the most creatively lewd remarks Leon had ever heard, he just stared over his shoulder at the blonde, who had reappeared after disappearing for a good whole week.
"Should I ask you how you know that?" the brunette asked with a raised eyebrow, turning around from trying to smash down one of the teetering walls of rock in the restoration-site: the wall had been a danger to everyone around it for two weeks now.
Cloud shrugged innocently, a smug smirk appearing on his face. "Oh, I don't know," he hummed. "Spend a weekend with a talking penguin, and you learn quite a lot of new things."
Shaking his head, Leon turned back to the wall, pulling the trigger of his Gunblade, a bullet slamming into the wall, causing it to teeter for a second, before collapsing into a long line of cracked rocks and dust.
((TBC. I wrote some banter between Cloud and Leon at the start of this, because I felt the need to... Uh... I have absolutely no idea what to say now, except the fact that I'm currently writing the fifth-last chapter, and that I keep getting distracted by watching torchwood season two. Enjoy.))
