A/N: So I am very sorry about the wait, but there isn't a lot I can do about it. I've taken an internship with a horse chiropractor and we travel pretty much all over everywhere! Yeah, so the net is not always a constant. Like, I've been holding thia chapter forever and ever and I just now have I had the reliable Internet to get it up.....

I'M NOT DEAD BUT I AM REALLY SORRY!!!

So this story is almost done... Like five more chapies I think....? Maybe.... Anyways, heres to hoping the next installment is semi-quickly. Woot!

Chapter Eleven:

Day One-Hundred and Ninety-Six: Dear Diary, This Was Not a Good Day

"So you came home and found Cloud curled up on the bottom two stairs passed out asleep and Leon nowhere to be found?" Roxas shook his head slowly as he contemplated his glass of water. "I would say this surprises me, but that would be a lie. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest."

"It didn't surprise me much either, though Leon could have actually cared enough to make sure Cloud made it to the couch before running away." Mrs. Strife sighed as she looked over at where Cloud was now snoring loudly on the sofa, not concerned in the slightest that people were having a conversation about him. "Though I think that might have been part of his plan. It would be just like him to start an argument with the hopes of Cloud getting so tired that he would just give up and let Leon go."

"He still could have tossed Cloud a blanket or something." Sora pointed out as he rolled over on the floor to lie on his back. "But I guess he's still an asshole despite everything Cloud did for him while he was in the hospital. Those cots could not have been comfortable."

"They weren't, that's why I'm trying to sleep now." Cloud's gruff voice drifted out from deep within the couch cushions as the blonde turned over so his back was to his family. "Bloody loudasses."

"Sorry, sweetheart, but you wouldn't have to listen to us if you went to your room like I suggested." Mrs. Strife crossed her legs and sat back her chair, knowing full well that she wasn't going to get her eldest to move, but willing to try on the off-chance she was wrong.

"I can't yell at him when he gets home if I'm in my room." Cloud paused for a second to yawn. "He's too smart to come straight to our room when he gets home."

"You're not going to do anyone any good if you're too tired to keep your eyes open." Mrs. Strife held in her disappointed sigh as Cloud raised his shoulders once in indifference and went back to dozing. "I don't see how I ever get any of you to listen to a word I say. The whole lot of you are stubborn beasts."

"But we're stubborn beasts that you love and who love you very much in return." Sora pointed out. "Look at it this way, you could have had a group of sons that took off at the very first opportunity never to be seen again."

"So you bother me because you love me?" Mrs. Strife asked. "I guess I'm going to have to take that at face value and move on with my life, aren't I?"

"Mom… You know we'd do anything for you if it was something that absolutely needed to be done… Or if it's something that will help you in any way." Roxas sunk a little deeper into his chair and tapped his fingers gently against his knee. "I fail to see how Cloud actually getting a few hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep is something that absolutely needs to happen or that will help you out. I think he feels that same."

There was a muffled grunt from Cloud's general direction that Roxas took as an agreement to his statement.

"Anyways, Cloud isn't the point here for once. He's going to run himself ragged all on his own without our help or judgment." Roxas continued. "Sora and his new relationship is what we should really be discussing on the other hand. How is that coming along, my dearest sibling?"

"Bite my ass, Roxas." Sora offered up from the floor. "I don't have to tell you anything, and, quite frankly, it isn't any of your damn business so stop bribing your boyfriend to pry information out of my boyfriend. It's very unappreciated."

"Boys, boys, boys." Mrs. Strife interrupted, as she tried to ward off the headache she could feel building at the back of her brain. If it wasn't one set of boys arguing in her house, it was the other. And if both sets found that they had nothing to fight about amongst themselves, then both factions had to get together to snipe at each other because no gathering was complete without an impending hospital trip. "Roxas, stop using your boyfriend to try and wedge your way into your twin's life. Sora, you didn't used to curse so much, so stop it."

There was a brief silence as the twins pouted in their respective corners of the room before Mrs. Strife couldn't take it any longer.

"So, Sora, how is your relationship with Riku going?"

"Mom…" Sora sighed deeply as the inner teen in him rebelled against discussing his love life with his mother. "We really don't need to talk about me and Riku right now… Or ever really. I'm perfectly okay with never talking about it."

"Now, Sora, honey, I'm your mother and that means I'm going to be prying into every corner of your life at every opportunity. You know this, and you also know I'm not going to be giving up, and I think Roxas will back me up on that…" Sora groaned loudly and Roxas grinned maliciously. Cloud let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle from his spot on the couch but it was kind of hard to tell. It could have just been another snore. "So, go on. Tell us everything."

"There's nothing much to tell." Sora protested, not wanting to give up that there really was a whole hell of a lot to tell, but that it was all very much in the realm of things he never wanted to discuss with his mother present. "We've only been going out for three weeks. He's been pretty much the same Riku I've always known… Just more touchy feely."

"Sure he has." Roxas waved a hand in the air as a form of dismissal. "So how long did it take for you to start doing it with him."

"Roxas!" Sora shot up into a sitting position and sent his twin the dirtiest look he could manage around his neon red blush. "That is none of your damn business!"

"So you have been doing it with him." Roxas murmured as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I guess I owe Cloud twenty munny."

"Damn right you do." Cloud interjected as he rolled over so as to get a better view of the action. "I told you he wasn't going to be able to last. All those times he denied himself made it that much harder to resist."

"You're supposed to be asleep!" Sora sputtered, trying to grab onto something, anything that would take him securely out of this conversation. "And besides, it's not Cloud's business what I do in my personal life either."

"Doesn't mean I wasn't right."

Mrs. Strife laughed lightly. "Sora, you are a twenty year old man who is very much in love with the person he is dating. There are far worse people you could be having sex with than Riku. It's never embarrassing to admit to being with the one you love."

"Mom!" Sora flopped back down onto the floor and covering his face in his hands. "I am so not having this conversation right now."

"Too bad." Roxas chirped cheerfully, happy to finally be able to put Sora on the spot for once. His darker-haired twin was always pulling out the embarrassment where Roxas and Axel were concerned that it was about time he was able to get some of that right back. "You can just tell us about it, you know. It's obvious we already know, so what's the harm in just saying it out loud?"

"Mommy, make him stop bothering me!" Sora wailed and he rolled over to bury his face in the carpet as though doing so would make him disappear.

"I think Mom wants to know just as badly as the rest of us."

"You are not helping, Cloud!" Sora lifted his head up and sent his older brother a death glare, before slamming it back down into the carpet, this time hoping to knock himself unconscious.

"Not trying to help. Trying to hinder."

"And succeeding." Roxas was practically cackling with glee now. "Come on, Sora. I told you when I first started doing it with Axel. Turnabout's fair play."

Sora merely mumbled into the carpet something that sounded awfully like a prayer for deliverance.

"Sora, sweetheart, I am going to find out sooner or later, probably through Roxas, which means that Cloud probably will already know by that time as well." Mrs. Strife smiled sweetly at where her still prone son was now flailing his arms and legs about a little in an effort to maybe swim away from the sudden assault. "It's nothing for you to get so worked up about. It's a natural part of life. Roxas threw a fit just like this when he told me, but he's still alive. People don't really die of embarrassment. Besides, it can't be worse than the time I cornered Cloud. I think there are still teeth marks on the walls in the bathroom upstairs."

"Cloud's had sex!?"

It was highly possible that there was no physical way that anyone could shriek any louder than the twins just had, but if it wasn't, Cloud and Mrs. Strife didn't think their eardrums would survive the encounter. It was almost loud enough that Cloud didn't quite register exactly what the words were inside the shriek and it wasn't until a full ten seconds after the ringing in his ears had died down that he realized that the twins were still staring wide-eyed at him and were apparently waiting for him to fill in the rather large blank their mother had just left in her wake.

"Mom!" Now it was Cloud's turn to stare at his mother in horror. "What the hell are you trying to do to me here?"

"Sorry, sweetie." Mrs. Strife looked a little bit sorry, but more amused and Cloud almost couldn't find it in his heart to glare, but he managed to get a good one out anyways. "I forgot that was a touchy subject with you."

Cloud desperately wanted to answer back with a sarcastic 'Did not', but refrained at the last second before turning to his brothers and giving them the most condescending look he could muster. "Of course I have. There have been more people than stupid Sephiroth in my life. I'm fucking hot. That doesn't mean I was going to consult with the two of you every time it happened."

"Wow, I think my world has been rocked and my mind has been effectively blown. Who would have thought that Cloud would have allowed himself to be in a relationship long enough to get to that point?" Roxas was really and truly floored. "Fuck, I didn't think you'd ever dated anyone."

"I'm twenty-three years old. Of course I've dated people before. I'm not a complete shut in, douchebag." Cloud growled out as he sunk back down into the couch cushions, his mind racing full speed on the off chance that the twins wanted something more…. Something such as names. He was pretty sure that telling them the only person he'd really and truly slept with was Leon wouldn't go over very well for everyone involved. That and it was starting to seem more and more pathetic to him that he apparently was okay with settling for the first guy to show interest.

Never mind that they had both been thirteen at the time and not exactly in the stages of their lives where rational thought took over.

Sora shook his head weakly. "Next you're going to tell me that Leon's had sex before, too… Oh my God… He has, hasn't he? That's why he'd come home so late from those dates with Rinoa. I can't believe that neither one of you told us!"

"I can't believe you care enough to throw this big of a fit." Cloud sniffed melodramatically and crossed his arms over his chest in the hopes that the conversation were to be closed. "Look, let's take a second to come to terms with the fact that we are like every other functioning male in the universe and then get on with our lives, okay."

"No sir." Roxas responded stubbornly. "You've pried every last bit of painfully embarrassing memories from us when we didn't want to speak, now it's your turn to be put on the spot and we want answers."

"Well, I'm not going to give you answers so you can just go fuck yourselves for all I care." Cloud sent out a very menacing look that backed up his statement before disappearing once more into the deep folds of the couch.

"Sora, Roxas, I really don't think you should push the issue right now. He's tired enough as it is." Roxas and Sora sent their mother looks of shock at her suddenly supportive standpoint. Normally she would have been pestering her eldest right along with them whether she already knew the answers or not. "May I remind you of the bite marks in the upstairs bathroom? And that happened at nine o'clock in the morning when he was wide awake and had slept a full eight hours in his own bed, not after being so tired as to pass out on the stairway after having spent three weeks in a hospital cot."

"How did he get bite marks on the walls in their bathroom?" Sora asked, confused as to why his mother wanted the change of subject, but willing to go along with it if only for the fact that she had a point. Cloud had attempted to kill for lesser offenses than pestering him when he was running on little sleep. It really wasn't a safe time to be putting him on the spot. "Half of me is saying that I really don't want to know, but the other half is just too damn curious to be worried about becoming mentally scarred."

"Some of those marks are almost to the ceiling." Roxas pointed out, also agreeing with his twin's similar thought that putting Cloud in a volatile mood would be bad for their healths. "He's not that fucking tall. And I don't think he can jump quite that high… At least, I've never seen him jump that high but he might have been being lazy the last twenty or so times I've seen him be made to jump, so what do I know?"

And the argument continued from there with Roxas reverting back to the conversation's original focus of torturing embarrassing information out of his twin and Mrs. Strife continuing on as an impassive observer, giving comments where comments were due.

It carried on like that for awhile, eventually spiraling off into other topics once Sora had finally broken down and given up the bit of information Roxas had been wanting (it ended up that they had started sleeping together two days after becoming 'official'). All in all, it was kind of nice, most of the family was together. Cloud was so far gone that he wasn't offering up his usual snarky comments every two minutes or so, and there was no Leon to egg him on and make a mess of things.

As much as Mrs. Strife loved her two eldest, she did have to say that they had a flair for injecting unnecessary tension and anger into any family situation and it was a pleasant change to have them to where they were unable to do so.

She was just starting to really settle into watching Sora and Roxas discussing their upcoming term paper in English when the front door slammed open: effectively announcing Leon's arrival.

Cloud leaped up almost instantaneously and had launched himself over the back of the couch before the swinging door even had the chance to hit the wall. In fact, Mrs. Strife had barely had time to register that there was someone turning the doorknob before Cloud was up and moving, some sort of innate sense of his allowing him to know when his prey was within sniping range. Roxas and Sora just stared after him in stunned silence as the sounds of a muffled conversation began to float in from the entryway. They hadn't seen their older brother move that fast in forever. Hell, they couldn't even remember a time when they had seen him react so quickly, and Roxas said as much as it became clear that Cloud and Leon were not about to grace them with their presence any time soon.

"Well, he did say that he was waiting to yell at him." Mrs. Strife pointed out. "I'm sure he knew that if I got my claws into him first then he'd never see the light of day. Cloud can be awfully motivated when he thinks someone is about to steal his thunder."

"I'm sure he just didn't want to hear you go on about margin size and spacing any longer, Roxas." Sora quipped. "And for that matter, I don't think I want to hear you go on about margin size and spacing. Just do the paper and screw the margins. It's not like they ever really count off for it so long as it looks like it might be close."

"You have been so sarcastic lately." Roxas shook his head but was unable to hide the wide grin on his face. "I'm proud. You have finally learned."

"Roxas, is it really necessary to corrupt the only good and well-mannered child I have?" Mrs. Strife asked tensely. "I can't take you anywhere in public and I've never even had the slightest inclination to take your older brothers anywhere, but Sora was always the kid I could show off to my friends. Please don't take that away from me."

"Oh, Mom." Sora sent his mother a reassuring look. "You know I could never embarrass you in public. My brothers, now that's a different story. They deserve every ounce of shame I can heap upon them. I'm just practicing for those moments."

"Well… So long as it's just your brothers you're torturing… I guess I don't have a problem with that…" Mrs. Strife would have said something else but she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Leon in the doorway, looking slightly wan and pale faced. She immediately leapt to her feet but he brushed her off and took a seat on the recently abandoned couch with his whole family watching him.

There was silence for what felt like the longest of times, but what was really only about a handful of minutes before Mrs. Strife slowly sank back down into her chair and broke it.

"Where's Cloud?"

"He went… out." Leon's voice was about as vague as his statement. It was painfully obvious that something had happened, but Leon didn't seem physically hurt…

"Where did he go?"

Mrs. Strife pressed on in her questioning, knowing that if it were left up to her adopted son, they would never find out what it was that had him so shaken up.

"To handle something… I told him not to go." Mrs. Strife furrowed her brow in worry at that. She couldn't even begin to think of what could have happened that would have required Cloud to leave to go handle on his own. She also couldn't think of anything that would have Leon acting so strangely.

"What did he go out to handle?"

"He just needed to talk to someone I guess. Or threaten them. He didn't say which… I told him not to go." Leon stared blankly at his mother as though trying to make her fill in the blank on her own and not make him say whatever it was that was stressing him out so badly.

"I gathered as much… Exactly who is he going to talk to or threaten that you didn't want him to talk to... or threaten?"

"My father."

There had been a time years and years ago when Leon had first started working at the bakery that the three owners had created a little game to keep themselves entertained during lulls in business. In fact, it had been Laguna who had thought of it and who had been brave enough to try it out for the first time, but the other two had been more than happy to embrace it once it had been proven not to piss Leon off.

The game was fairly simple: They knew Leon had a boyfriend and they knew the basics about Leon's boyfriend (average height, blonde hair, blue eyes), and they also had the intuition to know that Leon hadn't told his boyfriend about where he was working. Not that they wouldn't have done the same in his position (Telling one's significant other that one works in an erotic bakery generally doesn't go over well for the most part. In fact, they had lost quite a few workers over the years due to that.), but it did make guessing which blonde teen strolling down the street was Cloud out to hunt down where Leon disappeared to after school all the more entertaining.

So while Ward was sitting in the front of the shop while Kiros tried to diffuse a mentally melting Laguna (who had apparently let slip some big secret to someone that was going to ruin his life, but that wasn't important enough for his business partners to know about), he slipped away into his old habit of people watching, always keeping an eye out for any blonde that looked to be about to right age to be Leon's mysterious lover.

He had been at this for an hour when the blonde walked in, an unreadable look on his face and determination in his crystal clear blue eyes, and Ward considered the option that he might be the blonde they had been looking for, for pretty much the past seven years before figuring that he couldn't be the one if only for the fact that Cloud really didn't know where Leon had worked and the odds of him wandering in here for no reason other than to buy a sexually explicit cake were pretty much zero.

"Is Laguna here?" There was something about the way the stranger asked his seemingly innocent question that suddenly had Ward on edge. It wouldn't be the first time that someone had come into the shop looking for nothing more than to beat its owner into the ground for one thing or another. Generally the absentminded brunette deserved what was coming to him, but that didn't mean his friends would stand down and just let anyone and everyone do whatever they wanted so long as there was reasonable doubt.

So Ward remained silent and put a mildly confused face on, gesturing to between them and then back to his ear, trying to communicate that he hadn't heard what the stranger had said because he was deaf.

"You're not deaf." To Ward's credit he didn't allow the unmanly squeak that had suddenly appeared in his throat to actually make it all the way out, but he wasn't quite able to stop his eyes from jumping out of his head. "Just because one cannot speak, does not mean one cannot hear. I'm assuming that since you wanted me to think that you didn't understand me Laguna is here and you just don't want me to talk to him. I'm also assuming that, since he is here, that he is behind the only other door in this place. If you don't mind, I would like to see him now and I would prefer if I didn't have to go busting into an employee's only area if I don't have to."

"Holy fucking hell you're Cloud!" Ward turned around rather quickly for a man of his size at the sound of Laguna's panicked voice to find the man himself standing in the open doorway with Kiros looking cautiously over his shoulder. "Please don't kill me!"

"I'll consider your request, but I'm not giving you any guarantees." Cloud made a graceful sweeping motion with his arm and took a step forward. "Is there somewhere that we may speak privately? There is something I would like to discuss with you, and then I'll probably kill you, but I guess it kind of depends on how angry you make me."

Kiros and Ward exchanged looks but when Laguna gave them a weary nod they moved out of Cloud's way so the blonde could make it back into the kitchen area without anything impeding his progress. They watched with mixed feelings of dread as their long time friend shut the stainless steel doors behind him and disappeared, not quite trusting Cloud but finding they kind of wanted to anyways. When Leon had talked about him, he had always been portrayed as someone who was actually a nice guy underneath his tough attitude. For Laguna's sake all they could do was hope that Leon had been right and that whatever it was that Laguna had done, it hadn't been something bad enough to make Cloud really want to kill him.

Back in the kitchen Laguna was not sharing his friends' optimism, mainly because Cloud was now glaring at him in a way that made it seem as though ripping out the older man's larynx wasn't completely out of the question.

"Why the hell would you tell him that you were his father?"

Laguna had been expecting that, and had probably deserved it, but that didn't mean what he had done was wrong. In fact, he was starting to think more and more that his sudden lapse in judgment wasn't a lapse at all and that he finally come to his senses after years of being wrong.

"I don't know…" Laguna offered up an insincere shrug. "Maybe because I am his father, and I think he has every right to know that."

"You never thought he had any need to know about it before." Cloud pointed out and Laguna cringed. Okay, that one had been a bit below the belt in the brunette's opinion, not that Cloud had ever been portrayed as the type who cared about where his blows landed so long as he got his way in the end. "He was perfectly okay with thinking his real father was dead. Actually, he was perfectly okay looking to you as a father figure to help him through all the stuff my mom and I couldn't. I was under the impression that you were okay with that as well."

"I was..." Laguna sighed. "I thought I was. I guess I wasn't as okay with it as I thought. How the hell do you know about all of this?"

"I do my research." Cloud crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. "A friend of mine stumbled upon something very interesting on Leon's birth certificate and he decided he needed to share it with me. It took me a few months to figure the rest out from there, but I managed in the end."

"So why didn't you tell him if you were concerned enough to go through all that trouble of looking me up?" Laguna asked quickly, trying desperately to put the other man on the defensive so he could take a moment to regain his bearings. "I thought you were supposed to love him. Wouldn't that mean not keeping secrets from him?"

"Sometimes loving someone means having to keep a few secrets." Cloud shot back just as quickly, apparently bound and determined to make sure that nothing Laguna said would catch him off guard. "Leon is happy with who he is living with. A family that has always been there for him, that has chosen him as opposed to giving him up. There was no reason for him to care about what had become of you so long as he had us."

"Well, he's still got you, doesn't he?" Laguna was starting to get tired of defending himself to some boy he'd never met before. He hadn't asked for Leon to show up in his life again hadn't planned for it and hadn't thought he'd wanted it until it had happened and Cloud was just going to have to get over that. "Honestly, I don't see what the problem is. Squall was bound to find out about sooner or later and now we can all work through this and he'll come out of it with a real father if that's what he ends up wanting."

"You have no right to call him by that name." Cloud scoffed. "You gave up that right when you gave him up. There isn't going to be any going back on it now that he's shown up and you've missed out on all the hard parts of him growing up. He's done just fine without a father up until this point and he'll be always perfectly okay without one. You don't need a dad to be happy."

"I think that's something we're both going to have to let Leon decide on his own without any interference from us." Laguna leant back against one of the silver countertops. He had never been one for confrontations and he was actually proud of himself for lasting as long as he was when Cloud was clearly not the type of person who came into a conversation with any thought of changing his mind. "Have you even bothered talking to him about this, I mean really talking not just pushing him to the side because your opinion was more important?"

"You don't know shit about me." Cloud growled out but Laguna could tell that he had finally hit a nerve that could be used to get out of his situation.

"I know a lot more about you than you would think." Laguna pushed himself up off the counter as the stirrings of confidence began to rise up in him. "Leon might not be one for talking much about his personal life, but he's said more than enough in a little under eight years of knowing him to tell me that you tend to jump right into things without bothering to consult with the people you are supposedly helping. Why should I think that right now is any different?"

"Because it's none of your damn business, that's why." Cloud's voice had dropped down to far below menacing and well into a territory that Laguna did not have any experience with.

If Laguna were to hazard a guess he would have to say that it was a very intense struggle within this young man not to simply reach out and choke the other man to death. Considering all the stories he'd heard about how Cloud was generally a 'punch first ask questions later' type person, Laguna was just about ready to end this discussion once and for all before whatever it was that was holding Cloud back from killing him disappeared.

"Fine, it isn't any of my damn business." Cloud's eyes widen a fraction at that and Laguna congratulated himself for managing to catch this insane person off-guard for the second time. "Look, quite frankly, I don't care what it is that you think and if you really are here on Leon's behalf and not your own then good for you… But I would rather like to talk to Leon about this, so you can pass that message along to him when you get home… Or don't. Whatever works for you, but we're not going to get anywhere going on like this."

Cloud looked like he wanted to say something to that, he really did, but he apparently either thought better of it or just couldn't bring himself to care because all he did was send Laguna the most evil glare he had ever seen in his life and turned on his heel and left, the steel doors swinging open forcefully in his wake with Kiros and Ward scattering to get out of his way.

There was a moment when it looked as though Cloud was about to pause and Laguna sucked in a rather large breath hoping that the other man hadn't thought of something else to bring up (or had finally given into his obvious urge to beat the stupid out of Laguna), but he didn't so much as spare the slightest of glances back before walking out once and for all.

In his wake he left behind one hell of a silence as Kiros and Ward watched Laguna warily for any sign that he was going to give in and tell them exactly what it was that had Cloud finally seeking them out. The brown-haired man in question merely rested against one of the open steel doors and massaged his left calf absentmindedly, not quite sure how to start a conversation that was going to fast become rather serious so soon after having the ever living shit scared out of him by a man half his age.

In the end, it turned out to be not quite as hard as he had thought since his friends were considerably more supportive than the angry blonde that had just left them. Of course that didn't mean that he wasn't going to have to find a way to fix this now… He just didn't quite know where to start.

Maybe it was time for him to start getting addresses for his employees.

The second Cloud opened the door to his mother's house he knew something was wrong. It was dead silent for one thing, something that never happened. Even when there was no one visiting, his mother generally had a radio playing or the TV going at all times. More than once he had caught her just leaving the blender running while she knitted in the living room. She was very much the kind of woman that didn't like the quiet because it reminded her of how much she missed her children.

So since he was faced with a literal wall of silence he immediately jumped to the correct conclusion: Something was or had gone wrong and he didn't think he wanted to know what it was. It didn't help that today so was not the day for anything else to happen.

Cloud now had two options. He could always go up to his and Leon's room and hide until someone came home and he could use the opportunity to spy and see exactly what it was that was going on, or he could turn around and run back to the dorm in the hopes that whatever had happened didn't have anything to do with him and that it would go away on its own without him having to interfere.

His insatiable curiosity lead him to choose option one, even though the instincts he quite often ignored were screaming at him that it was a bad idea all the way up the stairs.

Cloud knew he had made a mistake the second he opened the door to his room only to find Leon glaring at him from behind his desk. Cloud groaned and kicked the doorframe in frustration. He should have known it wasn't going to be as easy as confronting Leon's dad and convincing him to go away. It never was.

"Damn it! We're going to have to have a conversation about this, aren't we?"

"That is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say." There wasn't even the slightest hint of humor in Leon's voice and Cloud felt something at the base of his spine stiffen. This wasn't looking good. He should have run when he had the chance. "Why didn't you tell me? It's obvious you've known about this for quite some time, so why didn't you think that I needed to know about it?

"You've done perfectly fine all on your own up until now. I didn't think you needed to know." Cloud knew he had said something completely dumb the second the words left his mouth, but he never had been the type to take his words back once they'd been said. "You don't need a dad to have a good life."

"It doesn't matter whether I need one or not. It should be my choice as to whether I want one." Leon pointed out quickly as Cloud still hovered nervously in the doorway, not wanting to give up the option of turning and running just yet. "You never once stopped to think about whether I might've liked to have had a father to be there for me. You also never stopped to ask if I didn't want one either. You just naturally came to whatever stupid ass conclusion you came to and made up your mind to twist this around to have it end up however you wanted it to end up and damn what anyone else thought!"

"I didn't think you would fucking care." Cloud managed to ground out through teeth clenched so tight they were starting to hurt. "You never once attempted to see if your father was still out there somewhere. You never once said anything about wanting to know what happened to him. I just assumed that since you didn't care, then you wouldn't give a shit either way. I guess I was fucking wrong. Alert the fucking media because I was wrong again. Whoop de frickin' doo."

Leon took in a deep breath, the air whistling through his teeth as he attempted to get a better hold on the conversation at hand. "Look, you still lied to me and I still don't know why. Before we go around in circles for two hours and get nothing done, would you at least like to let me know up front if you're going to tell me your motives behind what you did or if I'm better off just coming to my own conclusions?"

"I don't have to tell you a god damned thing." Cloud shot back as he took a step away from the open door. "Fuck, Leon, this whole damn thing is beyond stupid. You call me stubborn, but I know you've already made up your damn mind about this issue and there is nothing I can say or do to change it so why don't you tell me what it is that you want to hear so that I can just go fucking home? I have a fuckton of homework to do from when you were in the hospital and I would like to get that done sometime before I have to go to class tomorrow."

Leon just shook his head and Cloud took that a sign that he could finally make his escape. He turned to go and ran face first into his mother who he hadn't seen standing down the hall with the most disappointed look on her face that he ever remembered seeing.

"Now, I know you are not running away from your problems and leaving them to fester on their own, now are you?" Cloud sighed heavily and shook his head, slumping his shoulders forward and turning around to re-enter his room, ignoring Leon's look of surprise and then horror when he caught sight of the reason why his angry boyfriend had returned and was now sitting at his desk with a look akin to a kicked puppy on his face.

"Mom!" Leon tried to once again gather his wits together for what had to have been the third time that day. Any more surprises and he was sure that his heart wasn't going to survive. "I thought you left with the twins."

"Of course I didn't." Mrs. Strife answered matter of factly. "They don't need me to hold their hands to get them through this. They have boyfriends for that. You two, on the other hand, are the two most stubborn, most un-talkative people I know. I knew better than to think that you would be able to resolve this on your own, as much as it pains me to admit it."

"Mom, this really isn't any of your business…" Leon immediately shut his mouth at the sight of the powerful glare his adopted mother had formed at those words. "Okay, so maybe it might be a little bit your business…."

"It's a hell of a lot my business." Mrs. Strife responded as she shut the door behind her and leant back against it, surveying where her two sons were now trying to look everywhere but at her or each other. "So Leon, you can be the first to answer one of my questions. Why are you really so mad at Cloud?"

"Because he knew my father was alive for god knows how long and never fucking said anything, that's why!" Leon clenched his hands into fists and pushed them against the sides of his legs in an effort not to hit anything.

"And how do you know how long Cloud has known this?"

Leon visibly recoiled at that. His mother had a point. Not once had Cloud told him exactly how long it was he had known. For all Leon knew it could have been days and Cloud had only been looking for the right opportunity to say something. Of course, from what Cloud had been saying before, that was highly unlikely, but that still didn't mean Leon might have been a little premature in jumping to place the blame.

"Cloud, how long have you known about Leon's father?" Mrs. Strife turned to look at her eldest next, resisting the urge to sigh as he stared stubbornly at the wall and refused to make eye contact.

"I'd say about five years now, maybe a bit less." Almost as though he could sense Leon's horrified look he went on. "Sephiroth came to me a few months after graduation when he had been volunteering at the hospital and showed me something about Leon's birth certificate that didn't add up. I put him off by agreeing to become his friend again and then I went searching around. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would have been since you'd been working for the damn man for about three years by that time."

"How the hell did you know where I worked!?" Leon was trying very hard not to yell, knowing that yelling would accomplish very little, but it was a difficult struggle that he was starting to lose with each passing second. "I never even told Mom that!"

"Of fucking course I knew you were illegally working in an erotic bakery." Cloud scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, daring to shoot a disbelieving look in Leon's general direction. "What kind of boyfriend do you think I am?"

"The kind who didn't care to check up on me I guess." Leon answered sheepishly. "Why the hell didn't you say anything about it? You just let me go to work every day without saying a damn word."

"You obviously didn't want me knowing about it for some reason." Cloud answered. "Who was I to push you to give up something you plainly didn't want to give? If loving and caring about you meant I had to let you keep a secret or two, then that was fine by me. So long as you were happy I didn't give a shit whether you were a stripper or a crack dealer or whatever the hell else you wanted to be."

As much as he wanted to, Leon couldn't quite find something to say to that.

"Look, you have both made mistakes here." Mrs. Strife pointed out calmly as once again her two sons tried to look at everything in the room that wasn't a person. "In fact, I don't think there has ever been a time when one or both of you haven't said, done, or hidden something that you ended up regretting. Granted, this might be a bit more on the serious side than some of those other times, but the fact still remains that neither of you are pillars of morality over here. So the sooner you both get it through your thick skulls that you are capable of making the wrong decisions in your lives, the sooner we can get to the real issue underneath all of this and the sooner you two can go back to your regularly scheduled lives."

"Mom, there's nothing to really discuss here." Cloud offered up a weak shrug as he made a last ditch attempt to talk his way out of an uncomfortable situation. "I should have told him what I knew a long time ago, but I didn't. Does it really matter why?"

"Stop copping out and get to the damn point already." Leon muttered just loud enough for both Cloud and his mother to hear. "It's not like she's going to give up even if I were to say that I wasn't mad at you anymore…"

"That's not going to work, Squall, and you know it." Mrs. Strife took a step forward into the room. Neither boy looked away from their determined study of the wall closest to them. "You two may not still be mad at each other, but if we don't get whatever was bothering you out in the open and resolved now, one of you will bring it up again in a future argument and then you'll be even worse off than you are now. Don't even try and say that I'm wrong. That would be an insult to all of our intelligences."

"So how the hell do you know there was some deeper motivation to what I did?" Cloud finally chose to acknowledge his mother's presence, but the glare he was sending her almost made her wish he would look back at the wall some more. "For all you know, I was just being a selfish asshole or a power-hungry jerk. I don't tell people things for whatever reason seems good enough to me at the time. This is not a new thing here, and I don't need you trying to make up some kind of sentimental shit to go along with all the other fucking problems I deal with, okay?"

Now both Leon and Mrs. Strife were staring at him with something akin to vague horror on their faces and Cloud couldn't blame them. He had never in all his twenty-three years spoken to his mother like that. Sure he'd argued with her, and he had never been one to pass up an opportunity to sprinkle curse words into just about anything he said, but he had never once talked back to her. He had never once insinuated that she didn't know what he was feeling. That was too much like accusing her of not caring for either of their tastes. He'd also raised his voice. Yelling just wasn't something he did.

Cloud rose up to his feet and shook his head slowly as he tried to clear away all the traitorous emotions that had him wanting to drop to his knees and beg forgiveness right then and there. Mrs. Strife moved out of the way automatically as he walked past her to the door, opening it and pausing in the doorway.

"I'm going to go now… You two can hate me all you want, but I'm not taking it back. It's nobody's business what I think and why I do the things I do so you can both go fuck off."

And with that he was gone, leaving the stunned forms of his mother and lover behind to stare blankly at each other as they desperately searched in their minds for the courage to run after him. It was a losing battle and Mrs. Strife sank down onto the nearest bed as the unmistakable sounds of Cloud revving his motorcycle's engine filled the empty silence he had left behind.

"What the hell is his problem?" Leon was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence. He had always known that Cloud was a private person. Hell, you didn't have to spend more than two minutes with the other man to know that, but in all his years of knowing the blonde he had never once hit a point where Cloud outright refused to tell him what was wrong. He quite often had to pry whatever it is was out of Cloud with the blonde kicking and screaming and dragging his heels the whole way, but there had never come a time when he had just up and walked away without offering so much as a tiny explanation.

"He doesn't want to talk about this." Mrs. Strife answered much more calmly than she felt. "I don't think it helped that we kind of ambushed him."

"I didn't even know you were here. I thought you had gone to get ice cream with the twins like you said you would." Leon knew that pointing this out didn't mean anything since Cloud wasn't there to hear his excuses, nor would he have believed them even if he had been. "He's not acting like himself, but I don't think it had anything to do with the ambush."

"No, though I'm sure it couldn't have helped his mood any." Mrs. Strife admitted. "There is more to why he felt the need to run away than being trapped in a corner."

"Too bad he didn't feel the sudden urge to tell us about it before he turned tail and ran off into the sunset." Leon mumbled dejectedly. A part of him knew that he should still be mad, that Cloud had crossed way too far over the line with his latest attempt at protecting a family member, but that part wasn't really in charge any longer. As much as he wanted to claim otherwise, Cloud really had thought that he was helping. Granted, Leon didn't quite know what the blonde had been hoping to accomplish, but he hadn't gone into this without thinking for once. He had only been protecting Leon in one of the only ways he knew how since talking out his issues never was an option until it was almost too late to matter.

"You really don't get what's bothering him?" Mrs. Strife asked incredulously. "It's obvious. He didn't want to tell you about your father because he was worried that you were going to leave us once you knew you still had a living relative out there that wanted you. Also, he's never really understood why it is that people enjoy having fathers so much since his was pretty much a dick that was never here and that wanted nothing to do with Cloud at all. I have to admit that part of that might be my fault, but it still doesn't change the facts. Edward wasn't there for Cloud when he was younger. He was too busy fighting a war because it made him happy to mess with the child he had left behind and the one time he was allowed back home, he spent a total of maybe two hours with Cloud."

"And then he died." Leon finished for her. He had heard that part of the story at least. Cloud's dad, the honored war hero who had died in the line of duty, tragically leaving behind a pregnant wife and one son. The rest, however, he hadn't known about at all. "Was it really all that bad? I mean, I know Cloud was young and all that, so he couldn't have really remembered his dad enough to hate him so much that he figured everyone was better off living without a male influence."

"He remembers more than enough." Mrs. Strife stated. "It's very hard to get the image of your father telling you that you were better off playing with the neighborhood kids because he was far too busy going out with his friends to spend time with you, even if you are not quite two yet. But that's not all of it, Leon. You two have been friends almost from the moment you met with your little fight notwithstanding. Surely you had to know that there was more than a stubborn personality to rival his that drew you two together."

Leon shook his head. He hadn't really given it a lot of thought back then. All he remembered was that there was a kid who wasn't afraid to fight for what he wanted and Leon had respected that even though he had been too young to really know what respect was.

"You were the same to put it as simply as possible." Mrs. Strife pinched the bridge of her nose and crossed her legs, unable to stay still. "You had Matron and he had me, and in the end you both had both of us, but neither of you had a father figure. You both grew up pretty much on your own. You didn't want to lean on us women too much the way Sora and Roxas would, so you leaned on each other. Maybe that's not the way you saw it, but that's undoubtedly the way he did in a way, even if he won't acknowledge that to himself. Now that you've got a father ready and waiting in the wings he's afraid that you're not going to need him any longer. He can say whatever the hell he likes to the contrary, but he likes being needed, being wanted, just as much as you do and he's terrified of anything that might take that away from him."

"To be perfectly honest with you, I'm almost afraid of that myself. It is an honor to be loved by someone that really has no obligation to love you and maybe I can understand where Cloud's coming from a little bit better than you because… Well, because I kind of share his fear…" Mrs. Strife opened her eyes and turned to look at where Leon was staring at her with a blank expression of shock on his face. "You're not going to be mad at me, too, are you?"

"No, Mom, of course not." Leon ran a hand through his bangs in a mixture of frustration and confusion. "To be completely honest with you, too, I'm not mad at Cloud anymore either. He is a jealous and possessive asshole all things considered, but I've known that for years. I guess I kind of was taken off guard by just how jealous and possessive he could be, but I've come to peace with his insecurities over the years enough to not take this personally. I just got mad, you know? I should have been quite as harsh as I was, though. Nobody deserves that."

"Don't protect him." Mrs. Strife seemed to be a bit more cheerful and that in turn made Leon's mood perk up a bit. "You had every right to pour the guilt on in this case, regardless of what Cloud may or may not have been thinking. He's going to have to grow up and accept his responsibilities sooner or later and I'd rather it be sooner, but I do hope that you'll go and find him and maybe talk this out a little bit more… Or at least as much of it as he is willing to talk to you about."

"He's not going to want to say more than two words to me at the moment and I'd bet you anything I know what those two words are going to be: 'Fuck off.'"

"Oh, sweetheart, you know I don't make fool's bets."

"Fuck off, Leon."

"Damn. I was off by a word." Leon had finally managed to corner Cloud in the hall of their dorm. It had taken about half the day and for some reason the blonde had finally been located a floor above their actual room, but Leon was so relieved to have finally caught up to him that he didn't even bother to think about why or where Cloud had been sulking. "I know you don't want to talk to me right now, but I really think we should at least call an official truce or something."

"I don't have to do anything." Cloud stated tensely, focusing on a spot over Leon's left shoulder, probably planning an escape at the first distraction to present itself. "Besides I'm perfectly okay with avoiding you for the rest of my life."

"I don't think that's going to work… You do have to sleep sometime and I have the keys to pretty much everywhere your stuff is." Leon pointed out. "I would hope that you wouldn't stoop to crashing on friend's couches and sleeping on the streets for the rest of your life in order to avoid me."

"You don't know my life." Cloud replied stubbornly.

"Cloud, this isn't something that is going to go away, but I've thought through most of the issues I had with what happened and I'm offering a no strings attached truce here." Leon held up his hands in surrender. "We're going to have to talk this whole shit out someday, but I'm promising you right here and now that I'm over it and I'm not going to get mad at you about it ever again."

"And what if I were to say that I didn't believe you and that this is all a clever ploy to get me in private where you will then proceed to break up with me once and for all?" Cloud paused for a second. "You're probably going to burn all my worldly possessions as well because you're spiteful like that."

"Why the hell would I want to burn your shit?"

"Spite. I thought I said that."

"Hm, so you did." Leon sighed deeply and resisted the urge to pinch the bride of his nose, knowing that taking his eyes off his boyfriend at the moment would result in Cloud running off into the sunset never to be seen again. "I don't want to fight with you anymore, and I don't want to break up. I really do just want to talk. I would like to know your opinion on this whole Laguna deal before I do anything. That is what couples are supposed to do, right? They're supposed to ask each other's opinions when it comes to the hard stuff, aren't they?"

Cloud seemed to ponder this for a second. "I guess normal couples would… But we're not normal."

"That's a bullshit excuse for continuing a stupid grudge."

"No it's not. I think it's the perfect excuse."

"So you're going to continue to hold a grudge with me because it's what normal people wouldn't do, and, not wanting to appear normal to one person, that's the only reason why you are refusing to talk to me….?"

Cloud shifted his weight from right to left uncomfortably, but nodded none the less.

"That's bullshit."

"Well, what do you want me to say?" Cloud asked defensively. "I don't like it when you're mad at me, but I don't like it even more when you aren't either!"

"Cloud, that makes no sense." Leon gave in to the urge to run his hand through his already messy hair.

"It makes perfect sense." Cloud crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground. "At least when you're mad at me you come right out say what you want. True, you don't say it very nicely, and you have raised your voice to me on multiple occasions, but at least I know where you stand. When you're like this, I don't know what to think. I know you're upset and I want to do something about it, but I don't know what you want. Do you want to be angry with me? Do you really want to forgive me? I don't know what you're thinking and that drives me fucking crazy!"

"Right now I'm thinking that we should really be having this argument inside the dorm and not out where any random passerby can listen in." Leon pointed out, quickly realizing the Cloud needed to vent for his sanity as well as everyone else's. "As for anything else, yeah, I'm pissed at you and I am going to be for the foreseeable future, but I really do want your opinion on this and I'm not going to throw everything away just because you made one mistake. Okay, so you've made a lot of mistakes, but so have I and I would like to think that you've forgiven me for all the stupid shit I've done to piss you off over the years. I'm not about to throw away years of a good relationship for some fucking incident that we can't just work through if you would only talk to me."

"I don't like talking. I never say anything right." Cloud's shoulders slumped. "Look, I'm just not a 'talk it through' kind of guy, but we can go back down to the dorm if you want. Hopefully I can manage to say at least one thing that doesn't make me sound like a retarded toddler on crack."

Leon sighed in relief. It might not have been much to a casual observer, but Cloud agreeing to go with him was a huge step for the blonde. If they managed to make it down to the dorm without Cloud running away at his first chance to do so, then they just might have a chance to work something out once and for all.

Luckily for Leon, they did make it, though there was a moment when Cloud looked longingly at the flight of stairs below the floor their room was on when Leon thought he was about to put all his running skills to good use in order to catch the other man.

Doubly luckily for Leon, Cloud didn't notice that there was a person waiting for them in the room once they got there or he would have been long gone before Leon had even realized something was wrong. In fact, it wasn't until this person decided to make their presence known that Cloud realized there was something wrong with the picture he was looking at, but by that time it was too late. The door had been closed and firmly locked behind him, effectively trapping himself in what was fast becoming one of his worst nightmares.

"Hello, boys…"

And then the guilty chorus of boys who knew they had done wrong:

"Hello, Mom…"

"I can't believe you didn't tell me that she was going to be in here." Cloud whispered urgently as Mrs. Strife was currently occupied with rifling through their shared closet.

"She followed me; there wasn't anything I could do." Leon whispered back, just as disconcerted by his mother's appearance as his boyfriend. "I didn't think she had come up here. I just thought she was going to look for Sora and Roxas."

"I did find your brothers, but they were coping just fine on their own." Mrs. Strife turned around to send her boys a mild disapproving look at the disheveled state of their closet (which considering it had been Cloud who had been in charge of the cleaning for the past three weeks since Leon had been incapacitated, wasn't as bad as it could have been). "You two, on the other hand, are in dire need of some motherly affection. So spill, Cloud. What are you upset about this time?"

"Motherly affection my ass. More like you couldn't bear to keep your big nose out of our business." Cloud grumbled to himself, but he straightened up a bit from his perch next to Leon on the brunette's bed. "I'm not upset about anything anymore. Now I think I just want a rather large alcoholic beverage, a trip to somewhere that is miles away from here, and a twelve hour nap. Not necessarily in that order."

"I second that motion." Leon muttered under his breath.

"Motion seconded, but denied." Mrs. Strife cut in quickly before either one of them could get in another snarky comment. "You two are the most compatible people I have ever met in my life. It takes something special to go from childhood friends into a substantial relationship, and to have done it so naturally that none of your friends or family noticed unless you came straight out and told them? That's insane. That is so far beyond insane that if I hadn't been here to witness it myself, I probably would have called bullshit."

"There is nothing I can really say that hasn't already been said about fifty times by now, but I do think that you two need to think about what you're going to do about this. Talking isn't really going to work, not for you two, but neither is ignoring it and hoping it's going to go away." Mrs. Strife shook her head in frustration as both Leon and Cloud shrugged. "What do you do when you get in a situation like this?"

"Have sex."

"Cloud Edward Strife-Leonhart! That is the most vulgar thing I think I have ever heard you say and I do NOT appreciate it!" Cloud flinched a bit under his mother's scathing glare, but remarkably didn't back down.

"It's true." Cloud shrugged again. "We're guys, it's how we communicate. No offense, but talking is for girls."

Leon nodded vigorously. "It's true. What? You thought we were coming back here to discuss the way we felt about this? I'm sure we would have tried, but more than likely it wouldn't have made much of a difference."

"I had hoped you might have given that option some thought." Mrs. Strife answered weakly. "Please don't tell me that sex is the great secret behind why your relationship has worked for as long as it has despite everything you two have been through."

"Fine, I won't tell you." Cloud answered.

"That has got to be the most shallow thing I have ever heard." Mrs. Strife truly seemed confused at the way her sons were treating this newest matter with a bored nonchalance that made it seem as though they really didn't see anything wrong with solving their differences with sex.

"It works for us." Leon answered smoothly. "I'm good at speaking, but I am very bad at saying what I really feel, I don't know whether that's a guy thing or whether that's just me, but it's the truth. Cloud… Well, let's just say Cloud doesn't have much verbal input in anything unless he's making a snide remark. We connect better on the physical level. It's very hard to hide what you're feeling when you're that close to a person."

Mrs. Strife considered this for a moment before sighing heavily and leaning back against the wall in defeat. "I don't think I am ever going to fully understand the both of you, but I guess I kind of see where you're coming from at least where this is concerned. That doesn't mean I agree with you or that I condone your policy of not logically discussing what is bothering you, but I'm not going to be the one to nit-pick your relationship into infinity. You've got your entire college campus doing that for me already."

"True fucking story." Cloud rolled his shoulders back and stretched his arms over his head. "Anyways, Leon, I don't care what you do. So long as you are happy with your life I can live with it. We cool?"

"We cool."

Mrs. Strife made a disbelieving humph in the back of her throat and looked at her sons sternly. "And how do either of you know whether you're telling the truth or not?"

"That's where the sex comes in. You see…"

"Stop right there, Cloud. I don't want to know anymore." Mrs. Strife held a hand up as though she were trying to physically stop her eldest from continuing. "So what are you going to do about your father, Leon?"

Leon raised one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. "Dunno. I guess I'll have to think about it for a few days and then decide from there."

"You just do what you think is best, sweetie." Mrs. Strife cooed, quickly slipping into her nurturing mother mode. "I may not have liked a lot of the choices you have made in your life, but I have never been one to step in and interfere when it was something that you truly seemed to take pride in."

There was more to what Mrs. Strife had wanted to say, in fact, there was a rather eloquent speech on the virtues of taking a step back and evaluating situations before making a move that she had formed on the drive over to campus, but she suddenly realized that she was never going to get the chance to deliver it if the way her children were looking at each other was any indication. In fact, she was pretty sure that she could have just announced that she was really an alien from outer space and they wouldn't have so much as flicked an eye in her general direction. She was actually beginning to become a bit uncomfortable as well if all truths were to be told. As much as she loved her children and were proud of them for finding matches that would make them happy, she was just as uncomfortable as any mother at witnessing their displays of public affection and the way Cloud and Leon were looking at each other had gone far beyond public affection and well into a realm she did not want to think about where her own flesh and blood were concerned.

"So I'm going to leave then." Mrs. Strife announced after an awkward pause that seemed to stretch on forever (but was really only about a minute). Cloud and Leon looked over at her in mild surprise almost as though they had completely forgotten she was still standing there (which, in a way they had). "Just remember that I love you boys and that I worry about you, and I always will."

"We know, Mom." Leon said seriously. "And we appreciate it. Try not to worry so much, though. I've got it handled, and, whatever you do, please don't try and find out where he is and confront him yourself. I really just want to figure this all out on my own before I decide whether I want him to stick around long enough for you to need to meet him."

Mrs. Strife nodded and went to open the door, more than ready to go home to where she could sit down and do some serious thinking herself. As she passed over the threshold she risked a look back at Leon and Cloud and found that they were once again not paying her the least bit of attention and for that she was almost glad. It hurt her to see them when they were having a disagreement and although it was very rude to ignore a guest when they were standing right in front of you, she was willing to let their slip in manners go if only for the fact that they seemed as though they were quite ready to get over their issues and go back to having the steady, more or less healthy, relationship they had been having for the past nine years.

She couldn't help but murmur one last sentiment under her breath before she left though, more because she was almost ninety-nine percent certain they weren't going to pick up on it anyways.

"Besides, I didn't get mad at you when you went to work for the man in the first place, why would I bother with starting a problem now?"

She didn't even wait to see if her comment had registered and the door clicked shut softly behind her as she went out to really find her twins this time.

"Well, I would say we're good now, wouldn't you?" Leon sounded a bit out of breath but considering they had been rather busy for the past hour or so it was understandable and expected.

"I would say so, yes." Cloud answered back after a split second pause. In his opinion they were quite a bit beyond good at the moment, but he didn't really have the breath to argue that point for the time being.

They lay there for a few minutes after that in which talking was subconsciously banned while they attempted to get their bodies back under control, and then Leon spoke up again.

"Did Mom say something when she was leaving?"

"I don't think so." Cloud answered as he flexed his calf muscles absentmindedly, enjoying the cool sheets whispering against his bare legs. "Can't say I was paying her much attention though. I'm sure we'll get yelled at about that sooner or later."

"I'm sure we will." Leon shifted his torso a bit in mild agitation. "I could have sworn she said something though. Something important…"

Cloud grunted in acknowledgement, but didn't care enough to respond.

"You really aren't helping here, you know."

"I don't care enough to want to help you." Cloud mumbled sleepily into his boyfriend's shoulder. "If it had been something she wanted for us to know, she would have gotten our attentions before saying it. Not everything's a test you know."

"Do you even know who I'm talking about?" Leon asked incredulously. "Everything is a test with her."

"Leon, let it drop. It was probably nothing." Cloud was now starting to become a bit irritated. It was so like Leon to take what should have been a relaxing moment and turn it into a game of twenty questions. "Like I said, if it was something important she would have gotten our attentions before saying it, and, if it really was something she wanted us to know about and for whatever reason we didn't hear it like she thought we would, she will bring it up again. It's not like her to let something like that slip in undetected."

"Something like what?" Cloud internally cursed at how unbelievably sharp his boyfriend was right after sex. All Cloud wanted to do was sleep damn it. "Hey, open your eyes. You know something, don't you?"

"Fuck, Leon. If I tell you will you let me sleep already?" Cloud asked grumpily. He had to remind himself forcefully that, yes, he did love the other man, even enough to put up with him when he would rather not. It was a sad reminder, but it was one he utilized anyways. He'd come far too close to losing Leon for one day to fuck it up now because he didn't want to answer a stupid question that didn't mean anything.

Leon seemed to think this proposition over for a moment, clearly fighting against his overwhelming sense of curiosity and the knowledge that he was very unlikely to let the subject drop once it been brought up, even to let Cloud go to bed the way he was begging to. Finally he gave in, the need to know was greater than the need to follow up on the answer.

"Fine, just tell me."

"She said something about how she let you work for your dad for all this time, so why would she have a problem with him now." Cloud slumped bonelessly against the pillows and resolved to ignore anything and everything that could come out of his boyfriend's mouth at that point in favor of falling in unconsciousness.

But he resolution was for naught because he couldn't help but add in one more sarcastic comment before drifting off when Leon exclaimed in exactly the way Cloud had predicted he would…

"How the hell did she know about that!?"

"Just what kind of mother do you think she is?"

A/N: Oh, if only we can all make-up like that and have life be cool again. Alas, tis not to be. Anyways... Fingers crossed to a quick update and many, many reviews, yes? Pleases?