Necessity dictated the construction of makeshift barracks just inside the outskirts of the bailey, through which various shifts of restoration committee members dragged themselves when the situation called for it, but the accommodations were no more welcoming than the desolate battlefields that lay beyond the grounds. A temporary respite only for the most weary of the battle-worn, reprieve (if it could be called that) came in the form of bare cots and the promise of shelter against the encumbering precipitation that seemed to have plagued Radiant Garden with increasing frequency as time went by. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and desperation was all that had been afforded to its surviving residents since the world had first fallen to Darkness so many years ago.
The biting winds that cut through the stone architecture of crumbling city walls had shrewdly ushered the bailey's present occupants onto the same flimsy mattress at the bottom of the steel bunks shoved up against the far corner of the barracks, and Leon could feel the dwindling warmth of Cloud's body radiating through the thin material of his own shirt as they lay back to back in the midst of the gloom. The subliminally soothing rhythm of steady breathing behind him offered some repose, but had yet to beckon him into the throes of his own subconscious despite his mounting vexation that Cloud had so easily dropped off mere moments after his head hit the pillow...as though he didn't give two shits about anything going on around him. He made it look so easy.
Leon shifted slightly to glance behind himself, but as always, Cloud was unnervingly still while he slept, and the faint throbbing of a pulse against the translucent curvature of his neck somewhere below short blonde tufts was the only reassurance that he was still among the living, entirely oblivious to the scorn with which Leon's tired gaze burned holes into the back of his head for the flippant disregard that sleep had awarded him.
Time had done nothing but crawl by like wet cement since they had ventured out at Cid's behest, and, inspired in part by petulant retribution, Leon rolled over, his bare arm coiling around an undernourished waistline like a serpent closing in on its prey as a particularly icy gust crawled through the cracks in the decaying foundation, foregoing any effort to be considerate as he wrenched the sleeping mercenary closer and pressed rough lips unapologetically against the warmth of his pulsing jugular.
"Ah – hey –,"
A hand flew up blindly to rest across Leon's tightening forearm in protest, stiff muscle beginning to shift under the languishing frame within his grasp...several days' worth of healing magic and dwindling potion supplies had released broken bodies from the majority of the bindings that had once held them together, but it wasn't as though the threat of invasion ever really allowed for a full recovery before they found themselves back on the frontlines yet again, and this time was no different.
Vividly opalescent eyes flew open a moment later, aglow with rampant indignation.
"What the hell?" Cloud greeted flatly, finding himself awake much sooner than he cared to be and cold again because of it.
Leon continued unperturbed as he felt bony fingers close around his wrist in retaliation, curling his free arm further up around the tender ribs he was busy rediscovering beneath Cloud's shirt to drag him still closer. "Nothing. What's your problem?"
A sharp sigh punctuated the still and silent air around them, and Cloud twisted slowly onto his back, free hand moving idly behind his head as Leon hovered above him and luminous eyes hardening in discontent as he regarded the taciturn gunblade wielder.
"Did you sleep?" he prompted.
Unbelievable.
"That's what you wanna talk about right now?" Leon ducked down irritably as the plunging neckline that parted the front of Cloud's shirt beckoned his attention, though he could tell by the way the other's gaze lingered on his face that the shadows under his eyes were more prominent than he would have liked.
What a pain.
"Just put your arm down and shut up..." he added absently, twisting around in Cloud's grasp and interlocking long, gloved fingers within his own to curl the offending limb back against the mattress over their heads.
"That's what you woke me up for?" Cloud shot back as the unwarranted assault on his ribs traveled pointedly southward, his sentiment coaxing a wry chuckle from somewhere in Leon's throat.
"Actually, it's because we gotta start another patrol soon," he clarified wryly from somewhere around Cloud's collarbone. "Why? Should I have woken you up sooner?"
Cloud rolled his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to free the hand that Leon had managed to pin down above him, upper lip curling for a moment in discomfort as his thin wrist was bent across the steel frame of the bunk there.
"Might've...saved a little time if you did..." he pointed out, his voice slightly strained.
Reaching up, he pushed lightly on Leon's abdomen beneath his hanging shirt in lackluster protest, but the sentiment earned him no reprieve, and a moment later his other arm had been shoved down near his side instead to afford Leon the opportunity to close in on the attack over the gap he had worked open in Cloud's shirt.
"Ah..."
Cloud shifted, one eye closing painstakingly, but there was little to be done until the uninvited assault against his chest abated again a few moments later, Leon's grip relinquishing on his wrists at last as he did so. Cloud glared at him.
"You think that's funny?" he said irritably, rubbing the teeth-shaped impression left behind against his skin.
"Hm." Leon smirked and moved away from him, flopping onto his back atop the tattered mattress and looking a lot more smug than Cloud thought he ought to. "Like I said, gotta go soon. Just a placeholder."
"What?"
"Don't wanna forget where I left off later."
Cloud rolled his eyes again in mounting exasperation, but the sudden, humdrum wail of a distant siren roused them both before he could respond. Vibrant turquoise met with steely blue, and a grim exchange of unspoken understanding passed between the two of them at the sound. A breach never came unilaterally, and the remote echo of encroaching darkness not only reminded them of where they were, but brought with it the assurance that that they had no chance of reaching its source in time.
"East entrance...Aerith and Yuffie?" Cloud asked lowly.
"Tifa and Cid." Leon pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, the deepset weariness that Cloud had noted on his face before seeping heavily into his voice as he spoke. "Aerith pulled doubles on healing duty last couple days. They'll just have to handle it."
Cloud swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sat up, his disheveled shirt slipping down around his elbows as he did so. Leon's surly gaze swept over his exposed back for a moment, and his own expression sobered as well as he reached out to let let his knuckles drop against the unprotected skin there, softly this time, running over the surface for a moment before reaching out more purposefully.
The journey of rough fingers traversing raised scar tissue was a familiar one, but while Leon's body, much like his face, was marred with the remnants of war and a life spent within military walls, Cloud's was a different story, one they had never really talked about. The old stab wound through his gut and the half-healed lacerations from their most recent battle was one thing, but it was the smaller nicks and cuts, the ones that could so easily be overlooked if Leon hadn't spent as much time as he had familiarizing himself with each of them – the ones that were too precise, too specific to belong to the steel of a wayward blade or the sting of a bullet – which remained off-limits in more ways than one. Like so many things between them, that particular story was one that did not need to be told with words...not when Leon could so often feel the nervous twitch of muscle and sinew whenever his touch accidentally grazed those lingering surgical imperfections measured just below the epidermal layer, or see the way Cloud automatically seemed to divert any physical attention away from the meticulous pattern waylaid in flesh just above his hip, into which some manner of mako pump had once most likely been grafted.
And it was just as well that some stones were better left unturned, because as a man of few words, Leon found that his own silence only became a bother to him in situations where there was nothing he could say even if he wanted to. He had only heard Cloud bring that specific topic up once before, the most fleeting of references discarded in an offhand comment to Tifa that was meant to explain away the lingering remnants of pinpricks down the back of his spine, the ones that chronicling a history of failed analyses which his body hadn't been able to endure. "Defective" was the word he had chosen for himself, and it was the flippant disregard with which the remark had been thrown out that had pissed Leon off more than anything else, mostly because his personal propensity to ignore things he didn't like had suddenly seemed so unsatisfactory to him.
But then he had punched Cloud across the face instead, and they had never talked about it again.
Leon let his hand fall away, sitting up at last and pulling on his jacket again as Cloud in turn shrugged his shirt back up over bare shoulders...from within Leon's coat pocket, they heard the familiar crackle of incoming static, and Leon relented to extract the small two-way radio from inside it with a sudden sense of foreboding.
"Cid," he uttered lowly. "You guys all right?"
More static...Cloud glanced over one shoulder in time to see the strain settling over Leon's sharp features as he tuned the frequency, but a moment later, Cid's muffled tones broke through the discord, and they both breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
"Crrk...ain't nothin' to see here...czzkk...hey, just got an alert from the mainframe, 'nother one of those weird energy spikes 'bout due south of y'all...crrk...better haul ass over there right now!"
"Got it."
Retiring the radio again, Leon wasn't surprised to see the same look of skepticism on own his face reflected in Cloud's angled features as well when he looked up. Their last several patrols had turned up nothing out of the ordinary, after all, but Cid had had a bee in his bonnet ever since his systems had first picked up the strange readings a few days prior...not that "somethin' big!" gave either of them much to go off of.
"Ready?" he uttered at Cloud, who swung his massive sword around onto his back with practiced ease and cast him a cursory glance, lips tugging subtly upward in a slight smirk.
"Hm. You're the boss."
"Shut up."
