Standard Disclaimers Apply.

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy VIII

Pairings: Leon/Cloud, Irvine/Squall, some mentions of Seifer/Squall and Zach/Cloud

Warnings: Some perverted commentary, because, let's face it, Irvine is a perv.

First Snow

He hid his memories in the top of his closet.

He always disappeared for the first snow.

I want to know you better than this.

Not just who you are, but why.

And when your eyes will be on me alone.

Hey, would you miss me if I were gone?

Would you know what you'd lost?

Even the memory of your touch is too much

to bear when you're not here.

---

I want you to know me.

Not just who I am, but why.

But the words get stuck in my throat,

and I choke.

Chapter Six: Burying the Hatchet

Leon had been staring out the window watching the autumn leaves tumble for an hour. It was a habit the brunette had in the autumn that Cloud never thought much of. Everyone had their habits, and Cloud just figured Leon liked the pretty colors of Fall. But now…now he had to wonder. The slightly nostalgic look in those smoke gray eyes and Cloud's own preoccupation with Irvine Kinneas made him wonder. And yet, to bring himself to ask outright…even Cloud had a little pride.

"The weather's nice," he said. "I'm going for a ride."

Leon blinked and turned his gaze over his shoulder. "You'll be back in time for dinner?" he asked.

"Yeah. I just want to get some air. The weather will turn cold again soon."

Leon nodded, not suspecting that the blonde was sulking and turned his gaze back out the window, feeling fairly lazy at the moment and hoping he would be able to just enjoy the view for the rest of the day and no one would pester him about something that needed fixing.

He sighed as he watched Cloud ride off on his motorcycle below, looking irritable. Cloud always looked irritable lately. Leon knew their relationship was hanging on by a thread. He wasn't a complete fool, but he didn't know what he was doing wrong or how to fix it. "What exactly is it you're asking of me, Cloud?" he wondered with a sigh. "If you don't tell me frankly, I just don't understand what you're thinking at all."

-----

"What?" Squall blushed. He couldn't have heard that right. In fact, he wasn't even sure any of this was real.

"I said," Irvine chimed in a sing-song. "You. In my hat. And nothing else."

"Pervert!" Squall protested. "That's not a birthday present, it's porn."

Irvine had finally, finally been let out of the infirmary. It was November now and Irvine sat on a bench in Balamb, having insisted, 'if I don't get out of Garden for a few hours, I swear I'm going to shoot myself.' He wasn't really in any condition to go far, but Squall finally relented, taking out one of the cars and driving him to the nearest town for some fresh air.

Even though he was using his rifle as a cane and couldn't really get around so well without help, the cowboy's color had returned and with it his perverted commentary. Squall could still remember so clearly the feel of Irvine's fingers, weak and shaky, brushing his cheek late one afternoon at the end of summer when he was dozing off next to his lover's hospital bed.

Squall's head jerked up to meet sleepy looking indigo eyes and a weak smile. Irvine licked his cracked lips and said "G'morning Sunshine" in a gravelly tone. He could really go for a glass of water. "Why so blue?" Unable to come up with anything to say, Squall buried his face in his hands, relieved, and then lifted his smoke gray eyes and lightly slapped Irvine's biceps. "Never scare me like that again," he chastised.

Irvinelaughed a little, though it sounded like a cough and he winced at the pain in his stomach. "No fair beating on the injured," Irvinechastised. "But I won't rat you out IF you give me a kiss."

It was a price Squall Leonheart was more than willing to pay.

Three months had passed since then. Summer had long since given way to Autumn and the leaves blew in the breeze around them. Squall found himself in quiet awe. He'd never before noticed the reddish brown was the same auburn as Irvine's hair, the gold the shade of the highlights in that long ponytail when the light hit it.

"Hey now," Irvine protested, dropping his black cowboy hat on top of Squall's head. "This is the first real date we've had in months, so no getting lost in that overused brain of yours, Squall Leonheart. I want all of your attention today, Mr. Commander." Irvine winced slightly when he turned the wrong way, but brushed it off before Squall could protest that he really shouldn't even be walking around yet.

"You have all of my attention," Squall protested, feeling silly and taking off the hat.

"Do I now? Then it's a deal?"

"Yeah," Squall answered automatically before. "Wait, what deal?"

Irvine grinned impishly, telling him, "no no, you already agreed, it's too late to turn back now. I'll look forward to it."

"Look forward to wha…" The perverted little leer Irvine gave him made Squall wince as he remembered what Irvine had just been saying. "You can't be serious," he protested.

"I'm very serious," Irvine complained. "You can't treat me like porcelain forever, you know. Especially when you look so cute when you blush. Get used to that hat, cowboy," he teased.

"Irvine!"

-----

"Sephiroth!" Cloud had not been planning or intending to run into the silver-haired man today, but that's usually when these things happen and really it was just lucky to be able to finish things with him once and for all, though the blonde's heart wasn't really in it when so overburdened with thoughts of Leon and his current role as replacement lover.

Sephiroth deflected the first strike of the buster sword easily, smirking. "Now now," he said. "Not so hasty. Don't you want to know more about our darling Irvine Kinneas?"

Cloud blinked. How in the hell did Sephiroth always know what he was thinking? It didn't dawn on him to ask how he even knew about Irvine in the first place. Neither of them were from Leon's original world. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Come on now," Sephiroth said, bridging the gap between them fluidly with Cloud feeling dazed and completely off his guard. "I'm not so terrible, am I? I'm willing to tell you what I know, for a price."

Uh-oh Cloud. Don't take the bait. This is Sephiroth, aft all, your arch rival.

"…" Cloud narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but at the same time wondered if it was an opportunity he could refuse.

"Come now, don't glare at me like that. We're one in the same, after all. So let's bury the hatchet, hm? You've got bigger problems than little old me, don't you? You want to know how to compete with a memory. You want to know why Leon gets that look in his eye when he thinks of Irvine but never when he's thinking of you. You want to know why the autumn leaves make him feel so nostalgic. The answers will cost you very little."

Cloud's resolve faltered. "…what do you want?"

"Oh, a simple, small thing, really. It's of very little consequence," Sephiroth soothed, a hand cupping Cloud's jaw as he smirked down at him predatorily. "Just a kiss."

Cloud tensed and instinctively took a step back. He had a boyfriend damn it! A gentle, quiet, kind boyfriend who he adored. …and who he might lose to his own curiosity if he didn't find out what the hell was going on with him soon. He steeled himself, glaring into Sephiroth's eyes. "You're not just full of it, right? You really do know?"

Sephiroth made a show of sighing dramatically. "Oh fine fine, I'll tell you a bit for free to wet your appetite for knowledge and prove I'm not 'full of it'." Another dramatic pause passed before Sephiroth said, "Irvine Kinneas. Sharpshooter originally from an institution known as Galbadia Garden, later transferred to Balamb Garden to serve directly under Commander Squall Leonheart. Birthday, November 24th. 6'0. Weapon of choice: a silver rifle by the name of 'Exeter'. Attained the rank of SeeD when he was 17 for service in the battle against one Sorceress Ultimecia. Have I proven my worth yet?" the silver haired maniac quipped. "If you want more, it'll cost you a kiss."

A lot of that only opened up more questions about Leon's past than it answered. Leon had been a Commander of some 'institution'? And what was a SeeD? He supposed it was probably some kind of military rank. When he tried to find out years ago what Leon had done before ending up in Hollow Bastion and told the other he was a mercenary for SOLDIER, Leon had just said, "my job was basically the same thing." Cloud had let it slide, figuring the details were unimportant, but he didn't know that his lover had had a title as impressive as 'Commander'; no wonder he seemed to fall into a leadership role so easily. As for Irvine…

Cloud sighed. "Fine," he said. "Just one kiss." 'It's just a kiss,' he told himself. 'It doesn't have to mean anything, and Leon never has to know.' Of course, secrets were what had them in this situation in the first place, but Cloud had conveniently forgotten that for the moment.

----

Leon grumbled under his breath about computer viruses and Tron slacking off. Honestly, sometimes he felt like the others weren't capable of anything without sending him on some wild goose chase in or around Ansem's study. Cid seemed to be the only one who knew the first thing about computers most of the time. He wondered what kind of weird world the others had come from that they couldn't even manage something as simple as running an antiviral program, but didn't complain as per usual, but that didn't mean he didn't reserve the right to scowl and clench his fists as he made his way through the Restoration Site. What he found there made him pause behind a mound of debris in shock, his stomach lurching into his throat.

The silver-haired male smirked at him, eyes glittering in mischief once he released Cloud's lips. Cloud, back turned to Leon, didn't notice his lover standing there in shock and horror. Leon knew that face. He knew it better than he wanted to admit and it haunted him, but he'd never known the name that went with it. By all rights he should be furious. He should charge in swinging. Cloud had been kissing someone else and it was that someone else. No. No no no!

But Leon had run out of rage years ago. He needed to clear his head, to think. It couldn't be what it looked like, right? Cloud loved him, didn't he? Sure, they weren't doing so great lately but he'd believed that at least Cloud still loved him, maybe…

…or maybe not. He spun about and ran. He didn't know where he was going or why but secretly prayed for some heartless—lots of them, something to kill, something to make his mind go blank. Unfortunately there weren't nearly enough enemies about to calm the fury and upset, and he found himself hurling over the edge of a small cliff. Why? Why now? Why him?

-----

"Stop fucking around. I gave you your kiss, so tell me already. Tell me all the things you said you would," Cloud insisted, oblivious to Leon's previous presence or how much he had just unwittingly hurt his lover.

Sephiroth smirked. "Leon likes the autumn because the leaves remind him of Irvine's hair," Sephiroth said, tossing Cloud a faded photograph.

Looking down, Cloud wondered if maybe it was one of the photographs from Leon's box, but had given up now on worrying about that small privacy so long as he wasn't the one to dig it out himself. Leon, no, Squall, looked kind of put out, frowning a bit and looking to one side with his arms crossing his chest as if he'd just been the butt of some joke he didn't appreciate. A spiky haired blonde in the background seemed to be shaking his fist at what looked like it had to be Seifer—hard to tell without that stupid hat though, but what caught Cloud the most was the cheerful looking man with his arm draped over Squall's shoulders—the cowboy hat, the irreverent grin, the long auburn ponytail that really did make one think of tumbling autumn leaves. 'How am I supposed to compare to this?' he wondered. Irvine Kinneas. Looking closer, he noticed the faint blush on a 17 year old Squall Leonheart's cheeks.

"As for how to compete with a memory," Sephiroth informed. "…you can try, but you'll lose." He lifted his hand in a wave and started to stroll away.

"Sephiroth!" Cloud snapped. Damn it, that was barely any information at all! "How did Irvine die?"

Sephiroth smirked knowingly. "That information, my dear Cloud, will cost you considerably more than a kiss."

-----

To Reviewers:

shrouded-obsession, Starpolish, Garnetwind: thanks for the encouragement. I've been trying to do at least a chapter a day before my inspiration falls flat. Hope you've enjoyed this chapter as much as the previous ones.