Standard Disclaimers Apply.

Fandom: Kingdom Hearts/FFVIII

Pairings: Leon/Cloud, Irvine/Squall, some mentions of others

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.

The difference between hello and goodbye

no longer means a thing, if you're not here.

---

So much has happened I can't even cry anymore.

Chapter Eight: Lost and Found

Squall shifted from one foot to the other, frowning and looking over his shoulder to where his father was grinning stupidly and evening out his collar. Behind them, Kiros looked at Ward, who grinned, and Kiros covered his mouth to hide a laugh. If he mentioned to Squall that he was currently shifting awkwardly in the same fashion Laguna had for so many years Squall might decide to kill him—wedding be damned.

Laguna gave his son a light rap on the skull. "Stand still!" he protested.

"What are you doing behind my back?" Squall complained. "And why do I have to wear this stupid thing anyway?" He pulled irritably at his cummerbund. "You won't see it when the jacket is buttoned anyway and I can hardly breathe."

"I spend an entire year getting you to talk to me, and now I find out all you know how to do is complain," Laguna teased. "It's okay to have butterflies, but you know, it's your wedding day, don't you want to look nice for Irvine?"

"Irvine likes how I look all the time," Squall muttered a weak protest that even he knew wasn't convincing.

"Fine, look like a slob for Irvine, buuut," Laguna said in a sing-song. "It's my only son's wedding day and I may never get you into a suit again, so you're just going to have to suffer through it so I get some nice pictures."

"Laguna!" Squall protested. "No pictures…please?"

Kiros laughed at that. "Are you kidding? The son of the President of Esthar and the Commander of Balamb Garden is getting married, and to another man at that! You'll be lucky if the ceremony isn't nationally televised."

Squall swallowed the lump in his throat and told the butterflies in his stomach to kindly shut the hell up as Laguna put the noose—I mean tie—around his neck. Why had he agreed to this marriage thing again?

"Hope I'm not too late to help!" a familiar voice chimed from beyond the door. "My date was being difficult."

Zell emerged bouncing and shivering, his spiky blond hair hidden under a black beanie.

"What are you doing here?" Squall asked, stunned to find Zell had come all the way from Balamb for his wedding. He was secretly flattered, but couldn't bring himself to admit to it.

"You can't get married without a best man!" Zell declared.

"I called him," Laguna informed. "You don't mind, right? I mean you said he was your best friend."

Zell's baby blues lit up brightly. "You said that?" he said more than asked and tackled the scarred brunette in a bruising embrace.

Squall cursed under his breath and wished his father would keep his big mouth shut as Zell spun him around happily. 'Not in so many words,' Squall thought, but decided it was better to just let Zell finish his jubilant embrace and set him down when he was ready—it tended to be less painful to let the martial artist run out of juice on his own. When set down, Squall brushed imaginary wrinkles out of his shirt. "So…best man?"

"Mmhm!" Zell chirped, nodding happily.

"…you're not going to wear that stupid hat, are you?"

Zell looked at it and laughed. "Hm? Me? No, no, this is a present for my date! He's a little shy. I picked it up on the way. You don't like it?"

"…it's the stupidest hat I've ever seen," Squall replied.

Zell looked down at the black kanji beanie and grinned as if he was plotting something. "Then it's perfect!"

-----

"Damn it Aeris, just tell me!"

Cloud was on a rampage. He'd spent a day moping in his suddenly over-large room, and on day two he was downstairs demanding answers, answers he was positive that Aeris knew. Aeris had spent the better part of the morning hedging and hesitating. She understood his pain, but at the same time didn't think it was her place to say.

Aeris put down the mug she was cleaning—Leon's, coincidentally—and sighed. "He doesn't know," she said.

Cloud blinked. "He doesn't know what?"

"…Leon doesn't know his name," she said. "Sephiroth's, that is, just his face. I didn't think I should tell him. Back then, I didn't know what he would do if he found out. You were so maddeningly obsessed with Sephiroth then. When he finally described Sephiroth to me, I…maybe it was selfish." She paused again. "I'd already lost so much to Sephiroth. I didn't want to lose Leon to him too, not when he was finally starting to heal."

"But how does Leon even know Sephiroth at all?" Cloud asked, more calm now, but exasperated.

"…the Leon you know today would never have existed if not for Sephiroth."

"Stop beating around the bush."

Aeris turned to look at him, emerald eyes full of sorrow.

"He's staying in Ansem's study," she said. "Try talking to him one last time, Cloud. If he doesn't tell you himself, I'll answer your questions, but just…try one more time, please? I'm so worried about him. It's like all the healing he's done over the past years has unraveled all at once. I'm afraid he may do something reckless without you there to stop him."

"He doesn't want anything to do with me," Cloud said, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning sullenly.

"And you're willing to just accept that? That's not the Cloud I know."

"A lot has changed," he retorted.

"You fell in love again."

"…" Cloud frowned at her for saying it so frankly when he could hardly say it at all. "…just one more time," he finally agreed with a sigh. "Then you'll tell me everything, alright? I know what I've lost, but I have a right to know why."

Aeris surprised him by giving the blonde a gentle hug. "Things that are lost can be found," she whispered. "And I've never met anyone more lost than the two of you. Good luck."

-----

Selphie giggled and spun about in the powder blue gown she wore. "What do you think, Irvy? Do I make a good best man?" she joked, the dress ruffling out around her hips before falling back into place.

Irvine turned to her from where he was trying to get his bow tie—in the same shade of powder blue—just right. "Couldn't ask for a better one, darlin' …unless you happen to have a talent for these blasted things." He frowned at his tie, still slightly askew, and left it be for a moment to adjust his cummerbund. "Hate these blasted things," he mumbled.

"But Squally will think you look sexy," Selphie laughed before biting her lip in concentration and fixing the tie.

"Of course!" he laughed. "I can't wait to see him in the monkey suit too. I tried to suggest he wear a white gown, but he didn't like that idea so much."

"You mean he hit you."

"And no sex for three whole days!" Irvine complained dramatically. "It was awful!"

"There!" Selphie said triumphantly when she got the tie even. "Ready for your big show?" she smiled.

"Well," he said, "…no time like the present, I suppose, though I really had been hoping for something a little…smaller. I guess that's wishful thinking, considering who Squall is though," he said, peeking through the blinds at all the press and even ordinary citizens outside, wanting to catch a glimpse of the soon-to-be ecstatically happy couple. "Even so…" he smiled at his dearest friend. "…he's finally mine, Sephie, and by the end of the day it'll be official."

Selphie bounced happily, glad to see Irvine so ridiculously happy as he fiddled with his hair. Tying it back, letting it down…up. Down. Up. Down. Up…

"Leave it down," Selphie said. "You know how much Squall likes your hair, and he's the one you want to impress, right?"

Irvine let his long auburn hair down and chuckled. "You know me too well."

-----

Cloud didn't bother knocking. If he knocked, Leon would say 'who's there' and he'd say 'it's me' and Leon would say 'go away'. Last chance: thwarted by a flimsy wooden door and good manners. …so Cloud didn't knock. "I…" he started, and saw Leon's head jolt up at the sound of his voice and his shoulders tense. "This time I won't take no for an answer," he said with false bravado. "I want to know more about you. When you won't tell me, what do you expect me to do?" He barley managed to keep his voice from cracking with emotion.

Leon looked up into Cloud's magnetic blue eyes and cursed himself for it. He felt lost again. It was so difficult to tell the blonde 'no'. "I definitely didn't expect to find you kissing someone else."

"For what it's worth, I didn't want to."

Leon sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. Cloud knew that gesture. The brunette was uncomfortable and nervous, but wasn't pushing him away. When Leon didn't say anything or look back up at him, Cloud continued. "He told me for a kiss, he'd tell me about Irvine…the things you don't want me to know."

"Well, he, of all people, would know," Leon muttered.

"Who is he to you, Leon?"

Leon's smoky eyes cringed with pain at being asked so directly and he swallowed before he was able to answer, slowly, each word coming out carefully and deliberately. "He's the one." The words got stuck in his throat and he had to start over. "He's the one who killed Irvine," he managed to get out, hugging his knees to his chest at the painful memory. "…and everyone else. He stole everything from me. When I saw you kissing him I thought…I thought that he'd stolen you too." Again his fingers raked through his hair, trying to keep his emotions under control. "It was…" Leon squeezed his eyes shut, unable to continue for a long few minutes and Cloud, understanding now that he saw how painful it was for his lover why he'd never told him and feeling bad for pressing the subject, pulled the brunette into the best comforting embrace he could manage.

Leon buried his face into Cloud's shoulder and whispered, "…it was our wedding day. We were going to get married. Everyone was there."

Cloud's embrace tightened and he ran his fingers through Leon's hair gently, waiting for him to continue. He'd spent so long being jealous of Irvine, now he couldn't help but feel his lover's pain. Sephiroth had killed the person Leon loved most in the world. Even if Leon maybe should work on his listening skills and his trust, to some degree Cloud could understand why he blew a gasket when he'd seen Cloud kissing the man who'd ruined his life. He loved Leon more than he liked to admit most days, maybe now he could start to understand him. That, he thought, would be a nice change of pace.

-----

To Reviewers:

Nix: Unfortunately, I'm kind of dumping another cliffy on you. Haha. But hey, at least I update pretty fast, right? Glad you're enjoying the story.

Starpolish: Yes, that they are, but misunderstandings make for great drama. Perhaps they'll get their shit together yet.

shrouded-obsession: They certainly are in an emotional roller-coaster of a relationship, aren't they? But that's half of what makes it interesting, or at least I hope so. And yes, I'm insanely busy, but I may manage this yet. I imagine there will only be a few more chapters anyway.

fullmetalguitar: hah! Leon isn't half as angsty in the KH Series as he is in FFVIII, so I consider his moments of serious idiocy as "regressing". He spent the better part of FFVIII thinking things like 'it's better to be alone so no one can hurt you' and all sorts of angsty stuff that just made you want to slap him, so to some extent I chose to remain true to that a bit. He's just the type of guy who's not good at expressing his emotions, but no, it won't go on chapter after chapter, as you can see.

Wends: Hah! I know exactly what you mean about Seifer. I saw him and thought 'that's not Seifer, it's a chibi-Seifer clone'. Well, the copy never comes out as well as the original, right? Regardless, I just had a hard time imagining that little kid Seifer beating up on Squall. I thought 'uh. No. FF8 Version.', but like I've said before, I prefer the originals 9 times out of 10 (though I love how much more like Laguna Leon has come to look as he grew up because it makes me laugh. I imagine him thinking 'damn, I really am that idiot's son after all…') Also, thank you for the compliment on the characterizations. I'm doing my best with them, but sometimes I'm not sure how 'on target' I am, so it's good to hear that I'm managing them alright. I'm so rusty on this fan fiction thing.

Gold Silk: I happen to like both ff7 and ff8, but as FF8 was my first ever final fantasy game, I imagine it will probably always be my favorite. A lot of people bash it as being not really as good as the others, but I just love the characters to bits, that's not to say 7 isn't a great game(I swear I must have spent a full week doing nothing but racing/breeding chocobos) but we're all allowed our favorite memories—like Selphie's train song, and laughing at Squall when he was angsting like crazy and couldn't get a full sentence out of his mouth without going on some mental tirade—but I digress. Yes, in FF8 Squall is such a TOTAL uke. He grew up to be much cooler, which I actually love about him, but those ff8 fans out there know he's not half as unflappable as he pretends to be. Thank you for your awesome comments. They made me laugh.