Disclaimer: All characters, most places things etc. belong to Square-Enix and Disney…or whatever, I don't own anything…so…don't sue me ok?

Chapter Eight
Here It Goes

Riku should have been a doctor.

He had the brains for it. In fact, he had been in school studying medicine for nearly 3 years until that fate altering day when he took the short cut behind the liberal arts building and just happened to pass a certain window of a certain movie club where a certain brown haired, blue eyed boy sat looking much too perfect. Within a period of weeks he'd developed a love of film and was switching his major to business.

A few years later (six to be exact) he was twitching in the corridor with an ulcer as his customer-hating employee took his frustrations out on his sacred DVD boxes.

"Leon, please. What have the movies done to you?" Riku exclaimed, grabbing the video out of Leon's hand before he could slam it into place. "Sheesh, gentle Leon; this is the merchandise."

Leon glared at him so fiercely Riku swore the temperature around him decreased by at least ten degrees.

"Uhm...yea...I'm gonna..." Riku laughed nervously, slowly inching away before crying "Sora!" and all but running away.

Leon growled as he slammed the remainder of the DVDs into the white shelves before picking up the crate and stomping away. He tossed it into the backroom, maneuvering his way around the hoards of giggling women to stand behind the counter.

He dropped his elbows on the counter, resting his chin on his palms. 'Stupid job. Stupid girls. Stupid blonde,' he thought, eyes narrowing to almost slits. He recalled images of the brunette from the night before. She was beautiful and seemed very familiar with Cloud. 'If they're so close why doesn't he go live with her?' he thought darkly.

The bells on the door rung, signaling a customer and Leon looked up, eyes smoldering as he saw the very reason for his foul mood approaching. He glared as the indirect source of his stress and lack of sleep seemed to glide across the short distance from the door to the counter, smiling that pearly white, perfect smile all the way. The smile was so kind and thoroughly un-evil that Leon's anger dissolved into curiosity as he straightened up and looked down at her.

"Leon, right?" she asked. "May I have a word?"

Leon sulked in the high backed chair of the posh cafe, glaring at the woman through his tall water glass. Even her distorted image through the water was beautiful, and he was painfully aware of the stares they were getting. She ignored them; however, daintily consuming a piece of chocolate cake in the most ladylike of manners and the sheer perfection of everything she did was making the brunette sick. It was like she was a model human, sent down from some higher power to teach the pathetic regular people how to exist. This is how you eat, this is how you breathe and walk and talk.

"Mmm… you should try this cake Leon! It's really good."

"I'll pass," the brunette snapped, folding his arms across his chest.

"Suit yourself," she said, dipping the fork into the slice once more. "You know," she motioned to Leon with her fork. "Cloud loves the smell of chocolate but can't stand the taste." She giggled, "Once, I accidently added chocolate syrup to his-"

"Is there a point to this?" Leon said coldly. He felt his heart twinge when he realized that, no; he didn't know that Cloud liked the smell of chocolate. The last thing he needed was for them to start a battle of "did you know" and prove even further how little of himself Cloud had let him see.

Some unidentifiable emotion passed across her face but it was gone before Leon could name it, replaced instead with a sad smile as she put her fork down, placing her hand on either side of the plate as she leaned forward. "You're right; I should just get to it already."

'So get to it,' Leon thought, arms still folded as he leaned back in his chair.

"I'm not sure exactly how much you know, but Cloud really cares about you so I'm sure it's fine to share this with you. The 'me' you see right now is a farce. My name is Aerith Gaignsbourough, and like Cloud...well, like Cloud was, I'm an angel. I've known Cloud since we were both very young, and I was his lawyer in his expulsion case."

Leon's glare softened and he leaned forward, interested. 'Lawyer...'

"There was...an incident involving a village, although I'm sure by this point Cloud has already explained this to you."

Leon tilted his head to the side, confused. 'No,' he thought, 'He hasn't...'

"We lost the case, and for his punishment he was sentenced to mortality and sent down here to finish off his life in sorrow, as a human. The elders imagined that he would suffer greatly, having no idea how to do anything necessary for humans and that even if he somehow did manage to survive he would be miserable. But obviously, things haven't gone as planned."

"Cloud is very happy with you. And because of this the elders are not happy… Ugh, I'm sure they wouldn't even be still looking for that case if it wasn't for Sephiroth," she said, slamming the table in uncharacteristic rage.

"Sephi...what?" Leon said, thoroughly confused.

Aerith looked up at him, obviously shocked and confused at herself. "You don't know who Sephiroth is?"

Leon shook his head, eyebrow raised.

"How much did Cloud leave out?" Aerith asked, disbelief causing her eyebrows to furrow.

Leon felt his own rage building and he stood suddenly the chair shook, threatening to fall but never hitting the ground. "Everything," he said, slamming a bill on the table and storming out.

Aerith leaned back, sighing as she watched Leon's figure disappear up the street. "Oh Cloud...this is going to get messy."

"This is no good, as we've said countless times," Marluxia, an angel elder said as he folded his hands in front of him.

"Well, the punishment was simply to banish him from our Utopia into the human world. We assumed bad would befall him but those were simply assumptions," stated another elder, creating quite a bit of uproar as those who agreed and those who disagreed began to argue loudly.

A pretty blonde girl, although despite her appearance she had long since departed from the age of being a "girl", sat at the head of the long table, occasionally glancing up from her sketchpad to observe the ordeal.

"Silence!" Sephiroth commanded standing up, he threw one arm out to the side as he said this, and the rare black wing shot out as well, scattering feathers across the white floor. "Let us attempt to retain some order here. There is all this talk about what has happened, but the real talk should be on what to do about it. I presume we have-"

"You're awfully worried about a case that's been closed so satisfyingly." the blonde said, her voice soft yet clear as she rested her chin on her hand. She appeared to be talking to them all, but Sephiroth could feel the accusation specifically directed towards him in her glance. "I can't help but wonder why the other cases aren't met with such enthusiasm."

"Lady Namine," he began, but she held up her hand.

"Why don't you, General Sephiroth, go down for observance and report your findings back to us? We'll compare them to Ms. Gaignsborough's when she returns and decide our course of action from there."

A sinister grin formed on the silver haired man's face, pulling his lips back into a snarl more than anything else. "Yes ma'm," he said cooly. "My pleasure."

Cloud sat at the counter, absently twirling the spoon in his mug of hot chocolate, intending not to drink it but to let the fading aromas ease him into a sense of comfort so he could figure things out accordingly.

Not only were the elders unsatisfied with what their punishment had accomplished, but for some reason or another Leon seemed colder than ever. He thought back to the events after the movie what seemed like ages ago, but what in reality was only two nights, and felt his stomach drop. 'Well of course he's mad...I would be too,' Cloud thought as he remembered the way he'd brushed off the urgency the other man felt and ran away.

He heard the slam of a door opened too quickly colliding with the wall and then a second slam as it closed itself due to the force. There was the rustling of outer clothes being removed and the stomp stomping of someone much less than happy. Cloud stood to confront Leon, to explain himself before things got out of hand but before he could even step away from his chair the door to the kitchen opened, revealing a breathless, visibly pissed off Leon.

Cloud combed his brain for suitable conversation starters to break their staring contest, something to not only get them talking to each other but to ease the suffocating tension in the room. Before he could speak however Leon stepped forward, in two long legged strides he was a foot away from Cloud, the small bar-like counter separating them like the physical manifestation of all the problems keeping them apart.

Leon tilted the mug of hot chocolate so he could look into it, some of it spilled onto the jade counter, hot smoke still rising from the puddle it had made. "You gonna drink that?" Leon asked, his eyes cold, distant and unreadable. It was as if the curtains had been suddenly drawn.

Cloud opened his mouth to answer but Leon wasn't finished.

"Of course you won't. You don't like chocolate. You like the smell, you don't like the taste. You know how I know this? You didn't tell me this, oh you didn't bother to tell me any of it," Leon exclaimed, his voice louder and half an octave higher then he would have liked.

"Leon...what? I don't understand...how does this relate to anything?"

"How does this? How does this relate to anything?" Leon was furious now, with one sweeping motion of his left hand the cup flew across the room to shatter on the wall above the dining table, splattering its path with chocolate as it flew. "Why does it seem like someone else is always filling me in?!"

Cloud had jumped when the cup crashed, but he regained his composure, eyes narrowing to slits as he glared at the man before him. He had been calm, albeit very confused, however now he felt his own anger rising. The sweep of the arm sending the cup flying, the unnecessarily loud voice, it all reminded Cloud of days long passed and decidedly buried underneath better memories. The other man was throwing the grown mans version of a tantrum and Cloud would have none of it. "I don't even what you're talking about Leon! How can I fill you in if I don't know what you want to know?" He exclaimed, slamming his hand on the counter, making some noise of his own (although it paled in comparison to the glass shatter) before the anger dissipated and he moved around the counter so they were both standing on the same side. He place a soothing hand on the other mans arm, "Talk to me. Tell me what's bothering you."

Leon glared at him. "You know everything. Everything I have you've somehow managed to figure out. You know, so much about me and I barely know anything about you at all! Why are you here? How'd you come here? What's your favorite fucking color!?"

Cloud paled considerably, removing his hand from the other. "Does it matter? That was another time, you know who I am. Isn't that enough?" He turned to leave the kitchen but Leon reached out, grabbing the other by the shoulder and turning him around.

"I want to know why? Why do you like the things you do? What made you into the person you are today?"

Cloud sighed, he knew this day would come, but he didn't know if he was ready for it to be today.

Leon shook his head, disappointed at the lack of cooperation from the blonde. "I met Aerith today."

Cloud's eyes widened, "How much did she tell you!?"

Leon sighed, "Enough for me to know you haven't told me anything. I don't understand Cloud! What could be so horrible that you'd want to hide it from me?"

The blonde said nothing, merely turning his head to focus his gaze on the sink faucet beyond them.

"I'm head over heels for you Cloud. Crazy, I know. I'm not even sure what it means but I've never felt this way about anyone before. All I think about is you, every day, only you. Nothing could ever possibly change what I feel for you."

Cloud looked up, slightly taken aback by the confession. He had definitely not expected this from Leon. His cheeks flushed a light pink and he felt his heart jump at the other mans words. "Are you sure?" he asked, so low it was almost a whisper.

Leon nodded, and there was something written in the way his eyes locked onto Clouds and the seriousness and worry etched into his features that made Cloud believe him.

"I was a soldier in the angel army, training under the great General Sephiroth. I wanted nothing more than to be close to him. He was my childhood hero. He defended our utopia; stopping would be problems before they could even start. He has one wing you know? A black one. That meant he was special. And he really was, or at least I thought so." Cloud said gravely, twisting the edges of his shirt in his hands as he told the story, looking anywhere but at Leon.

They had moved to the living room, Cloud leading the way to the large blue couch in the center where they could sit, facing each other. Leon sat, his face unreadable as he listened intently to Clouds story.

"I wasn't particularly talented," the blonde said with a sort of wistful smile, as if his memories were bittersweet, "But I worked hard and the higher ups took notice of that. General Sephiroth in particular and I moved to work for him. Things were fine, and he taught me a lot but something always seemed wrong you know? Like there was something about him that was just not right." Cloud sighed, leaning his head against the cushion. "Of course something wasn't right. He was crazy. Is crazy. I'm sure of that."

"When I began to work for him I started to see exactly how he was, and it wasn't really the hero I'd created during my childhood. He was demanding, strict, fierce, not at all kind. I don't think he's capable of pity or empathy, but that's completely different to the side he shows the public...so I was confused. He required certain...actions from some of his assistants." Cloud said, raising his eyebrows to make sure Leon understood what he was saying,

"And I complied...I was young and naive and idolized him. This went on and little by little he began to get more and more out of it. Like, he'd get upset at the smallest things. I've seen him kill workers for not answering his call on time, and then he'd cover it up with some past rule they'd broken and say it was all justified. He began to focus on some section of the code called JENOVA that I couldn't even read because it was written in a dead language, and I think that changed him to something even worse." Cloud stopped there, taking a deep breath as the memories came rushing back, the fire, the screams, it was all as fresh in his mind as the event from the kitchen not twenty minutes ago, as if they had happened both simultaneously and in separate lifetimes.

Leon reached out and gently grabbed his hand, giving it a slight squeeze of encouragement as if to say 'go on'. Cloud looked at his hand and then up at Leon smiling a bit before letting out his breath and resuming his story.

"I began hearing him talk of creating a new world where him and his fellow one winged angels could live supreme. I didn't say anything because I thought I..." Cloud faltered, unsure of the words 'Love? Did I love him?' He remembered the way he had been treated and decided it was defiantly something less spiritual and more carnal. "I thought I cared very deeply for him. But now I see I was just scared. He thought he was superior, but one day we stumbled across Nibelheim. There were labs containing old Angel records. He figured he could use it to help himself attain his goals, but it turns out there were no other one winged angels because it was unnatural. Sephiroth was created as some sort of experiment. They tried to create others, copies so to speak but they were all failures." The eerie image of men, nearly identical to the General, still in the egg like pods haunted him to this day. "He went insane then I think. Really insane. He demanded I kill the head scientist, prove myself to him or something. But at this point I had already wanted to be as far away from him as possible. I refused him and he became enraged. More angry then I'd ever seen him so I left. I needed to get away, his eyes were so unlike anything I've ever seen before. They were terrible."

Leon nodded, still gently stroking Clouds hand as if to show that he wasn't back at that time, that these were just memories he was revisiting and everything was alright now.

"I stayed in a separate room. I woke to screams and the fire. As soon as I stepped outside the heat burned me terribly. There were bodies everywhere, some...completely slashed in two. Decapitated, dismembered with different parts strewn throughout the town like some sort of twisted scavenger hunt. And everywhere things were collapsing, burning slowly to the ground." Cloud gulped, feeling his dinner coming back up as he remembered the feel of the heat, the sight of the bodies and the sheer smell of burning flesh and wood. "Next thing I knew he was behind me, shouting to the other soldiers that he found the culprit. That it was me. He told me this was my punishment for betraying him."

Cloud smiled bitterly at Leon, shrugging as he allowed his eyes to rest on Leon's face before darting away to the distant bookcase "And the rest is history. With him leading the case I was found guilty and sentenced to a life as a human. You know, to suffer. But I'm not suffering and so they're not happy"

Leon didn't say anything, he seemed to merely study the blonde, and the light of his new found knowledge seemed to show the other man in a different light. Cloud felt self-conscious under his gaze and squirmed a bit, taking his hand out of the others. "I can understand if you're a bit-"

Before he could finish he found his face in Leon's hands, their lips pressed together in a rough kiss, as if it was Leon's way of telling him he was an idiot. "So you're being punished for doing absolutely nothing wrong? Sounds like a real Utopia." he said after they'd broken apart. "This doesn't change anything." He kissed the blonde again, more passionately this time, "See?"

Cloud laughed, suddenly feeling much lighter than he had ever felt. He smiled at Leon before wrapping his arms around his neck, knocking them back onto the couch. He looked down from his new position on top of the brunette and smiled his most honest smile he'd smiled in a long time. He inwardly chuckled at the glazed, happy look that flashed in the others' eyes before he swooped down, capturing the others lips in a passionate kiss.

Leon cleared the coffee dishes off the table, dropping them into the sink and turning the water on so the left over pancake syrup wouldn't stick. He was smiling, too happy with the events of last night to care much that it was eight o' clock in the morning and he was up even though he didn't need to be.

"Thank you for breakfast," Cloud said, kissing Leon on the cheek before grabbing his coat. "You don't head in till 2 today right?" he asked, absently buttoning it shut.

Leon nodded, reaching to wrap Cloud's scarf around his neck before kissing him as he slipped his keys into his pocket. "Have a good day," he said when they reached the front door.

Cloud smiled, waving as he left the property. He hummed as he walked; using all his self control to keep from dancing in the streets. He was oblivious to outside noises as he simply replayed the previous night's events in his head. He felt his face heat up, his feelings protecting him from the harsh winter winds. He was nearly halfway done with the short walk to the library when he stopped in his tracks. Three black feathers fell to the ground right in front of him.

"Hello Cloud."

Clouds eyes widened, he knew that voice anywhere. It was that same silky whisper from his nightmares. Sure enough, as he turned around he saw him standing there, even in human form his figure looked diabolical sitting on the small bench between two maple trees.

"Sephiroth..."

a|n: edited May 27, 2009