You're sick of feeling numb
You're not the only one
I'll take you by the hand
And I'll show you a world
That you can understand
This life is filled with hurt
When happiness doesn't work
Trust me and take my hand
When the lights go out
You'll understand
-Pain, Three Days Grace
Chapter Eight
Standing in the kitchen watching as Aerith hid her face behind her hands as her voice died out having finished her explanation, Yuffie felt numb. A sensation she hadn't felt since she'd been old enough to understand the explanation of why she and Leon and Aerith lived with Cid on a world not their own. Learning the truth about her home world had been the last time she'd ever felt numb. She didn't like the sensation. She needed to feel; she'd much rather feel anger, the type that makes you throw things than that empty numbness freezing her now.
A hand squeezed her shoulder. She turned her head to see Cid looking down at her with an understanding look. "Alright kid?"
Kid.
That was Leon and Sora's nickname, the one Cid tossed at the indifferent man and the annoyed teenager.
Kid.
Yuffie nodded and closed her eyes. The appellation suited. Sora had once told her of a boy from other world not too far from Radiant Garden that he'd met on his first journey. A boy who could fly and never grew old. Yuffie wanted to be like that. She wanted to stay a kid, to stay free of the responsibilities, the knowledge that came with adulthood.
If she could stay a kid only in a nickname, that would do though. Besides, Leon would have a heart attack if she ever acted older than a ten year old.
---
Leon sighed tiredly as he hugged his legs tighter to his chest, staring blankly out the small window of the hay loft. In the distance the developing western suburb was visible in its chaotic construction. He sighed again; countless tasks for the restoration going through his mind, instantly cataloguing themselves in terms of importance. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that the reconstruction was significantly behind schedule and that it would more productive to go do some work instead of hiding, but he couldn't bring himself to leave his drafty little sanctuary. He supposed he'd been up there for a few hours; the sun was starting to set and everything was growing quiet, tranquil.
He bit back another sigh as he heard footsteps below him again. It seemed Cloud was still looking for him; he came in the stables every so often as he searched the area. He frowned his annoyance to the floor, seeing a head of yellow through a hole by his foot. Why wouldn't the blonde give up already? He didn't want company and he sure as hell didn't want to face…anyone. They knew, Aerith had told them. How could he face them, knowing that they knew and no doubt would have pitying or disgusted looks whenever they looked at him? How could he face Yuffie, knowing that he started what took away her home, robbing her of a normal childhood? Or Tifa and Cloud, with all the grief darkness had brought them? Especially Cloud…Leon frowned sadly, shutting his eyes and hugging his legs tighter.
What he really wanted was to go back to the days before his parents died, but since that was an unattainable goal so he decided to settle for just being left alone. He let his sigh go unchecked as the footsteps below faded away again. He unfolded his legs and swung down into a lying position, pillowing his head on his arm as he thought. He really didn't want to face anyone, least of all Cloud. Somehow the idea of the blonde turning away in disgust hurt more than the thought of others doing the same.
Despite the long hours he mulled over it; he still wasn't sure why. Ever since that episode he'd experienced at the Bailey in front of Cloud, the blonde had been there; drifting in his thoughts, slowly creeping in…here. Leon thought slightly awed, shyly pressing a hand over his heart. Cloud had seen him at his weakest, offered strength, his strength. Those bright blue eyes, soft and warm, flashed through his mind again. This time, instead of feeling uncomfortable and banishing the glow it brought, Leon held onto it, turning it over and inspecting it the way a child would a new toy.
He…liked it.
He liked…Cloud.
-----
Yuffie, Tifa. Leon is special; somehow, despite all that has happened; he has no darkness in his heart. I know, there is meant to be darkness in every heart. That's what we grew up knowing. Well Leon is one of the exceptions to that rule. The light in his heart is too strong for the darkness. But so much darkness has touched him throughout his life, unable to touch his heart it's filtered through his body; as a result his body is under a lot of strain.
-----
The jig-saw was nearly finished.
Cloud stood at the top of the rickety old stairs with one hand still on the railing as looked down over at the sleeping brunet. With his head pillowed on one arm, the other tucked up along his chest, the fingers curling lightly into his palm just under his chin and a blissfully peaceful expression on his face as he slept; Leon looked completely innocent, as though he'd never suffered a second of upset in his entire life.
It was a pity that the opposite was the truth.
He shook his head, clearing his thoughts as he walked carefully across the damaged floor, not trusting it to not collapse under him. He slowed to a cautious stop at Leon's side, crouching down next to his head as he silently debated on whether it was worth waking the brunet. After a few moments of mental ping-pong he settled on letting the other sleep and made him comfortable for the wait, shifting to sit cross-legged, burrowing a little into the jacket Aerith and Tifa had shoved him into when he stopped briefly at the castle an hour or so ago.
The thing about waiting is it often leads to thinking. Cloud knew he had done quite a lot of that lately. Strangely he found it productive; resolutions and revelations knitted together tidily within his mind, creating blankets of knowledge that wrapped around his entire being. It brought forth a nostalgic feeling. It seemed so long ago that he was hunting down Sephiroth and subsequently avoiding Tifa and running into Sora. It seemed like only yesterday he'd return from fighting the one-winged wonder to be eventually coaxed into helping the restoration committee. Nor was it that long ago that he believed that Leon had been lucky to have a normal-ish life surrounded by his friends. It had over a month since he'd learnt otherwise. It felt like he was still standing in the wreckage of one of the Bailey's walls, still staring after Leon's fleeing figure after that episode he'd unwittingly set off. At the same time he felt like he was back to that brief week he spent nursing Leon after his brush with death at the bailey, constantly puzzling over Aerith's question. It was odd that. Something he'd spent so much time trying to figure out could now be so easily and readily answered.
It was well after midnight before Leon started to stir, small twitches of his limbs and his head burying deeper into his arm with a soft tired sound. Cloud lifted an eyebrow in mild amusement as he watched Leon reluctantly wake up, trying to hang onto sleep longer. He gave a small smirk, eyes softening as the brunet finally sat, rubbing at his eyes with his fists like a child and yawning quietly. He watched quietly as Leon looked out the window before a slither of grey peeked through the brown bangs towards him and the brunet stiffened.
"Uh, hey." Cloud muttered feebly as he got to his feet; Leon mimicking his movement cagily. "You took off so fast, um, we were all worried."
"Oh, um…" Leon's hands wrung together as he dropped his gaze to the floor. "I…" he trailed off uncertainly.
Understanding, Cloud leant forward as Leon opened and closed his mouth and captured his hands, stilling their jittery movements. "You didn't think you could face us, did you?"
Leon bit his lip and nodded weakly, shivering lightly as Cloud ran a gentle thumb over his hand.
"I should be annoyed really." Cloud said quietly. "With all that's in my past, none of you turned from me, especially you Leon, so why would I turn from you?"
"It's my fault, all of it." He replied miserably. "If it wasn't-"
"If it wasn't you, Xehanort would have found another to experiment. Possibly Aerith; she's the only one I know with your strength of heart."
"…" The brunet wrenched his hands free and walked over to the window.
"Leon?"
He stood slightly hunched over, hands clutched together over his chest as he choked out a soft protest. "I'm not strong."
Floorboards creaked as Cloud came to stand beside him, reaching up with one hand to squeeze Leon's shoulder. "Yes you are. You were the one who first started to repair this world, you defend it; Radiant Garden would be lost without you. Your strength keeps everyone moving forward."
"I'm not!" He snapped, finally turning to look at Cloud, glaring. "How can I be strong when I'm fucking terrified?"
------
What do I mean by strain? Yuffie, the body isn't designed to harbour darkness, that's why darkness is supposed to be in every heart. The body is frail but the heart is strong. It can survive long exposure to the darkness. Where did I learn this? Xehanort's report. Initially, he wanted to instil his darkness in a pure heart, believing that a pure heart could open the door and that his darkness within such a heart would enable him some control. After this initial hypothesis collapsed, he used Leon for a series of new experiments.
The first is one we're all familiar with. It produced the first Heartless. Xehanort stopped the experiment on Leon before anything could happen to him, telling Leon that the first Heartless was from him. Though in actual fact, that was another of his lies; Leon has never been a Heartless but, you know Leon and his guilt complex... As you well know, Xehanort continued that experiment on adults, fascinated by those things, even after Ansem ordered the destruction of the experiments and its records.
------
The clock on the mantle chimed in the hour as 2am, Aerith raised her head wearily to stare at the door as Tifa walked in with an armload of blankets. Quietly she stood up and helped in spreading the blankets over the sleeping Yuffie before tucking one around Cid's legs as he sat by the fire, suddenly looking older than his age.
"Ta Aeri." He muttered tossing his half finished cigarette into the fire. "I shoulda told him earlier."
"You did your best, Leon's hard to track down on a normal day, never mind when he's trying to hide from us."
"Heh, always was a smart ass, remember when we first arrived in Traverse Town? Took him just one hour to find the ladder to the top of the Gizmo shop, gave me one hell of a fright when I walked into the Second District and saw him on the rooftops. He also found that cave in the waterway."
"Until he showed you it, he used to hide there all the time." Aerith laughed quietly.
Tifa quirked an eyebrow. "Okay, I now have the image of a teenaged emo Leon playing hooky."
"Oh, he did that alright. Used to drive Merlin up the wall." Cid chuckled as Tifa's face blanked.
"Ooookay."
---
Talking, according to Aerith, helps. Cathartic, she calls it. Cloud has a different opinion. The significance of talking depends on the person. With Yuffie, for example, talking isn't important because she does so much of it and with little thought. But for quieter individuals such as himself and Leon, talking took on a different significance. They weren't men of words normally. So when Leon started to talk, stumbling over words of fear, of guilt and remorse, Cloud did what he usually did; he stayed silent but offered acknowledgement of the brunet. Outwardly he was still, a calm statue with a listening ear while inside his mind bustled with thought and emotion. Awe that a man who professed to be so utterly terrified of the Heartless and darkness could fight so valiantly against them. He felt wonder that someone with so strong and light a heart to have survived what he did could only see a weak and tainted heart within himself and believe the light he was privileged to came from those around him. He listens as Leon speaks of fear, fear that his friends' light will abandon him or worse, one day fail; he listens to the resignation of inevitably fading into darkness and only then does he make a sound –a small protesting noise he quickly silences as Leon continues to speak, the words slowing from their chaotic speed to a more calmer pace. As Leon's voice died on the last admission of guilt-ridden angst Cloud could see something he hadn't seen before.
He could see Squall. That shy little boy Aerith spoke so warmly of. Squall was leaking through Leon's eyes, through his voice; left raw and open, unsure of what to do, unable to fight as Leon was used to doing; Squall was a little boy sitting alone and shivering. In Squall, Cloud could see what Leon wanted –needed. Someone to just reach out and make it better.
Exhausted, Leon sat down, leant against the wall, shivering in cold as he looked anywhere but at his companion. Cloud shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the brunet before sitting beside him, bringing his knees up and throwing an arm over them as he starts to talk. Eyes firmly fixed on the moon as it starts its descent from the sky; Cloud speaks of his time in the Underworld, of his own dark past, of Sephiroth and Tifa and how Sora taught him hope. Talking makes him feel lighter. He talks until his throat starts to ache and his voice grows hoarse; and then he stops. Finally he turns back to look at the other. Leon is sitting there with a quiet thoughtful look, an almost childish awe simmering in his eyes as he meets Cloud's gaze.
Cloud nods once and stands up; dusting off his pants before offering a hand. "Even if you do rely on the light of others, our friends have so much of it, darkness can never hope to get near you."
Those intense blue eyes were exuding such confidence and stability, Leon could feel hope tip-toeing through him. He sat there quietly staring up at the blonde, his hand rising cautiously and hovering before the offered one, hesitating. Cloud gave him a small understanding smile after a long pause. "Tifa once gave me her light to help me with my darkness; if you're want, you can have mine."
-----
There were countless experiments labelled in that report you found. Most pressing were the ones where darkness was instilled into Leon's body. Knowing his heart destroyed any darkness that came near it, Xehanort decided to test a body's reaction to darkness. The report stated that after a certain amount of darkness, Leon's heart appeared to interfere, destroying the excess. Xehanort's hypothesis was that a certain amount of darkness can empower the body but after that limit the body will start to shut down. A body can only handle so much and Xehanort was obsessed with seeing what happened when that limit was breached; Leon's heart was in the way of this. His sense of survival was -is too strong. Xehanort then told Leon that he was going to remove his heart for study. He traumatised Leon with the preparations. However, somewhere during these preparations, for reasons unknown, Xehanort decided to change his experiment.
-----
It was surreal.
That was the only way he could describe the way he suddenly felt disconnected from everything, including his body. It didn't feel like it was happening to him at all. Rather, he felt like an eavesdropper, witnessing something personal. It felt like a dream; he felt sure that it had to be a dream. His mind was in the midst of a storm; thoughts and feelings flying about like debris in a hurricane.
His hand was still hovering over the offered one, trembling slightly as he stared blankly at the blonde whose small smile never faltered.
If it was anyone else, Leon would have questioned whether they knew the extent of what they were offering. But it wasn't someone else. It was Cloud. And he knew better than most how momentous his offer was.
"…Leon?" Cloud's smile was starting to falter, concern etching into his face as he bent down.
"Why?"
Cloud blinked.
Leon shifted, legs folding under his body as he hauled himself up into a kneeling position. He stared back thoughtfully as Cloud gazed down at him confused.
"Leon?"
There was a long moment of silence. Cloud had opened his mouth to speak again when Leon finally answered, voice soft and laced with disbelief. "Why would you offer…that?"
Cloud's mouth clicked shut, his expression turning pensive as he knelt down again; rocking back onto his heels as he stared up at the ceiling, pondering how to answer. Finally he shrugged and stood up again, that gloved hand reaching out again. "I care, that's why."
Leon knew his face was heating up and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. He swallowed nervously, eyes darting around.
A sigh. "Leon?"
He shook his head firmly, Cloud felt himself wilt a little before the burnet placed his hand firmly in his and pulled himself up. Cloud watched as Leon dusted himself off with one hand, the other still holding onto the blonde's as he looked at the stairway. "I…can't accept that." He muttered, finally meting Cloud's eyes. "I'm, um, grateful for the offer but I can't take it…er, sorry for dumping everything on you."
The blonde shrugged and started to tug him downstairs again. "I don't mind. I would've shut you up if I did."
-----
When he went to take Leon's heart, he was never actually going to do so. His plan was to knock Leon out, cut his chest up badly and tell Leon that his heart was gone when it wasn't. He wanted to test the mind's strength. So often in his life the mind had triumphed over the heart, so why not conclusively prove the mind was stronger? Would the light of Leon's heart submit to the strength of his mind? How would the mind's firm belief that the heart was gone affect the heart itself? Xehanort intended to find out. His experiment was purely psychological; how would a major trauma affect the light of Leon's heart? How would it affect his entire being? Would it make him more open to the darkness? Xehanort intended to be around for quite a while. He planned to watch Leon grow up with that trauma instilled. To see how it affected him as a grown up. I don't know the details but Ansem discovered what he was up to before he could 'remove' Leon's heart. Ansem summoned Cid and Leon was in his custody and back with us the following day.
-----
Something felt different…
As Leon let Cloud lead him back to the castle, their hands locked together firmly, he pondered. It was odd. Everything felt the same and yet something felt so different. His brows furrowed in confusion as he lowered his gaze to their hands; his fingers loosely curled around the side of Cloud's hand while the blonde had a tight grip. Absently Leon wondered if perhaps Cloud expected him to bolt again before quietly shrugging it off, content with the sense of security and warmth the small contact allowed him. Physical contact was something Leon didn't have much of; Cid's claps to the back or shoulder, Yuffie's terrifying tackle-hug and Aerith's sisterly hugs after a nightmare were all he had. Memory told him there was more; warm breaths rustling his hair as arms wrapped around him securely, his parents, heartbeats pulsing under his ear, slowly lulling him to sleep. He sighed. When was the last time he remembered that? Traverse Town?
It had been awhile, that was for sure.
But he liked this. The simple and small contact which was keeping him anchored to reality as his thoughts spun dizzily around his mind.
He startled a little when he suddenly bumped into Cloud's back, the blonde had come to a stop just in front of the kitchen door.
"Alright?"
He nodded, feeling Cloud squeeze his hand once then let go. He reached out and grasped Cloud's elbow as he moved to open the door. The blonde paused and looked back enquiringly. Leon tightened his grip unconsciously as he fumbled for words, aware of Cloud turning around fully and watching him patiently, gently prying the hand from his elbow and giving it an encouraging pat before letting it fall down to Leon's side, brushing a belt.
"Leon?"
The brunet worried his lower lip for a moment before nodding to himself and looking up. "I just…wanted to say thanks."
-----
Leon grew up living and believing a lie. That because the first Heartless was his, he was ultimately responsible for the mess they created, especially here. He didn't believe that his heart had any light within; that what little light he was privileged to came from his friends; he believes that it is our light that protects him when more often than not it's the other way around. He thought that he had to fight every day, prove that he wouldn't submit to darkness, that he wouldn't lose his heart. He may not show it but he grew up terrified. Terrified of the darkness, that we'd leave him to it, that he wasn't strong enough…just terrified
That is what happened and unfortunately, Xehanort may win. Cid and I don't know how to fix what he has broken.
Maybe you should leave that to Cloud, Aerith.
------
Leon's face swam out of focus; a light breathy warmth pressed fleetingly onto his cheek. Small tingles danced across his skin as his breath stopped involuntarily, his eyes widening a fraction as he realised just what was happening. The brunet pulled back with a small smile, nodding once to Cloud before slipping into the kitchen to Aerith's distraught welcome.
Cloud stood just out of view of the open door, listening to the fuss Aerith was making, the low cussed filled relief of Cid as he ordered the man upstairs for a warm shower. He stood there quietly as Yuffie whooped loudly, a groan and a loud thud indicating that she had tackled Leon to the floor in her glee; Tifa's calm voice taking charge as she ushered Leon upstairs, suggesting that Aerith get some warm soup ready. As the noise died down, Cloud raised a hand and pressed his fingers against his cheek, trying to capture the tingling sensation still skimming over the skin there, still feeling the pressure of a dry but soft mouth resting against his skin. He blinked silently, staring at the light spilling over the footpath from the open door and swallowed as warmth heated his face.
Had anyone been there, they would've seen the large goofy grin stretched across his face.
----
TBC
My brain is dead now.
Sorry for the slow update but I'm in the middle of exams (I have six of the accursed things! T-T) and [censored if they aren't killing me. I almost wish I took up a different degree, preferably one with multi-question exams and not essay based one. It'll be the end of the month before I can get the next update out. This one's only happening because I needed a break from study before I really cracked up. So til the end of the month guys, enjoy!