A/N : It's been awhile since I last updated, ya? Sorry to keep you guys waiting so long! Darn plot bunnies for my other WIPs just would not leave me alone. They're persistent little buggers that seem to multiple by the dozen every time I so much as listen to music, read touching stories, or watch sweet/cute vids on youtube, which is like, a lot.
Oh my goodness! I cannot believe it myself -- I actually did it! I finally wrote another Squaerith/Leonrith! I feel so accomplished and ridiculously giddy right now, you have no idea. Aren't you proud of me? I know you are. Come on just admit! It was so close to transforming into a Clorith, too.
Fluff, angst, fluff. It'll rot your teeth out and make your gums cry. -cough-
I hope you like it, Summoner Luna.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This was merely written for entertainment purposes only.
Heartprism
» (Asphodel : Regret)
"Oh, Squall."
It's the way she says it, breathing out the first word with a breezy sigh as he feels the weight of her head settle against his back, the smooth curve of her cheek pressing closely against the flat planes of his spine. She shifts against the mattress. Dark tendrils of twisted cinnamon flutter down along his side in a ripple of silk whilst brushing innocently against his exposed flesh. No matter how many times her melodious voice reverberates through the air and falls on his eardrums, whether it be in the light of day or the glow of starlight, they catch him off guard every time like nothing else.
"That's not my name," he intones morosely. Maybe in another time, in another place before the stars had blinked out like imploding diamonds in the evening sky; way back when such a title had belonged to a man that had stood as a great pillar of strength for his people, but not anymore. That man had died a long time ago when he had failed to protect his home and everything else he held near and dear.
Squall Leonhart was dead.
Yet, the flower girl still insists on calling him by that cursed name.
In the gloom, his face is eclipsed with pure apathy, russet-colored fringe falling forward and shielding his eyes as he shakes his head, exasperated. He keeps his gaze trained on the floor, noting the trail of blood stains that has soaked into the wooden boards for some time now, leading from the doorway.
Not a single drop of that blood had been his.
"Won't you just leave me be?" Leon demands more than asks, and she shakes her head firmly.
"No one ever truly wishes to be left alone," she murmurs kindly, her slight curves firm against his back. He feels more than sees Aerith's lips of carnation pink arch upwards into a radiant smile against her fair skin. They're so damn soft, ghosting across his quivering skin like silken petals of the most delicate flower. In all honesty, he doesn't know anyone else so willing to speak uncomfortable truths and be so sweet and pure about it at the exact same time.
In his mind's eye, Leon sees it replay over and over and over again like a broken record. The sickly glow of round yellow orbs in the shadows, the way he had wielded his gunblade as it had hung heavily before him, charging forward to render the mob of dark forms asunder -- after that everything had just happened so fast, too fast for his mind to truly grasp.
A shout to his left overshadowed with fear had called out to Leon in the midst of the chaos, and he'd turned just in time to spot a stray Heartless crawling along the alley wall in a dark streak of fury. In a flurry of roseate, Aerith had appeared before him casting Blizzaga. Something akin to horror had stirred in his chest as he desperately tried to hold himself back, the tip of his blade trailing the ground, but not even his remarkable reflexes and brute strength had been enough for the scarred lion to overcome the momentum of the fall.
Leon had struck her down like the delicate flower she was.
Scarlet blossomed forth from her rose-bud mouth in thin ribbons as he looked on in mute horror, her wide, terrified eyes unseeing, long auburn locks resembling something like rumpled silk as it obscured her face from his view, and her figure slim, feminine, broken as she crumpled to the ground. She moved once, briefly, but not again.
The image of her blood on his weapon had made Leon's head spiral with things unpleasant, unwelcome, and wholly unspeakable.
He remembers falling to his knees, stomach lurching to his throat, heart jerking in his chest like a drum without a rhythm, gunblade clattering uselessly to the ground as the Heartless had closed in all around them . . .
It scares Leon, to imagine himself completely unhinged.
"Aren't you tired in the least?" he asks her. "You should go to bed. Staying up all night won't help you recover any faster."
"It's been an entire week," she teases back good-naturedly. Her melodic voice rings merrily by his ear and she laughs quietly. "I think it's safe to say that I'll live."
Leon scowls, brows knitting together, lips pursing into a taut, thin line of self-loathing. "I could have killed you." His voice is a deep, husky timbre as he stutters over the last word, and the woman behind him gives pause, listening; it feels like a failure, and he squeezes his eyes closed tightly.
"It was an accident," Aerith mouths the words against his cheek. "I'm still here, aren't I?"
For that was Leon's greatest fear, that he would lose everything he cared for once again.
He knows she means to reassure him, just as she does for him when he is awkward and fumbling as though meeting her for the very first time, and the rest of their pseudo family on a regular basis everyday but when long, slim fingers curl gently, touching his arm slightly, something goes off in his head and he snaps.
When Leon turns on her he grabs her, he grips her by the shoulders roughly, noting the faint alarm that paints her radiant features as his fingernails bite into her skin and slams her onto her back, into the mattress hard. He wants to scream that everything bad that's ever happened to them is his fault, that the Garden was destroyed because of his inadequacy, because he's not strong enough.
"Don't you get it?" he says through gritted teeth. His eyes are diamond-hard and bright when they bore down into hers. "We've been lucky before but I was careless, and because of that you almost died. This . . . this kind of tragedy has never happened before."
The fine trembling in his limbs increases with each second that passes, and his hold on her tightens. He lifts his head then, to gaze searchingly into her eyes, the confusion and desperation slowly easing from his normally stony features; his expression softens and a flicker of light shimmers inside of his stormcloud orbs, before fading back to their former dark, shadowed hue. Leon's eyes continue to stare straight ahead, down at her, past her, through her. A fire quickly beginning to bank there as he seems to lose all touch with reality and is consumed by sepia toned memories. Memories of rushing winds brushing up against holes in corroding worlds and stars going out like twinkling lights.
His head falls to rest against her breast. "You could have died," he mutters quietly, "How can you forgive me so easily?"
Her breath hitches slightly and a new tension vibrates in the air.
When her stare falls on him, it's widened, but not in the way he expects. Aerith stares at him with round beryl eyes for a little while, plainly stunned by his words, and on the inside he is almost as surprised. Since when did he have the gall to talk to one of his team mates like this? But it is such a stupid situation, and he knows now after all these years of watching over her, protecting her, being in her mere sunny presence, that she means so much more to him than anyone could have ever anticipated.
The flower girl cares for him, sincerely, truly, genuinely, and in all honesty Leon could never hope for anything more.
Leon shouldn't, as he is painfully aware, because her heart, no matter how immense it is, is already taken. But he does.
"You were afraid for me," she says softly, and the gunblade wielder can barely hear his own voice above the thunder of his heartbeat. Her face blushes a pale pink for a moment, but then she smiles. A womanly curve to her full lips, an expression filled with some secret power that nearly brings him to his knees, makes him turn his head slight to marvel at it. She is so beautifully calm, so perfectly composed that it is not right. Yet when she reaches up to touch his face, fingertips lightly caressing his scar, instead of flinching and rising to leave like he imagines himself doing, he cannot help but lean into her touch and find himself utterly speechless before that fully matured look of emotion. His eyelashes flutter close as one hand rises unbidden to cover her much smaller one. She is so frail, so fragile, crushable like cherry blossoms in the palm of his hand.
Leon has already hurt her once.
"Yes." His heart gives a nearly imperceptible jump, and he mumbles quietly underneath his breath. "Of course I was." I always am.
Her green eyes sparkle brightly, auburn tresses fanned out against the pillow, her chest rising and falling with each breath she takes –- their eyes catch and hold for a long, long time in silence, the quick, harsh bursts of his breath the only sound. His face is completely unreadable even as pallid moonlight spills forth through an open window, his dark mane falling forward, nearly, though not quite, brushing her skin, and his eyes, the color of rainclouds then, smoldering.
"Is this okay?" he asks softly, quietly, his face impassive, but slightly trembling voice giving him away. The words stick in his throat slightly. "You want . . ." he trails off, trying to find the words.
Leon is a thousand tiers of pent-up emotions that can't seem break the chains that bind; it's never been easy for him to openly convey how he feels and put it into the right words, but she seems to understand, oh she understands so much more about him than he could ever hope to know in one glance, one brief look into those eyes of hers. Her mouth lifts up to flash a dimple for the briefest second and despite everything, he feels the ghost of himself flare brightly in his chest.
She murmurs something, and he shudders as she pulls him up to her and presses her lips against his softly.
It is difficult, and probably always will be, Leon realizes.
Somehow, he knows Squall will find the words.