Trigger Warnings: Suicidal ideation, themes on toxic relationships that includes sex, references to past torture, and character death

Chapter 2: We got trouble with a capital T.

Leon didn't sleep well alone. This wasn't unique to him or a secret or something he would hold against himself unlike some of his other broody traits. Look at that, he had introspected on his years in military school and his admittedly crazy-ass adventures. He deserved some credit, damn it.

He was more complex than you think.

The problem now was how to deal with his own stupid shit, which was him in the dark staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping, thinking that Yuffie was not going to come into the room because of the new guy, Cloud, who was clearly her dearest of friends.

Or maybe she was mad at Leon for something he had said. Yes, he knew he was being dumb, he just didn't know how to fix it.

Yuffie opened the door to their room. Light filtered around her silhouette before she shut the door behind her, and Leon sat up in the dark.

"Geez you scared me," Yuffie said. "You're still up?"

"I told you before, I have trouble sleeping."

"I took Cloud over to see Cid. We hung out. You should've joined us if you were going to be up, Squall."

"Whatever." Leon was certainly not affected by this invite to hangout after the fact.

"So," Yuffie said, "I'm going to sleep in the room down the hall from now on."

"I thought you said we could sleep in the same room."

"Well, I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea."

"This is because of him."

"Oh, how cute. Are you jealous right now?"

Leon scoffed. "No, course not."

"Wait, you're actually jealous?"

"Whatever."

"Squall," Yuffie said, a half an octave higher. "Are you really, actually jealous right now?"

As a shadow walking closer to his bed, Yuffie was shorter and skinnier than his girlfriend, and Leon wondered if it was fair to think that even if it was true. When she sat on the edge of his bed, Leon couldn't read the expression on her face in the dark so each rustle against the covers, each quick breath was a clue for what the hell she could be thinking.

She sunk into the mattress near his thigh, and she reached over him with her other arm. Her arms straddled him as her face, her body loomed over him in space that had been so empty. He flinched when her knee bumped his leg.

Was there a way to internally scream? Without a voice, his mind rang alarms of its acute existence and an awareness surged. He had enough sense not to ignore it, but a longing had settled since he had arrived at this place. Had this longing ebbed when Yuffie had arrived? His stubborn desire for human connection mixed with this unwillingness to seize that same connection. Ah yes, his perpetual internal conflict. But they had been sleeping in their everyday clothes, and he was sure that he felt relieved about that.

Her warm shadow came closer, taking up more and more space over him, and he held his breath. Yuffie pressed her lips against his cheek. She breathed against the trace of her lips where she had kissed him. She pulled back.

And Leon laughed. For a second.

"You're laughing. Right after I kissed you," Yuffie said. "Why do I always end up liking jerks?"

"I'm not laughing," Leon said. "I just thought…"

"Thought what?" Yuffie said, her face right in front of his, and Leon was so tired of being misunderstood that he reached for her.

"About something more like this." His fingers traced her jawline and guided him to where her lips should be as he closed his eyes. He pressed his lips to hers.

She gasped, pulling away. Her nose brushed his. She was still so he was still, and he listened for more clues. She kissed the corner of his lips first and then she tilted her head the other way and pressed her lips fully onto his. Her hair smelled like lemongrass, and her lips were as soft as any other lips, Leon supposed, but with less there than his girlfriend's. Fluttery kisses between them opened to parted lips.

Yuffie knocked her teeth into his lips, but when she slowed, when he pressed back, he felt that flirty urgency that made kissing fun. Leon had forgotten how much of a thrill this was when it was so new.

A dozen, fifteen, twenty? No one counted kisses when having such a good time, but at what point did 'kissed someone' become 'was kissing someone' become making out or messing around or something more? And when did a gasp, gasping for air become more like panting?

Leon placed his hand on Yuffie's back and traced one of her ribs.

She jerked back, out of Leon's reach. And for a moment, they looked at each other as gray face circles in the dark. A shadow of her arm rushed towards Leon.

An explosive smack, starting in his cheek, shot through Leon. He blinked to stop the room from tilting. Yuffie had slapped Leon across the face.

She climbed over his legs. Leon kicked. She moved to the middle of the bed, pulling the covers towards her. Leon pulled his arms in, covering his ears. She lunged at him. Her bony hands dug into his hip. He brought his arm down to get her off, but she shoved before he could grab her.

He fell off the bed, rolled automatically when he hit the floor, and stood. Everything spun in the dark. He heard her breathing before he noticed that he was winded, too.

"What the heck, Yuffie." Leon touched his tingling cheek.

"Get out," Yuffie whispered.

"But I-"

"Get out," Yuffie shouted.

Leon stepped back, away from the bed. He was sure this wasn't his fault, she came on to him, but why did he feel so guilty? For the first time that he remembered, he wished that he had thoughts that would match how he felt so that he could say them out loud to her.

But he did what he usually did. "Whatever."

He opened the door and squinted at fluorescent light. Identical doors lined the corridor on one side. Identical orange tinted windows lined the other. He closed the door to the room behind him. Hotel rooms were too big for just one person so he slid down the wall that he secretly shared with Yuffie and sat against it in the hallway.

When he closed his eyes, the presence of fluorescent light remained, the same way that the presence of someone nearby would remain, but with an entirely different effect on how comfortable it made Leon feel. Was this a sixth sense? Whatever it was, he would have trouble sleeping again. His sleep had been better with Yuffie in the room, but he ruined that so this is what he got. No, she was going to leave anyway. He would have ended up here anyway, but he ruined something else, with her. Something worse than his sleep, he supposed.

His high expectations resulted in this mess, and he knew better than to rely on anyone else but himself. As long as you don't get your hopes up, you can take anything...you feel less pain. He dug up his old broody mantras, but it was too late. He was knee deep in the consequences of not heeding the brooding that belonged in his past.

But once again, he didn't know how to fix it, to fix him.

The least amount of hope was no hope at all.

Counting, it was normal to count imaginary things to lull a mind to sleep. Counting sheep, heartbeats, sirens, he opened his eyes. He closed them again. Mind wandering aimless, blissfully smooth from one ephemeral trace of a thought to the next, Leon lifted his heavy eyelids. Shapes of figures spoke unformed thoughts. Drowsy, yet surfacing for the moments he knew thoughts weren't real. Dreaming, he was falling into dreaming, but once he started dreaming, he couldn't stop.