悪かったな

squall leonhart of kingdom hearts by fair | she/they | 18+

highly inconsistent activity.

Cloud finished cleaning up the rest of the bar and headed back over to the other, raising an eyebrow. He didn’t know? There were rumors of a cure but no set location? Well that did explain, at least to some extent, why he had stopped searching. It was hard to move forward when you had no direction.

Cloud was an expert on that.

“Cosmo Canyon would probably be a good place to start,” he agreed, though he couldn’t recall ‘magically making limbs work again’ being part of anyone’s skill set there. It also had never actually come up so who knew?

“White noise, huh?” Cloud felt out was often too loud to be considered white noise, but he wasn’t exactly the poster boy for normal by any means. But what he said made sense, to an extent. He wasn’t sure how the ebb and flow of mako did or didn’t work when it came to specific parts of the body (nor did he really care to), but if it was anything like blood and it caused a clot of some sort….

But Cloud still wasn’t a doctor and all he knew about mako came from half remembered ramblings of an insane man

His eyebrow raised again at the almost immediate refusal turned agreement. Well wasn’t that interesting? Cloud couldn’t blame the other for wanting to say no, he himself would probably have refused the help if it had been offered to him, but he was aware that was one of his shortcomings and he was working on it.

Maybe Leon was working on it too. It seemed people in the SOLDIER program were cut from the same cloth.

Cloud tilted his head a bit at the question before shrugging a bit in response. He had no idea what to ask the other for as payment. It wasn’t like it was a big deal (to him) to go out to Cosmo Canyon for a few days. Or even just to drop him off and, possibly, come back for him later.

Hell, sometimes Cloud made that trip even when he didn’t have a delivery in the area.

“Nothing,” he finally settled on with a shrug, “I run a delivery business that has me traveling all around the planet anyway.”

Delivery business...His eyes flit from the ‘Seventh Heaven’ sign hanging at the back of the bar and then back to Cloud. The sensible conclusion is that Cloud is not the proprietor of this fine establishment like he had originally assumed. Picked up a shift on behalf of the owner, possibly.

“Drive a hard bargain, Cloud,” Leon snorts. Fine. No sense stepping on toes this early. The debt will be paid, at some point or another in the future. Tangible goals. Tangible goals, those, he can work with.

The heel of his palm slides against the counter as he taps the tail end of the gil notes. Payment for services rendered. “Don’t forget these.”

Strangers. He does not use the word loosely. They might have shared the common thread of SOLDIER, but he’s never worked directly with or heard of Cloud. The blond is preceded only by his reputation post-Meteor. Though, to be fair, Cloud would not have found any SOLDIER by the name of ‘Leon’ who had been discharged from service in the months leading up to Midgar’s destruction either.

“A surprising amount of time,” Cloud offered, aware of the state of the place. He was often there for deliveries, or stopping there on his way to and from a delivery. It had been a big blow to most places to lose Shinra, but some were hit harder than others.

It was an unfortunate consequence of their actions, but that didn’t mean that Cloud regretted what they did. Plus the WRO was supposed to be working to alleviate some of those problems.

Cloud turned, leaning against one of the tables, leaving the cloth on the surface, crossing his arms and tilting his head a bit as he looked at the other. Really looked at him. Past the very obvious scar on his face, though Cloud absently wonders how it happened, to try and read between the lines.

He had said he was in Edge for a new beginning, something Junon couldn’t offer him, but he wasn’t in town to try and cure his arm…? It was perplexing and Cloud finds himself curious despite himself.

“Where is this supposed cure located?” Cloud hadn’t heard any rumors of such a medical procedure, but he wasn’t the one with the injury. If he had been, he would have already gone to the ends of the earth to find it.

But he supposed that he was privileged that he had the means to do so. Even travelling with AVALANCHE, they had been incredibly fortunate that they’d been able to get where they needed to go.

Having access to your own airship certainly helped.

“I might be able to get you there.”

“No idea, if I’m being completely honest with you.” How he doesn’t come across like a total moron in front of Cloud right now is beyond him. Demonstrably lost. A vagrant, blown in with the wind. He isn’t looking for charity or sympathy or even companionship, but Cloud has a surprising amount of patience. “If I had to hypothesize-- and I’m anything but a scientist-- I’d probably start looking in places that have a history of studying planet ecology. Cosmo Canyon is a good bet.”

For all he knows, the problem might live entirely in his head. Psychosomatic, self-imposed. He wants to be reminded of her.

“A person close to me described it once. The Lifestream is like...white noise. You have to know how to filter out all the unimportant parts, find a way to tune into what you’re looking for. Control the chaos. Go in unprepared, and...well...” Leon trails off meaningfully and stares at the stray souls walking home in the dark through the window beyond. The effects that mako has on the unprepared has been well-documented. He shakes his head dismissively. “Even if there is one, there’s no guarantee it’ll work on me.”

Life is easier when you’re just following orders. Regimented, simple. Without the guardrails, the abyss is overwhelming.

He’s doing his best.

“N-“ The knee-jerk instinct to refuse help falters when he bites his tongue as it’s coming down from the roof of his mouth. He’s trying to get out of a rut, not hide in it. Leon makes a face like he’s been kicked under the table. “...Yeah. That’d be great, actually.”

Cloud paused briefly in his movements at the answer to an unasked question, mind trying to comprehend. Mako exposure had caused the problem with his arm? How had they let that happen?

Well, he had an idea or two on how that could happen, but it left a bad taste in his mouth and he preferred not to think about that man in his spare time.

He’d moved to go back to cleaning table tops, his mind still trying to process that information when Leon spoke again.

Cloud flinched.

Every inch of him tensed up and for a moment his breathing went shallow. Vision split between the bar and the (not real, not real, not real) ceiling of the lab that haunted most of his nightmares.

Hand gripped the cloth in his hand (real, wet, dripping), and he let a slow breath out of his nose. Vision cleared and it was just the quiet bar again, no more low muttering about medical things that Cloud pretended not to understand.

Another breath, (calm, safe, home), and Cloud turns to look at Leon, “So what’s stopping you now that the world isn’t ending?”

Not that Cloud was one to talk given that he’d all but given up on curing his geostigma when he’d had it and that had been fatal. But there also hadn’t been rumors of a cure. Cloud himself had studied medical books, trying to understand the disease and figure out a way to at least save Denzel, but he wasn’t a doctor.

A hand absently rubbed at the spot the geostigma had been, a phantom pain lingering there brought to life by being reminded of it. How hindering that had been, and that loss of function had just been temporary.

Usually it had the worst possible timing, but use always came back.

He couldn’t imagine if he’d lost function in that arm forever.

Cloud’s reaction to the information is visceral. An empathetic knee jerk and tripwire triggers. To anyone not watching closely, Cloud may have simply looked lost in thought or distracted. Anyone with live combat experience must recognize the signs. He’s seen the same expression before on Wutai veterans returning from overseas. Might have worn it a few times himself. Leon continues to observe in silence from his perch, finds relief when Cloud seems to recover.

It’s true. The world isn’t ending anymore. The question catches him off guard, mostly because he hadn’t expected Cloud to care enough to push the line of conversation further.

He...doesn’t have an answer. Not right away. “I guess I just got used to it.” Leon looks almost bemused by his own revelation. He’s never regretted the loss of use.

Only the fact that he couldn’t save her.

Not surprisingly, his arm stays limply in place of the sleeve of his leather jacket when he wills it to move. No changes. Cure, no cure. He’s made his peace. Despite having only one working arm, he can still defend himself just fine. Daily life is a slightly longer list of inconveniences, not impossibilities.

Cloud notices and it worries him. Makes him wonder just what it was that could cause at least partial permanent damage to a SOLDIER. Even death hadn’t been permanent for him. Though, maybe that was slightly different.

It sure had been permanent for Zack.

He wants to ask but bites his tongue for the moment. It’s probably personal. Invasive and rude to ask such things. But he was just so curious.  

“Ten for the drink,” Cloud offered in response, “Second is on me for dealing with that asshole.”

He didn’t feel right charging for the room, especially given that it was his room and it wasn’t likely to be the most hospitable. Not that they was anything wrong with it, but most people would probably expect something more grand.

“Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll take you up,” he added before moving to start cleaning up the rest of the bar for closing.

...And the room? he thinks but does not ask. Omission can be an answer, a way of speaking without words. Cloud evidently has no intention of charging him for the room and not enough want for his money. A sign of good impressions.

‘You’ll only dance with someone you like. Okay then, look into my eyes...’

They’re nothing alike.

Leon demurs, clears his throat as he begins thumbing the ridged teeth of a zippered pocket on his bag to blindly seek the cold metal tab of the zipper-pull and tug it open to render payment for the services rendered. He thumbs through the bills, returns his wallet to its resting place, and slides the gil across the glossy obsidian countertop towards Cloud’s side of the bar.

“You can finish what you’re doing.”

He isn’t in a rush. No one is waiting for him. Leon watches Cloud as he methodically sweeps a damp towel over spilt messes.

“Mako exposure,” he volunteers patiently, like this is a story he’s told countless times. Cloud had noticed, of course. Impossible not to. Lingering gazes are also a language, a way of speaking without words. Leon reserves his own right of omission. Wounds that are still too raw, too painful to recount out loud.

SOLDIERs were meant to be inexorable, the perfect weapon. Beyond human. A chipped blade was unthinkable, inadmissible.

“Well it wasn’t an insult,” Cloud offers with a small shrug, before allowing a faint smile of his own, “In my experience, old and cranky is what causes fights.”

Cid came to mind, though the man didn’t usually start bar fights, he was more than happy to finish them. Visiting Rocket Town was always an interesting endeavor.

Cloud gave a quiet hum of agreement before turning and heading back behind the bar. It wouldn’t have been good for a SOLDIER, former or otherwise, to punch a civilian for talking shit, even if the civilian deserved it. He’d stew further in his hatred and probably spin the entire story to make Leon be the bad guy.

Not that Cloud thought that many would believe him anyway. Cloud himself was too well known, too well liked in Edge for people to think that he’d cause problems for no reason and he didn’t doubt that the same courtesy would be extended to Leon if they knew that Cloud had been there when it happened.

The pride comment, however, Cloud couldn’t relate to. His pride was dead on the floor of some long forgotten lab.

“Cloud,” he offered in response, taking Leon’s glass and refilling it before moving to clean up the soapy water he had spilled in his haste to get around the bar, “And you can stay here for the night if you want.”

Wasn’t like Cloud did all that much sleeping himself anyway and if he really actually wanted some shut eye, he could accost himself back to the church.

The brunet hums thoughtfully against the roof of his mouth. “I guess I’m a different type of old and cranky then.”

He pours his refilled beverage straight down his gullet without so much as a wince. The drink is more flavor than buzz. Hard to get a SOLDIER down with mankind’s typical vices. 

Cloud’s offer is entirely unexpected.

“I’d appreciate that,” Leon responds with polite surprise. His brows come down into a slight knit from their elevated position. Seventh Heaven doesn’t look the part. Taverns are a thing, but he’s always pictured them as part of small towns, villages that strive for a little extra income through passing tourists.

Leon pushes back his glass, reaches down for the black, endlessly pocketed tactical bag that he had come in with and slings it back over his shoulder. From here, he can make a twisted-arm’s reach for his wallet. Premature, perhaps. Early preparation is preferable to awkwardly fishing after the thing when Cloud is ready accept payment or ready to direct him towards an assigned guest room.

Little things that slow you down, the inability to leverage an extra hand on the edge of the counter to maintain balance when leaning down too far. He has gotten used to accounting for them. At least he can fancy himself ambidextrous if he ever figures out how to fix his right arm.

In all fairness, the drunk had been in the bar already when Cloud had come down to take over for Tifa, so he genuinely could have not noticed that Cloud was also a SOLDIER.

Cloud tensed up when he saw the drunk grabbing for Leon. He fully expected the other man to deck the guy, and was impressed when he didn’t react. Even more so when the guy spit on him.

Without missing a beat, Cloud grabbed the back of the guy’s shirt, pulling him off of Leon and shoving him roughly toward the door. Perhaps a little harder than he intended, judging by the way the guy stumbled a few feet, trying to get his footing back. Another scrape of a chair had Cloud looking back over at the table that the drunk had originated from, frowning when he noticed the group of men there.

He wasn’t entirely sure if they were planning on just leaving after their friend or joining in on starting shit. He stayed next to Leon, waiting to see what the men would do, watched them waver as they seemed to debate the same thing themselves. There was a tense silence where they all stared at one another, Cloud wondering if they were about to have an all out brawl in the bar. 

The first drunk gathered himself and turned to glare back at Cloud and Leon, “Trash.” He repeated before turning and heading for the door, muttering under his breath about how SOLDIERs were the cause of all his problems and that they were damn lucky he wasn’t going to bother fighting them.

There was a pause before the rest of the men in his group trailed out after him. Cloud waited until the door had closed before turning to Leon, “I’m surprised you didn’t punch him.”

He can’t tell whether the man, jowls and scowls with beer-yellowed teeth, is a diehard Shinra supporter, a fool, or both. Enough of them still plague Junon, but the city has always been a military installation first and foremost. The civilian economy was almost entirely dependent on the Shinra career-men stationed there.

Either way, their company certainly won’t be missed by him.

Leon wipes at his face with the back of his hand and a grimace of disgust before looking back up at Cloud with a brief quirk of his brow.

“That supposed to be a compliment?” The line of his lips angles into a half-smile before Leon smooths out the front of his shirt the best he can with his good arm so that there isn’t so much of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ getting accosted by a random drunk. “Too old and cranky to go picking fights with dumb asses now, I guess.”

Not his best explanation, but it’s not a lie either.

He shrugs, wishes he had asked the blond for a refill of his drink at some point before all the ruckus. Maybe Cloud can offer him one on the house for his troubles. “Everyone has to take care of themselves...or their fragile ego. Vindicating his bias by turning him into a punching bag is just going to make him worse of an idiot. I’ve got some pride left.”

Cloud was fine with the quiet.

Usually the bar was too loud, too overwhelming, suffocating when it was full of people. He’d never done well with crowds and heightened senses sure as hell didn’t help matters any. He was usually locked away in his office when the bar was in full swing, only emerging once he felt like he could breathe again.

So if the other SOLDIER wanted to just sit there quietly with his drink, Cloud wasn’t going to stop him. There were other patrons in the bar, but the noise level was closer to a murmur as the kept to their corners of the bar. There was the occasional far too loud laugh, assuring Cloud that they had been drinking for quite a while, but he paid them little mind.

It was getting close enough to closing that he’d do last call and send them stumbling back to wherever they had come from.

He almost startled when the other SOLDIER spoke again, having gone into an almost meditative state from the redundant task he had been doing.

A place to stay in Edge? His mind scrambled to think of somewhere he could go, but those thoughts were swiftly interrupted as one of the drunks from the corner got to his feet. Everything about it was loud, from the way the chair scraped across the floor, to how heavily the man got to his feet. He didn’t stumble, but Cloud would have bet that it was a near thing.

He was looking at Leon, eyes squinted either from alcohol or anger Cloud wasn’t entirely certain, but he was definitely not happy about something. Though Cloud was coming up blank on what the man could possibly be mad about given that Leon had just been sitting at the bar quietly until just then.

“SOLDIER?” the man asked and Cloud suddenly had a sinking feeling. He was quick to abandon the plate that had been in his hand, already moving to get out from behind the bar, “You SOLDIERS are the reason ShinRa went under. I lost my job because of you assholes!”

They both turned to attention at what he guesses to be nearly the same time. Leon looks impossibly tired, not from his travels, but from turning in his seat to look at the clumsy approach and beer-speckled whiskery man doddering his way up to the counter.

In his periphery, he can see that Cloud has swung past the low waitstaff entry to intercept. As a courteous member of society (at least, he tries to be), he refrains from making incendiary comments in turn.

He can smell the alcohol on the elder man’s breath, in his hair, the brown, threadbare fibers of his jacket.

Small wonder the man never noticed that the proprietor himself was a SOLDIER.

Before Cloud can stop him, the drunk grabs Leon by the front of his shirt, clumsily makes an attempt at lifting him out of his seat but accomplishes nothing except pull the white fabric up past Leon’s chin at an uncomfortable angle. “What are you, deaf and lame?! The hell’s wrong with you?” the man demands, voice gravelly and dry like ground glass. Leon hears a gurgling sound at the back of the man’s throat and angles his head in anticipation at what happens next. “Trash--!”

A glob of spit lands on the upper portion of his cheek.

New beginnings, huh? Cloud was more than familiar with that. Though he hadn’t felt like he had much of a choice of where to start over once everything had come to an end. His childhood home burned to the ground, his only living family murdered, and the only other place he’d ever known had betrayed him and those he cared about.

Staying in Seventh Heaven had seemed like the only choice. It was the only other place he really knew and Tifa was one of the few people he still trusted.

And it was true, he supposed, that everyone in Edge was looking for a fresh start. That was how the city even came to be, built out of the remains of the former Midgar. A phoenix rising from the ashes brining some semblance of hope.

Not that Cloud believed in such things, but it was a nice sentiment nonetheless.

He had been worried that the other was going to start trouble. It was rare he had to worry about such things, his reputation preceding him, but if anyone was actually going to give him any sort of trouble, it would be someone who actually stood a chance in a fight against him.

“Keep it that way and we won’t have a problem,” Cloud looked away from the other, going back to the dishes he had been cleaning. He seemed the talkative type, at least compared to Cloud, so he figured if he had more to say that he’d say it without much prompting.

His barkeep seems a taciturn man. The blond is handsome, all pleasing angles and lithe physique. Steel wearing silk. They say eyes are the window into the soul. The man’s pupils, haloed by the glow of mako, make those sapphire blues remarkable all on their own. There’s a melancholy depth about them that makes him feel strangely restless.

Contrary to what his companion may think, Leon has never been the talkative type. He nurses his drink in relative silence while commercial-grade china, water-stained glass, and aluminum plates and cups clatter about in the deep kitchen sink basin that Cloud is up to his elbows in. The bar is strangely slow for this time of the hour, and the quiet borders deafening with the way the wall-mounted clock ticks the seconds away. Bars in Junon would have all been packed to the gills with Shinra infantry and sailors by now.

New beginnings. Leon taps the point of his finger along the rim of the glass once it’s been emptied of his contents. Seventh Heaven was his first stop coming into Edge. He has no maps, no itinerary drawn out, none of the meticulous documentation that he might have typically prepared prior to uprooting himself out of Junon and traveling all the way to Edge.

‘Live spontaneously!’

Gods know he’s trying. The more accurate description is that he’s stumbling about in the dark.

Cloud moved to get the drink, mind racing a bit. The last SOLDIER he had come across had been Sephiroth; he wasn’t sure why it never occurred to him that there could still be others around, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that none of them had come out of the woodwork since ShinRa’s fall. He’d only had to deal with Turks, so he just assumed that the rest of the SOLDIERs had fallen with ShinRa.

An oversight on his part and he wondered how many other SOLDIERs were out there and if he had to worry about any of them going insane.

He slid the drink over to the other, frowning ever so slightly. He also wasn’t used to SOLDIERs being so… well open wasn’t quite the correct word, but forthcoming perhaps. Not since Zack, anyway. Most of the rest of them seemed to keep to themselves.

The question was, what did he want to ask?

“What brings you to Edge?” He settled on after a bit of debate.

“Hm...” He pushes his thumb up along the side of the glass, draws a broken path of condensation that collects around the edges of a gloved finger. His right arm hangs limp at his side, half-cradled against the top of his thighs.

If he were feeling less somberly introspective, he might have smirked. The man has asked a safe-enough question. A conversation-starter instead of an interrogation. Leon can appreciate that much. Allegiances to the wrong groups tends to have a polarizing effect on the hearts of even the most well-meaning.

“By comparing me to a kitten?” Oh, he was pretty sure he had understood what Squall meant just fine, but he’d rather have confirmation than make a fool of himself.

“I suppose it is a compliment given that you got your ass kicked by one.”

Cloud had no problem giving him a deadpan look in return, “Are you trying to say I’m catty?”

Cloud had turned to put away the extra medical supplies, but his head snapped back around to squint at Squall at that last comment, “… Oh?”

“Something to that effect,” Leon answers, flexing his arm against the bandages. They stay in place to his satisfaction.

“Yeah, you got taken down by kittens,” Cloud reiterated, feeling ridiculous even as he said it, “Great Leonhart can face an army of one thousand Heartless but put him near a cat and it’s all over.”

There was a pause as he finished dressing the battle wounds before he frowned at Squall, “What do you mean, name it after me?”

“Oh...You know,” he answers noncommittally as he assesses Cloud’s work. “Sometimes you get all--” Leon brings up his other arm, curls his wrist and fingers in a clawing motion. He mostly does a good job of keeping his expression deadpan despite the subtle wrinkling in the corner of his eyes.

@yeahinmyhead​

Cloud gave the other fighter a less than amused look in return, finding no humor in the current situation. Instead he gave a huff, returning to wrapping Squall's arm, "That's what you get for doing something stupid."

“...I don’t dance.”

That’s a lie, partially. Squall knows how to dance. He does not, however, actively engage in dancing.  

Shinra’s HQ houses a remarkable inner sanctum on some odd floor known to few except those rare employees that have graduated beyond the middle management level.

Its grand architect carved out beautiful marble columns, each crowned with the Shinra family crest. Heavy red curtains with golden tassels are draped between each ribbed pillar, lending to the growing sense of opulence for any guest who steps into the hall. Pale granite tiles, speckled with bits of gold, stretch from one wall to the next. Floor to ceiling windows, granting a kingly view of the maze-like nest of buildings that spread out from Midgar’s center.