Cloud stopped. He wasn't alone.

He listened intently to every sound, trying to catalogue each one. On that late summer afternoon, the variety of new noise was exciting and overwhelming. The birds in the distance were a species that had no English name, as of yet. There was a breeze, some small woodland animals dashing around, and a lovely stream nearby.

But then beneath all that, there was a softly strained breathing. It was a desperate sound, and it was trying unsuccessfully to be quieter.

Cloud pulled out his musket, and the sound stopped altogether.

Whoever it was couldn't hold their breath forever. Cloud waited a few moments and surely enough, there was an almost silent little gasp of air intake. And to the left, there was a bright splash of color in the gathered brush that didn't quite belong.

Cloud kicked away the brush with his musket pointed, ready to defend himself against whoever might have leapt out, once discovered.

The native didn't leap at him, although he was completely defiant with his fists clenched and his eyes slammed shut. His bright silver hair was odd, very unlike the darker hair of most of his kind, and had been the thing to give away his hiding spot. All he had to wear were leather leggings and slip-shoes, besides a few greens feathers attached to a simple headband.

Even though he carried a sword on his hip and wore the face paint of a warrior, he wasn't even trying to fight. Cloud carefully crouched down and touched the man's arm. The native tensed, but still did not open his eyes.

"A thousand apologies, but you must leave now, Sir..." Cloud said gently, hoping that speaking kindly enough would somehow put the native at ease.

The man then looked up at Cloud with the brightest green eyes he'd ever seen. He whispered something and blinked his bleary eyes.

Even the weak whisper of the native was deep, and resonated inside Cloud's chest. He swallowed, completely taken aback by the man's beauty. "Your people are gone, and you need to leave as well. I'm sorry."

He couldn't have known what Cloud was saying, and gave him a pleading gaze that stole his breath and made his heart rate increase. This native man was simply the loveliest thing Cloud had ever seen in his short life, the kind of angelic vision sailors talked about but could never really describe in any way that made sense in reality.

"CHOO!" The warrior let out a wet, whooping sneeze that startled Cloud halfway to death. The man gracelessly wiped his nose with the back of his hand, snorted up a snot bubble and his head fell down weakly onto the grass.

When the shock passed, Cloud bit his lip and considered his options. He was assigned to patrol the area and scare away any remaining stragglers, using any force necessary. It was a holy medicine land to the natives, but the English needed the sturdy wood of the surrounding trees, needed to build more solid structures in the colony. The natives had not been pleased, and had put up quite a struggle despite the fact that most of them were deathly ill.

This beautiful native man had obviously caught a nasty case of whatever summer flu had killed a great number of his kind so far. He might have been in the sacred area hoping to find a remedy for himself, and there lost his strength.

Cloud settled on his knees carefully. "I know you're not well... you can't stay here, though. If someone else finds you, they might kill you. Do you understand?"

The native was shivering, despite the warm temperature of the afternoon. Cloud wondered how long he had been hiding there under the brush, and felt his eyes water in empathy for this lonely, sick and dying man.

Cloud had been raised in an orphanage, and then joined the navy when he was eleven years old. He'd spent most of his life hungry, cold, and fighting off unwelcome romantic advances from lonely sailors who found Cloud's pretty face, blonde hair, and blue eyes to be very enticing when nothing female was around. It was a hard life, but he'd also been shown kindness by a lot of strangers as he made his way through childhood and the navy, all the way to the New World.

Cloud was eighteen now, but he still had a soft heart. He couldn't send this gorgeous man off to die alone in the wilderness. He almost wished he had found the man a few days earlier when there were more natives still around, they would have taken this man and helped him. Or at least would have been able to comfort him in his final hours.

"What's your name?" Cloud asked. "Name? I'm Cloud."

The man wasn't interested in making friends, and threw his arm over his head as he muttered what didn't even need to be translated into, 'Go the hell away'.

Cloud considered putting the warrior out of his misery, but that option was an ugly one. Something didn't feel right about pushing natives off their own land... Cloud hadn't killed any natives himself, but also hadn't voiced any suggestions to share the land somehow rather than simply take it. Guilt had been hanging over him since his first days in the New World, and now that he was presented with a chance to do something kind for these native people, he wanted to act upon it.

"I'm going to pick you up," Cloud told him, before sliding his hand beneath the man's neck and hip to pull him up into his arms. The man was easily a foot taller than Cloud and far more muscular, but he wasn't nearly as heavy as his frame suggested. It was easy to carry him, until he began to struggle.

"Settle down, there's no shame in being carried a bit. I'm taking you someplace safe," And with that, Cloud trotted back to camp with the unhappy native barely contained in his arms.

His tent was on the edge of the small, loose collection of thrown-together structures that made up their colony. And as he'd hoped, everyone was too busy with his or her own tasks to notice Cloud as he snuck the man inside.

Cloud set the man down on his cot, pulled off his hip holster that carried his sword, and threw two heavy blankets on top of him. He then quickly fetched him a tin of water, then a second and third when the native drank thirstily. Cloud then took out a small sandwich that was rationed to him for lunch, and tore it in half. When he offered it to the native, the man had the nerve to turn his nose up.

"Rabbit," Cloud told him. "Eat."

"Ffph," the native huffed at him.

"Please try to eat," Cloud insisted, taking a bite of his own half to encourage him. "Tasty!"

The native took a small bite of the dry, cold sandwich to appease his captor.

Cloud sighed. "I lied, it's not very tasty. But it's all I can give you right now."

The native managed to eat a few bites before he grew too tired to go on. Cloud watched the man's green eyes blur and become heavy. He was fast asleep in moments, and Cloud took the uneaten food and wrapped it in a parchment in case the native woke up and wanted it later. He decided to hunt something and bring it to the man for dinner, and would give him a large meal to himself.

If he was going to recover, food would help. If he was going to die, Cloud would be content to know that he did all that could be done.

He thought about the native man for the rest of the day, and hoped sincerely that he wouldn't return to a very lovely, but very dead body lying in his cot. He shot down a good sized bird for the native's dinner, hoping that the man would still be alive to eat it. Cloud prepared the bird before retrieving some rations from the colony's base and avoiding any invitations from his comrades to dine with them.

As Cloud approached his tent, he took a breath before stepping in. The man was lying still beneath the blankets in the same spot that Cloud had left him in, and dread chilled his spine. That is, until he heard the snoring. It didn't take much investigation to find that he was sleeping deeply, completely at ease in Cloud's cot.

The native looked like the sort of fierce man who would never allow himself to be snuck up on, so Cloud tried to wake him with extra gentle care. With a soft touch to his shoulder and a whisper, Cloud called, "Hello? Sir?"

The man came awake slowly, and with the most sorrowful expression Cloud had ever seen on another human face. This native was completely vulnerable, miserable and exhausted, and didn't have anybody in the world to care for him but a stranger from an enemy tribe that he didn't even understand. Either from frustration or mourning for his loss, tears edged the bright green eyes of the warrior.

"... I'm so sorry," Cloud told him with tears in his own eyes, carefully sitting on the edge of the cot. "Can you eat some more? Then you can go back to sleep."

The man accepted the meal, seeming to understand that his body needed the nourishment even if he didn't have an appetite. They ate in silence together, and when the native couldn't continue he gave his plate back to Cloud. That small action seemed to sap any strength the man had left, and he literally passed out while still sitting up.

Cloud put down his own plate, and wiped his hands on his trousers. He then helped the man lay in a more comfortable position. He was unable to resist combing his fingers through the length of the man's long silver hair, and took the liberty of picking out all the leaves, twigs and flowers that had gotten caught up in his tresses while hiding under the brush. He then gently removed the man's feathered hair band so he could lie against the pillow more comfortably.

Since he was already taking daring liberties with this stranger's personal appearance, Cloud wet a cloth and used it to gently wipe the warrior makeup off of the man's face. It was getting all over his cot, and most had been sweat off from the fever, anyways.

Cleaning the man's face exposed flawless brown skin, sharp cheekbones and soft lips, Cloud guessed the man to be a little older than himself, perhaps around the age of twenty. He had a very ornate tattoo along his upper arm, and Cloud took the opportunity to look at it up close. It wasn't the crude scrapings he'd seen on other sailors, but something almost elegantly done, and rich in saturated color.

The man shivered, and Cloud realized all the soft touching was giving the poor guy goosebumps. So he quickly pulled his hands back and covered the native up to his chin before snuffing out the lamp.

Cloud stood stupidly in his tent, in the dark, coming to the realization that he didn't have anywhere to sleep. After a moment of contemplation, he folded up a spare shirt to shove underneath his head as he slept on the hard ground beside his otherwise occupied cot.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Cloud couldn't pause in his duties to the colony, but his thoughts revolved around caring for the native. He gave the man half of his rationed meals every day, and did a little light hunting to supplement their diet.

When an entire week passed, Cloud became certain that the native was going to survive his brush with the deadly summer flu. The only downside was that this man could eat... a lot. But it was wonderful to see the man snap down food hungrily, because that meant he was going to be okay.

As the native's energy increased, so did his desire to bathe and relieve himself without Cloud standing a few feet away with his back turned. But despite his best efforts at making it clear that he wanted to go outside alone, Cloud refused.

"You're not well enough to be wandering around, what if you sneeze or something while you're doing your business? Do you really want to be caught with your pants down, Sir? I don't think so!"

This warrior was obviously an extremely proud man, and clearly despised this treatment. But he was smart enough behind his sharp green eyes to know that he had no choice but to accept the help from the short, bossy white boy.

Cloud was on his way back home with dinner one evening, there was a very odd sound resonating through camp.

"What is that?" One of his neighbors wondered aloud as Cloud passed by quickly, hoping that his guest had not left the tent. The thought of the ill native being discovered and possibly killed as an intruder quickened Cloud's walk into a dash.

He opened his tent to find the young warrior sitting up in bed, rearranging the feathers in his hair and cooing a very pretty, but very loud tribal song.

"Shh! Be silent!" Cloud hissed.

The native's vibrant green eyes narrowed into venomous slits.

"Don't look at me like that!" Cloud whispered heatedly. "If they find out you're here, you're dead! And I'll probably get shipped back home as a prisoner!"

The native remained angrily silent as he ate half of Cloud's food, before rolling over to drift back to sleep in Cloud's cot. There wasn't even the slightest hint of gratitude.

"... You better be thankful you're so pretty," Cloud rumbled as he tried to make himself comfortable on the ground.

The next couple of weeks were both difficult and incredibly fun. The man slowly regained his health, and eventually became rather antsy during the day. Cloud didn't want him to take up singing yet again to alleviate his boredom, so one evening Cloud tried to demonstrate exercises that he could do within the tent.

"Try hopping up and down!" Cloud suggested, and began to bounce in place. "Hop, hop!"

That was the first time he heard the native laugh, and it was at great volume and length. The man laughed so hard that Cloud had to hold his hands over his mouth to stifle him.

Instead of bouncing up and down like an idiot, Cloud would come back from working long days to find the native twirling his sword around in the tent, doing what training he could in the limited space.

It made Cloud nervous to see the obvious strength coiled up in the sinewy body, but the native was always respectful, and kept his sword sheathed when Cloud was home.

Again thinking of his new friend, Cloud brought back a block of wood and a pocketknife, and the native quickly picked up on the art of whittling. The warrior scraped the first block down into nothing, but then worked carefully on the second. The other colonists claimed that the natives were savage, but... this man was sharp, intelligent, and entirely captivating without having a single word to say to Cloud in English. And with both sword and knife on hand, he'd never threatened Cloud for an instant.

He seemed far more focused on his whittling project, and seemed to have something very specific in mind. At nights in the candlelight, Cloud found it difficult not to watch the muscles in the native's forearms and hands flex under his skin as he worked, or study the intense expression of concentration on his handsome, exotic face.

Only once he was caught staring – the sly smile the native gave him made Cloud blush down to his chest.

When the native was done carving, he presented Cloud a very sweet looking, detailed little wooden rabbit. He gave it to Cloud the very moment he was finished with it.

Cloud accepted it with a huge smile of gratitude. "Oh, how nice! You made a bunny!"

"Bunny."

"Yes, bunny!" Cloud exclaimed with the same brand of excitement a parent felt when their child said their first word. "Say it again! Bunny!"

"Bunny," The native chuckled, pointing at Cloud. "Hop, hop."

Cloud gasped when he realized he was being mocked. "My name is not Bunny! My name is Cloud Strife!"

The native did not pay attention to that, and referred to Cloud as Bunny from then on.

They couldn't speak to one another, but managed to communicate other ways. If the man was thirsty or hungry, he pantomimed his needs to Cloud. If he needed to go to the bathroom, he put his hands on his hips and waited impatiently at the tent entrance. Since he was at full health and seemed to be aware of the secretive protocol of existing in the colony, Cloud would leave the tent to be sure the coast was clear, and the native would sneak out to do his business in private.

Eventually, a gradual recovery and plenty of pent up energy made the native want to leave at night for more than just a bathroom break. Each time Cloud was frightened that he wouldn't return… and he wasn't sure why. He supposed he felt a sense of obligation for the man, and if he simply disappeared one night he'd always be left wondering whatever became of him.

But each night, the native did return. Sometimes cleaner than he had left and with wet hair, or with some newly hunted nocturnal creature. He always brought back small gifts for Cloud; fresh berries, interesting stones, or colorful flowers to display on his crate. The little natural trinkets seemed to brighten up the tent, and it was… cozy.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Cloud had never had what he could call a home in his entire life. He'd been abandoned as a newborn, and had traveled all over the seas in the navy, searching. Helping to run a ship had been the closest feeling he'd ever had of belonging somewhere. But not even his shipmates had the will or the time to take in an adult orphan into their family for the holidays or during peacetime; they had wives and children that took priority. So Cloud lived alone in the port, and even at eighteen hadn't found a connection with anyone to call his own.

Cloud took the chance to come to the New World because he had no reason to stay in England. The moment he stepped foot on this foreign soil, he had a sense that this was the place he was supposed to be. Some invisible tug had lured him here all the way across the sea… and he wondered if this native man might have been on the other end of that pull.

Cloud told the native man all of this, even though he knew the man couldn't understand a word he was saying. The man listened as though he could, letting Cloud talk at length about the orphanage, about the navy, and the friends he'd known during his life.

In turn, the man then spoke for hours about things in his own language, probably telling his own version of the same events. Cloud listened because he simply liked the sound of the man's voice. It was a lovely sound full of bass, and it was pleasant to drift off while the man told him stories in the dark.

The companionship was like nothing he had ever known. Cloud felt himself eager to return to his tent to "speak" with his best friend, to see what he had done during the day or to cater to any needs he might have had. It wasn't a chore or a moral obligation anymore, he wanted to do it. It was a little codependent, but Cloud knew that he would take care of this man forever if he would stay.

"Goodnight, Sir..." Cloud said to him one night, nearly asleep on the ground beside the occupied cot. "One of these days I'm going to figure out your name..."

Cloud then jumped a little as he felt a hand touch his head from above.

"Bunny..." The native said to him on a yawning sigh, his fingers rubbed through Cloud's soft yellow hair, threading it gently as they both fell asleep.

Cloud woke up the next morning with the native's heavy, warm hand still resting on his head. He'd answered every single grabbing touch from men at sea with fists and teeth, but found something so amazingly comforting in the fact that the native man wanted to touch him this way. It was innocent and familiar, and it made Cloud cheeks glow warm as he listened to the man breathing so quietly nearby.

Cloud pushed his head up a little against his hand. The little bit of movement didn't wake the native, and in his sleep curled his fingers through Cloud's hair, caressing him like a pet.

Small moments like that tightened something in Cloud's chest, and those moments came ever more frequently. Cloud found himself seeking any excuse to touch the native; he liked to comb his fingers through the warrior's hair, to help him apply face paint for night hunting, to take his hands while he whittled new projects to show him different ways to hold the knife.

If the friendly contact bothered the man, he didn't show it. One morning when Cloud was dressing for the day, the man sat up suddenly and reached out for him. Before Cloud knew what was happening, he was standing between the native's spread legs, and the man was unbuttoning his shirt.

"… Wh- what are you –" Cloud stammered, until he realized that he'd misbuttoned his own shirt and the row was off kilter. The native straightened it out for him, then rebuttoned it with fingers that were clumsy with inexperience in working this particular type of garment.

When the job was done, the native had looked up at him with a smile. Everything in Cloud's entire being told him to kiss the man in that moment, but instead he'd nearly tripped over himself in his haste to leave the tent before making a fool of himself.

Five short weeks later, Cloud came back to the tent to find the native standing there, waiting. He was fully dressed, but it was a bit too early yet to steal out into the night to groom himself or hunt. They hadn't even eaten dinner, yet.

Cloud smiled curiously. "Hello Sir. Have a good day?"

The man then began to speak at length, and he sounded utterly serious. Although Cloud was used to the sound of his voice, it frustrated him endlessly that he couldn't understand what he was saying. Cloud turned up his eyebrows and shrugged, unsure of what else to do.

The native spoke again, slowly and with a frown. He pointed to himself, patted his chest and then he nodded his head toward the tent flap meaningfully.

It was then that Cloud noticed the wooden bunny was sitting on the crate beside his cot. All of the little stones that the native had brought to Cloud were arranged in a row. The blankets on the cot were folded.

This man was leaving, and he was trying to say goodbye.

"Oh..." Cloud said dumbly. "Oh. So you're finally ready to leave? That's fantastic... the coast is all clear. I didn't see anyone outside as I was coming in."

The man began to speak again, smooth and confident. His handsome voice and sincere cadence only served to infuriate Cloud, who interrupted him with a sharp shove. "You needn't explain, I can't understand you anyway. Just go ahead. Leave."

The native gazed down at Cloud.

He felt trapped by those green eyes, and felt his face go red and his eyes swim with tears. He looked down at the ground. Beside his cot was a small imprint in the earth where he'd been sleeping for almost two months with nothing but a spare blanket and a makeshift pillow beneath his head. Those items had been picked up, and were also folded on the cot.

Cloud had never owned two blankets or two pillows in his life. One of each had always been enough. For some reason the thought of sleeping alone with the excess caused tears to streak down his face. "Just go, already."

The man took a step towards Cloud, and he bent down a little to regain the eye contact that was always so important to him.

"I brought you here to take care of you, and if you're well...I've done my job," Cloud tried to smile through the fact that he was nearly sobbing. "You'll remember me every time you see a bunny, right?"

"Hop, hop," The man murmured humorlessly as he approached Cloud slowly, closer than he had ever been before. Cloud shrank slightly as the very tall man entered his personal space, their bodies bumping together.

Cloud looked up just as warm lips touched his.

The native youth's lips against his were a shock, but Cloud told himself it was not a kiss, it was just a custom he was unfamiliar with. He had been privy to a lot of the natives' rituals and customs before they had departed, but he hadn't seen a whole lot of kissing going on between them, even as they supported each other in battle, plague, and being driven away from their homeland.

But it became a little clearer that this wasn't a friendly custom when he felt a tongue against his, and strong arms wrap tight around him. It was a kiss.

In that moment, Cloud felt his feelings for the man expand into something far greater than he meant to allow. There was no helping it, Cloud wanted him from the moment he first saw him. And as he came to know him, Cloud loved him. Cloud loved this native man's hair, his presence, his voice, his scent, his body… the nameless creature was the home Cloud had been searching for.

The kiss ended, but Cloud felt himself push closer when the man began to draw away, wanting so much more. There was another gentle brush of their tongues, and Cloud held onto the native desperately as a small moan escaped his throat.

The native ripped his lips away at the sound and breathed hard, his forehead pressing heavily into Cloud's.

"Don't leave…" Cloud murmured. "You can stay. I want you to stay."

He whispered something unknowable against Cloud's forehead, and pressed warm lips there. After a moment he pulled away and was gone.

Cloud stood there in the tent for a long time before moving. People came, and people went in life. This time in particular, someone took a big piece of Cloud with them.

Cloud was in the habit of splitting his meals. That first breakfast without the native was divided into two before Cloud realized that he had nobody to share it with. He was upset enough to throw out the uneaten remainder, but only once. Food was far too valuable to waste, even if his heart was shattered.

He spent his nights alone, staring at the wooden bunny on his nightstand. Sometimes he picked it up to run his fingers along the crevices in the wood, remembering how intensely the native had concentrated on this little art project. After a couple of days Cloud put it away into his bags, unable to look at it any longer.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Autumn was much harsher in the New World than anyone could have expected. Snow blanketed the ground and continued flooding from the sky by the end of October. Even the animals seemed unprepared as they fled into hibernation, but not before raiding the storehouse of the colony's supplies. The tentative crops they had planted were frozen and ruined, there was nothing to hunt, and their backup food supply was a fraction of what it would have been. Everyone began to panic.

More so than for himself, Cloud was filled with dread for the fate of his beautiful native man. He prayed relentlessly that his companion had found someplace warm and safe to spend what was bound to be a long and terrible winter.

Cloud was no stranger to hunger, and knew how to deal with lack. He ate very little, and made even the small scraps of rations he was allotted last twice as long as some of the other colonists. By mid-November there was no food left, and the men were at a complete loss for what to do.

After only a few days without food, a rash of suicides spread through the camp. Cannibalism was a topic that had been publicly debated… but was not acted upon.

Maybe they weren't hungry enough yet, but the colony retained their humanity. And it gave them a greater determination to survive this ordeal. There wasn't anything to eat in the surrounding areas, and they were wasting their energy trying to find something that wasn't there. So they laid out animal traps in hopes that it would do the hunting for them, and remained in their tents to keep warm and conserve their energy.

At least there was plenty of snow to eat, so dehydration wasn't an issue.

Cloud spent his days laying in his cot, and he made all sorts of plans. If he survived the winter, the first order of business would be to search for his beloved native. And when he did, Cloud was going to confess love to him in ways that would far surpass the language barrier. He was going to kiss that man from his head to his feet, and ensure that he wouldn't ever want to leave again.

Then Cloud was going to claim a stake of land and build a house where they could have a life together. He was going to get a dog, and he was going to build a little barn and paint it blue, and he was going to have chickens! Chickens everywhere, and tons of little sweet baby ones that were yellow balls of fluff. The roosters would need to learn how to keep quiet though, because if Cloud survived this winter, he planned to never wake up at dawn again. He was going to sleep in every day, until mid-day if he felt like it.

One particular night as he laid in the dark with his hopes and ambitions, Cloud had taken out the wooden bunny that his beloved native had left behind. It gave his hands something to do, a texture to touch, something tangible to feel and hold onto. It took him to a warm place in his memory, and Cloud found a comfort there instead of a heartache.

Cloud only realized he had fallen asleep when he was being shaken violently awake.

"Let go!" Cloud wheezed, unable to draw breath as the person squeezed him tight. He pushed against whomever was grabbing onto him, instantly becoming dizzy and lightheaded from the sudden movement. "Get off of me!"

Instead of an answer he could understand, the person spoke against his ear in a lovely foreign language.

Cloud froze, his eyes dropping shut as his chest vibrated with the bass of the native's voice, and he inhaled the familiar scent of his skin and hair. A great sense of peace washed over Cloud, and he didn't try to think too much about what was happening. He didn't suspect he'd be dying so soon, but if he was, it was a nice way to go.

The man was quite frantic as he looked Cloud over like an exasperated mother. He held Cloud's face and chattered to him loudly, and Cloud's eyes fluttered closed when he was kissed warmly on both cheeks, his forehead, and finally his mouth.

"I love you, you know…" Cloud told him between kisses, and blushed although he knew the man didn't understand it. It was one thing off of his list, at least.

The native touched something to Cloud's lips, and by his new instinct he attempted to kiss it. But it pushed past his lips and he chewed and swallowed whatever it was. This continued until Cloud realized he was eating something warm, and delicious. It was some sort of clear soup, and the native was soaking it into little bits of bread.

"… Where did you get this?" Cloud asked.

The native spoke to him, his tone very clear, 'Shut up and eat.'

Cloud sat up and accepted the bread and the bowl. After allowing Cloud to take a few bites, the man took the bowl back from him. Cloud was about to protest, but had a slightly sickened feeling in his stomach from eating too quickly.

"Thank you," Cloud whispered, looking at him up close for any changes during their time apart. He was still the same man, and still had the same wise, stoic patience as he rubbed his warm hand over Cloud's back to soothe him.

He seemed to have something very important to talk about, and was speaking on and on. He was repeating himself a lot, and on the other side of receiving instructions in another language, Cloud was frustrated.

Finally, the native just grabbed his hand and pulled him out of bed. Outside, there was a collection of skins, meat cut and preserved between large leaves, and other food items all neatly packed and stored in makeshift containers. There was even a goddamn horse pulling it all, the kind of which Cloud had never seen before. The horse had on more clothes than the native did, and looked very comfortable in a tribal quilt.

"… You did all this?" Cloud furrowed his eyebrows at the work of ten men.

The man shrugged one shoulder. Due to the stars, he'd anticipated this harsh autumn long ago, but couldn't leave for a hunting haul until he was certain he was at full health. And as often as he tried to suggest to Cloud that they needed to be stockpiling supplies, his fair little beloved English boy just didn't understand what it took to survive here.

He was a little disappointed in this haul due to his late start, but knew it would suffice to at least take care of Bunny's white people until worst had passed. "Ai."

Cloud was stunned. "… I'm sorry that I ever thought that I was smarter than you. I am definitely not."

"Bunny hop," was the gentle response, and the man went about in search of the colony's pit to get a fire going.

The following hours were the happiest that the camp had ever experienced in the New World. They didn't care that the generous stranger was a native, they welcomed him into their colony with open arms as a hero. The abundance of food was a blessing that none of them could thank the native enough for, but would spend the rest of their lives trying.

Cloud didn't think for a moment that the man was settling an obligation because he'd helped him when he was sick. This native warrior didn't owe anything to Cloud, or to the rest of these English people. He was simply a good man.

They made a large breakfast and took a moment to remember the ones that were no longer there to share it with them. Cloud hardly cared about the food, he was just grateful to be sitting next to the man he loved. If his life lasted another day or another hundred years, he could die happily knowing that he was home.

After the fabulous meal, everyone celebrated the promise of life continuing into the spring. All were very interested in the newcomer, and the native seemed pleased to be the center of attention, even teaching the younger girls how to wear feathers in their hair like he did.

The winter day was short, and everyone was quick to retire, content and happy for the first time in weeks. Under the rosy twilight, it was only Cloud and the native who remained by the campfire. He sat closer to Cloud as the fire began to die down, and the chill in the frozen air became more apparent.

When the man rested his cheek on top of his head, Cloud became a bit nervous. He'd made a lot of lofty goals for his relationship with this man, but was shy upon facing the reality of it. He was also humbled by the fact that the man was a real life hero… and Cloud had only heard stories of those before.

He wasn't sure if he was worthy. "You know... you don't need to hide in my tent, anymore. You can have a tent to yourself. Not that I mind sharing with you. But the ground is way too cold to sleep on..."

The man's bright green eyes didn't leave his for several moments. He then reached out to take Cloud's hand, and pulled him to his feet and towards the tent they shared. Soon they were inside, away from the world and the native's beautiful taste was on Cloud's tongue again. This time it wasn't overshadowed by the bitterness of a goodbye, or the sweetness of a hello. Cloud was kissing him because it felt good, and it was an entirely new experience for him.

The man kissed Cloud all the way to his cot. It was a bit small for the both of them to lie on together, but the tangle of limbs was comforting and warm. The native immediately reached for Cloud's blankets, and covered them both up over their heads.

Cloud was in a daze as his tongue was being sucked into a series of delicious kisses, and fingers that were still new to buttons were again attempting to undo them. Cloud shuddered as he realized what was about to happen… he'd never done anything like this before, but was more than ready as he let the man pull his shirt off and toss it away.

The man seemed pleased with what he found, running his hands over Cloud's throat and chest. He was talking again. Whatever he was saying sounded so sincere.

"You won't leave again, will you?" Cloud asked, taking the chance to run his hands over the broad, strong musculature of the man's back and arms. He ran his palm over the native's tattoos, feeling a thrill at how at right and natural it felt to lie close to him.

The man didn't reply, and instead pushed Cloud's legs up to pull his trousers off. He slid Cloud's stockings down his legs, kissing every inch of bare skin as it was revealed. Cloud touched the man's silver hair reverently, watching as the native, who seemed to have a sudden distaste for Cloud's clothes, quickly rendered him naked.

It only took moments before the man's leather leggings were discarded. When they were both nude, Cloud instinctively wrapped his legs around the native's waist. He seemed pleased with this, and moved on top of Cloud to press him into the cot.

As always, non-verbal communication was their strength. Cloud's body told the native how badly he wanted him to stay. The native's body promised Cloud that this time, he would.

They made love until exhaustion stole them from each other. When they awoke, they picked up right where they left off. Cloud refused to allow the warrior to leave their cot until he learned his name. And after Cloud discovered what it was, he still refused to let him leave.

And even when Sephiroth, the legendary warrior from the Shin-Ra tribe became fluent in English, he still referred to Cloud Strife as Bunny.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A/N

1 – I originally wrote this in 2009, and if you want to see some embarrassing old art, there's a link below. I rewrote it this year because it's a cute little story and it should be expanded upon a little bit. It's a fun sort of tradition for me, and it kind of gets me into the Thanksgiving spirit.

Owmyhearteries dot deviantart dot com / art / Thanksgiving-09-144904414