The Movement of Unsubtle Desires
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Author: Kiba
Rating: R
Pairing: Leon/Cloud
Chapter: 4/?
Warnings: Angst, gore, and dark, dark romance... voyeurism, and vaguely described sexual activity.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, any of the characters, anything Disney, or much else, except the crazy crap I make them do. :)

Chapter Four: The Lion's Craving

Leon hadn't slept much that night-night. In fact, he hadn't slept at all. He actually was not a nocturnal creature, which was surprise, but the day's events left him musing too much for his own good. Not particularly about Cloud, but this new desire he had set aflame within him---the mentioning of this "Coliseum" seemed quite appealing.

For ages, or so it felt like, there was a rage burning gently in his two blue eyes, waiting for the cracks to spread and let it through. He could not tell if Cloud tore the stitches Leon had attempted to sew, or assisted in making new ones. It roused within him something that was the memories of what he had lost since the Heartless came, and how they destroyed the place he once called Home, and the haunting faces of the people he used to know...all of them seemed like such a distant memory but the things that had happened seemed like yesterday.

As he rubbed his forehead morosely, settled in the darkness, in a corner of the shabby house, out of view from the others, he recalled the contours of Her face, and the way She always smiled to him, the way She delicately plucked him from the ground and gently unfolded his petals, opening him, as if he were a rare flower. She was sweet kind of like the way Aerith was, who, as irony would have it, was a flower girl. Maybe...maybe that was why he let her come with him. She reminded him so much of Her, and no matter how hard he tried Her angelic face was the image that was always most vivid to him.

The only way to burn away the memories was to fight. It was an urge settled within him unable to be fulfilled since he had came to Traverse. He swore every time he fought a battle, he lost a memory. Maybe if he fought enough he could forget completely, and truly become the new person he had pathetically tried to patch together within the first few days after his world was destroyed. Yuffie, though a warrior in her own right, could not provide the sort of counsel in battle he yearned for. Aerith was a peaceful girl and would have never hurt even a fly.

But Cloud---coming here, even with his awkward footwork, did bring his news of this thing called the "Coliseum", and it seemed quite promising to him.

In the dead hours he slipped to the waterway and trained.

--

Cloud stood in that shower for an hour or so, he could have bet. His skin was prune-like by the time he stepped out, and in silence he slipped into the only pair of pants he had that were dry at the moment. After that he settled onto his bed in silence and quickly enough fell into sleep, as battling with Leon proved to be a strenuous work-out, and he was drained.

His sleep was to be unpleasant, however. Within the dream, there was darkness, not unlike the eternal night of Traverse Town, within the sky. No stars shone, however, for when he turned his head down from his perch in the heavens, the city he saw below, his city, something told him, was ignited in violent flames.

The closer he came to the city the hotter his skin felt. The closer he came, the louder the screams, and the better he could hear the fires crackling and the buildings falling pathetically to the burnt ground. Within the flames, he saw a lone figure, which he hesitantly approached.

It whipped around quickly, the lengthy silver hair upon its back swaying but never once touching the flames, the brilliant and cat-slit sea-green gaze on its face---he saw it was a man, now---illuminated with the fires around them. A grin stretched across his features, and quickly, he raised his hands---and suddenly, securely in them, he grasped a lengthy samurai's sword. Without warning, the metal sliced downward, and there was blackness all around Cloud.

This was a usual occurrence in his dreams. They were usually more drawn out, more painful, slower than this, but it was what happened, just about every single night. Had he been conscious, he would have been surprised to find that it didn't end here...

When he opened his eyes, but still dreaming, he was laying down in a field of high and green grass, in the night, staring up at the sky. The stars shimmered clearly there, and it seemed rather peaceful. He felt the gentle and cool breezes stroking across his skin and blowing the dead dandelions all around, as if soothing away the heat from the fires.

In front of his gaze flashed a small firefly. He blinked, and reached up an arm slowly, to bat at it. He felt a boyish smile come to his face, and he watched as the tiny insect continued to blink on and off.

"My Light," he questioned in a gentle whisper, "is this what you're trying to tell me? That you know where it is?"

He sat up in the field. The firefly seemed to keep blinking in front of his line of vision, wherever he turned. Though suddenly it whisked away, and he looked up, to follow it. It seemed to be heading somewhere, and so he quickly stood. It moved faster.

He broke into a run. Swiftly, he scaled the grassy field, bright cerulean eyes open, and his mouth laughing loudly. He was going to find his Light, finally, after all this time---something he had been looking for ever since his Home had been destroyed; maybe even before that.

The little bug lead him up a large hill, and his silhouette passed against the moon, though he had no time to pay attention to its glorious beauty, shining down on his skin. His light, of course, was far more important.

As he headed down the hill, he felt his foot hit something, and he went flying, much like he had done when he had fought with Leon in the waterway. He went rolling awkwardly down the hill, and landed at its bottom, eyes shut tightly, his body shaking.

Before he could regain his composure he felt something heavy pressing down on his head. There was a soft rumbling noise, something like a growl. He immediately began to panic. The large weight shoved at him, rolling him over onto his back, and he winced slightly.

When he finally opened his eyes, he came face to face with an extremely large lion; its great mane gentle ruffling in the wind, and its features dark against the moon behind him. It was very hard to distinguish anything in particular about him, except for---except for its two gleaming, ferocious blue eyes.

The lion's growls progressed into vicious snarls, his jaws opening, and snapping shut loudly. The firefly Cloud had been following flickered in the big cat's face suddenly, its path tracing vertically across it, illuminating for a few seconds the scar on his brow, to which Cloud gawked at.

When the firefly was gone, the lion rumbled softly within his throat, lowering his head only a few seconds, before leaping forward, crushing Cloud's body with the massive weight of his own. He executed a blood curdling scream at the sudden shock of pain and the sound of bones cracking loudly, and felt something akin to razor blades tearing at his flesh, which were surely the lion's black claws.

The wild animal delved its head forward once more, letting its large jaws latch onto Cloud's stomach, pierce the flesh, and entirely rip whatever caught on its fangs away. Somehow, he was still alive, and the most disturbing sight he had ever seen in his life had to be seeing this lion lift its head proudly in the moonlight, his own intestines hanging from its maw.

He woke up with a loud gasp and wide eyes, his body jolting up in bed. His first reaction was to clutch his stomach, and felt an undeniable relief upon feeling it was indeed still intact, and there was no lion in sight. He sighed loudly and shakily, continuing to clutch his stomach for a few seconds, his eyes wide but staring at nothing.

His head jolted up at the sound of a roar, and he slipped from his bed immediately. It sounded again as he grasped his Buster Sword, and immediately slipped outside, into the alley.

He must have been suicidal.

--

There were no words exchanged, when Cloud came walking through the water, onto the pebbled shore. Leon's back was to him, but at the sound of the footsteps echoing in the cavern, he slowly lowered his weapon, and glanced out of the corner of his eyes, over his shoulder at Cloud.

He saw the brilliant blue and shivered, as he thought of the lion. Stopping in place, he clenched his hand tightly around the hilt of his sword.

Without warning Leon whipped around and came forward. Cloud received the blow with the broad side of the Buster and roughly shoved Leon back. There was silence and stillness amongst them after Leon regained his footing quickly enough.

They fought.

It continued.

It quickly became regular routine, in the dead of every single night-night from then on. Leon would come to the waterway and Cloud would be summoned by the lion's roars from his sleep. Promptly, he would waltz willingly into his own death, into the vision of the firefly that leads him to the lion, which never ceased to relieve him of his intestines, night after night, and they moved in this addicting violence together, night after night.

There were never any words exchanged in these private meetings, just the raw emotion of movement and panting and dueling. There were never truly any winners, just a time when the both of them grew too frightened of the building rage in either of their souls. Aerith and Yuffie did not know Leon slipped out as he did, and did not even know Cloud existed. Yuffie had long forgotten the night with the almost-spilled drink.

And Cloud never grew tired of the morbid feeling he felt when he locked eyes with Leon, whom he began to think of adoringly as his Beautiful-Eyed Lion, who came to him nightly in dreams that eventually eclipsed the silver haired ones all together. He was a new source of pain, a drug to take away his fears and give him new ones, which he so quickly latched onto, like a desperate crack baby.

These dreams and fights continued for a very, very long time---neither Cloud nor Leon was quite sure how long it had been, maybe a week, maybe a month, and maybe a year. It did not matter, it just needed to happen.

And slowly, so very slowly, the god of the Underworld was biding his time, collecting little bits and pieces of the two warriors, locking it away safely with his fox smile, waiting for the time in which to strike. It had never really been clear as to why he followed Cloud like this so, but he thought to himself as a god who had been wronged, why not take revenge, brutal and delicious revenge, upon those who have been the cause of it? He could not take down Zeus but the image of seeing Cloud suffer a horrible end for backing from his deal was very appealing. The gods of Greece were all without mercy in this manner, so these actions were to be expected.

Cloud had forgotten the deal.

And Leon felt he was finally ready.

"I'm going to the Coliseum," Leon said to him one day. It was the first time Cloud had heard his voice in a very, very long time and it startled him before he could move.

He stared blankly across at the other a moment, and then a pang of fear tugged at his heart, and he furrowed his brows. "Why do you want to go there? You can fight here, with me."

The lion was silent and lowered his head in contemplation, then breathed an almost annoyed sigh. "I need more than this."

The blond felt offended. His bottom lip protruded and he pouted as a child would, letting his Buster Sword drop carelessly to the ground, which had since gained countless nicks and dents, and approached his Lion. He glared directly into those frightening blue eyes, and balled his fists. "I don't want you to go." But he saw his Lion's eyes and seemed to relent his complaining, his expression falling into something of simply blank, maybe confused, a little bit hurt.

Leon stared into the other's eyes, and for the first time he noticed how Cloud visibly wavered under his gaze. He saw in him a fear that that had been instilled inside him the first time they had met, and for the first time since his world had ended, he felt a slight tug on his heart strings for the expression on Cloud's boyish face.

"I need you to do something for me," he said quietly as he looked to the side, unable to stand the defiled innocent in the other's face.

Cloud knew he was a lion and lions were wild and so there was going to be no stopping him from doing what he wanted. In his wildness, he knew, also forever stirred an urge to fight and by now they knew one another's bodies too well to feel a challenge when in battle anymore. He understood but did not want to. He sighed. "I will do anything for you."

"There are three people in my house," Leon began. "I need you to watch one of them. There is me, and you have already seen Yuffie; she's the stupid and spunky ninja that always hangs around me. But I need you to watch the other girl in my house; her name is Aerith and she is a peaceful flower girl, so if I am gone no one will be able to watch her."

"Aerith..." He stammered a bit. Cloud knew the name. In fact, he knew her. She was a girl he used to know back in his old world, before everything had been destroyed. She had been so very important to him then and he had spent all this time telling himself everyone he had known was dead. It was hard for him to think of her as alive now and stared somewhat blankly ahead, disturbingly indifferent. "I used to know her."

Leon raised a brow, and tilted his head. "Good, then you know what she is like, how delicate you must be with her."

"I think she used to love me," Cloud said, with his blank stare. Why he had stated that out loud, he hadn't known, but now that Leon had put the thought in his head and he was recollecting things of the past as seconds passed.

The other's eyes narrowed slightly. "Did you...do you love her?"

"Maybe."

His eyes narrowed further. For the first time, he felt a slightly distaste for the sweet girl who wore the pink dress named Aerith.

Cloud had come to know Leon's gaze so well and immediately saw this. That was the trick to figuring out what his Lion was currently feeling, he had learned. It would never be displayed in his words, or the other parts of his face. His soul stood right in back of his eyes. He saw the jealousy in them and moved forward suddenly, and looked up at him. "No, I don't."

"Good," he said quietly.

Cloud stared.

After a long pause, Leon slowly raised one of his gloved hands and grasped firmly at Cloud's chin. He stared into those eyes, saw the flicker of fear, and enjoyed it entirely. The hand squeezed gently, and as he tilted the blond's head up, he tilted down his own, and shut his eyes, pressing his lips against Cloud's for the first time.

Cloud wasn't surprised. He sighed softly against his hot lips, moved closer, and placed both of his hands on either side of the taller's face, stroking it with his fingers slightly, feeling the slight stubble that had begun to grow with a day or two of neglect. They slowly moved back, reaching his hairline, and then running his fingers through the dark brown locks, finding them wonderfully soft.

His free hand lifted, placing it gently on one of Cloud's hips. As their kiss seemed to deepen, the hand slid over to the side, slipping upward and under the black fabric covering his stomach, slowly stroking there. At those touches, he whimpered and shivered softly.

Leon took this as a sign to do more. Suddenly, the fingers settled against the flat plane of his stomach dug their nails into the skin, and slowly raked up, then down, hard enough to leave reddened welts in their wake.

Cloud moaned earthily, his stomach arching into the scratching of his stomach, envisioning the cutting open of it, and the way the lion stood over him with his intestines in his mouth. It was arousing.

"I will come back to you and give you this as you want it," Leon whispered huskily into his ear.

Within the shadows, Hades smiled.

--

Leon hadn't time to fight with Cloud that night. They immediately parted after he told him he was to leave the next morning with Yuffie, and Cloud retired to his hotel room with a heavy heart.

Sleep did not come to him, and the night-night showed no mercy. There were no dreams of his Lion to be had. But the way he kissed him and the scratching of his stomach left him aching with a new need; similar to the craving he possessed to fight Leon.

Slowly, Cloud ran his hands along the welts left by his Lionunto his stomach, cerulean eyes focused intently upon them. After a long while of lying on his back on his bed and affectionately stroking the wounds, his hands wandered lower, and he allowed himself the closest sort of release he could without Leon there.

TO BE CONTINUED