Control

A/N Second chappie up, hope it entertains. I know I enjoyed writing this chapter as opposed to the first which was just one massive ball ache to write.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters used in this story, I’m pretty sure the plot has been used to death a thousand times as well, I’m just playing with them.

Chapter Two
Of Things Left Unsaid.

Cloud slept. As he slept he had a dream, Cloud dreamed that he was in his home. His mother was working in the field just beyond their small house, the smells of the peat from the fire, the autumn and the smouldering leaf piles wafting in through the open front door, the scent of yesterday’s broth still warming on the hearth. There were sounds of work being done in the village, the Blacksmith and the market. Although in the dream the sounds were distant and muffled as if being heard through a wall, Cloud was still comforted by them. He was reassured and at peace to just extend his senses about himself and try to soak up the memory all of the things that reminded him of home. His body was light, he felt himself moving around the small kitchen, gently touching everything within reach as if mapping everything for the last time. He came to the small window in the front of the house, just beside the door, and looked out, the rays of the late September sun falling on his face as he saw the children playing in the street outside. Among them was Tifa, playing mother, making sure none of the smaller ones wondered away or got hurt, and Cloud smiled. He wanted in that moment to go out to her. But he couldn’t force himself to leave his hiding place. Instead he watched Tifa and the children play, hearing their laughter rise up above the other mingled sounds of the village as they ran about. He was content. He always had been, there in that village, in his house.

He shut his eyes and tilted his face towards the sun, letting it warm his skin. He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly knowing that he would never ever feel this at peace anywhere else in the world. Sensing the sun disappear behind a cloud as the air around him went cold, he lowered his head and cracked his eyes open. His blood ran cold. Through the tiny window he could see his entire village in flames, the children lying dead in the street where moments before they had been playing. Tifa was still among them, her lifeless body burnt and charred almost beyond recognition. And beyond them all, swinging from the remaining eves of a smouldering house, hung his mother’s body. Her hand’s limp and heavy by her side.

Cloud’s eyes flew open, his breath trapped in his chest as the panic and sudden shock stabbed at him. He sat bolt upright, a choked gasp finally escaping him as his heart hammered in his chest. His shoulders shuddered with the force of his ragged breathing as he tried in vain to control the residual fear still lingering from what he already knew was a nightmare. His whole body trembled with the effort it took for him not to scream. He clamped a hand over his dry mouth, wiping the cold sweat from his face with his clammy shaking fingers.
“Cloud?” a tired whispered voice called out from behind him. Cloud didn’t hear it, his mind still wondering the burning streets in his thoughts, his head filled with the sound of laughing children but his vision still scorched with the images of the dead bodies and ruined houses.

Leon sat himself up in bed and tentatively reached out to place a hand on Cloud’s shoulder, feeling the younger man jump and then tense underneath his touch. Cloud remained as still as he could, his eyes closed in concentration, trying in vain to stop the shuddering and shivers that rippled through his body. He tried once to open his mouth to say that he was okay, but his voice would not come to him. Not sure how to comfort him, Leon began to rub tentative circles over Cloud’s back, hoping that the wordless gesture would be enough to sooth him. Gradually Cloud’s tremors stopped and his breathing evened out and all that was left was a thick and oily silence that coated the room. An explanation was needed.

“Are you okay?” Leon asked as his hand came to rest at the base of Clouds back. Cloud nodded not fully trusting his voice yet. “’m fine.” He managed to croak out. “Just a dream.” He whispered, almost as if to reassure himself. The images were fading, along with the ghostly voices, but the long shadows of the early dawn that stretched out in the Commanders bedroom seemed to add weight to the dream’s reality, and the feeling of foreboding was hard to shake. Cloud knew that it was silly to feel so ominous about something that had already happened, but he couldn’t rid himself of the heavy impression in his heart.

“May I get up for a while?” Cloud asked in his standard issue undertone.

“Of course.” Leon replied, slightly perturbed by the sentiment of such a question. He never fully understood just how much he took for granted. Cloud got up from the bed and pulled on his trousers, forgoing his regulation tunic top and crossed the bedroom and let his self quietly out into the living quarters.

The soft click of the latch signalled that Leon was alone in his room and as he lay back down, he realised that sleep was a distant memory now and he was wide awake. He let himself remember a few moments from the night just gone, before his logical brain returned to the present and what he was going to do when the General returned. It had only been two weeks since Sephiroth had gone, leaving Cloud in Leon’s care and Leon knew he would have at least another month with the young man before the General returned from his mission, but as always Leon was not that short sighted. He was well aware that he had started something. Something that he wasn’t sure he could stop. He didn’t even think he wanted to stop, but he also knew that to carry on; even under Sephiroth’s nose was a lesson in suicide, not just for him but for Cloud indefinitely. He would have to see just how far Cloud was willing to take this; after all it wasn’t just his life he was risking but Cloud’s as well.

He was considering giving a few more moments thought to what ‘this’ actually was before the thought of what Cloud wanted entered his mind. There were so many uncertain possibilities that without Cloud’s input, Leon just couldn’t begin to answer them. Rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger he decided that it would probably be best to just take this one day at a time. Of his lust for Cloud, there was no question, but where it would lead the both of them, Leon couldn’t say.

Cloud rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window pane. His breath ghosted out from lightly parted lips and misted the smooth surface. Out of all of the confusion in Cloud’s mind there was one thing that he was certain of. Cloud was angry at himself. In one night he had opened up a whole new world of pain and difficult choices. He had just wanted some comfort. The pain of his loneliness had seemed so hard to bear alone, and for the price of one night in the arms of someone who wouldn’t hurt him he now had to make a decision that was too hard to even contemplate. He already knew that one night with the Commander would not be enough. Even if it had have been he was stuck there with him for another month, something was bound to happen. Even so that argument was obsolete because he wanted it. The satisfaction and silent comfort he had found in Leon’s easy company was already powerfully addictive. How could he have let this happen? He knew now with an absolute certainty that he couldn’t go back. He had left himself with few too options and far too many questions that he did not have to answers for. He had backed himself into a beautiful and complicated corner and what scared him the most was that he knew that no matter what the risks, and regardless of the price he would find a way to be with the Commander at any opportunity. Even after their month together was up, Cloud knew he would seek Leon out before long and risk any punishment from Sephiroth, even risk Tifa’s life. Cloud hated himself for accepting that fact so willingly. He knew he was selfish for gambling so carelessly with something so important, but there was a part of him that just didn’t care. He craved his peace so much that he didn’t care who or what he gambled with. The knowledge that he had become such a coward made Cloud’s heart ache and in that moment he was glad that his mother was dead.

It wasn’t until the warm rays of the six o’clock sun softly hit his face that Cloud opened his eyes and looked out onto the city beneath him. For a moment or two as he took in the beauty of the cityscape around him, all thoughts melted away and he just stood and stared.

All his life had been spent in the countryside. Until his village had been attacked and all of the useful people rounded up and penned into caged wagons. Everyone else had been slaughtered, the elderly and the very young. Anyone who was of no use or that couldn’t be sold was killed, and the rest had been taken off. After three days travelling Cloud had laid his eyes on Radiant Garden for the first time. He had heard of it, but never even dreamed of seeing it and now here he was a slave in it. Not for the first time Cloud wondered about fate and how it seemed that no matter how he had planned for his life, or how much he tried to steer it in one direction, the decision always seemed to be out of his hands. No one understood that feeling better than a slave.

The door to the Commander’s bedroom opened and Leon stepped out. Cloud did not turn around to watch as Leon softly padded over to him and joined him in looking over the early city. It was enough just to feel him beside him. They stood in respective silence for a few more minutes, each just at ease with the quiet but there was one burning question in Cloud’s mind that he had to have answered. It wouldn’t matter to him what the answer was, he was in this with the Commander now regardless of what sort of a man he was, but Cloud needed to know all the same.
“How can you do it?” he asked softly, his eyes still roaming the many buildings and streets below. A few seconds of puzzled silence from the Commander followed before he turned to look at Cloud.

“How can I do what?” he asked tracing and subconsciously memorising Cloud’s profile in the early morning light.

“How can you do all that you do? You’re a Soldier, you kill and capture and take over.” Cloud paused for a moment but Leon didn’t interrupt. “You don’t...You don’t seem to be like that. You aren’t like... Him.” Cloud said the last in an almost whisper, hoping his outright fear of the General was not too detectable.

There were a few more moments of silence as Leon thought of a way to answer him. “I guess... I was always meant to be a Soldier.” He said simply as he turned back to gaze out of the window. “There was never another option for me. My Father wanted me to be a Soldier; I grew up with it being my only goal in life. I just... never thought of being anything else.”

Cloud considered those words for a few seconds before another question came to him. “Do you like it?”

The question obviously surprised the Commander as his eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he turned to stared openly at the man standing next to him. It took him a few moments to process the question before he replied earnestly. “I don’t know.”

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

“Are you afraid of me?” Leon asked as they lay in bed. They had spent a comfortable day together in relative silence, just pleased to be in on another’s company knowing that each others loneliness was being kept at bay just because the other was near. That night as the Commander had returned from on official duty he had taken Cloud by the hand and led him to the bedroom. There had been some residual tentativeness left over from the night before but as Cloud relaxed and gave himself over to the knowledge that there was no fear to be felt with Leon he let the Commander make love to him. And now with the shadows and the thick black night creeping in around them Leon sat propped up, Cloud resting against his chest listening to his steady heart beat; it didn’t take long for the young man to answer him. “No.”

Leon gave a nod in acceptance knowing that Cloud would not see it. He wanted now more than ever for Cloud to know even just the beginnings of Leon’s thoughts. This was so new and dangerous for the both of them that Leon couldn’t even begin to think about more than a few days ahead but he needed Cloud to know his thoughts all the same.

“I want you to know...just that...I’ll never treat you like a slave, Cloud.” He said his voice low and firm. “While we’re here, together in this room, you’re not a slave to me.” He felt Cloud stiffen, his palm that had been laying flat against Leon’s stomach now balled into a fist. “To everyone else, we have to appear as they expect. You know that right?” a small nod was his only answer, but he wouldn’t let it put him off from saying what he wanted. “But to me you’re just Cloud, and I won’t treat you any differently okay?”

Cloud did not answer straight away. He swallowed thickly against something in his throat before he answered tentatively. “Why?”

“Because...I...because I don’t want you as a slave.”

Cloud's mind was a tumbling scattered mess of thoughts as he tried desperately to establish in his mind exactly where he stood, what his role was. “What do you want me to be then?” he asked innocently. He heard Leon sigh quietly before he answered.

“Just be you, okay? No more asking for permission. Don’t be afraid of me, please.” Cloud knew then what he meant and he nodded. Embarrassed a little at his childish behaviour and shamed by his conditioning. He felt Leon hug him closer and he responded by placing his palm back, flat against his skin, feeling the contours of the Commanders body. The affirmation that passed between them in that moment led Cloud to acknowledge a question that he had been trying to avoid since Leon had first kissed him.

“What do we do when He comes back?” the question was like a heavy blanket being thrown over the both of them, neither of them wanting to think about it let alone put it into words. It was a while before Leon spoke again.

“I don’t know.”

A/N I have decided that this should defiantly become a multi chapter story. I wrote this and I was like I CANNOT JUST LEAVE IT THERE! There must be conclusion people! So I don’t want to go overboard and start something that I’m not likely to finish so let’s just say this has potential to run to maybe four or five chapters. I hope this chapter gives a little bit more info on backgrounds, settings and character development and all that jazz. As I was re-reading the first chapter I was thinking to myself ‘No one apart from me is going to know what the funk is going on here’ so TADA...backstory! When I get a chance I will go back and edit the first chapter and make it more reader friendly but for now I’ll just concentrate on updating. Hope you all like and I will update soon.x.x.x.