A/N: A day late because my internets was being retarded! Ohhh, believe it. BELIEVE IT. Some lovely gift fic for the Lovely Dual and the lovely fic Surgeon's General Warning. Because Leon is a dork and I enjoy abusing him.

Leon's Guide To Relationships: How To Secure A Date

Words: 2,160
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Pairing(s): Leon x Cloud
Notes: AU fic. This is a little fanstory of mine regarding my darling Dualism's Surgeon's General Warning, which is specacularious piece of fanfic that I never review because words don't do me enough justice. She is an amazing writer in the comedy genre, in which I simply PHAIL, and all I can do is salute her for writing it so well and to carry on trooper, hope this makes you smile and take on the world because you're so capable of many things. The plot belongs to Dualism, the idea is mine.
Warnings: None.
Rated: G

This fic also goes by, 'How Many Cheesy Pick-Up Lines Hanae Can Squeeze Into A Fic'. I would also like to apologise in advance for what you are about to read.

Sorry.

Well technically the second, third and fifth dates couldn’t really be called dates because dates were promises to meet in advance by both parties for romantic or social purposes before, upon agreement, the parties decided on a time and place and met there. Dates were not – and Leon was being deliberately vague with his textbook definitions here – ‘chance’ meetings where one party would scheme and plot with the intricacy of a Rubik cube inventor to ‘coincidentally’ bump into the desired party, striking up idle talk and steering the conversation to both parties, by mutual consensus without any subtle prodding, mind control, persuasion or subliminal messages whatsoever, agreeing to hang out.

And ‘hang out’. That was a very unromantic phrase as it were. Hence, ‘hang out’ and ‘date’ were not interchangeable or homogeneous in any way, shape or form. ‘Hang out’ was what friends or relatives or acquaintances did. ‘Hang out’ was utterly unromantic. ‘Hang out’ could also be done by two parties of similar romantic interests, but interests were not important at this point in time because what was important was the mere fact that both parties were indeed hanging out. Without any hidden agendas or ulterior motives. It was merely for the sake of spending more time together in order to further acquaint both parties before it eventually ascended into a more romantic relationship, and ‘hang out’ could be discarded in favour of ‘date’.

Leon’s logic was impeccable. And irrefutable.

The only problem was that he was starting to wonder if the boys were affecting his intelligence.

Because completely sane and astute individuals of his political dispositions did not loiter outside cabarets in the seediest part of town imaginable in order to ‘coincidentally’ bump into another person of desirable integrity and physique (i.e. Cloud Strife) on his last delivery in order to invite him to go out and get some drinks because Leon had time, and he had time, and hey why not just hang out, et cetera.

It was a little silly, admittedly. He’d somehow heard from Tifa who had heard from Zexion who had heard from Demyx who had heard from Roxas who had heard from Cloud about the kinds of places he had to visit in order to make deliveries and how he was making one such delivery that very night and he wasn’t very keen on doing it but someone had to pay the bills and he was going to squeeze it in that very day so that he had the weekend free. Leon made a mental note to ask Cloud out to a quiet restaurant in town Saturday night. A date, no hanging out business. Hanging out was for children, much like his own dreadful little apples of his eye and their friends.

Wait, wait. He was going to ‘hang out’ with Cloud tonight. No insulting of the ‘hang out’ until a date was secured. He had to remember these things, geez.

In any regards, there Leon was. Standing outside a cabaret. Arms crossed as he tried to keep the cold night air from making him shiver too much. Wearing a simple, but fairly alluring (with his body and ass, anyway) combination of slacks and a work shirt. In an area overflowing with gay bars.

Now, he had nothing against homosexuals. He would have to be an idiot, no, a freaking donkey-brained fuck-faced mentally retarded amoebic marsupial with a grotesquely deformed hermaphroditic genital area invaded upon by crabs, genital warts, gonorrhoea and a plethora of unmentionable STDs to have something against homosexuals. Especially, at this point, because he could probably be described as one himself, what with his courting of Cloud Strife, MALE, with the almost infectious amount of enthusiasm he was putting into the relationship attempt as it were.

Nope. Leon had nothing against homosexuals.

He was just extremely uncomfortable with the area he was hanging around in already, getting hit on by a colourful mix of flamboyant, buff and… effeminate homosexual men was making him even more disconcerted than before, and, based on his internal reaction to the appearance of the pink-wigged, handbag-toting, high-heeled, decora-dressed man whom he had just politely declined without any visible breaking out of rashes or goosebumps on his person, it was starting to make him feel a little queasy.

Leon really, really, really, really, really wished that Cloud would hurry up already and save him, lord, from the nightmare of this deplorable thing called reality.

With an irritated harrumph, Leon rubbed his forearms and squinted at his watch. Did deliveries generally take this long? Well, he supposed it depended on the cargo Cloud was lugging around. And judging from the area, it was probably something that would take a little time due to consternations with the recipient and client and whatever else. Damn, Leon was this close to just abandoning mission and heading on home to cleanse himself of this sacrilegious experience, because, he had experienced a lot of crap and shit throughout his life and this just honestly took the cake.

But then, when you weighed out getting hit on by drunk gay men who probably wanted to pass on their STDs to you for the past two hours with securing some drinking alone time with Cloud Strife, it was understandable to see that Leon was debating and arguing with himself so vehemently that he remained just standing there in order to decide for or against options one and two.

Of course, with regards to remaining in the same position to think, it meant that he was still in the golden location to be flirted with by aforementioned inebriated homosexuals.

“Hey there, handsome. They call me ‘Coffee’ because I grind so fine!”

“I have a .357 Magnum pointed at your kidney. Go away.”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down, sugar because I’m diabetic!”

“Are you gay?” Leon abruptly turned towards his grinning ‘suitor’, a light expression on his face, teeth bared in a stiff smile, tone that of false enthusiasm. “Because I sure am! … not.”

The other man’s face fell with dejection before it lit up again, a cocky and almost impressed expression on his face.

“Oho, you’ve got spunk. You’ve got bite. You’ve got a nice ass, and even nicer pants. I want to see it on my floor.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. Let's get drunk and take advantage of each other. Or, I could get drunk and you could just take advantage of me. OR, you can stay here and get drunk and I can go home and take advantage of myself. Either way, it's up to you.”

Leon rolled his eyes, letting out an agitated noise before he glared. Poisonously. He had been withstanding two fucking hours of cheesy pick up lines and groping and drunk idiocy in general while waiting for the man of his dreams to haul ass out of the stupid cabaret so that he could ask him out for a drink but Leon was just so damn tired and he’d had enough crap and he did not understand how he could have been so polite all this while because he was sick and tired and did not like other man staring at his backside because it was reserved for someone.

And once he was finished voicing out that rant, he was breathing harshly, eyes still narrowed on the stranger, daring him to dig his own grave by opening that bacteria-ridden orifice he called a mouth and speaking.

That mouth opened hesitantly.

Leon clenched his fist and mentally aimed.

That was when he felt a hand on his shoulder yanking him backwards roughly, Leon about to make some noise about being touched by complete strangers before he felt lips pressed over his own and a tongue sliding into his mouth when his jaw had slackened in surprise. His eyes widened, Leon suddenly receiving a faceful of Cloud Strife and wondering how on earth he could do that with his tongue. He was vaguely aware of the taste of gin on that sublime tongue, the fingers hooked around the nape of his neck and his own hands gripping the front of the blond’s shirt, knees almost buckling under the pressure and pleasure of that kiss.

When Cloud pulled away, Leon had gone stone cold, absolutely frozen. His mouth was still hanging open, eyes hollow and dull as they stared at some object in the distance because what the hell. Seriously. What. His brain was not computing any of this, this was ridiculous, had Cloud Strife just kissed him in public?

Fortunately, Cloud was of far more superior thinking capabilities compared to Leon and, with ease, took the reins of the situation. All it took was casual stance, an arm on the brunet’s shoulder, his legs crossing at the ankles, sardonically raised eyebrows and a slight inclination of the head towards Leon. His eyes swept the stranger’s appearance lazily before it settled on Leon’s face, the blond cupping the older man’s chin and forcing him to turn his way as he appraised him briefly. His expression was serious and his tone was even, somewhat bored.

“You’ll do.”

Both Leon and his previous ‘suitor’ were left gaping after Cloud like hungry goldfish as the blond grabbed Leon by the arm and dragged him along the pavement, walking towards his parked motorbike. He finally let go of the other man as he swung a leg over, straddling the seat and putting something or the other into one of the compartments. As he grabbed his goggles, he spared a glance to his rather vexed-looking neighbour. Straightening up in his seat, he blinked once.

“Is something the matter?”

“‘You’ll do’? What do you mean, ‘You’ll do’?! I’ll do for what?!”

Cloud tossed him a reproachful look before fixing the goggles over his eyes, heaving a light sigh as he rubbed his temple.

“Look, I’m heading home. I met up with an old friend after my last delivery and had a few drinks with him. It’s late, I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted. Let’s just go back.”

Leon faltered. But… his meticulously planned encounter… his waiting… but…

Noting Leon’s uncertainty, Cloud gunned the engine.

“I’ll take you out for dinner tomorrow to make up for waiting for me as long as you did last week at the Kingdom Arts Gallery, Destiny Island Inn and Dincht’s Sports Warehouse, as well as today’s two hours. It will be expensive and it will be nice and it will be my treat,” Cloud’s words were gentle and calm as his eyes flickered up towards Leon. “If you want,” he added almost as an after-thought.

Leon paused a moment, everything sinking in but barely registering.

“Well, yeah, I want to…”

“Great,” the blond relaxed, smiling at him. “It’s a date.” And he drove off.

Leon remained still for the next half hour or so, ignoring all catcalls and pick-up attempts as he stood there, puzzling scrupulously over what had just transpired. When he finally realized that Cloud had been painfully aware of Leon’s little ploys at ‘hanging out’ the past month, he decided with finality that he had chosen a soul mate who was very intelligent – more so than he was, at least – and that he was going to be direct and honest about things in general therein. No more sneaking around. He’d just ask Cloud… out. And this brought him to his next point.

He wasn’t going to be able to bullshit Cloud.

Damn him for being so… so… smart.

Leon was well aware about his tendency to talk himself in circles (usually when he was nervous) and decided that it just messed with his head, especially with regards to brain-breaking ‘missions’ involving an objective of causing two parties to eventually hang out. He was never going to insult the principle of ‘hanging out’ ever again. It was hard.

After that resolve had been made, he had also realized that he had secured a date.

… in fact, Cloud Strife had been the one to ask him out.

He had a… date. And Cloud had called it a date. He didn’t say, ‘Let’s go out,’ he didn’t even say, ‘Let’s hang out,’ as per the requisite method of initiating the both of them to hang out – he had said, ‘It’s a date’. An honest to goodness, correctly defined DATE. Leon had a date. With Cloud ‘Hot Ass’ Strife. And Cloud had been the one to ask him out. And Cloud had asked him out to an expensive restaurant for a quiet evening. Very, very romantic. Very much more so romantic than mere ‘hanging out’. Extremely ‘date’-like. And right before that, Cloud had (rather possessively, he hoped) practically grabbed Leon and frenched him on the street! Life was serene and wonderful.

So, with a bounce in his step and a whistle on his lips, he walked towards his car, congratulating himself for a job well done. He had a date.

Hanging out was for children, anyways.