Words: 1 873
Genre: General
Pairing(s): Kid Squall + Cloud (sort of)
Notes: For QuirkQuirk. For many reasons. You know what they are. :D Also, don't mind it if it's not particularly high on the quality scale. I JUST WANTED TO WRITE SOMETHING LOLK.
Summary: Cloud and Squall were friends all right. In fact, their first meeting was absolutely peachy.
Warnings: None. :D
Rated: G

There was a frowning face of another boy that suddenly appeared right beside him; scratches all over his arms and legs, bandages plastered everywhere. He had tan skin – obviously a kid who ran around (and fell) a lot – and wore a thin, oversized singlet and shorts. He had only briefly glanced at the other boy, didn’t know what his face looked like and not caring in the least. He’d go away, too, like the others. Eventually.

“Nothing,” was Squall’s equally stubborn remark, his expression mirroring the blond boy’s as he hugged his knees tighter to his chest and tried to keep the sniffles from coming for the moment. His eyes were dark with something ominous but red from tears if they could be viewed under the light. His knees were bleeding and his clothes were dirty, torn, ripped – his usually neat hair was encrusted in nearly dry mud that encased small twigs and a leaf or two. It was obvious he had gotten into a fight.

The other boy gave him an odd look but didn’t budge, still standing to the side of the abutment of that red-bricked arch bridge. The bridge was built over a tiny, bare ravine with a small, barely-there creek flowing down the middle that eventually trickled into the grass further down the slope. It looked more like a drain than anything, with the naked and hard black soil beneath the arch that was littered with rocks and pebbles, and a pathetic patch of grass that had been flattened somewhere to the side.

This strange boy was sitting right under the bridge, hidden, a little, by shadow, so the blond boy couldn’t see his face. He’d heard some sniffs on the way to the brook for some fishing, and there he was.

“Wouldn’t be nothing if you’re crying like that,” he prodded, eyebrows furrowing a little, taking a tentative step towards the other boy before he heard a vehement, “Go away!”

Squall buried his face in against his dirtied pants and hugged his knees even tighter, voice shaking but it was slightly muffled as he spoke, so that was okay.

“Go away,” he said again croakily, this time trailing off a little as he hiccupped.

The other boy frowned, looking crossly and just a little more than irritated at the other kid.

“Don’t wanna.”

Squall let out an annoyed sound, whipping backwards and glaring poisonously at the brat who wouldn’t leave him alone. He bared his teeth, eyes narrowing beyond dangerous as he forgot about the not yet dry trail of tears on his cheeks and his sore body, weak after what had felt like hours and hours of torture at the hands of boys who were bigger, taller, meaner than him and all because he looked like a girl. He wished to God that he were not so pathetic, that he could stand up for himself, but he had never had that kind of fire. Not against that large, merciless group. And now here he was, hiding away, crying.

The other boy, so he saw through his blurred and watery vision, had an unimpressed look on his face, arms crossed and a single brow raised. He looked healthy, twiggy but healthy, and had a head of wild blond hair, sprung up in good natured spikes that actually made him look nice, but with Squall’s present disposition, the kid looked nothing short of stupid, stupid… and stupid.

“Mind your own business,” he snarled coldly, his fist shaking as he curled his fingers into the cold earth, getting dirt under his fingernails but not really caring. He wasn’t as steady as he wished he could have been, but he had been scared and those bullies had been horrible...

“Man, you look really bad.”

Squall let out a mirthless bark of laughter.

“Yeah? Well you look like a chocobo butt.”

That got a reaction from the blond kid who now looked almost like an affronted chocobo, his own eyes narrowing into slits as they glowered at the impudent boy sitting on the ground. He scowled, about to say something about chocobos and where the brunet could shove them before he felt something sharp nick his shoulder, a thin cut there now, with blood starting to ooze out of it. He turned around instead and frowned at a handful of boys on the bridge itself, messing around with his bucket and fishing rod.

“Ooh, looky! It’s Cloudy-puff!”

“Gonna pluck some daisies or wear a dress, Cloud?”

“I mean, what a sissy name. Seriously.”

“Oh, come on. Didn’t you know? His momma wanted a girl, but she got a boy. She made him wear dresses and all!”

“Yeah, he’s a total powder puff!”

“More like a Cloudy-puff!”

Cloud rolled his eyes, hands now on his hips as the boys dissolved into laughter, sliding and bumping each other down the slope into the teeny ravine to acquaint the blond boy and their very large fists. The second boy under the bridge visibly shrunk at the sight and was shaking as he stared at them with wide, frightened eyes, scrambling backwards and unintentionally making some noise. They noticed him.

“Wa-hey! Look, it’s the sucker who got away!”

“He was hiding here all this time!”

“What, Squall?!”

Cloud blinked once in confusion, glancing back past his shoulder at the now pale boy and then down at the bloody mess of his clothes and knees before he put two and two together. Man, what a bummer.

“Don’t your mommas ever tell you off about bullying? Or were you guys too stupid to understand or something?” Cloud huffed at the four much bigger, taller boys whose eyes immediately darkened with anger as they homed in on him now. The biggest, tallest boy stepped forward, the other three cracking their knuckles in anticipation as their ‘leader’ gave him a far from friendly look.

“Don’t you talk about me or my momma if you want to be able to still see yours with those pretty green eyes, chicken shit.”

“Tut, tut. Language,” Cloud shook his head dismally at the foursome. Squall was seriously afraid for this overconfident and stupid, stupid boy who seemed intent on getting all his bones broken and merely braced himself, still so very afraid. He tried to keep himself from squeezing his eyes shut and barely saw the way the bullies exchanged glances when Cloud said, “Oh wait. Your mommas tried educating you on that too, but you were so thick up here that she gave up. My bad.”

Squall swallowed. This was it.

He covered his head in his hands and curled up into a protective ball, sure that this was it and that he was going to hate that stupid blond bimbo and make his life miserable for the rest of his LIFE if both of them ever survived this.

That’s when he started hearing those howls and grunts of pain. Dread shot through him like a feral serpent. And he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited a bit more.

And then Squall wondered if they were killing the blond kid, since the screams were getting louder.

But he waited, eyes still screwed shut and body still braced.

Eventually, he knew that something was amiss and peeked out.

He didn’t so much see anything of… anything at all, really, because that was when he felt himself get yanked up onto his feet and pulled along roughly up the slope, staggering, but he didn’t dare do anything other than follow the blond kid who stopped only to grab his bucket and fishing rod with his other hand before he broke clean into a run down the dusty street, Squall’s dirty hand tight in his grip all the way.

Squall had only managed one fleeting glance past his shoulder in that moment when the other kid was grabbing his stuff, and he, with a great measure of surprise, had seen all four of the boys rolling around on the ground in agony, clutching onto their unmentionables.

Admittedly, Squall felt very, very dislodged from his version of reality for a long time to come, long after they had stopped running and both boys were sitting at the edge of the brook with their feet in the water and the other one with his fishing rod in his hands. He was staring ahead at nothing really, still in a state of shock and… and maybe a little awe. Just a little.

Because seriously.

Those kids were HUGE.

Like, five times his size!

And this blond kid was… he was scrawny.

“U-uhm… y-you, uh…”

His ‘saviour’ blinked once and turned to look at him.

“I’m, um, I’m sorry for… for calling you a chocobo butt.”

There was a minute of nothing at all between them, and then, for the first time, he saw the blond kid smile. And then grin.

And honestly, he didn’t look half bad with a smile.

“I get that a lot. Sort of… got used to it,” his tone was a little tired, a little exasperated, and quite irate, really.

Squall felt himself turn a bit red.

“S-sorry.”

“Okay.”

“And, um… t-thanks. For, uh, for… back… there,” Squall finished lamely. He was never good with talking to people. That was why he had been picked on in the first place.

He heard him reel in his line and looked on quietly as he checked his bait. It was gone now, so he grabbed another worm from his bucket, hooked it, and cast the line a short distance away.

“Do they pick on you often?” he heard the question being asked. Squall was about to frown and ardently deny being picked on at all, but then he heard the quiet but hurried, “They picked on me lots after my dad died.”

Well, that certainly changed everything.

“… everyday after school.”

“Oh.”

A fish jumped and skittered on a rock before diving back into the water. Cloud frowned at it. With a decisive huff, he ignored it.

“Yeah, well I showed them, didn’t I?”

After a while, Squall felt something like a smile creep up on him. Just a tiny one, but it was good, he thought. Those morons looked like they were in Hell.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin, “You sure did.”

Cloud grinned back at him.

He supposed that they were something of friends now.

“So, um, what’s your- what’s your name?”

“… Cloud Strife.”

Squall let out a loud, disbelieving snort. Cloud scowled at him.

“Shut up,” he said, still irate, and when he saw that the brunet hadn’t stopped laughing at him, he swiped at the water so that it drenched him.

“Cloud’s such a girly name, I can’t help it!” was all he could manage before he fell on to his side and felt his stomach implode from all the laughter.

“Oh right, like Squall is such an awesome name,” Cloud rolled his eyes. “I bet it stands for ‘squalor’, you runt,” he added bitterly, glaring at the other boy.

“Forget ‘Cloud’, ‘Chocobo-butt’ suits you perfectly.”

“Shut up,” he growled before tackling Squall and causing both of them to roll into the shallow brook.

Yeah. They were friends now, all right.