Chapter Text
‘I wish I was your boy.’
Cloud blinks. The thought pops into his head and lingers. Like the first rays of sunlight before night recedes.
He wonders if maybe he’s allowed Tifa to make him one too many drinks.
He shakes his head, blonde strands swaying before his eyes. He sits in the corner of the bar, watching as Tifa goes about her work. She darts between tables, refilling glasses, and taking orders. Eventually, she slips past him, placing a hand on his back, asking him if he needs another round.
He stares at her for a moment. His head isn’t foggy, he’s not really drunk. But for the briefest of moments, he feels entirely lost. Only the warmth of her hand on his back seems to anchor him to the rest of the world.
What would it feel like to have the warm hand on his bare skin? Nails digging in between the blades of his shoulders--
“Cloud?”
‘I really wish I was your boy.’
“There it is again,” he groans aloud.
Tifa tilts her head, dark hair cascading across her shoulders, and asks, “What? What is?”
“Nothing. Sorry. I’m good,” he says, maybe a little too quickly.
If she thinks anything of his strange behavior, she doesn’t give any outward indication of it, for which Cloud is relieved.
She nods and shifts over to Barret to ask him the same. He says something but Cloud is far too deep in his brain to hear it.
‘Yeah, definitely one too many drinks.’
Had he really had that many though? Looking down, his glass is still mostly full. He has barely finished his second Cosmo Canyon…
He’s not one to have those kinds of thoughts. Cloud has always been respectful of Tifa’s individuality. Never one to think of her as an object, or a prize, or a conquest. Suddenly, he gets the sense that he’s twelve again, pining away after the dark-haired girl that got along so well with everyone. Cloud feels his muscles tighten. He hasn’t thought of that boy he used to be in a long time. Still, he thinks it’s strange. Him wishing he was hers. There had always been the assumption inside of him that they were a pair.
A team. That they were one another’s best friend. That there would never really a need to express any sort of possessiveness because they just were.
To further reinforce that idea, Cloud reminds himself that they are a makeshift family. Him and Tifa and Marlene and Denzel. Sure, he and Tifa sleep in separate rooms, and Marlene always asks him why ‘two people who love each other don’t share the same bed?’ Just like all her other friends’ parents do.
Cloud never has a response to that question. He hates that he doesn’t. It makes him feel oddly inadequate. The closest thing he can get to -- and what he settles on telling Marlene and Denzel whenever they ask -- also feels painfully inadequate.
“It’s not that simple.”
He digs his fingers into the cocktail glass. The cool liquid does little to dull the heated beast suddenly roaring inside of him.
Simple.
Simple didn’t explain why Cloud can’t seem to clear his head of these thoughts. How could anything simple even begin to cover why he suddenly wants to make some kind of drastic change in the dynamic that has worked for them for so long? A dynamic he nearly broke not so long ago in running from her.
Simple can’t cover why he all of a sudden just wishes she would call him hers.
Cloud realizes his stomach is in knots and his head is pounding.
Too much thinking. Not enough doing. Cloud has never been adept at sorting out his thoughts. For a while, he thought that was fine. Now? Now he isn’t so sure.
He settles on watching Tifa. It’s strangely calming. Watching her work. Given the nature of his thoughts, distantly, he finds it even more confusing that the source of this peculiar new anxiety is also the fastest remedy for it.
An older gentleman waves at her and says something. Tifa listens, and then she responds, placing the drink down in front of the man. She nods, jots down some notes on an aging yellow pad, and then weaves around to a table of younger men. One of them hails here quite loudly – and a bit too obnoxiously for Cloud’s tastes. It comes off as disrespectful to the rest of the patrons and, perhaps even more importantly, it feels disrespectful to Tifa.
They’re factory workers. Cloud can tell by the work boots, all lined with studs at the bottom, steel toes, and metal clasps instead of laces, and by the remnants of dirt on their hands that they couldn’t wash off, like a shadow persistently clinging to their skin. There’s dust in one of the men’s hair – sheeted so thick across the crown of his head that it gives the impression of snow along red strands. The workers wave her down, and Tifa listens as they rattle off orders.
One of the men gives his friend a look. It’s probably nothing. But to Cloud, it seems suggestive and salacious. Tifa smiles politely and stuffs the notepad into her apron and then heads back to the bar to fill their orders.
As she leaves, one of the men leans back in his chair and watches the sway of her hips as she goes. Thudding his chair back down, the group begin to laugh and trade innuendo.
Cloud feels his insides twist up and coil with sudden displeasure.
He hates when people treat her this way.
His hands twitch. The cocktail tips. And out spills the ruby liquid inside.
“Shit!” Barret grabs at his shoulder, and Cloud snaps back into himself, “The hell you doin’ Merc?”
Cloud blinks. Temporarily confused and wondering what happened and why Barret is snapping at him.
The liquid is running across the tabletop, sliding across the lacquered wood like an ocean wave along smooth sand.
“Sorry,” is all Cloud can think to say, still trying to extrapolate himself from the maze of his thoughts. He feels like he is in-between a dream and the waking world. One half of his brain is brooding, and the other train to maintain some semblance of self at the moment.
With clumsy fingers, he reaches for a napkin from the container on the table. He bumps Barret’s beer bottle in his haste and nearly topples that over as well.
“Cool your jets there, merc,” Barret snaps, releasing the hand on Cloud’s shoulder and pulling Cloud back into his seat, “You’re going to break the damn table at this rate.”
Cloud sighs, feeling entirely out of sorts.
Get your head on straight.
But his mind is still running as Barret hands him a napkin and they begin to wipe down the ruby cocktail smeared across the bar top.
“You good?” Barret asks gruffly.
“Fine.”
“You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
Barret settles his beer against his lips and sips. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen you spill a drink before.”
“I said I was sorry,” Cloud mumbles.
“Just worried about you there, soldier boy,” Barret says, grinning broadly, “Never seen you so up in your head before.”
“I’m not up in my head,” Cloud replies.
“You are. We’ve been sittin’ here for over an hour and you’ve barely spoken a word, even by your standards,” Barret says, “That and you ain’t touched a drop of your drink. You’ve just been starin’ off into space.”
“A guy can’t think?”
“Nah, a man can think all he wants. Brooding though? Now that’s a whole ‘another can of worms,” Barret says, “And you, my spiky-haired friend, were broodin’ up a storm over there. Damn near thought I was gonna have to smack you outta it.”
“I wasn’t brooding,” Cloud says, “I just… had something on my mind. That’s all.”
Barret eyes him expectantly, but when Cloud doesn’t elaborate, he sighs, “Hell, why don’t we have ourselves a drink and talk it over?”
Cloud starts to say something—maybe that he doesn’t think another drink is a good idea for him – but Barret is already waving his hand in the air. He calls Tifa, his booming voice cutting through the aimless chatter of the bar.
“Tifa,” he bellows, “Can we get another round for the spiky dude over here? Fool spilled his drink.”
Tifa perks up, turning her head to spot them from behind the bar. She smiles.
Suddenly Cloud feels like he’s been submerged underwater. Like his head has been filled with cotton. His stomach sinks when she waves back at them and begins to fix another drink inside one of those bullet shakers she’s always been so adept with. Her hair flutters about her body as she works, and Cloud watches the smile spread across her lips, and a look of content focus on her face.
I wish I could make her smile more.
Warmth blooms in the certain of his chest. Flooding his senses.
Cloud stops himself. That feeling isn’t something he’s sure he should be having.
Without realizing it, he’s already reaching up and wrapping a firm hand around Barret’s arm. He yanks it down. “Please, don’t,” he hisses.
Barret looks at him in confusion. “The hell you doin’?” He shakes his arm from Cloud’s grasp and eyes him, “What? You don’t want another drink?”
Cloud looks at Tifa. She’s already pouring another crimson cocktail into a glass for him. He feels his stomach sink lower. She’s going to come over and then she’s going to be right in front of him and he’s going to have to see that bright smile across her smooth features and see the brilliant red rose of her eyes and watch how they crinkle when he does something clumsy, and he’s going to hear her laugh and wonder how something can sound so crystalline and clear, then he’s going to start thinking about how he wants to make her laugh again just to hear the sound one more time, and—
“Cloud?”
The thoughts drift away. Or maybe, more aptly, they burst into nothingness. Vanishing entirely.
Snapping back into himself, Cloud whirls on Barret, “What?”
“Did somethin’ happen between you and Tifa?”
Cloud sits for a moment, stunned, “No. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Well, you’ve been starin’ at her all night like she might burst into flames.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Kid, I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, but I’ve been sitting here watching you. Are you sure you two didn’t have a fight or somethin’?”
Cloud sputters, surprised, “A fight? What?”
“She’s a patient girl, but hell man, dealin’ with you? I can see how you two could argue at some point.”
That part cuts. A hot knife sliding into the core of him. Dealing with you? Yeah, in a lot of ways, he deserves that, doesn’t he?
“We don’t argue,” Cloud says, maybe a little too sternly, “It’s nothing like that.”
“So then quit your worryin’,” Barret says, clapping him hard on the back. “You two have been through hell and back together. Just talk to her if you’ve got somethin’ on your mind. If anyone is willin’ to listen, god damn, it’s gonna be Tifa.”
A carmine colored sound, a voice, interjects suddenly, “What about me?”
Cloud’s body betrays him, and his head shoots up. He feels his eyes meet the dark rose-colored ones of the object of his confusion. All at once, that feeling is back, and he’s twelve and lost and wishing he could just figure out a way to get her to notice him. Notice him in a way that was beyond the quiet kid next door—
“Aww, nothin’ Tifa. Cloud here’s just been lookin’ a little worse for wear tonight. Got something goin’ on up in that spiky-haired head of his.” Barret reaches over and playfully nudges his shoulder.
To his dismay, Tifa’s face changes. An expression of worry weighs on her features, one Cloud immediately feels guilty for, knowing he’s the reason it’s there. He wants to see a smile on her face, to see the way her eyes crease at the sides when she does, and how her lips turn up so pleasantly. He doesn’t want to cause her any more worry. He knows he’s done enough of that since running off to live in the church.
And then things get worse.
Tifa reaches up and brushes the hair from his forehead. She lays her palm flat on his forehead and holds it there. She doesn’t even realize it, but tonight might be the worst possible time to touch him. Not with his head jumbled like a crossword puzzle and his confusion at a boiling point.
He feels the pad of her forefinger brush his temple.
For the first time in his life, Cloud thinks he might explode.
“Are you feeling okay?” she asks. Her voice sounds so soft and soothing. Like a warm blanket on a cold night. A balm on an aching wound. Cloud feels his skin heat up. This isn’t helping, and now his brain feels infinitely more muddled and lost.
“I—” is all Cloud can manage before Tifa tucks her hair behind her ear and lays her palm against her forehead.
“You do feel a little warm…” she says, readjusting her palm.
Ignore that. It’s just my brain overheating.
But that sardonic voice in his head dies out when Cloud catches Barret smirking at him from across the table. Pride gets the better of him, or maybe it’s just sheer embarrassment, really it doesn’t matter, because Cloud reaches up and brushes her hand away gently.
Her skin is soft and warm.
“I’m fine.” He settles his hands in his lap.
Cloud wishes he could let his fingers linger there, against the inside of her palm. Feeling the steady vibration of her pulse beneath her skin. He fights the urge to shake his head out. Now isn’t the time to let his mind start wandering. Not when she’s standing right in front of him. Not when he thinks he might want to see what it feels like to run his fingers through her hair.
“Are you sure?” Tifa asks, “I can get you some water, or a ginger ale?”
“Seriously, Tifa, I’m good.”
Cloud hates that he’s renewed his habit of lying to her. Still, it isn’t like he can explain the shift inside his mind, though. He’s not sure it would even make sense if he tried.
“Do you want me to close the bar early?”
Cloud blinks, “What? No,” he tries his best to offer a small smile, “I’m fine. Really. Just a long workday.”
Barret chimes in, “You told me you didn’t work today.”
Tifa nods, “He didn’t.”
Cloud flounders, “It was a joke.”
Tifa looks unconvinced.
A voice calls for her across the bar. When she turns, Cloud lets out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Just a second!” she calls to the patron, then she’s turning back to Cloud and leaning over the table so her dark rose eyes are drilling into his, “I’m going to come back with a ginger ale, and then we’re going to take your temperature.”
“I’m not—”
“No arguing.”
“Tifa—”
“Don’t make me have Marlene lecture you.”
Cloud grumbles.
Triumphantly, Tifa smiles, “Good. Sit tight.”
Tifa hurries off. Cloud watches her go. Tries not to watch the sway of her hips as she retreats.
Beyond Tifa’s retreating form, he spots the factory workers eyeing him. There’s an aura of collective disdain in the looks. Like he’s unworthy of her attention. Or somehow her attention is misplaced on him.
He holds their gaze. Cloud wagers the mako green of his eyes, on top of the icy blue, makes for an eerie staring contest. He’s spot on because the men cut their glare short as Tifa stops at their table.
Barret jostles his arm. “Putcha eyeballs back in your head. You’re droolin’.”
“What?”
“You’re starin’.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You shittin’ me, right?”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Bull.”
“Whatever.”
Cloud makes to stand. Maybe to avoid the path this conversation will inevitably lead down to. Maybe to grab himself another drink so he’s at least somewhere along the lines of sizably drunk before Tifa shows up with a thermometer. Or it could be that he’s hoping another Cosmo Canyon will put him in such a bleary headspace that he won’t even care that Tifa will be touching him, and that her hands will be so warm, and her face will be screwed up in that look of concern when all he wants is for her to smile at him the way she always does.
It doesn’t matter.
He scoots back in his chair, hears the wooden legs grind jarringly on the floor, and freezes.
Tifa is jotting down some notes on her usual yellow notepad. She clicks her pen, stuffing the notepad back in her pocket. One of the men – the one with the dusty snowcapped red hair – is leaning forward, trying to grab her attention.
Cloud can only see half of Tifa’s face. She smiles politely, but her eyes are hard. Lacking the usual carmine spark that lets you know Tifa is happy, and listening, and engaged.
Quickly, Tifa slips away with a small smile and a promise to return shortly with their drinks.
She doesn’t make it very far. Snowcap reaches over and pats her on the rear.
Tifa freezes.
Cloud sees red.
Beside him, Barret has taken notice of Tifa’s rigid posture and stands, “Sonovabitch. I’m gonna kick the—”
But Cloud doesn’t hear the rest. Fire is roaring in his veins. A fury so acute that he can feel it thrumming in his temples. He’s across the bar and his hand is closing around the collar of the snowcapped man in a blur, and Cloud is hauling him up and out of his seat.
There’s a flurry of motion and sound, and buried somewhere in all of it, Cloud hears Tifa shout, “Cloud, don’t! Stop!” but it doesn’t matter. Cloud is dragging the man across the bar, shoes skittering on the floor as he hauls the fool along.
The cacophony of conversation around them has died and all eyes are trained on the sight of the Ex-SOLDIER as he kicks the front door open and hurls the factory worker down the steps.
The man grunts and lands hard on his back. Distantly, Cloud hears the heavy footfalls of his own boots as he trudges down the steps.
Then there are hands on him. Cloud realizes, beneath the inferno twisting inside his stomach, that it’s Snowcap’s friends.
That’s fine, he thinks.
A meaty hand clamps around his shoulder, twirling him around, but Cloud sees the fist coming from a mile away. It’s sloppy, telegraphed, nothing more than a barfight haymaker. Cloud tilts his head, and the blow sails past his face and the momentum is carrying the owner of said-meaty-fist forward right as Cloud lifts his knee and drives it into the worker’s stomach.
A gagging noise joins the flurry of voices. The worker drops.
Another is coming, ducking low to take Cloud around the middle in a spear-like tackle. Cloud sprawls his legs back, planting himself, and catches the tackle. With a trained flex of innate muscle and fury, Cloud hurls the man away and sends him tumbling to the ground.
Someone swings a bottle. Cloud catches the wrist and twists, there’s a high-pitched yelp, and then a body crumples in front of him.
Suddenly, a fist collides with Cloud’s cheek, but the pain is so far away. Snowcap stands before him, fist still smushed to Cloud’s cheek. There’s a bewildered look of non-understanding plastered across his muddy face. Cloud recognizes the look.
Voices are drifting in and out. People are gathering. Cloud is making a scene and beneath all of the anger, he knows it. Still, the fury persists. Burning hot like embers in the core of his being.
In his mind, Cloud sees this man reaching over and touching Tifa. And it’s not just that Cloud can’t stand men like this – loud and ignorant and selfish. It’s the disrespect towards Tifa that drives Cloud to such acute fury. That there are people who look at her and don’t see her. Just a toned stomach and pair of long legs and a pretty face. That there are people who don’t see Tifa for what she is.
Tifa, the kindest person you will ever meet, a mother to two children that are not her own. Tifa, the woman who has forgiven him time and time again for his failures and believed in him even when he could not believe in himself. Tifa, the woman who pieced him back together after countless times of falling apart. Tifa, the person who remembered who he truly was even when he couldn’t.
No, they don’t see Tifa. His best friend. The woman who means the world to him. The only person whose opinion has ever mattered to him.
And that blindness and disrespect are at the core of all of this hatred for these men.
So, when Cloud reaches up and pries the fist from its place on his cheek, and flings it aside, he intends to send a message. And he does just that. With a blinding flicker of movement, Cloud drives his forehead square into Snowcap’s nose.
The night air blisters against a cry of agony. A snap of bone.
The man staggers back, holding the smushed mess of blood and cartilage that was once a nose. Cloud isn’t done. He darts forward and drives his knuckles straight into the man’s core. Snowcap doesn’t have time to drop, because Cloud is catching his crumbling form, and his hand is coming up, poised to backhand the man like a disobedient child. All to be sure Cloud disrespects this man like he disrespected Tifa.
His hand flies, ready to drive home and—
“Cloud! That’s enough.”
Cloud freezes, hand caught somewhere midair.
He turns, sees Tifa rushing down the stairs.
“Tifa?” he asks, bewildered.
Tifa is beside him, hand reaching up and holding his open palm. There’s warmth in her fingers. The anger dies like a candle snuffed out in the breeze.
Tifa lowers his hand, “Enough, Cloud.” Her voice is impossibly soft.
Where he expects anger and disappointment, there is none. Only whispers and soothing words.
He hates it.
These are people who have disrespected her. She should be furious. But she isn’t, and that confuses Cloud. Still, if she can’t be angry, Cloud thinks he can be angry enough for the both of them.
“Let them go, Cloud,” Tifa whispers.
“Not yet.”
Tifa darts forward, ready to grab him if need be, but Cloud hauls Snowcap up by the collar of his dirty shirt.
He leans in, growls, “Never come back here again. Are we clear?”
Snowcap whimpers, still holding the mess that was once his nose.
“You and your friends are hereby banned from Seventh Heaven,” Cloud says, voice low and harsh, “And you’re going to apologize to Tifa.”
Snowcap shouts an apology, albeit muffled and slurred through his hands.
Tifa doesn’t seem to notice. She holds her eyes on Cloud. But Cloud can’t meet her gaze. He is afraid of what he will find there.
Gripping the man’s collar once more, Cloud gives the man what he hopes is his best death glare.
The unnatural green and icy blue of his eyes don’t disappoint. Snowcap gives an involuntary shiver and cranes his head away from Cloud like Cloud is a snake in his space, poised to strike.
“If I ever find out you decided to show your face around here again, I will break you. And I’ll make sure there’s no one around to stop me next time. Do you understand?”
Snowcap groans but nods.
“Good. Now get lost.”
Cloud lets him drop. He crumples to the ground but doesn’t remain still for long. Snowcap scrambles to his feet, retreating, falling on his hands and knees and stumbling. Kicking up dirt and gravel as he scurries away like a frightened rabbit.
Cloud watches him go for a moment, maybe to ensure the man is actually running and heeding his warning, but, really, it’s to avoid the look in Tifa’s eyes for a moment longer. Steeling himself, Cloud inhales sharply and then turns back to the bar.
Tifa is there, behind him, hands on her hips. The look on her face is a mix of disappointment, anger, and strangely enough, concern.
Cloud hates himself. Always two steps forward, one step back. Why does it feel like she only wears that look when it comes to him? Stinging bile rises in his throat. For a while, he thought he’d forgotten why he’d run from her in the first place. Now, he remembers.
It’s that look.
‘You do nothing but cause her problems. Everywhere you go. You understand that, right?’
The voice sounds just like the bile in his throat tastes. Desperately, he tries to shove it down. Bury it in the dark corners of his mind. Maybe tonight, in the dark of his room, he’ll unpack it. Wrestle with it until he feels he can convince himself otherwise. That there’s no truth to it.
Cloud tries moving past Tifa. Without conversation, without preamble. It won’t work, but he feels the need to try. He’s only running, and he knows it. Old habits die hard, he supposes.
“Cloud, stop. Hold on,” Tifa says, stepping forward, hand raised. It comes to rest on his shoulder, grip somehow soft and coaxing. Her hands are warm. It makes Cloud’s skull buzz.
She’s fussing with his knuckles, checking them over.
It makes him feel torn inside. That she’s worried about him and not herself. That she’s worried about him despite having just made arguably the biggest scene in Seventh Heaven since that random brawl between the miners and the factory workers some six months ago.
It hurts. Aches. That she’s still worrying about him. That – in his own way – he’s trying to help but it’s only causing her more distress.
Seems too typical of him. Cloud hates it. Wishes he could just shield her for once, so she wouldn’t need to be constantly shielding him from his own rash decisions.
Then an idea strikes him. Like a blooming flower in his brain, it takes form and grows.
It’ll be a bit difficult to balance, he thinks, but he can rework some things during his daily schedule to make it work. If it will keep Tifa safe, and ensure no one treats her like that again, he’s willing to forgo a few exact hours of sleep.
More than anything, it will give him a reason to stay. To be here more. To be present in her life and, even if it’s in the smallest capacity possible, to be her protector for once.
“Cloud. We need to talk.”
“Not yet,” Cloud replies, but places a hand on her shoulder and tries his best to smile.
He climbs the steps back into Seventh Heaven and pushes the doors open.
Faces turn, eyes rake over him. There’s a brief pause. A moment of silence as people consider whether to regard him with fear or respect.
“Starting tonight, and from here on out,” Cloud shouts, voice rising high over the whispers and murmurs of the bar, “Seventh Heaven has a new bodyguard.”
The patrons begin to mumble again, confused, and intrigued.
“Me,” Cloud calls, jabbing a thumb to his chest, “And if anyone disrespects Tifa or the staff here, you will be answering to me. If anyone touches Tifa without her permission, you will answer to me. If anyone starts a fight or disrespects another patron here, you will answer to me. Any questions?”
The bar is mostly a collective gasp of stunned silence, but Cloud thinks he catches a few shakings of heads and that’s good enough for him.
“Good. Spread the word.”
Turning, he finds Tifa waiting for him. Her face is a ball of confusion, concern, and maybe a little bit of frustration.
“We really need to talk,” she says, curtly, “Upstairs. Now, please.”
Cloud swallows dryly. It’s rare to see Tifa genuinely annoyed. Even rarer to see her vocalize it so directly. Usually, she is the one who urges him to take the time to process his emotions. To understand them and accept them before voicing them.
Cloud sighs, as she brushes past him and motions for him to hurry up and follow.
I think I might have just screwed things up royally.
Silently, Cloud prays he hasn’t and follows her.