Chapter Text
“So, Tifa, what’s your favorite flower?”
“Hmm?” Tifa wasn’t particularly keeping track of her surroundings when she was brought out of her stupor.
The realization that she wasn’t aware of a particular person’s presence made that fact more apparent.
“Sorry, Aerith, I was spacing out. What were you asking me just now?” She tries to keep pace with the flower peddler.
Aerith, walking beside her now, just leaned forward to gauge her attention a bit more and smiled. “Do you have a favorite flower? Just wanted to make some conversation… I’m bored.”
Tifa chuckled, “I do…” A sly smile forms when she brings up her index finger against her chin, tapping it, “But why do you wanna know that particular information?”
Aerith almost visibly pouted at her refusal. “I’m the local florist back at home. I could read people by just asking them their favorite flower. Roses, being a classic, mean that the person probably has an appreciation for beauty, deep emotional connections, and commitment. Peonies mean they cherish and carry sentiments. And lilies…”
Tifa, originally facing forward, tilted her head back to look at Aerith when she noticed how the other woman trailed off and found herself staring right into green eyes twinkling with mischief. She was baiting her to ask, and she knew it…
It also wasn’t lost on the bartender that lilies were Aerith’s favorite flowers. Specifically, yellow ones.
She bites into it anyway.
“What do lilies mean?” The brawler asked anyway, knowing full well that the other woman would just answer with–
“You can take a guess.”
Tifa sighed, but with a breath of fondness and a smile that quivered on her lips. She knew this woman too well that it’s almost damning. There was never a straightforward answer with her. The teasing, the luring… It’s all a part of her game.
But before she could even utter a syllable, the ground shook with a fervor. Deep rumbling came from the ground, and a low groan within the woods, and that was when Tifa realized they’d been walking through a clearing that was right next to a dangerously high cliff. This was the absolutely worst spot you could get caught by the enemy since it effectively cornered them to the edge.
—------------
“Aerith!” Tifa shouted, stretching out a hand to reach her just in time to anchor the rest of her body in front of the florist.
Time seemed to slow down as red eyes watched green ones widen in horror before it sped up again, and the force of the blast sent them right off the cliff.
The brawler reacted in no time and tucked the other woman’s head right into her arms as they rolled down the jagged slopes filled with boulders, roots, and a few dead trees.
Tifa tried not to shout in agony as each obstacle pummeled her body as they rolled down the steep slope. Her mind and body went numb at some point from the overwhelming sensation of pain.
Eventually, something in her mind registered that they came to an abrupt stop at one point. But she could barely open her eyes, barely breathe, and a ringing sensation filled her ears. She could hear someone coughing–couldn’t really tell whether it was her or the flower girl that was still buried close in her arms–but it was a good sign. It meant they were still alive.
When she felt struggling within her arms, that’s when she finally relented and let herself go limp, knowing that Aerith was safe, knowing that she was at least okay enough to move.
“Tifa!” A muffled voice called out. She assumed it belonged to the flower girl.
She coughed on a slow exhale when she finally let out a relieved sigh at a hand gently caressing her face. She tried to open her eyes as much as she could, but even then her vision was blurry and dizzying. It doesn’t really take much to know who that gentleness alone belonged to.
Her body acted on its own, and Tifa found herself leaning into her touch a bit. It was comforting. It was warm. It was Aerith.
“Tifa, oh god, you’re going to be okay–Please! Just hang in there!”
—
Tifa woke up to a piercing pain on her arm. The brawler frowned deeply but still hadn’t opened her eyes to assess but the sensation came back tenfold now that she was more aware. She couldn’t stop herself from letting out a strained whimper.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
She blinked her eyes open at the sweet, familiar voice. Her version was still blurry but she could make out pink and red.
“Aerif—“
“Oh, thank the Planet! You’re okay…” The other woman said, relieved. There was the slightest quiver in her voice that gave away just how scared she was.
A big grin broke out on Tifa’s face as she tried to blink away the blurriness. Just when she was about to be finally rid of it, she felt a sharp sting on her upper arm, the sound of skin being slapped being reverberated.
“You dummy, why would you do that?!” She was still seeing two Aeriths but from what she could make out, the flower girl was fully standing up now and propping her hands on her hips, glaring down at her.
“Wha—Buh—“
“You could’ve hit your head on a rock, broken your back on a stomp… You—you could’ve died!”
Tifa was too stunned to speak properly. Or more likely, her speech patterns were erratic due to her bleeding tongue from how hard she must’ve bit down on it while they rolled down that cliff.
“You know how sad that would’ve made me?” Aerith went on… with the cutest pout on her face that made it very difficult for Tifa to take her seriously. “Very sad. Very!”
Forgetting about her very apparent, severe injuries that hurt like a mother-trucker, the bartender could only stutter out a word or two so she had to pull out this move: ‘:(‘
It only made Aerith’s frown deepen all the more. Probably confused with how she felt about it. “I would’ve been very miserable, y’know?! I—I would’ve been like ‘man, this bitch died and managed to one-up me in being the coolest party member that this Planet has ever seen by actually saving a damsel-in-distress like the way it only happens in fairytales…”
:(
“It wouldn’t have even been cool, y’know?! So NOT cool. In FACT, it would’ve been lame, actually. SO lame for you to just—“
:(
“Like, imagine dying like that and—I mean what kind of a heroine leaves the princess you just saved alone after—UGH! Can you STOP looking at me like that?!”
:(
Aerith huffed air out in frustration. “Tifa!”
“Aewif, I fink I bif mah—“
“Oh shut up, you big baby!” Aerith grumbled before hefting out a sigh, her (not so serious) anger leaving with the breath she exhaled. “I—Here, lemme take a look.”
The flower peddler got down on her knees and gently caressed the bartender’s face with both hands, tilting her head around to assess the damages which caused the brawler’s cheeks to be slightly squished. How cute, Aerith thought before shaking her head. Ahem, right, she was still supposed to be a bit mad at the other woman’s recklessness.
But, those goddamn boba eyes.
“Di’ you juss caw me ‘baby’?”
Aerith blinked… and looked at her incredulously, “Did you get a concussion?”
“…Meh-bee?” Tifa admitted with a loopy smile.
Oh God, Tifa freely admitting things was NOT a good sign.
The brawler, clearly still out of it, suddenly stops all motions except for the fact that she was leaning closer to Aerith’s face now. The distance between their faces closing at an alarming rate, even for the usually-oh-so-daring flower meddler to catch up to.
Red eyes were staring so intently at green eyes, they almost seemed to fuse together. “You have pweffy eyes.”
Aerith almost comically gulped at the unrestrained compliment but managed to pull herself together. “Oh, shut up, you.”
That distance between them then became none when the flower girl crashed her own bruised lips against bleeding red ones, slipping a tongue in between to lap up the other one. A steady warm glow came from Aerith’s tongue followed by a feeling of relief on Tifa’s part. A moan mixed with pain and unexpected pleasure slipped out between the crevices of the push and pull of their ravaging mouths. It ended as quick as it had started with Aerith pulling back for air and heaving for breaths, watching with a smug smirk when she saw the way Tifa leaned after her subconsciously.
“There,” Aerith huffed, “Should be all good now.”
Tifa pouted once again at the best kiss of her life ending so abruptly and the frown on her lips were even signified with the squish of her cheeks by the hands of the florist.
Aerith watched the way Tifa’s eyes roamed across her face, silently studying her features until a sigh broke out followed by a soft, warm voice that was only reserved to be heard in the brawler’s most vulnerable moments.
“You could’ve died too, y’know? I would’ve been sad too. Maybe even sadder than you would’ve been. That’s why I did what I did… I would’ve died happy knowing I did everything in my power to keep you safe. Otherwise, if I hadn’t died and you had if I had done nothing, it would’ve haunted me every day. I wouldn’t have been able to live with that…”
Aerith just silently watched her, gazed at her every feature with an open heart and a touched soul. Green eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“Please, understand that, Aerith.” Tifa leaned into her touch with one bruised hand coming up to hold one of Aerith’s dirt-covered ones that still held her face.
The florist’s lips trembled before she could get her words out, full of so much more emotion than she could handle. With a heavy heart full of love, she nodded. “I do.” More than you know.
A grand smile was plastered on Tifa’s face like she had just won at life, and Aerith melted at the sight of it.
They quietly stared at each other until the ever so perfect-timing pugilist broke the spell.
“You are a pwincess, though.”
Aerith deadpanned. “Tifa, I just healed your tongue. You can speak normally now.”
“I know.”
“Okay, guess it’s your head that needs to be checked next, then.”