Cloud x Tifa - Last Train to Brooklyn (Final Fantasy VII)

Chapter 2 - I Never Felt My Heart Like This

Cloud sat in a rickety folding chair on the small balcony of the apartment he shared with Zack, watching golden and sierra-red leaves blow and flutter in the wind as they drifted from the branches of the trees that lined Sterling Place and fell to the concrete below.  The wind howled by with a gentle breeze against the overcast October sky, and Cloud shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, turning away from his laptop's screen where it stared back at him once again with a blank white facade.

He sighed, still feeling a dull ache at the sides of his skull from all of last night's drinking.  Their carousing had carried on late into the night, ending with both Jessie and Aerith needing to be practically carried out by Biggs and Zack, who wasn't in a much better state himself.  Somehow, with Barret and Biggs the soberest out of all of them and directing their pack, they'd managed to secure cabs sometime after three o'clock that morning and made it home safe back to Brooklyn, Cloud and Zack stumbling into their fifth-floor apartment and both passing out still wearing their clothing, Cloud making it to his bed while Zack only got as far as the couch.

Drinking the rest of the night away had been the only way to put up with the merciless teasing of Tifa's friends, the only way that he could get through the uncomfortable social expectations of the night, and the only way he could tolerate sitting so close next to Tifa, who smelled like fruit and cupcakes and who looked like every fantasy he could remember having since his early adolescence, her hair dark and long and shimmering under the neon lighting overhead, her lips perfectly full and glossy, her eyes a dark scarlet red, her body a winding road of endless curves.  The problem was, though, that the more he drank, the more he'd wanted her, and eventually he had to get up and spend nearly ten minutes in the men's room, splashing cold water into his face and staring at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror before Biggs came in and found him with his hands wrapped around the rim of the sink.

"Hey, man," the taller man had greeted him, nodding his head at him with concern.  "You alright, in here?  Tifa was looking for you."

Fuuuuuck.  That had been the last thing he'd wanted to hear.

"Yeah, I'm fine.  Think I had a few too many shots.  I'm good."

The evening had ended on a blur, and at present, Cloud couldn't remember much of it, aside from the way that Aerith had giggled incessantly through the night, the way that Jessie's voice was shrill in the air, the way that Zack at one point began to regale the group with stories about the war that made Cloud hold his head in his hands, shaking it and looking away while the others drank and asked questions and screamed and made his ears bleed.

All the while, Tifa sat next to him, occasionally entering the conversation, her voice slurred with drink, at times turning her pretty face to him and offering him a smile, her eyes misted over with alcohol.

Now, though, it was the middle of Sunday afternoon, and Cloud was sitting on the balcony with his laptop, trying to get words on the page and working to clear his head.  He and Zack had both risen well after one o'clock that afternoon, and Zack was up and texting with Aerith before he had even brushed his teeth.  Within minutes, Zack was swallowing a handful of painkillers, tossed back with orange juice that he drank straight from the carton.  Moments later, he announced that he was going to spend the afternoon with Aerith, which was no big fucking surprise.

"She's going to show me the garden at her mom's house in Queens," he'd told Cloud, his black hair a tangled mess around his head from sleeping halfway off of the couch.  "She's got pot, if you want to come.  Best thing to cure a hangover."

Cloud, whose head was pounding, just waved him off, and Zack laughed as he made his way to the bathroom to shower.

Even with a shower and painkillers now in his own bloodstream, Cloud could still feel the dull pulse of the previous night's abuse wreaking havoc on his body, could still feel the side effects that a terrible, drunken sleep had left on him, disabling his concentration and his creativity as he sat with the laptop on the small iron table beside him, its cursor blinking at him with a slow, mocking beat.  He stared across the street, wondering if Tifa was home, and wondering what she might be doing at that very moment.