Cloud x Tifa - Gasoline Hearts and Small Desires (FFVII)

Gasoline Hearts and Small Desires

Gasoline Hearts and Small Desires

"Tifa.... Tifa, wake up, please."

Cloud's ears were still ringing with the sounds of the bullets that had rained down on them just minutes ago on the pillar, moments before it had self-destructed and brought the entire plate crashing down on the Sector7 slums below. They had escaped from the pillar just seconds before it imploded, the flames of the explosions searing their backs as they held tight to a pulley and chain that carried them into the slums of Sector6.

Tifa had not been fully conscious during their escape, and Cloud had to carry her and hold her tight against his body when Barret secured the chain to the three of them before they jumped. She had been bloodied and knocked out, her skin torn through by an onslaught of bullets that shred her delicate flesh into ribbons.

Cloud had been engaged with another helitrooper when it happened, only moments after Reno and Rude had abandoned the plate. It was just after Tseng's stern, smirking face appeared on the screen above the control dock to warn them that their lives were in peril, the countdown to the plate's crash echoing against the clamor of the firefight that erupted all around them. It was Barret's curse that alerted him to the exact moment that Tifa had fallen, dropping to her knees with a whimper that Cloud's enhanced hearing could detect even from where he stood twenty feet away.

His body reacted without the aid of his brain, moving in her direction, a snarl marring his face as he watched the bullets from the helicopter above spark the metal grating of the pillar's floor all around her. He had been too late, though, watching as some of them began to connect with her flesh, sending spurts of blood in every direction as she leaned forward on one hand, unable to protect herself from the incursion.

Cloud had fallen right behind her with a curse, crouching over her with his legs around her body, shielding her in the protective shell of his own as he held up his sword to block the volley of ammunition that poured violently from the turrets mounted to the Turks' chopper. As soon as he was at her side, she had fallen backward against his chest, her arm falling limp across her lap as she drifted into unconsciousness. Barret had quickly moved in with an assist, his gunarm firing back at the chopper and distracting Reno and Rude enough that they turned their attention to him, giving Cloud a small window of opportunity to gather Tifa into his arms and pull her away to safety behind a couple of gas canisters.

The anger that he had felt staring down at Tifa's bloodied, broken form in his arms was unlike anything that Cloud could conjure in recent memory, and he had been angry a lot lately. He felt it coursing through his blood, instilling in him a bloodthirsty rage that was eager for vengeance, and his eyes had glowed vividly with viridian when he turned back to look up at the helicopter that hovered and spun in the black sky above Midgar, Barret assaulting it as he screamed and swore.

The Turks had quickly abandoned them, though, the pillar seconds from dropping, and Cloud had gathered his wits and shoved his fury away just enough for him to pick Tifa up again and follow Barret to where he'd found their means of survival.

Now, after crashing into Sector6's Undercity, Cloud found himself kneeling over Tifa where she lay in the dirt among the wreckage that had fallen from the destruction of Sector7. Vaguely, he could hear Barret's gruff voice as it broke into sobs, somewhere in the distance behind him, the thunder of fist against metal as his comrade's own rage began to fall unfiltered from his mouth, soon deteriorating into desolation at the realization of what had occurred on the other side of that wall.

Cloud couldn't worry about that, though. Not when Tifa was laid in front of him, her body twisted and covered in blood, her flesh torn open from the graze of bullets. Her shirt was ripped, and her hair was a tangled plaster of black ink around her body, sticking to the sweat that lined her skin.