Cloud x Tifa - Battlefield (FFVII)

Battlefield

Battlefield

Meet me on the battlefield
Even on the darkest night
I will be your sword, your shield, your camouflage
And you will be mine

Echos and the shots ring out
We may be the first to fall
Everything can stay the same or we could change it all

"Don't overdo it, Cid."

Cid Highwind only laughed when Tifa sat his fourth whiskey down in front of him, offering her a yellow-toothed grin before he picked up the tumbler and brought it up to his lips.

"Don't you worry about me, love," Cid grubbed, tipping his forehead to her. "I can drink everybody in this room under the table, including big guy over there." He gestured to Barret, who sat with Marlene in his lap at a nearby table, his voice thunderous in the background as he gestured wildly through a story he was entertaining Yuffie and Nanaki with.

"I'd rather not see you try," Tifa scolded, dropping her hands to her hips.

"Ah," Cid admonished, waving her off. "I'll be fine. Why don't you go pay attention to your lover boy over there? Haven't heard more than two words come out of him since we left the church."

He nodded in the direction of the bar, where Cloud sat alone, nursing a whiskey of his own. He was leaned over the countertop, silent, staring down into the amber liquid.

Tifa expelled a sigh, patting Cid on the shoulder gently. It was several hours after Aerith's healing rain had been unleashed on her old church in Midgar, several hours since the ugly black blemishes of Geostigma had been eradicated from the faces and bodies of the afflicted, including Cloud and Denzel. In the hours since, they had ignored their exhaustion, returning to Seventh Heaven along with the rest of their friends for a reprieve. Tifa had gone straight to the bar's kitchen, shooing Yuffie out of the way as she pulled together a meal of roasted chicken and potatoes for their troupe, trying to tamp down her excitement at the realization that things might suddenly be returning to normal.

From the moment that Cloud had turned to her with the first smile she had seen him wear in months, Tifa felt as if a weight had been pulled off of her, as if she was suddenly able to float untethered in an ether of peace. The weeks prior had been cold and nightmarish if she was honest with herself.

It was Cloud's absence those last weeks that drove the deep anxiety that lived inside of her. The first morning that she realized he was gone - truly gone - she had sat up in their bed with her head in her hands, weeping bleakly until her palms were soaked. It was only when Marlene came to her door, knocking and calling her name, that Tifa had been able to lift her head and wipe the wetness from her eyes and cheeks. She remembered glancing up at her reflection in the mirror, unnerved and disturbed by the melancholic misery that stared back at her in her own crimson eyes.

She had known that there was something deeply wrong with him, had known it for months. She could see it in the shadows behind his aquamarine eyes, could feel it in the coolness beneath his lips anytime that they brushed over her skin. She knew it from the way that he would come home later and later from his deliveries at night, the way that he missed dinner and the way that he mumbled apologies when he fell into their bed beside her in the middle of the night.

When it started, Tifa had tried, as she always had, to seek out the source of the damage and repair it. She waited up for him as late as she could by the bar, working on her ledgers and accounts, reviewing the inventory of her wine stocks. Sometimes, he would walk through the door just after midnight, his gaze heavy and mournful when it met hers, his blue eyes glassy with despondency. She would offer him her arms, cradling him close but unable to ask with words what was wrong. He would hold her back before he would pull away, mumbling about needing a shower, and he would disappear up the stairs, leaving her alone in the dimness of the bar's kerosene lighting.