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Author/Artist: TamLin
Setting: Final Fantasy VII - lifestream incident
Couple: Cloud/Tifa
Rating: T
Summary: why do we love the people we love?
He wanted her to love him.
Sitting on top of the water tower with the sky of liquid green above and the empty landscape below… he wanted her to love him. Somewhere, on the edges of his thoughts, he knew he should be thinking of something else. Something Very Bad and something that, whenever his mind accidentally strayed close to it, immediately had him scuttling away. Something that was painful and something, he thought, that just might shatter him completely if he ever looked too close. So he thought about her instead. Because, somehow, that train of thought was Important too. And he wanted her to love him.
He had wanted it for so long, with such a familiar ache that when the small voice finally asked:
‘why?’
he almost ignored it.
Why did he need her to love him? What a stupid question. He needed her to love him because –
Because…
Because she was Tifa.
‘But why was Tifa’s love important?’ that small part of him wouldn’t leave the question alone and, trapped and alone on the tower, he had nothing to distract him from its voice.
Because… because she was Tifa. Wasn’t that enough? But even as he thought it, his conscious twinged at him and he winced, rubbing absently at his thin child’s chest.
What made Tifa’s love so special…?
Well, he answered it, brows coming down in his pale face, she was Tifa. She was special. She was important. She was the most special, important thing in the entire village – which might as well be the entire world. If she, being special and important, decided that she loved him that would…
That would make him special and important.
Being loved by something, someone, so special, so important, so central – it would mean he was worth something. That he really was loveable. That… that someone so amazing would love him – that would mean there must be something pretty amazing about him too.
If Tifa decided she loved him, it would prove, to everyone else – to himself – that he was worth loving. That he was important. That he was someone pretty special too…
It was a good answer – no….
No.
It was a bad answer.
It was a horrible answer and sitting there in his child’s body, his adult mind realized it.
It was a selfish answer and he felt suddenly depressed for it.
Really? He wanted her love just so that he could use it to prove he was worthwhile?
Thinking it made him wince and it made his stomach hurt.
Selfish men wanted women on their arm to show off, to brag about. To show the world how impressive they were, that they could have a woman like that interested in them. He didn’t want Tifa just so he could brag about her! Did he?
Did he…?
Did he really just want her to love him so that he could prove to everyone else he was worth loving…?
That was a bad reason to want her love.
He couldn’t be that shallow, could he? That childish?
No. No, he wanted her to love him because… because Tifa’s love felt like hot oil in your joints and springs of steel in your bones. Because… because when she looked at him with those eyes of hers, he knew, he just knew – he could leap a building for her. He could take on the world. He could do anything – anything at all – that she asked him to.
Tifa’s love drove the nightmares away…
That wasn’t strong. That was needing her for weak reasons. He had always wanted to be her hero. Not… not to have her be his.
Except… she was. Because she was stronger than anyone he knew when she protected someone with her heart. She never gave up; she never gave in. She just… held on. Even when someone didn’t deserve to be held on to anymore…
The way he didn’t deserve to be held on to anymore.
But he could still hear her, searching for him. He could hear her out there. Calling his name.
She made him strong… but she also made him aware of how weak he really was. Because sometimes… sometimes he just wanted to hide in her arms.
Real men didn’t feel that way. Real men never wanted to hide or needed comfort. Tifa needed a real man to love.
Why would he want her to love someone like him?
Except… he did.
He wanted her to love him.
He wanted her to love him because he loved her.
No. That was a stupid reason too. There were plenty of guys that loved, or thought they loved, Tifa. She couldn’t – wouldn’t – fall in love with every single one of them for that reason.
Even if he had loved her first and loved her longest.
Except… except he hadn’t been very good at showing that he loved her.
He was never there for her when she needed him; he was too unsure about how he should act when he had wanted to show her. Part of him said to be suave… except he always felt stupid and fake when he was being suave.
He always felt like it wasn’t enough.
Like it wasn’t… right.
He wanted to be right for her.
He wanted to be everything she needed.
He wanted… he wanted to be able to show her that he loved her.
Because… because that was more important than being… loved by her…?
He wanted… he wanted her to love him. But – more than that – so much more than that he wanted to be able to love her.
He wanted to love her.
He wanted to love her...
It had to be the oldest thing he’d ever known and yet the sudden realization hit him as hard in the chest as Bahamut’s bolt.
He wanted to love her.
He just – when it came down to it – he just wanted to love her.
Her – Tifa. The laughing little girl, the piano player, the motherless child, the bar maid with fists of steel and broken-hearted eyes. The scars and the beauty and the softness and the iron. The woman that always gave, the one that never asked, the one that worried more about whether he was all right than the fact she was in an ugly situation and he was in a dress. The one he’d worshiped as a child, cherished in his memories during adolescence and – and who had never left him through the entire confused, broken, hopeless situation since. He wanted…
Oh, Gaia… how he wanted to just be able to love her the way he’d always wanted to…
And maybe… maybe that was a good enough reason to want her love in return. Because… because, if she loved him, he would be able to love her the way she should be loved. Because… maybe… just maybe… if she loved him, he would be allowed to say the things and do the things for her that would show her how much he loved, had always loved, her. And it would be all right and it wouldn’t make her uncomfortable or nervous and she might actually smile… for – for him… if she loved him and let him love her in return.
Even if he couldn’t be suave and bold and noble… maybe, if she loved him, she’d understand what he meant when he tried to show her his love in all his stumbling, awkward, stilted ways.
If she loved him…
If she loved him – maybe - she’d forgive him for loving her in the first place.
Because – she deserved better than him. He was – something was broken. It felt newly broken when he prodded it delicately with his memory and yet, underneath that, it felt older still. As if something had been broken for a very, very long time…
He shied away from digging too deep to find out what that meant but the point remained. He was – very broken. Somehow. And Tifa deserved someone – very not broken.
Someone wonderful. Someone as amazing as she was.
And he… wasn’t.
He was never going to be.
If he really loved her – shouldn’t he want her to love someone else?
Except he didn’t. Even in the child’s body, his fists clenched and his teeth bared. No! No, he didn’t want to give her up to anyone else.
He should…
If he really loved her, he would…
He wouldn't!
It… it didn’t matter. He was stuck here and she was… there. Wherever there was, out beyond the sick green.
Somewhere out there – where she called his name.
His name. Not someone else’s. His.
She called his name.
Even after he’d failed her. Even after he’d been broken. Again. Even… even though he didn’t deserve it.
She called for him.
That counted – didn’t it? He stood up from his perch on the well and looked at the sickly sky above him. That counted. That she was calling him. He didn’t know why she was calling or what she wanted but… but she was calling.
She was calling him.
And he loved her. And he thought – maybe – she loved him back. And it didn’t matter if they didn’t know exactly what that meant or how to make it work or how to show it – yet. Because they could figure it out. And however he’d gotten here and she’d gotten there – if she was calling him than it wasn’t too far away.
It was never going to be too far away.
Thin brows came down in a small face and his soft fists clenched in determination.
Whatever was wrong, however he’d gotten here – he’d fix it. For her. Maybe… maybe they’d fix it. And it might not fix right away or it might break again but he’d keep trying. Because…
Because he loved her.
And because – just maybe – she loved him too.
And it didn’t matter why – it just mattered that it was.
Clutching the barrel of the well, he raised his face to the swirling sky above. And when he called her name it wasn’t a child’s voice that carried the sound up through the sticky green and into the darkness beyond.
Because – maybe – he needed her to love him for selfish reasons. But – maybe – he could love her for ones that weren’t.
I'm not entirely happy with this but, after one of my sister's ill fated questions, the idea kept nudging me and I really felt like I should write something since it's been a while for me. I like the idea but it seems terribly chaotic and unrefined to me. I wonder if I can pass that off as it being the brokenness of Cloud at that time? ;)
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Date: 2010-01-09 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-13 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 12:58 am (UTC)Raw and poignant with a hint of desperation cloaked in childish urgency and adult need. God, I've missed good REAL cloti. There's a reason you're my favorite author. :) THANK YOU!!
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Date: 2010-01-13 01:05 am (UTC)and awww - heh - now I won't be able to get my inflated head through the door ;)
As amazing as ever
Date: 2010-01-10 08:58 pm (UTC)Loved the deeply emotional, desperate feeling it got and the way you managed a really hard question. Feeling Love is quite simple, but thinking makes it complicated.
Let´s be LJ friends! And thank you for the wonderful piece.
Re: As amazing as ever
Date: 2010-01-13 12:59 am (UTC)we have cookies!
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Date: 2010-01-12 01:00 am (UTC)Wow, I loved this. Very beautiful and intense. :)
~Cal
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Date: 2010-01-13 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-13 03:39 am (UTC)Poor Cloud. Trying so hard to do the right thing, even when he's stuck inside his own head.
Poignant and insightful and in character. =)
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Date: 2010-01-14 04:41 am (UTC)I also think the 'in character' comment is one of the highest a writer can get - so double thank yous for that ;)
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Date: 2010-01-16 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-16 08:58 pm (UTC)