pink

[tamlin_kitsune]

Title: Pink
Author/Artist: TamLin
Setting: Final Fantasy VII - game-time
Rating: T
Summary: suddenly, hearing voices in his head and not remembering his past are the least of his worries.

(inspired by my nephew's reaction the first time he played FFVII)

Frankly, it was the pink that worried him.

Yes, he should probably be more concerned about certain other aspects – the most disturbing being how in the hell it happened in the first place – but mostly… it was the pink.

He hadn’t worried about the pink so much at first – the aforementioned ‘how the hell?!’ being higher on his list of concerns – but when he’d realized that their packs disappeared as well – and then noticed that Aerith had taken to bringing shopping bags in with her… shopping bags that didn’t come out (he kept watch)… well, a guy had to worry.

Could they leave things in there? Was that even healthy?

Hell – he didn’t even know how it was even physically possible. Just – one minute he’d been tuning out Barret as the other man ranted on about not trusting him – and the next the giant black man had simply walked into his chest.

Into his chest!!

How the hell?!

He’s spent a good five minutes hyperventilating, groping the awfully solid and normal feeling thing he’d always assumed was his perfectly average chest, and randomly looking behind himself because it was easier to believe that a giant black man with a gun for an arm could walk through him than into him.

It had almost been as freaky as watching the guy suddenly walk out of his seemingly solid chest several minutes later on the elevator simply to harangue him. Needless to say, he hadn’t had the friendliest responses.

And he still hadn’t been prepared when the guy did it a second time. Or the third time. Or fourth.

How? The? Hell?

Perhaps the worse part though was that Barret acted like it was nothing unusual. Like it was normal to walk in and out of other people’s bodies on a regular basis. Since when?! Cloud had never seen it happen to anyone else. He sure as hell didn’t remember doing that to anyone else himself and Barret was his first – and, damn it!, that sounded just about as sick as it probably should…

Point was - if it had freaked him out when Barret did it, he had taken it even worse when Barret and Tifa disappeared into to him later! Because – he knew Tifa. He’d grown up next to Tifa. Tifa was about as normal and solid and real to him as the ground under his feet or the sword in his hands. More so. She was… Tifa. A lot in his life might not make sense – but – this was Tifa. She was real. She made things make sense. So when she just walked into his chest after Barret and – disappeared – he almost passed out. Until the shock set in. Because – it was so abnormal, it had to be normal, right? Everyone was acting so calm about it – it had to be rational and he was the only one that just, somehow, had something weird going on inside him.

He was a little used to that feeling already. Shit! Maybe the voices in his head were people that had walked into his chest and had never come out and he’d forgotten they were in there!

After his mini-panic attack over that he’d done the only thing a guy could do. He’d shrugged and made do as best he could.

After a while, he’d gotten kind of used to people disappearing into his chest on a regular basis. It was still a little… weird. If he paid attention, for just a second, he could actually feel the press of them and his vision would go a little funny, like he was looking inward instead of outward. Needless to say, he didn’t often make it a point to pay attention. Instead he just accepted it.

In a weird way, he came to like it. He’d realized it first with the girls but it had spread. Because… if they were inside his chest – then they couldn’t get hurt. Or lost. He couldn’t lose them if they were inside him. He could keep them safe and keep a proverbial ‘eye’ on them. Sure, they came out whenever a fight happened but… but he didn’t have to worry about one of them getting in trouble because he wasn’t nearby or getting separated from them.

He’d actually, after a bad fight a couple of times, wondered if he could just keep them safe inside him all the time. Except he seemed to have no control over when they came or went – even though he’d tried just for the hell of it… and because Cait Sith always made him feel weirdly bloated whenever that damned stuffed moogle rode around inside him.

As time went on though, he started to wonder what it was like for them. They never talked about it and he felt awkward about asking what his insides looked like. It seemed… rude somehow. Was it all guts and blood and muscle and hot and sticky and uncomfortable? Or was it like a little room with comfortable couches and an icebox for when they got hungry? Did they fall asleep when they went in or were they awake? And… if they were awake, were they aware of what was going on outside? He thought they probably were. They always knew when to come out to help with a fight and sometimes one of them would say something that indicated they knew what was going on when they were in there… (He was especially careful about how he responded when strange women hit on him when he had one of the girls inside him. It just seemed like the kind of thing he didn’t want to risk. After all, what if they got mad and decided to break something in there?)

It did make him feel awkward about going to the bathroom though and he still didn’t know whether the girls or the guys made him more uncomfortable over that.

If he didn’t look, could they not see as well, or did they have windows in there, or monitors or something that didn’t need his eyes to see out of?

Somehow, hearing voices and sometimes not being sure about his past wasn’t the largest problem he had anymore. Not by a long shot.

Like… did Nanaki shed in there? And, if he did, where did the hair go? Did it just lay around for the rest of his natural life, a fuzzy red coating over the entire inner space or did his body, slowly, slough it off? And if it did – how? He wasn’t sneezing red hair out his nose or anything. And – what about the ash and smoke from Cid’s constant cigarettes? It wasn’t as if the guy put them out before he’d disappear in. So were there just clouds and clouds of constantly thickening smoke filling the place in his chest or did it leak out of his ears at night? And what about the dynamite the guy apparently carried in his jacket? Did he ever forget a stick or two and what happened if he did!?

He found he was starting to get picky about choosing Cid or Red for his team simply based on those questions.

Still, Tifa never smelled like smoke or dog/cat/critter whenever she came out… She was really good at keeping her living space clean too…

He was leery about taking Yuffie on his team too but that was because he was worried she’d steal something and what if it was his kidney or something equally important? Or worse – what if she got motion sick riding around inside him and puked?! How were you supposed to hose out something like that?

He didn’t want Tifa to have to go in there with a mop and bucket.

He figured the worse Barret probably did in there was put his muddy boots on the furniture. Tifa probably cleaned up said mud and he kind of liked having her in there anyway so he didn’t have to worry about her being out of his sight and getting hurt. Vincent probably read cryptic and depressing books of poetry and maybe pulled the curtains to block out the light. Aerith though…

Cloud, eyes narrowed, was starting to get suspicious about those shopping bags she kept bringing in with her.

Somehow it was all too easy for him to imagine Aerith redecorating his interior without telling him.

And she had this really, really, really strong penchant for pink things.

He wasn’t sure it was polite not to include someone on your team just because you were worried about ending up with a pink interior though.

Besides… Aerith was kind of pushy about joining his team sometimes.

He was sitting there, worrying about it, in fact, late one evening in front of the Cosmo Candle, when Tifa came over and sat down next to him. She fidgeted for a minute and then asked:

“Cloud… can you carry something for me?”

He made a noise and held out his hand and she put a little carved figurine in it. In the firelight it was hard to tell but it looked like some kind of Nanaki type of creature carved out of sandstone and it was still warm from her hands. When he glanced back at her, she looked embarrassed to be caught buying such a frivolous trinket but he had just wanted to tell her it was nice.

She deserved to have nice things. Gaia knew she’d lost enough over the years. It seemed stupid to point it out to her though. He was sure she already knew she deserved nice things. With a grunt, he turned to his own pack and fished out one of his shirts, carefully wrapping the little statue so that it wouldn’t chip or break. She’d given it to him to take care of. It seemed very important that he didn’t let it get damaged.

“It would be safer in your pack,” he pointed out and she looked down and away, sparking his suspicions with her behavior.

“Oh, I – I don’t have room. Any more room. To – to carry things.”

He reached behind her and prodded the canvas bag on her back. It certainly felt full. Jammed full in fact and was that - ? He caught at the glint of fabric when she twisted to get the backpack out of range and the silk scarf slipped out of her pack in a long strand. She watched in horror as he slowly reeled it in around his fist.

A long, silk, transparent pink scarf…

“That’s mine! For my hair – “ she tried to snatch it back and he used the opportunity to pop the buckle on her pack. More fabric spilled out.

Pink fabric.

Lots of pink fabric.

Her cheeks flushed and she started gathering up the fabric with the sparkle of panic in her eyes.

“For a dress! I’m – making a dress. Out of – pretty curtains and things.” She snatched the fuzzy pink throw pillow out of his hands.

There was really nothing for him to say in response to that. He simply kissed her. Strangely, after that, she didn’t protest in the slightest when he threw all the pink home décor into the fire.

They never mentioned it again. But he never complained when she wanted him to carry something of hers in his pack. And, after that, he didn’t worry about bringing Aerith along on his team anymore.

He just always made sure he brought Tifa too.