tamlin_kitsune | happy birthday, amethyst

So - it's

amethyst_key 's birthday today and she left a prompt for me oh ever so long ago. Today - I actually filled it ;) So, happy birthday, amethyst! I hope it's a wonderful day full of all kinds of good surprises and lots and lots of love all around.

Title: Trying
Author/Artist: TamLin
Setting: FFVII gametime
Pairing: Cloud/Tifa
Rating: T
Summary: for the prompt: Cloud/Tifa - 'he'd have to make sure he kept his hands to himself'

There was too much skin.

There was really too much skin.

The clothes Tifa usually wore showed off skin. A lot of skin. But there was something about the splashes of red – the scarred leather of the gloves, the drying blood red of the steel toed shoes – that warned a body to back off. That the skin wasn’t for touching, that there was an enforced, invisible armor backed by those dangerous washes of red that would retaliate if the distance between safety and that pale, soft looking skin was ever breached. He remembered that his mother had told him red was always a sign to stop, of danger, and that was why so many of the snakes and insects and berries around the mountain wore it. Red was to warn you off, to tell you to keep your distance or you’d regret it.

So Cloud understood the message behind the red that Tifa wore. He respected that message on an almost subconscious level.

Stop. Don’t touch. Go away.

Except she wasn’t wearing red now…

Now, by moonlight, there was only black and white and silver. On her clothes, in her hair. Against her skin…

He’d woken up for watch to find her gone and Barret wearing a scowl and watching a single direction instead of the entire camp.

It was lousy soldier work and so he’d let the older man suck it up and stay up watch longer while he went in that direction. Not at all surprised to find Tifa but a little puzzled to find her kneeling by a small, cold stream they’d gotten their cooking water from not that many hours ago.

It was obvious she’d taken off her shoes to soak her feet. Their warning red was crouched nearby, socks neatly folded over the tops of her boots and for the first time he realized she wasn’t used to walking for miles each day. That none of the others were and he realized with a sudden bolt that it hadn’t occurred to him to worry about their feet and blisters and aching muscles the way it should have. Getting away from Midgar, reaching Kalm, had seemed more important.

He’d been a bad team leader and the way it twisted his gut was more than it merited, he knew. It didn’t stop that knowledge, that he’d failed them, let them suffer through his own carelessness, from sending a clammy clench down through his gut of guilt.

He was supposed to take care of them.

He was supposed to take care of her…

But she wasn’t soaking her feet now. Instead she was on her knees in front of the stream and he could see the muscles moving in her arms as she worked with almost manic determination. Scrubbing again and again a white ball of cloth before dunking it silently into the water and then pulling it out to wring it clear and then begin all over again. Eventually he realized it was her shirt and his brows came down even more as he watched her scrub it fiercely together and then rinse it only to begin the entire process all over again.

He hadn't realized she was wearing only her sports bra. It covered almost as much as the shirt had.

His focus was good. The skin of her hands was going red with the bite of the water and the silent fury of her washing.

Red.

Stop.

Don’t proceed.

It was the only bit of red in her now. Her lips and her eyes were both washed to softer, quieter colors in the moonlight and he responded to it, stepping out from the treeline.

Her eyes snapped around, narrowing as her hand clenched but she relaxed in her spin, facing him but no longer defensive. It didn’t matter. Her fists weren’t red and he didn’t pick up on their warning. He was caught instead by the fact there was water in her eyes and sprinkled across her cheeks. She reached up and the back of her hand smeared the drops, spreading ice water across her already pale cheeks and she gave him what she probably thought was a small smile. It was actually a heart broken, lost one and he recognized those better than he recognized happy or hopeful smiles.

He said her name and she sniffed and the smile stayed. The cheek got another scrub but the action didn’t pull any color into the paleness of it.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Is it my watch? I was just – “ her hand with the soaked shirt waved weakly and her face threatened to fall apart in front of him. Silent he watched her pull herself together, heard the shaky exhale in the silent night air.

“It smelled like smoke.”

She tried to state it calmly but her voice broke on the last part and her face followed. And he finally understood.

Smoke. Because the air had smelled like smoke, a clogging, sick, oily kind of sickening smoke when the Plate dropped on Sector Seven. That foul stench of burned metal and broken bodies, of blood in the air and fires burning under fallen concrete and asphalt, it had soaked everything immediately afterward. Them too, he guessed, though he hadn’t paid attention to it at the time.

Hadn’t paid attention to anything but rescuing the girl that ShinRa had. Knowing, somehow, that no one should be left in ShinRa’s ‘gentle’ care for any amount of time or something terrible, something he couldn’t understand but that left his stomach cold and rotten feeling, would happen to them. Something irreversible.

He’d missed the way the smoke of a destroyed city had clung to them even as they’d climbed above it.

Tifa hadn’t.

She’s smelled it the whole time. Through labs and prison cells and posh executive offices. Through grasslands and moonlight night.

Maybe she could still smell it…

He stepped forward but she’d already hunched into herself, drawing her knees up protectively in front of her, arms around them, face hidden behind the careful barriers of her own flesh and blood and bone. She was all skin then. Fresh and soft and sweet looking in the moonlight.

He didn’t hurt. Not the way the rest of them did. He hadn’t known Biggs and Jessie and Wedge like Tifa and Barret had. He hadn’t found a home in one of the crushed buildings or found out the name of the gossip loving woman who lived a few doors down from the bar. He was ex-SOLDIER. He was stronger than broken emotions or pain over people he hadn’t promised, hadn’t been paid, to protect. People died in wars and this was a war against the most powerful corporation in the world. He was too tough to let something like that affect him. Too strong.

Except when she crumpled, when he had to face what had happened instead of what was happening – all he wanted to do was touch that soft skin of hers and forget. He wanted the rest of the world to go away and he wanted to remember only how soft she was and how warm she would be.

Ex-SOLDIERs didn’t fall apart and they didn’t need to hide themselves in someone else’s comfort. They were the comfort.

Or at least the rock for everyone else to rest against and stay safe in the shelter of.

He’d have to make sure he kept his hands to himself.

That was going to be hard to do though, because she was still curled into herself and he was on his knee next to her before he really thought about it. Face buried, voice muffled and broken, he heard her apologies. Apologies for bothering him, for being this way. He didn’t want her apologies though. He wanted to be there for her. Wanted her to fall apart for him, to know that she could and it was alright. That he would hold and protect her. That he would catch her and keep her together.

He needed to do that for her. Needed to be able to be there for someone that mattered…

Except he didn’t know what to do. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms. But they weren’t close that way. He hadn’t earned the right to cradle her body close to his, not yet. And he couldn’t touch her right until he had because – because he was pretty sure that the need to touch her was weakness on his part.

Because he needed to touch her all the time – and it was strongest when he was feeling unsure or weak or lost. She needed someone better than that though and so until he was, until he was sure he was, he wouldn’t let himself give in to the need to clutch her close and hang on as if he was afraid of losing her at any moment.

Real men weren’t that way. Real men were never afraid or unsure. He’d be a real man. For himself – and because it was what she deserved.

A real man.

Keeping his touch gentle, aware of his exaggerated strength, he pressed one hand to her bare shoulder and the other to her knee. The leather of his gloves protected him from the worse of it but he could still feel her warmth and the give of her flesh through the material. Too soft. Too sweet. Face expressionless to combat it, he continued to gently push, slowly prying her open from the clam like way she’d closed over.

She let him. It was obvious she’d rather not. But she still let him. And her eyes went wide and confused when her shifting to a sitting position didn’t stop the steady pressure of his hands.

“Cloud - ?”

There was something about her voice like that when it was lost and yet trusting that tore right through the middle of him and left a gaping wound there but he simply kept his face emotionless to deal with it and continued to push.

Anyone else would have fought him.

Tifa, hesitant, chin tucking defensively, still let him push her down until she was lying flat on the ground.

She didn’t repeat the question of his name but it was in her dark, moonlight filled eyes as they looked up at him. Careful, not about to try to explain what he couldn’t understand himself, he gently pried the small sliver of soap she had left out of the hand that wasn’t still knotted in the fabric of her abused, soaking shirt. And then, very carefully, very, very intent, concentrating because this was so much more important than hitting the right button or measuring guard movements or picking the right air vent to crawl through, he took the ribbon out of her hair and carefully set it to the side before lifting the thick weight of her dark hair and setting it in the water.

The little gasp she gave would haunt his more heated dreams, he knew, but he pretended he didn’t hear it, busy making sure her hair got wet almost all the way to her scalp. Then, still concentrating hard, he rubbed the soap between his fingers until it lathered. Sure about what he was doing now, he gently worked it into the thick tresses of hair he lifted out of the water. Her wide, confused eyes didn’t leave his face and he didn’t let anything show there for her to see, instead focusing his attention on that thick hair.

It slide between his fingers like silk, wet and gleaming, so long he couldn’t imagine how she kept it so smooth and soft looking all the time. It tangled around his fingers, the bare skin of his forearms as he worked and he knew that that sensation too would go into the dark dreams of silk and liquid and soft cries that sometimes sounded like his name and sometimes sounded lost and far away. Careful to keep strands from tangling in the metal of his bracer, he was determinedly thorough, working the lather through all her hair, even to her scalp, rubbing against her skin there, careful to keep it from dripping into her eyes or her ears. Those dark eyes that slipped closed against her will as he rubbed gently and the bolt of sheer pride it fed his ego was enough to keep him going for weeks.

The way her shoulders and face and fingers relaxed as he kept working fed something softer and quieter inside his soul and stopped the constant ache for a little while. An hour, a night, it was longer than he’d felt that peace in all his remembered life. Despite himself it made his own lips soften and the very edges of them, hidden from her by her closed eyelids, curved. Between his fingers, her hair was slick and the color of warmth and home and soft, golden light on polished wood counters. Her breathing steadied and then slowly relaxed.

Very careful, because it was more precious and important to him than anything else in the world felt, he rinsed her hair clean of the soap. Washing away the smell of smoke, washing away the taint of ShinRa air. She deserved mountain streams and clear water and forever skies that stretched away into perfect mornings and endless dawns. He couldn’t give her those – but he could take away the bad things at least.

He wanted to take them away forever for her.

Eventually her hair was clean and the water ran clear again and he had only let himself stall just a little. She had a lot of hair though and of course it would take time to make sure it was all ready for her again. His hand at her shoulder was a nudge and she sat up slowly in response as he shifted, wringing the hair carefully. Not wanting to leave wet strands against her pale skin to make her cold. He didn’t have a towel to dry it with and he promised himself that next time she needed him he’d be better prepared. Instead he braided it, a surprisingly easy thing for his fingers to remember doing and he felt the vague flash of a memory of his mother letting him braid her hair because he’d wanted to help her.

Ex-SOLDIERs didn’t braid hair though. Or admit they knew how to do it. His fingers fumbled suddenly, forgetting the pattern they’d been weaving. Fumbling, he gave up for fear of messing things up, and awkwardly handed the rest of the loose hair to her over her shoulder. He didn’t want to see her face or the look in her eyes and so he stood up and casually brushed off the knees of his pants. The way she murmured his name was soft and a question and did something funny to his stomach all the way down to his toes. He shrugged in answer and shook his head. Tough ex-SOLDIERs didn’t fumble around pretty girls – girls that meant the entire world to them – but at the moment, he couldn’t seem to think of what they did do. So instead, he straightened up and shook his hands, leather soaked through. Still without looking – still not wanting to see whatever was in her eyes or on her face because it would crush him he was sure, he turned and headed back the way he’d come, making sure to keep his stride confident and careless.

It was just a hair washing. No big deal. Nothing to make a fuss over.

Just fodder for dreams of silk and sighs in his sleep from now until the end of his life.

She spoke just as he hit the tree line though and it wasn’t the words that put the stutter in his step and the flutter in his hollow chest so much as the way her rich, soft voice said them.

“Thank you… Cloud…”

It was going to be harder tomorrow, than it had been today, to keep his hands to himself.