Cloud x Tifa - Instead, He Chose to Kiss Her (Final Fantasy VII)

Cloud x Tifa - Instead, He Chose to Kiss Her

Instead, He Chose to Kiss Her

The way you feel when you kiss him for the first time.

Like fire within your bones.

Like your soul has returned to the water.

Like every part of you that came from a dead star is alive again.

-Nikita Gill

—

"It's so cold out here," she was whispering quietly as she followed him into the thicket of trees, deep into the forest beyond Midgar, just beyond the ugly, dim rim of the Wastelands, where the production of mako energy had sucked all of the life right out of the ground. In the distance, they could still make out the glittering pale white and neon green glows of the city's light pollution, brightening the night sky and deadening the twinkle of the stars above.

Cloud stopped and turned to her, finding her with her arms wrapped tight around her upper half, and as soon as his gaze fell on her, her entire body shook with an involuntary tremble. It caused him to start, his fist clenching at his side, the leather complaining against the metal of his bracer, his steel gauntlet clinking. She wasn't looking at him; her face was downcast, and shadows that weren't coming from the sky were darkening her beauty. She gave a little sniff, and Cloud almost went to her.

They'd been walking in a slow hike through the light rain away from Midgar, after climbing down a service ladder at the Expressway's edge on the plate until they came to the city's gates. Their group had been somber ever since that last battle that seemed to splinter time and space - and with the exception of Barret's occasional complaints along the way, they had fallen mostly silent. Several times during their travels, Cloud had turned back to Tifa, finding that she had fallen in step with Aerith, whose eyes had transformed into glassy dark emeralds following the fight. The Cetra seemed shaken by not only their skirmish against Sephiroth, but by something hidden that only she could see, haunting her as they stepped farther and farther away from the city, the sky opening up gray and purple and pale pink above them. The last seventy-two hours had worn all of them down to their bones, between their raid on the Sector5 reactor, the destruction of the Sector7 plate, and their rescue mission in the Shinra Tower. All of it had ended with an otherworldly battle on the lip of the highway, the sky split open along with the rifts of time, darkening and filtered by streaks of lightning, eviscerated by the broken and floating pieces of the world around them.

Rain was still falling in gentle titters from above, died down to a tranquil drizzle that left a light, cool sheen on his skin, staining his sweater but not heavy enough to leak through. Tifa was standing behind him, a few paces away, and Midgar's glow was still so bright, even miles away in the distance, that it was highlighting the shimmering white streaks in her hair and illuminating the raindrops that had bled into her skin. She had followed Cloud deeper into the forest, even when the others had broken off and fell away near a clearing in the wood. He wasn't sure why he had continued to walk when they could have easily settled by the line of pine trees and set up camp, right where Barret had groaned roughly before dropping his rucksack on the ground as if to declare that he wasn't going to take another single step.

The rain had crested in droplets on the smooth skin of her arms, glowing faintly in the light pollution from afar, and his eyes were drawn to the way they shook and skid down her flesh when her body released another tremor. When he stopped to face her, her eyes drifted up to meet his, and he found himself crashing into her dark red depths, finding them sad and placid, calm but troubled seas of blood.

His heart began to pick up its steady timbre as she looked at him, catching something like hope begin to spill over into her gaze. Her hands were at her sides, and he saw them flex and clench, as if desperate to find something for purchase to grab and hold onto. The wind picked up, kicking up her hair in a swirl, and the breeze went straight through his flesh and breached his bones.