Welcome all! Womble here with a new fic 'Down at the workshop'!
*"Yes we know, we can read"*
Well that's good! You being here would be mighty awkward if you couldn't! :D
Been wanting to do this fic for a while now because as some of you might already know, Jessie from FF7 is my favourite NPC of all time. At eleven years old she was the first video game character to ever really impact on me and the first I ever cried over. Like a man of course, not like an hysterical little girl :P.
I confess I grew somewhat of an attachment to Jessie (maybe because she's the first girl we ever meet lol), always found I wanted to talk to her as much as possible and felt that the dialogue between her and Cloud was special. She was the one I was rooting for Cloud to get with, even after my beloved Aerith and Tifa showed up. (Haha! I was a rather sheltered eleven year old who had never gamed before! Leave me alone!)
Now twelve years later I still love talking to Jessie and I am back to dedicate this fic to her. (I can't wait to see her in the remake! This is for you Jessie!)
As you probably saw in the plot notes there will be lemon, it's a bit different to my usual style so let me know what you think. Yes it's a bit of a personal experiment this one but if enough people like it or I continue enjoying it as much as I did with this first chapter, I'll dedicate more time to it.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1 Part 1- First impression
Dangerous, distant, quiet, unpredictable and chillingly haunted, those were Jessie's first thoughts of Cloud Strife the first time she ever looked into the man's eyes from afar. Baby-blue orbs radiating the luminous trademark of SOLDIER so deeply troubled that it made him unnerving to be around, frightening even. It was fair to say the recently turned eighteen year old and youngest member of AVALANCHE's initial instinct was that he was not to be trusted.
Yet despite those strong inclinations of caution and mistrust, her gut also told her many other things about the self-proclaimed 'first class' who had shown up two days ago out of the blue.
That he was kind. His face held many ominous things; confusion, despair, anger, but malevolence was not one of them.
That he was strong. Of course being enhanced with mako that was a given. It was something else. Forced to explain it she would say it was a strength of will, an air about him as if he had some great unsurfaced power residing within him. Like he could change the world if he set his mind to it. That aura made Jessie feel intimidated and nervous yet intrigued by it at the same time.
Then there was the clearest conclusion she could draw of him, which also happened to be the main reason why Cloud was still here and hadn't been launched headfirst from the doorway of Seventh Heaven or shot immediately on sight by Barret. That he cared for Tifa. After the emotional reunion and now with seeing them together, it was clear as day the two had shared a fond childhood together. Fond enough to be childhood sweethearts? Jessie was still trying to figure that out. One thing was certain she had never seen Tifa look at any other person this way. For two whole days since his arrival the martial artist had been a constant attachment to his side and in that time Tifa's eyes rarely left him, a glow and a permanent hint of a smile on her intrinsically kind features. Not that she could blame her best friend going on as-good-as surrogate sister, this Cloud guy certainly was handsome. If you were into that 'pretty-boy' kind of thing.
Sat on the far side of the basement room atop an old wooden crate that had once ferried Barret's punching bag, the shock red-head teenager averted her grin towards the bulky coding scanner she was absent-mindedly fumbling with in her lap. With hair that lusciously blonde, a small nose, soft delicate features and a flawless porcelain complexion even she was jealous of, Jessie reckoned with the right get-up he would make a very convincing woman.
Raising her light hazelnut eyes she discreetly gazed back across the chaotic room at the purple clad SOLDIER standing by himself, isolated and expressionless.
He pulled it off though she guessed, in a weird masculine kind of way.
"He has every reason to hate Shinra just as much as we do!"
Jessie's attention abandoned its uncharacteristic aesthetic critique of Cloud Strife and re-joined the room where Tifa had begun waving her arms in frustration.
Uh-oh.
It was usually a sign things were getting heated when Tifa started doing that.
"Look a' his freakin' eyes woman! This damn foo' IS Shinra! Christ it's bad enuff we let'im in here after showin' up outta nowhere like some half-dead whacko, sayin' he don't remember shit. Now ya' wanna let'im in on the mission Teef? Ya' outta ya' mind!?"
"He wants to join us! He can help more than your stubborn head has even stopped for a second to think about!" the equally stubborn and glaring barmaid barked back for what had to be about the third time now.
"The day I need 'elp from some hotshot SOLDIER punk is'tha day I let one chat me up an' take ma' ass on a date!"
They were going around and around in the same circle. Most of the time the engineer could tell early on which of them was going to win but here she was stumped. So to it seemed were her two other closest friends and Jessie frowned at her fellow crimson headband wearer when a ball of scrunched up paper rebounded against the side of her temple.
"So who you thinks winning?" Biggs followed up with a poke to her leg and a hushed voice, leaning precariously far back in his chair. On any normal day she would take advantage and kick him over in it to teach him a lesson.
Instead she simply shrugged the metal pauldrons on her shoulders up to her ears distractedly.
"I think he looks friendly" Wedge chipped in, ever the optimist. "… he doesn't say much though."
"Pfff. Yeah you got that right" Biggs returned, no longer needing to whisper to avoid being heard above the crescendo of shouting that was escalating in the room. "I think he's pretty badass. Hope Teef gets this, I gotta get a go on that sweet ass sword of his. Hey. Bet you fifteen gil I can lift it."
"You uhh… you still owe me thirty gi-…" Wedge attempted.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, not the time dude" Biggs flapped his hand dismissively. "What 'bout you Jess? Hey! Gaia to Zombie-girl."
She glanced irritably his way for half a second.
"I said what 'bout you? Hoping that he stays?"
She was already trying to decide that. Every ounce of logic and reasoning told the ungirly slum girl she should agree with Barret on this but looking at Cloud, his stare zoned out almost uncaring whether they cast him out or not, something reacted inside of Jessie. He seemed so lost, so surrendered to his fate that she was sure even without their help, he was going to make Shinra pay for whatever crime it was they had committed against him that had brought him to this point.
And she wanted to help.
"I think we should let him in" Jessie firmly commented, her voice carrying above the arguing. Surprising herself as much as it did the others who went quiet in an alarming almost comical unison.
All eyes fell upon her, astonishingly and most affecting of which were the SOLDIER's as for the first time his gaze left the empty abyss it had been aimlessly floating in for the last hour. Tifa's childhood friend from Nibelhiem made her the subject of his incandescent stare and she was quite taken aback when he sent her a small but definite half-nod of acknowledgement. She tried nodding back but the action transitioned awkwardly into staring down into her lap, finding she couldn't hold the incredibly intense eye contact for longer than a second. Mako disgusted her, mako enhancements disgusted her, she hated mako more than anything else on this planet. It was the reason she had lost everything and experienced the worst two years of her life before joining AVALANCHE. Usually she hated SOLDIER's to so she wasn't entirely sure what the hell was happening.
"… I mean… we're still a long way out from actually being ready for the mission. I think we could just see how it goes" she finished with staged nonchalance.
"… ? …. Ya' fer real Jess!?" Barret exclaimed disbelievingly, "how 'bout you? Ya' completely lost ya' mind aswell?"
Biggs was on all four legs of his chair again, scratching the back of his jet black hair uneasily.
"Well… I err… I think Jess has got a point B. It's a long time before all the fireworks happen so… we got plenty of time to find out if he's like some kind of spy… or wandering lunatic… no offense."
Tifa adopted a victorious hands-on-the-hips wide stance while Barret's human arm began to shake, his expression appearing as if his head was about to pop off.
"AN WHA' 'BOUT YOU!? YOU AGREEIN' TO THIS BULL SHIT!?"
Placing his arms on the table in front of him, Tifa's greatest culinary fan buried his head silently into them and went into hiding. Wedge didn't cope well with being shouted at or placed in the spotlight.
"You're nuts! Y'all nuts! THE WHOLE WORLDS GONE NUTS'!" the Coral gunman's bass voice boomed, storming away. "You want this spikey haired freak to get ya'll killed? Be my friggin' guest!"
"Where are you going?" Tifa despondently called after the man riding the retro pinball machine up and out of the secret hideout.
"TA' CALL PRESIDENT FUCKING SHINRA! SEE IF HE FANCIES JOININ' WHILE WE AT IT!"
The hidden elevator clanged to a stop on the floor above and pivoting around gingerly, Tifa offered a genuine albeit slightly embarrassed smile.
"Well Cloud. Welcome to the family."
Chapter 1 Part 2- First impression
Jessie didn't know what it was she had been expecting, some sort of drama perhaps? Something ground-breaking? She thought at least 'something' would happen after accepting the controversial new recruit into AVALANCHE. Two more days had passed since his admission and she hadn't so much as seen or heard anything from the ex-SOLDIER beyond his few occasional fleeting visits to and from Seventh Heaven. Often spotting him only from afar and in passing. It was somewhat disappointing, if she was honest she had been hoping for him to shake things up a bit or bring an interesting new dynamic to the group. Such was not the case and for all intents and purposes it was as if he never existed. He certainly gave no just reason for earning her continued unrelenting curiosity.
The young tech-whizz shook her head, readjusted her usual high-ponytail, re-shouldered her weighty pack and continued her thirty minute trek through the semi-crowded mid-morning foot traffic of sector seven. Even if he wasn't suffering from amnesia or did begin recovering his memories she would be the last person to learn more about him. That position was reserved exclusively to Tifa.
"OI YOU!"
Greatly startled from her distracted musings, Jessie's heart jumped into her throat and she softly glared across the beaten dirt road at her verbal assailant.
"Ooooohh that bag looks suspiciously heavy to me kid."
She rolled her eyes at the tuneful taunt, it didn't even surprise her to see Johnny working the door at the 'SandCrawler', a gambling hall by day, low-end fight club by night. In the years she'd known the man-child he'd worked almost every job under the sun. Or under the plate if you wanted to be morbidly literal about it.
"Do you get some sort of kick out of making people jump you git?"
Jessie didn't stop walking and leaning lazily against the doorframe he threw her a casual proud grin.
"Just doing my civic duties, you know it's not safe to be caught daydreaming around these parts like you just were."
She internally cringed.
"I wasn't daydreaming."
"Pah, lier. Hey Charlie's not gonna be happy when she finds out you've been ferreting through that scrapyard again."
"Well Charlie's not gonna find out unless you tell her so if she does, I know who I'm beating to a pulp" she threw a mock threatening glower over her shoulder and chuckled as did he.
"Woah, look who's talking all tough now just because she's got Tifa teaching her some moves!" the happy-go-lucky man called after her. "Speaking of which, you should get her down here! She could make some serious gil if she just laid that smackdown in the ring for once!"
Jessie waved the back of a dirty fingerless-gloved hand.
"Not gonna happen Johnny."
Chapter 1 Part 3- First impression
By the time Jessie navigated her way back through the city slum she had grown up in her entire life and reached the steps of Seventh Heaven, an intolerable film of perspiration had covered her bare arms, face and neckline. Climbing the front steps she would normally take two at a time in heavy leather combat boots, she entered the bar currently closed for evening prep. Grateful as ever for the feint pleasant smell of sweet alcohols and cleanliness it always had.
"Baaack!" she called, dumping her bag as soon as she could in middle of the floor with a heavy thud and stretching out her thoroughly worked out back muscles.
Barely turning from the back counter behind the bar, Tifa held up pen wielding hand, the house phone clamped to her ear by shoulder and tilted face. Jessie recognised that hands-free, preoccupied, slightly stressed, note scribbling posture, she was on the phone to a supplier. It always stressed Tifa out. It seemed the silky chocolate haired barmaid enjoyed the bartending part of the business but the business side of the business, not so much.
One little person however could always be expected to be in high spirits and free of such burdens.
"JESS-JESS!"
She grinned instantaneously.
"Heyyyyy Marley!"
Jessie went to one knee and openly laughed at the way the tiny adorable girl came dashing into view from behind the counter. The funny way short-legged four year olds ran.
"I gotta premeranotion today!"
"That's great!" she cheered picking the girl becoming rather heavy up at arm's length, never failing to feel her heart burst with warmth at Marlene's loving enthusiasm. "So what are you today?"
"I'm the fruit decisioner!"
"Well that's an important job, what with all the scurvy ridden pirates we get in here."
The child being dangled away from her at eye-level giggled though slightly confused, then patted both Jessie's arms a couple of times stiffly.
"You're icky and stinky."
Jessie cracked up with a short burst of laughter.
"Gee thanks! You know Marley, please remind me sometime to teach you what a white lie is."
"NOOOOOO" the inherently honest girl cried playfully, squirming in mid-air then reaching far forward to grab onto both her boobs which Jessie retracted from.
"Marlene! Get out of here you cheeky little Cactuar" she exclaimed putting AVALANCHE's toddler down who scampered away snickering.
For some reason she had started doing that a lot lately. Fortunately Tifa bore most of the brunt of that newly acquired curiosity.
"Teef I'm jumping in the shower."
Another absent-minded hand-wave from the pre-occupied negotiator.
Exiting through the backdoor Jessie didn't wait to start peeling her sticky navy crop top overhead while slipping her boots off simultaneously with her feet somewhere near the bottom of the stairs. Her destination was the shower in Bigg's old cave, now a spare room after he and Wedge had got their own 'lad-pad' a stone throw away down the road. They had always talked about doing it but with Marlene getting older now and needing her own space, it had spurred the move a couple months back.
Instantly glad to be free from her disgusting top, Jessie crossed the landing bare from the waist up bar the simple black bra she wore. Passing by a shower along the way ironically enough.
As she still hadn't gotten around to fixing that one's heater system yet, the one in the spare room was the only shower capable of producing hot water for the time being. After finally finding the perfect sized metal bracket for a twelve-piston hollow chambered engine in Charlie's scrapyard earlier, it wouldn't be getting done anytime soon either.
A rush of excitement quickened the red-head engineers pace and she started undoing the first of the buttons down the front of her trousers. At last her long-term project, project Fenrir, was taking shape!
The thought had got the tech-fanatics blood pumping so when Jessie threw open the door and entered the spare room, she practically jogged in and when she did three things happened.
She yelped in a humiliatingly sharp octave.
She jumped dramatically backwards straight into the wall behind, wide eyed like a thief being caught red-handed.
She threw her arms across her stomach and the portion of her breasts that her bra didn't cover in an alarmed attempt to hide herself.
Across the room stood even more bare across the torso than her with nothing but a towel wrapped around the waist, a damp Cloud Strife stood staring blankly back at her unmoving.
Now at that point she could have gracefully salvaged her dignity by apologising calmly and leaving. To her mortification she decided to stand there for near on twenty-seconds giving him her best half-naked goldfish impression instead, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. Twenty long seconds of looking like a complete idiot that escalated to become a moment that was all together horrifying. She'd never frozen up before, it was a strange experience and it took one movement of the ex-SOLDIER wordlessly straightening up to break it.
She averted her eyes.
"SORRY!… I!..."
She ran for the door flustered.
"Teef!... SORRY!..."
She paused at the door, looking back again like a first-class twit.
"Tifa didn't tell me!"
She fled the room with an unnecessarily loud bang.
Chapter 1 Part 4- First impression
"Ain't no damn way on this side'a a thousand years ma' baby girl is sleepin' under the same roof as any SOLDIER!"
Those had been Barret's words, when the hell had they changed? And when were they planning on having the courtesy to discuss it with her? Before she walked in on him as a half-naked mess would certainly have been nice.
Although Jessie's face still burned with embarrassment every time she thought about it, laying there wide awake she couldn't help but silently laugh at the ridiculous run-in from earlier. Him half naked and wet, her half naked and sweaty with her knickers slightly on show, floundering like she had seen a three headed Elphadunk.
Well it was either laugh about it or cry.
… Gaia she hoped first impressions weren't as long-lasting as some people made them out to be.
With her thin duvet tucked up to under her arms, Jessie un-scrunched the covers, closed her eyes and exhaled.
It hadn't been that big a deal and she would never get to sleep if she didn't stop thinking about it.
What felt around twenty or thirty minutes passed before she opened them again onto pitch black darkness and though she couldn't see it, she turned against her pillow to look at the wall on the other side of the room.
This was hopeless, there was no way she could sleep, it was just too strange. She was sleeping in a room next to a SOLDIER, their most common and hated enemy. A first class no less, sleeping no more than twenty feet away from her and she was simply unable to get him off her mind. A rather common occurrence of late.
Jessie continued staring, wide awake as can be.
Just on the other side of that wall he would be laying there, freaky glowing eyes, massive going on borderline ridiculous spiky blonde hair...
Jessie was barely aware of herself shifting her leg under the cover and even less aware of moving her hand so it rested on her thigh.
… defined chest and arms.
The female engineer paused, initially neither surrendering nor resisting, uncertain and caught off guard. Another exhale escaped her lips, shakier this time like her fingers, causing a light tingly stroking sensation against the inside of her leg. Slowly she ran those trembling digits up her thigh, swallowing as she did, her teeth gently biting down against her bottom lip.
… defined abs coated in a hot sheen of water droplets.
Jessie clamped her hand between her legs, firm and above the thin material of the small pair of bed shorts she wore. Somehow it still reached the special sensitive nerves that were underneath. Auto-pilot kicked in from that point on, the same hand releasing its hold to twist its way down through the soft band encircling her hips. Yes it was auto-pilot but one she was very much aware of, one triggered by urges that she was consciously giving into because they were always simply too pointless and too much effort to fight. Random urges, unpredictable urges, meaningless urges, urges that wouldn't go away. Urges that could come from nowhere, from anywhere, from a stray thought or a sporadic imagining.
From an accidental first-hand encounter with a total strangers lean, sculpted, athletic body.
The young woman breathed in as she slowly moved her fingers further down into her shorts causing the muscles in her legs and lower body to tense. She mindlessly explored, searching for something, the heat quickly spreading across her body as she did so. When she found it Jessie's eyes snapped shut and her head pushed back harder into the pillow, a noise fluttering in the back of her throat. She started the movements once more and she quickly hit her spot again, harder this time, casting her mind adrift. Clockwork, anti-clockwork, up, down, sidewards, aimless instinctive little movements building pace along with a quickening rise and fall in her chest.
On the infrequent occasions Jessie did this she usually had to work for it, to actively extend her imagination but the thoughts were coming effortlessly now. Almost against her own will.
Of him advancing towards her rather than staying glued on the far side of that room, noticing her, noticing each other. Knowing what they both wanted. Perhaps he would kiss her? Kiss more than just her lips? Grab her close and run those eyes she detested over her body acceptingly?
The female tech-fanatics leg twitched and her pelvis rolled, everything getting hazier now.
Perhaps he would be gentle with her? Or perhaps he wouldn't? Would he maintain all those disciplined years he had inevitably spent training to control and master all that strength? Would she be able break it? Would she be desirable enough? Would she be able to make him this hot?
Back arching, toes twisting through the bed sheets, Jessie's hips kicked forward and her free hand automatically transitioned into pulling on the hem of her shots. They slid away with ease, obeying her now desperate need for total freedom without restraint.
And when she reached out to catch that one long droplet running down his chest, how would it feel to have all that strength right there beneath her fingertips? All for her.
Her hand was moving rhythmically in one constant side-to side motion now. She had found her pattern, her stride, sending concentrated waves of incomparable sensation into her core.
And when he had found it to, he would look up at her, not down. Look up from what he was doing and she would look back and lose control. Lose control as golden sides of hair brushed pleasurably against the insides of her parted legs. But what if he did look down? What would that feel like?
Jessie lifted the nylon fabric of her grey vest top passed her mid-section, all the way up and over her breasts. Then returned to tenderly scratch down the length of her own abdomen riddled with butterflies.
What would his steamy grooved abs feel like grinding against hers? Not necessarily just his abs, or his face, but any cute guy she was attracted to who cared about her? … but then again why not him? Why couldn't he be the one running his manly, rough, sword-wielding hands over her chest?
… because he was Tifa's.
A pleasurable moan escaped her lips as her hand travelled upward from her stomach, palming one of the modest soft mounds with the tips of her crimson hair tickling the mid-point of her back. She knew it was a bad thought, one she shouldn't have had and yet because she knew it was bad it pushed her straight to the top level of euphoria.
She would claim him, pull him down by the shoulder blades so his body moved and rubbed flat against hers. He would be the one to fill the empty space and she would move her hips for him like this, like that, like she was doing now and he would like it. He would be the first to see the woman beneath the unfeminine clothing. The first to see and lust over her with the eyes of a lover rather than seeing her as 'just another one of the lads' because of her tomboyish hobbies.
She was peaking now, she wouldn't last much longer, the heat and the wet ready to take her. Her panting was heavy she could hear that much, it remained hushed and breathy for the time being but it was getting louder. Releasing her dampening chest the red-head grabbed onto her quilt, pulled it up and uncaringly clamped a scrunched section of the material into her mouth. She was going to get louder and while no normal person would hear her, she knew SOLDIER had enhanced hearing so there was a chance if she wasn't careful that he would hear her.
The thought that her groans could reach his ears if she simply let them didn't just tip Jessie over the final edge, it threw her over. Every muscle in her body tightened, her back curved and her head shot backwards in a long drawn-out muffled cry as she experienced one of the fiercest climax's she had ever had. An easy ten solid seconds of unhinged rapture that she thought would never stop, causing tears to prick the corners of her pale chestnut eyes and consuming her entire consciousness.
When the crashing explosion of satisfying release did cease it was abrupt, the tension flooding instantaneously from her limbs and discarding her back to the mattress totally spent.
It was a long time, the longest time ever before the quivering stopped and Jessie bashfully withdrew her fingers from the area now far too sensitive to touch. She blinked up at multiple hazy spots of light though she was in complete darkness, her breathing gradually decelerating back to normal.
Now that she had not been expecting.