My first ever attempt at a Cloti! Wow, this was hard. I really wanted to do the characters justice. This was inspired by A Great Big World - Say Something I'm Giving up on You. The idea came to me today and I rushed to get it down because it's been so long since I've uploaded something. Not entirely happy with it so if anyone has any suggestions please do let me know!
Also, this one-shot is slight AU. Kind of a "what if Cloud got seriously injured in the final battle against Sephiroth." I didn't go into too much detail regarding his feelings towards it because it's not entirely about that but if you guys want that included I shall find a way to do so. Sorry if you find the characters a bit OOC.
As it's my first Cloti I would greatly appreciate some suggestions/criticisms/whatever.
Say Something
"Eight years! How long do you think a woman can wait?"
"Damn woman, fine as fuck and too stupidly smitten."
"You don't know how good you've got it."
"What's wrong with you? She's right here! Open your eyes."
Yuffie's words echoed in the silence of the bar as her eyes watched the man opposite her. The party had long since ended, the guests had left in stumbles and skips. The mess remained, glass bottles laying over tables, party hats strewn around the room, streamers hanging from the lampshades, the banner proclaiming 'Congratulations Denzel!' lopsided.
Tifa would have cleaned the mess on any other occasion were it not for Cloud sitting immobile across the bar in his chair, head down. His body language, one she had perfected at reading over the years like her own scars, slumped in his chair. Fear stopped her from calling out to him. Had Yuffie's drunken words truly hit him so deep that he felt the need to hide from her? Surely not. They had been through too much, felt and learned lifetimes of experience and faults and success for him to want to bury himself inside himself.
On the one hand, she was grateful when Yuffie had slipped over to his corner, fist waving and tongue tripping, and demanded answers. They were answers Tifa herself yearned to know ever since she was a child watching the mysteriously quiet boy from the corner of her eye. The boy who didn't demand for her attention and yet held her gaze and thoughts, and eventually her heart and soul. They had been through everything together, and she had made her feelings perfectly clear to him. So why did it still feel as if there was an eternity between them? Why had they not moved beyond the status of friends?
But the high of relief of having someone in her corner left with the inebriated guests, leaving the chill of anxiety in its wake. What would happen now? He hadn't said a word since being bombarded by the small Wutain. Hadn't moved. Hadn't lifted his eyes from his knees.
Oh, how she would give anything just for a glimpse of those blue eyes.
Eight years…eight years…eight years…
Eight years since the Geostigma. Ten years since Meteor. Twenty five years since her first memory of seeing the long haired blond boy in the garden next door. An eternity of waiting.
Waiting. She was always waiting for him. Never moving forward. Watching him gaze into the past as life rushed past them.
It was different, she knew. This time it was different. He had been relieved of the guilt from the deaths of Zack and Aerith. But with the burden lifted from his heavy soul came another crushing him further. His final battle with Sephiroth had left him in a wheelchair with no ability from the waist down. It was a wound the healing water could not restore, an internal damage to the nerves.
She had stuck by him, through his refusal to seek help from others, just as she always did. Once he had even slipped out that she was his guardian angel, his light. What had changed?
He had stayed with her at the bar, and that was all she could have asked for at the time.
But life moves on. Cloud Strife did not.
She was tired. So, so tired.
She had to do it now. Before the kids came back. Before she lost her nerve.
Body trembling, she moved out from behind the bar only to stand in front of it, as if a barrier was preventing her from moving any closer to the only man she had ever loved. When did she become so weak?
"Cloud?" her voice came out barely a whisper, but shattered the silence of the room. Her hands found each other, squeezing hard to quell the shaking.
He did not look up. Did not move at all. Not even a sound.
Where should she start? Did she have to say anything at all? She could just laugh it off, blame the Wutain's rambles on the amount of alcohol she had consumed, and reassure him that nothing was different when in actual fact she would just wait for him again. Always waiting. Always patient. Always looking out for others before herself.
She was so fucking tired.
When was it her turn for happiness?
"She's right."
Tifa hadn't registered his voice immediately. It had been so long, she was sure it was the whisper of a phantom in her mind. But when she looked towards him again he still had not moved.
"What?"
"She's right." He let out a mirthless chuckle. "Who knew Yuffie would ever talk sense?"
"Cloud…"
"Why she wants you, not even Gaia knows."
"I…"
Electric blue eyes shone through the dim lighting. They held her wine coloured eyes, forcing her to maintain eye contact. He would not allow her to run away and hide behind her façade anymore.
"She loves you."
"Say something." She said, almost begging. "I love you."
Cloud blinked. Blinked. Not a flicker of emotion.
"How could you be so frickin' heartless?"
"You love the idea of me."
"That's not true."
"You want a hero to stand by you. One who can love you in every possible way. One to…one to rescue you when you're in trouble. Tifa, you need saving from me."
Nails dug deep into her sweaty palms. She wished she had never said anything. Left it lying under dust and ash. Tifa was honoured just to be his friend. And now?
He was kicking her out of his life.
A fire burned within her.
"You want me to walk away?" she spat out. "After all these years. I'm here for you, Cloud. I'm always here. I'll always follow you and love you."
"You shouldn't."
Why could he not allow himself to be happy? Why was he stopping her? Why, why, why?!
"You're an idiot."
"About time you noticed."
His words fuelled her anger more. Her feet finally moved, crushing the invisible barrier between them as she stood over him.
"Why?"
"I'm…" the close proximity must have startled him; he averted his eyes to behind her shoulder.
"Say something. Go on. Say something!"
"I'm not good for you."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"I'm a cripple, Teef."
"So what?"
He shook his head, jaw tensed.
"I don't care, Cloud. I don't need you to sweep me off my feet or to chase me or swing me around. I'm here."
He was closing in on himself again. Tifa sighed. She could not look at him. Not when she was finally…
"I'm giving up."
Her throat closed up, a bitter taste on her tongue that stung all the way up to her eyes.
"I'm sorry." Tifa's vision clouded, tears that had always been shed in the privacy of her bedroom. Tears that she hoped would finally shift the marble of a man before her. She released a shaky breath, relieving some of the tightness in her chest. "Fight for me."
"I can't."
"Don't do this. Don't break your promise. Fight for me, dammit. Fight for me!"
"I'm keeping my promise."
"How can you think you're bad for me?" she cried.
"I don't know how to love you, Tifa," he admitted, eyes finding hers then retreating. He was just as lost as she was.
"It's easy. Just do what feels right."
Without hesitation she sat herself in Cloud's lap, arms winding around his neck. It was not an unfamiliar position, but Cloud looked utterly perplexed and uncomfortable.
"Stop thinking, Cloud."
Her lips covered his, tasting the bitterness of the beer from earlier and a flavour that was wholly Cloud, a sweet smoky warmth. It was hard and fast, too fast for him to react. Her nose rubbed against his.
"I don't want to do this," she whispered, feeling a million times smaller. If it was possible she would have crawled into his lap and stayed there forever, in the familiar warmth and muscle. But he would not allow her, keeping his arms firm on the armrests. "I don't want to give up on you."
Cloud's breath blew over her face as he exhaled. "I have nothing for you."
"Was it ever possible for me to get to you?"
No reply. She could feel her tears falling onto his face and sliding down his neck. She snuggled into him further, moulding her body to his until they became almost one.
"I'm sorry, Cloud. I'm tired."
Her lips found his again, this time gently pulling him to her, seeking a response from his idle lips. She kissed him until there was no more air left in her. She swooped down again, taking everything she could. More tears escaped her closed eyes as she it sunk in: her hero would not save her.
Calloused hands ran through his spikes, carefully roaming through each strand, retaining the softness in her skin. Her short nails lightly scratched at his scalp until they settled behind his neck, fingers creeping behind his collar. Her chest pressed up against his muscled torso.
"I give up," she murmured against his lips, hands fisting his shirt. "I would have followed you anywhere. I would have gone to hell for you."
"…Angels don't belong there."
A chuckled broke from her lips. "You can't say shit like that to me when I'm trying to do this."
He smiled with her, a slight curve of his lip and a crinkle in his eye.
"I love you, Cloud. I always will."
Once more, she waited. He had never said the words to her before, and searching his mako blue eyes that had seen far too much anguish and destruction, she knew he would not allow himself to break. He was always strong, stubbornly so. Just once she wanted to hear him say it.
Just once.
"Say something."
Tifa was a proud woman, but after thirty years of existence and no progression, she had to let down her walls.
"Please, Cloud."
He didn't.
Slowly, she removed herself from his lap, patting down her skirt. Her fingers wiped away the wetness around her eyes, knowing they were red and irritable. Still, tears dropped down, one, two. The final tears.
She was not the one.
She was giving up.
How pathetic.
Without a look back she walked through the mess of the bar, her feet taking her up the stairs and to her bedroom. Blue eyes watched her form until they could no longer.
"I love you, Teef. So much."
In the morning Cloud Strife was gone.