Tifa began to forget.
From The Inside
Her bare foot skirted the edge of the tattered wood, nestled against a lily glowing under the lavishly sunlit church. Dust particles flittered under the light. Silence permeated. Propped up against a pew, Tifa took a swig from a plastic tumbler, a musty bottle beside her.
Sample, savour, ahh, repeat. She delighted in the way the amber liquid scorched her throat, relishing in the searing taste and awful smell. Crude as the hick's brand of whiskey was, nobody loved it quite like she did. Nobody alive, anyway; papa would've been proud of the way she swirled it around her tongue like a common Nibelheim townie would.
She'd taken another sip from the tumbler when a tell-tale creak followed by heavy, tentative boot steps resounded distantly behind her. Tifa didn't turn around, knowing exactly whose boots and awkwardly slow steps they belonged to.
The boots stopped beside her and Cloud lowered himself to sit, neatly moving her discarded pair of sneakers aside. An arm on the pew, he expelled a relieved sigh once he settled into place and a sympathetic look was shot his way; he must have driven Fenrir all night to get back this hour of the morning. She sat up and lifted an arm to allow his head into her lap, and she glanced down at him before resting her gaze back on the lilies, coarse fingertips trailing absently along his hairline.
"You didn't open the bar."—A statement, not a question, though probing, curious—"It took me a while to find you."
"Yeah," she said, eyes still far away. "I wasn't really up to it today."
"You could've left your phone on."
She could only shrug, and he didn't pry further; Tifa would come to her own senses in time—she was a bit of an empath like that. "…I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to worry you. Just…" Cloud listened intently for her answer, but it never came. "…I dunno. Guess I should've called."
"Heads up would've been nice," he murmured, not particularly bitterly. Coming home to an empty pub and a brunette nowhere to be found was a little disconcerting at first, but he came to anticipate it whenever this time of year rolled around. Cloud, as one would predict, couldn't remember the exact date, but truthfully it began slipping from her too. And it made her unravel that little bit more.
Her eyes still didn't meet his. "I ran off to be alone, you know."
She laughed, a little wry laugh laced with the same sardonic tones he often donned. He gave a small, tired smile in response, and she laughed louder at his effort to appear engaged. "Poor baby, you must be exhausted."
"All I wanted was a hot shower. But you weren't around, so I went looking," he joked, eyes still closed. "…Sorry. I am listening. Really." She bopped him on the top of his head, a now earnest laugh bouncing to and from every corner of the church.
That was when he smelt it. He cracked an eye open. "Been drinking, Teef?"
"Mhmm."
"…It's eleven in the morning."
"And?"
He couldn't give an answer she wouldn't already know. With a cheeky glint that didn't quite reach her eyes, she picked up the bottle beside her and placed it on Cloud's chest before his fingers curled around it.
His eyebrows rose as he inspected the bottle of Nibel's finest Smoker's Grain, amber liquid but only a few fingers full. He unscrews the top and jolts back at the first whiff, nose scrunched up in disdain. The distillery had closed down when Tifa was just a girl. This particular bottle still had a dent in the cap where her dad had knocked his tooth.
"Haven't seen one of these in ages," he muttered, thoughtfully omitting the part where he thought it was also the foulest member of the grain-distilled family.
"I took it from my old place." Her eyes, though aimed down at him, drifted into another place again. "It was in my bag the whole time we travelled. What threat was papa's liquor going to be to Sephiroth, right? Pretty stupid…" He gingerly brought her hand to his lips and gave her scarred knuckles a lingering kiss. He shook his head. It wasn't stupid at all, it said. Her mouth turned up a little, hardly qualifying as a smile, and silence fell for a moment. Steady breathing substituted chitchat. Then, "I kinda hate it, actually," she admitted. "But it smells like him—that awful, woodsy, acetone smell, you know?"
He nodded. He didn't really. He supposes Nibelheim would've smelt a bit like it back before the distillery closed down, but identifying memories by scents and sounds were more her thing than his. He didn't remember Tifa's dad, or what he smelt like, or what his mum used to drink and if that made her smell any different to the other parents. Cloud would be haunted by figures that came to him in his sleep. They, they were almost tangible. But details—they were still a little hazy.
And that was just it. Cloud was supposed to be the walking amalgam of disjointed memories, not her. Yet there she was, desperately trying to consume her father's essence through his favourite poison as if it could happen by osmosis. Because his face, she couldn't quite recall. Her dreams would no longer depict the deep smile lines or scraggily moustache with clarity. All she had left was this lousy goddamn bottle that he chose as his companion over his own daughter after the death of his wife. And maybe when the kids ask her later why she's stumbling around smelling a bit like nail polish remover she would tell them she couldn't remember why. Put me to bed, she'd say, and they do, and they'll look worriedly at each other and then at her and she'll be nine years old again but staring from the other side.
He noticed the crinkle between her furrowed brows deepen, and he reached out, hand gently sweeping her hair out of her face.
"You okay?"
No, she couldn't do that to them. At least, she didn't think so. She shook her head, that not-quite-smile resurfacing. "Not sure."
Perhaps she just wanted to be haunted by demons the way they haunted him. But every year that passed the faces grew faded, voices murky, the flames of destruction—vague. She needed it to be a part of her. She needed to hurt so she wouldn't forget. Wouldn't forget and repeat the cycle. So she guzzled down the rest of the bottle's contents, tumbler forgotten, and let the liquid burn her from the inside out. It didn't work, but it stung enough for now.
Cloud tended to her cheek with a gloved hand through her contorted grimaces, not fully understanding, but he knew he needed to be there, not a word transpiring. He would ask her tomorrow, but he suspects the earlier not sure will turn into I'm fines and don't worry about mes. So he'll let her suffer alone, and he'll hold her hand and cradle her in bed while she does—until next year, when the demons return, slightly less potent and not a drop of dad's whiskey left to nurse.
{fin}