..
. DANCING WITH A STRANGER .
..
Who is the third one who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?
(T.S. Eliot, The wasteland)
Tifa yawned heavily while rubbing her eyes.
She was literally falling asleep on her feet.
She heard her dishwasher, Tina, singing softly the song the radio was transmitting. Beside, the song was nothing exceptional.
Just an hell life.
Tifa unceremoniously threw the dust-cloth on the counter, then she glanced at her last two clients of the day. The first one was a man, completely drunken probably, who had fallen asleep on the table - and as it was not enough, he was snoring, too. The second one was one of those usual men-in-dark. They were just so annoying. Just so disgusting. The one of the men-in-dark was really strange story, by the way.
Actually, in the very moment she was thinking about it, another one of them made his/her entrance in her bar. Usually you never knew if they were male or female. Yet this time Tifa was pretty sure this one was a woman. It was clear from the way she walked, from her posture.
Who do you think you're making a fool, idiot, thought Tifa with scorn.
She didn't fear them. Not anymore, at least. They were just an idiotic legend, a stupid anecdote - in that hell world. Even though, she had to admit that the idea of dressing up like one of them had caressed her more than one time. That idea just intrigued her.
It was the God, the One walking around dressed up in that way.
Or at least, that was what they said. The God always walked around among them, wrapped in a black cape, a cloak on His head. It was difficult to see the men-in-dark's faces: they always walked with their heads low. As for her, she just thought that was psychology - pure psychology. As improbable as it may be, it never was completely impossible that the man-in-dark standing in front of you was the real one - the God. She herself couldn't be sure about having never encounter the God somewhere, sometims.
The God.
So she was calling Him the God..
What an horrible statement.
Though, after four years, she just couldn't help it. It was on everyone's mouth. 'The God showed up here yesterday', 'I saw the God', the God here, the God there. How could she actually keep on living that way? Without doing anything?
The woman-in-dark took a sit, quite near the other man-in-dark.
Tifa had got accustomed to the life she was living - accustomed to that hell life in that hell world. How many people did have the hobby of dressing up like men-in-dark just to scare other people off and to commit free massacres? Disgusting. All was desolating. The only break in her daily routine were the periodical incursions in her bar. The men-in-dark just pointed their gun at her forehead, took away all the money in her bar, and finally devastated it till the last glass anyway, even if she's handed them the money already, to then go away laughing like mad. And she could do nothing except crying her heart out, while the bruises she got when she tried to react burned. It was completely useless to fight alone against ten, even twenty people, now that she wasn't in her gold-time anymore - better still, it was noxious.
Actually, by now, she was blind in one eye. That had happened two years before, to be precise. A wrong stab, and there it was: she had become blind. Since there wasn't actually plenty of doctors to heal her, and her magic was dying off, she was resigned to remain like that for the rest of her life. By the way, she didn't really need two eyes to live that kind of life - eve one was too much.
What was giving her the strength to keep going?
Love? Hate? Or was it just inertia?
While hearing the clinking of the dishes, she looked at the clock.
1 A.M.
It was late, she wanted to close the bar, she was tired. She passed over the counter, and reached the sleeping-drunken man's table, grasping the three void glasses. In that moment, she remembered of the woman-in-dark.
"May I bring you something?" Tifa asked her boredly.
The woman didn't even move. She was staring intensely at the other man-in-dark.
"Fuck you, then," Tifa hissed while returning to the counter. "Here, Tina," she passed all the glasses to the young girl, who caught them still singing.
Tina was such a flippant girl - but she was one of her few friends.
Tifa, exhausted, leaned her forehead on the cold counter. It looked like it would be a real bother to make those three go away, the sleeping one especially.
One thing was sure: the man-in-dark was the most curious one. He had been there for hours, but had said nothing except his order: a glass of water. Which, by the way, was still on his table half-full. Tifa, almost staggering, reached his table thinking that if he couldn't even drink a glass of water, he couldn't really be that dangerous.
So not an alcoholic. How reassuring. she smirked.
But just, there was something about him-
"Hey. I'm closing in a few minutes" Tifa felt like talking to a wall.
Did he just hear what I said, or what?
Another thing in particular about those men-in-dark really got on her nerves: you could never say how old were they. So insufferable.
Another song started. A slow song, this time. Tifa heard Tina's enthusiastic voice saying something like "Oh Lord that's my favourite one! I just love this song!", while raising the volume. Tifa rolled her eyes, then moved to get away from the man-in-dark's table.
She almost collapsed when she felt a grip on her wrist. She turned to the man, her eyes wide open.
"Dance with me." he said.
This voice-
Nothing to complain about it - a beautiful voice. A really beautiful one. Plus, now at least she was sure that one actually was a man. And he had to be quite young, too.
Dance with me- so typical of a pervert.
"I would say there's really no point in it." Tifa replied strictly, trying to get rid of the man's grip, to discover it was impossible. This is getting scary. She ran her free hand through her black messy hair, and bit her lip.
She looked for a second at the woman-in-dark, who was staring at her without doing anything, and then she turned to Tina, who was singing while washing the glasses.
Ok so. It's not really necessary to get upset now. You're not alone. There are other people around. Just be cool.
Still, she was getting upset in a way. There was something - impossible to say what exactly -which was kind of wrong. Yet, maybe, it was just the usual men-in-dark's psychological influence.
Beside, there was another thing she still didn't get-
What the hell do men find in me?
Sure, she had been very beautiful once, but now - now she was terribly neglected. She hadn't cut her hair for four years, except for her fringe, which unnerved her when it became to long. She had totally forgotten what make-up was. She had that horrible scar on her blind eye. She dressed up always in the most slovenly way. And still, men seemed fascinated by her, and tried to approach her in all the possible ways.
"You would say there's really no point in it." The man echoed her with his velvet voice. But there was not only velvet in it. There were also metal and ice, somewhere.
Tifa immediately became aware of being attracted by that voice. It was charming.
Speak again, she thought suddenly.
"Dance with me." he repeated, as if reading her thoughts - or just her eyes, maybe.
What was that? Not a question, not an order.
"I'm not your slave or your concubine. I don't dance on command. I'm the owner of this bar. Now let me go." she tried to sound firm, but her voice was sort of shaking.
Yet, she felt that the grip on her wrist was loosening, as if she's actually convinced him. She caught the occasion to instantly withdraw her hand.
Finally.
But then, she just stood there.
Well now, Tifa, you're plunging your head into trouble willingly. Why don't you just go away? This is a pervert - a psycho.
Then she heard the man laughing lowly, in a relaxed way.
"You said you wanted to go. But you're still here. So you really do want to dance with me."
"Believe me, not really," she blurted out with a low chuckle.
Say something else. I like your voice - terribly like it.
The man began cracking his knuckles.
"Tifa Lockhart, the woman who has tried to save the world, stuck working in this dreary bar for the rest of her life. Cruel destiny, isn't it? I have had this little desire to visit you since a while, you know?"
Tifa stared shocked at him. For a while she didn't say a word. She took a look around her, but the situation in her bar was the same of five minutes ago - and the slow song was still far from ending.
"Just - who are you?" she asked.
The man laughed a little.
"Well, you see the way I'm dressed. Black cloak, hidden face. I am the God." said it in the most quiet way possible, as if it was trivial.
Tifa rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, right.." she joked. Despite, she did feel a strange tension raising in her chest. That certain something wrong had not yet disappeared.
The God.
Why on Earth should that man have been the God?
Yet, beside, why on Earth shouldn't he?
"The God, uh? If you say that one more time, I'll take it as true and I'll kill you." she said sharply.
The atmosphere was strangely hovering between reality and unreality. The man smiled - or did something vaguely resembling a smile.
"So, Lockhart, will you dance with me, or are we just going to wait until the song is finished?"
That was the third and last time. His voice, the song, it was an infatuating mix. But, basically, even if she didn't understand why, she felt like she had no other options.
"So be it, God." Tifa stretched out her hand to him, ""Let's dance."
The man lowered his head slowly, then he removed one of his gloves. He had thin, almost bony fingers - but, more surprisingly, they were completely lacking any kind of wound, and that was really strange considering the terrible and violent era the world was living. He leaned his hand on Tifa's, and then squeezed it softly. Tifa was slightly confused - while the man was standing up she had her eyes fixed on those familiar boots coming out from his cape. She cleared her throat perplexedly.
She was going to dance with a stranger.
What the big idea had did I just have? I do really have nothing better to do, then.
Tifa couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable in the very moment the man circled her thin waist with his arms. For just a second, she managed to catch a glimpse of the man's feature, under the shadow of his hood.
A sexy chin, a silver glow.
Then she found herself leaning her forehead on his shoulder. The man was taller than her. Much taller, actually.
Lord, the wrongness in this.
Tifa cleared her throat again, stirred a little between his arms, and then placed slowly and cautiously both her hands on his back - she moved them in a tentative way for some seconds, feeling his shoulder-blades under the leather of the cloak, as if this could help her understanding who the hell that man was. As if. Because actually, it didn't. She was so much into the man's back, that she barely noticed they were dancing already - if you could call waving pointlessly a few inches to the right and to the left dancing.
It was another thing, right now, catching her mind - that body, the coldness it transmitted.
"You could engage yourself into this a little bit more, Lockhart," the man whispered ironically, lowering his head just a little, his lips nearer to her ear.
Tifa stiffened - clinging to the leather on his back, she spoke near his neck, standing on her tiptoe, a sarcastic but somewhat angry smile on her lips.
"Another cutting remark like this, and you will find yourself smacked to the ground. Dead, of course."
"So you think that killing me will be as easy as saying it," the man replied, almost amused.
"Surely I think that this crappy dress is a sort of self-protection - because, despite all, it keeps people away."
"The theory actually does make sense," the man approved with his intriguing voice.
"Tifa? What the heck are you doing!?" Tifa heard Tina's bewildered voice, but hadn't the slightest intention to reply. Soon after Tina started humming again. Knowing her, she had resolved the problem with a shoulder-shrug.
"But, after all," the man was speaking again, and Tifa was completely absorbed by his words again "I find it interesting. You can never be sure of who's the one in front of you."
"I find it a cowardice, instead." she contradicted him.
"How should I take this? Are you indirectly affirming I'm a coward?"
"Tell me who you are." Tifa went for it again, even nearer to his neck - the only part of his body she was able to see.
"I already told you."
"That was just a lie."
"Are you sure?"
She bit her lips, and fell silent.
Am I?
Not actually. Maybe not at all. Or maybe not at all without any maybe. Whatever.
"Couldn't be surer." she lied, unintentionally touching his neck with her lips.
Hell, Tifa! This is a stranger - at best! Because he cannot be Him. She shivered at the mere idea. Better not to even think about this.
"Are you the God?" she couldn't contain the urge of asking it again.
And he laughed. Then he set his hand on the back of her neck, and placed his lips directly on her ear this time.
"I thought you were sure I wasn't."
Provoking. This was getting too far. But she was sure it was nothing she couldn't handle. Maybe.
"I'm saying this again. If you really are Him, I'm out of this instantly. And I kill you."
"Him? Him who?" the man was bemused, his voice too sly to let Tifa cool down.
Tifa tried to peer without any success under his cloak.
"You cant be Sep-"
"Hey, hey," the man interrupted her with a sort of laughter. "You should know very well that name is forbidden."
"I couldn't care less. Beside, that doesn't mean I cant kill you." Tifa tried to make her voice sound as harsh as possible. Though, she couldn't say if she had succeeded or not.
"Are you sure you want to?" the man remarked, "Why don't you just stay here, and dance a little longer with me?"
Stay here.
It was like a sudden stab in her heart. An horrible memory.
No, please, not now.
Cloud.
Not now. Go away. Away away away.
You just don't exist. Don't. Not. You don't.
Suddenly the man placed his hand on her good eye, softly. She wasn't sure whether this was relaxing her or making her even more upset. Now she was completely blind. All was black.
"Now what the hell-" she tried to push him away. She realised that being blind made her feel completely defenseless.
"Just as I thought," he said quietly. His beautiful voice actually calmed her down just a little. "You're blind in one eyes."
"And how did you-" the words died on her lips. In that hell world, he was the first person who had noticed it by himself. It was not easy to notice, but neither impossible, too. Her pupil was kind of blurred, melting in her red iris. Sure a great attention was needed to catch the difference between the two eyes.
And Him..
She was slightly shocked.
"Tifa Lockhart - Tifa. What an unfortunate life." The man now covered her blind eye with his other hand, breaking their hug.
She gripped his cloak confused.
"What are you - take your hands off me -I can't see anything.. -" She stirred a little more, the darkness upsetting her. Apart from the darkness, there was the little fact of not knowing who was in front of her, having just that bewildering vague suspicion..
Then came the stabbing pain.
Probably the worst pain she had ever experimented - there, on her blind eye. A pain that penetrated even her brain, to then spread through all of her nerves. A pain which was so piercing she couldn't even cry out.
"I suppose I'll see you again, whenever you wish. Goodnight, Lockhart." his voice, for the last time.
Then, any physical contact with the man faded away.
The pain was still so hard that Tifa, swaying in the dark, barely managed to crash on a table, collapsing down on it unceremoniously. Still blind, she heard her bar's door opening, the closing again, accompanied by the wind-chime's clinging.
The man was gone.
And with him, all her pain.
Yet, she couldn't dare moving her fingers - she kept them pressed on her eye.
"Shit-" she muttered, feeling the tears surging in her eyes.
"Tifa..?" Tina was examining her perplexed "Is everything okay?"
Now she must be thinking I'm an utter idiot, that's for sure.
Tifa opened her eyes - and panicked.
Instantly, she closed them again.
What the hell..?
She had not dreamed it - there actually had been something different from usual.
Her heart was bumping wildly against her ribcage.
She opened her eyes - and closed them, again.
Hell.
She covered her good eyes with her hand. She opened the other one.
The table. The water-glass.
Impossible.
The woman-in-dark, the drunken man, Tina.
Rolling it was painful, the light was painful.
She closed it.
Darkness.
Opened it again.
Table, glass, woman-in-dark.
Fucking hell.
She closed it, opened it.
She remained there like an idiot, a hand on her good eye, while rotating the other one to the left and to the right.
"Teef..?"
Now the good eye and the blind eye didn't exist anymore - she could see perfectly.
I am the God.
With an uncontrolled impulse Tifa flung herself to the door, the wind chime clinging violently - she started screaming at the top of her voice.
"SEEPHIROOOTH!" it was a deafening, angry, somewhat hoarse shrill. She bruised her lunges whit it.
But outside, there was only the blue snow falling delicately, covering everything. No tracks on the ground. Freezing air. Utter silence.
She felt mad. She had just pronounced the name. The name - His name.
She went back into the bar, ran to His table, grabbed the water-glass - His water-glass. She drank it till the last drop in one gulp.
The God.
The God with the unpronounceable name.
That sexy chin. That silver glow.
She smashed violently the glass to the ground, breaking it into smithereens - thousands of smithereens everywhere, glittering like crystals.
Smithereens of what?
"Damn. Damn. DAMN."
That man - her ruined life.
Tina was now staring at her, somewhere between shocked and fascinated.
"You're just not okay, are you..?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.
"You know. It's snowing outside." Tifa said, as nothing had just happened.
"Oh. Great." Tina replied, still trying to understand what the heck was going on there.
But she couldn't understand - none could. Except for herself, and Him.
Sephiroth.
Tifa knelt down, and picked up cautiously one of the glass-smithereens - she stared at it intensely, then she put it in her pocket.
Sephiroth.
..
. THE END .
..
Author'sNotes:It's so hard writing in English! Forgive me for the language, it's just not my tongue! Eh..TifaSeph is so wrong. But I like it somehow... Beside, I love only wrong pairings... I hope you liked the story... any TifaSeph fan out there?
Anyway, it would be great if you sended me any type of constructive criticism, just to know if I have only wasted my time...
To my reviewers and readers: you're right when you make me notice this is slight AU. Probably it is. I guess in this story the ending of FFVII is turned upside down, because here it seems that Sephiroth wasn't defeated, and actually became a God, as he had intended. Perhaps, that would have been a great ending, after all.
Swamp-Eyes.