A/N: I really enjoyed Tifa's character in the movie; Final Fantasy 7: Advent children. Really liked her in there. I am aware that her character might be different in the game, so I'll just say that the Tifa I portray in any of my FF 7 stories are how I think the Tifa in the movie would react. Just letting you know. Enjoy.
Cloud watches as Tifa wipes the glasses with a small, rather far away smile on her face and resists the urge to draw her attention.
To him. To them.
Instead he stays rooted in his spot, his back against the counter and arms folded, watching her. Pretending he was there to prevent any bar brawls from destroying the place. Not that she couldn't have handled that herself.
It'd been a week since the destruction of Jenova. Many things had ended, but many things had also begun. He still delivered packages during the day, but most nights, were spent helping Tifa run the bar.
Tifa leans over to hand a customer a drink and her shirt lifts just a little along her back. A tantalizing cream pale strip of skin. And he imagined his finger softly, softly tracing the line of soft flesh. And her sharp intake of breathe. And the shock on her face.
And maybe, maybe she'd allow him to do more.
Oh yes, many things had begun.
He hadn't been with many women, just a couple during his training. When the world had been too much and he had needed an escape. But this was different. This was more than escape, this was necessity. A need that was becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
But he didn't want things to change. Tifa had become his best friend. A companion. A comrade. More than he imagined he could ever have with a woman. She had stood by him, shaken him when he'd needed it, understood him and accepted him. Broken and weary, and bone-tired. And now, and now...he wanted more. He needed more. Sometimes his body screamed for it, the consummation of their oneness.
Did she want more? He wondered, as the shirt slipped back down into place. Did she need more, as he did?
What if it all went wrong? What would happen then? Would it destroy what they'd built together?
He didn't want to risk it. Couldn't bear it. Now.
"Hey," a man no older than Cloud leaned over the counter towards Tifa, a wide grin on his face. He knew that grin. Oh he knew it well.
Tifa gave him a small, polite smile and resumed wiping the glasses.
And he was moving before he realized it.
He had to get closer, lay his claim. Even if it angered her.
The man opens his mouth to say something just as Cloud comes from behind her, hands against the counter at her sides, encasing her against it. Their so close, so close he can smell the faint fragrance of her hair. It made him ache.
She turns to him surprised and the man snaps his mouth shut, glaring at Cloud.
Cloud ignores him, "Need help?" he asks her mildly, his mouth close to her ear. The air between them sparks and he feels her shiver and is delighted.
She only stares at him for a moment, then nods slowly, confusion and something else in her burgundy brown eyes.
The man rolls his eyes and walks away.
That's right, Cloud thinks. Walk away because she's mine.
And he knows then that there's no escape. That he would follow his body's instinctive cry no matter what. But he'd learned patience and there was no rushing this.
He'd draw her slowly, slowly, tantalizingly. Until she melts into him, wholly and absolutely for him.