Cocoa
She don't want no one around
Cause she don't want anybody to see
What she looks like when she's down
Cause that's a really sad place to be
Pretty soon she gets them crawling up the walls
Then she wonders why they beg her please to never call
She says, "I'm OK. It's all right, hey look who's on TV
tonight"
She says, "I'm alright, I just can't get home tonight"-Counting Crows, She Don't Want Nobody Near
The pile of tissues is massive. She has been sobbing for hours. It figures; the end of the world has just been averted, again, her little girl dream of a white picket fence just within reach, the Planet's Hero at her side. No more Sephiroth, no more Geostigma. Just them and all the orphans they can adopt.
Only Cloud Strife could fuck this up.
He hadn't even ducked the book she had tossed at his head, just looked at her sadly, and taken his leave. And gods, did he have to throw that "I hope we can always be friends" bullshit line at her?
As if.
There is a gentle knock on the door.
It had better not be him. "Who is it?"
"Vincent. May I come in?"
Oh great, just what she needs. Another gay man. "Why not?" Maybe he'd accidentally stab her in the throat and put her out of her misery. After all, everyone knows by now.
How humiliating.
He slips into the room with his usual air of awkward gentility. Tifa remembers that Cid had said once, Vincent was polite right up until the point where he was ready to kill you. It makes her chuckle. She looks up to see he is carrying a tray containing hot cocoa and a bottle of peppermint liqueur. In his other hand is a bakery bag full of brownies.
"I was thinking you could use a drink."
"Oh gods, you heard."
"I am rather sure the entire continent heard, at least your reaction." He removes his cloak and drapes it gracefully over a chair. "Drinking in that is a bit messy."
"I can never show my face again."
He pours a cup and adds a shot of liqueur. Taking a long look at her swollen eyes and red nose, makes it a double. "Tifa, had you wanted to remain discreet, and this is of course none of my business, I don't believe shouting down the staircase 'Now you can go fuck Reno in the ass anytime you want' was the way to further your cause."
"Was I that loud?"
"You do possess a surprising amount of lung power." He mixes his own cocoa and smiles dryly. Of course, for Vincent, a smile involves the barest tucking back of the lips and just a hint of lightening around the eyes, but suddenly the whole world seems brighter. He is an intensely private man, which makes his friendship all the more precious, when he does extend it.
He sits next to her on the bed, a little apart, seemingly naked without his cloak. Yet, for all his old world aloofness, he is here with her now, as her friend. She puts down the cup and buries her face in her hands.
"Oh gods. He's gay!" He raises one straight black eyebrow. "Um, no offense. How did I not see this?"
"I have no idea. I can tell you that I, myself, was not exactly leveled with shock at the announcement."
"Well no, don't gay men sniff each other out like dogs on a sidewalk or something?"
He snorts. "Thank you for the visual. Now, drink your chocolate. I made it myself. It's not a mix."
"Vince, you don't cook."
"Chocolate is not cooking, it is survival. The brownies were purchased, however. Now, as Aeris would say, may she rest with the goddess, talk to your bestie. What is so wrong?"
She stares at him in disbelief What is so wrong? "My boyfriend just told me he's gay! And in love with a damned Turk!"
"He's not your boyfriend."
"Well, no shit, genius."
Vincent puts down his cup and is silent, his calm demeanor slowly spreading to her until the hiccups cease. "Tifa, listen to me very carefully. I have…some experience in this. You were close to him when you were children. You have not been children for a very long time."
She nods.
He continues. "There is something about being in a crisis that makes you think things that are not true. Especially when you feel close to someone. And there is something about being up against a great cause, and fighting a great evil, together, and trying to save the world or thinking you are trying to save the world and being with someone that you care a great deal for, that can make you believe you are in love, when you are, in a matter of fact, not." He reaches out his hand and gently takes her face. "Do you understand what I am saying?"
"Lucrecia."
"Yes, and Cloud. I do not think, if you truly examine your own heart, that you have really been in love with him for some time, not as a grown woman. You have been in love with the idea of it, though, and you grieve, much, for the death of that dream. That is normal. So is being embarrassed for a public tantrum. You will survive both. Drink your chocolate before it is cold."
She sips; it is excellent cocoa. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I dislike seeing my friends in pain. You are my friend."
They sip in companionable silence for a few moments and Vincent tops off their cups. "I'm getting a buzz."
"Good, you deserve one. You have had a bad day. Whatever the circumstances, the end of a relationship is never enjoyable, even if it is necessary."
"What do I do now?"
"Anything you want. For the first time in your life, it is a luxury you can afford. Drop the kids off with Barret, go to Costa and dig your toes in the sand. Stay in bed for another week. You're single. What does Single Tifa want to do?" He stabs a piece of brownie on his claw and tosses it into her mouth, trying to cheer her up with an uncharacteristic streak of playfulness.
She has no clue what she wants, but his words have some appeal, suddenly. "Maybe I'll die of humiliation. I am so embarrassed."
"It was rather colorful, I must say. Have more chocolate."
"I love the way you call hot cocoa 'chocolate.' So old fashioned."
He gives a little shrug and pats her on the shoulder. "Tifa, this too will pass. You and Cloud will be friends, and your conniption fit on the stairs will just be one more bar story that people, you included, laugh over while they drink. You have a large and loving family. Is it so bad, that they are not what you thought they would be when you were a schoolgirl?"
She thinks about it from Vincent's perspective, what he has been through. She feels like an ungrateful shit. "I have to apologize to Cloud."
"Yes, you do. Though, knowing Cloud, he probably could have been a bit more tactful. The boy is socially awkward, at the best of times."
Yes, well "Tifa, I'm moving out again because I'm gay" wasn't the best way to put it, but Vincent doesn't need to know that. She swings her feet over the side of the bed but he stops her. "Not today. Today, why don't you stay in bed and just drink cocoa? I brought up some brownies too. I did not make those, they came from a bakery. Baked goods and liquor and pajamas cure heartbreak."
"Thank the gods, I wasn't up for thirty years in a coffin."
"Watch it. I'll lock you in one." He musses her hair like a child. "If you tell anyone I'm this nice, I will of course deny it."
When he is gone, she calls Cloud anyway and by some miracle he answers. He laughs with her when she apologizes, glad they can be friends, and makes his own apology for not being a little more gentle with the way he broke his own news. They agree to meet for drinks at some other bar, and she goes back to bed and brushes brownie crumbs from the sheets.
Staying in bed all day really does sound like an excellent idea.