A.N. Thanks for the lovely reviews! This my first multi-length fic, so hopefully I won't let you guys down! Unfortunately, I broke up the chapters wrong so this whole scene ended up being two chapters. Hopefully I don't screw up like that again. :/

To the reviewer who asked, this is AU (alternate universe). It takes place in Gaia, but I just took all the fantasy stuff out. So no, it's not in the canon setting. And since everyone is the same age as they would be in FF VII, they're in university. So no, it's not a high school fic.

Anyway, here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Final Fantasy VII Compilation, nor am I making any money from this. Me is broke.


Chapter 2: "The Logic of a Man in Love" (Part II)


Being the subtle man that he is, Zack's jaw dropped to the floor.

"W-what?!" He spluttered, but no one heard him.

"Umm… that's great, Cloud." Tifa blinked, confused. "But I was only asking you if liked Midgar so far."

Sheepishly, Cloud ruffled his blonde spikes. "Er, right."

Awkward silence. And then, "I'm going to get your beers now." Tifa jerked a thumb towards the back, and walked to the back. Zack scoffed at Cloud's wandering eyes. When the blonde heard it, he quickly jerked his head back into the direction of the glass mug in front of him, cheeks tinged with pink. Zack would've pinched him if he was a girl, from how girlishly cute he was being.

But, Cloud wasn't a girl and furthermore, Zack was completely, and utterly confused.

Fortunately, with her presence gone, Zack was free to say whatever he wanted. And he had a lot to say.

"What." Unfortunately, Zack's brain has apparently malfunctioned from this new piece of information and thus, cannot speak properly.

But Cloud ignored the ridiculous expression on his best friend's face. Instead, his face landed in his hands. "Imf nut fay."

Zack's brows furred together. "What?"

Cloud looked up. Poor Cloud – he looked utterly hopeless. "I'm not gay."

Now Zack was really confused. "What? But you just said…"

But before he could interject another word in, Cloud quickly shushed him. "I- I know. I don't know why I said that," he spoke in a hushed tone.

Zack stared at Cloud. His blue eyes were frantic and hazed, and his face was contorted into an expression of helpless mortification. He was practically screaming for help.

Leaning back on his seat, he crossed his arms across his chest and frowned. "Then why did you tell this Tifa chick that you were?"

"I don't know!"

The brunette sighed, brushing a hand through his dark spikes. "Okay… then tell her that you're not," he replied a matter-of-factly.

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Because-" Cloud paused, then sighed in defeat. "I... She..." He froze, unable to get the words out. With the helpless look he carried through this whole ordeal, he looked at Zack in the eye. "There's... something about her... You know?" He emphasized the last bit out, desperately hoping that Zack would understand.

Fortunately, he did. "Well duh," Zack rolled his eyes. At Cloud's questioning look, Zack simply shrugged and said, "Only a lovesick idiot would pull a stunt like that."

Cloud sighed. "I know."

Zack then leaned forward, pouting childishly. Looking at the blonde straight in the eye, he commented, "too bad, though. She thinks that you're not available, ever. You wouldn't be able to hook up or anything!" The look on Zack's face was almost comical if it weren't for the detrimental situation at hand. "How will you be able to snag this girl if she thinks you don't play for the women's team?"

"I don't want her to know, Zack," Cloud answered.

"But… why?"

Cloud looked away. "She would never like me that way. It's best that she doesn't know. At least now, she won't think I... erm, like her."

"Because she thinks that you're gay!" Zack exclaimed exasperatedly.

"Exactly!"

Zack stared incredulously at his best friend, shaking in disapproval. "Your logic amazes me sometimes, Cloud."

"Please, please, please don't do anything Zack," he pleaded, eyes begging. "Just… leave it alone."

"How could I not! You know what? We're fixing this right this second. Tifa! Tiffff- oof!"

Cloud's hand immediately clamped on the older man's mouth, his blue eyes wide and frightened. "Don't! Zack!"

"Buf yew liek Teefa," was Zack's cheeky response. He then proceeded to spit on the hand Cloud was using to cover his mouth.

"Eww, Zack! That's disgusting!" Cloud jumped back, wiping his hand of Zack's saliva. The raven-haired man grinned.

"Heheheh." His eyes trailed as soon as he caught a familiar glimpse of black and white. "Hey, Tif- woah!"

A loud bang resonated throughout the bar, echoing over the clinks and conversations that buzzed about. Because of this, multiple eyes shot up from the sound, frantically scanning the room for the source of the sound.

Meanwhile, crazed, red-rimmed eyes bore down at Zack. In addition, the blonde's hands gripped frighteningly tight onto his wrists, pinning him down on the bar floor.

"Don't. You. Dare," Cloud hissed out with a menacing vengeance Zack hadn't seen since… well, ever.

Despite this, he blew a raspberry in Cloud's direction. Even though spit got all over the blonde's face, Cloud managed to wipe his face with his shoulder without letting go of Zack's wrists. Unfortunately, they loosened enough so that Zack was able to find an opening.

"But you-" grunt, "like-" push, "her!"

With another loud bang (and a couple of 'ooh's!' from nearby spectators), Zack managed to flip Cloud over. This caused the blonde's glare to deepen. Unfortunately, this did nothing to Zack's confidence; instead, Cloud could feel the blood around his wrists loosing circulation.

"Zack, let go."

Zack smirked down at his best friend, who was struggling to get out of his grip. "Cloudy, I'm not going to until you tell Ti-"

Oof.

"Don't tell-" heave, "her!"

They rolled around the floor of 7th Heaven, oblivious to the growing amount of spectators looking in to catch a glimpse of the two cute, brawling men. Flashes lit up in the dark bar, in addition to these wide eyes looking into the scene with piqued interest.

Finally, a large, dark-skinned man came in and pulled the two away from each other. "Okay you two! What the hell's goin' on!"

Immaturely, Zack pouted and pointed to an appalled Cloud, who was still fully trying to figure out the extent to what the two of them have actually done within the past eight minutes or so. "He started it!"

"What!" Cloud cried out.

"ENOUGH!" The gruff man holding them both glared at the two of them. He then jerked his head towards the door. "If you can't behave, then you two are ban-"

"Stop!"

All three heads turned to survey the newcomer of the scene. Her long, trailing brunette hair swished in the silence of the bar as she strolled down in their direction. All three men bore expressions of confusion, and in Cloud's case, a slight pair of pinking cheeks accompanied it.

"Cloud?" She spoke softly, a gloved hand laid on the blonde's suddenly limp arm. "What happened?"

Cloud hung in Barret's arm in silence. Everyone watched as he looked down and tried to look as innocent as possible. Meanwhile, Zack resisted the urge to shake his head, or tell Tifa the real reason for the fight. He was silly and a bit rambunctious, but he wasn't stupid.

And the fact that all of the patrons of 7th Heaven were staring at them, hanging from a large man's arm wasn't exactly dignifying to begin with.

But just as Zack thought Cloud wasn't going to say anything, he spoke up, albeit softly.

"Sorry, Teef."

Tifa stared down at Cloud for Gaia-knows how long and sighed. "Barret," She suddenly addressed, causing the dark-skinned man to jolt from his spot. "I know Cloud. He's nice and sweet. Whatever happened here did not… he's not a troublemaker."

"But my bar!" Barret protested, but was quickly shushed when Tifa gently tugged on Barret's arms, which were holding up Cloud and Zack. After glare given to the two younger men, Barret let them go. With a reverberating crash, the two landed gracelessly on the bar floor.

"Ow!"

"Geez, you could've put us down better!" The ravenette said, glaring at the frowning bar owner, who merely rolled his eyes at the complaint.

Meanwhile, Tifa was staring up at the tall man, her brows scrunched together and her hands gripped lightly on Barret's arm. "Don't ban them… please?"

Barret assessed Tifa's pleading look. After what seemed like forever, Barret turned away and glared in the direction of the two still-wincing men. "You got lucky. You got a warnin' this time. But next time…"

Grumbling in a hushed tone, Barret walked away without a second glance.

Tifa leaned over to help Cloud up. "Are you okay?" She asked, genuinely concerned. Cloud blushed and turned away.

"Yeah. Sorry about that, Tifa. I didn't mean to…" he trailed off when he caught Tifa's soft smile.

"Don't worry about it. Just be careful next time, Cloud." She winked. "You wouldn't want to hurt your boyfriend now, right?" She added, giving a playful smirk to the dark-haired man beside Cloud.

Zack immediately shot up from the floor from the implication. "WHAT!"

Ignoring Zack's indignant protests, Cloud smiled. "Y-yeah. My boyfriend. Zack. Right. Um, thanks, Tifa."

"No problem. Come on in again one day. I'd like to see you again."

The blonde gave Tifa a subtle nod. "I'd like that."

Cloud then proceeded to walk out of the bar, an incredulous Zack in tow.


Tifa eyed the two men as they left the bar. She smiled when she caught a glimpse of the taller, black-haired man giving Cloud a friendly noogie on his blonde spikes. When the two disappeared into a corner, the barmaid turned away.

Behind her, she could hear the other barmaids settling the rattled customers down. A few seconds later, Tifa heard the bar click back to its normal buzz of conversation and the drunken hassle of tables that came with the typical bar scene. Luckily, the customers seemed to be unfazed by the fight. She was glad that it didn't get out of hand; she didn't want to start fighting herself in the middle of the bar to settle the two men down.

Letting out a sigh, the brunette strolled down to where the two were found brawling on the floors of the bar. Luckily, none of the glassware had broken. Besides the spilled beer on the floor, nothing about the scene could identify that a dispute had happened only moments before.

When she leaned over to clean up the mess, a passing barmaid nudged her on the hips. "So, you know who those two men that Barret just kicked out?"

Tifa looked up to see a stick-thin brunette carrying a tray of beers, which she handed out to the customers near her.

She then crouched down to help wipe the mess off the floor. "Jeez, they were cute and all, but way to leave the mess for us!" The lithe woman glared at the door, as if the two men were going to come any second just so she could have the chance to beat the crap out of them. She certainly would too, if they did.

Smiling, Tifa took the rag that she handed out to her and started wiping down the mess on the floor. "Yuffie, we've dealt with worse. It wasn't even that bad."

The younger brunette stood up. "I guess- hey! They didn't even pay!"

At hearing this, Tifa looked up at the table. She blinked in surprise when she found nothing but the mugs she had picked up from the floor. She couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

"Still the same, after all this time," she said to herself, shaking her head in faint amusement. Yuffie gave her friend a look.

"What?"

But the older barmaid just shook her head. "Nothing." She jerked a thumb in the direction of a table at the far corner of the bar. "If you don't want to help, those people over there look like they need some drinks."

Yuffie tiptoed up to take a peek. She grinned. "Ooooh, they're cute too. Thanks Teef!"

Tifa rolled her eyes, but her lips were curved upwards into a grin. "Better get a good tip," she hollered out as Yuffie ran off.

"No worries, Teef. They're no match for The White Rose of Wutai!"

Once she was gone, the brunette woman turned back in the direction of the spilled beer and pulled out a rag. But just as she was about to start cleaning up, the shine of something silver caught her eye.

"What the..." she mumbled quietly. She leaned over the table, and sure enough, on the booth seat, was Cloud's helmet, gleaming from the dim lights of the bar. She picked it up and stared at it for a moment.

Cloud wasn't one to intentionally attract attention, from what she knew from back at Nibelheim. So when she found out that the man under the helmet was the one and only Cloud Strife himself, she was pretty surprised, to say the least. Cloud had his share of the spotlight back home (and not in a good way), so an act like this seemed almost uncharacteristic of the blonde to do.

A skit for a play? Unlikely. She replayed the events from earlier and frowned. Nothing whatsoever indicated that he suddenly developed a love for the theatre. A project for school? Just as unlikely. He said that he was leaving Nibelheim to become an engineer, wasn't he? What kind of engineering project required them to wear a SOLDIER helmet around?

Tifa shook her head. The reason didn't matter much. Even though she found it a little odd, she had to let it go. She'd just have to give it back when she saw him. Whenever that was.

Setting the helmet on the table, Tifa began to clean up the mess. After it was cleaned up, Tifa looked around the room. After a quick replay of customers she had to service before the fight went down, she headed out to the back to grab more beers for the table she was waitressing for beforehand. On the way, one of the barmaids stopped her.

"Tifa?"

"Yes, Shelke?"

She dumped a bunch of bills and coins in Tifa's outstretched hand. "One of those two men that caused a dispute moment earlier came back. The blonde one, I believe. He told me to give this to you."

As the nineteen year-old walked off, Tifa counted the amount of gil in her hand. It was more than enough to pay for the drinks, Tifa realized.

Maybe to compensate for the mess, she concluded.

Holding the gil in her hands, Tifa gave a small smile to the air in front of her and got back to work.