Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts its, characters or storyline. This ditty is mine, as is Duke. I also have no ownership or affiliation with the Superman comic book, movies, etc.

..:-X-:..

003 – More to Love

(For The Sacred and Profane; Prompt: 'Squall/Tifa…in which Tifa ends up getting more than a bit chubby over the holidays and Squall makes her feel better about her extra pounds.')

In a man's life, there are a few conversations that change everything. 'I love you.' 'Will you marry me?'. 'I dare you to eat that.' But none of these sentences are so terrifying as that one, deceptively innocent, two-sided blade known as…

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

"No." Leon replied before he even turned around.

Because if there was anything that he had learned in his time being around women, it was that hesitation was never…EVER…a good answer.

In front of him, his golden retriever, Duke, was lying on the floor in the hallway. Making eye contact with him, her tail swished across the floor.

Feeling the coast was clear, he glanced over to see what had prompted the question most accurately known as the 'fight-starter.' Tifa was standing in front of the mirror, wearing a wine-colored dress that cut off a few inches above the knees, with no sleeves and a low, swooping front on the chest, virtually backless. It was one wardrobe malfunction away from…Well, not something that Leon would REGRET seeing…

But she looked disgruntled at her reflection, and she swiveled on one hip to look him in the eye.

"That was fast." Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

When he chose silence as an answer, she turned back to her reflection, compulsively running her hands over her stomach, her sides, and the undersides of her arms. Leon tilted his head, having never really seen this facet of her personality.

"What are you doing?" He asked…like an idiot.

She huffed and pinched the skin above her hip. "Look at this! What is this? Fat, that's what it is." She gestured to the undersides of her biceps. "Ugh, and this…How did this happen?" She let out a flustered noise, turning to try and find a better angle.

Honestly, Leon didn't see the issue here. She looked great. The dress showed off all her curvy parts…Wasn't that what it was supposed to do? He watched in confusion as she snatched up a long-sleeved cardigan and tugged it on, covering her arms and fluffing her hair out in the back before commencing her swiveling in front of the mirror.

"You're not fat." He said bluntly.

This was ridiculous. Okay, maybe if he tilted his head and squinted one eye, he could possibly see what this was all about. Tifa had always been built and more muscular than Aerith or Yuffie. But she also worked out every day and could hardly be called unhealthy or lazy…but now that she was pointing it out, he could see that she had gained a few pounds over the holidays.

"Oh shut up…Mister…Freakishly-efficient-metabolism-guy." She barked. "This is your fault, you know."

"Wha—"

"If your team hadn't lost that game, then Aerith would have been in charge of Christmas and…You know how much she loves celery!"

Ah.

So that was it then.

In the prior autumn, each of the members of the Restoration Committee had created their own individual teams and competed in a paintball tournament. It had started out innocent, but quickly turned vicious when the terms of the game were laid out. The idea came up that the losing team would be in charge of Christmas dinner. The winners would get to do whatever they wanted in Merlin's house for 24 hours after the holidays.

Almost immediately, Leon's team was put in everyone's crosshairs. It was well known—thanks to Tifa's big mouth—that Leon was a decent chef. In contrast, Tifa could burn water. No one knew how they survived Cid's cooking all those years. Yuffie wasn't allowed around a stove. Aerith had been on a health-kick lately. Cloud only used a microwave. And Merlin put cabbage in EVERYTHING.

"I didn't want to lose. Everybody else ganged up on my team." Leon defended.

"That's because you compiled a team of professional paintball snipers, including Private McCallister—a trained soldier! And Jake—"

"I didn't know that he played paintball every weekend!"

"Oh please." Tifa said, undoing the strap on her dress in exasperation. "If your team hadn't had a mutiny—"

"McCallister shot Jake in the balls…Not sure that's a 'mutiny'…"

"—then you wouldn't have made that AMAZING dinner and I wouldn't have gained nearly 15 pounds! You're an enabler!" She tossed the dress to the floor, opening the chest of drawers for another outfit.

"It was the holidays, Tifa." Leon said, starting to get irritated too now. "Everybody gains a few holiday pounds."

Tifa drew up straight, having stuck her feet into her sweatpants. She hiked them up around her waist and glared. "Really? Because you still look like a…some of kind of…There are likenesses of you on the cover of women's erotic novels!"

Before he could figure out how to interpret that and form a response, Tifa had tugged a sweater over her head and trudged past him, out of the bedroom and toward the living room of their small house. Duke climbed to her feet and shuffled out of the woman's warpath. Leon just stared at the open air for a moment.

Where was this coming from? And, more worrisome…where was this going?

Duke sauntered into the bedroom and sat beside him, looking up at him expectantly. Leon scratched behind her ears and she licked his fingers before looking at him, as if to say 'you gotta talk to her, buddy.' He waited a good ten-count before sighing, hanging his head, and slinking out after Tifa. The dog followed…so at least he wasn't entering the danger zone alone.

She had flopped herself on her stomach across the living room sectional—the same putrid salmon color as their old couch. Legs splayed over the armrest, sweater bunched up around her ribs and her hair fanning around her head: this was going to be a long afternoon.

"So, I guess you're not going?" He prompted.

Tifa had grabbed up the remote and proceeded to turn on the television, flipping channels. "You guess right."

Again…no real response for that. Without fear of losing a limb, that is.

With a sigh, Leon stepped into the kitchen and took up the phone, dialing Merlin.

"Hello?" was the sorcerer's jovial greeting.

"Hey, Merlin."

"Ah, Leon, my boy!" Waaaay too chipper for four in the afternoon. "What can I do for you?"

"Um, well…Listen, Tifa's…come down with something—"

"—gravity—" Tifa bemoaned from the other room.

"—so she's probably not going to make it to the party tonight."

"Oh no." Merlin said sympathetically. "I hope she's all right."

"Um…yeah…stomach thing—"

A low guttural snarl came from the couch.

"—I'm actually not going to be able to make it either." He excused. "I don't really want to leave her alone right now."

"—my chins will keep me company—" Tifa grunted.

Merlin, unable to hear Tifa's comments in the background, sighed. "Very well. I understand. Do give her my best wishes and I hope she feels better soon! If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask!"

"Thanks." Leon said, hanging up and going back to the living room.

Duke had wiggled herself under the coffee table and curled up there. On the television, a model in a slinky red dress was displaying a new car.

"Skinny bitch." Tifa flipped the channel.

Leon looked at her and frowned.

The new channel was a woman wearing a short skirt and tank top, performing in front of judges on one of those idiotic talent programs.

"Skinny bitch." Tifa flipped to a commercial with three dancing showgirls on it. "Skinny bitch. Skinny bitch. Skinny bitch." She flipped it again, and the channel showed two athletic men advertising exercise equipment. "Skinny bastards."

"Okay." Leon leaned over, plucking the remote from her hands. "This has to stop."

Tifa turned her face into the couch cushion with a moan. "Can't I just be pathetic for one afternoon?"

"By all means." Leon sat on the couch beside her head. "But I can't join you."

She grunted into the cushion before tilting her face free. "What a supportive husband."

He smirked dryly and brushed some of her hair from her face, careful not to pull any of it. "You don't want to be skinny. Then some poor girl is going to see YOU somewhere and call you a skinny bitch."

"I've never been the skinny bitch." She rolled onto her side, facing the television.

"Good." He said, running his fingers through her hair slowly. "And I hope you never will be."

"You suck at this."

"Hear me out." He rubbed her shoulder. "If you were a stick, the Heartless would have broken you in half. Those idiots who gave you crap would still have teeth. Half the men in Radiant Garden wouldn't quiver at your name. And my training squad would be twice as big, for all the soldiers I've had to fire for getting distracted by you during training." He shifted, propping one leg up on the coffee table. "Pounds don't mean anything. Muscle weighs more than fat anyway."

"Yeah…but muscle doesn't jiggle." Tifa said sourly.

This was going nowhere. In his opinion, she was being mindlessly paranoid about something that wasn't an issue, but had somehow been deemed an issue. So she had gained a few pounds, so what? Wasn't that supposed to be a perk of marriage: letting yourself go a little?

"If you gained 150 pounds, grew a mustache, and got an orange spray tan, I would still think you were the most beautiful woman in the Alliance." He said.

"You are many things, Leon. A good liar is not one of them."

Oh, now she was just trying to be difficult.

"Baldness runs in my family." He said abruptly.

She blinked and looked up at him. "Huh?"

"You don't want to get fat. I don't want to go bald. But apparently every man on my mother's side went bald before he hit 50. Not good odds." He confessed, looking down at her.

For a long moment, Tifa just stared back up at him. Then, slowly, her hand snuck up to cover her mouth, where a grin was forming.

"What?" He felt his face heating up.

"I'm trying to imagine you bald."

Leon looked at her flatly. Great. He had tried to make her feel better about her own insecurities by revealing one of his own, and now she was going to laugh at him. So, it was funny that he was going to turn into Mr. Clean, but gaining 15 pounds was some fowl curse? As the mirth filled her eyes, Leon frowned and started to stand from the couch.

"No, no. Don't go." Tifa reached out, grabbing the back of his shirt. "I'm sorry." She giggled, not sounding at all sorry.

But her inhuman strength jerked him back to his seat on the couch.

"Whatever." He took up the remote and started flipping channels this time.

"Oh." She scooted forward, using his thigh as a pillow as she lay across the couch. "I'm sorry for laughing at your imminent…baldness." She reached up, ruffling his bangs. "That'll be a shame though. I like your hair."

"Whatever. If we have kids, I hope you get really fat during pregnancy."

"And I hope our kids pull your hair out…whatever's left, that is." She chuckled.

The channel currently on the television was an action movie, and for a moment, they were both quiet, save for the sound of gunfire coming from the TV speakers.

"You don't have to worry about it." He said after a moment.

"Hm?" She said, lazily watching the movie.

"The whole weight thing…I mean—" He frowned at his lack of eloquence. "—I don't…care." He grimaced, hoping that she interpreted what he meant correctly.

Seeing as his jaw remained in the right joint and none of his teeth were knocked out, it appeared that she did.

"Thanks." She murmured. "Guess I…always knew my metabolism would slow down at some point…I just hoped that it would be…later."

"Get up."

"What?"

"Sit up a little."

She looked perplexed, but did as he said. She sat up off the couch just enough for Leon to swing his legs up onto the furniture, situating himself so that they were both lying across it, with Tifa more or less lying on top of him. The party being thrown at Merlin's by the winning team was probably going to be lame anyway. Who knew Aerith was such a good shot?

"You want to order a pizza?" He offered.

She tugged her phone out of her sweat pants' pocket and handed it to him. "Extra meat. And those little chocolate cakes if they are still serving those."

Leon nodded and called the pizza delivery place two blocks from their house. Duke snorted, pawing at one of the legs of the chair. Tifa seemed more relaxed now, and, he admitted, it was more comfortable snuggling up with her while she was wearing one of his old sweaters. The movie on the television changed scenes.

"Who are you?" The caped superhero on the screen asked.

The villain turned. "I am the genius…Lex Luther." He said, whipping off his wig to reveal a shiny bald head.

Tifa roared with laughter.

..:-X-:..

A/N: With apologies to Superman (1978). Keep these prompts coming! Super special awesome potato casseroles to those who have already submitted prompts! I am working on them now.

As always, constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated.