Affectionate Notions :iv: glare
Underneath the dark shine of midnight, she waited.
The air was brisk and cold, and Tifa found she liked it better that way. It helped to freeze the wart of the lingering nightmare stuck in her mind.
So I guess you could say it was one of those nights. The past horrors glared from the moonlight leaking through the window. She felt it's touch on her cheek, trailing down her neck, piercing into the rose petal pink across her chest. The nonrefundable gift life had given her.
She had to get away, get out, and let the sigh of the past blow away with the breezes. She just hoped that the accidental squeak on the stair didn't stir anyone's sleep.
The grass was spongy and moist, cradling her throbbing head. Soon, she would be able to go inside and let dreams of the present fill up her sleep.
An unnoticed presence made the hair on her arms come alive. She cracked open her eyes and shot out a fist, only to have it enclosed between solid calluses.
"Cloud!" Tifa breathed in relief, adrenaline slowing in her ears. "You scared me! I thought you were -" and when she realized what she thought was going to be sitting there, she gave a short laugh. She shook her head.
Cloud was giving her a strange look. "What are you doing out here?"
She looked down at his still-enclosed hand, and saw the glow of stars not reflecting off of a shirt.
"Um," she took in the vacant street. "Just restless from today. We were pretty busy."
She felt his grip slacken, and vanish. "Oh."
He grunted then, and shifted onto his back.
It was comfortably silent for a while.
"It's nice out here."
She smiled, watching his eyes droop slightly.
"Yeah." She waited a few seconds.
"I was actually about to head back inside."
His head turned toward her, a foggy stare stopping her from pushing up to her feet. He opened his mouth, but closed it slowly. His eyes seemed to widen slightly, and his head lashed straight to the view of the stars again. She noticed his adam's apple bobbed.
"I, uh.." he hesitated, and if he was sitting up, she knew he would be scratching his head.
There was a distant sound of an engine, and he let his head roll toward it.
"You were having nightmares."
She snagged some roots in the grass. "No, Cloud, I wasn't."
He sat up, brushing a hand through his aggravated spikes. He faced her, with the eerie glow of his eyes. She looked to the plates.
She felt him stand up, dusting his sweatpants free of loose dirt. Out of her periphery, she saw nervous twitching. And then she saw a hand.
She blinked twice, her gaze falling from the harsh rounded metal, toward the even harsher curves that had thick, battleworn scars etched so deep nobody could see them. She felt a ghost brush a finger at her throat.
She felt a deliberate ball of spit slide down to her stomach. She stared into the nighttime blue, not breaking away this time. Her hand found his, and he lifted her off the grass.
He opened the door to Seventh Heaven, hand still suffocating hers, and led her through the black darkness with ease. If her eyes were closed, everything would look the same.
They stopped. "Steps," he said.
She followed his lead, skipping the faulty one, and finding the crack of her open door.
She walked in, him staying in the doorway. She felt her stomach flip, the cold of her bedroom the opposite of what the breezes were from outside. She looked over her shoulder to see Cloud still there. He straightened, nodded and started to make his way down the hallway.
"Cloud." It was tracing her footsteps, forcing itself to stay for the first time.
He faced her, questioning and confusion gracing his eyebrows. She let herself wrap around him. There was no other way and no other exit.
She felt his warmth overtaking the uncanny coldness latched onto her skin, the frightening pulse calming against the walls of her veins, the safety of the cage his arms created around her.
Her tears glistened like sweat on his chest, but she didn't know. She only felt the burn like rubber on her scar.
In the morning, she couldn't remember how she got there, in her bed. Everything was just too blurry in her memory.
She wasn't sure whether to smile or frown when she saw him sleeping in a chair. It had been pulled up to her side.
But in the corner of her room, with a patch of moonlight still glowing, it was vacant.
She smiled.
author's notes -
i hope you guys liked this. i know it was a little um, darker? and not as light as the others. but i'd love to hear from you guys, (especially you lurkers! :) and reviews make me want to add on to it.
anyway~
happy fourth of july everyone. :) enjoy the fireworks.