When you're with me

Theme: CloTi, AU, request

AN: It…doesn't really seem like AU does it? ^^; And…I've gotten so many hits on this- like over 100 since Thursday- and yet…no comments? Is my writing that bad? Please leave a comment even if it's just to say hi! 3 I also take requests so if you want a certain paring or theme just let me know and I'll do it!

Also: CloTi FTW =w= 3

Standard Disclaimer Applied. Unfortunately.

Sometimes, Tifa wondered if it was all worth it. Tonight, as the girl-just barely a woman- laid on her stomach on her thin mattress going over inventory numbers that were clipped to a cheap pink plastic clipboard was no different. She didn't have much, and what she did have was a rundown restaurant slash bar that she had bought a few months ago a few hours into her twenty-first birthday that had an apartment upstairs. The apartment, however small, had somehow became the new place for her friends to show up when they were too drunk or high to make it safely to their own places, or when they got into a fight but she didn't mind. Not when she bandaged cuts, or dodged flying objects and words sharper than knives or even when she waited outside the bathroom door with a wet towel, warm blanket, and a cup of tea.

She pretended that their number hadn't dwindled, that knocks and drunken yells hadn't changed in an attempt to disguise the missing parts. Aerith, Zack. Tifa had met them both sophomore year in high school. Cloud had introduced them and the four had been practically inseparable- going through high school like they had known each other forever. But then in senior year, the two- voted cutest couple- were in a car accident. Neither of them made it and Tifa had cried herself to sleep on a hard hospital bench with her head on Clouds shoulder as he played with her hair in an attempt to comfort.

But now was for bar stuff and not for old memories and Tifa looked away from the window begrudgingly and stared down at the paper of numbers and words and dashes that blurred around in complicated figures that she really didn't feel like deciphering. With a sigh, she shoved the clipboard away and turned to look at the other bed that occupied the room, the one that belonged to Cloud. The boy that she had known since her childhood wasn't home half the time and she moved it into her room to free up the other room for any visitors since the couch wasn't all that comfortable. Currently the blonde had been gone for a few weeks on a delivery and none of her friends had been around for nearly that long. As much as she hated to admit it she was feeling a bit lonely and she flipped over onto her back, a motion that sent the clipboard and the pen clattering to the floor, and stared up at the shadowy ceiling, eyes drooping in fatigue due to the late hour…

Twenty-one year old barmaids who live in the slums don't dream of sugar plums, shooting stars and candy like kisses. They dream of large groups cramming into a phone booth while wishing it was only two, police sirens, drunken laughter and memories of the wandering hands of complete strangers but that was normal to Tifa who had come to expect nothing less yet sugar plums and dancing, singing cookies every so often couldn't hurt much right?

A thump. A thump and somehow she had managed to get the top half of her body dangling over the edge of the bed, briefly memories of late night study groups flashed across her mind, and everything in her vision was hued red. Her name was called and hands grasped her waving arms, pulling her up to sir fully on the bed and she waited a moment for everything to right itself before looking over her shoulder with half lidded eyes.

"Cloud." She murmured, voice low and rough from sleep and a finger that was not her own traced her cheekbone and word of her crying reached her ears. She had been? That sounded about right for while Tifa had her regular dreams, she also had her regular nightmares that blended with memories and she ignored the inquiry about what she had been dreaming about, flopping down on her side with her back towards him.

A sigh sounded behind her and she curled into herself, pretending to have fallen asleep once more as she listened to the sound of footsteps moving away and cloth dropping to the floor as her roommate changed. Then everything was quiet and Tifa laid there with her eyes closed as visions flickered under her eyelids and just as she was about to resign herself to falling asleep again she felt herself being covered. A hand patted her shoulder gently and her own snaked out to clasp his wrist, feeling the muscles tense minutely in surprise.

"That one?" he questioned and at her nod he allowed her to pull him down onto the bed, opening his arms as she turned to press her face against his chest seeking the comfort that only he could give for they knew everything about each other. How in the fifth grade he had gotten bit on the rear by a horse when he had snuck away from the rest of his class during a field trip, how she had gotten lured under the bleachers junior year by some football players and had left unscathed, leaving the jocks neatly knocked out and tied together, and how through everything, the other was the only one they could fully trust.

And Tifa drifted off to sleep as Cloud played with her hair and words were whispered to her- repeating the promise of the well so long ago and how it included nightmares and petty fears and bad memories and she clung tighter to him, afraid to let him go even in sleep, afraid that he would be gone yet again in the morning.

And Tifa decided that it was all worth it, all the ups and downs and pitfalls and successes, tears and smiles and songs if it meant that she got to have that man in her life even if he didn't feel the same way about her.