Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as is Duke and Cid's Unnamed Love Interest. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
203 – Tea
For WishingDreamer5
The room was dimly lit, the rain was thrumming against the window, and it had been over 30 hours since she had last slept, but insomnia's claws stayed deep in Tifa. She was spread out in the recliner in the private hospital room, staring at the ceiling like a zombie.
The doctors had given Leon the drugs to lift the coma over an hour ago. His stats were improving, the toxin was expired, and they said he would wake up in his own time. Tifa just wished he would hurry it up already.
"You need to sleep."
Tifa turned her head to see Aerith in the doorway. The woman smiled gently and stepped inside.
"Tell me something I don't know." She yawned.
"Has he woken up yet?"
Tifa lifted her foot and nudged Leon's elbow. "Apparently not."
Aerith folded her arms and walked over to Tifa. "You've been here the whole time. You need some fresh air, a hot shower, and sleep."
"I need for Sleeping Beauty here to wake up." Tifa mumbled, sitting up and stretching. Her muscles protested painfully.
"Did you sleep while he's been out?" Aerith asked.
"Couldn't. The way he was twitching, fever going up and down…I couldn't sleep through that." Tifa grunted.
"Then you should have gone home."
"Couldn't do that either. Couldn't leave. He wouldn't have if he was in my position." Tifa rubbed her neck.
"He wouldn't have been alone. Cid, Yuffie, and I have been in and out of here the whole time." Aerith said.
"I couldn't leave." Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but Tifa didn't know why Aerith didn't seem to understand this.
"So you stay awake for over 30 hours to be with him," Aerith said softly. "That's noble, but stupid."
Tifa lifted weary eyes to her.
"You're going to be even more of a zombie when he does finally wake up. Now what kind of vigil is that?" Aerith put her hands on her hips. "If you won't go home for proper sleep, then I'll whip you up some of my special tea to help you sleep here."
Tifa started to retort but Leon's hoarse voice beat her to it. "I wouldn't. Her tea is awful."
Both women's heads snapped to the bed and Tifa shot to her feet. Leon looked pale and groggy, but just seeing his eyes open made Tifa's heart lighter.
"Hey! Welcome back to the land of the living." Aerith brought her hands together under her chin.
He swallowed and blinked a few times before looking to Tifa. "How long have I been out?"
"A full day." Tifa answered, moving to his side. "You're at the hospital. How do you feel? Anything hurt?"
"No…just sore." He grunted and looked at her. "You look tired."
"That's an understatement." Aerith snickered.
She was right, now that Leon was awake and lucid, the past several hours of sleeplessness were hitting Tifa hard. She sat on the edge of the bed, her thumbs smoothing the bandages on his arm from the IVs, which had all been removed half an hour ago, except for a rehydrating cocktail on his other side.
"I'm exhausted." She confessed.
He exhaled. "Me too."
Aerith chuckled. "From what? You've been asleep for 24 hours."
Tifa reclined onto the bed beside Leon. It was too small, but she rolled onto her side and curled up next to him. "Yeah, so shut up."
Leon chuckled weakly and put his lips to the top of her head. "Then sleep, stupid."
Tifa slapped his arm lightly and promptly fell asleep.
..:-X-:..
204 – Popcorn
For WishingDreamer5
What was it about the smell of fresh popcorn? One can't not want popcorn when one smelled it. Resisting was even more difficult when the culprit of the popcorn sat herself down behind the desk in the office with a bowl of it.
"All right. Now I'm ready." Tifa said, setting the bowl on the desk in Ansem's old office beside the stacks of paper. "For the record, this is ridiculous."
Leon had his own mountain of files around the electronic station in the computer room. "This was your idea."
"Paperwork is never my idea." She said, tossing some of the fluffy popcorn in her mouth.
Ansem's office was a mess. It looked as abandoned as the day Ansem disappeared, aside from the anachronisms of a microwave on the shelf, a mini-fridge against the wall, and some other items that the Restoration Committee had left scattered about from previous visits.
Now the Alliance had deemed the office crucial but unorganized, both understatements. The Council had also deemed it too confidential for the recruits to handle, so the department heads had been assigned to work in shifts over the next week to whip the office into shape.
So they had both spent the previous two hours pulling every file out of the numerous file cabinets lining the walls. The dust was thick and choking, and most of the files were an aged yellow color. They had set up a system that Tifa would sort through the files sheet by sheet, and then Leon would transfer the files to electronic documents in the computer.
"There is a small forest worth of paper in here." She remarked.
"Ansem was meticulous in his notes." Leon carried another box full of papers into the office from the computer room.
Tifa munched on her popcorn as he took up a marker and scrawled 'shred' on the side of the box. Straightening, he looked over to Tifa.
"You HAD to make popcorn?" He mumbled, snatching up a microwavable bag for himself.
"I can't help it. Aerith got me addicted to popcorn. She's the temptress, not me." She pointed at him.
He punched in the timer and the microwave whirred to life. Turning back to face her, he glared. "She's not the one making it smell like popcorn and butter in here."
She shrugged. "Guilty." She popped a few more fluffy cloves of it into her mouth, looking around. "She and Merlin took the first shift to clean in here, huh?"
"Cleaning being the operative word." Leon said as the bag in the microwave started to inflate as the kernels popped. "You could barely move around in here before they cleared it out."
Tifa chuckled at that and reached past one stack of papers to the dark bottle of whiskey that Cid though he had hidden years ago. "I don't think they would have approved of this."
Leon looked at the bottle, shook his head, and looked at the files. She snickered and set the bottle back down.
"I remember the last time we were both in here messing with files."
"You were ransacking and I caught you."
"And I kicked your ass."
He looked at her flatly.
"That was the first time we met." She chuckled. "Some first impression."
He grunted at that and picked up another stack to take to the computer room. She laughed and wadded up a piece of scrap paper, lobbing it at him.
"By the way, your popcorn is burning." She remarked.
Leon exhaled, set the box down, and opened the microwave. Sure enough, the bottom of the bag had turned brown and a plume of smoke mushroomed out when he opened it.
"There were 30 seconds left."
"Never trust a microwave." She quipped.
"What are you, the Appliance Whisperer now?" He frowned.
She snickered and offered him some popcorn from her bowl. "Maybe."
..:-X-:..
205 – All Work and No Play
For WishingDreamer5
Movie night had become a slapped-together tradition in Radiant Garden for about a month now. One night a week, the town got together, set up Merlin's large projector at the white wall of the new bank, and hunkered down on the grassy lot outside. Last week had been some romantic thing that Aerith picked out, and the week before that, a mystery thriller at Tifa's request. This week was Yuffie's pick: horror.
Now Aerith was watching through her fingers, Yuffie kept screaming over-the-top and laughing at herself when something happened on the screen. Cid and that bartender woman were making out like teenagers, and Tifa was sitting near the back by Leon, who had been voluntarily put on projector duty.
"So…basically this is a movie about cabin fever?" Tifa tilted her head.
"Apparently." Leon sat back.
The projector was one of those ancient, silent-movie kinds, with two rotating wheels and the film rolling around the reels. 'Projector duty' in all actuality was just making sure it didn't fall over or unplug itself.
"If I was snowed into a hotel with you for five months, I'd probably take an ax to a door too." She shrugged, watching Duke wriggle against Aerith, who had grabbed onto the dog.
"That's comforting." Leon sat with his arms folded, leaning against the blocks of concrete bricks that had been leftover from construction.
Tifa leaned against the wall next to him. She had seen this movie before. It was one of those that was only really scary the first time…And this was apparently both Aerith and Yuffie's first times seeing it. Leon never watched a lot of movies, so she figured he hadn't seen it either. He didn't appear too impressed either.
On the screen, the elevator doors opened and a river of blood gushed out, splashing against walls and furniture and engulfing the hallway.
Tifa saw Aerith squeak and Yuffie's eyes widen. Leon was…Well, he looked bored. Not quite bored, but she could tell he wasn't focused on the movie. She scooted closer to him and folded her legs across his outstretched ones at a flirtatious angle. Instead of giving her a flat look or a smart remark, he just shifted his arm so that she could sit closer. His arm ended up over her shoulders: which she didn't mind in the least.
"I've been thinking." He said after a while.
Tifa wasn't even watching the movie now: Aerith's reactions were far more entertaining. "That's never good."
"Modifying our roommate agreement." He went on.
She snickered and looked at him. "I'm not getting rid of my couch."
He sighed. "We'll get to that later. The topic right now is…The apartment has two bedrooms; the new house has two bedrooms…but since we've—and I mean…it seems stupid to have separate—when…"
She kept her smile under control, amused at how stuffy and awkward he was suddenly being about this. "Okay."
He blinked at her. "Okay, what?"
"Okay, we'll share a bedroom." She bobbed her head once.
He hadn't been nearly this awkward when they decided to move in together, bought a house, or even made love together for the first time.
"Okay." He nodded and idly looked to the screen again.
Tifa held up a hand. "Shake on it."
Leon looked at her flatly, at her hand, and then back to her before taking her hand and shaking it. "Weirdo."
Yuffie abruptly glared back at them. "Do you mind keeping it down? Trying to watch a movie here."
Tifa stuck her tongue out at her and Leon just propped one of his boots against the leg of the projector, silently threatening to push it over. Yuffie pointed at him as if to say 'don't you dare', and then turned back around.
A beat passed.
"I think the roommate agreement should go out the window." She remarked.
He looked at her. "Oh you do."
"Well…" She shifted, "People who are just roommates don't sleep with each other. Couples do that."
"Then I guess we're a couple." He said nonchalantly.
The darkness of the night hid most of what was surely a stupid grin that took over Tifa's mouth at that. She propped her head on his shoulder and looked back to the movie screen. "I guess so."
Everybody else screamed then as the ax punched through the bathroom door on the screen and the villain poked his face through the splinters.
"Heeeere's JOHNNY!"
..:-X-:..
A/N 203: Inside joke from the Kingdom Hearts manga…Never drink Aerith's tea.
A/N 204: That first impression is from a previous oneshot I've written called Hart to Hart. Come to think of it, that might be the first Leon and Tifa interaction thing that I ever wrote.
A/N 205: Only Leon and Tifa could have a romantic moment during a horror movie showing. Although Cid and Unnamed Love Interest are really trying, snort, snort. Also, super special awesome potato casserole to who guesses the movie.