Chapter 10
Reno woke up to the morning sunlight glaring him in the face.
He lifted his groggy head and slowly blinked his sleep-heavy eyes, for the time being lost in that blessed moment where you don't have any recollection of anything; that wonderful second of complete ignorance. But all too soon it faded away, as his mind cleared and he remembered.
Last night. He sank back into the covers. Tifa.
The mere thought of her name was too much. He groaned, rolled over and swore profusely. He cursed himself for letting her get under his skin... for letting her get to him like that. What had he been thinking last night, what had gotten into him?
Reno hid his face under the sheets, curling up tight. He wanted to be anywhere but here. He didn't want to have to face her again. How would he ever be able to?
He wished this had all just been a nightmare. A long, hellish dream that he would be waking up from on the puke-colored carpet of his crummy apartment in Lower Junon. It would still be that time when he was in the shadow of blissful ignorance of things he'd rather not have found out. He realized that time was less than a week ago, but how he missed those days before Elena and Rude barged back into his life, before things got complicated, before he started questioning himself and his convictions -- or perhaps lack thereof. He had never been so confused, the line had never gotten so blurry. But there was a feeling in him that it had been that way a long time... he'd just never bothered to look at it, with wide open eyes. He'd never wanted to.
Nicotine cravings distracted him from his troubling thoughts and gave him the needed resolve to face the light of day. Uncurling himself, he leaned over to snatch his cigarettes and lighter off the cheap nightstand. All the while he wondered how he'd been able to fall asleep, even if it had only been a couple hours. The cure for insomnia is insomnia, after all.
After lighting his cigarette, Reno stayed leaning over the edge of the bed, his head down, facing the floor. His limp hair fell forward, a scarlet veil over the side of his face. Not bothering to brush it back, he took a deep, long drag of his cigarette, caring less if he got ashes on the carpet. He lapsed back into his reverie, the smoke curling thoughtfully in the air around him.
This was just what Elena had warned him against, wasn't it? He shouldn't have gotten too close -- he'd been stupid to think he could. The last time AVALANCHE came into the picture, his life went straight to hell. They were back, and they'd messed everything up again.
It was further unnerving that he couldn't stay angry at Tifa. After last night, especially, he should have gone back to hating their freaking guts. But try as he might, he just couldn't when it came to her. The resentment he was sure he should have been feeling toward her ebbed away at the thought of her crying, pouring her heart out, as she had last night. The indignation built up in him again as he thought of Cloud, who wasn't as stupid as he seemed, but was still completely oblivious to Tifa's unrequited love for him.
For the life of him, Reno couldn't fathom... what did she SEE in Cloud? She could go up to him and flat-out yell, "KISS ME, YOU FOOL!" And what would go though his thick head but maybe the Meow Mix commercial jingle?
It drove him absolutely insane. Even in all this, Tifa still didn't hate him. It wasn't her fault that the person she ached over and longed for was an oblivious moron.
Reno wondered why he was trying to stay angry at her, when he had Cloud to blame.
He would have to get up soon. Eventually he would have to go and face these people whom he wanted nothing to do with anymore. He wished he didn't have to, but there was no way he could bail out now.
It wouldn't be so bad, he reassured himself. As long as he didn't look at or acknowledge her, everything would be okay. They would get this pointless mission over with, he'd get his money, and he'd never see her again.
He'd just have to bite the bullet and deal with it. They were almost through with this stupid, retched assignment.
It wouldn't be much longer, now. But he felt the end couldn't come soon enough.
*~*~*~*~*Tifa wondered if things could get any more awkward.
Cloud became despondent and stopped saying much to her. Reno went back to being withdrawn, and things were extremely uncomfortable for her whenever she was around him. He didn't show much emotion at all, but in the way he avoided her gaze, she could tell he felt the same. She wasn't sure what to say... or if she should say anything at all. Tifa couldn't look either of them in the eye anymore.
Absently, she gazed out at the overcast sky, and couldn't help but think how fitting this dreary weather was. When she got tired of that, she turned and faced the interior of the cockpit. The three of them had boarded the Highwind, as Cid had orders to swing by and take them to their last destination. There was no one else in the cockpit except for Cid and a pilot-in-training, Gary. His mastered pilot had fallen ill, so this was his replacement. It was a good thing that this arrangement was temporary, because he was incompetent, shy, and terrified of Cid. Gary couldn't be much younger than Tifa, and he seemed unable to keep his eyes off her --
"DAMMIT, GARY! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOIN'!!!"
The airship narrowly dodged a precipice jutting out from one of the Corel mountains.
"Eeaggghhh!!! Sorry, Captain!"
Tifa figured she shouldn't be hanging around any longer in the cockpit, where she was obviously a distraction. She soundlessly made her way out into the metal corridor, unbeknownst to Cid, who was still in the process of rebuking a very mortified Gary.
She slowed her pace, realizing she wasn't headed in any particular direction. Wherever she was going to go, it certainly wouldn't be anywhere near Reno or Cloud. They'd dispersed when they'd gotten on the airship. She had no idea where either of them would be, and she had no desire to know.
"Hey, Tif', wait up..."
Sighing, she turned back around to face Cid, anticipating what this would be about. Suspicion and concern creased his features, as well as underlined his gruff tone of voice. "What's goin' on here?"
He'd noticed how weird things had gotten between the three of them. It would be hard not to sense the tension, considering how openly they were avoiding each other.
She knew he was going to bring this up, but she really didn't want to talk about it. "Cid..."
"Why arent you talkin' to Cloud? I been lookin' forward to seein' you guys again, but you've all been ignorin' each other -- and me. Now what's the deal here? If it has anything to do with that Turk, I'll--"
"No!" Tifa interjected, and tried to calm down Cid, who was angrier than Barret in a sailor suit. "It's not that at all..."
"Then what is it?"
She didn't want to answer to that. "Cid, I really don't..."
He crossed his arms. "Nope... you're not goin' ANYWHERE until you tell me what's wrong."
Tifa bit her lip, stalling herself. As the silence drew out, Cid just stared expectantly back at her, with an I-can-wait-all-day look on his face. She was cornered. There was no way out. No matter how much she just wanted to blow this off and get away from here, she would have to tell him what had been going on.
Still unsure of how to begin, she opened her mouth to speak.
--CRASH!
The airship jolted violently, throwing them both against the wall.
Cid cursed under his breath, and helped Tifa up. "You okay?"
Gingerly rubbing her side, all but relieved for the interruption, she exhaled. "Yeah."
The door to the cockpit burst open. It was one of Cid"s assistants, who was looking very urgent. "Captain... it's Gary."
Flustered, Cid muttered a string of profanities. "Do I have to monitor him the whole time?!" He grumbled something or other about incompetence, and followed his assistant back into the cockpit. Abruptly stopping at the doorway, he whirled around and faced Tifa. "We'll finish this later," he vowed. "Don't think you're off the hook just yet."
Tifa smiled weakly and nodded, and as soon as the big metal door closed behind him, she allowed herself to let out a sigh of relief.
That had been too close.
Then, realizing that she should find something to do other than stand there, she decided to walk in the opposite direction, down the corridor. But she'd hardly turned around when she ran into someone.
She found herself looking into the eyes of Reno, if only for a second.
*~*~*~*~*His heart did a painful jerk in his ribcage, and pounded furiously as he barely held on to his composure. She'd caught him off guard, and he hated what it was doing to him.
The two of them sort of drew back in surprise. He couldn't bear to look at her for longer than a moment, but she seemed as startled as he felt. Avoiding eye contact, she clumsily mumbled an apology, and brushed past him, briskly walking down the hall.
He turned his head, and his gaze followed her as she went, steadfast in defeated desire. Dejection and longing flared in his constricted chest, though he knew he shouldn't be feeling this way. But this wasn't as simple as he'd earlier thought it would be. This was much harder than he'd anticipated.
These feelings for her, they hadn't stopped. They were supposed to... but they hadn't. It had been easy enough telling himself he didn't care, but now that he was around her, he just couldn't help it. He wanted to stop feeling this way about her... but what he wouldn't give for her to feel the same way about him, to be so close to her again...
"Reno."
He tore his gaze away from the end of the corridor, from which Tifa had since disappeared. Slowly he brought his head back around, and regarded Cloud with a kind of contempt reserved only for him.
"What do you want?"
From the way Cloud was looking at him, he realized he'd seen that whole ordeal with Tifa. There was something very dull and metallic in his gaze; the way mako reflected the metal around them. It caused his eyes to take on more of a gray, steely color than the usual freakish blue.
"To talk," he said simply.
Reno could already guess the topic, but asked anyway. "About what?" He made sure he sounded skeptical and annoyed.
Cloud opened the door to a nearby cargo room, and gestured him inside. Reno wasn't ecstatic to be alone with this guy, but he quickly decided that if any attempts were made to lob his head off with that butcher knife, he wouldn't hesitate to use his nightstick.
With a cold air of passive cooperation, Reno went in, and Cloud closed the door behind them. For a moment he looked around the dimly lit room, seeing that it was for the most part empty. Then he cut his sharp gaze to Cloud's, diamond meeting with steel.
"I've noticed," the blonde began with suppressed vindictiveness, "how weird things have suddenly gotten between me and Tifa. And I've also noticed how you've been watching her. I have reason to believe you tried something last night."
"No," Reno said, then more truthfully added, "Not really."
No sooner had he figured that he could have gone without that last part than Cloud had him by the collar, pinned against the wall.
Reno did not appreciate this kind of treatment. "Nothing happened!" he nearly yelled in annoyance. Cloud still held him against the wall, glowering murderously. Reno glared right back into the dense mako flame, seeing the poorly guarded, underlying insecurity behind his eyes. So pathetic.
And it was about time he turned the tables. "Wait, what do YOU care?"
Cloud sneered at him, his brow furrowing in irritated confusion. "What? Of course I care. She knows I care about her."
"That's not what she told me last night."
That was yet something else Reno could have worded a little better. But instead of dicing him to pieces, Cloud's threatening expression had melted into blank disbelief.
"She... told you......?"
"Yup," Reno nodded, shrugging off Cloud's now-loose grip. "She thinks you don't love her."
He was not one to use that word so casually, and he certainly wasn't used to talking about this. So it felt funny saying it, and those words left a bad taste in his mouth.
Cloud seemed to have gone into a confused trance. He shook his head. "No... I don't believe it..."
At that moment, Reno felt an overwhelming urge to grab Cloud by the two biggest spikes on his head and repeatedly bash his face into the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut, disbelieving this man's ignorance, and willed that impulse away. "You know... for a closet intellectual, you're really STUPID when it comes to this kind of thing."
As if he hadn't heard, he looked down at the floor, wondering aloud. "Why does she want me...?"
Reno did not realize that the more he kept distressfully grabbing at his hair, the more it was starting to resemble Cloud's. It was an unruly halo around his head, scarlet and furious. "What the -- YOU'RE CLOUD-FRIGGIN'-STRIFE! They let you get away with not combing your hair! Why not take the girl, too?!!"
"No, I can't." Cloud shook his head, apparently ashamed and in self-denial all of a sudden. "I don't deserve her... why don't you just take her?"
Reno almost laughed in spite of everything, just to relieve his frustration. He was confused; he was the last person who should be telling him this. He tried to spell it out for him, tried to get it through his thick head. "She... doesn't... WANT... me...." Inside he almost wanted to scream, hearing those words come from himself... it seemed to set it all in stone. It made him feel devastation he knew was supposed to be trivial; he shouldn't have cared. All that was clear to him now was how much he wanted to beat some sense into this ignorant man in front of him, who was so willing to deny what he'd take in a second.
He got a grip on himself; he inhaled and raked a hand through his hair, taking advantage of Cloud's silence.
"Listen, I never liked you. You were always one of those guys I'd hate to sit behind at a movie theater. Frankly, I don't think you deserve her, either, and I don't know WHAT she sees in you. But she's at the end of her rope. You've been stringin' her along this whole time, getting her hopes up -- she doesn't know what to do anymore. But if you keep this up, she's gonna leave you. FOR GOOD. Do you know what that means?! It means you'll be a lonely FREAK," he spat, hoping the unresponsive idiot in front of him was hearing him out, "with nothing better to do... than sit around and wonder what went wrong, and CONTEMPLATE YOUR MENTAL PROBLEMS ALL DAY!!!"
Reno took a deep breath. His voice had risen considerably by the end of his paroxysm. He carefully eyed Cloud, who who was looking away, his head titled slightly down. His hair obscured much of the light from his face, and shadows consumed the barrel of his mouth, the sockets of his eyes.
He had nothing to say for himself.
Deciding he had no more business here, Reno obligingly turned and walked out the door, leaving Cloud alone in the silence with his thoughts.
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Author's Note: Well, there you have it... another way overdue update by yours truly. "It's about time!" you say. "Quit slackin', 'Soul!" Well, that's some good news for ya, because I CAN'T slack off. Not anymore. You see, I've made it a personal goal to put up a chapter a month so I will be officially done with Strife by my one-year anniversary... which is in April. And that means, of course, that there's only two more chapters to go. ;_; Makes me sad.
So anyway... yess, things aren't going so well with the trio, are they? Tifa is still very upset, Cloud seems to have some sort of inferiority complex, and things are all but crashing down on Reno. Um... suffice it to say that Nibelheim won't help matters.
Well, that's about it. As always, thanks for the feedback, people. And leave a review -- if you haven't already forgotten about me, that is!