Chapter 5: Does It Still Count If You're Unconscious?
Yuffie clung to the ice flow, coughing. The sudden drop into the frigid waters had knocked the breath out of her, and sapped her strength at an alarming rate. Unable to pull herself out of the water, she simply hung onto a large piece of ice, her consciousness slowly beginning to slip.
The Great Ninja Yuffie is about to meet her demise, and all because she simply wanted a nice spooning with a very sexy gentleman.
Yuffie began to giggle. She couldn't help it. After facing Sephiroth and Bahamut Sin with no lasting damage, she was going to meet her untimely demise by freezing to death while on a quest to just get some lovin'. She laughed harder, leaning her forehead against the ice.
"Yuffie?"
"Nyuk..nyuk..spoon..."
"Yuffie!"
Yuffie slowly lifted her head, squinting blearily around. She couldn't seem to focus on anything, and there was this blur of red and black rapidly approaching her. It's Da Chao, coming to chastise me for dying in such a stupid manner she thought groggily.
Something grabbed her firmly yet gently under her arms, and heaved her out of the water. Yuffie continued to giggle weakly, as she tried in vain to focus on the figure kneeling above her.
"Yuffie, can you hear me?"
She squinted at him.
"Hiiiiii," she slurred at the person. "...You're Da Chao, right?"
"It's Vincent, Yuffie. Can you feel this?"
Yuffie's beleaguered mind tried to process this information. She scrunched up her face in thought.
"Vin...cent?" she muttered to herself, "Oooh." She smiled happily. "Vinnie. Heyyy. I was jus' thinkin' about cha ya know-"
"Yuffie, can you feel this?"
"Feel wut now?"
"Shit," she heard him mutter under her breath.
"You shouldn' swear, Vin'ent," she giggled again. Then she finally managed to focus on him properly.
She blinked at him owlishly, his concerned face staring down at her. She stared at him for a moment.
"Well, fuck me sideways, did I ever tell ya you're really hot?" she asked, grinning stupidly.
"We need to get you someplace warm, Yuffie."
Yuffie numbly felt herself being wrapped in something warm and lifted gently. Her head lolled against Vincent's chest. She grinned groggily to herself.
"I'm already someplace warm," she grinned lazily. "Ya know, this is a pretty awesome afterlife."
"You're not dead, Yuffie," Vincent replied rather sharply.
"Then this mus' be a dream," she muttered. "But I think I'm too tired to be dreaming..."
"Yuffie, don't fall asleep."
"Go 'way, I'm really tired, just lemme sleep..." She closed her eyes, smiling with her head against Vincent's chest. Just a quick nap.
"Yuffie!"
"Mmm..."
"Yuffie, don't go to sleep, damn it..."
Yuffie faded into unconsciousness, smiling all the while.
\/\/\/
"Yuffie? " Vincent asked in alarm as the ninja went completely limp in his arms. "Fuck," he swore, hugging Yuffie closer to his chest as he ran. When she had not returned from her snowboarding after several hours, unease had settled on him, and he decided to go look for her. He had snowboarded down the slope himself, and there was one single trail going off the final jump. He followed immediately, then tracked her, using the heightened senses of the Galian Beast to help guide him. He had intended to take her back to Icicle Village once he found her, where they were trained to deal with hypothermia, but he had not counted on her falling in the water.
No time, we need to get her warmed up now.
He jumped neatly off the last ice flow, running for the cave in front of him. He slid inside, noting with hope the vast difference in temperature caused by simply being out of the wind. Gently lying Yuffie down, he pulled out a mastered Fire materia. Focusing on the old ruined shelter inside the cave, he allowed the knowledge of the Ancients to fill his mind, and tendrils of Lifestream rose around him, manifesting into flames, setting the shelter ablaze.
The hike in temperature inside the cave was immediate. He kneeled down to Yuffie. Her lips were blue, and her hair hung limply around her head, clothes hugging her with the weight of the water.
Without hesitation he began removing the wet clothes, taking everything, forcing himself to remain impersonal as he stripped her down. That done, he wrapped her tightly in the cloak once more, then sat back on his heels and watched her.
She was still shivering. The heat of the fire alone was not enough.
Vincent began stripping off his own clothes, down to his black boxers. He went to lie beside her, but paused.
Now's not the time for hesitation, Valentine, Galian reminded him, in a voice that was rather disturbingly gleeful about the present situation. Clearing his throat, he whispered, "Sorry, Yuffie," and slid under the cloak next to her, hugging her to his body.
The tomato juice seemed to fly in slow motion through the air, splattering against Cloud's chest as he watched with an expression of surprise.
"Oh my God, Cloud, I'm so sorry!" Tifa said, waving her arms to help emphasise her supposed franticness.
"It's okay, Teef, really-"
"Take it off!"
"..What?" Cloud stared at her.
"Take it off, quick, if I scrub at it before it sets I might be able to get it all out!"
Cloud hesitated, then began removing his shirt. Tifa turned around, partially to hide her grin and to stop Cloud from seeing the blush on her face, as well as to head towards her bags.
"I've got some cleaning detergent in here..." she told him, as she unearthed the Polaroid camera. She glanced over her shoulder.
Cloud was shirtless.
For a moment she just stared, feeling slightly dazed at the sight, then mentally kicked herself.
Picture! Picture now!
She straightened, clutching the Polaroid. Whirling around, she rose the camera, aimed and-
Click. A bright flash, leaving Cloud blinking as the freshly developed picture popped out. Tifa neatly caught it, and looked at the picture.
A befuddled Cloud, clutching his stained shirt in one hand stared back at her. The picture was perfect. I should look into doing photography. Cloud could teach me.
"TIFA, WHAT THE HELL?"
She looked back up to Cloud. He was still in the same pose as he was in the picture, but befuddled he was not. Instead, his face was the perfect portrait of bewildered anger.
"...Why did you take a picture of me!? Without a shirt on?"
"Look, Cloud, I'm really sorry, but there's this frequent customer at the bar, and she's a real big fan of you, and she said all she wants is a picture of you, erm, shirtless, and then she could die happy."
She said this all very quickly, and after saying it out loud realized what a crappy lie it was.
Cloud gaped at her.
"You took a picture of me with no shirt on for some stranger?"
"Her name is Becky, and she's a very nice person."
Cloud eye's narrowed, and he took a step towards her.
"Give me the picture, Tifa."
"BESIDES!" Tifa shouted, reaching into her bags without turning away from the slowly approaching Cloud, groping behind her until she felt the square edges of a photo frame.
"I thought it might go well with this, on our mantle."
She whipped out the photo with a flourish. Cloud glanced at it, and then back to Tifa, about to say something, before he froze.
He did the biggest double take Tifa had ever seen.
His jaw dropped, and his expression became horrified.
Tifa beamed.
"Wha...How...Gahhh?" Cloud muttered incoherently in a voice several octaves higher than normal, eyes locked on the picture with the stare of morbid fascination usually reserved for coming across car accidents.
"Apparently Corneo had all his possible wives photographed for his own special album of his 'conquerings'." Tifa glanced down at the photo, pursing her lips in mock thought. "I think the diamond tiara really clenched it for you Cloud."
Cloud turned a death glare of Tifa. Taking a deep breath, he grunted, "Picture. Give. Now."
Tifa shrugged, handing the framed photo to him.
Cloud took it from her, staring at it wordlessly, his jaw clenched. Then he turned and strode out of the room.
Tifa watched him go, counting to ten in her head before allowing herself a giggle. She surveyed the other overlooked photo in her hand, admiring Cloud's abs for a moment before carefully tucking the picture between a pair of panties in her bag. That ought to keep it safe.
She straightened, and languidly stretched her back. I wonder how Yuffie's doing? she thought, but was startled by the door banging open. She turned. Cloud walked back in, his face extremely pink. The reason was immediately apparent.
He hadn't put his shirt back on before leaving.
Tifa's eyebrows rose as she fought to keep her eyes off his Oh so nice chest and abs and on his face.
Cloud stared at her.
She stared back.
He picked up his still stained shirt, then walked towards her without putting it on.
He stopped a mere step away from her, eyes narrowed dangerously. Tifa could feel herself beginning to blush at his proximity, but she kept her face relatively impassive and met his glare evenly.
"That...monstrosity...has been destroyed," he said, face flushing even further at the mere thought of the picture.
Tifa cocked her head, unperturbed. "Out of curiosity, what did you do to it?"
"I Omnislashed it."
Tifa attempted to suppress a laugh, but ended up just snorting instead. Cloud frowned, and he crossed his hands defensively in front of his chest.
"What?" he snapped.
"Cloud, don't you think that's kind of, overdoing it? It's just a photogr-"
"No, I did not overdo it," he snarled. "I can't believe you had a picture of that, and I went through all that humiliation to save you!
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to wash out my shirt," he continued, some of the indignant anger leaving his voice as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "When I went out there, the old lady at the desk started undressing me – well, the rest of me – with her eyes."
Tifa put a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter, seeing that Cloud was rather disturbed by this.
"Here," she said, swallowing her mirth. "I'll wash it for you."
Cloud handed the shirt to her. As she took it from him, he suddenly started.
"Wait a sec, where'd that other picture go? The one you-"
"It's a shame you had to destroy that picture, Cloud," Tifa interrupted loudly. "It was my favourite one, made me smile every time I looked at it."
Cloud exhaled loudly through his nostrils. "I'm going to bed."
"Okay, sleep well!" Tifa said, smiling innocently.
"Yeah, right, I'm going to have nightmares for a week now," he muttered as he turned away from her.
Tifa hummed to herself quietly as she turned on the sink and began scrubbing out the stain.
A/N: Brownies to: Bytemite, misanthropic angel, me-obviously, JingYee, and C2-Chikaru for guessing what the picture was.
::Looks over chapter thoughtfully:: I had some trouble writing this one. I think Tifa is kind of OOC, but it's supposed to be a light humor fic, so ::shrug::. Oh, also, I have no idea what a person acts like when they're hypothermic (except I know they get tired) but when I imagined it, I figured it would be rather like being drunk, in that the mind slows down.
A little bit of Vinnie POV in this one, and next chapter there'll be some Cloud POV. Also, I already have half the next chapter finished (got kinda carried away with the Yuffentine part and ended up writing enough for two chapters) and my English exam is finished tomorrow which means you can expect the next chapter by Sunday.