Chapter 6: Divine Intervention
Yuffie awoke slowly. She immediately noticed two things.
There was a ceiling above her.
And she felt perfectly cozy.
She sat up slowly, cautiously surveying her surroundings. She was back in her and Vincent's room in Icicle Inn.
How the hell did I end up here? She strained to remember. She'd fallen into the lake, then Vincent had rescued her, and then...
"Hmpf," she snorted. She couldn't remember anything between then and now, except for a strange feeling of utter contentment.
She lay back down with a soft thump against the mattress. So much for my spooning Vinnie. She sighed. It had been such a genius plan too. If only she hadn't lost that stupid map or lost consciousness. She absentmindedly picked at a stray thread on her pyjamas.
She froze. Blinked. What the hell, pyjamas?
She shot upright, looking down at herself. She was dressed in a pair of light blue flannel pyjamas, which were much too large for her.
And her underwear was gone.
The door to her room opened softly and Vincent walked in. Seeing her awake and alert, he graced her with one of his very rare but genuine smiles.
"Welcome back."
She flashed him a grin, then looked away, scratching the back of her head awkwardly.
"Er, thanks...how long have I been out?"
"About eighteen hours now."
Yuffie's eyebrows rose. "I wish I could sleep that long all the time."
Vincent stared at her, her attempt to make something light of the situation evidently lost on him, and then sat down cautiously on a chair next to her bed. Looking at her with an intensity that made her stomach squirm, he stated softly, "You nearly died."
Yuffie looked away, swallowing.
"Yeah, I know. Yuffie the popsicle..." She looked back at him, meeting his eyes. "Thanks for saving my sorry ass, Vinnie," she said, smiling. "I appreciate it."
He nodded once. "No problem."
"Er, what happened, exactly? I remember you pulling me out of the water, but that's about it."
Vincent waited a moment before responding.
"I took you to the cave I assume you were headed for in the first place," he said slowly. "I lit the old dilapidated shelter there on fire and managed to get you warmed up enough to safely bring you back here." He studied his gauntlet as he said this, black bangs falling over his eyes, obscuring his face.
Yuffie nodded. "And, erm...where are my clothes?"
In the back of her mind, a little movie played, which involved Vincent slowly removing her shirt. She clenched her teeth, trying to keep a grin off her face. Woah, girl. A little self-control here.
"The nurse at the clinic took your clothes when they were treating you for hypothermia. The pyjamas are courtesy of one of the townsfolk. You can pick up your clothes whenever you like from the clinic."
In Yuffie's movie, Vincent suddenly changed to a hideous, eighty year old nurse, complete with copious amounts of wrinkles and warts.
"ARGH!" she yelped, slapping herself before burying her head in her hands as she tried to rid herself of the image.
"...Yuffie, are you alright?"
"What?" she squeaked, her face locked in a pained expression as she looked up at the gunman. "Yes, yes, everything's dandy. Simply fantastically wonderful." She attempted to grin, but, judging by the raised eyebrows across from her, she just ended up looking quite insane.
"Yuffie-"
"Fine, just fine! Let's move on, shall we?"
Vincent leaned back into the chair, crossing his arms as he studied her with a small frown. For a moment she thought he was going to pursue her reasons for slapping herself, but he proved her wrong.
"Why did you go off the jump?"
"Oh, I just thought I'd go visit the hot springs," she replied in a carefully casual voice after a slight hesitation.
Vincent's eyebrows rose slightly. Yuffie wondered how high she could make them go if she tried.
"...The hot springs."
"Yes, the hot springs," Yuffie retorted defensively, still eyeing Vincent's eyebrows.
"...Without a map."
"FYI, Vinnie, I had a map, but I lost it on my way down the slope."
The eyebrows remained raised. Yuffie could feel the disbelief emanating from him.
"That was a very foolish thing to do, Yuffie."
She bristled, locking her gaze with his in anger. "Well, no shit Sherlock, I know that now." She fidgeted. "Just seemed like a good idea at the time."
Vincent opened his mouth, no doubt to continue rebuking her, but Yuffie suddenly had more important matters on her mind.
"Save it," she said, leaping out of bed and blinking against the sudden assault of dizziness.
"Yuffie, you shouldn't get up so fa-"
"Gotta pee, Vinnie. And shower. And brush my teeth. We can continue this intellectually stimulating conversation some other time."
She wandered to the bathroom, feeling Vincent's gaze follow her. She closed the door to the bathroom softly, then stopped, mind whirling.
Getting spooned seemed to be out of the question now – she doubted Vincent would let her out of his sight for the rest of their time in Icicle Village, and therefore no more hypothermia, fake or not.
However, there's still 200 gil on the table, and I'll be damned if I just give up now.
She frowned in thought. There was no time for any sort of involved plan. She would have to improvise.
But how to get him shirtless...She removed her pyjamas, stepping into the shower and cranking it up to a scalding temperature.
She stood under the spray, ruminating.
And then it struck her.
Tifa padded quietly from the bathroom, having finished washing Cloud's shirt out. She had also changed, and was now wearing light pink pyjama bottoms and a white tank. She looked at the bed. All she could see was the back of Cloud's head, blonde hair spiking wildly from beneath the covers. As far as Tifa could tell, he had already fallen asleep.
She walked over to her side of the bed, sitting down slowly before reaching over and turning off the bedside lamp, dropping the room into darkness. She slipped under the covers, pulling the comforter up to her chin as she rolled onto her side. She then reminded herself of the plan: make sure Cloud was deeply asleep, then saddle up to him gradually, pretending all the while that she was asleep as well (just in case he wasn't), and was just naturally and completely unintentionally moving closer and closer to the sexy hunk sharing the bed with her.
She closed her eyes. Alright, Tifa, control your breathing. At the moment, you are supposed to be beginning to fall asleep.
Tifa tried to regulate her breathing into that of a natural resting state, but was finding that rather difficult, mainly due to the fact that there was a voice in the back of her mind that wouldn't allow her to concentrate.
We're in bed with Cloud, the same bed as Cloud ohmygodremember his abs? Chest? Shoulders? And ohmyGOD there's those gorgeous eyes, always those eyes too-
And etcetera. Tifa was finding this constant inner monologue extremely distracting. Especially since it brought up so many excellent points. So she found herself, a martial arts master, whose discipline over her body and her mind was absolute, unable to control her goddamn breathing.
Just calm down, Lockhart. Just think about something else. What always manages to put you to sleep?
She pondered a moment.
Balances.
She grimaced just at the thought of it. They did everything by hand at the Seventh Heaven, so when it came to calculating profits and costs, she had to go through every order, tab, and grocery bill, putting it all down in a massive log book.
She forced herself to make a list of every single ingredient she bought and calculate the approximate monthly price in her head.
It worked very well for slowing her breathing. So well she fell soundly asleep in under ten minutes.
\/\/\/
Cloud stared at the wall, his mako enhanced sight allowing it so he could still make out the major patterns in the floral wallpaper. Behind him, Tifa's breathing was soft and regular. As far as he could tell, she had fallen soundly asleep.
Very slowly, careful not to pull on the covers or make the mattress bounce too much, he rolled over, until he was lying on his other side, and was now staring at Tifa. He gave a small smile as his eyes lighted on her. All he had to do was look at her nowadays and he found himself smiling.
'It's a shame you had to destroy that picture, Cloud. It was my favourite one, made me smile every time I looked at it.'
Those two sentences had been bouncing around his head all night. And the insane part was, it actually made him feel guilty. Why should he feel guilty about destroying that, that, thing? It had been the most embarrassing day of his life, and of course therefore someone had to take a snapshot. It undermined his very masculinity, and if one of the guys had ever seen it he would've killed himself, or died trying.
But it made her smile.
And holy Jenova on a hotdog cart he loved her smile. The way it lighted up her eyes, those eyes that weren't brown and weren't red but somewhere in between, kind of...mahogany, he supposed. He didn't really know colours all that well, but whatever colour her eyes were, that was his favourite.
He blinked. Tifa was suddenly much closer than she had been some moments ago. Cloud realized he had subconsciously inched closer to her, close enough that he could smell her, and a few wild tendrils of her long hair brushed his face.
Before he realized it – damn subconscious doing things without notifying me - he had snuggled even closer to her, lured by her very presence, it seemed, and snaked one hand across her waist.
He froze, suddenly realizing what he was doing. He didn't move, torn by indecision. This was Tifa, after all. If she woke up, she'd impale his ass on his own hair.
But then, to hell with it, he wrapped his arm around her waist, gently sliding her against him, and he buried his face in her hair.
"You are such a cheater!" the man griped, crossing his arms as a black lock of hair fell into his eyes, partially blocking his view of the scene below.
His green eyed companion just giggled. "Oh, shush, you wanted it to happen as much as I did. Besides, Cloud was nearly there, I just gave him a gentle push."
He scoffed. "You just want to win our bet." He reached a hand over to his left arm, absentmindedly adjusting the shoulder guard in an action that spoke loudly of habit. "And if you get to use divine intervention, so do I."
The woman next to him raised an eyebrow, tilting her head as she regarded him.
"Like you haven't already?" she asked sweetly.
The man glowered. "Hey, all I did was make her realize how much she wanted a shower. She came up with her idea all on her lonesome. You, on the other hand, actually made him spoon her."
"You can always back out of the bet, if you like," she replied, smiling.
"Nuhuh. You might have managed to get Cloud to dress up like a woman, but you will not be getting me within ten feet of that getup."
She pouted. "But it'd go so well with your eyes, and the tiara would look even better in your hair then it did in his."
He just scowled, before he turned and walked away.
"Bet's still on," he called to her over his shoulder. "The two weeks ain't up yet."
She said nothing, simply smiling as she kneeled down and tended to her flowers.
A/N: -:Bounces on the Cloti fluff:- Oh, look at that, third party influences!
Also, in regards to the timeline: It's been eight days since the bet started, which may seem kind of odd but the last 4 chapters all happened in the same 24-hour period. So six days of mischief remain.