isclaimer: If I owned FFVII, I'd be too busy pestering game developers for a demo of FFXIII to bother with writing fanfictions.
Chapter 4:
"Is it too short?" Tifa tugged on the hem of the tiny blue halter dress she was currently trying on. The tear-shaped neckline really enhanced her bustline...not that anyone had ever suggested that particular piece of her anatomy needed a lot of enhancing. It left her back bare down to the waist, and it made her legs look long...really long. Or was it just because she was showing off too much of them? "Marlene?"
The little girl looked up from where she was lying on her tummy on Tifa's bed, scribbling away on a piece of paper with her crayons. "It's nice." She returned to her doodling without a second glance. Tifa sighed...getting advice from the six year old? She had lost interest after Tifa had tossed aside the frillier items in her closet, relics of a childhood long past.
"So...want to go shopping?" Tifa turned to look over her shoulder at the little girl, who shook her head. Tifa sighed. "I'll buy you ice cream...and you can get a new dress, too, if you want."
"Ice cream?" Marlene perked up, and grinning, hopped up to her feet quickly. "Let's go!" She bounced energetically, and Tifa couldn't help but laugh.
"Let me get changed first. This is definitely not the sort of thing I want to be walking down the street in." Marlene shrugged and flounced off through the door, closing it behind her, and Tifa chuckled. Too much energy in that girl. She changed quickly, into a pair of jeans and a blue wife-beater, shaking her hair out and snatching her purse from the dresser as she headed for the door. "Marlene? Ready to go?" She called as she walked down the stairs, not sure whether the girl was upstairs or down. When she got no reply, she paused in the kitchen to listen, and sure enough, the sound of voices was coming from the backyard.
"-and Tifa said she'd get us ice cream!" Marlene was promising to Denzel, over the rattle of metal. Glancing towards the shed, Tifa saw that the doors to the shack where Cloud kept Fenrir were wide open, and Cloud was sitting on the ground next to the bike, apparently doing some work or another on the bike.
"But I'm helping Cloud with his bike!" Denzel shook his head, and clutching a bottle of motor oil to his chest, ran back over to the blonde, who finally noticed Marlene and Tifa there.
"Come on, Marlene, we'll leave the boys to play with their toys." She teased and took the little girl's hand, and had almost walked away before Cloud was at her elbow, and she nearly jumped in alarm. When had he gotten so fast? But he'd always been fast...maybe she was just getting slow? She made a mental note to pick up on her training.
"Where you going?" He asked, and Tifa raised an eyebrow at him.
"Shopping."
"You got groceries yesterday."
"I didn't say grocery shopping."
"Then whatcha buying?"
"You're like a little kid, Cloud." She chuckled, and breathed a sigh of exaggerated exasperation. "I need something to wear to dinner with Calden." Cloud's expression visibly darkened at that, and Tifa started to walk off.
"Hey Denzel, wanna go shopping?" She stopped in her tracks.
"Cloud."
"What? Marlene invited us." Cloud grinned at her as she turned to look at him, but found she couldn't argue...Marlene looked like she was about to explode with joy.
"Yeah! We'll all go shopping together! And we can get ice cream." Tifa frowned, and rolled her eyes. Stupid Cloud. The idea of trying on clothes in front of him made her stomach drop to her knees, but even worse was the thought of shattering that ecstatic smile from Marlene's face. Finally, she sighed in resignation.
"Fine, but you two go get cleaned up first. I'm not walking around with you two looking like you were involved in an oil spill."
A half an hour later found the quartet headed down main street, not far from the side street where Tifa had found Zangen's School of Martial Arts. Marlene and Denzel were walking a little ways ahead of Tifa and Cloud, laughing and chattering away, where Tifa could keep an eye on them. The walk had been relatively silent for Cloud and Tifa, the latter having found herself occupied with reading every single sign as they walked by and shrugging off any conversation laughingly. Cloud looked dangerously close to slipping into a sulk, but Tifa was doing her best not to care. She wasn't catering to Cloud any longer, and if he wanted to sulk...he could. No matter that girls were stopping on the street to stare and sigh when he got that sorrowful look in his eye...damn fangirls. Why couldn't they find their own saviors of the world to moon over?
"Hey, Teef. Isn't that the shop you wanted to go to?" Cloud had stopped, and blinking, Tifa tore her eyes away from the gaggle of girls who looked like they were about to pounce on the prime piece of man-meat next to her, and looked into the window he was stopped in front of, surprised to find that they were in front of the trendy dress store already.
"Uh, yeah...it is." She stammered, and looked to the kids, still walking away. "Why don't you take the kids for ice cream, and I'll find yo-" too late, Cloud had already stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled the high, keening note that he'd taken to using for calling the kids. Tifa crinkled her nose as the children came running.
"Nah, we said we were all going to go shopping, right? I'm sure we'll be able to survive a few hours of picking out clothes." Tifa wanted to argue, but there was a steely look in those mako eyes that stopped her. He was going to be stubborn about this. Tifa just wished she knew why.
"Fine, fine..." She pushed the boutique door open, and the shopping began.
--
"Try this one, Tifa! This one!" Marlene had picked out yet another floral print dress. This one was floor length and...surprise surprise, pink. Tifa put on her best fake smile, glancing around for some escape route. It came, surprisingly enough, in the form of a mass of black fabric thrust into her hands by no other than Cloud. He winked at her and half-pushed her back into the fitting room, and then turned around to curtail Marlene's advance. She was in shock...so far, all afternoon he'd been amused by Marlene's less-than-stylish choices, and had been trying to convince her of the glory of the most hideous, shapeless items in the store. She sighed, supposing this was yet another outfit she could picture her grandmother wearing. But Marlene would start pouting again if she didn't try something on...with a sigh, Tifa slipped off the gold dress she'd decided she didn't like the color of, and pulled the dress on over her head. With her eyes closed, she realized there was less of the dress than she'd initially thought.
Much less.
Feeling air where she thought there should be fabric, Tifa was about to yell at Cloud for bringing her something that was torn, when she opened her eyes and her breath caught in her throat, her own disbelief nearly choking her.
The dress was almost as short as the dress she'd tried on at home, but the slight increase in length was denoted by the fact that the dress pulled up on her left thigh, nearly all the way to her hip, leaving one leg embarrassingly bare. But that was modest in comparison to the diamond-shaped cut out on her midsection, baring most of her stomach, barely drawn together before the v-neck plunged between her breasts. She was amazed to say that this dress covered even less flesh than the other dress had, and embarrassed to admit that she liked it. Blinking, she shook her head...she hadn't shown off this much skin since her days traveling with Avalanche. What on earth was Cloud thinking?
"Hey, you done in there yet? Come on, let's see." Cloud knocked on the door, and Tifa's heartrate increased. She didn't want Cloud and Marlene and Denzel to see her in this!
"It...it doesn't fit right. Throw the next one over the top." She finally called back, her voice a bit more nervous than she might have liked. Cloud must have grabbed the wrong dress, or just seen one and grabbed it. He couldn't have picked this one out.
"Marlene's out picking a new one, and Denzel's helping her." From the proximity of his voice, it sounded like he was leaning against the wall right next to the changing room door. A shiver ran up Tifa's spine as she realized they were alone, with just the thin wooden door to keep him from seeing her in the tiny little dress.
"Umm...okay, I'll wait, then." She replied after what seemed like an eternity.
"...'Kay." Cloud replied, quietly, and Tifa could almost swear she heard him exhale loudly, but she wasn't sure. He couldn't have given her this dress on purpose...he knew what she was shopping for, right?
"This one!" Marlene's bouncy voice erupted from the other side, right before Tifa was hit in the face with a bundle of burgundy chiffon, and she laughed. Every dress Marlene chose seemed to be some shade of pink or red...she smiled sadly, remembering the last person she'd seen wear this color of dress. She pulled the black dress off gratefully, and slipped the looser burgundy dress on over her head. It was pleasantly slinky, clinging in all the right places, with a v-neck and a halter that tied behind her head, the ends hanging down to her waist. The hemline was asymmetrical, the fabric cascading diagonally from one side to the other, creating an interesting contrast, and as Tifa looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but remember how long it had been since she'd worn red. Years, now. Not since...her eyes fell on the pink ribbon, still tied around her bicep. It was out of respect, but looking into the mirror, she thought that it would probably make Aeris smile, to see Tifa wearing her trademark color. Unlocking the door, she took a deep breath and stepped out of the changing room to see what the others thought.
"You look great, Tifa." Denzel was the first to speak, although Marlene was right on his tail.
"Yeah, you're so pretty! You should definitely, definitely get that one!" She nodded vigorously at that, as though she hadn't said that about every dress she'd picked up today. Tifa smiled, and found her eyes traveling over to Cloud, who'd moved further from the door than he'd been earlier.
He was silent for a moment longer, an unfathomable look in his eyes as his eyes pawed her like a cat with a scratching post, until their eyes finally met, and Cloud shrugged. "You look nice."
"This one it is, then." She said quietly, a sudden hotness in her cheeks from those three simple words, and she fled back into the changing room, the heat remaining even as she buttoned her jeans and pulled her wife-beater on over her head. She spared a glance for the scant black fabric draped over the room's chair, before she grabbed the burgundy dress and walked out to the counter, urging Cloud to take the kids to the ice cream shop, already, and she'd meet them there after she'd paid.
Later on, the saleswoman would be pleased to find she had nothing to clean out of the fitting rooms.
A/N: I am a visual person. I really like pictures. As such, I do have pictures of all the dresses described here, but I can't post links to them here.
If you PM me or review indicating that you'd like to see them, I'll get you the links, via PM or email or whatever.
Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter!