Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are Duke and McCallister. This one has a mature element near the end of it, but nothing that can't be handled by Internet-frequenters. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
014 – Three is a Crowd
(For The Sacred and Profane; Prompt: 'Tifa gets jealous of Yuffie always hanging around Squall.')
The house was messy.
This was nothing new to Tifa as she opened the front door and stepped inside. With hours upon hours of work being piled on top of them, neither she nor Leon had had much time or incentive to really clean the house. Paperwork littered every surface that could resemble a desk: the dinner table, the coffee table, kitchen counters, and the like. Never mind what the actual study room looked like. She almost shuddered to imagine.
She had been gone for two weeks on a mission to Land of Dragons. Two weeks spent kneeling, immobile, for hours at time in thigh-deep snow in the mountains, monitoring Heartless activity outside the Emperor's palace. No human contact, radio silence, and almost complete isolation…She had almost hugged the first person she had seen upon returning to Radiant Garden, just for the feel of another warm body. And if hadn't been Jake Alms, she might have.
Instead, she had dragged herself home with the motivation of seeing Leon after the grueling two weeks. Now there was a warm body that she had every desire to get close to. After she took a much needed shower and ate something that required a steak knife, of course. And it was an afternoon on a Tuesday, which meant he was home in all likelihood. Tuesdays and Wednesdays had turned into paperwork-only days, just to keep their heads above the water. Leon had never truly liked working in a four-walled executive office, despite his department head status, so he had started bringing it home to work from here.
Unfortunately, she turned on the lights in the dark house and found it empty. Well, empty save for herself and Duke, who was curled up in her favorite spot under the coffee table. Tifa felt a stab of disappointment. Sure, she knew that a big homecoming after every mission was impossible; they were gone on far too many off-world missions for that…but after two weeks…Tifa needed her some Leon time. Dropping her bag just inside the living room, she sighed as she walked into the kitchen to get a drink and that much needed meal. A note in Leon's tiny scrawl was stuck to the refrigerator.
'Yuffie wanted to learn new defensive move, gone to the Great Maw. – Leon'
Of course, Tifa exhaled again. After Duke and McCallister, Yuffie was usually the third suspect who was at Leon's side. Duke and McCallister, Tifa could understand: Duke loved Leon and McCallister was practically his right hand with department matters. But Yuffie had an almost clingy habit about it, and it was starting to get irritating. Too tired to be properly irritated, however, Tifa grabbed a bite to eat, a shower, and then immediately crashed in bed.
..:-X-:..
The next day, Tifa was back in the office. Leon must have been kept out for some reason, because his side of the bed had been untouched. So, after spending most of the morning getting caught up on the mountain in her inbox, Tifa took a quick break out of her Combat Department to head over to his office in Weapons Specialist. She strode past the rows of cubicle units—Leon's department being the smallest division in the Alliance, the entire thing was housed on just one floor of the building—and noted that his office door was closed. This gave her pause. Sure, the department was pretty walled off to the other branches of the Alliance headquartered in the building, but the internal framework of the department had a very open-door policy.
With a small frown, she walked up, gave two quick, successive knocks, and proceeded to open the door before getting an answer. It was unlocked and the door swung freely inside. Leon was behind his desk, both hands framed up around his eyes, like imaginary binoculars, as he stared at the screen. He was so focused that he didn't look up immediately when the door opened. Yuffie, hovering over his shoulder and also poring at the screen, did.
"Tifa, you're back." The younger woman chirped in greeting.
"What's going on?" Tifa asked in return. Realizing how terse she sounded, she cleared her throat and tried again. "Got back yesterday afternoon…haven't seen you since."
"I haggled him into taking me training." Yuffie smirked. "As awesome as my skills are, I just haven't been able to master the—"
"Sorry." Leon cut in, having dragged himself out of the monitor's clutches. He blinked a few times before focusing on Tifa. "By the time we were done training, the call went out that the security system in the commercial district had crashed."
Well, that looked like about half an hour of sleep, Tifa inwardly noted, putting her hands on her hips. "Okay. And you've been working on it since then?"
"Yeah." Leon sat back, rubbing his eyes. "How'd Land of Dragons go?"
"Long, quiet," Lonely. Tifa shifted slightly. "Do you have a moment?"
"Sure." Yuffie answered for herself and Leon, leaning against the desk.
A spike of…something that Tifa couldn't name…ran up her back, and she shrugged her shoulders. "Never mind. Leon, I'll see you at home tonight?"
Leon stood and stretched, "Yeah. I need to get out of the office for a while." He looked to Tifa. "You want to go for a walk?"
"Yeah, you wanna join us?" Yuffie input.
Tifa could only shake her head, not trusting her words, and left the department.
..:-X-:..
Us? Join US?
Tifa had barely been able to concentrate the rest of the morning and early afternoon after that little situation. Okay, so she knew that Yuffie and Leon had been a pretty good team during their time in Traverse Town and right after moving back to Radiant Garden. The Yuffie and Leon team pre-dated the Leon and Tifa team; but a wife had to outrank a friend, right?
She decided to take a walk that afternoon to clear her head, because it was taking her to weird places. This wasn't a trust thing, and the majority of her felt stupid for feeling this uncomfortable, but the other part of her, however, felt like this feeling was absolutely normal. She wasn't accustomed to feeling…jealous? Possessive? Is that was this was? No, she had been half frozen in snow and staring at Heartless for two weeks. She missed Leon, his touch, his voice, all of him. Yuffie was taking that away from her right now, when she really needed it. Yuffie could get her own. Leon was taken.
Tifa found herself at the training fields where Leon was overseeing another batch of interns. Private McCallister was standing beside him with a clipboard, and they were talking quietly between themselves. For a man who liked his own space, how could she never find him when he was alone? Feeling that spike again, she crossed over to the two.
"Hey." She greeted, and it came out flat.
Leon and McCallister both looked at her. "Hi again. Are you okay—" Leon started.
"McCallister, stand somewhere else." Tifa half-snapped, half-stated.
"Yes, ma'am." The soldier immediately crossed halfway to the other side of the training field to observe the new recruits.
Now if only getting Yuffie to do that was that easy…
Leon lifted an eyebrow at her, but didn't say anything, waiting for her to go off.
Tifa paused a moment, not wanting to snap again. She wasn't THAT angry yet.
"I miss you." She said instead, hands on her hips. "Two weeks is a long time. So please tell me that you are going to be home tonight, because I'm about to go crazy here."
Leon leaned in and kissed her on the lips to shut her up.
Tifa returned it and then looked up at him. "THAT is just the kinda crap that makes me miss you, and you just—"
"I'll be home tonight right after patrols." He promised with a glint in his eye.
"Hey guys!" Yuffie had spotted them, trotting over. "Whatcha talkin' about?"
Exit Tifa. Immediately.
..:-X-:..
Tifa tilted her head back, and Leon traced her jawline with his lips, down her throat and across her collar. Her back was against the wall as she wrestled the black jacket off of him, tossing it to the floor of the hallway.
Patrol shift had ended at seven pm that evening, and Tifa had met Leon at the front door ten minutes later. She had planned to wear the red, lacy, why-bother-wearing-it lingerie that she had bought before the mission, but that was just adding another step between the front door and the bedroom. She had settled for just red, lacy, why-bother-wearing-it underwear instead. It seemed to have had the same effect, anyway.
The jacket done with, Tifa slid her hands under his t-shirt, running them up his chest and taking the shirt with them. Leon removed his hands from her body just long enough to lift over his head and let her pull the shirt the rest of the way off. Then Tifa covered his mouth with her own again, leaning away from the wall until his back was against the opposite wall of the hallway.
Now THIS had been the homecoming that she had had in mind.
His hands roamed across her back and her fingers twisted in his hair. He hooked his hands under her thighs and lifted her up. She hooked her legs around his waist and pressed her lips against his neck as he carried her: first into the living room, and then almost immediately turning around and taking her upstairs to their bedroom.
Tifa chuckled a little at the jarring motion: two weeks without sex still wasn't enough to get the man on that sectional couch of hers. He really hated that thing.
Instead, they both ended up on the bed upstairs: Tifa on her back and Leon on top of her, kissing deeply. His lips were on her chest and her hands had just found the buckle of his pants when the cell phone in his pocket started ringing. Leon groaned at the sound and Tifa tugged it out of his pocket to turn it off.
The caller ID read 'Yuffie cell'.
"You answer this call and you will sleep on that couch for a month." Tifa panted as he took the phone and read the ID for himself.
Leon smirked and turned the phone off, tossing it onto the bedside table. Tifa smiled and pulled him back to her, kissing him on the lips before finding that belt buckle again. She had gotten three of the four belts off—("Are all of these really necessary?")—when there was a knock on the front door downstairs. At first, they both ignored it, which was easy, considering that Leon had successfully unlatched the clasp on the front of her bra, but the knocking persisted.
"Leon! I know you're home!" Yuffie's voice drifted through the door. "Don't be a jerk!"
"Noooo." Leon moaned, dropping his face against Tifa's stomach.
Tifa played with his hair, "What does she want now!" She hissed.
"My patrol partner bailed on me. You know the Alliance requires the buddy system for night patrols now!" Yuffie seemed to bellow out the answer to the hissed question.
Leon begrudgingly sat up off of Tifa, who sat up and pointed at him.
"No." She snapped.
"She's just going to keep knocking." Leon walked for the door. "I'll tell her to leave."
Moonlight poured in through the window, and Tifa climbed out of bed, snatching up one of Leon's t-shirts and pulling it over her head as she did so. The light lit the bedroom just enough to catch on Leon's bare back as he stepped out: the muscles of his shoulders and the narrow vertical groove of his spine. Hell no was Yuffie going to get to enjoy that view right now. Tifa stalked out into the hall and overtook him to the stairs.
"Let me." Her voice dripped poison, and Leon paused, letting her pass.
There was a lull in the knocking when Tifa hit that bottom step. She crossed to the door like a tiger on the prowl, flicked on the hallway light, and had to restrain herself from tearing the door off the hinges and instead ripping it open so hard that it slapped against the wall.
"What?" Tifa barked at the ninja.
Yuffie's eyes widened at the sight of Tifa answering the door, and she took an instinctive step back, averting her eyes from Tifa's almost-nakedness. "Is Leon home?"
"He's a little busy." Tifa barked. "As you can see." She gestured to the t-shirt.
"I was just wondering—"
"Oh I heard you. The whole fracking block heard you." Tifa snapped. "If you knew he was home and not answering the door, did you consider that it was eight o'clock at night and he might have better things to do that go on patrol…again?"
"Like what?" Yuffie folded her arms, looking sassy.
"Like making love to his wife after two weeks apart!" Tifa snarled, and vaguely heard Leon exhale an 'oh lord' from the stairs behind her. "I've had it about to here with this. We're going to lay some ground rules, here, okay? Grown, single women do not drag married men away from their wives' beds at night to hunt Heartless. And don't give me that 'buddy system' crap…you're a damn fine aim with that shuriken. Sending you and Leon out on the same patrol is like sending two fire hoses to water a flower garden." She pointed out the door. "So find another partner. This one is taken tonight."
"Okay, sorry!" Yuffie bolted from the doorstep.
Closing the door, Tifa spun back around to Leon, who looked bewildered. She went back upstairs and moved past him toward the bedroom. "Now, no more interruptions, 'kay?"
Behind her, Leon snorted. "Yes, ma'am."
..:-X-:..
A/N: The full prompt submitted was: 'Tifa gets jealous of Yuffie always hanging around Squall. Consciously she knows it's foolish to be so but subconsciously she feels a need to show that Squall is hers and hers alone. Basically possessive Tifa, scared Yuffie, and surprised Squall.' I just shortened it for the top line so it wouldn't be so long XD
The sectional couch joke originated in my earlier Lefa stories; where Tifa owned an ugly, salmon-colored couch that she loved but Leon absolutely hated. He actually ended up destroying it with his bare hands, but not before she ordered a new sectional couch with the same upholstery. And so the legend continues…