Hello! Sorry this chapter took so darn long—China was amazing but I was so busy that I barely had time to sleep. We are now on to the third circle! Please fasten your seatbelts because this chapter is kind of heavy. Actually, the farther along in the circles we travel, the more emotional it gets. I hope you stay with me until the end of the ride! Please enjoy Chapter 5!
Note: I reposted Chapter 4 because ChaoticSymphony made the wonderful point that in a story such as this, there should be a more abundant amount of description of the surroundings. With such wonderful advice, I had to go back and revise a bit. Please check it out when you have the chance!
And now, to my lovely reviewers: (ChaoticSymphony:) Thank you so much for your wonderful suggestions! I don't have much experience writing these types of stories (in fact, this is the first time. I'm usually the person that does the sappy high school romance fics...) so your comments really help me! You seem really accomplished in the field of action/suspense so I'm really grateful for your suggestions! And ah! You picked up on the scar! Well, you'll see later how it plays out later. (Dawn Fire Angel:) Aw, thank you so much! That's exactly how I wanted this fic to be seen: dark yet pretty, so thank you! I'm not so worried about getting a lot of reviews on this fic because I've been getting some very nice, constructive reviews from authors like you so I'm satisfied! I know it's confusing but it does develop a general pattern after a while, so I hope it gets less confusing! Angst is awesome, so don't fight the urge. And I admit, all I listen to are sad songs as I write "Permanent" because it's a sad fic overall. I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Permanent
By UnfalteringDream
Chapter 5: The Third Circle
They were running for what seemed like an eternity. Tifa's legs were softening, but she kept moving, tightening her muscles each time they felt like giving out. Every now and then, she listened for the whisper of movement beneath the distant screams behind her that was Vincent. The cobble stones beneath their feet disappeared imperceptibly, melting into soft archaic dirt that molded to their footsteps and made it even harder to run.
Though it was expected, Tifa's heartbeat still skidded when the world fell away and all physical sensations save for the feel of liquid caressing her skin was snuffed out as quickly as a candle. She had been plunged into the water unceremoniously, gravitating towards the deep. This time, she was able to draw her arms and legs into herself, and wait. The still water cradled her, as warm and comforting as an old cotton blanket.
Then the waves came, throwing her back and forth and she straightened in alarm, legs kicking to the surface and arms reaching out blindly for the next manifestation. A clap of thunder broke her out of her lethargy.
The blinding light burned even behind closed eyelids and a sudden shout sounded next to her ear.
"You bitch!" The light faded as quickly as it came and Tifa barely had time to see a plump face stained blood-red with fury before the clutched fist came down. Her arm came up reflexively and caught the fist. The person was a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair escaping her bun, her clean gray dress wrinkled from physical exertion. Tifa's response came automatically, as fluid and proverbial as slipping into a pair of well-worn slippers, "You are causing a disturbance in my bar. Please leave."
And she calmly shut the door in the woman's fuming face. Tifa's body moved of its own accord, all traces of cuts, bruises, dirt, vomit and even the wound on her breast gone as if they've never existed. She slipped into her comfortable routine, smiling at the rowdy group of construction workers that came every Tuesday, making a mental note to start the dish washer again after one cycle because she had put extra bleach, putting an extra shot of Bourbon into a customer's Haggis upon request. And all the while, running through her mental book of recipes as her hand weaved through the endless bottles of liquor, throwing in a dash of this, a teaspoon of that, and always, extra shots of alcohol for this part of the night was populated by the heaviest drinkers in town.
A.S.S. On Flames: 1 oz. Amaretto, 1 splash Rum, 1 oz. sour apple pucker…
"Thanks to Tifa, my nosy wife is out of my hair for the night!" A regular raised his glass after Tifa had shut the door on his wife, who had no doubt come to Seventh Heaven in search of her husband. The auburn liquid sloshed onto his shirt as his arm shook; his eyes red and bleary. His friends hollered in agreement, chanting Tifa's name as a heroine. "Tifa! Tifa! Defender of good times! Chaser of nagging wives!" The barmaid's answering smile didn't reach her eyes.
Gables Collins: 1 oz. Crème de Noyaux, 1 ½ oz. Vodka…
A rugged man with a scar marring his otherwise handsome face gave her a wink as his hand shot out to stroke her behind. Balancing a tray in one hand, her other twisted around to pin his wrist to the table, a huge smile slapped upon her face. The man was slow to react to the pain, numbed by alcohol and the fumes of smoke clouding the atmosphere. "Sorry Jack," his buddies roared with laughter as he nursed his wrist, Tifa having left their table to tend to another. "You can only see, not touch. "
Their neighboring table overheard and one turned to slap Jack's shoulder as a confidant. "Aw, the guy's so drunk he can barely see straight. Can't blame him for forgetting his manners."
Macbeth: 2 tsp. Amaretto, 2 tsp. Curacao, blue…
A small bachelor party was going on in a small, noisy corner. Their laughter expanded with each refill of their glasses, their eyes leering lecherously at the pretty barmaid. Their mouths spewed beer and perverted jokes, caroling degrading makeshift songs each time Tifa came near and though she warned that she would kick them out if they continued to do so, inwardly she knew she would just have to bear it. Most of the group was some of her best customers. She owed a huge chunk of her income to their loyalty. So she bit her tongue and grinned when they called her over for the fourteenth time.
U-Boat: 1 part Rum, spiced, 1 part Jägermeister…
Soon after the bar closed and the haze of smoke, laughter and fatigue was still filtering out, Tifa's mind registered that Cloud had come home. This time, she knew that he was with her, but not really. Still, her heart ached as she approached him, her arms coming around him, the move as involuntary as her breathing. But to her surprise, he touched her arms gently and brought them down to her sides, his bright blue eyes looking deep into hers. We need to talk, that intense stare said and she nodded with a frown, though her cheeks were hurting from having to smile for so long.
It wasn't the first fight they had, but it was one of the worst. In the back of her mind, Tifa was grateful that Marlene and Denzel were with Barrett for the weekend at the Gold Saucer, otherwise they would be frightened to find their guardians at each other's throats, fists clenching and eyes flashing. Why was Cloud so unhappy? She wondered if something had happened during his deliveries that day and he needed to blow off some steam, but he shouted that there was nothing wrong with his business, but there were many things wrong with hers. She got defensive, reminding him that the bar accounted for more than 75% of their income and though yes, she wasn't happy with the customers and the overall atmosphere that Seventh Heaven had turned into (economic depressions usually corresponded with more lost souls seeking comfort in alcohol), but the bills were piling up as is and they couldn't afford to change course or else their profits ran the risk of plummeting.
He started shouting then, his voice husky because he normally didn't speak above a whisper. The men undressed his wife with their eyes, humiliated his wife with their lewd comments, attempted to grope his wife with their lecherous hands. How could he sit still and let this continue? He refused to allow them to go on this way, for she was his wife, damn it, and his alone.
His and his alone? Tifa was incredulous. He didn't own her and she was old enough to make her own decisions. She was the one with the sound judgment and she reminded him that she had been running a bar since she was fifteen. She knew how to handle herself and her customers. If he didn't have faith enough in her, then perhaps they should separate their respective incomes instead of pooling them together as they have been doing.
He tried to get it through to her that he wasn't concerned with their income but rather her dignity but Tifa wouldn't have it. In a bout of rage and utter desperation, Cloud overturned a table, howling in his agony. No matter how much he needed to express his anger physically (for he had been doing that his whole life, getting into fights even when he was a boy), he could never hurt her. She hadn't noticed it the first time, but he looked at her as if his heart that had already been bandaged too many times, had again been ripped open. She had been too angry herself to notice he was deeply hurt by her misinterpretation of his anger. He went back out, muttering about needing some time to himself, not needing to tell her for her to know that he was taking a ride on Fenrir to collect himself. Once the door slammed for the second time that night, Tifa stood very still for a very long time. The fight was even more painful when reliving it the second time.
But like the first time, she mourned that she didn't have an escape like Cloud did. Then her eyes settled on an unfinished drink (Pacific Blue, her mind offered automatically) sitting innocently on the counter, its fruity essence beckoning like a siren.
Pacific Blue: 1 oz. Rum, mango, 1 oz. Rum, pineapple…
She was startled awake by pounding. Someone was shouting her name from the door. She raised her head slowly from the counter as to not agitate her hangover, looking around at the numerous glasses cluttered around her. If she was still in the same position as she was last night, then that meant Cloud wasn't back yet.
She was greeted at the door by a couple of her regulars, their faces deadly solemn and some looked as if they've been crying. The one that addressed her she recognized as Paul, the man whose wife she had turned away last night. "Reina, Jim and Lily…" His wife, son and daughter.
"They're dead." She couldn't mask the horror on her face and didn't need to ask how because he fell to his knees, clutching her arms and whispered the last part as if confessing to a priest.
"I killed them."
Absinthe, or better known as The Green Fairy.
Made from the Wormwood herb, it was banned from several cities due to its extremely high alcohol content and the tendency for those who consume it to lose all their better judgment and do wild things that they normally wouldn't even dream of, acting totally on impulse. Ranking at 144 proof, it is usually to be drunk with water poured in an Absinthe spoon with a sugar cube on it to make it taste better and lessen the effects. Tifa had fought tooth and nail to get special permission to serve it at Seventh Heaven, because so many of her patrons demanded it.
Paul had had several shots of Absinthe last night. After he left the bar, he blanked out. He couldn't remember how he found his way home, or what happened after that. But when he woke up on his kitchen floor, he had felt a heavy object in his hand. It turned out to be a bloody knife. Horrified, he checked his body to make sure it wasn't his blood. When he found no cuts on his body, his relief didn't last long. For lying on the floor not too far from where he was, was his wife and two young children, eyes wide and glassy in death.
At the funeral, when Tifa went up to pay her respects, instead of seeing little Jimmy and Lily lying in their miniature coffins, Denzel and Marlene's serene faces rested amid the foray of yellow Chrysanthemums. Her hands shook as she approached the wife's casket, not believing that the plump, pale face belonged to the same woman that thrown sharp curses at her just the night before.
The police waited for Paul at the funeral and as soon as the service ended, closed the handcuffs around his wrists. Tifa led the remaining company of men back to Seventh Heaven with promises of free drinks. Though her tone was bright, her hung head and dragging footsteps spoke volumes of her inward struggle. Paul may have been the murderer, but she had been the one to provide him the drinks that made him bring the knife down without a second thought. Still, she continued serving the drinks as if nobody had died, nobody had gone to jail for murder and a cheery household hadn't shattered overnight. As the other men nursed their alcohol silently, she reached for the nearest drink and downed it in one gulp.
Ragged Company: 1 tsp. Benedictine, 2 oz. Bourbon, ½ ounce Vermouth, sweet…
"Tifa Lockhart, welcome to the Third Circle."
"Paul… please forgive me," she stuttered. She blinked, and Paul was standing before her with the visage of a man who rotted away in a jail cell for the last few decades of his life. Another blink, and the other men at the tables had disappeared.
"Forgive…? Does a bitch like you deserve forgiveness?" he roared, grabbing the edge of a table and flipping it over. Before it hit the floor, Tifa blinked and it vanished. "This is truly hell," he gritted his teeth together as his shoulders shook. "Where a man can't even get physical satisfaction from overturning a table."
Instinct told Tifa to sneak away when there was no reason to fight, but then she remembered that she wasn't really in Seventh Heaven, that the squeaky floorboards weren't really beneath her feet, that Cloud wasn't really arriving home right now. He didn't seem to notice Paul's presence as he closed the door gently behind him, starting towards her with his blue eyes soft and loving, his mouth moving slowly. "Tifa. I'm sorry…"
Her eyes watered as she held them open for as long as possible to have Cloud reach her across the bar floor, Paul silent in the background, Cloud's strong arms coming around her waist to pull her close, Cloud's hands slipping under her shirt to feel her bare back, Cloud's eyes so beautifully clear as he searched hers for any trace of forgiveness, Cloud's breath blowing hot and sweet against her lips as he muttered apologies, and she closed her eyes waiting for his kiss.
And then he was gone. She grasped at air, her lips still tingling with anticipation. The air was stale where once his musky, clean shirt smell filled her nose and her hands clutched fistfuls of his sweater. Her tongue watered from the memory of tasting him. The heat that gathered in her stomach ached to relive that memory.
"It's only fair that you lost him because I lost Reina. Except he killed himself. It seems that because you can't hold onto your own man, you steal others'…" Paul was merciless as a demon.
"That's not true," Tifa shook her head slowly, willing down the sobs. That was the most convincing illusion of Cloud thus far.
"Do you know whom this circle is for?" his smirk was mocking. "Gluttons. And you, my dear, are our provider, our Queen and this bar our haven, your kingdom."
"You were the one that killed her," Tifa's voice shook from the wrenching guilt in her chest. Even she didn't believe her own feeble defense. "I didn't do anything."
"With all that you've done, you might as well have handed me the knife!" He lunged at her, his clothes melting from a hideously large body, fat rolling in thick waves as he moved. She ducked out of the way but nearly stumbled, grabbing her head as a sharp pain lanced through her adrenaline rush. The effects of the hangover were tightening their grip, slowing her legs and loosening her fists. But Paul was relentless in his attacks, not sparing her any time to recover from the spells of nausea that left her slightly dazed and befuddled.
And each time she blinked, Paul became more and more demonic. Bubbles billowed underneath the fat, bursting on the surface as vile mucus. His face swelled from a strong chin and kind hazel eyes to a large ball of lard with little beady eyes sunken into his head. His large feet pounded as he rushed after her, his skin crying clumps of indiscernible slime. And the smell.
It was overwhelming, the essence being a mix of rotten meat and putrid bodily excretions rolling off him with every move he made. Tifa felt herself growing faint because she had to hold her breath every time he drew too close. When trying to execute a clumsy punch, he managed to stop her by grabbing her arm. With a powerful shove, she was sent flying into a shelf of hundreds of bottles of alcohol.
The glass cascaded in countless waves, bursting like raindrops on the floor, each bottle propelling hundreds of trenchant shards in all directions, gushing upsurges of colorful liquid. It sounded like the ceiling and sky alike were coming down, the noise ringing in Tifa's ear long after the last bottle shattered, spewing its precious innards into the sea of liquor.
The heavy stench of alcohol was tremendously sweet, making her teeth ache. She was bleeding out from hundreds of orifices, red flowing into the murky brown. Half-crazed with pain, her faltering consciousness thought of her daughter. Mom, this spoon has holes in it! That's because it's a strainer, Marlene. See? It can't hold any liquid.
"You took everything from me," the monstrous body sweated vomit as it waded across the flooded room towards her bloody form. "My family, my dignity, even my life. I rotted away in a dirty prison cell because of you!"
His meaty hand closed around her neck, forcing her underneath the water, the shards of glass being pushed even deeper into her skin. She opened her mouth to cough out blood but only swallowed mouthfuls of the foul water. Darkness was creeping in from the edge of her vision. "Don't struggle, Lockhart," his voice was faint against the muffled sloshing of liquid as she struggled fruitlessly. "You belong here, in Seventh Heaven. Drown with the rest of us."
Her lungs gave way and the darkness swallowed her.
"You smell like beer," he said as they lay in the afterglow, naked and tangled up in each other's limbs. "Mm," Tifa hummed from the safe haven that was his neck. "Tifa, have you been drinking again?" he was so insistent and she was so tired, so she didn't answer him, hoping he would give up and go to sleep.
"Tifa." He moved away from her, looking at her sternly even as she pouted. "I saw the bottles. You can't drink so much, it's not healthy."
"It's just every now and then," she said and he still wasn't convinced. "But you're drinking too frequently. I'm worried that this will do damage to your body."
"Strife, I run a bar. I can hold my liquor." She was saying too many words and the lingering headache from the morning pressed on her still tender head.
"And I'm not saying you can't. But every time we fight, you drink yourself into a stupor."
He wasn't used to getting such a cold glare from his wife. "Then maybe you shouldn't pick fights with me so much if you're worried about the repercussions."She turned away as if to leave and he moved quickly, pressing against her back, holding her tenderly in his arms.
"I'm sorry," he breathed into her hair. "It's just that, money is getting tight and my regulars aren't giving me enough assignments. I'm sorry for taking my frustrations out on you and I hate making you angry. I love you too much."
She couldn't say anything because she felt terrible for making her husband worry about her. She was fast becoming addicted to the intoxicating liquid that she had always prided herself on selling yet not drinking a drop. It started like a bad habit. They fought like any other couple but every time they did, Cloud would ride Fenrir, escaping for a bit when he was starting to lose control. But what did she have that could comfort her when he needed his time to recover? However, the consequences of her seeking relief were disastrous. She would become short tempered because of her hangovers and would blow up on him, causing him to go out and then she would drink some more, propelling the whole terrible cycle along. Sometimes she was the one who started the fights just to have an excuse to indulge in the alcohol without remorse.
She stayed wide awake long after his breathing steadied against her shoulder, her mouth dry in her yearning. He could no longer satisfy all her cravings.