Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are Duke and Jake Alms. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
131 – Hay Un Amigo En Mi
For crystal . flower .11
"Si, Maria es tu hija…pero…yo no soy su madre. No soy Ellen! Soy la hermana gemela de Ellen!" The woman on the television declared, turning her back on the shocked looking man with the thin black mustache.
"Ellen…esta muerta?" He stammered, fisting his hands in his hair.
"Si!" The woman jerked her head to the side, eyes shut dramatically.
"Quien eres?" He demanded, looking angry now. "Si no eres Ellen…como se llama?"
"Me llamo—" The deep piano music set a suspenseful tone.
"What are you watching?" Tifa figured Leon had held that question back as long as he could before curiosity got the better of him.
"Eso es impossible!" The man on the screen bellowed.
Tifa sat half turned to the television, half turned to Leon, while sitting on the couch in the break room of the Allied building. "I can honestly say I have no idea, but I think—I think—That Jorge just found out that the cake is a lie."
"He doesn't look too happy." Leon said, tinkering around with something out of Tifa's line of sight. "Maybe that woman's cheating on him."
"Or she lost his lucky pair of pants." Tifa snickered, muting the set and adding her own dialogue as the woman's lips began to move. "How was I supposed to know they were dry clean only?" Then she dropped her voice lower as the man began to speak. "What will I do?"
Leon snorted and finished whatever he was doing, walking over and dropping into the patched up wingback beside the couch where she was sitting, looking worn out from the last patrol. On the screen, a teenage girl walked into the scene in tears.
"Oh here we go." Tifa sat forward, elbows on her knees and saying in a high pitched voice. "I heard everything! You destroyed my father's pants and now you must die!"
Jorge abruptly walked across the parlor and poured a glass of some kind of alcohol. Leon sat back in the chair, propping his legs up on the coffee table and looking ready to fall asleep. Jorge faced the woman and the teenager, lifting his glass vehemently, and before Tifa could prepare her own dialogue, Leon cut in.
"But first a drink." He said, as Jorge gestured to the teenager, who opened her mouth.
"How can you think of drinking at a time like this?" Tifa filled in. "This woman is a traitor and a thief!"
Leon lifted an eyebrow, looking at her. "A thief?"
Tifa shrugged as the older woman started to gesture wildly. "What I steal, I steal only because I love you! And there were diamonds in those pants!"
Jorge took a long drink and Leon filled in his muted dialogue with: "How could you—"
The dialogue was interrupted as one of the windows in the soap opera's parlor exploded and a man with a gun leapt through.
"Oh! Twist!" Tifa chuckled as there was an extreme close up of the shooter's wide eyed, overly dramatic, angry face. "I bet that's the jealous lover."
It cut to commercial and she snickered, "I really have no idea what's going on."
"I figured." Leon covered his mouth against a yawn.
Tifa stood and stretched her arms over her head. Her shift on patrol started in five minutes, not enough time to find out if the crazy gunman unleashed his wrath on the three people in the Mexican house. She surrendered the remote, though it didn't look like Leon would stay conscious long enough to need it.
"Go home." She said.
"M'fine." He grumbled.
Tifa went to stock up on ether and potions before heading out. "Well, let me know how the drama unfolds. I'm actually kinda curious as to who the gunman shoots." She tugged her gloves on and turned back around. "Maybe the teenager has—"
Leon was out cold in the chair, limbs akimbo, head askew on one shoulder. Tifa put her hands on her hips, shook her head, and took the remote back, turning off the television.
"Stubborn as a mule." She muttered.
She turned off the lights as she left the break room, closing the door after her.
..:-X-:..
132 – Eat Your Heart Out
For ilovefetamorethanyou
Jake Alms sat at the middle of the table, chair turned backwards, arms looped over the back of it, watching with rapture as Tifa chewed and forcefully swallowed the latest round.
"There." She wheezed, face red and eyes leaking.
"Ah." Jake pointed, "Check."
Tifa glared incredulously at Leon, who was sitting at the other end of the table, looking as miserable as she felt. Drawing a slow breath, she opened her mouth and Jake looked to make sure she'd swallowed the whole thing.
"That's fifteen for Tifa…Fourteen for you." Jake gave Leon a shit-eating grin.
Leon picked up another of the angry red chili peppers, elbows braced on the table, glaring at Tifa. "This is your fault." He grumbled.
"And I'm winning." Tifa replied, mouth on fire.
Both she and Jake watched Leon eat the whole pepper, probably trying to bite his own tongue off in the process, and swallow it. Jake made sure it was all gone, and sat back, exhaling loudly and popping his knuckles.
"Fifteen and fifteen. I underestimated you two." He snickered. "Either of you thinking of calling it quits?"
"Never."
"Another round."
Jake looked amused and set out two more peppers.
"I ran a bar for three years." Tifa sat forward, talking around a numb mouth. "I outdrank vodka with biker gangs." She said.
Leon wiped some of the perspiration from his forehead, since it felt like he'd swallowed fire. "I had my face sliced open by Heartless and had Yuffie for a training partner before you. I know pain."
Tifa glared and snatched up the sixteenth pepper. "I dealt with Cloud. Bring it." She bit into the pepper, chewing fast and swallowing hard.
This wasn't going to end well, they both knew it. Iron will and all, but neither of them wanted to lose. Jake knew too, but he was so entertained by it all that he could only laugh.
"Sixteen to fifteen." Jake drummed on the table. "You gonna let that slide?"
"Shut up, Alms." Leon picked up his sixteenth pepper and tried to down it quickly to get it over with. He nearly choked and it burned all the way down.
"There's a whole gallon of vanilla ice cream in the freezer." Jake taunted. "All one of you has to do is say uncle and that cold, frozen relief is all yours."
"Jake, if you don't shut up, I'm—" Tifa suddenly blanched, grabbing the nearest trash can and barely lowering her face in time before violently throwing up.
The sound of it nearly made Leon lose it, and he was in too much pain to gloat beyond a groaned, "I win." He stood and the world tipped. Steadying himself, he pointed to Jake. "Hold her hair. This is your fault."
"Mine?" Jake feigned innocence as he obeyed, tugging Tifa's hair back so it didn't get in the sick. "How do you figure—"
But his words were drowned out as Leon buckled over the other trash can in the room, the chili peppers making a fighting come back. Jake cringed at the sound of two people vomiting at the same time.
"I think I'm dying." Tifa groaned into the trash can.
"It burns even worse coming back up." Leon rebutted, bending over the other can.
Tifa grimaced at that and hurled again. "Never again."
"Draw?" Leon offered.
Tifa gagged, spit, and nodded. "Draw."
"Oh come on." Jake said, letting her hair go as she sat up and going to get the ice cream.
"SHUT UP, ALMS!"
He huffed and put away the remaining peppers, grumbling about being rude.
Tifa turned in her seat and panted, eyes watering down her cheeks as she opened the ice cream and picked up a spoon. "I could have won, just so you know."
Leon dragged himself back to the table and sank into Jake's chair, watching her take a bite of the ice cream and her eyes nearly roll back with relief. He took up the other spoon.
"Whatever." He dug into the ice cream as well. "Jerk."
"Bitch." She snickered as he sagged at the table after the first blissful bite of ice cream.
..:-X-:..
133 – The Sea Weed is Always Greener
For raiko. EXE
Contrary to popular belief, there was a considerable population of Land Dwellers on Atlantica. While the Heartless tended to focus on the underwater kingdom, the merpeople were getting savvy to maritime warfare, and the dark creatures had been getting more ambitious in their attacks on land lately.
So when Tifa woke up on the beach, she was only mostly surprised to still feel her legs. The adaptation/blending-in spell that Donald had secured around the world had…spared her. Spitting out sand, she rolled from her stomach to her back and looked down at herself. Okay…not completely spared…She was still wearing this frilly maroon dress and her hair was pinned in a painful updo.
Wiping sand from herself, she got to her feet, staggering slightly in the heeled shoes that she found herself in, and looked around the beach. The little village lay inland, just visible over the large rocks and slopes that dotted the shoreline.
"Leon?" She called out tentatively, looking toward the ocean.
If the spell had split them up, one to investigate land and one to investigate the sea, and she was still human—however oddly dressed—then that meant…
"What?" Leon's grumble could have come from anywhere. "Over here."
Tifa stepped toward where his voice was coming from and finally caught sight of him. Well, she caught sight of the top half of him, splayed across a rock like he'd landed there, and the top half of him was bare. And he was drenched.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" She tutted, drawing up to stand in front of him.
Leon pushed himself up on his elbows, looked at her, looked at the big frilly dress she'd been forced into, and then looked at her legs. His face fell. "Oh come on."
"Yes?" Tifa said in a non-presumptuous tone.
"Why are you—" He gestured to her figure.
"In a dress?" Tifa prolonged, knowing what he really meant. "It is a little bulky."
"No…you didn't change." He said sourly.
"Oh…did you?" She egged with a mischievous grin.
He glared, "I hate this place."
She leaned sideways to get a good look at the rest of him and get it over with. She had to bite her lip hard enough to bleed to stop the smile. "You…uh…you have a fin."
"I know." He growled, shrinking back on the rock.
"You're…you're a mer-man." Her shoulders drew in to stifle the laughter.
"I KNOW." He growled again, "Shut up. Why didn't you change?"
"I guess the spell wanted us to divide and conquer." She choked on a giggle.
"That's stupid." He looked up at her, "Switch with me."
"What? No." Tifa did laugh this time. "Who am I to question the spell? Besides," She patted him on the head condescendingly. "I don't think I could pull off the seashells look nearly as well as you."
"Bite me." He swatted her away, looking bitterly at the blue fin where legs had been just ten minutes earlier. "You look stupid too, you know."
"I'm aware…but at least I won't have to fight the Heartless through the art of song!" Tifa clasped her hands against the side of her face.
Leon splashed water at her. "We should have sent Sora, Donald, and Goofy again." He fumbled for the Gummi control box. "I'm not doing this."
Tifa snatched up the box, "Oh yes you are. We're already here. We might as well—"
"I'm a fish, Tifa." He said indignantly. "I can't fight Heartless like this."
"Sora did." She countered. "And he didn't have your six pack." She winked.
He wasn't taking the bait…Haha, fish, bait… "You still look stupid."
At least he wasn't outright fighting her now. "Really? I kinda like the bonnet."
"No. You look like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."
Tifa turned to traipse toward the town, "We'll rendezvous in five hours back here."
"And the dress makes your butt look huge." He called after her.
"Whatever, dude, you have a fin." She waved, sauntering up the beach as a string of curses followed her.
..:-X-:..
A/N 131: I don't watch a lot of soap operas, and I've never seen a real Spanish soap opera, so I hope this was at least in the ballpark, haha. The title is from the Spanish version of Toy Story's "You've Got a Friend in Me", because the first thing that popped into my head when I received this prompt was Spanish Buzz.
A/N 133: Title from the lyrics of The Little Mermaid's song "Under the Sea". I apologize if this one was poorly written. I despise Atlantica in Kingdom Hearts II. I try to avoid it whenever I play, but testing the waters in this prompt was entertaining, I admit. Also, I know the first thought would be Tifa as a mer-person, but I instead went with the unusual and nonsensical…Because torturing poor Leon is fun. Tifa will get hers though, fear not. (wink)