. . . Penning . . .
'I hope that things are going well for you.'
Tifa tapped the pen on the table. This was the fifth or sixth draft of the letter, and she still didn't feel right about it. She was just writing to see how Yuffie and Cloud were doing now that they lived in Costa del Sol, far from her eyes.
She wanted to feel connected to them. She missed them.
Her eyes darted over to him, where he sat reading, on the couch. He was always reading, various books she'd probably never understand the full meaning of. Though she preferred to be in contact with him, she was nearly giddy with it lately, there was something undeniably attractive about him sitting alone like that. Slouched, his long dark bangs falling in his eyes, which he would periodically tuck behind his ear.
Gods he was so many reasons for so many things.
"Vincent," she whispered over, knowing that he would hear her. He looked up, refocusing his eyes from ink to her pale face. He raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?" He closed the book with a light sound, indicating he kept the page marked with his finger. She bit her lip.
"I've been trying to write this for hours," she groaned, "I just can't find the words. What should I say? What should I ask about?" He smirked, an indication she'd discovered was leftover residue of the childhood know-it-all he must have been.
"You know I cannot answer that." She frowned at him, hoping that it would break some of his stubborn resolve. She knew it wouldn't, but it never hurt to try.
"A hint?" she queried, scrunching her nose in the process. The side of his mouth quirked and she was glad that the children were out visiting Cid for the day. The older ones were getting a crash course in mechanics while the younger ones were learning a thing or two about gardening. She had wanted to come with them, originally, but Shera had argued.
'You two need some breathing time.' She said with a wink.
Was she really getting so domestic as to not catch the double entendre in that before?
But she was trying to do something nice and unexpected. At least that was what she had intended on doing when she sat down at the table an hour ago. Cloud and Yuffie had appeared on her doorstep nearly three months ago, after a fairly long absence. She hadn't had much time to talk with them then either. She wanted to know about them. Something.
Yet, they were probably fine. If they needed anything, Yuffie would surely call. Why was she so worried about them anyway?
Maybe that was what that wayward eyebrow of Vincent's was telling her.
She crumpled the paper and tossed it behind her.
"Giving up so easily?" he said, nose already back in the book. He thought he was so smooth, sitting there, looking all handsome and bookish. She almost laughed at the combination. She never went for the bookish guys before; she had preferred the brawny ones to the brainy ones. But everything about Vincent was contrary to what she had expected.
And she knew from surprise snippets of history from him that she was the exception too. Probably the only reason it might work.
She considered the pen in her fingers. She still had that itch to write something. Her poetic and literary skills were next to nothing, and she couldn't draw either. Yet she wanted to do something with the pen.
That's when it struck her.
Tiptoeing her way to the couch, she crouched down just behind it. Feeling her muscles coiling up, she leapt over the back, landing with a thud next to him. He looked up from the book and blinked.
She knew that wouldn't surprise him. He was used to her catlike antics by now.
Grinning innocently, she reached out and grabbed his arm. He raised an eyebrow in compliance, a little bit of uncertainty tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was quite a bit of fun to test out his levels of familiarity. Not much surprised him anymore.
Then she pulled out the pen.
His eyebrows furrowed, and like he thought her a bit ridiculous. But Tifa hadn't even begun the ridiculousness. Not by a long shot.
Putting the pen between her teeth, she pushed the sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow and proceeded to scribble something on his arm. He twitched. When she was done she gingerly gave him back his arm and grinned. Keeping his composure, he angled the arm so he could read what she had written.
"Vincent Valentine is a stuffy old bookworm?" he read, smirking and arching his eyebrow. She'd even dotted the i's with little hearts for effect. Amusement. This was working delightfully well.
But he was far more ornery today than she thought.
Using his inhuman reflexes he snatched the pen from her, and using his replacement hand, had her left arm in a vice grip. Using his sketchy writing, he left a message for her as well.
"Tifa Lockhart is a fidgety little school marm?" she read, with a falsely haughty exhale as she said the question. Then she frowned at him.
School marm?
He had a smug expression on his face, like he knew the thought processes going through her head. For all she knew about the alterations done to him, he could be clairvoyant. But she really hoped not.
While he was basking in his self satisfied glow, she managed to regain control of the pen. Before he had a chance to snatch it back, she pinned him against the arm of the couch, kneeling on his chest. Hovering over him she grinned.
And wrote something on his forehead.
He looked up at her hand as she wrote, as if trying to read the odd expression she was sure to write there. But when she finished, his smirk returned.
She had forgotten one fundamental fact about him. He only looked weak sometimes.
And thus she found herself on her back, wrists clasped in his strong mechanical left hand over her head, with the tickly ballpoint pen scrawling across her own forehead.
"What does it say?" she asked when he finished. He half grinned.
"Not telling," he replied, and then smirked, "Unless you tell me what mine says." She let out a taunting laugh.
"Never!" she answered, still laughing like a super villain. He raised an eyebrow. She was beginning to wonder if that eyebrow was perpetually stuck like that when she was around. Or if it was tiring to keep raising it.
"Very well," he replied, and began scribbling on her right cheek. But she decided to try a different technique to retrieve the power of the pen.
She kissed him. Sure enough, his grip slackened enough for her to loosen a wrist from his hold and grab the pen. Men were so predictable.
She sloppily drew something on his left cheek, all without breaking the contact. When he pulled away, he frowned at her.
"Not fair." She smiled angelically at him. He took the opportunity to use the same dirty trick against her. So... she was weak.
And he was making her giddy again.
After a while, they discovered that there were not enough exposed surfaces on each other to continue scribbling, so clothing was discarded. It was an excuse, she knew, but there were absolutely no children around... and wouldn't be until tomorrow...
For he was making her giddy again, with all the contact and such.
She ended up playing tic-tac-toe on his stomach, connecting some of the scars that criss-crossed their way across it. She found out that he couldn't draw a flower to save his life, judging by the bulbous splat that ended up on her right knee. Also, he wouldn't look too bad with a tattoo on his back, something odd and tribal and far better drawn than she could come up with. And he felt the odd need to make squiggles on her collarbone. Not to mention certain anatomies being named... he had a very odd sense of humor.
Hilda and Gretchen? Did he have a mountainfolk fetish?
In time the pen was long forgotten and they simply laid around, tired out from the adult mayhem that was the natural result of the copious amounts of contact they subjected each other to. They were human, after all. And she'd be damned if she was going to let a free afternoon go to waste.
When Shera and Cid came by the next day, ending their solitude, almost all the markings had been washed off. But for some odd reason, probably dealing with the chemistry of a person's forehead, the lingering residue of the pen marks faintly remained. Vincent could cover his easily with his bangs, but the way her hair was parted didn't conceal her branding.
"Tiff, why the hell d'ya have 'Property of Vincent Valentine' stamped on yer forehead?"
Cid, of course, would notice and be so bold as to point it out. Shera hid her amusement with her hand over her mouth.
She simply replied by pushing back his own bangs, revealing her own handiwork: "Property of Tifa Lockhart, heart dotted i's and all.
Tifa had heard once that great minds thought alike. She wondered if nutcases did too.
AN: I wrote this a while ago, but was afraid it was too fluffly to post it. It's still too fluffly in my mind, but I'm feeling oddly romantic right now. Blame Drakonlily, she told me to post it.