Title: Red Rover, Red Rover

Author: Digimon Empress Yaten (de yaten)

Notes: Unbetaed. Experimenting with first-person POV here. Reviewing is always nice and makes me smile.

Pairings/Warnings: Dark Loz/Tifa. Noncon implications, nothing graphic. There is the nibbling of earlobes! (Why does Loz always do that…)

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 7, its characters, nor do I claim to own them.

I know I shouldn't be doing this, long before I creep out of our lodge and speed off into the forest.

I had to go without my bike, because the engine would wake my brothers, and Kadaj is extremely cranky when his sleep is interrupted. He must really like his dreams, I guess. I don't dream too much, so I don't really get it—maybe I do. Now. Tonight I woke up to the image of her fighting with me. It was so... amazing. It was more like a dance, and she supplied the music. I could hear her screams and grunts and yells so loud... I had to find her again. Kadaj would never approve, and Yazoo is a little jealous, I think. He looked at me funny when I told him about the fight. (It might've been because that little girl was crying again, though. She kept saying the woman's name... Tifa.)

Tifa.

Ti-fa.

I practice saying it, letting it roll off my tongue. I want to call her by name when I see her again. She'll know I really like her, then. ("If he calls you by name, it means he's interested in hearing what you have to say!" It's true! I read it in a book Kadaj lifted from town. The pages were really flimsy, and it looked more like a parade of those weird fashions the people in town wore, but it had some great tips about women. And tips about hair, too –Yazoo tried one of the recipes it gave for hair soap, and it feels even silkier.

Anyway.

Ah, there it is.

She set up a makeshift camp near the edge of the forest. She was waiting for her friends, and maybe Big Brother too. But for now she was all alone. All mine.

I grin—and stop myself, because that girl –Marlin? Marlone? Marlene? Marlene!—told me that grinning was scary, and smiles were better.

I smile.

Ti-fa.

Ti-fa.

Ti-fa.

Her name pounds into my head in a nice, steady beat. Like a drum. Or the engine on my bike, after I've tuned it.

I hear my breath growing louder and I have to stop and calm myself. I don't want her to wake up. Not right away, at least.

The door to the makeshift shelter is easily lifted. I'm surprised the fabric is still standing after the high winds today.

It's dark inside but I can make out her sleeping form on the ground. She's curled a little bit on her side, with that chocolate brown hair spilling over her shoulders. It's a bit messy, though. Tangled. She probably rolls a lot in her sleep.

She's so pretty.

"Ti-fa."

Oops.

I only have a few seconds, but I manage to pin her to the ground. She's tired, and weak. I see a few bruises remaining from our last fight, under the long white shirt so wore for sleep clothes. She's not wearing any pants, but—

Damn!

She almost managed to get free that time. Maybe she's not as weak as I thought. I grip her wrists a little tighter, let myself smile. That oughtta calm her down, right?

"What the hell do you want!"

Her teeth are bared and she's still struggling.

Maybe I should be a little nicer?

I lean down to nuzzle her neck and she freezes under me.

"What--"

Shhh, shhhh.

Atta girl.

I nibble a little on her earlobe—I like to do that to people, when I love them. I don't know why. Yazoo said, once, that it was because humans are more careless when bathing their ears, and I like to taste mankind as they are, salty, gritty, and a bit unclean. But I don't know. I think it's just because they make the most adorable squeals when I nip that spot. She's no different, and I smile at her afterwards. Does she have any idea how cute that sounded?

I kiss her. A quick peck, first, because she makes another one of those growls and I think she might try to bite me. Sometimes blood tastes nice, but not when it's coming from me. (Mine tastes like air, and their blood tastes a bit like metal. I asked, once, and Yazoo said it was "just another thing that made us better than them." He always says them like it's a bad thing. I think he's just jealous that I don't play with only him all the time. And he never makes those adorable squeals when I touch his ears.)

Ah, damn!

One of her hands got loose and she swipes at me, like a cat. I didn't notice how long her nails were last time and –oh, right. She was wearing gloves. (Damn, if she wasn't so angry, I could mention the gloves and she would be happy that I remembered a detail from a past date! "If he mentions something you wore when talking about a previous date or experience, it means he wants to show you that he notices the little things about you." Ahhh, well. Maybe later.

I backhand her. Hard. She's stunned, and her eyes lose focus long enough for me to whip off my belt and wrap it around her arms. This time I sit on her stomach, to make sure she doesn't kick. I can feel her shirt riding up, bunching up to where I'm sitting. Her face looks sad, no... angry? No. Disgusted. Her face looks disgusted for a minute and she squirms under me. I don't know why... oh. Well, I can't help it! I've been excited for a while now, and it's not like I planned on sitting on her.

She keeps struggling. Hmm… maybe…?

I pull her shirt back down, covering the (I had to turn and look!) white panties and bare thighs. She finally stops twisting under me. She's looking at me and, damn, she's so pretty. Chocolate eyes and chocolate hair and a mean right hook.

"What do you want?" She speaks, and I find it hard not to kiss her again.

"I wanna play..."

I grin—no wait, smile. Marlene said to smile—and, ah screw it, I lean down and kiss her again.

She doesn't bite.

But she doesn't kiss back, either.

I frown against her lips.

"Why are you so mean to me?"

She looks surprised. She speaks, softly.

"Well, the last time we played I ended up unconscious and you kidnapped someone very precious to me."

"I just wanna play... I wanna play a nice game this time," and I make sure to brush her breasts through her shirt very softly—gently, I remind myself, because Yazoo says sometimes I'm mean and I don't know it.

"I don't want to play a mean game... we played that one a few days ago, remember?"

"How could I forget?"

I ignore her tone—it's a bad one, Kadaj uses it sometimes –and rest against her cheek.

"I don't want to play with you," she says, but I ignore her. She talks a lot when we're not playing...

"I play this game a lot," I tell her, feeling her skin beneath my lips. "You can pretend I'm someone else, if you want. Rinn did that, and she liked playing the nice game after a while."

She doesn't ask who Rinn is and it's good, because I don't want to tell her. Rinn is dead, anyway. I don't know why Yazoo says I can be mean, because he likes killing the people I play with once we're done.

She's fighting against me again, but this time her arms are together and she can't go anywhere.

"I don't want to... this isn't a game!"

She must not play with other people much. I turn a bit and lift up her shirt, and she insists on squirming again.

"In this game, we take turns making each other feel good…" I pause and—gentle, Loz, I think—run my hands over her panties. "Don't you want to make me feel good?"

"No!"

I can hear tears in her voice. Doesn't she want to play? She played with me before... I start to slip her underwear down and—

Well, shit.

The dark room is suddenly full of light and before I can think I'm back in the forest, speeding and pushing Hasten Materia into my arm. I can't get caught now. I can't slip up this late in the game, when we're so close to finding Mother.

(Will Tifa be able to join us in the Reunion? I'd better ask Kadaj permission first.)