Title: Expectations: Tifa
Prompt: It took long enough for Tifa to speak to me about this. Here's her side.
Posted: 9-Apr-2009
Disclaimer: I have a job that doesn't include working for Square Enix, and this isn't helping me quit.
Pairings: Cloud/Tifa
Rating: PG
Summary: They're trying to do better, why isn't it enough?
Warnings: Angst, some language, and blunt talk about sex.

Tifa

She hadn't expected it to be like this.

The crises were over. The planet was safe. Hojo and Sephiroth, the Clones and Deepground were all destroyed. ShinRa was just a thin echo of what it had once been. They were safe and at peace, so why weren't they happy?

She couldn't get Cloud to talk to her. Oh, he'd listen—he always listened, and he always wore the same expression of solemn interest whether he was talking to the kids or to Reeve or to her. He never looked happy. He never really smiled. Mind you, to be fair, he'd never been a joyful kid—being different in a small town had seen to that, but he had known how to be happy. She could remember him sitting on the water tower, kicking his feet and gazing at the stars. He'd been light-hearted and dreamy, and she'd wanted to kiss him but had been too shy.

She hoped that, after defeating Kadaj and his brothers, after Cloud had returned from the Lifestream cleansed of the geo-stigma, she hoped…. Well, she'd hoped that Cloud would be able to relax more, especially around her. They'd been living together as friends since he'd defeated Sephiroth the first time but when he'd come back they'd begun living together. He'd moved out of his office space and they'd begun sharing a bedroom, a bathroom, a life.

Everyone saw them as a couple so why didn't she feel like part of one?

She'd mentioned it to Elena but the blonde had just shrugged. Turks didn't do relationships, she'd said, because it made them vulnerable. Shelke had even more problems than she did, what with her 'I don't know if I'm twelve, twenty or Lucrecia Crescent' thing, but she had Vincent as a partner and Tifa had felt for sure that Shelke would know what she was talking about, but she didn't. Vincent actually talked to her, shared himself with the little adult-child-teenager in an effort to help her balance the mix of people and urges she had inside herself. It was actually nice to see the two of them together. They didn't touch often but there was just something around them that said 'couple'. It was nice… and it was discouraging. Vincent had had just as many problems as Cloud and he was doing okay in his relationship.

In a last ditch attempt to get some decent advice, she'd even talked to Yuffie but all the ninja had suggested was to either beat or screw some sense into Cloud...or maybe do both since one could lead to the other. Well, Tifa couldn't do the first—this was Cloud they were talking about, and she'd already tried the latter.

She'd thought… she'd believed all the emotions and feelings Cloud couldn't express through words, he would give to her in bed. It was the ultimate intimate act. After all people were vulnerable during sex; they opened up their bodies, shared themselves, and became one. At least that's what all the romance books promised. That's not how it was between her and Cloud.

For one thing, Cloud never initiated intimacy. Never. Not even a casual peck on the cheek on his way to the coffeepot in the morning. She always had to ask, whether it was for a comfort hug or sex. It was easy enough to ask for the hugs as they were the same casual friend hugs they'd given each other before, but asking for sex was hard. She'd have to say something, he just ignored her if she touched him, and then he'd– he'd perform for her. He'd touch her in intimate places. He'd make her burn and call out. He'd leave her sweaty and boneless. He'd leave her hollow because, the whole time, he'd be watching her with that same look of solemn interest that he always wore.

Here, in their bed, after doing such personal things, that look was cold and scary.

He'd be buried deep inside her body and she'd still feel like they weren't touching. There was no post-coital snuggling either. She could drape herself all over him and never feel like he was holding her close. She didn't call it 'making love' any more. It was just sex.

It was like he was a living sex toy. A super-advanced fucking machine. No messy emotions or untidiness, just flick the switch and lay back and enjoy. Except that she didn't, you know, enjoy, because she wasn't sure if he was enjoying it. She couldn't tell because he'd cum but that could be just an automatic physiological response to stimulus. Considering it had been over three weeks since the last time they'd done anything and, considering he hadn't said a word in complaint or question, she would have to say that he didn't want to have sex.

Or maybe it was just that he didn't want to have sex with her.

Maybe he was finding intimacy and comfort somewhere else. Maybe he was only living with her because that's what everyone expected him to do and not because he wanted to. It was thoughts like those that kept her up at night, out of their bed and counting the stock in the bar. He never came to find her. Never asked why she wasn't in bed with him. Never asked why she was crying. He never talked to her about anything except plumbing and garbage and deliveries.

She was supposed to support him emotionally, but wasn't he supposed to support her too? Isn't that what couples did for each other?

And she'd been supportive and understanding. She knew how messed up he was—who knew better than her what his mind had been like after Hojo's lab. She believed that he was a truly good person. She just wasn't sure anymore that he was a truly good partner. At least not for her.

When that thought had first occurred to her she'd shaken it out of her head as fast as it appeared. Each time it popped back in it stayed longer until now it was an almost constant buzz in the back of her brain colouring everything they did together and said to each other. So she'd tell herself, again, to be patient, to accept that this is what he was right now, to have faith that it would get better, and she'd smile and try to get him involved in their family once again.

Was he really worth the effort? She didn't know any more.

She was tired. She was heart-sore. She was cranky and insecure and she wanted someone to hold her just because they wanted to, not because she'd asked. She wanted someone to talk with about her troubles. Someone who would give her more than one-word responses and a blank look.

For Shiva's sake! He'd been more open and honest with Denzel than he'd been with her.

When she'd made the suggestion that Cloud help Denzel deal with puberty she'd expected him to sit him down for a talk. She didn't expect that he'd take the very underage boy into an adult sex-shop in the middle of the day when any of their neighbours might see them.

Of course one had.

Mrs Comner, the malicious, tongue-wagging cow had come into the bar to buy her weekly bottle, and had commented on how she'd seen the two guys coming out of that store with bags of stuff, and hadn't she, Mrs. Comner, always thought that Cloud looked a little too young and too pretty to be a real man. And didn't that explain why Tifa herself didn't have that lovely glow to her skin that a well-taken-care-off woman would have.

Then Denzel had come up and told her about their shopping trip. He'd remarked on how nice it had been that Cloud had been so honest and open with him. Cloud had talked about what he liked and didn't like in bed with Denzel. A thirteen year old boy. But not with her. Never with her, the person who shared his bed.

She'd over-reacted, she knew that.

When she'd gone upstairs to talk to Cloud about it, she'd meant to talk rationally about that and so many other things. She'd tried not to be angry and hurt and betrayed, but he'd sat there with that same bland, blank, look of solemn interest and she just couldn't deal it anymore. It wasn't real. He wasn't interested. He went through the motions but he did it badly and it hurt!

Suddenly she'd been so angry; it had exploded in her like a cast Firaga. There'd been so much anger that she couldn't hold it all. Even as her hand was moving she'd known that it was wrong, that he didn't deserve it, but she couldn't stop it, and a not-so-small part of her didn't want to. She'd hit him... hard. So hard, she'd bloodied his nose, even knocked him back a step.

What was really sad, what had made her cry alone in the storeroom, was that his expression hadn't changed. He hadn't looked angry or sad or even confused. Maybe he was a fucking machine and, if he was a machine, he was going to grind her heart to a bloody pulp in his gears and he wouldn't even notice.

Unless she asked him to leave before that happened.

She'd been thinking about it more and more; of giving up her dreams of being a couple, of making something work between them. If they split up what would everyone say? Would they be disappointed? Would they understand that she'd tried everything she knew, given everything she had? Would they understand that she could never be enough?

Would Cloud?