A Cloti family oneshot. It starts out with what looks like Clerith undertones, but it's not. Takes place some months after ACC.
"Tifa?"
She made a noise to show she'd heard but didn't try to back out from under the sink where she was battling with a drainpipe. Like so many other mild nuisances, Tifa had kept meaning to mention this one to Cloud… and forgetting it in all the other more important things that came up each time he was home. Finally, this morning, watching the water drain after she'd washed her face… and drain… and drain… and drain… she'd gotten sick of remembering and forgetting and decided to just take care of the darn thing herself.
She'd fought Jenova spawn for pity's sake. How hard could taking a drain off and unclogging it be?
"Can I play with Cloud's jewelry?"
Marlene's voice was bright and cheerful. The little girl, like so many children with busy adults in their life, was very good at entertaining herself. But, like so many children with busy adults in their life, who also happened to know they were loved enough to be confident and on the fearless side, she had a knack for being everywhere and finding everything.
"Sweetie, you know you're not supposed to be in – wait." Tifa set down the crescent wrench and backed carefully out of the small space under the cabinet. "What?"
Marlene made a face and promptly dropped down on her knees to crawl over to where her guardian was crouched. Squinching her nose, as if that was going to help her concentrate or divine some ethereal truth, she looked into the cabinet where the flashlight was spotlighting the pipe in question.
"Cloud's jewelry. Do you think he'd mind if I played with it? Denzel and I are going monster hunting in the basement and I need an armlet for protection."
It made Tifa smile and she brushed her bangs out of her eyes with the back of her hand. She'd been wrestling with the stubborn pipe, trying to find the chancy balance between using enough strength to twist the stubborn seal off without using too much strength and twisting the entire pipe off.
Sometimes, she wondered how Cloud managed it all the time.
"The armlets are in the bottom drawer in my bedroom. You know the wooden box. You and Denzel can both take one if you make sure to put it back."
Marlene pulled out of the cabinet and looked at her. One of those affectionate, 'you just don't get it but I love you anyway' looks that was too adult for such a young face and never ceased to make Tifa have to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep from grinning.
"I don't need a real armlet. It's just the basement," she explained to the other woman. "There aren't
really going to be any monsters."
Tifa tried to bring her eyebrows down in 'seriousness'. As if she'd really let her children go off and hunt real monsters but Marlene was so sincere in apparently thinking she would…
"I just need some pretend armlets. Cloud's got pretend armlets and I want to use those. They're prettier."
'Pretend armlets'? Tifa ran through it in her head, wondering what Marlene was really talking about. Cloud didn't have much in the way of knickknacks – and even less in the way of jewelry. As far as she knew he had the wolf stud… and maybe the original ball stud for his ear… though she doubted the latter. If it wasn't on Cloud – or a weapon or a bike – he tended to lose it and not even notice. Other than that the only jewelry she could think of might be the wolf on his shoulder plate or the rings he'd given each of his family back before the geostigma incident. Marlene had given hers to Barret but Denzel and Tifa still wore theirs.
"I don't think Cloud has any… pretend armlets, sweetie," she told the little girl and Marlene nodded vigorously.
"Yes, he does. I saw him with them once. Back before… before he left," the little girl whispered the last bit as if afraid someone would overhear or, more likely, as if speaking the words out loud might call the situation in again. Their family was healing but it was still a fresh enough wound that they were all a little shaky around it. Her voice returned to a normal level as she chirped. "They're really pretty and they jingle when they move. I want to jingle."
Tifa finally focused entirely on the little girl in front of her and sat down, crossing her legs in front of her. Cloud had given her all their unused armlets. So that left…
"Bracelets? Do you mean Cloud has bracelets?"
"Mm hm," Marlene's nod was sure and her smile was bright. "Pretty ones. Do you think he'd mind if I borrowed them to play?"
Tifa felt her heart flicker then. She only knew of one place Cloud, short of buying them for himself, would have gotten bracelets.
There was only one woman she knew that had ever worn anything as frivolous and feminine as bracelets. Bracelets that fit better around wrists used to flowers and prayer than worrying about whether they would get tangled up on creatures tusks in battle or jingle and give them away while they were trying to sneak through Shinra.
"I… don't think we should without asking him first, Marley."
Picking up on the change in Tifa's tone, Marlene ducked her head to meet her eyes.
"Is it 'cause they're 'special' bracelets?" she asked and neither of the women even pretended 'special' had anything to do with magic or materia slots. Cloud's 'magic' was the sentimental bits he kept close to his heart and guarded with privacy and silence. Tifa nodded thoughtfully and Marlene, brows down, nodded back. After a moment of silence, Marlene reached out and caught at Tifa's wrist, a move she'd learned from her. So was the bright smile determined to push away any lingering darkness.
"Come on, Tifa. You can come down into the basement with us. I'll be the monster and you and Denzel can hunt me."
It pulled the laugh in a burst from her guardian and with only a single glance at the stubborn pipe, Tifa consigned it for a later time that day and let her charge pull her out the door and down the stairs. The children were her balm as much as she was their security. No matter what… she never doubted their love for her or her standing in their hearts.
Even if they did both end up ganging up on her as 'monsters' and wrestling her to the ground while demanding donuts for her freedom.
Tifa was in the process of serving her customers leftover fresh baked donuts with their drinks when Cloud came home that night and in the rush and rumble of the children she forgot about the bracelets for a little while. Or rather… didn't forget so much as push them to the side…
Tifa, over the course of her life, had gotten very good at not thinking about things she didn't want to. It was part of how she defended herself and her heart. It didn't mean they weren't there, eating away at the back of her mind… it just meant she refused to let them come to the front.
Her habit had almost cost Cloud his sanity once…
It had cost her during the geostigma too. She was trying to be better, do better, since than. Trying… trying to confront things that bothered her instead of pretending they didn't and trying to ignore them. It wasn't easy. She didn't like confronting emotional things. It… it hurt. She shied away from intentionally hurting herself, even if burying things usually only meant it hurt more in the end. So she washed the dishes after she closed down the bar and she frowned into the soapsuds and she tried to work up the nerve to ask.
About something as silly… as important… as bracelets.
By the time she drained the sink and shut off the downstairs lights, she was determined. She'd ask, light and trivial and no matter what the answer… at least she'd know. By the time she passed the children's door and checked in on them, she'd decided she'd just hint at it and let it go if he didn't pick up on it. By the time she got to her bedroom, she was sure she'd put it off until breakfast tomorrow and by the time she reached her bathroom, to find Cloud on his back, half buried under the cabinet, she decided it wasn't really that important after all.
"I was fixing that," she told him gently, leaning her shoulder on the door frame and he grunted from under the sink. A year ago that would have been the end of that, but his sense of humor was healing the same way the rest of him was and his voice, dry, came from the depths of the cabinet.
"I'm fixing it faster."
It brought her lips up in the smile that only he could pull out of her and she folded her arms across her chest at the warmth that rose there. Cloud liked taking care of them. He liked taking care of
her.
"I would have fixed it already but there were monsters in the basement."
Another grunt but this one held laughter.
"Were the monsters about so high and the reason we had donuts for dessert?" he asked and the quiet laughter was in the edges of his voice too. His hand gestured vaguely for the 'so high' and she laughed. Loving this… this new
comfort they found with each other. They really were becoming a real family.
"They might have been," she nodded and then her smile faded a little. Catching at the warmth and comfort in the room, she borrowed courage and, before she could rethink it, told him:
"Marlene wanted to borrow the bracelets you have in your room. She said they were prettier than the armlets we have and that they jingled."
He went suddenly still under the sink and she forgot to breathe. He was trying to get her to be more honest about the way she felt, being his usual quietly coaxing self and she was trying. She knew it was important for both of them. That he relied on her words to show him the way as much as she should say them to let him know what she was thinking. But… it was moments like these that made her think it was better to hide what was going on inside herself from him. How important were the bracelets really? He was with her now.
Slow, almost cautiously, he pushed himself out from under the cabinet and sat up to look at her. She saw that 'little boy' look in his eyes. The one he got when he'd been caught at something and didn't expect it to go well. Even Denzel couldn't do that with his eyes the way Cloud did. His lips pressed together as he looked at her and then he asked quietly:
"Did you see them?"
"Mm" she shook her head, mouth tightly shut as well and he slowly nodded, looking down. Then she watched his eyebrows come down and he pushed himself to his feet in one smooth, dark motion. His jaw was set in determination and somehow, it made her stomach sink.
She shouldn't have said anything…
"You should see them," his hand caught hers as he strode past and she found herself pulled in his wake, suddenly confused and dreading.
"I don't have to," she protested, as they crossed the hallway between their rooms and he just kept going. "Cloud…"
He shook his head and pulled her over to his messy desk.
"I promised no more secrets," he told her. As if it was something she was expecting him to hold to. When she hadn't even known he'd promised it. He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and when he did, he let go of her hand. She found herself suddenly feeling adrift and out of place. Metal chimed against metal as he dug it out of the bottom of the drawer where it was hidden under papers and log books and accounting files. Cloud wasn't the most organized but he lived so sparsely it was hard to tell.
She cupped her elbow with her other hand and waited. Telling herself it didn't matter. Because, in a way, it really didn't. It wouldn't change anything between them. He made a low noise and turned to her, glints of gold in his hand. She was confused to see pink whispering over his cheeks though and he held the hand out for her, eyes deep blue and still waiting to get chided. Without thought, she took the metal from him and looked down at the round circles. For a long minute, they didn't make sense.
In the silence, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his feet.
She lifted her face to him.
"These aren't Aerith's," she stated weakly.
"Hm?"
Tifa held the slim gold bands in her hands and looked down at them. For some reason, her vision blurred and she felt her chest go tight.
"These are mine," she whispered and felt him shift guiltily in front of her.
"Yeah."
Blinking, she managed a smile and looked up at him. He returned the gaze, peeking out at her from behind the shelter of his shaggy bangs. She sniffed and then laughed.
"I thought I lost them years ago. At Don Corneo's. I thought…"
He was looking very intently at her feet now and as she watched he scratched at the back of his neck again.
"Cloud…?" she began softly and he made a noise in his throat.
"Cloud," she stated a little sterner, starting to feel a smile and trying to fight it. He heard it anyway in her voice and his blue eyes slipped up sideways to look at her. Whatever he saw had the edges of his lips starting to curl upward as well.
"You stole my bracelets?"
His shoulders shrugged but the crooked smile didn't leave the edges of his lips.
"You left them with the dress," he told her. "I just – pocketed them. And forgot to give them back later on."
Laughing, she slipped them onto her wrist and listened to the thin bands jingle against each other.
"They're just painted tin. I bought them for nothing when I bought the dress." Walking over she rested that hand against his chest and wiggled her wrist so that the metal chimed cheerfully again. "You didn't have to save them."
He relaxed at her teasing and at her touch and very gently his arms went around her, fingers locking together against her back. His eyes were softer as they moved over her face.
"I wanted something," his voice was softer too. "And," his shoulder moved. "They were yours."
It melted her and she stepped closer so that she could wrap her arms around his ribs and settle in against his chest. They were still getting used to casual touching. But, like communicating, they were getting better at it. His arms wrapped more completely around her and he lowered his head to rest his cheek against hers. For a long time, they stood that way and it was everything and it was enough. Then, the hint of teasing laughter in her voice, without moving, Tifa whispered:
"Did you steal anything else of mine?"
The choked sound Cloud made in his throat would have been answer enough even if the color spreading across his cheeks hadn't given him away.
Trying my best not to screw it. That’s the good thing about digital art, though. You can’t really ruin a piece.
