Title: The Gods (part 1 of who knows how many)
Author: elanor_pam
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: Cloud/Tifa, eventually CTZA
Rating: Not worksafe for sex
Warnings: TEENAGE SEX and extreme awkwardness
Notes: People who've been around my lj for a while know of my fascination with the idea of Tifa being in Midgar before Nibelheim goes toast, when most everyone's in their teens. This fic is one of those. Tifa's dad moved to Midgar for reasons that are entirely up to you (read: I didn't care to make one up), and she and Cloud have met and gotten reacquainted before the story starts.

This fic was inspired by the trend I noticed of making Zack, or sometimes Seph, some sort of god of sex who could make any wrong right by wriggling his eyebrows and making hot sweaty lovin' to his sometimes uncertain, sometimes all the more willing partner - usually a rather ukeish Cloud. I thought to myself - what if the positions were inverted? What if Cloud was the one who could make amazingsome sex? Sex for him would certainly be all about the giving. The challenge of this fic was making Cloud a mystical sex god without making him become a completely different person. Don't worry, he doesn't become some weird sort of "uber seme" here... actually it ended up veering completely sideways from the top/bottom scale.

Edited to add: Totally forgot to say this was betaed by artimusdin!

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Cloud understood a lot more about sex than most people gave him credit for. His mother had been blunt and sincere when she breached the subject, and in time, he had reached his own conclusions about the workings of his body.

He knew that sometimes his body asked for things his mind knew were not what he truly wanted or needed; he knew his hormones just reacted to visual cues indicating a physically able partner; he knew that love had nothing to do with the intensity of a boner or what his mind would come up with when he hid under his covers, trying to be quiet.

To sum it up, he understood that his body was a huge machine geared for gene propagation, and that, if Zack’s abs made him feel fluttery, and a passing miniskirt made his lower belly get warmer right afterwards, it had a lot less to with conflicting gender identities and a lot more to do with his teenage body’s need to double-check every minute change and test-drive every hormonal wave at the first opportunity.

Not to say that such knowledge helped any. Though he had firmly told himself he would save “sexual relations” for “relationships”, he found that resolution to be challenged at least twice a week – yet, whenever he found himself seriously considering an invitation to “have a drink and goof around, wink-wink”, he would remember his mother’s serious face and steady voice as she said:

“Your body is your home and temple; it’s your only treasure, the only thing you possess that can’t be taken by anything other than death. Making love is allowing someone to see past the walls inside your home, putting your greatest treasure in someone’s hands. Would you let a stranger look into that box under your bed? Would you entrust your treasures to the first person you meet on the street? You only lend your possessions to someone you know and trust, and only someone who knows and trusts you will give your possessions the value and care they deserve…”

The speech went on for much longer, and with increasingly cornier lines, but at that moment the usually oblivious and quite mortified Cloud had, in a burst of clarity, grasped the meaning of his mother’s words:

Sex is trust.

As time went by and Cloud’s world widened, everything he seemed to learn about reality and life in military police seemed to confirm those words. You had to trust that a person wasn’t merely interested in your appearance, money or position; that they didn’t have diseases, or took care not to transmit them; that they didn’t have violent intentions; that they were as faithful as they claimed to be; and that they knew what they were doing, as proved by the last case of manslaughter he had to deal with (involving a sexual game between friends, one now dead and the other in shock).

And so he would smile, say “maybe next time” and then scramble away – as, unfortunately, none of those who had approached him so far were people he was truly invested in. Trust was something he reserved for about three people; part of him hoped for an old school relationship with a romantic initiation, yeah, but if one of those trustees were upfront about it, he might even feel comfortable about accepting.

Taking the first step, though, was something that made him freeze just to think about.

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And was he frozen.

He desperately wished for a rock to hide under, but there were no rocks in Tifa’s living room; only a sofa, two couches, a TV set, center table, furniture, furniture, furniture that can’t hide people… and Tifa.

And her dad.

The man was shooting him a suspicious glare, and Cloud couldn’t blame him; he’d feel mighty suspicious of any male standing less than thirty feet away from Tifa (and usually was), and any male flushed up to his ears and constantly fiddling with a teacup would be considered in the red zone, or black list if applicable.

At least, his loose shirt and the book he was “checking” on his lap helped disguise what would otherwise be a very obvious bulge.

He sipped more of the now lukewarm tea, and allowed his eyes to drift back to Tifa’s form. She used to be this cute little girl in cotton dresses with flower motifs (probably chosen by her father every morning), and when she started growing, the undersized dresses and those two little things poking under the fabric quickly made a party in Cloud’s pre-pubescent mind. Two years later, those two little things had become the first thing any male noticed when she walked into a room, and Cloud forced himself to look away from the zipper on her top and at her legs instead. Her legs – they were long, and so curvy, and at least Cloud could express interest in her coffee-colored nails or her sandals or something, without sounding like a major asshole, if she caught him looking. Or maybe that scar, disappearing under her bermuda shorts, which were tight around her thighs and creased along the— the line of her crotch— Cloud ripped his eyes away, and up to her face, and found that she was looking straight at him.

She smiled at him and turned to the coffee table, and Cloud was suddenly grasped by an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her hair, run his fingers down her back, caress that flat stomach, kiss her lips, her eyes, her everything, kiss and lick and bite and squeeze and caress until he forgot who he was and she forgot who she was and they couldn’t tell each other apart—

He tore his eyes from her, glaring intently at the tea as he kicked and shoved those forbidden mental images away. He couldn’t keep having those indecent thoughts, desires, fantasies, not right there! It was one thing to imagine himself tracing patterns on Zack’s back when surrounded by a bunch of other horny guys thinking the same thing, but it was a whole another thing to imagine doing the unmentionable to Tifa when in front of her and her freaking father.

And he was honestly afraid he might lose control. In these moments a bubble just seemed to grow in his head, making it harder to think. When it got bad around Zack he could just punch his shoulder, it was a great stress reliever and the older boy gave him plenty of cues – but he had no stress reliever around Tifa, and he wasn’t going to punch her shoulder for whatever reason, fighter or no; the thought of hurting her, accidentally or on purpose, filled him with a cold dread. If they’d been alone on that room, would he— could he— hold back? Keep himself in check, stay away from her? It was hard enough with a parental figure around; he was light-headed and kept having to fight the impulse to scoot closer, lean over and take a lungful of that slightly sweet smell hovering between them, and then closer, and closer, and then—

He dumped his tea cup on its saucer with a loud clatter, and was about to announce his terrible lateness when he heard a phone ring faintly from somewhere deeper in the house; he saw Mr. Lockheart jerk in surprise.

“It’s your office phone,” said Tifa.

“I know,” he grumbled, angrily closing his newspaper and shooting Cloud a menacing glare before standing up and walking out of the room. Five seconds later he peeked back, glared at Cloud again and went away, apparently for good.

And now they were alone.

I should be going, he tried to say, but his throat had simply closed off. He looked down to the book on his lap – gods, he desperately wished he were somewhere else, because he knew he wanted to stay, wanted something to happen, hoped something would happen, but if it did— if it were a bad thing— a thousand nightmares ran at once through his mind, and he glanced back at Tifa, more anxious than horny now, and wished that he could gather her in his arms and touch and trace and take away any pain, real or imagined—

It’s normal, said a part of his mind that seemed to be safe from the warm, distracting bubble in his head. There’s a lot of emotional baggage between you two, and you’ve always craved her attention, her friendship… not to mention she’s gotten so fucking hot—

Shut up.

And strong—

Shut up.

Emotional baggage~~~

“You want more tea?” asked Tifa, and Cloud closed the book in a jerk of surprise.

“NO— no. I’m fine,” he squeezed out; it felt like his throat had been sand-papered.

She nodded, smiling, and Cloud couldn’t help noticing how her lips were full and soft, how her eyes were big and shiny and how her cheeks were flushed and—

She looked away, shyly, reached for the last cookie, hesitated – but all Cloud noticed was the heavy swell of her breasts under her top as she leaned forward, and how her nipples could be seen in relief—

He found himself standing up, and the book on his lap flapped to the floor. “I— I’ll wash these—” he picked up his half-full cup and saucer, drank the cold tea in a gulp and bent down to pick the fallen book; Tifa ducked to do the same, and they ended up knocking heads.

Cloud steadied the cup, mumbled an apology and stalked off to the kitchen, abandoning the book; only after setting the cup on the sink did he release and explosive breath, grasping his head and feeling like the dumbest dumb that ever dumbed.

His heart raced, his face burned, and his crotch throbbed; he searched his brain for a way to extricate himself from that embarrassing situation, then run to the next dark hole and take care of his urges, but all his mind came up with was all the positive things Tifa might have been thinking then, and all the negative things she was probably thinking now, and—

He sighed, opening the cold water faucet and washing his face. It didn’t help much, but it encouraged him to actually get started on the cup. Having something else to do with his hands calmed him down a little, and, by the time he was setting the washed dishes aside, he had decided to just walk to the living room, say he was expected back in fifteen minutes, then hide in the next public bathroom stall for the next half hour. When he turned around, though, he found Tifa was walking in with the rest of the dishes, and then she was setting them in the sink and taking the sponge from his loose fingers.

His plan was off to a bad start.

“You didn’t have to wash them, you know,” she said, looking down at her soap-covered cup.

“I, I had to,” he stuttered. He had to, it was the only excuse he could find to get away from her and sort his brain out. She didn’t say anything, though, and Cloud guessed she appreciated help in the kitchen. A few more minutes of quiet washing went by, and Cloud made himself useful by drying the finished pieces. Suddenly, though, she stopped.

“I have to tell you something,” she mumbled, so fast Cloud needed to rewind the sentence in his memory a few times to make the words out.

“Huh?”

He kicked himself mentally, twice to get the point across.

“I,” she hesitated, twisting the sponge in her hands, “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while…”

Heavy steps went past the kitchen door (it was closed, noticed Cloud), and they seemed to be going towards the living room – and once there, they’d probably backtrack with an extra sound of murderous intent, the boy thought, feeling much more scared than the occasion warranted – but being punted out the door was the least he expected to suffer—

The sponge bounced on the floor pathetically; Tifa had let go of it, and was now grasping his hand in her soap-covered ones.

“I love you,” she blurted out, right as the phone rang again; the heavy steps ran back the way they came, this time along with muffled curses.

Cloud stood stunned, his hand limp between Tifa’s. And then, without warning, something heavy and painful hit his chest, and he doubled over, squeezing those cold, slippery hands for dear life as the world blurred and his body shook and gasped and—

He was crying.

Now he really wanted a dark hole to crawl into.

Tifa didn’t give him an opportunity to find one, though – instead, she tugged him forward by that shaky hand, and he walked unsteadily into her waiting arms; she buried her face in his shoulder, crying as well, and caressed his back, kissed his hair, and he felt like an emotional truckload was finally being dumped off him, until all he felt was the sweet smell of her skin, the warmth of her arms around him, of her chest against his, of her breasts— no, please, don’t go there yet, brain.

She pulled back to see his face, and hers was crimson; he poked her cheek and grinned, feeling giddy and light-headed, and she grinned back. He took a deep breath, taking in more of that addictive smell wafting around them, and it hit him like liquor.

“Is this the part where we kiss?” Tifa asked, and then grinned; she poked his cheek, but he already knew he’d flushed up to his hair.

The little guy downstairs had been a little subdued during the emotional truckload-dump, but now he was making himself noticed again; Cloud leaned forward, partly to get closer to her lips, and partly to put some distance between their hips. If she felt it, he’d be beyond mortified.

The possible mortification was forgotten when her lips touched his; he licked them, unable to help himself, and felt some cookie grains, the taste of tea and of something else – something he’d never tasted before, but it was so good – and he clutched the sides of her waist, squeezing to try and not let his hands drift, while she reached under his shirt to caress up and down his back, were they getting carried away? For his first kiss to be so good, and he could feel the texture of her tongue against his, tasting his mouth like he was tasting hers, and she tasted so good, she smelled so good, and when she squeezed her body against his and her hips against his it drew a garbled moan from the back of his throat – the bubble of heat in his crotch seemed to swell to an unbearable size, and his hips jerked against hers before he could grasp for control—

He pulled away, stepping back, but Tifa’s arms had been around him and she tripped; he tightened his hands on her waist to steady her.

“Tifa,” he said, and his voice was so low and raspy it sounded like someone else’s. “Tifa,” he tried again.

“I know,” she said, tightening her hold as well and closing the distance, slowly and shyly.

“Sorry,” rasped Cloud, starting to feel that mortification he had been afraid of.

“I don’t mind,” she whispered, holding him close and pressing against him, her lips pressed together and her face flushed, her eyes fluttering closed as if she were unsure and a little ashamed of her own daring, but unable, unable to help herself like he was unable to help it as his hips jerked forward again – his strangled moan was quickly hushed by a kiss, and he found his hands were now squeezing her ass, and that Tifa had caught one of his thighs between her legs, pressing and squeezing—

The sweet smell was now overwhelming, and he just knew, without knowing how, that it was desire, hers and his, and that it had been affecting them both since who knew when. She unhooked her legs, stepping back, but he didn’t have to feel disappointed because she was dragging him along, without breaking the kiss or the caresses, until he felt the back of his kneading hands hit the table; he almost fell over her and wouldn’t have minded doing so.

“Cloud,” she breathed.

“Tifa,” he rasped.

And they stood, breathing hard, hips glued together, staring into each other’s eyes. He ached for another kiss, to go back to rubbing their hips together and feeling that sweet, delicious pleasure— but something about this moment, and the look in her eyes, made him hold back and instead study how her pupils had dilated and how her swollen lips moved soundlessly as she gathered her courage…

“I… I want…” her eyes, her face, everything in her was speaking in her stead, and Cloud groaned, grinding his hips hard against hers and dropping his head on her shoulder, nipping, in fake dismay; she giggled at his reaction, then sobered up. “I never felt like this before,” she said.

“It’s too good,” he mumbled, taking another deep breath of her smell; almost of their own, his hands started drifting up, his fingers tracing patterns up her back and under her top, and his lips traced her neck, kissing, sucking and nipping as he took in more of her taste. She gave little moans and gasps as he did, and hearing those little signs of pleasure turned his mind upside down; he dug his fingers, nipped harder, licked a path over her collarbone, his body responding to her gasps and sighs with more burning, more desire, and an almost crazy happiness. She gasped his name, and it gave him an intense chill of pleasure – suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to make her gasp and moan and sigh and scream and quiver in his arms and drive her crazy with all the pleasure she was giving him and more, to take her to heaven and back a thousand times and more…

Tifa was kicking down her shorts, and he stood close, staring at her white panties while feeling small bolts of electricity run down his body and settle at the base of his spine. She hesitated and, blushing fiercely, pulled her panties down as well.

Cloud suddenly snapped out of his dazzled state, and had to fight back an out of place impulse to prudishly cover his eyes. “I, I…” he stammered, and his voice cracked. “I never did this, I…!”

“Me neither,” said Tifa; her shorts and panties were hanging from an ankle, and Cloud glanced at the now visible curly hair around her womanhood, childish embarrassment and a very adult excitement bubbling inside of him – the latter quickly stomping the former.

She was right – they were both new at that, but they wanted it, and they were doing it together, they were learning together, they were— but wasn’t there something they should be worried about? Something, somewhere, out there in the reality they were removed from?

Tifa hoisted herself on the table, and the worries faded away. His fingers flew to the fly of his pants, and soon they were sliding down his legs; he reached for the hem of his boxers, and then froze.

Penises weren’t known for being pretty.

Tifa put an ending to his dilemma by reaching out and wordlessly pulling the boxers down – thankfully she knew to stretch the hem away from his crotch, or else the friction would probably abort their fun before it was even started.

She stared at his crotch for a few long moments, and Cloud held back the urge to fidget; finally, she smiled shyly at him and, leaning back, opened her legs.

His head swam even before he saw what was there to see, and he stepped forward – awkwardly, because of the pants around his ankles – and leaned over her, supporting himself with a hand while the other brushed through the fine hairs and caressing the reddened, swollen lips underneath.

It was like a part of him knew exactly what to do.

He brushed and stroked and scratched, and she arched her back, breathing hard; finally, he pulled the fingers away with a last brush and leaned in, slowly and with some trepidation, to brush the moisture with the tip of his erection. She held her breath, shifting her hips nervously, and he slid in, breaking the skin barrier in an uncontrolled jerk.

His mind seemed to fill with white noise, and warmth spread through his body –thankfully, it wasn’t an untimely orgasm, but rather an awakening. From what into what, though, he couldn’t tell; all he knew was that she had entrusted her body to him, and he wanted, from the bottom of his being, to make it so she’d never have reason to regret such generosity. He quivered with suppressed hunger, but still he kept his pace slow and steady, following the rhythm of her breath and moans; with his fingertips, he caressed her skin until he found the flow of her energy, tracing the paths they should follow, kissing away every kink and obstruction and nipping and pressing every sensitive point he could find, until her flesh quivered around him and her breath was ragged and loud. She sobbed out his name, feebly, and hearing that tiny voice made a rush of affection flood into him; she had acknowledged him, loved him, and offered him her body, and now she even struggled to say his name… he doubled his efforts; his body screamed for release, but release always came for a man – it was her he wanted to make sure about.

“Cloud,” she mewled, and his name became a high keening sound in her throat, carrying through his flow all the way down to his crotch; without his meaning to, his pace was jarred and his hips jerked out of control, bringing a loud thump from the surface underneath them. He struggled through the haze of pleasure, momentarily terrified, but felt no signs of pain in her; her scream was of approval, and her flow was strong and fast and gathering exactly where it should. She was very close, and Cloud double-checked every pathway to make sure she enjoyed the moment to the utmost.

He heard the squeaking of door hinges, and glanced sideways. It could only be one person, but he could always be wrong. The older man’s gaze swept though the room and rested on Tifa’s glazed eyes – she opened her mouth, and he sensed fear budding in her; the flow finally burst, though, and the fear was swept in the tide as it should be.

She screamed, clenching and quivering around him as the gathered flow spread through her. He scrabbled for control when her muscles tightened around him, but his body wouldn’t listen, and once again he felt his hips smack hers with too much strength, even as warmth exploded within him and erased all thoughts; next he knew, he was lying over her on the table, blinking unfocused eyes, while Tifa’s deep breaths raised his chest up, and down, and up…

And then the man closed the door.

Cloud didn’t feel a spec of worry; the same couldn’t be said for Tifa, though, and as she started to quiver and whimper quietly under him, he slowly leaned back on his feet, tracing her pathways all over again with unsteady fingers. She was tense and scared, and all his work had been messed up; tugging her energy towards the right way was like swimming upstream.

“Shh,” he whispered, kissing her forehead when she started sobbing. “It’ll be alright…”

“…he’s gonna kill us,” she whimpered, in a thin little voice that broke Cloud’s heart.

“Of course not!” he hurried to say. “He’d never—”

“But he saw us!” she burst out, pushing herself up to sit, and the table creaked loudly; she gasped, covering her mouth in horror. “We— we made so much noise! He could probably hear it all the way from the office—”

“No, no, don’t worry,” stuttered Cloud, fixing the strap of her top even as she pushed him back to squirm her way out of the table, “he didn’t hear anything, and he didn’t see anything! I didn’t let him!”

She stared at his face for two full seconds, then scrunched an eyebrow down in complete confusion.

“What?”

He opened his mouth to repeat himself, but then it occurred him that his words made no sense whatsoever. But… but still, that had been exactly what he had done.

“…I didn’t,” he repeated, with some trepidation, and then his mouth took over and said, much more firmly: “He won’t know. What we were doing won’t register in his mind.”

And then Tifa slapped her hands around his face, holding on when he tried to step back, and she stared into his eyes anxiously… and he could see his own eyes reflected in hers, and, and they looked completely strange.

But, but I’m still me, aren’t I? Cloud’s mind asked itself over and over, running around like some sort of headless chicken, and Cloud started to get scared – very scared while Tifa stared into his eyes. She thinks I’m crazy. And I’m crazy, because I think this is true and I feel so right, I, I feel like it makes some sort of sense. I don’t feel quite like myself. And so he looked inside to find himself, and had the craziest feeling that Tifa’s wide brown eyes were tagging along, looking inside him like he was completely transparent.

And then he found that himself had been there all along, and came back to find that Tifa’s eyes were full of understanding – maybe not full, no, there was a lot of curiosity; but it seemed like she had grasped something.

“I see,” she said. And maybe she really had seen him.

Without warning, Tifa fell back onto the table, sagging in so much relief Cloud could even feel it in his bones.

“Good,” she sighed. Cloud felt a nervous urge to laugh; he leaned forward onto the table, trying to look at her face—

With a lurch and a crash, the edge she was on collapsed, and the two of them crumpled to the floor like kids piled on the bottom of a slide.

In the awkward silence following the sudden drop of wood and teenaged flesh, the two could hear the ticking of a clock, the tap-tap of the dripping faucet, and the faraway voice of Tifa’s father, apparently screaming at the phone (“Can’t you do a damn thing right?!”).

Once again, Tifa sagged back against the – now diagonal – table, laughing.

“Oh, my,” she said, shoulders trembling. “We broke the table.”

Cloud could only stare in wide-eyed shock at the table’s legs, two of them snapped clean off their joint.

“Holy – I, I’m sorry,” he stuttered, crawling, as well as he could with his pants around his ankles, towards one of the legs. It was cheap wood, but had survived thanks to the generous application of cheap glue; the nails that had helped hold it in place were mostly bent, and a couple had simply slid out of their sockets, but it could be put back in place.

Tifa stood up, stretching until he could see the stringy muscles of her calves in relief; his thoughts derailed completely, and he couldn’t help following with his eyes as she pulled her panties and bermuda shorts up… but then she crouched down by the other broken leg.

“I don’t think you can make papa… unsee this, can you?” she asked, and Cloud cringed.

It wasn’t possible – it was out of context. Maybe if they were on the table… but as soon as he left it would be just a broken table lying there. And that wasn’t the only problem.

“Where are you going to eat?” he asked, feeling doubly guilty.

Tifa blinked at him, and he wondered if he had said something weird again before she shook her head, chuckling. “No, you’re right,” she said. “Better check if we can snap these in place…”

She bent down to lift the table, and Cloud hastily stood up, pulling his pants along, to do the same; together, they managed to set the table – rather precariously – back standing.

“When it falls again, at least you won’t be around to take the blame,” she said, stepping back to survey their handiwork. “Now,” she turned to him, suddenly, “would you care to explain?”

He blinked at her. Explain what? How the table broke? He had a feeling that was obvious enough, though, and that he was missing the point. There was a comfortable, warm bubble in his head that made it kind of hard to think… he shook his head, but it didn’t go away.

“I feel funny,” he said, putting a hand on his head.

Tifa held his hand, and he let himself be steered out of the kitchen and towards the living room, where he was gently pushed down onto the sofa; she sat right by him, her face serious.

“It’s not like I have the experience to be sure of this,” she started, “but… what we did… what you did to me… it’s different, right? It’s not how it normally is for people…”

“I don’t know,” said Cloud earnestly, “how could I even? Anyway I suppose everybody does it in a different way…” he trailed off at the sight of Tifa’s flattened brows.

“Cloud,” she started, “Papa walked in on us, looked straight at me, then walked out. You said he didn’t register what we were doing because you didn’t let him. How?! How does that work? Normally, people can’t do that!”

“Uuh,” he started, completely stumped as to what she was asking him about.

“And, and,” she continued, blushing, “when you’d, you know—” she blushed more, “brush your fingers down my back, I, I could feel—” she waved her fists spastically, “look, don’t make me say it!”

He giggled, poking her red cheek just to have the offending hand slapped off; he didn’t mind, though, because common sense was catching up and he felt he was acting like a tipsy granny. Instead, he grabbed the slapping arm.

“It’s the flow,” he started, then hesitated. How would one go about explaining the flow? He just knew it on instinct, and he didn’t even know how he knew. “It… flows,” he continued, squeezing her hand as he struggled for words. “Through the paths.”

He shook his head again, squeezing his eyes shut, and Tifa was now looking very worried. “No,” he started again, “the paths, they… it’s where the energy goes through, the flow. The flow of energy.” He trailed his fingers up her forearm, following a particular path till he reached an obstruction. He pressed it, trying to clear the pathway, and the arm shuddered. “You’re tense, so it got kinky,” he explained, pressing till the path cleared; he continued trailing the path midway up her arm when Tifa grabbed his hand.

“Not the time,” she said, pushing his hand away with a sigh. “So you’re talking about the flow of ki, right? Master talked about that once or twice,” she glanced away, furrowing her eyebrows in a mildly disturbed expression. “I didn’t know it applied to, uh… this.”

“I don’t know,” said Cloud, still eyeing her arm; his fingers itched to complete the work he had started. “Never heard of ki. Can’t I…” he feebly pointed at her arm.

“There’s the flow,” said Tifa, pointedly, “there are the paths, and there are kinks. What comes next?”

“…let me clear these,” he mumbled, grabbing her hand and tracing the path from where he had stopped, even as Tifa tried to tug her arm away. “You can’t be feeling good with these knots…”

“Cloud,” Tifa said again, her voice almost harsh, “I thought you had to have my permission for that.”

If anything could have made Cloud stop dead on his tracks, it was those words. All the warmth faded from his body, and he let go of Tifa’s hand as if it were on fire; he tried to stand up, but she pulled him back down.

“I’m sorry!” he choked out, covering his face in shame before she could start berating him. “I, I just wanted—” he gasped, and then gasped again; he felt like he was suffocating, and couldn’t even flail when Tifa pulled him into a hug, caressing his back… though it did make him feel better. “I…” he whispered, trying desperately to find a way to explain himself, but the soft touch of Tifa’s lips on his interrupted his thoughts; he spread his hands onto her back, and refrained from manipulating the paths he could feel even though all of his instincts were screaming at him to clear away those kinks, press and caress till every inch of her was thrumming with energy again.

She pulled back slowly, framing his face with her hands, and he glanced down guiltily. “I just,” he whispered, “…wanted to make you feel good… I just wanted to make you feel happy.”

“I know,” she smiled, but then drew back before he could finally sink his fingers onto those pesky kinks. “But get a grip, will you? You can’t do this every time I get nervous or annoyed or upset. I’m not complaining,” she hastily added, right when he was starting to feel guilty again, “but it takes time. We need to set priorities.”

“But it really bugs me!” Cloud found himself whining, and immediately slapped his forehead. “I feel funny,” he said, for what he felt was the third time that afternoon. He quickly raised a hand before she could look any more alarmed. “Look, I’m, I’m just as confused as you are – there’s this bunch of stuff that I know that I don’t know how I know, and my head feels like it’s full of helium…”

A loud noise of shifting paper almost made him jump out of his skin, and he turned to find that Mr Lockheart had sat back at his spot, opening the newspaper again. He sighed in relief, turning back to Tifa; she seemed to be recovering from a mini heart-attack. He mentally reached out to check her paths, caught himself doing it, and shook his head again.

…then he reached anyway, just in case, to find she was just fine, only filled with knots and kinks he was aching to press and lick and bite and suck till she was shaking with pleasure in his arms…

“…I have to go,” he muttered, only to hear Mr. Lockheart harrumph approvingly from behind the paper. Tifa nodded, and suddenly he knew just how much she actually wanted to be touched; he reached out with a hand, but drew back – if they got started, they’d end up breaking the coffee table as well.

He stood up. “L-let me sleep on it,” he said, fingering the hem of his crumpled and sweaty shirt with antsy hands. She nodded, and he turned to the door; at least he’d have free time to come the next day, because he had to – he had to come and give her his love again, to use all the knowledge that was still filtering into his mind to make it so that she’d never regret giving herself to him, not even once—

“Cloud!” she called, and he turned from the door, snapping from his reverie; she jogged up to him – his eyes inexorably attracted to the movement of the breasts he didn’t get to undress though he had meant to – and… handed him a book.

“You were forgetting,” she said, and he almost laughed; it had been the reason he went to Tifa’s in the first place.