dualislogs | b natural, c sharp, and take a stand ( OPEN )

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b natural, c sharp, and take a stand ( OPEN )

Who: Tifa and anyone who wants to stop by
What: Tifa finally has her own bar! One part cleaning up the place and getting it ready for use and one part actually in business!
Where: The B Natural Bar and Grill
When: Part 1 in early Nov and Part 2 in mid-Nov
Warnings: TBD

Part 1 early Nov

Unsurprisingly, Tifa is tired. She's had to jump through so many hoops to even start getting this bar off the ground and now with Cloud's underground AVALANCHE-but-not-quite idea going strong, her bar is going to be their unofficial headquarters. A lot of pressure is riding on her shoulders, but at this point she's used to it. Cloud was right to question whether she'd be willing to do the same here that she did for AVALANCHE with 7th Heaven. She'd had a lot of misgivings about AVALANCHE at the end and what they were doing; hopefully, Cloud won't make her go through the same thing this time.

Still, she won't know until she tries and if she's the one backing them, at least she'll know everything is as safe as possible. They'll just have to do their best not to have a repeat of Sector 7.

The location itself still needs to get fixed up and ready for business, so she spends a lot of time doing that. She can be found anytime in early November cleaning the inside, touching up paint, figuring out how to decorate it, moving items or furniture in or out, and lots of other things. Anyone who wanders in and doesn't look like they're going to offer help will likely be put to work anyway.

"Would you mind bringing me that broom in the corner there by the door? I have to move a couple of these tables to make sure I've swept all the dust out from under them."

Part 2 mid-November

Eventually, she manages to get everything set up to her liking and the bar is open for business. She's sent out a video advertisement, letting everyone know that she's got a new bar open to check out, but that's the only sort of ad she's likely to do for it. So, now she just settles in to keep things moving and clean while she waits for people to wander in.

a - When someone does finally make their way through the doors, she glances up from wherever she is, likely behind the bar or checking on whoever is already seated, and smiles. "Welcome to B Natural! Can I get you anything?"

b - She tries to take a few minutes off when she can, so someone might wander by the bar to find her... actually not there. She's in a corner sitting in a chair with her feet propped up for five seconds, but she pops up the second she sees someone looking for her. "Sorry! Did you need something?"

c - At the end of the day, she lets everyone finish their drinks and food before helping them get outside and closing up for the night. Exhaustion is quickly seeping into every line in her body, but she tries not to show just how tired she is. If any of her friends, or people who might want to try for a position working here, are still around, they'll be put to work. As soon as the place is properly shut down, she flops into one of the comfy chairs, puts her feet up again, and leans her head back to close her eyes.

"Just give me five more minutes," she says to the person who just walked up.

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Careful.

[Right behind her, with a number of stacked boxes on his shoulder, Cloud almost bumps into her as he's assisting with the task of moving items in. It's... been pretty tiring, honestly. From finding the building to applying to the relevant places and making sense of the mess of paperwork that comes with it, to finding suppliers to even this, it's been a long and tiring road to getting the place actually almost ready to go.

It's too much for one person. He knows that, and so he's been trying his best to make things easier for Tifa. Be it shifting things, like now, or advertising in the form of taping up posters on lamposts when Iterations aren't looking, he's done it. But it's not the real stress. Or the real strain. That's solely on Tifa's shoulders, and he's put it on her, by asking her to support them in the form of the building.

...And he's trying to make good on it, by covering smaller, sillier, stupid little things, like the boxes on his shoulders containing a number of glasses and flatware. They're placed behind the bar accordingly, and he nods.]

Yeah. You want help with moving the tables?

[She could manage them, he's sure. He's seen her suplex things that must've weighed twice as much as these things. But still, she shouldn't have to do anything alone.]

Edited 2019-11-16 22:33 (UTC)

[ it really is just a little too much for one person to handle. to be honest, tifa wouldn't have asked for too much help even in moving all of the things into the new place and getting it all cleaned up and situated. but cloud is cloud and he had practically jumped to help her, even without her really asking. she's grateful for that, more grateful than she could ever properly say.

so she's been letting him help her, watching him take boxes stacked on top of each other, directing him towards where she wants everything to go. And something about this feels oddly right, too, like this is just something the two of them do.

it makes knowing what she's doing, and having the strength to keep doing it, just a little bit easier. ]

Sure. That would be great.

[ she probably could manage the tables on her own, but that's not the point. it's all about leaning on each other, about helping each other.

it's about not being alone in this strange, confusing place.

so she steps over to one side of the table she wants to move and gets a good grip on it, waiting for cloud to get into place on the other side before she lifts. they get it moved just enough for tifa to get a good sweep underneath where it was and when they set it down again, she leans over it, her hands pressed to the top of the table and her head bowed just a little. ]

Do you really think this will work? [ she asks, and for all that her words could easily be taken to mean that she's thinking of the bar itself, she also means the bigger picture. are they really going to manage their ultimate goal? how much faith does cloud have in all of this?

tifa might be an infinitely strong person, both physically and emotionally, but every so often even she needs a supporting word or two. ]

[It's kind of nice, doing this. The bar itself doesn't feel like anything yet- it's slow to take shape and take form, it still smells a little bit, and even though a supply had been arranged, the place was still pretty bare. But it's coming. Slowly. And just spending time with Tifa is nice.

His mind wandered while he was here, too. He wondered what it'd been like for her in Midgar. Whether or not she's actually created the Seventh Heaven from a building, or whether it'd been something AVALANCHE always had. He wonders- but he doesn't ask. Instead he watches, wondering if he could see her doing this very thing back there.

...Before it'd been reduced to rubble, anyway. He remembered clinging to Barret, hearing the sounds of thousands of screams beneath them- the wire shaking as the column it was attached to fell, and a rough landing with all of the rest of the shrapnel. It snaps him right out of this pondering- and as the table is shifted, he finds himself looking at her.]

It has to.

[His exhale is small, considered. And while he wants to reach out, to touch her, he can't.]

But if it doesn't, then I'm not going to let anyone, or anything hurt you.

[ tifa doesn't honestly want to think about seventh heaven for a lot of reasons right now. too much had gone into all of that and the price had been far, far too high at the end. those screams would haunt her for a long, long time. sometimes she could still feel that wire cable shaking in her hands, the landing they took from it, and the awful screeching sound right before the gigantic CRASH that ended so many lives and stopped avalanche's efforts in sector 7 cold.

very, very cold.

barret's reaction over marlene had been the worst. thankfully, marlene had been saved. at least they had that to cling to. but all the others who hadn't been so lucky...

tifa curls her fingers over the edge of the table, holding so tightly to it that her knuckles go white. ]

You always were my knight in shining armor... weren't you?

[ when she looks back up, her smile is soft and gentle, but very, very fond. it's a quiet sort of fondness. she never needed protecting and they both know it now, but cloud's willingness to help her, to stand in the way of anything that might threaten her, means so much to her now.

even if she's still questioning a whole lot of memories and time.

she sighs and pushes away from the table to grab the broom and start sweeping. ]

But you're right. It has to. And I'll just have to make sure it does.

[That's a surprising response. Except it's not. The only thing about meeting Tifa again, so long after Nibelheim that was surprising was the fact she sure as hell didn't need anything of the sort. Well. That and her occupation. That wasn't exactly a shock, Tifa should've hated the Shinra after everything that'd been taken away from her. But a terrorist group? Yeah. It was a surprise.

His eyes move to hers as soon as she says it, his eyebrows furrowing slightly as he gives her a small look, one, mostly, of incredulousness before he moves them away. Swiftly.

Colour faintly comes to his face.

...He was so stupid back then.]

Wanted to be. I didn't know you at all back then.

[He'd fallen for her, yeah. But it'd been the wrong sort of idea entirely. He'd fallen for someone that needed saving. From her stupid friends, before she got as stupid as they were, from the despair of losing her mother, from the mountain that almost killed them both regardless of how he'd tried.

...And later, from...
No.

His eyes follow her as she moves away, stepping out of the way of the broom. He leans against the bar, folding his arms in front of himself.]

...This is the easy part. All we're doing until the first year is up is preparing. If the Head even sends things to snoop around for it, and finds what's here, it's not enough to think anything. After that time's up, it'll get harder. But then..

[Then they'll have resources. Some form of fighting back.]

...Tifa. If you want to back out, now's the time to do it.

[ in some ways, it's a little strange to talk about "back then." even though they had known each other since childhood, they hadn't been really close until recently, until after nibelheim burned and they lost everything and everyone, after those four years passed and something in both of them changed. tifa still remembers that trip up the mountain, when she'd thought she could find her mother at the top of mount nibel. he probably does, too.

everything had changed after that. a lot of things between them had a habit of changing in nibelheim or because of it. ]

Good thing we have time now, isn't it?

[ someone somewhere might accuse her of flirting. in reality, she's just being genuine. she's glad for the opportunity to get to know him outside of what had happened in nibelheim. now that they are both adults and not starry-eyed children.

she knows what she's getting into as an adult, in more ways than one, and she gives her head a firm shake at the out he gives her.

she's not a quitter. she won't give up this early. ]

I did this for AVALANCHE and I didn't quit then. I'm not backing out on you, either.

[ she turns her sweeping so she can pause and give him a small, encouraging sort of smile before she goes right back to it. ]

It'll be hard and I know that. I know the risks. But I'm not giving up on you.

[ there are so many implications in those simple sentences that she just keeps sweeping, even when she's done with the spot under the table. other spots on the floor need to be swept and it's a perfect cover for the slight flush of her cheeks as she looks down at the floor.

she isn't giving up on any part of him, on his memory or this cause they're now both fighting for. he won't be the only person invested in this fight; he'll have her at his side. ]

["Back then" was kind of the reason he hated the place so much. Everything had changed from the instant they'd been found at the base of the mountain, him bleeding, Tifa ...worse, as that was the day the differences between him and everyone else he'd mentally perceived actually became real. The village hated him from that instant. They'd thought he'd taken her up there. They thought what had happened was deliberate. They'd thought...

Many things. None of it true. But they'd thought it regardless. The only person that listened to him was his mother. But from then, he'd avoided Tifa. ...Beat the shit out of her friends, yeah. Which felt good, but didn't. exactly. help matters. But he'd not talked to her since then. Not until that night, when he'd asked her to meet him at the water tower, when he'd told her everything.

When he'd made that stupid promise. Then... even after everything he'd done to her, she'd listened to him. Like now, even if all of this is dangerous, she's hearing him out. She's not wavering.]

Thanks, Tifa.

[Said, of course, sheepishly. They have time here, sure. But...]

We need to think of what we're gonna do when we're back home. All of that's not going to just stop without us.

[ in all honesty, that's probably one of tifa's best qualities, that she listens. to everyone, not just to him. not just to barret or cid or aerith or any one of them. she listened to vincent and yuffie, was there for cait sith, despite what they had discovered about the anthropomorphic cat's reality. these people had helped. maybe not all of them had had the best motives at first, but in the end they all had. and she supposes she can always ask vincent if anyone else betrays them, but she hasn't wanted to face that.

speaking of things she doesn't want to face...

she pauses visibly in her sweeping, missing half a beat at cloud's last words before she manages to force herself back into the rhythm. ]

I know. It's a lot to think about.

[ so much for her to think about.

she is so not ready for this conversation. ]

Do you have any thoughts about that? What we'll do when we get back?

Well, first thing's finding Aerith.

[A slight pause, exactly when Tifa's broom misses a few strokes, what a surprise. Both of them falling silent at the same time makes the moment last longer, makes it linger. And...

He moves, back behind the bar, taking a rag from the countertop and slowly decanting, and wiping clean, all of the glasses from the boxes before putting them where they're supposed to go.]

...Look, Tifa...

Zack... told me a few things. She's here [Among other things. But he can't speak about them to Tifa, of all people. He can't.] but I don't know what's going on with myself. It's best for me to leave her alone while she's here. I don't know what'll happen if I'm around her again.

[His voice is pretty melancholy, eyes downcast toward a certain glass as he's giving it the wiping of its life.]

...But when we're back, we've got no choice. I don't like the thought of her being out there, alone. And Sephiroth knows about her. [That's probably news to Tifa. So he brings his eyes up.]

Aerith spoke to me after I passed out outside the Temple. He was there too. He knows about her, and he knows she can stop him. We can't let that happen.

[ tifa manages to keep sweeping this time, though her grip on the handle of the broom tightens considerably. her knuckles whiten and she has to force herself to breathe or risk breaking the broom.

it might crack anyway with how tightly she's holding it, like the broom itself is her only lifeline in the sea of trauma and confusion she's floating around in. it's not much of a paddle, but every so often she can touch the metaphorical bottom of the sea and use the broom to keep her head above the water.

because she knows what will happen to aerith. tifa saw it with her own eyes and vincent all but confirmed it. it's still something she can't talk about, not with anyone but especially not with cloud. it's all too much to bear and so, even though she was the one to bring up the original topic, she latches onto the other part. ]

Do you really think that's best here? [ she asks, finally glancing at him again. ] Sephiroth is here, too. Maybe we should keep an eye on Aerith just in case. And I don't think she would want you to cut yourself off from her. She's your friend and I don't care what anyone says about Sephiroth's behavior or memories, he's still a threat. To all of us.

Maybe we should all just [ she shrugs, like this is really no big deal and she's not trying to repress any traumatic events. ] stick together as much as we can.

His hands go up involuntarily with how Tifa shoots to her feet, but a laugh soon follows it, light and good-natured.

"Woah, do you need something? I can wait if you want five minutes," he offers, half-joking. It'd been for her that he'd come: the two only knew each other through the NAPs, but that was pretty much 90% of anyone Tidus could be said as 'knowing'. But her message had reminded him of their conversation, her plan to open up a bar.

And look: she went and did it!

Tifa gives a shake of her head at his question. "I'll be all right. I'll probably go right to sleep after all of this," she says lightly. She's really going to be tired after the hustle and bustle, and stress, of the opening day. "I'm glad you came. Do you want to walk around and look at the place or can I get you a drink or something to eat?"

Sleep after all this—that sounded like a good plan. Tidus had wanted to get some food, but now he wasn't so sure, not when it seemed to be just her at work). Still he slips into one of the bar stalls, asking as he does: "How about just a drink? Nothing with alcohol, just...something sweet and sour? I don't know a lot of the drink names," he admits with a small laugh.

If there's a drink menu she wants to point him to, sure, he'd look at that. But he was fine with a surprise, when everything there was still largely that.

The nice thing was that even from there, he could look back, take in the view of the decor.

"The place looks great. Is this how your bar back home looked?" And then thrown on, when he sees it— "Can you play that?"

It might help to say the name when he's not looking at her, but Tidus is pointing over to the piano. Woah, fancy!

For right now, it is just Tifa at work here, but that's mostly because she's going to be pretty picky about who works with her and who knows how much about what goes on in the background here. It's okay, though. Right now she's more interested in keeping the place alive and afloat than worrying about workers.

At the request, she sets about making him an Orange Sunrise... just without the alcohol. "Try this," she says as she sets it on the bar in front of him. "No alcohol. Tell me what you think and if you don't like it, I'll find another one for you." She has always been a big proponent of making her customers happy. More so with this current situation.

A glance is spared in the direction of the piano and she nods. "Yeah. I can. I didn't set it in here just for me, though. It's open if anyone wants to play, as long as they don't break it. Seventh Heaven was different, but I wanted this one to be its own place, not a knock-off of what was."

Even if the two places had the same underlying purpose, she had been going for something different.

Tidus takes the drink with thanks, sips on it slowly to taste test. It hits a mix of sweet and the tang of the orange, though it's...very sweet. It's not exactly a bad thing though with the ice, and Tidus finds it too easy to keep on sipping if he doesn't watch it. But maybe the standards of his taste buds are extremely low, after everything.

He'll give his approval if she asks right away (as well as offer the money for it), but otherwise, he doesn't mind being momentarily distracted by the decor, and else.

"It looks a lot livelier than the way you described everything in Midgar." Which if he's remembering right, was where her other bar was. "That's good. You've got to come here to work and see it every day, and there's no reason it has to be drab. It's good to have things to look forward to."

He says the last part somewhat wistfully, maybe a quiet sort of hopeful. But looks at her, or somewhere in Tifa's direction when he asks, "Did I ask how long you've been here before?"

If so, he's forgotten, and it's a way of asking again.

"It's a lot different from most of Midgar," Tifa agrees. The only area this sort look would have worked for was Wall Market, where Don Corneo reigned, but that was its own area with its own problems and Tifa doesn't like to think about it.

"I wanted this place to look more like the city it's located in. There's no point in making a recreation of something very different."

Especially when that something different is now flatter than a pancake and probably squished a bunch of people with it. That's a cheery thought.

"How's your drink?" she asks, for something else to think about.

"Very sweet," he grins, not necessarily a bad thing. He doesn't really care whether that makes it good or not. It's tasty, so it works. "I haven't had anything like it in a long time. I like it. Reminds me of home."

Of even having the option to sit around and enjoy a fancy drink. Tidus taps his fingers against the side of the glass, staring into the liquid.

"Hey, Tifa... I know this probably sounds stupid, but do you kind of... have you ever..." He rolls his lips, trying to find the right way to continue. "Do you hope maybe...this place doesn't have to be so bad? I know getting pulled here without a say isn't great," he hurries to say, "and there's been other stuff too. But I mean...some people don't come from great cities—" starting with M and ending in 'idgar' "—and some... some don't have a city to go back to."

Or anywhere. He lets the end of a finger get cold against the glass, takes in a breath he immediately lets out.

"It would be great to be able to start over."

"I'm glad you like it," she says with a small smile. Maybe she'll make something similar but a little different for him the next time he comes in here.

The rest of the conversation takes that train of thought and derails it completely. That's a loaded question if ever there was one. Tifa takes a cloth and proceeds to wipe the counter with it as she ponders her answer. She knows what she believes about this place, what she and Cloud think: that there's something sinister going on and the Head, and the Heart, can't be trusted. But she isn't about to say that out loud. No way. Instead, she acts like she's considering the question before she finally answers.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it? And who knows? Maybe it's true. But I also think we shouldn't get complacent about a world we know so little about."

Midgar isn't a great city. It's not even a good city. It's just big. And it's run by Shinra, which makes it just about as bad as this one. Not being complacent is sound advice from someone whose previous participation in a resistance ended in the death of one-eighth of the entire population.

"I know."

There's no argument, no real pause or consideration; Tidus accepts the point with an already accepted ease. His finger continues playing along the side of the glass, mind jumping between the things he could continue to say, to add. What if you've got no other choice? What if there's nothing else? —Would it be so bad to let it slip to Tifa? There have to be others in the same position. The same as him. It might help.

The want to say more isn't entirely devoid from Tidus's face, and he lets the silence in as his mind stays undecided, yet knowing—he won't. He doesn't want to. So finally he wraps his hand around the glass, and throws Tifa a practised smile, a returned cheer.

"At least we've got a year! Let's make the best of it we can."

As long as nothing comes to kill them.

Honestly, if Tifa had anything that would be comforting, anything that wouldn't just be an outright lie or blowing smoke out various places, she would be offering it. As it is, while she believes in trying to be hopeful, she also doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up in case the situation turns out to be just as dangerous as they think. There's no telling what the Heart wants and the Head... well it's already proven to be less than sympathetic, if those murderbots are anything to go by.

She's good enough at her job to be able to figure out that there's a lot of turmoil in him, more things he isn't saying. Maybe his question had been for himself or maybe it had been for someone else. That she doesn't know. What she does know is that people don't often ask those kinds of questions without reason.

So she wipes at another corner of the table before turning a small smile back at him. "That's all we can do," she agrees gently. "For what it's worth, I hope things are good for you here."

"Hey, you too." He means it, and it's easier to smile when you mean it. "Starting a business? I couldn't do it. I'll bring my friend next time too--Yuna. She's from my world." He nods. "Gotta support the new businesses!"

Maybe they won't come for drinking, but eating? It should be fun. And some familiarity in their lives will be nice, even if it's just seeing the same faces every now and then.

He learns where the bar is one way or another and shows up just in time to... pick up a broom? Cleaning hasn't exactly been a key feature in his life at Garden but he obediently walks over with it anyway and holds it out.

He kind of feels like he should offer to do the sweeping...

"How did you find this place?" He assumed it'd be difficult for new arrivals to get their own place but it's not like he tried.

If he wants to sweep for her, she won't complain, but she's also not going to shove off any chores on anyone else at this point. It's her place and she's going to get it up and running. That means cleaning, too. While he brings the broom over, she lifts one side of a table and slides it off to the side, out of the way so she can sweep.

"Thanks," she says, taking the broom once it's offered to her and getting to work on the floor. "A lot of it was luck. I had to get a business license first, jump through a lot of hoops before they would even let me look. Then it was just... wandering around until I found somewhere in the city that looked like a good enough place. It didn't take too long once I figured out what I was looking for."

It helps that she's done this before, too. Maybe not the entire thing, but the bar proprietor thing. That meant she already had a good idea of what she needed to make this work.

Good thing he still manages to hold it out for her cause he goes still at the casual show of strength there. Maybe the tables are just really light?

Business licenses, going through administration. They're all very foreign to him. Sure he knows how politics and country restrictions are but they've mostly been handled by everyone else. He unfreezes and vaguely runs a hand through his hair (it's longer now, isn't it?) near his ear.

"You've run a bar before?" Also he feels awkward standing here while she sweeps and tries to look around to see if there's anything he can occupy himself with. Like another table... Maybe he can move the other table? He tries.

... Heavy.

Even though she's just down to normal human strength here, no suplexing the table, she's still pretty strong. She's had to work hard on it and still does, even now. No use letting her strength go to waste or her training end just because she's in a strange place.

She... tries not to make him look bad.

"If you're here to help, I could use someone to sweep," she suggests. "I'll move the tables out of the way if you can just get the dirt out from under them."

That's... something, right?

"I did in Midgar. The Seventh Heaven. Did Cloud tell you anything about that?"

He wouldn't cross her anyway. He had deadly women in his party. One he wouldn't give a bazooka to, one who could shoot lasers out of her eyes in a fight, and another with all the potential of a sorceress in her.

He nods at the suggestion and holds a hand out for the broom. Let's do this!!

The question does bring to mind he doesn't know much about Cloud at all though. He shakes his head.

"No. I didn't ask about his world."

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b natural, c sharp, and take a stand ( OPEN )

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