dualislogs | [closed] dreams must end

The bell above the door chimes, and it’s nice to hear someone at the piano when he enters. Not that Tidus really focuses on it, but acknowledges the sound of the soft keys at play when he scans the bar section of the establishment, spots Tifa at work, a few customers dotted on the high seats enjoying their drinks.

It’s nice, and he feels like shit--and not just for the reasons burning pain over his body, the red scuff marks of a fight on his face, the arm he has no choice but to keep hanging at his side with ice disabling his hand. Tidus keeps his head low as he walks as naturally as he can to the counter, bringing himself to the end, not seating himself. Keeps the hand hidden against the side.

“Tifa?”

He faces the wall in front of him than to make himself too visible, only sneaking glances in Tifa’s direction until she’s close enough. When she is, he can’t hide the state of his face, the tell-tale signs of a fist fight, dirt and scratches from meeting the ground. And Tidus doesn’t try to, leaning his head in to speak quickly and apologetically.

“Can I go round back? Just twenty minutes to heal up--I’ll be quiet.”

If she turns him away, he wouldn’t blame her. Kind of a lot to ask after not showing up for a while, when he usually liked to visit her for lunch. Kind of a lot to ask even without that.

Tidus is lucky when he makes his way into the bar. While there are a few patrons currently enjoying drinks, Tifa herself isn't so busy that she can't stop for a few minutes. Not that she would have made him wait once she saw Tidus' state. As soon as she sees him and can make her way over to him, she spots those signs. She's been in enough fights in her life to see the signs, the dirt and scratches and... is that ice on his hand? A frown creases her face as she sets down the cloth she was using to wipe down the countertop and she grabs another, a clean one this time, motioning for him to follow her.

"This way," she says, leading him to a small room to the side. It's empty so far and she closes the door so no one will interrupt. Chairs dot the room, along with some lights and a few tables. "What in the world happened to you?"

Concern colors her eyes as she looks him over. Everything she can see gives her the impression that he had a fight with one of the other residents. These wounds don't look like ones that were dealt by the Iterations. Granted, she isn't familiar with all of their abilities, but it still doesn't look like them to her.

"Give me a second and I can help heal some of that."

She'll have to dig the materia out of her pockets and make sure her Dragon's Claw weapon is appropriately equipped - she never goes anywhere without these, no matter where she is or what she's wearing. At least she has Restore materia in one of these pockets.

“It’s fine.”

There’s an automatic quality to it, a sincerity put on to make her believe it, but stiff despite the attempt. Tidus takes one of the closest chairs without more than sweeping glance at the rest of the room, hissing sharply when the dormant punch to the gut reminds him it’s there, if helped soothed by an adrenaline high he’s starting to come down from.

But nevertheless. “It’s fine,” he says again, when Tifa says about getting something. Tidus raises his frozen hand to examine it, considering what the worst could happen if he tried breaking it. It didn’t hurt--at most, it tingled his knuckles, seemed to already be flaking and melting. Would it shatter his hand if he tried anything with it?

He can’t be mad, but it’s annoying anyway.

"I started the fight," he goes on, lifting his hand out just to show, "I just need this to go. I can do it."

Edited 2019-12-08 18:33 (UTC)

If he were anyone she really knew, she would probably give him something of a stink eye for starting a fight. She doesn't know him that well and she doesn't know who he was fighting with. For all she does know, whoever it was might have really deserved it.

Her mind drifts to Sephiroth before she snaps herself out of it.

"Are you sure breaking it is the best thing to do?" she asks dubiously as she fits her gloves on and slots the Restore materia into the weapon. Giving her hands a slight shake, she lifts them and casts Cure on him. It's not at its normal power, but it's better than nothing and that will tell her how much else he'll need.

"At least let me look at your face. I've seen enough bar brawls to be able to tell if anything's broken."

Edited 2019-12-13 01:21 (UTC)

Surprisingly, the ice breaks when she uses the cure spell after shimmering momentarily--and nothing else with it (like a hand), but it was never a threatening spell in the first place. Tidus switches from between the glove and the round object slotted in to the state of his hand, hesitantly flexing the fingers.

Nothing happens. Nothing feels like it’s going to happen. And that’s, well… That’s good. Tidus inhales softly though, as the spell works itself through the rest of his body. Reaching tender spots dulled by adrenaline and stupidity, aches giving comfort.

Physically, anyway. He nearly tips back his head to let Tifa see as asked, but instead he puts his hands out, pushing lightly on the duller side of the claws.

“I’ll heal it myself. It’s fine.” Third time might not be the charm, but he says it more desperately, trying to plead with her. “I did this on purpose, Tifa, you shouldn’t be worrying about me. I wanted this, y’know? I did this. I wanted it.”

The words sound wet and guilty by the end. He doesn’t deserve the pity, her energy. It was already bad enough he was here using her time, and his head lowers further out of shame, his shoulders hunching rigidly. It takes a moment for him to speak again under a rattled breath.

“I don’t wanna get in the way of your business.”

Tifa regards him with an unamused and critical eye. She isn't buying his story at this point. He sounds about as fine as he looks and he looks like he hit a punching bag so hard that it punched back. For all that they don't really know each other that well yet, she can't help the concern anyway.

"I can call you an idiot and still worry about you," she points out evenly. "My business will manage." And if someone starts throwing chairs, she'll know about it.

She huffs out a breath. These hero types are all the same. They always try to make their own pain and suffering seem less important than it really is. Less than anyone else's, at any rate, and most likely it's an impressively bad injury.

"Look, I won't force you to stay, but it's as safe here as possible. Just take time to let the spells take effect."

Don't make her use another cure spell.

Tidus retracts his hands with a quiet nod, wavering on where to put them before finding his lap for one, the edge of the seat for the other. She can think him an idiot, that’s fine; it’s easier to accept than any generosity beyond giving him somewhere to rest. Better than having her expend her energy on a situation he put himself in.

He waits for the pressure in his throat to ease, just enough so he can say:

“Thanks.”

It's a submission as much as gratitude. He won't rush off.

That's better than nothing at this point. It's enough for Tifa to feel comfortable enough to begin to unstrap her Dragon's Claws, flexing her fingers until she can pull the gloves off her hands one at a time. Tidus isn't a threat to her and even if he were, her own body is her weapon, even more than her gloves.

Still, she pushes that thought out of her mind and focuses on Tidus, debating on how much to push him. In the end, she decides to leave it where it is.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asks after another few minutes, her arms folded just below her chest. Drinks she can do, for keeping an eye on him as well as taking care of him.

Tidus weighs the offer, less on the scales of what he deserves and doesn’t, but really on what he wants, what he needs. The latter he cares less for, and the former, well--he decides he doesn’t care for that either, so that leaves him with nothing but the option of shaking his head to decline.

But he knows he owes Tifa more than silence for coming here roughed up in the first place. More than he’s given so far, some kind of explanation. I got angry and started a fight is both accurate and useless, though it’d fit well with being a plain and simple idiot. Truthfully, Tidus hoped to just come here and heal up, leave without anything other than apologies, some money in payment--or so he would’ve, if he’d thought out any of this beyond healing up.

Except Tifa doesn’t let him, and while he doesn’t look anywhere than at the ground, he knows she’s there, owed. Not an intentional guilt-trip, but she doesn’t need to be. His mind does that well on its own. He needs those minutes though, the quiet and the lull of the healing magic working itself into his muscles. The guilt. The stupidity of why he’s here in the first place. When Tidus begins, he doesn’t on a whisper, but his voice low.

“They changed her. When I asked...they told me they sent her back. That it was a mistake they brought her in the first place. She was gone for days. Then after… I found her out there, in the city. It looked just like her.”

It sounded just like her. He could’ve believed it was her. Tidus squeezes his fists, the memory seeping behind his eyes more vivid than he wants. Tidus grits his teeth, breathes in through his nose. All with a few words, the hushed emotion washing back over him, his pace picking up.

“I thought we’d have more than a month. I knew it was bogus, you know? This place, everything they tell you--but we didn’t have anything else. I can’t go back.” But now, it wasn’t even him who was gone. Gone. After everything they did back home--

His head lifts slightly, but he doesn’t look up. Just stares farther along the ground, where the floor meets a table.

“I was supposed to protect her.”

And it's a statement that's a match to the fuel waiting in the pit of his stomach. Tidus's head sways a bit, everything about him abruptly restless; so much so that he's soon standing, lifting quicker on his feet than the grunt from his mouth finds agreeable. He doesn't look like he knows where to go, only that heave of his shoulders and the rigid hold of his arms and hands express clearly what he wants to do, healing wounds be damned.

Just let the rest of him catch up to the bad decisions his brain is heading him for.

Some of the things Tidus has told Tifa start to slowly click back into place for her. Some of the seemingly random questions that he's brought up in the past, like the ones about people who have nowhere else to go and maybe making a better life here. Tifa hadn't wanted to burst his bubble of hope, for all that she didn't believe, and still doesn't, that this place has any kind of hope in it. Now she's beginning to understand where all of that came from. It's like Aerith and a part of Tifa's heart breaks all over again.

"That's horrible." Really, it is. Sounds just like something she could imagine happening at home. But it also serves to support her theory about this place not being what it's advertised as.

She doesn't really have a lot to say at first and her attention is drawn to Tidus' pacing. His body language screams at her, yelling out his tension and the need for release. Clearly, he isn't about to calm down anytime soon and she may as well help him let off some of that tension. Better than releasing him back to the streets. So, she steps towards the nearest table, motioning for him to come closer.

"Grab the other side," she directs. "Help me clear the room and we can spar."

And maybe while they are working out some of Tidus' anger and sadness, they can also talk things out. That might help him, too. She'll even keep her gloves off so she doesn't accidentally make his injuries worse.

“What?”

If there’s anything to pause his feet, it’s not the instruction to move the table, but the mention of sparring. Tidus stares at Tifa in confusion, not sure if he’s really understood, a glance spared to the table before returning on her.

He might need some added confirmation, small or otherwise, of the offer being set. It’s far more orderly than that chaotic way he’s been handling it so far.

And not only that--could he hurt Tifa?

She nods her head in the direction of the wall she wants to move the table towards, patiently waiting for him to get with it. "You're obviously in need of some way to burn off some steam," she explains as she waits. "I trained in hand-to-hand martial arts. I can defend myself and maybe it'll help you get out some of that energy."

She pauses for another second before adding on, quieter, "And maybe we can talk out everything that's on your mind, too."

It’s still a little surreal, but with Tifa’s answer Tidus does as he’s told, if not sure what will happen once the table is set back. Talking--does he even want to do that? What was there for him to say that he already hadn’t? He knows what to do more with the invitation to fight, and even that has him feeling clumsy.

It doesn’t stop him from moving away from the table afterwards however, if with slow steps. If she says she’s trained, that’s better than him, a fact he should probably share, but the thought leaves him. He wants to swing his arms at someone, something. Does it matter how well he does it? It hasn't so far.

So he stands with a stance more suited for someone used to wield a blade, yet with his feet not locked to the ground. Hands clenched, brow furrowed in a hesitance that persists into the swing that he eventually takes--speed lacking for it, aiming for somewhere around her shoulder on the farthest side of his fist.

He doesn't say anything in response, but he doesn't need to. Tifa knows he's hurting and can imagine why. Just the little bit he's said already tells her enough. But she can also tell that he needs to get some of that energy out. Better that he do it with someone who can take a few hits and won't get angry at him for them than... however he got his original injuries.

Still, she deadpans a little when he finally does take a swing at her, if only because it's almost an insult. She chalks it up to him not knowing her or her abilities, and maybe also him being a bit of a gentleman and not wanting to hurt a lady, but decides that she isn't going to take that. He isn't balanced well and he's not putting any power or speed behind it. At least not enough.

She could easily dodge it, take a step or two aside and let his momentum carry him through. But she would rather make an impression. So, she blocks with one arm, using her entire body to absorb the shock of impact, knees bending to take it. Pushing back with that one arm to disengage, she gives a thrust with her other arm, aiming her hand for his chest to give him a shove and hopefully knock him off his feet.

Just to prove her point about not going easy on her.

The hope is fulfilled: with no defence and the block stunning him (or more his ill-preparation on what to do next), the jab throws Tidus off-balance from the top, his weight below unable to catch him, and so he promptly topples.

Unsurprisingly, Tidus sits dumbfounded, the sting from his landing shooting him awake. He throws a stunned look at Tifa, but promptly understands what’s occurred and why. So he picks himself up from the floor, shaking out his arms and, this time, he bounces on his step, a brief thing before he comes in this time with a quicker fist.

There’s inexperience to his moves, knowing where to aim; he doesn’t know how to read a hand-to-hand fighter, but he does have nimble reflexes, knows to use his secondary arm to defend (but probably not from throws) and has speed when he’s actually trying.

But he’s still hurt, his mind not in the right headspace, and so the frustration quickly builds into a voice at the back of his throat, thrown out first before a punch:

“I couldn’t have saved her, could I? After everything--”

And when he does throw it, it's with sharp yell, angry and hurt, as if wanting to punch that belief.

Tifa understands his feelings all too well. She remembers the pain of losing Aerith, of watching her hometown burn to the ground, knowing she couldn't do anything to save any of them. They were supposed to be heroes, weren't they? The people who were trying to save the Planet. But it's hard to be a hero when everything hurts too much.

With that in mind, Tifa lets him work out his frustration. She can read his inexperience, but it's the sort born of a one-handed fighter trying to work empty-handed. He has strength, skill, reflexes, and speed on his side. The only thing he's really lacking is control. She doesn't go easy on him, but she's also not trying to knock him off his feet again. When he finally does speak again, it's with words that cut her deeper than she can admit to anyone and the yell echoes her own feelings. She blocks again, gritting her teeth not from the strength of his punch, but from the strength of the pain she knows too well.

"Maybe... maybe not."

The last thing she wants is to bullshit him, tell him some sort of platitude that will only make the ache gnaw at him. They don't know for sure what happened to Yuna. They can make all sorts of educated guesses, and the worst are easier to believe than any of the others, but they don't know. Still, Tifa hesitates to say that and so she focuses on what has helped keep her going for so long.

"You can't give up." If there's anything truly important she can tell him, it's this. "That's what they want. The Head, evil corporations, it doesn't matter. They hurt you so you'll stop fighting. So you'll give up and let them win. Find a way to keep fighting, a reason to believe in. Vengeance or the protection of the world or anything. Whatever it takes to pick yourself up."

If she sounds like she's speaking from experience... that's because she definitely is.

It’s funny, to despair losing an end of life he never wanted--that if he never opened his eyes after leaping, this would have never happened. Not to him, but especially not to Yuna. It made sense to him, when he was the one who shouldn’t have existed in the first place, throwing a wrench into order and causing misery to the ones around him. To Yuna. To Yuna. Who should be alive, happy and free, living in a world with Lulu, Wakka, Rikku, and Kimahri, being with some other guy, whoever she wanted as long as she smiled, and--

It’s not the immediate thought that catches Tidus, but exists somewhere in the amalgamation of everything that overwhelms him as he listens to Tifa, as the anxiety burning his skin makes his arms tremble. Maybe, maybe not. Answers and actions out of reach, a reason to believe. It’s everything he knows and everything he knows he can’t know, won’t ever get to know, and Tidus takes a long shake of his head as the encroaching emotion wells in his throat. Fists clenched so tight the pain of digging into his palms numb into nothing.

The shaking of his head quickens, and then Tidus raises his right fist, letting out a cry as he slams it in the direction of the ground instead of Tifa, a burst of orange coating the hand as it meets the ground, cracking an indentation of the impact where it hits. Tidus stays where he’s dropped, slumped and propped only by his arms, the release of the partial overdrive emptying him of more than what was left of the excess energy rattling him.

Quiet, until he speaks to the floor with a voice heavy and wet. Weak.

“I don’t know how to wait, Tifa. I just keep thinking and thinking... It keeps me up. I pick fights. It never help. How am I gonna make it? When I can't keep... living like this.”

How can he make it when he can’t even control himself?

Ready for that final punch to connect with her instead of the ground, Tifa pauses after the impact, waiting, giving Tidus a few moments to work through whatever he can. He's exhausted, weary and in a lot of emotional pain. Tifa knows full well what he's going through, having been through it herself. After another minute, she kneels down on the ground, resting her arms across her thighs.

"I know," she says softly. "Believe me, I know. It's a lot harder to have to struggle through living in the same place where something traumatic happened. To survive and not be able to save people you care about."

She has lost so many people in her life, so many, that sometimes it feels like a huge gaping wound in her very soul, yawning painfully until she just can't cope. They don't talk about Nibelheim. Ever. Tifa doesn't want to jostle Cloud's memories too much and for so long she was second-guessing her own. Now she just tries to figure out a good time to work through it all with Cloud, but the Head keeps throwing things at them and she hasn't had a good chance.

Listening to Tidus talk, though... she can relate a little too well.

"It's... weird... seeing people as clones. The same thing happened at home. My hometown was burned to the ground four years ago. Blinded by my rage, I went after the man responsible, tried to fight him and make him pay. He cut me down like I was nothing more than paper in his way. Now, Cloud and I and some of our friends are fighting Shinra to save the Planet." It's all a mess. She takes a breath and bows her head just slightly. "I know it's hard, but my point is that we all need to work together and plan first before we attack. We can't just go picking fights with anyone or everyone we can. That just gets us almost killed and nothing changes. We want change, right? So even if it's too late for Yuna, even if it's too late for my father or the rest of my hometown, there's still a fight to be won. None of them would want us to die for a half-cocked reason. So we get stronger, channel our anger and pain, and then we use it to change things."

Not be able to save the people you care about. While his being starts to hollow out, those words still find room to sting. Reminds him he’s living, despite all attempt to smother the fact. Tidus listens quietly as the numbness starts to settle into him again, reminded of names and places spoken of long ago between them; of her hometown, Nibelheim, the name of the corporation that made her tense visibly. His hands sliding at some point close to his legs, until Tifa finishes, and he slowly brings himself to sit back, a bent knee straight while his other laid tucked around it.

He locks his fingers together on the leg upright, slow to speak; small glances taken between Tifa and the ground between them, the dent left behind. Feeling both so empty, yet full at once.

“There was a fiend,” he starts, eyes deliberately on the floor. “It terrorised the world, destroying and killing. People sacrificed themselves to defeat it -- ‘til it came back, started the cycle all over. ...It was worth the peace to them.”

He says the last bit like an echo, a statement repeated. He still remembers Yuna’s words, that day when she told them. As pointless as the sacrifice turned out to be, as much as he disagreed with losing Yuna for the rest of the world -- it was Yuna’s strength and resolve. It was why she was willing to give up everything.

“Yuna was one of them. Soon as I found out, I said I’d find a way to keep her alive. And we did it.” His voice picks up, but so does the wet quality he’d managed to dismiss. “We got rid of Sin, and she lived. She could dream about the future...finally... she never used to think about it.”

He’s smiling, sad and as painful as it wear itself across his face. A tear falls from his eyes now wet themselves, and Tidus sniffs, wiping at them with the back of his hand, making his vision blur for it.

“I know… we gotta fight. Take our...time...Stop this. I just…”

I’d give anything to have her back--

It should have been me--

I loved her--

His throat won’t allow him to finish, let him say what he wants to say, convey the reasons why it hurts, who she meant to him, when he knows--he knows Tifa must already know. In her own way, her own story. In her own family and friends and her pain.

But it was still so raw. Tidus leans his forehead to rest against his knee, his shoulders trembling as he fights the urge to break down completely, but a few more tears tickling down his skin anyway.

Maybe Tifa had never thought of Aerith the same way Tidus obviously thinks of Yuna, but all the same, Tifa understands. They had taken Aerith with them because Shinra would never stop looking for her. The Turks would never leave her alone. They had wanted to help protect her, even as she became a lifeline to helping the Planet. And then she had died at Sephiroth's hands anyway and according to Vincent that last prayer was what saved the Planet. It's all because of Aerith, yet Tifa still mourns her friend's loss and she knows what it will do to Cloud in the future.

"I won't lie and say it'll go away," she says after a while, her voice soft. "It will get better, easier to deal with, but that pain won't ever fully heal."

She knows this very, very well. Her own pain and the anger she still harbors towards Shinra over everything that has happened are still festering wounds in her own heart. She's doing her best to cope, but it won't ever fully heal, and she isn't about to bullshit Tidus on the whole thing, either. No good will come of telling him platitudes when none of it is true.

"I can teach you to fight hand-to-hand, if you want," she offers next. "That'll give you a good way to burn off some steam and to fight back if the Iterations ever turn up on your heels here."

He needs time before he can speak again, for his head to clear enough to even have an answer for the offer made. It’s not there right away, as easy as the right choice is once he’s not focusing solely on keeping himself together. Tidus sits with his head kept leaned to his knee, breathing through the ache in his lungs. At least he didn’t have to think about all the rest gained from his earlier tussle, the healing having seeped into most of those bruises by then.

When he finally speaks, it’s in that same position, with a tone close to humorous.

“Guess I should be getting a grip…” He should, though. He had no weapon, didn’t really know how to fight without one. And what about his magic? All that knowing about the trouble of this city, and did he ever prepare? Tidus peels his head back, giving his face another wipe over and sniffing. Eyes flitting towards Tifa then away, before he tugs something of a small, sad smile at her.

“...Thanks. For helping me out. And for listening,” he adds. He then cocks a head in direction of the bar. "I can help out if you need a hand. I know how to cook. Whatever you need."

[closed] dreams must end

» tifa lockhart

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