dualislogs | [closed] dreams must end

WHAT: late november bump-ins eyyy
WHERE: Around the city
WHEN: late november, early december
WARNINGS: dumb physical fighting w/ squall, some alcohol use implication+violence with nida, more to be added later.

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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."

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[closed] dreams must end

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