it's a lonely time for yours truly

[foldedsteel]

WHO: Tifa Reno lol
WHEN: uh. Thurs May 29th late, prolly Fri May 30th in the wee hours
WHERE: Reno's place. Particularly, Reno's bed. And then elsewhere.
WHAT: Lol not what you think.
WARNINGS: Naked. Still not what you think.
COMPLETED

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[foldedsteel]

She wasn't sure if she'd fallen asleep or just cried herself into some sort of stupor, but when the water suddenly went cold, as water in apartment complexes was sometimes wont to do, she jerked fully awake, lifting her face to the cold rainfall and heaving a long, weary sigh.

It was time to stop wasting Sandy's money.

So she rose and shut the water off, grabbing a towel and planting her face into it, just standing there a long moment, shivering. But she finally stepped out of the shower, drying off and wrapping her long hair up in the towel, yowling softly as she bashed her hip into the counter in the dark.

She couldn't find her clothes...and they were all snotty and gross anyway. Nngh, whatever. She needed clean clothes and those were in Reno's room, and he was asleep and...well shit.

She supposed she could walk back naked. It was just down the hall, and no one was going to be awake at four in the morning anyhow. And Reno would never complain about her being naked, at least not when they were alone.

Her fingers were cold as she unlocked the door, and a long sigh rattled out of her. She felt...empty. Hollow, empty, drained. Worthless. What a waste of space she was. Couldn't even hold it together. Had to sit around moping and wasting water when it wasn't solving anything. Inefficient. Illogical. Ungrateful. What would her father have said?

Baby girl, his voice dusted through her head, you can't just dwell on the bad things. You gotta remember all the good things you've done, and look forward to all the good things you're gonna do.

Except she hadn't done any good things. She'd failed. And now...now there was nothing she could do.

Tears stung her eyes, slow and warm and thick. She just wanted to curl up in bed and wake up in a world that could be bright again. As if it'd ever been bright in the first place.

She opened the door.

And then she yelped as a body toppled over into her.

[cynicalnevada]

Reno had apparently nodded off where he'd been perched outside the door, because when it opened inward behind him, he snapped awake at the sudden shift in equilibrium, and let out an unbecoming cry of alarm as he lost his balance and pitched backward, slamming into...Tifa's legs. It was dark, and Reno was disoriented and groggy, and it might have been just as well, because Tifa was very naked and he was in a very good position to see straight up her miles of legs. Not that he hadn't seen what was at the end of that road before, but there was something alarming about falling backward into your naked girlfriend's shins and then eyeballing her from a low angle. It was just...weird.

And so he scrabbled to get his bearings, suddenly very awake, and he might have gasped something like an apology but he honestly wasn't sure.

Pitching forward back into the hall he groped blindly in the dark hall for the little pile of clothes he had brought with him and then thrust them toward her, his head turned the other way as he did so. "That...was not my intention--not why I was sitting outside the bathroom door in case you were wondering!" he cried, holding her clothes toward her like some sort of peace offering to an angry goddess so she wouldn't smite him where he cowered.

Jeez...he'd only been trying to be nice. Someone up there was laughing at his expense and he didn't appreciate it.

[foldedsteel]

She was...speechless. "Y--wha--R--wh--y--di--R--?!"

Yeah, definitely speechless.

But then it slowly occurred to her that he'd...noticed she was gone, and come looking for her, and realized she was showering, and gotten her clothes, and brought them out to her, and waited for her to come out so he could give them to her, and we was the most wonderful accident-prone awkward foot-in-mouth gentleman-jerkface she'd ever known and she didn't deserve him.

And so instead of taking the clothes from him, she just sort of...sank to her knees, the sight of him gray in the darkness swimming as her eyes prickled and stung, and she put her arms around him and bit back a whimper, her body cold and shaking. "...Thanks," she managed after a long moment, half wanting to just grab the clothes, yank them on, and go sit alone in the living room until the sun came up, half wanting to curl up in his arms right there and cry like she'd never done before, half wanting to just trudge back to bed and pretend this never happened, and half wishing she weren't so exhausted so she'd be a little better at fractions. "...You okay?"

Her voice was thick, cracked and shaking; maybe he'd think it was the cold. Did it sound like she'd been crying? She forced a chuckle meant to sound at his expense, but it sounded more like she was trying to hide something. Which she was, really. "Sorry I woke you."

[cynicalnevada]

He jumped when she put her arms around him, and then frowned grumpily when he noted she was shivering. She thanked him, and he just laughed when she asked if he was okay.

"I'm pretty sure I've hurt myself doing less interesting things," he admitted, "but I'm fine, yo." Then he shook his head, answering her apology thus. "You were gone a long time, yo," he said, hiding a yawn behind his hand as he shifted to sit on his knees. "Are you all right? What...why were you showering at 4 in the morning?"

She sounded...like she'd been crying, but he didn't want to accuse her of such a thing. He'd never seen her cry, and she seemed to take some sort of pride in that, and who was he to take that away from her?