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A Lazy Ocean Hugs the Shore	By : Kassi Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its characters, places, and situations are (C) copyright Square Enix. They are reproduced here for non-commercial entertainment. All other material is mine.

Chapter List
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Tifa got lost in Seventh Heaven’s countertop. Sometimes she cleaned until she wore away the finish. As her hand’s repetitive swirl continued unchecked she stared at the wall.
I should take that picture down, she thought.
A pressed-butterfly memory looked back at her. Barret’s hand rested on Cloud’s shoulder in the photograph, both men rendered indistinct by Gongaga’s swampy fog. She’d taken it when they traveled the world after Meteorfall, when Cloud still attempted to force a smile on his face. Every time he’d slapped its bandage over his silence it looked more tattered and out of place.
His rare smile these days was a crack in a gradually clearing sky as Geostigma’s shadow faded from the world. He wasn’t around much. The return of his energy brought with it enthusiastic trips to help rebuild the world. All that effort he’d bound up in fighting and grief now exploded out of him in all directions as surely as his blond hair exploded off his head.
She wished she had a better picture to replace the one she frowned at now. Her own energy was still MIA and she despaired of ever having it again. Her feet felt stuck to the ground, her heart stuck in the days that blurred past as Denzel and Marlene grew up before her eyes.
An obstacle stopped her scrubbing, returning her to the present. She glanced down. A leather glove touched the area of the bar she was destroying with her erosion. She looked up into a pair of mirrors and saw herself smile in them.
“Hi,” she said. “What can I get you?”
Rude smiled. “The pleasure of your company.”
She laughed falsely and stifled a wince at her own sound.
“Do you have any plans tonight?” he said, flustering her further.
She frowned. “…No. Cloud’s helping out Cid in Rocket Town, and Barret took Marlene and Denzel to the Gold Saucer for a week.”
“I heard,” he said.
She cocked her head at him. “Spying on me?” She was aware the Turk carried a torch for her. She found it cute and flattering, but didn’t want to string him along while she felt this weight hanging in her chest every time she looked at Cloud.
Rude shrugged. “Close the bar early. Come out with me.”
“…Out?”
“You look like you could use some fun.”
“‘Fun’?” she joked. “What’s that?”
“It won’t hurt. I promise…” He stopped and smiled. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Hmm.” She leaned back against the draft spouts, folding her arms, and regarded him. She wondered how long he’d been mustering the courage for this invitation. “You have someplace in mind?”
His grin broadened. She wondered what his eyes looked like behind those omnipresent sunglasses. Even when she’d fought him years ago they stayed on as if glued there.
She looked down at herself, mouth twisting up. Her dingy undershirt just needed to be thrown away. Her leather needed conditioning. She’d let a lot of things go lately. “I’ll go change. Give me twenty minutes. Want a drink while you wait?”
He shook his head.
“On the house,” she said.
“Brandy,” he said instantly.
She gave him a generous pour. What the hell am I doing? she wondered. She shoved the thought out of her head as she pressed the glass in his warm leather glove.
“Something you can dance in,” he called after her as she ascended the stairs.
She paused, hand on the banister, even more surprised.
She’d had lessons, of course; it helped her fighting. She was fairly sure Reno had as well, from the way he pivoted when he kicked, but she wasn’t sure about Rude. She smiled broader. Fighters with a good body sense tended to make phenomenal dancers, as she knew from when Zangan taught her.
Pawing through her closet, hangers scraping on wooden dowels, she found a dress she’d never worn. The one that had blared with promise from a shop window so long ago. She lifted it out: a blue velvet cheongsam slit high up the sides, with a scalloped panel missing across the chest that allowed her to expand her chest and actually inhale, unlike most dresses her size.
Yes! she thought, before she lost her nerve. She stared defiantly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, slamming chopsticks in her upswept hair. Makeup veiled the dark circles under her eyes, coated her lashes to make her brown eyes pop, and darkened her mouth. Twenty minutes rejuvenated her look so much she felt shocked at the transformation.
Her spike-heeled ankle boots clattered down the stairs. He had only finished half his brandy. She strolled over, hips swaying. She took the glass from his unresisting hand. She knocked back the rest of his drink and felt burning warmth coat her throat. She hoped it could drown the last of her worry she was doing something stupid.
“Let’s go,” she said.
He offered his arm. She slid her hands through and felt his substantial bicep. Her body drank up the meager intimacy like a woman dying of thirst.
“Where’s Reno?” she said as she locked up behind them. “It’s nice to see you alone, I mean… I just wondered. He’s like… your shadow.”
“Northern Continent,” he said, taking her arm again. “Coordinating WRO and Shinra drill teams. Many of them are largely deaf despite hearing protectors. I believe the president’s exact words to Reno were, ‘The situation calls for volume over delicacy.’”
She laughed. He waved down a cab and held the door for her. She felt flustered again, nervous as he slid in beside her and his thigh touched hers. She stared at his leg, unable to hear the address he gave the driver. In the darkness it was hard to see a shape beneath crisply ironed black cloth. Something girlish in her wanted to just touch him.
Are we going out as friends? Or is this… more? she asked herself. Lacking an answer, she leaned back into the seat, watching mist curl off the streets and up from sewer grates. Aloud she said, “Where are we going?”
“The Promised Land,” he said.
Her head whipped around. His impenetrable glasses aimed at her. She rolled her eyes.
“No, really,” she said. “Where?”
His lips quirked but he didn’t reply. When the cab stopped and he let her out, she saw why.
A small green neon sign greeted her with the words: ‘THE PROMISED LAND.’ A red velvet rope stretched across an open archway, two beefy men in fine suits flanking. She heard a faint dance beat, although in the fifth district of Edge this was not unusual at all. Clubs clustered thick on and under the ground here.
Rude produced a shiny gold card from his inner jacket pocket and the rope was unhitched. Tifa strolled into a deserted and oddly tranquil courtyard, lit by stained-glass lanterns. Though bass and drums pulsed louder here, she heard the trickling starburst-tiled fountain just across from the door. A pair of shadowed people murmured to each other on an overlooking second-story balcony.
Rude grasped Tifa’s hand and tugged her toward a heavy wooden door on the right. Her shoes clacked on elaborate bright-colored patterns of tiny tile fragments. A sandwich board reside it read, in ostentatious curly lettering: ‘TONIGHT! Desert Rose & Fage-Hage.’
As soon as the door opened she heard a deep, powerful singing voice like honeyed whiskey. Round tables filled the space before her. A flickering votive candle on each showed slivers of faces turned toward the stage.
The singer, in a red and black satin corset, perched on a wooden chair. Red satin flowered in curled rosettes at her hip and cleavage. Her white hair cascaded from under a black top hat with a gauzy veil, perched at such an extreme angle Tifa could only see red lips shaping breathy lyrics.
Beside her, a bald black man slowly pivoted with a pair of red-dyed chocobo feather fans flitting in his hands. Tifa gaped. He didn’t seem to be wearing anything at all, and only judicious use of the feathers kept his genitals out of sight.
He still offered quite a buffet for the eyes. Skin stretched tight over every firm curve of muscle on his glorious body. He had not a strand of hair anywhere beyond his eyelashes and eyebrows. Dark skin shone alluringly in the light. Black abstract tattoo patterns swirled out of the cores of his biceps and up from his chiseled lower abdomen.
Tifa shut her mouth and swallowed hastily, almost whimpering. Rude tugged on her arm. She slid her eyes over the Turk’s broad shoulders and torso.
I wonder if, under that suit, he looks anything like that dancer… She suppressed a shudder.
He tugged again. Her thoughts awhirl, she followed in a daze. They re-emerged into the courtyard.
He dragged her to the opposite door under an orange sign that read ‘PACKRATS.’ He pushed through into a dim room of low-hanging green lamps, guitar ballads, green felt and bent-over men.
He guided her to a staircase in the far back corner of the pool hall. Her eyes lingered on denim stretched tight over the lean form of a young Wuteng man stretching across the table, one leg actually folded beneath him. Her breath caught, steps slowing. His focus, the cue thrust through his fingers, the way he twisted, all enthralled her.
Cue ball clacked, struck the bumper, only grazing its purple-banded target. She sighed and followed Rude up through the ceiling.
…I really need to get laid, she thought morosely, and eyed her companion again. Her stomach fluttered. I’m not ready to decide. I need a drink…
They ascended into a paradise of modern Wutain décor. A swirling green iridescent panel serpentined across the wooden floor like a river. People in elegant and casual dress lounged in chairs around low tables and drawled with relaxed ease at the curving bar.
Black-and-white luck cats waved from the shelves between liquor bottles. Flat plastic Leviathan swizzles sprouted from fruit-adorned drinks. Porcelain vases with blue-inked outlines of Da Chao held leaning branches of pink and white silk sakura flowers.
Glowing green letters spelled out ‘Lifestream Lounge’ on the mirror behind the bar, next to smaller signs for Raw Mako Beer and Icicle Inn Vodka. Even far away Tifa recognized bottle shapes, label colors, and approved of the liquor selection. She pondered what drink she should order.
Rude pulled on her arm again. She frowned up at him, now quite thirsty indeed, but at his enigmatic grin she just followed him.
As they neared the side door of the bar, the lounge’s twangy tranquil Wutain music gave way to that hypnotic beat she’d heard in the courtyard. They stepped through.
A forest of tiny materia-colored bulbs embedded in the walls swirled, oscillated, changed color, reflected in clear icicle-like glass teardrops hanging from the ceiling. Mauve-colored leather couches and chairs draped with cuddling beautiful boys and girls in tight jeans, fishnet shirts, leather skirts, glittery tops, huge swirling metal earrings. Eyes and wet lipstick reflected the room’s rainbow starlight.
It didn’t take Tifa long to realize that the coruscating patterns of light matched the beat coming from beyond the clear glass wall and glass doors at the far side of the room. She could see a small balcony beyond, looking down on a cavernous room.
Red, green and blue laser sunbursts from a ring-shaped lighting rig suspended from the ceiling combed the catwalks and main dancefloor. As she neared the glass wall the music grew so near she could feel its pulse in her teeth and follicles. She saw the silhouettes of the twining mass of people against a floor lit up in colors wherever feet touched it. The dancers’ moves created half the glittering light by which they danced.
She leaned against the glass. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen. A hand cradled her shoulder. She leaned into him for support.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered inadequately.
His gloved fingers squeezed an affirmative.
There aren’t words, she realized. Looking down on the floor she saw the twining lives of people who had thought more than once that their world would end. Most of them had probably had their worldview smeared by the ugly grease of grief. Instead of shriveling in hurt, they reveled loudly.
She reeled, both drawn and afraid. He guided her to the bar. She had to ignore the dancefloor for a moment, and focused instead on the friendly young waitstaff.
Willowy boys, mostly black-skinned, wore pristine white collars with black bowties and white cuffs with black cufflinks, but oddly no shirts across sallow torsos. Tifa realized with a shock the pale and dark girls in red halter minidresses, white petticoats and gloves, red pillbox hats and black fishnet tights were actually young men as well, busts fluffed out with falsies.
Sipping a purple liqueur Rude had ordered her while she boggled, she swiveled on her barstool and glanced around the room anew. Boys cuddled with boys. Girls cuddled with girls. The few girls cuddling with boys she saw turned out to be boys in drag.
She gasped.
Rude laughed.
She swiveled to him. A thousand colored lights reflected in his sunglasses like fabulous eternity.
“You’re…?” she began.
“Bisexual,” he said, sipping a rich brown liquid that almost matched his skin. “Most here are not.”
And not heterosexual, either, she realized.
Light patterns flowed over her pale skin like water. She sipped, overwhelmed and bewildered. She didn’t know whether to feel disappointed, confused, or just flabbergasted.
“It’s kind of a haven,” he added. “‘Saucy Gold’ membership also grants access to the fitness facilities under the building.”
“The… what?” she said.
“Gym, dojo, and smoothie bar.” He sipped his drink. “Self-conscious, the lot of us.”
She nodded, ruminating. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
She looked up into the infinite mirrors again and frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe not.”
“Seems like you girls are always looking to be thinner. Guys… we always want more muscle, more tone. Nothing’s ever enough, is it?”
She blinked, drank her drink.
“Membership here also pays for these.” He pointed at a bowl on the bar she’d seen out of the corner of her eye and dismissed as candy. Really focusing on it showed her the bright-colored wrappers actually held condoms. “Free for everyone.”
She reached for one and examined the bright red wrapper. Different fonts listed the separate areas of the club—Materia Dancefloor & Bar, Packrats Pool Hall, Desert Queen Theatre, Lifestream Lounge, Beautiful Bro Gym, Fancy Fruits Smoothie Bar.
“…And pays for the twenty-four-hour needle exchange out back,” he added. “This place looks out for more than just its customers.”
She put the condom back, exhaling, thinking of the every-man-for-himself feelings she used to get wandering through the slums of under-Plate Midgar. Was there even a place like this then, before Meteorfall? Would I have known where to look? This place…
Her eyes drifted to the spectacular lightshow on the dancefloor. She felt thrumming beats in her gut and in her sex, beckoning.
No words, she thought. Some things can only be felt.
She finished her drink.
“Can we go in?” she asked him in a small voice, as if more than a simple glass door was stopping her.
He beamed, took her arm as she rose off the stool, and shepherded her into hedonistic delight.
No words. Down in the mass of ecstatic gratefully alive people, only movement, motion, and the moment existed.

“I LOVE your dress!”
“How do you get your hair to stay so silky? You must have, like, magic genes!”
“Look at these muscles! Have you seen her muscles, guys?”
“I know! This stone fox is pure fierceness!”
Pink and purple cocktails clustered on the bar in front of Tifa. Her head swam with effervescent praise gushing from a ring of spangly spandex-polyester-clad young men around her. She beamed at them, sipping through a straw, still flushed and sweaty from the transcendent dancefloor where she’d collected them all. Rude sat a little further down to give her admirers space.
She giggled and posed, showing off her bicep to appreciative sighs.
“You know,” she said, “straight guys all run and hide when I bring out my ladyguns!”
The boys laughed.
She basked in attention without expectation of sex, sans that constant nagging pressure in eyes and gestures and ‘oops-accidentally-brushed-your-boob’ she got in straight bars and clubs. And, increasingly, everywhere—to the point where she hated going out at all.
“I love this place!” she said.
“This place loves you, honey!” purred a strawberry-blond thin boy at her elbow. He leaned in, grinning. “You’ve got to come back next week, MCs KeepKalm and Makonoid are having a spin-off!”
“I don’t even know what that is and I want to be here!” she said. She glanced over at Rude, who was smiling secretively at his glass.
A fresh beat thumped from the dancefloor and half her companions squealed.
“‘Corellian Heatwave,’ oh my god! I love this song!” said one, and they scrambled for the door as one seething mass of glittery excitement. “Tifa! Are you coming?!”
“I need a break! Thirsty!” she laughed, indicating the field of drinks they’d all bought her. Her eyes met Rude’s sunglasses as the group poured back out toward the dancefloor. He scooted over.
“Enjoying yourself?” he said as she downed a glass.
“Oh, my Holy, yes!” she said. “Thank you, Rude. I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun. You know, I haven’t even been to a club in four years!”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Really?”
She nodded, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’m really glad I came out tonight.”
He chuckled. She realized how she’d phrased it and laughed as well.
“Does Reno ever come here with you?” she said, booze emboldening her to nose at the relationship she’d always wondered at between the two Turks.
“Once. He didn’t like it,” he said.
“He didn’t? This place is a constant party!”
“Exactly. Too many other pretty boys, too much shiny shit to look at that isn’t him.”
She stared at him, perplexed for half a second more as she digested his words. Then she burst out laughing, head in her hand, elbow on the bar. She shook her head. She gazed around herself anew at the hedonistic wonderland—a pleasure island in an urban sea.
Her eyes met Cloud’s, staring in horror at her from the doorway.

The Promised Land: tinyurl(dot)com/7zyw7h4
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A Lazy Ocean Hugs the Shore