[Fic][FFVII] 50 sentences: Barret x Tifa

[wallwalker]

(A set of sentences I wrote for 1_sentence a long time ago. Some of them have since become longer pieces. I did end up rewriting one, since I decided I didn't like the "joke" I was trying to make with it anymore.)

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII [OGC]
Pairing: Barret Wallace x Tifa Lockheart
Theme set: Beta
Rating: G to R
Warnings and Notes: Beware of semicolon and dash abuse. :p I tried for a darker mood with some of them. Some references to Cloud snuck in, but not many. Doesn't follow AC or any of the other newer things; I hadn't seen or played any of them at the time.

#01 - Walking

It's the thought of coming back to the bar - the thought of seeing Tifa standing there holding Marlene's hand - that keeps him walking past Wall Market, with its women and drugs and second-rate thrills.

#02 - Waltz

Barret has never danced around any subject in his life - he's never had to, because he has always managed without having to hide what he really thinks; Tifa has always wished she could tell him just how much she's always respected him for that.

#03 - Wishes

"I wish you an' Miss Tifa were here, Daddy," Marlene says one day, when that damn talkin' cat lets him talk to her on his private line, and Barret has to shut up for a while so that he doesn't start crying, because that's what he's been wishing too.

#04 - Wonder

The first time he'd ever seen Cosmo Canyon, he'd wondered how something like that could've existed all that time and he'd never even known it; he'd wondered the same thing about Midgar, although in a very different way.

#05 - Worry

In a way it's a relief when the soldiers come to Sector 7, and start shooting people near the pillar; it means that Barret can stop worrying nonstop about whether or not Tifa's okay, and start doing the one thing he knows he's still good at: busting stuff up.

#06 - Whimsy

Tifa missed being a child so much, missed the days when her biggest concerns had been about which boy she was going to talk to that day.

#07 - Waste/Wasteland

"How the hell can they look at this," Barret asked her, pointing to the bare dirty rock that surrounded Midgar as far as the eye could see, "and not wonder what they're doing to the Planet with those damn reactors?"

#08 - Whiskey and rum

He'd never drank much before Midgar, but now he did once in a while, and Tifa definitely had the best booze - she had to have some sort of connection on the Plate, he figured.

#09 - War

"You always gotta remember that we're soldiers b'hind enemy lines, an' if we get too cozy here we're dead," Barret would often tell her after a couple of drinks, just often enough that she wondered which of them he was really trying to convince.

#10 - Weddings

She'd dreamed of white weddings and delicate, sugary cakes and huge receptions full of cheering friends when she'd been young, never mind that almost no one in Nibelheim had ever had such an extravagant wedding; she'd never mentioned it to anyone in Midgar, even Barret, because she didn't want to sound like a silly little girl again.

#11 - Birthday

Tifa decorated the bar as best she could for Marlene's fourth birthday, with balloons and colorful tinsel and blinking lights - she'd even found party hats, and had convinced Barret into wearing a particularly ridiculous one with gold tassels and a little bell on top - and for months she had smiled as she'd remembered the big grin on the little girl's face.

#12 - Blessing

"It's the most beautiful damn thing I've seen in years," Barret said, and pointed at the flowers that grew around the little house, and Tifa agreed quietly, and wondered what Aeris possibly could've done to be so blessed.

#13 - Bias

Sure, there's a reason he doesn't trust Cloud, he admits as he watches how Tifa looks at the kid with all that pain and anger on her face; he has his biases, same as everyone else.

#14 - Burning

He still remembers the stink of the coal mines, back before Mako, and at the time he'd thought that it had been the worst thing ever and that any alternative would be a relief; he still couldn't believe how wrong he'd been, when he let himself think about it.

#15 - Breathing

The first man that Tifa had ever killed had been one of Shinra's thugs, appropriately enough; she didn't remember much, just crushing his windpipe with a well-placed kick and watching him choke on his own blood, and feeling the reassuring pressure of Barret's hand squeezing her shoulder as she watched him die....

#16 - Breaking

It's easy to forget, looking at Tifa when she's behind the bar, that she can break someone's bones as easily as she can serve up a glass of beer, but Barret has seen her do it enough times that he has no trouble remembering it.

#17 - Belief

"I think that Marlene is safe, Barret," Tifa had insisted, and if it had been anyone but her he wouldn't have even tried to believe it... but it was Tifa, and so he did his best as they made their way to Sector 6.

#18 - Balloon

Marlene had held on to the balloon from her party for weeks, even after it had shriveled into an unrecognizable scrap of rubber; Barret had chuckled and thought that it was cute, and Tifa had mentally resolved to do the same thing for her fifth birthday if she had the chance.

#19 - Balcony

He remembers the first time he saw Cosmo Canyon, way up on a ledge above the settlement; he had stood there and stared like a little kid, 'cuz he'd never seen anything like it before.

#20 - Bane

The thought of bein' the ones who'd bring Shinra down for good kept them going - that, and Marlene, and each other.

#21 - Quiet

"Fuck this silent-treatment bullshit, Cloud - if you got a problem with me, you say it to my face right now," he finally snapped, and the only reason he didn't say any more than that was because he knew that Tifa was watching them both.

#22 - Quirks

Tifa tended to drum out old showtunes on the surface of the bar when she was nervous, but that was about the only thing strange about her - the only thing that he knew about, anyway.

#23 - Question

"Tifa," Marlene asked one day, "if I shouldn't call you Mommy, what should I call you?" and Tifa had to think for a long time about how to answer that, while Barret stood behind her with his mouth hanging open; she thought that it was funny how kids could always come up with the most awkward questions, except when they actually asked her one.

#24 - Quarrel

She wants to help Cloud, she thinks as she watches them clash, but she also doesn't want to worry Barret; she isn't sure what kind of person she would've ended up being, if Barret hadn't come along.

#25 - Quitting

It would be so much easier, Tifa wants to say, if she could just let go of Cloud and the problems he was having, if she could at least talk to someone about it - she knows that Barret will listen to her, if no one else would, although she isn't sure what he'd say - but she's just not that sort of person, and so she can't.

#26 - Jump

Barret keeps his arm around her as Cloud falls - he's half-afraid that if he lets her go she'll jump down after him, and he doesn't care what he has to do, but he's not gonna let her throw her life away like that....

#27 - Jester

"Yeah, maybe I do look a little silly," Barret said, giving Tifa a big and refreshingly genuine smile as he brushed the last of the dust off of the sailor suit, "but I'm good with that - and hey, I'll let you take it offa me later tonight, if that'll make you feel better!"

#28 - Jousting

If he'd been a different sort of guy, he might've challenged Cloud to some sorta duel, because he hated the bastard's smugness and the way he took everything - even Tifa, hell, especially Tifa - for granted... but he didn't know much about that kinda stuff, and besides, Tifa would've been upset if he'd hurt the kid, and he'd at least be handy for the hit on the next reactor....

#29 - Jewel

He remembered always hoping that he'd find a real jewel in the mines with the coal that he could give to Myrna, and now he wished that he had something like that to hope for with Tifa, because she deserved better than years of cleaning up after drunken sots and kicking belligerent jerks out of the bar.

#30 - Just

He's just plain lost without her, honestly - he's never realized until then how much he depended on her - and he doesn't want to be leader if she's not there to help him out, if she's not there to tell him not to lose his temper and to remember what Marlene would think if he could see what he was thinking, and so he swallows his pride and admits that he ain't cut out to be leader anyway.

#31 - Smirk

"I'm going because we need to find out what that horny old man's learned about Shinra's plans - and I'm sorry, Barret, but you'd look awful in a dress," she added, a slight smirk curling her lips, and he couldn't help but laugh at the thought despite himself.

#32 - Sorrow

He's watching her touching Cloud's hands, trying to get him to answer her somehow, and he feels... something... just burnin' up inside of him, something painful and nasty and tearful, and he doesn't cry or act surprised when she turns to him and says that she has to stay with him, but he damn well wants to.

#33 - Stupidity

"Underestimatin' us is gonna be the stupidest damn mistake Shinra ever made," he says grimly, and Tifa nods, face set in what she hopes is determination.

#34 - Serenade

No, he isn't much of a romantic - his idea of a serenade is standin' below somebody's window with a radio, and his idea of dinner for two is having some pizza delivered and picking up some cheap candles and good beer - but she can forgive him for that; romance is hard enough to come by in the slums, at least the real kind and not the gaudy, fake sort of romance that the Honeybees sell.

#35 - Sarcasm

Sarcasm has never been one of their strong points; Tifa is easy to fool, and Barret takes offense at things that might've been meant as jokes.

> #36 - Sordid

People couldn't live in the slums without the slums getting the better of them, with all of the sick, ammoral stuff that went down there - power failures were the worst times, Tifa and Barret and Biggs always had to watch the door and keep the worst of the bastards out of the bar so that they wouldn't tear the place down or get their dirty hands on any of the others, especially Marlene - and he's very aware of that, very much aware that he's done things he wouldn't have dreamed of doing as a struggling coal miner, and that he's gonna do them again soon as he gets the chance.

#37 - Soliloquy

"Y'know, I wanna love this place," he says one night, "I wanna love it so bad, so that I can feel like I'm fightin' for somethin' that I love, but how can you love a place like this, all dirty and polluted and... and everythin', hell, I can't even describe how much I hate it sometimes, how bad it feels just bein' here, and the only things that keep me sane are -" but Tifa stops him there and gently suggests that he drink a couple of glasses of water, he's had a bit too much to drink; he was heading for a subject that she wasn't sure she wanted to hear, not when she still dreams of home every night.

#38 - Sojourn

Once upon a time, Midgar had been a place where Tifa had planned to rest and work and get herself back on her feet to find somewhere better; she wasn't sure when it turned from a temporary place to a new and unwelcoming home.

#39 - Share

Oh, they'd both had an equal share in what they'd done that night; it wasn't like either of 'em had forced anything... still, they didn't bring it up that much, and sometimes he had to look away from her and stop thinkin' about wanting to do it again.

#40 - Solitary

It started like most mistakes started, down there in the slums; Barret was sick of bein' alone, the sounds of the city drownin' out her own thoughts and hell, if he didn't go see her, he'd go crazy, so he snuck out of the place and headed up to her little apartment above the bar in the dead of night.

#41 - Nowhere

There's nowhere in the world like Cosmo Canyon, he thinks as he manages to cook some dinner - not much, he ain't that good at it and never was, but it's edible, and Marlene's getting pretty hungry,and Tifa's gonna be too tired to cook by the time she gets home anyway; it's already late.

#42 - Neutral

He's taken the gun off and started wearing a normal prosthetic hand again; it's not as dangerous as the gun, and it's better for the sort of work that he does around Cosmo Canyon, and besides, Marlene thinks it looks much nicer than the gun ever did.

#43 - Nuance

She's pushing herself pretty damn hard, hunting the monsters outside of the canyon; he can see it in everything she says and does, and the only thing that stops him every day from making her stop is knowing that after what they've been through, it's gonna take her some time to learn that she really doesn't have to fight anymore.

#44 - Near

Tifa smiled and sat down beside Barret, hair still damp from the bath she'd taken a half-hour ago; she did not have to tell him that she had missed him.

#45 - Natural

At the time it had all seemed natural, him lying on his back and roughly caressing her as best he could with his one good hand while her legs were locked tightly around his hips; it had felt comfortable, even, at least while it had lasted.

#46 - Horizon

It was the first sunset that either of them had seen in years, and they stood together at the window of the little inn and stared until long after the sun had sank below the horizon.

#47 - Valiant

"Real brave of those AVALANCHE bastards," he hears someone say, "hidin' behind that name and makin' it harder on everyone down here," and if Tifa hadn't been there to take his arm and remind him that Marlene was waiting for him back at the bar, there would've been some real trouble; why couldn't they understand that he was fightin' for them too?

#48 - Virtuous

Once upon a time, Tifa would've said that killing people was wrong no matter what; Midgar had a way of blurring the lines, or else she wouldn't have been there with Barret anyway.

#49 - Victory

Well, Barret thought, that reactor isn't gonna be suckin' the life outta the planet for a while, and it was an incredibly hollow sort of victory, but what the hell, he'd take what he could get....

#50 - Defeat

They had both been beaten by life before, and both of them had the scars to prove it; both of them took a great deal of care not to touch the other's injuries when they were together, physical or otherwise, because they both knew how much even the old wounds could hurt.