‘ life imitates art, they say. i didn’t believe it until i started to notice the way your eyelashes look so much like tiny ink stroke. ’
GRAVE SUGGESTIONS / not accepting.
cloud has never considered himself particularly attractive, in any sense of the word. not pretty, not handsome, not... anything. just a scrawny kid with watery eyes and too many freckles.
shinra sure put their soldiers through the grinder, though, and he wasn’t the worst he’d ever been, and mako had given him enough strength to fight. he’s aware of the looks he’s been getting since his comatose five years, and it’s new and weird and he’s not sure about it.
but when it was tifa, tifa, who he’d been watching out of the corner of his eye for as long as he’d had a childhood, who he’d left town for, who he’d held in his arms when the world was coming down and his idol stood covered in blood in the reactor, who looked at him like that it suddenly became different.
he still wakes up, some mornings, next to her, and it doesn’t feel quite real. this is some fever dream, he’s going to wake up in hojo’s lab still, and this never happened. and then she smiles, and it doesn’t matter, really, if it’s real or not.
said lashes flicker, and he leans on her shoulder, lets the press of his body convey his emotions for one moment, while he gathers words.
i’m so lucky, he wants to say. i don’t deserve this, but that would probably upset her, and that’s the last thing he wants to do. i’m really not what you think of me, is another one that crosses his mind.
he’s a messy accident at best - certainly not art.
but this is exactly the kind of thinking she’s been trying to stop him from doing, all these years. these are the thoughts that lead to breakdowns and tears and bad situations for everyone. he’s learning to just put them aside, to take compliments, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them. but if there’s one person he has to be able to take them from, it’s his wife.
“ah. thank you, dear.” levity, his mind supplies. don’t let her see the struggle that just happened. “are my eyelashes really that fascinating? what about the rest of my face?” cue a cheeky, lopsided smile, and a genuine burst of warmth in his heart. with tifa, even the most forced things become... real. it makes him dizzy, even after all this time.
