bakerstreet | You say it best

You say it best

When You Say Nothing at All

A picture's worth a thousand words, but what about an action? When you're with someone, or even just so attracted to a person that you've watched them for a while, you are probably tuned in to them more than any random off the street. You can read their body language. You know their moods, what makes them happy or sad or angry, and, hopefully, how to comfort them or cheer them up. Words aren't the only way to do this: an embrace, a soft kiss, or even an offer of a hand could be worth a MILLION words.

THE CHALLENGE: This is a shipping meme, with a hitch. That hitch? The first FIVE comments between both characters must contain no dialogue. Only actions are allowed for communication.

HARD MODE: The first ten comments between both characters must contain no dialogue.

DANTE MUST DIE MODE: The entire thread between both characters must contain no dialogue.

Comment with your character and preferences. ALSO, this is super important, put what mood your character will be in/what tone you want the thread to have! If you leave your comment blank, you'll look stupid jsyk.
Reply to others.

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[Some days are harder than others. Lots of running battles, lots of hiking in bad weather, lots of worry about tomorrow, Tifa will gladly give in to sleep on nights after days like those, rolling up in her blanket and not even needing to lay down before she's nodding off. Other nights though, she stays awake, silently fretting or internalizing or not even thinking of anything, just too lost to fall asleep. She knows sleep is important, that she needs to be alert for the next day, but some nights... some things...

like snoring.

Barret's snoring to be specific.

It's not that the walls of Seventh Heaven were ever that thick - and she's certainly gotten used to the sound in all the travel since but - sometimes the days have been easy and she's not exhausted enough to immediately drop off and

and he really does sound like one of those Shinra troop trucks going down a pot-holed hill with its brakes on.

Which is too bad because it's not every night she gets to sleep in one of the Gold Saucer beds and she had been looking forward to it after a day of racing chocobos. It's been just the three of them on this trip and it's been nice, as much as she enjoys the others, to feel as if the group that started this is still a team. Only three of them means they only need one room at the hotel though and that means

With a sigh, she finally sits up in bed and pushes her hair back from her face. In the semi-dark, past the fake lightning flashes outside the rainy window, her eyes automatically go to the third member of their party, not about to disturb him if he's somehow managed to fall asleep but - ]

[ He's not there, anyway. The tacky red bedspread is rumpled and pulled back (showing a narrow corner of equally offensive purple sheets, beneath), evidence of either some attempt at sleep or some facade of it. But Cloud himself is nowhere in evidence - at least not there.

Although his silhouette is easily strange enough to fit in with the hotel's outlandish décor, even the little fluttering flashes of lightning that precede the single, brighter one that washes the whole room in stark, white light are enough to suss him out by. He's managed to make his way silently out of bed (not that it's hard, with Barret noisily chainsawing away through his nose for cover) and to one of the chairs facing the room's disproportionately large window, where he sits, perched, with one leg pulled up to his chest and his head resting against his knee.

He's watching the rain - or looking through it - and between the snoring and the somehow softer rumbles of canned thunder, Cloud's not disturbed by her waking. There are other things, other, darker concerns chasing each other's tails back and forth inside his head over whether or not anyone else is feeling the same. It's just the three of them, anyway, and Tifa usually sleeps through. Both of them do, and it might be one of the good reasons he prefers them to some of the newbies.

That, and neither one of them has anywhere near as many questions to ask him, anymore.

(Got tired of hearing I don't know a long time ago, he supposes.)

Either way, the fake storm and the sound of snoring and the much louder white noise of his own thoughts make cover just as good for her as him. ]

[Somehow she's not surprised he's not in his bed, even if there is a little jolt of numbing that goes through her chest in that first second before she inhales automatically again and her heart unclenches just a little, enough for her to breathe, enough for her to take the time to look for him. The next exhale is even easier, already fading into forgetfulness that first moment's fear as she spots him - prominent spike of hair first, familiar form next, and that draws the smallest smile out of her even if it's tinged. As sure as she recognizes his form, she recognizes that position too.

He's safe, to be that way, around the two of them. I don't know is so familiar it's become a mantra of three instead of just one and no one actually says it any more so much as exhales it with each breath. In the dark rain of the fake night, it's almost a familiar blanket and she doesn't make much noise as she slips out of her bed, rustle of bare legs against bordello sheets, bare feet quiet on the crimson carpet as she picks her way over a morning star on the floor and to him. Maybe it's just as well that Barret's making such a racket. It reminds them, whether they want to be or not, that the world keeps turning even when they sneak away. She comes up from the side, so he can see her long before she gets to him and there's no expectation or question in her eyes as she sinks down onto her heels in front of him, angled so she can see his face in the flickers of white, shadows tear stained from the raindrops reflected through the glass against his pale skin. Things are different with them now, between just the two of them, after the Lifestream and the green. She doesn't know entirely how, not yet, but it's enough that she can reach up and rest fingers against his raised leg, head tilting too. There's still no question or expectation in her eyes. She's just there. Somehow it seems like the only necessary thing she needs to do.]

[ She's careful, which he appreciates - but it's still a mixed feeling, when he catches that familiar shape in the periphery of his vision. She shouldn't be awake, too, after all, and it's automatically his own fault he assumes, even with all the competition. It's harder to think even momentary, mundane personal turmoil might not disturb someone who's been inside your head than not, though. And rationality hasn't ever been his strong suit.

He's not dumb enough to take the credit, either way, though. Apologizing for things she won't blame on him is a fool's game, too.

So he lifts his head when she settles down next to him, but he doesn't say anything, only meeting her gaze for half a second before he glances back toward the beds, lined up against the far wall of the room.

Then he rolls his eyes, the rest of his flat expression unchanged as he lifts a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.

It's not the first time he's lied to her about something this stupid, but if she wants to contradict him, she'll have to break the silence - and there's something about a dark, occupied bedroom that forbids a lot of lengthy discourse. ]

[They lie to each other all the time. it's all right. I'm strong enough. it'll be okay. If they called each other on every lie like that they'd never get anywhere, never be anywhere but caught in helplessness. They lie to each other because it makes it have to be true. So she watches him, in the fickle dark, and she reads his body like a foreign book because it's so much more honest than his careful face. She's watched him in quiet desperation for so long, trying to unravel lies he never meant to tell, that she told him were true that, even now, when the lies are done and all they have left for each other are the simple soft ones, she still watches his body with the same concentration, even if the impending crash isn't there anymore. Now it's a different kind of crash and they'll go together if it happens. She's doesn't fear that.

So she raises her hand and her fingers slip down his stoic cheek, just as traced by shadow rain from the old window as his skin. It's a soft move, gentle and barely there, a whisper in the dark without a sound. Her fingers slip off the edge of a sharp jaw and for a second the shadow of his raised knee hides that pale in his darkness. Until they flicker back up again and the very tip of his nose gets a firm bump from her index. The look in her eyes for him matches that bump.]

[ He doesn't expect her to touch him (he doesn't ever seem to, even when she's casual enough about it, now), and he almost says something, then - but the tap on his nose shuts him up again in the very same second. He doesn't fluster, exactly (or maybe it's just harder to see, in the dark, when he flinches), but the narrowing of his eyes and the distinct motion of a quiet huff show on him just as well.

She's not going to get away with making fun of him just because they're stuck in the mutual habit of not breaking the nighttime "silence." (Hiding under the train tracks inside the Plate would be a quieter place to sleep - even up here, he'd swear he can hear the ringing, dissonant alarm bells of an arcade, the roll of wheels across coaster tracks less than perfectly timed with each distant rumble of thunder.) ...Even if all he's going to do about it is pout. ]

[She feels the huff in the nighttime darkness as much as sees it in the flicker from lightning and she already knows the pout is coming, like a second breath, before his lips even start to move and so, as they do, hers do too, sliding into a quiet and utterly triumphant smile, nothing as loud or forward as others on the team might give him but intimate and just as obvious for all it's subdued by her nature. It's the smirk to match his pout, enjoying the way the fire green of his eyes narrows at her in the dark, completey unrepentant or cowed. Perhaps there's even a trace of smugness in her quiet triumph. Quiet, rustle of leather against skin, her legs shift, folding under her as she settles at his feet and her head tips, cheek and temple coming to rest against his upraised leg. Her eyes lift to him the same way, lacking the glow of his so that only the lightning flares pick out hints of wine red from time to time in the dark and pale planes of her shadowed face.

In the dark, those eyes are silently laughing.]

Edited 2014-06-18 22:09 (UTC)

[ Of course she doesn't back off at just that - but he doesn't really mean to make her, either. It's just habit, the usual version of the usual-- Going through the motions (only with less of the hopelessness that sort of thing used to entail).

He isn't really upset.

But it still takes the frown (in all of its very serious sincerity) a moment more to fade from his expression. Then he drops his knee to the floor, careful about nudging her out of the way, but still determinedly not breaking the silence. It's always easier not to talk, anyway. And it says more than enough when he rolls his shoulders, ready to give up his chair by the window in favor of - arching a brow and nodding toward the door.

The sound of Barret's snoring isn't getting any lighter, after all. And since he's the only one not playing along - it only makes sense to leave him behind. ]

[She moves when he does, because it's natural between them to shift in time together, in tune physically with him even if her mind doesn't always catch and skip next to his. There's none of the quiet concern, the hiding bone deep fear on her face though at it, for the moment untouched by something that's become second nature and hasn't left her just yet. All that moved on her face in response to his is a bemused smile that turns into a little bit of pleasure and both her eyebrows arch in a question she doesn't expect an immediate answer to. Doesn't want an immediate answer to. She's smoothly on her feet with him, the little pad of childish pleasure in her to be sneaking out of a room at night no matter how old she is.

She only pauses once, to look over her shoulder at him over her boots sitting politely at the foot of her bed, question silent if she needs them or not, and then, that one mild concern taken care of, she follows him out the door and into the hall. They're hotel walls and hotel doors and Barret's snoring is a sound even out here but it's the distant rumble of a train now instead of the full downhill grinding shift of a supply truck. The look she gives her co-conspirator is still tinged with the silent laughter of before, the whispers of it still around the edges of her lips but it's softer, almost waiting for a reason for the quiet concern to come back and take its place. It's all in the silent question in her eyes as she looks at Cloud.]

[ It's a perfectly legitimate question, but he doesn't answer one way or the other - although the way he bypasses his own boots without a second glance on his way toward the door is, perhaps, a fairly adequate answer in itself. No shoes, no bothering with weapons or armor (though he often keeps a piece or two of materia on him, just in case, and tonight's no exception). They aren't going anywhere far - or at least not beyond the glittering walls of the theme park where they've chosen to wait out the morning.

The halls of the Ghost Hotel are significantly quieter than their graveyard-view room, both the snoring they've left behind and the artificial roar of thunder muted and faraway, equally unimportant, out here.

(He spares a moment to hope the walls are at least as thick between the rooms, too - for the sake of their potential neighbors - but only that.)

They're moving on, but Cloud's not being any more forthcoming than he was, to start. He considers the clear question in her silently watching, waiting look for a little longer than he did the structural integrity of the hotel's rooms, but in the end he only shrugs, shaking his head to hide the tiniest edge of what might be a smile, in his own expression.

Then he's off, turning around and taking the lead back toward the lobby, where a couple of faceless and near-invisible chess players are minding their own and not much else is stirring. Outside, the atmosphere is thicker, but no less quiet between rolls of thunder. Rain falls to either side of the path that leads down to the only headstones bearing inscriptions, but it's just another trick of the light.

On the steps, he motions for her to go ahead, once again apparently apathetic to the minor adventure he's started them on. ]

[She follows him through the hotel, carpet a little worn but still soft enough under her feet to add to the feeling of sneaking out as a child, barefoot in a way that seems determined to emphasize the carefree nature of the situation. It's hardly the first time she's followed Cloud into the unknown for less reason and there's much less worry or concern in this latest trek. She's content to pad along silently at his side and half a step behind to follow his lead and if she's a little surprised when they actually exit the hotel, still in bare feet, after all they've been through, she doesn't balk. The flagstones are cool against her soles and there's no hurry. If it were anywhere else, they could almost simply be out for a stroll together, two up at night while the rest of the world slept past them. The melodramatic lighting and scenery of the Saucer keep her from making that mistake but not the comparison. There's no need to break that with talk.

She almost does when he stops though, momentarily confused and at his gesture the look she shots him changes to an arch one and one side of her lips quirks upward. But she's game to continue his start and gives a shrug of her own, something with a bit more energy than his usual ones and steps past to seriously consider the choices in front of them. It's late but she knows the lights will still be just as gaudy and the vendors just as loud no matter the hour. In this place it's both perpetual night and perpetually active. She only hesitates over her choice a moment, knowing it's trite and telling herself that's the price he pays for letting her chose. In the end, what she wants wins out over whether it's foolish of her or not and she gives him a small smile over her shoulder that's part shy, part apology before she chooses the Round Square and steps onto the trap door.

If he expected anything else for her, it's his fault.]

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You say it best

so... we cripple Dante and make him cry before we finally kill him

i'll just stand back and quietly throw salt in the wounds while you work

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