bakerstreet | The Trapped in the Mall Meme

Wait, how does that make any more sense?

[ Seriously, now, Tifa - he may be laughing, but he has a genuinely vested interest in how his shape is even the slightest bit closer to Aerith's. He certainly doesn't have those hips, and his waistline may be tapered quite nicely to a lean figure but he's far from slim. Fitting his shoulders alone into the kind of pretty little things his girlfriend tends to favor would be a struggle the likes of which surely no man has ever known-

But when she puts it that way, it almost sounds like a challenge.

Adjusting his fancy new hat, Zack starts grinning again in that definitely ill-boding way, that I have an idea and it's really very good kind of way. ]

Tell you what! We'll take turns.

[ This seems like the most sensible solution, mutually beneficial, everybody wins. He has no way of knowing about Tifa's deeper reasons for resisting, though perhaps some of his ulterior motive is wondering just how she'd look in something a little softer than leather and steel.

You know, purely professional curiosity. ] I'll try on one thing you want, and then you try on one I pick out. How's that sound?

{she gets that little pang in her chest again and inwardly she draws in on herself, even if outwardly there's no indication. She had to give up a lot of things when she decided to fight Shinra. Being silky and light and feminine had been one of them and it had hurt. Her long hair was the only thing she'd let herself keep, her one guilty concession and sometimes she still thinks she should cut it because it takes up more time taking care of it than she feels like she can justify. As for the rest, being reminded, and reminded of what she can't be anymore, still hurts. It's better to avoid it all together. Don't think about it, and you can't miss it. So she shakes her head determinedly, pulling to a stop in front of the dress section, hands going to her hips while she pops briefly up onto her tops before sinking to emphasize the point as she looks sternly at Zack.}

That's not the point, Zack. You're trying on the dress because it will make Aerith laugh when we tell her about it. That's the point, right? Finding something that will make Aerith happy? {a gesture and a bit of a smile because he's still wearing that silly hat and it does distract her because it's weird how he can pull off something like that and make it look fun instead of foolish.} We'll even find something to match your hat since you're practically halfway there.

[ The prompt shake of his head probably doesn't come across as sincere as he means it to, between the lingering touch of a smile and the lacy disaster atop his head, but Zack makes a game effort of it, all the same. ]

Mm-mm. That's not the point, either.

[ They've all made sacrifices, personal or otherwise, to Shinra. But living in spite of those losses shouldn't be some self-imposed punishment, either; he wouldn't understand for a second the thought process behind denying oneself such a seemingly simple freedom, especially so with the perfect opportunity to cut loose right in front of them.

Then again, self-control has never been one of Zack's strong points.

Sweeping off his hat with only a (completely necessary) touch of dramatic flair, he crosses his arms over his chest and fixes her with a look - seriously on the verge of concern, no matter the cheer still in it. ]

I thought the point was to have fun. You can't seriously want to just sit around watching me show off all night, right?

[ ...He may not sound as disbelieving as he should. ]

{Tifa's arms crossed in front of her. She'd be lying, horribly, if she said that it wasn't horribly tempting. It had been a very long time since she'd felt soft and feminine and even something as simple as a dress whose first selling point wouldn't be 'it'll hold up well in a fight' would go a long way toward the brush of that sentiment again. Still, she'd given it up for a reason, because being, or rather thinking, feminine and soft wasn't safe. She wasn't the scared fifteen year old trying to adjust to an entirely new life in a distinctly and newly dangerous world anymore but that didn't change the fact that she wasn't sure if it was any safer now. Not physically. She could kick someone's ass in silk as easy as leather but mentally she wasn't sure it was safe. Especially not with Cloud in her life again, making her heart already want things for herself that she couldn't have. She could risk all kind of things physically but when it came to her heart, she felt dangerously fragile far too often and the thought of risking that scared her.

Even for something as simple as remembering she was capable of being something other than a fighter for the space of a single night trapped in a mall.

Even if Cloud's return made her want to be something other than a fighter, or rather, something more than just a fighter.

Zack got a dubious look.

He'd pick something atrocious for her. It would be hard to feel soft and girly in something atrocious.

It was just for fun...

Her look was stern.}

Just once.

[ Oh ye of little faith.

Zack happens to have exceptional taste in fashion - and, already knowing that no matter what Tifa picks, he's going to be having the atrocious well handled on his end, absolutely no motive to try and coerce her into something unflattering just for the hell of it.

It's far too late to think he hasn't picked up on her determined reluctance as something far less shallow than fear of embarrassment. He's spent years already learning to decipher the subtle nuances left in the land between can't and won't, thanks to his bad habit of befriending the habitually stoic, and that uncanny knack for persuasion serves him well, again, tonight.

With a celebratory fistpump, he puts on his winningest grin for her mild acceptance. The grim look on her face does nothing to dissuade him from what is now very open excitement, as he immediately turns to make a beeline for the nearest signs of sheer and pastel. ]

All right! Let's get looking.

{why does she feel as if she's just made a horrible mistake? Oh, right. Because she probably has. Still, they're talking about a guy that lets the army dress him even when he's not in it anymore and so far she hasn't seen a lot of proof of his sense of style other than Aerith's pink. Given that pink is definitely not Tifa's color, she tells herself she's safe.

What she needs to be focusing on is finding a dress for Zack, preferably with matching hat and perhaps purse if she's fast enough - even she's not cruel enough to make him wear heels - and so she lets him disappear into the depths of the dress section and heads off for the Plus Size section herself. There's no way his shoulders won't tear the stitching on anything less. Not just any dress will do though. She's either going with 'little old cat lady' or else 'proper matron' style. After all, what's the point of all of this if they can't tell Aerith about it later anyway? Now does she want pale yellow or lavender? A necklace of fake pearls would look perfect if she could find them fast enough. Tifa, used to scrounging the slums for what she needed, wasn't about to lose the opportunity to find the perfect solution to all her Zack needs here as well.

It was just too bad the wig store was all the way across the mall.}

[ He is going to make you so fancy, Tifa, you don't even know

But first he has to find the right look. After tossing his frilly hat up onto a nearby mannequin, in passing, he digs into the first rack of dresses he comes into contact with. Unlike his partner on this botched mission, he's not so much searching for a certain ideal outfit as he is expecting simply to happen upon the inspiration.

It's a tactic that only very rarely fails him, after all.

A little distractedly, he notes Tifa wandering off somewhere else- Not stalling his browsing as he calls out to her retreating back, ] Make sure you find something that'll really bring out my eyes! I wanna highlight my best attributes!

Your eyes are your best attribute? That's not what Aerith says.

{starting to get back into the mood, Tifa can't help but sing-song the last part as she starts her own search through multicolored dress racks, quickly sorting out what she doesn't like and what she thinks might work. She's going to have to guess at Zack's size but she's pretty good about things like that thanks to living in the slums where it's either second hand clothing or specially tailored wear and either way it's usually measured as 'close enough'. A pill box hat. She wants to find him a pill box hat, maybe with a little veil. Or a feather.}

My best visible attribute, then. Heh.

[ She doesn't have to be nearby to picture the look on his face, with that sharp-edged grin audible in his voice as he pages through a line of bright red dresses that remind him entirely too much of Scarlet to make anything but a wholly unconscionable selection from.

Nah, maybe something a little less... Virulent, will suit Tifa best.

He turns and makes a dash for darker colors, shouting back along the way. ]

You gotta keep the others to yourself; I'd hate to make your boyfriend jealous!

{he's gone before she can even start to stutter though her 'just childhood friends' bit and she's actually glad because it saves her from something that honestly depresses her terribly to have to articulate. There's a huge difference between 'I'm here because she meant something to me then' which just whispers hollowly of obligation and apathy and 'I'm here because she means something to me now' which means... means things she's not going to let herself think about because if she does she'll get wistful and wistful just leads to secretly miserable and she's not going to do that, not to either of them. He may be dense as the Plate, but she has a sneaking suspicion that Cloud would be very attuned to someone getting 'clingy' on him.

It does however lose Zack his mercy points on her side and she huffs as she puts back the vaguely sensible dress she'd been inspecting and heads determinedly for the frilly section. If he's going to play the part of the brother that teases her about the secret crush he's somehow discovered, she's going to be the sister that someone like that deserves. Tulle - here she comes.]

[ Oh damn, that one would've been a perfect match for his beautiful eyes.

But, honestly, how in the hell is supposed to have not discovered that oh-so-secret crush? Or at least the other half of it, which he isn't so aware of Tifa's total obliviousness to. For, you know, the ten seconds or so when everything wasn't going to hell in Nibelheim, it was so flagrantly obvious-

It might as well have been wearing that great big mess of frilly pink chiffon obscuring almost an entire rack to his left, were abstract emotional concepts capable of dressing so poorly (or at all).

With an exaggerated wince, he pulls away from the next questionable find, and happens upon the most perfect solution to his searching. Taking care with plucking so much sheer, blue-black fabric out of the row of hangers in front of him, he takes off back toward where he'd last spotted Tifa among the wilds of the women's section. ]

Hey, I'll be with the shoes, if you need me! No peeking!

[ Which he says, at exactly the same time he's attempting to get a look around whatever she's gone after. ]

{if Tifa's current emotions regarding a certain spiky headed blond were an abstract sense of fashion it would be the kind that most people couldn't even figure out top from bottom of, where you could as easily be using an arm hole for a neckline and not realize it, and it certainly would not be the kind of thing you could move the least bit comfortably in. It probably would have been in an awful, eye-searingly afterburn color as well.

Kind of something along the lines of the rack of fabric she's currently half buried in.

Her head does come up out of that mess though, a bit wide eyed and startled at Zack's declaration.}

Shoes? You never said anything about - ...fine. I'm a seven. And stay out of the hat section. That's where I'm going next.

[ The peal of laughter that trails after him as he continues on, undeterred by her momentary confusion, should assure her that she need never have said anything about shoes. He totally has it covered.

Although it's good to have a size to go on, now that he thinks of it. Maybe after letting the military dress him for so many years, there are a few things he tends to forget about.

At any rate, Zack wastes no time hightailing it over to the dressing rooms, once he's managed to make a mess of an aisle or two of ladies' shoes. (And he doesn't even try to look around for any particular overabundance of hats, to get a glimpse of whatever it is Tifa might be doing - not even that much. Almost barely.) At some point, he must've assumed it was a race, because he's waiting patiently with a bundle of dress and strappy heels and one shimmery scarf (SOLDIERs are attracted to shiny things, you know) over his folded arms, leaned far too casually back against the wall, by the time she shows up to meet him. ]

So, what's the damage?

[ This is gonna be good. ]

I decided to be merciful.

{honestly, she'd almost gone with something a bit more... frilly. In the end though, she'd decided that, even if he was a pain, he was a good intentioned pain and so what she'd chosen for him had been a bit simpler. She wanted him to be able to move around in it without flashing her for instance. She'd also scrapped the hat idea and instead on top of the pile of goodies, right next to the large pearl necklace and the giant pearl clip earrings was a huge red paper rose to clip in his hair. With an air of finality, she handed the the whole kit, dress included, over.}

All you need is a pair of red heels {she added solemnly.}

The Trapped in the Mall Meme

no. nothing is worse than that.

siiigh. You're right. But you're coming in a close second here, you know.

I am as graceful in the face of defeat as you are consistent in your hideousness ♥

Re: I am as graceful in the face of defeat as you are consistent in your hideousness ♥

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http://www.thefashionpolice.net/images/6a00d8341c873353ef01156fc39b81970b.jpg I got sidetracked