bakerstreet | The Cuddle Meme

The Cuddle Meme

The Cuddle Meme

HOW IT WORKS:
❧ Post a blank comment with your character's name, canon, and any preferences.
❧ Use RNG to choose your cuddle scenario (or choose your own).
❧ Cuddle!

CUDDLE SCENARIOS:
① Sweet dreams
It's been a long day and all you want to do is sleep or just rest your eyes for a bit. Hopefully whoever is close by doesn't mind if you use them as a blanket.

② Stormy weather
The heavy rain, thunder and lightning won't be letting up anytime soon. Luckily, it's the perfect weather to stay indoors and snuggle up close and keep warm.

③ Lazy dancer
It's the end of a party, or maybe it's only the two of you, but the tempo is slow and the lights are low. Let your dance partner take the weight and just sway.

④ Surprise attack
Time to invade someone's personal space. Are they working too much and need a distraction? Maybe you just wanted to brighten their day. Either way, they won't see it coming.

⑤ Movie night
It can be on the sofa or in a darkened theater, but you've got your popcorn and someone to settle against during your favorite movie.

⑥ I love you, man
It's totally platonic, really. You're just very good friends, no matter what people like to think. But you just love your friend so much you want to hug them, whether they like it or not.

⑦ Jeepers creepers
Welp. You were just frightened. Was it a spider in the washroom, a ghost in the attic, a bad dream? Either way, you're looking for someone to cling to right now, and who better than that person right there?

⑧ Hurt and comfort
Whether you're sick in bed, just been dumped or suffered a traumatic event, you need someone to wrap their arms around you and make everything go away.

⑨ Sunday morning
Maybe you just had a wild night. Maybe there’s just not enough space at your place and you need to share your bed. Or maybe you just got really tired and someone else happened to be there. Doesn't matter because now the person with you looks way more comfortable than any blanket or pillow. Drape to your heart’s content.

⑩ Moment after
You just had incredible, vigorous sex (playing out is totally optional) and if you weren't a cuddler before, you are now. You're probably too exhausted to do anything else anyway. Just enjoy the moment.

⑪ Ménage à trois
Or four, or five. Get a group and cuddle away.

⑫ Player's choice
Pick one or make up your own!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Her head snaps up at that and the look on her face reflects exactly what she feels inside as she stares at him in frozen shock. He couldn't have caught her more off guard if he'd just taken his rifle butt and slammed it into her chest and - it kind of feels like he just did. She had thought he was just being stubborn - which just meant she had to work harder to earn his liking her but...

I don't want to be friends.

That uncomfortable feeling in her stomach turns into a clammy feeling and, in a move that will grow more common as she gets older, her chin ducks, eyes following.

"oh." For all her self-confidence, she's still just a teenage girl and 'I don't want to be friends' translates into a clear 'because you're not worth it' to her. There's a brief flare of anger - because she thinks she's a pretty darn good friend, lots of people think she's a good person to have as a friend - but it gutters out quickly and twists inward. Good girls, nice girls, don't get angry. There must be something wrong with her, at least to him, if something as simple as her friendship can be so flatly and finally refused.

It's not a good feeling as it sinks in.

Swallowing thickly, she locks her jaw in place. It's his right. No one says he has to like her or even not dislike her. Just because he saved her - so it's his job. Saving someone doesn't have to mean you care. Being stubborn about giving them your gloves doesn't have to mean you care. Taking care of someone - it doesn't have to mean anything at all. She guesses she knew it already but - it's a hard lesson to swallow down because it changes so much more than just now and just him. It changes -

The scarf comes off and gets folded as neatly as she can manage on top of the fallen gloves. She's still too young to put practicality over stubborn pride. If he has to walk back to town alone after this, it serves him right. Except even as a teenager, she knows that's over-dramatic. She's not going to let herself die up here. There's nothing a potion or more won't be able to fix with her once this is over and, as long as she can still move, it's her job to get him back to town. That makes her swallow too and she shrugs awkwardly out of her vest to wrap it clumsily around her waist, cold setting into new places. She'll bring him back to town because she promised she would and... promises are supposed to mean something right? - and then she's done. If they want to go out again they can find someone else. Her new plan is to stay in her room until they're gone - and they can take their thick, uncomfortable feeling in her stomach and their confusing glove fixation with them when they go. Pulling her knees up to her chest, for the first time, she turns her back entirely on Clyde. She'll bring him home because she said she would but she doesn't want to ever see him again after that. Besides... then he can stop getting hurt. Folding her arms down between her legs and her chest, she tries to fit herself into the smallest ball she can manage against the cold - of course it's against the cold. She won't let some jerk hurt her feeling that bad. Right? right. He doesn't even know her. What right does he have to come into her home town and make her feel this way? Who in their right mind doesn't even want friendship with someone - someone that's been helpful and friendly and just wanted things to be nice between them? It isn't her fault she isn't some fancy city girl... who probably knows just what to say and giggles and wears ribbons and bows. Pretending it can block things like that out, Tifa presses her face down into her knees and curls her shoulders inward, eyes firmly closed.

"I'll still bring you home. And I'll give that SOLDIER a new guide name for you guys to use. I promised."

He can keep his friendship - and his rescues and stupid, stupid gloves and his talking to her and - and - drat him for it. Who cares? Not her. Not her at all.

That quiet little oh tears at him worse than either his wounds or the cold, but he doesn't turn back to look at her. He can't bring himself to, at all; it's as if the blizzard has already done its work, and he's frozen out here, after all, muscles locked down to his bones and uniform stiff and crisp over pale bluing skin. That sick hopelessness is everywhere, now, and it feels like he's done something irrevocable as himself, rather than just as the nameless trooper she's being forced to coexist with until the storm passes. This isn't the kind of thing they'll be able to laugh about, some years down the road. He doesn't think she'll forgive him, can't stretch the delusion that they'll ever know each other again quite so far.

It ought to make him feel worse - he even thinks that might be the idea - but the prospect of a new guide almost takes the slightest edge off the queasy, hateful feeling resting heavy in the pit of his stomach. No more putting Tifa in danger he can't save her from, no more walking on eggshells around the other guys, no more sidelong, judging looks from Zack when he won't talk or take off his helmet. If she quits, it'll be easier to finish the mission, here, and then run back to Midgar with his identity kept safely under wraps. In another few months, he might even stop hearing about it from the others (and a few months after that, he might stop getting those looks). And the next time he comes home, he'll do it right. He'll be somebody; he won't have to wear this stifling headgear at all, and she won't have to know that it was a mercy - to her promise and to his own beaten down pride - that he once kept her away as a faceless infantryman.

Once it's silent again, except for the wind and the muffled buffet of the snow falling against the roof and sides of their inadequate shelter, he begins to thaw. There is no sound but the faint, nearly inaudible rustle of fabric, as he turns his head - first to the fire, still crackling away low in the stove, and then to her back turned on him - but it feels like some great, creaking lurch just to move, once more. His gloves are still on the floor, now half-hidden beneath a neatly folded green scarf, and he reaches for them in the same halting, cautious motion.

Ordinarily, it would be easier to unfasten his jacket without them, but his fingers are so cold from clutching his knees that he doesn't trust them on their own. He tugs his gloves back on, still only the sound of quietly shuffling cloth, and then forces his hands through the motions. The cold of the armor he pulls from his shoulders radiates through the thin leather, and he's almost grateful - except she should've kept them, in the first place. With his coat off, the short-sleeved black undershirt loses most of its insulated heat instantly, but he firms his jaw against a shiver. If he starts, he doesn't think he'll be able to stop, and that'll just aggravate his injuries, again.

That's all right, though, because he doesn't have to move far to retrieve his scarf - or to drape his jacket over her hunched up shoulders.

She ignores Clyde and the barely there sounds he makes, single-mindedly turning into herself. She doesn't want to deal with him and... she doesn't want to deal with the way he makes her feel. He doesn't like her? Fine. She doesn't like him either. It's his own stupid fault anyway. She's a good friend, a great friend and he's just missing out on somebody that's important enough to be worth making a promise to come back to.

... even if it's already been two years

and she kind of had to force the promise in the first place

and maybe she's only special in Nibelheim where there aren't other girls to prove she's not really all that special at all and who might seem more important to make promises to...

Maybe Clyde's just saying what anyone outside of Nibelheim would already tell her.

It's instinctive to reach for the well worn memory, clutching at the promise that she's someone special to someone special. It's one of her heart's touchstones, like the keys on her piano or the earrings her mother used to wear all the time. Memories aren't ivory or pearl though and so it's not the first time she's reached for reassurance and finds her mind picking away at it instead, like slender fingers picking at a frayed edge, worrying away at weaknesses in the fabric.

People leave and never come back. ...people leave me and never come back...

Miserable already, the thought certainly didn't start with the arrival of Shinra soldiers, but it's usually easier to dismiss when she's surrounded by people that do obviously think she's precious, easier to trust that she really is and those doubts are just silly teenager doubts. Here though, right now - she's not even worth being a friend? She hates it. She hates the jerk nearby for saying it, hates having to face that sick feeling it puts inside of her and - and mostly she just hates herself for doubting. It doesn't matter if some Shinra jerk doesn't even think she's worth it, doesn't even like her even after he's saved her and she's spent all this time worrying about him. He's just some guy and what does she care if what he thinks of her? Some faceless - guy doesn't count. Who cares that she wanted to be friends with him? Obviously he isn't worth it anyway. She's better off this way. Jerk. At least she's still got a promise that will come back one day and find her.

right?

he has to... She doesn't know what she'll do if he doesn't...

She doesn't feel it when the heavy overshirt drops down around her at first. The sick, miserable feeling in her stomach takes precedence over the slow freeze of her skin and it's a long moment before that stolen heat both manages to start to reverse the process and does so enough to pull her out of where her mind's running its sporadic circle. It takes even longer for her to realize why, mind sluggish, heart reluctant to let go of it's retreat. Five minutes ago a gift this extravagant and self-sacrificing would have done amazing, dangerous things to a teenage girl's heart. Now it just churns up an uncomfortable muddy mix of anger and hopelessness and childish 'it's not fair' that leaves her hurting and feeling ugly inside.

Her shoulders shrug and the jacket falls off to land on the floor of the cabin with a soft thud. She doesn't want his stupid help anymore. He doesn't care and she won't either.

It's impossible to explain - or justify, even to himself, regret sharp and gnawing away at the edges of his resolve, already - why pretending to be somebody else doesn't extend so far as accepting her friendship. They were never really friends to begin with, and though two years ago, he would've jumped at the invitation- Things have changed, since then. Or haven't, enough, for him to say anything.

He still isn't strong enough to keep his promise (who'd want an infantryman in lieu of a SOLDIER?); he can't come home until he is. And he doesn't deserve even the false shadow of her affinity until then. It won't stop him from trying (few things in life have ever attained that lofty goal), doing what he can under the guise of detached anonymity, until this grueling trial is over. But that doesn't make this, here, now feel any less damning. Beneath the enduring numbness, that is.

When his coat slips off her shoulders, he's already turning (creakily) back to sit down again. If he huddles over his knees like before, he might be able to keep in a little bit of body heat, in spite of his newly bare arms. He can drape his scarf around his shoulders and probably scoot a little closer to the fire in the stove, and-

And he can't do any of that with the quiet echo of that seemingly innocent shuff of heavy fabric sliding to puddle on the floor behind her ringing in his ears. Any little sound is so much bigger, in this eerie silence, with the wind playing the constant backdrop, and he hesitates a second before shuffling back around. Maybe the cold's gotten into more than just his skin and his most distal points, because another few seconds tick by before he's able to comprehend what's happened - the jacket's fallen off, because he didn't set it over her right, and she must be too cold (or too angry) to want to reach for it.

It's understandable.

Leaning over again to collect the discarded article of clothing, he straightens it out and reaches up carefully to settle it over her shoulders, again. It's difficult to touch her, even though he can't feel much, any longer, but he starts with an effort to be a little more careful, this time. Just because they're not talking doesn't make him any less intent on trying. At what, exactly, he isn't totally certain, anymore. But that's never stopped him, either.

When she's older, she'll be practical. She'll worry about things like both of them freezing to death and swallow down hurt if it gets in the way and pride will, usually, take a back seat to survival.

When she's older.

At the moment though, she's fifteen and immortal and hurt feelings mean more than anything else in the world. At the moment, his persistence, which she would usually find reassurance in, just hurts her even more. Because - to her - it means caring enough to keep trying despite things and she wants that needs that but he's already said he doesn't care and so it's mixed signals and Tifa doesn't like the way it tears at her inside. She wants to react to the gestures because they're so thoughtful it's instinctive to her to want to reciprocate - but his previous words are sharp thorns in the way and she can't get around them. His flat rejection is too raw inside for her to do anything that would risk a second encounter with it. So his persistence about the shirt just makes her even more twisty and uncomfortable inside her chest and stomach.

If he really means the shirt, than he's not a jerk. And if he's not a jerk than she can't hate him. And if she can't hate him than - than it can't be a mutual hatred and that means the problem isn't him. It's her. Because if he's a jerk and doesn't like her it doesn't matter. But if he's actually a nice guy and doesn't like her -

Her shoulders shrug free, more forcefully this time before the jacket even has a chance to fully settle and it starts a chain reaction of shivers through her now that she's moved enough to lose the frozen hold on her muscles. What she wants to tell him is 'go away' - except even at fifteen, she's aware that he just might and then she'd have to follow because it's her responsibly to see him safely back to the village. Instead what comes out is a bit chattering and muffled because like heck is she going to lift her face and acknowledge his existence (or let him see he's made her miserable).

"Don't act like you care."

Acting like he cares? Is that what she thinks he's doing? His fingers catch and fumble in the once again rumpled fabric of the jacket pooled there on the rotten-if-they-weren't-frozen floorboards, and he hesitates in his automatic retrieval. This time, of course, there was no mistaking that she shrugged the coat off with clear intent, but it takes his mind another moment to catch up - a problem not even thawing out might relieve him of - and he can't stop the reflex. There's something determined in him, too, trying to work its way past the walls he's put up himself, in clear spite of common sense. Rational thinking isn't his strong suit, though, and Cloud is (and always will be) just better at persisting.

If there's one thing he does know as fact, though, it's that he's misstepped here - and quite severely. And there's only one (obvious) answer to follow through, when you know you're that far in the wrong.

"...Sorry."

It's the one thing that doesn't hurt to say - though that might just be because his lips are sort of numb - quiet but earnest enough so as to be impossible to mishear, even under the dull roar of another rolling gust of wind. He doesn't move from his spot, kneeling and holding out the familiar faded blue of his uniform jacket. But he doesn't try to put it back on her, either. "Futility" isn't a concept he's entirely familiar with (or ever will be).

"It's not... Because of you."

(You don't want to be friends with someone like me.)

She lives in a world where 'sorry' still means something and even if it didn't... the way he says it does. It's enough to cut through some of the sick misery and hurt because... he sounds kind of miserable and hurt too and Tifa's very bad about wanting to emphasize with others. It's easier to understand other people when they do strange things if you pretend it's you and... and it's how she doesn't feel so alone. Thinking about other people has become a natural defense to her to keep her from thinking about herself and even though she stubbornly doesn't want to trust him - it's a little too late. Her head turns. Not much. Just enough for a single vulnerable eye to peer at him cautiously over the safety of her pale arm. It's still reproachful but she's never going to get any better at hiding the hopefulness there either.

Except -

"Of course it's me." It comes out muffled and maybe a little slurred and her chin tucks so that the eye almost but doesn't quite disappear, a wild little animal edging out into the open but ready to bolt for the trees the second something looks like it's going to hurt. Except it already hurts. "It's not like I said I didn't want to be friends with you."

"You wouldn't, though," he says, and for the first time speaks with actual conviction, some driving force that's more than his halfhearted (but meant well) suggestions, thus far into their unfortunate seclusion, together.

Because he knows this for a fact. He still remembers what it was like, to always be on the outside, and the curl of warmth that loosens in his chest like something broken snapping on its hinges is not a good or funny or pleasant feeling. Maybe he hates himself enough for both of them, maybe that's true, but he knows she doesn't have any reason to have changed her mind about him since that last night at the well, under the stars. Since he left town riding high on some stupid little kid's hopes and dreams. (Now there's futility for you, right there.) He hasn't given her any reason to change her mind, so he knows she hasn't.

"You wouldn't... Wanna be my friend, if you knew me." He drops his arms, at last, too cold and tired to hold up much longer and not risk a dangerous fatigue. He's shivering, already, but as long as his teeth aren't chattering, he can pretend not to notice. "I'm just saving you the trouble."

It was taking things a bit of time to sink through her brain, part cold, part fairly consuming misery, and so her brows sink slow over her eyes as he talks and she stays unmoving otherwise, listening to him. The words don't register quite as quickly as the pure misery on his part though and she has no idea why he's the one that seems that way - except he does and it steals her own self-involvement out of her because he's hurt and that always comes first in her world. Picking at them carefully, she untangles the words a bit slower inside her head but as she does the frown on her lips forms and grows, hidden behind her knees and sheltering arms.

Her first reaction is to of course dismiss his thoughts. He doesn't know her. He can't say whether she'll like someone or not and she likes most people. He would have had to do something really, really terrible for her to think otherwise and despite all her previous nasty thoughts to the contrary... she really does like him. Maybe it's the cold or perhaps there's just enough of the adult she'll be one day already inside of her though that she doesn't open her mouth right away and say any of that. Instead she just looks at him with her sad, worried eyes and she tries to think of what he needs to hear instead of what she wants to say. He's a good guy. She knows he is. She can't imagine that he acts all that differently when he's not around her than he does when he is, still young enough to believe in face value. So...

Her voice comes out young when she asks:

"You did something bad?"

His first instinct is to say no - no, I never did anything that bad, or at least not bad enough to deserve any of what I got - but he quashes it just as quickly. She couldn't understand and he wouldn't explain; experience is a killer, even at so young an age, and he knows the difference between hers and his is too far to gap with nothing but words. His words, anyway. They're never really enough.

"...Yeah," he admits, at length, a work in progress as he casts about for - if not the right words (or even good words), then just something to say to gloss this whole thing over. He hasn't told anyone else (not even Zack), and there's nothing practiced or easy to fall back on. No memory of how this is supposed to go, revealing the most vague version of the worst, rock-bottom, easily most horrible chapter of his life. He doesn't think that kind of thing comes recommended, anyway, shuffling to nowhere on the hard, wood floor. Stopping when another little needling spike of pain races up from his badly barked shin, and tightening his fists in the rough fabric of his jacket. He's been saving up for an advance issue of a new one (Shinra likes to wait until the boots are falling off and the pants don't fit, and that's not really soon enough), and that one tiny, lonely scrap of a thought makes him regret this situation all the more. He doesn't even have a nice coat to give her. (That she won't accept.)

"I... Hurt somebody. I hurt a lot of people."

oh.

[Her brows come down again and she understands because she really can't think of a worse thing to do in all the world than to hurt someone and to her 'hurt someone' expands to encompass hurting their feelings just as much as hurting them physically, perhaps more so really, being hurt emotionally seeming much worse, personally to her at least. Her eyes drift down and stare at a almost blue tinted knee in thought because - it's different if you feel bad about it afterward. It's one thing to hurt someone and be sorry because she knows she's hurt people's feelings often enough and she always feels horrible afterward when she realizes it. And... Clyde sounds like he feels bad over it. He must or he wouldn't think that hurting someone made him not worth being friends over. If he'd hurt people and didn't care that would be different but then he'd never even bring it up in the first place.

It takes a sadly long time for the fact that he's a soldier and 'hurting a lot of people' could mean in the line of duty and possibly even killing them for his job. She hadn't read about anything in the news but...

Her eyebrows squinch down again but this time it's in determination and she finally, slowly, starts to unwind from where she's wrapped around herself. It - hurts and that surprises her but she doesn't stop, moving slower than she usually would and the shivers momentarily abandon her body because it's busy doing too much else and move to her mouth. It makes her have to lock her jaw down as she slowly shifts around to get on her knees in front of him but her eyes search for his even though there's nothing to see except red like insect eyes.

Cautious, not sure it's still an offer, she reaches for his coat and it's not absolution for the past because she doesn't think she can give that but it is an observation about the way he is in the present.

"You're not hurting anyone now."

Maybe that's true, maybe none of this is his fault (although some of it probably is), and nothing he's done here has left all that painful a mark. But it rings false, when he knows so much more of the truth than she does. Ever will. The weight of it crushes any hope of forgiveness underfoot, however momentary. If she knew, she wouldn't absolve him so easily. Instead, she only thinks she does; instead, he has to bear up the disdain for both of them.

He hands her his coat when she reaches for it, even though now the cold is biting into every inch of exposed skin. It's how she must've felt from the very start of this disastrous day, though, wearing too little even for another pale, mountain-born body. He stops another shudder by locking his muscles as much as he can, and thinks of how much easier this will be, once he's a SOLDIER and not just... Whatever he is, now.

Curling his arms back around himself, tucking what he can under the edge of his reclaimed scarf, he huddles back over, into himself, carefully. The sides of his helmet settle on his shoulders. He looks to the light of the stove through the greenish tint of his visor, three red lights on the other side.

"I did. I should have come by myself."

She manages to put on his shirt even though it's much harder than it should be and for just a moment there's a flicker of worry through her that maybe things have been worse than she's thought they are. She pushes it aside though, both stubborn about being a good enough guide to handle anything and also with the eternal defiance of immortal youth. It does mean that she starts paying a bit more attention to just how poorly he's now dressed though and the pale color of his skin. She finally gets her second arm in the overlarge sleeve as he speaks up and even though it doesn't feel any warmer than she was before she put it on, a bit colder in fact while it presses cold fabric against her exposed skin, she knows her body heat will warm it up soon enough. It's big on her and the half sleeves of it come down to just below her elbows. There doesn't seem to be a lot of difference in length between them but if the way the shoulders sag is any indication, there are plenty of others. It...

it feels nice... wearing a guy's oversized shirt and she knows it's silly but her teenage heart still gives a little sound of happiness inside of her and somehow, it makes her feel a little better. She doesn't button it up though and once he's settled she shifts over and starts nudging again. Only this time she's not coming at him from the side. She's very deliberately working her way in front the front, first aiming between his knees with every intention of getting past his arms next. She's tired of whatever it is they're doing and he's only reaffirmed that he's actually a really good guy despite the confusing way he acts. All the other confusing stuff will just have to wait for later.

Without realizing that one day, and for the rest of her life, she'll think, if not say out loud, the exact same thing, she gives a little shaky snort as she nudges and answers:

"Don't be silly. You need me."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Cuddle Meme

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I'm sure I have no idea who you're talking about

A LIKELY STORY.

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