Work Text:
It doesn’t seem to rain much in the Corel region. If it did, the place probably wouldn’t look so barren. Or is that just caused by the Gold Saucer polluting the area? Cloud doesn’t know. And right now, he doesn’t really care.
Because it’s raining now, a torrential downpour that drenches everyone as he drives the Buggy along a bumpy path. He wants nothing more than to find somewhere to hide until the rain subsides, but they don’t have that luxury. They must keep travelling south, and a little (or a lot of) rain isn’t a good enough excuse to stop. So, Cloud just keeps driving and tries to hide how much he shivers.
Ignoring how the others complain about being cold and wet, Cloud puts his foot down on the accelerator, causing Yuffie to groan as her motion sickness gets worse as everyone in the back gets jolted violently.
“Hey, careful, merc!” Barret calls. “Are you tryin’ to kill us?”
“Do you wanna get out of this rain or not?” Cloud yells back, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
“That don’t matter if you kill us all in a damn crash,” Barret says.
“Shut up…” Cloud mutters.
“Cloud…” Tifa says, placing a wet hand on his equally wet arm. “Calm down. You’re getting worked up, aren’t you?”
He wants to deny it, to snap and push Tifa away, but… Cloud didn’t sleep well last night, only eventually drifting off because Tifa and Aerith cuddled him. And as he thinks about the comfort his girlfriends shared with him, Cloud can’t summon the energy to be an asshole. So, instead, Cloud lets out a long, shaky sigh and tries to ignore how the rain weighs down his hair and makes it stick to his forehead in a way that makes his skin itch.
“Maybe,” he mumbles.
“We can all deal with the rain for a little longer, so why don’t you slow down?” Tifa suggests.
Trying not to feel patronised (he’s sure that wasn’t her intention, but that doesn’t stop Cloud’s frustration), he grits his jaw and takes some force off the accelerator, slowing the Buggy back down to a sensible speed. Yuffie lets out an audible sigh of relief.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Tifa says, rubbing his arm with her thumb. “Just relax.”
“It’s hard to when I’m freezing my ass off,” Cloud says.
Leaning closer to him, Tifa lowers her voice to a whisper as she says, “Well, I’m sure we can find a way to warm up when we get out of this rain.”
A shiver runs up Cloud’s back, but it’s a totally different sensation than trembling from the cold. Heat rushes to his cold cheeks. When he turns his head, taking his gaze off the road for a second, Tifa presses a quick kiss to his lips.
“Ew, get a room!” Yuffie yells from behind them, laughing through her nausea.
“Hey, don’t leave me out of this,” Aerith says as Cloud gets even redder; he’s still a little overwhelmed by the affection his girlfriends show him in public.
“I wasn’t trying to,” Tifa says through a giggle.
And as Cloud tries to focus on the road and not the fact that everyone is looking at them, he hears Aerith’s footsteps hurry up behind him about a second before her arms wrap around him, pulling Cloud into an awkward and probably uncomfortable hug. Wet skin sticks to wet skin as Aerith gives him a kiss on the cheek, but Cloud is too focused on how much he blushes to really process how gross the rain makes him feel.
“Seriously, quit with the PDA, guys!” Yuffie cries, and even Cloud can tell how melodramatic she’s being.
“Kids these days…” Barret mutters to himself.
And as Aerith kisses him again and Tifa holds his arm and Yuffie keeps complaining about the public displays of affection, Cloud manages to smile for the first time since the rain began to fall.