Red on Red
May. 26th, 2020 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: Red on Red
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Characters/pairing: Cloud +/- Aerith
Rating: T
Word Count: 295
A/N: Takes place shortly after Cloud snaps at Temple of the Ancients.
The last good look he had of Aerith’s face was his fist against the side of her mouth.
“What kind of kiss was that,” she’d teased at Golden Saucer. The bones in her hand barely grazed his chin when he’d lifted it, the pressure of an entire audience making his back rigid with nerves.
Maybe I should have kissed you while I still could. Maybe that would have been worse.
Cloud’s head pounds when he wakes and it’s in tune with the way he brought his fists down, many times, before Barrel dealt him a blow to the skull. There’s a taste of vomit in his mouth now. He feels brittle, like he’s made of sand. His eyes feel so swollen that he imagines he’d been weeping in sleep. The part of him that still remembers how to do that, at least. There’s something wrong with him -- he wonders why no one had said anything to him before.
Memory surfaced in hazy bursts: Aerith’s head in the dirt behind her, face streaked with blood and grit. She pressed her fingers against his chin and called his name -- he put his hands around her neck and couldn’t even marvel at the softness.
For so long her friendliness and confidence had scared and uplifted him. Even when she’d been at her most vulnerable she moved surely in a direction, even if he didn’t always follow her whims, even if he missed the cue. She knew things he didn’t, and that made her magnetic. It made her dangerous. Maybe she knew that, too.
He hadn’t thought he’d never be able to make it up either. He hadn’t thought he could make her leave.
“Spike,” Barret grunted. “Back from the dead?”
Cloud didn’t answer. He just didn’t know enough.
Fandom: Final Fantasy 7
Characters/pairing: Cloud +/- Aerith
Rating: T
Word Count: 295
A/N: Takes place shortly after Cloud snaps at Temple of the Ancients.
The last good look he had of Aerith’s face was his fist against the side of her mouth.
“What kind of kiss was that,” she’d teased at Golden Saucer. The bones in her hand barely grazed his chin when he’d lifted it, the pressure of an entire audience making his back rigid with nerves.
Maybe I should have kissed you while I still could. Maybe that would have been worse.
Cloud’s head pounds when he wakes and it’s in tune with the way he brought his fists down, many times, before Barrel dealt him a blow to the skull. There’s a taste of vomit in his mouth now. He feels brittle, like he’s made of sand. His eyes feel so swollen that he imagines he’d been weeping in sleep. The part of him that still remembers how to do that, at least. There’s something wrong with him -- he wonders why no one had said anything to him before.
Memory surfaced in hazy bursts: Aerith’s head in the dirt behind her, face streaked with blood and grit. She pressed her fingers against his chin and called his name -- he put his hands around her neck and couldn’t even marvel at the softness.
For so long her friendliness and confidence had scared and uplifted him. Even when she’d been at her most vulnerable she moved surely in a direction, even if he didn’t always follow her whims, even if he missed the cue. She knew things he didn’t, and that made her magnetic. It made her dangerous. Maybe she knew that, too.
He hadn’t thought he’d never be able to make it up either. He hadn’t thought he could make her leave.
“Spike,” Barret grunted. “Back from the dead?”
Cloud didn’t answer. He just didn’t know enough.
