Pure In The Stale Air
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Notes: To start, I own nothing. Anyway, this is another fanfic written for the CloudxAerith Forum's 100 Themes Challenge. This time the theme is "Eyes". Happy reading!
-- PURE IN THE STALE AIR --
From the moment Aeris first met Cloud she sensed that her life would never be the same, and even though she understands that they're still only half-way through their story, she also knows that her intuition had been right on the mark. Of course, she doesn't need any kind of Cetra sixth sense to figure that one out – all she's ever needed are her eyes.
She thinks back on her first impressions of him and how her gaze wandered over that hard face and the kind eyes which contradicted it so much. The fierce glow of Mako was immediately recognizable, and had got her wondering. She'd been fascinated and touched by that mix of sincerity and strangeness right from the start, and her eyes were never far from him, watching for every interesting and telling little nuance and delighting at every hesitant smile she manages to tease out of him. She recalls how amazing it was to see the blue and clear sky for the first time in over fifteen years and the day when the group finally managed to get clear of the Midgar area's polluted air and ground and the sun hit her eyes with its full force; blinding, headache-inducing, but wonderful. She's seen more in the past handful of weeks than she has in all her twenty-two years of life before Cloud stumbled into her line of sight and he doesn't even understand all he's done for her. He can be so blonde sometimes, she thinks with a smile.
Aeris has seen the strange plants of the Midgar swamp, fallen in love with the aesthetic of Kalm's streets and houses, and gasped in awe at the twinkling, quiet beauty of the Mythril Mines. She's looked into the incredible blue of the Junon Sea and seen a small girl tame a dolphin. She's seen tanned children play with a beach-ball at Costa del Sol and watched them laugh guilty after accidentally hitting Nanaki. She's seen the sun rising over green fields and setting over mountain tops. She's seen a nest of baby chocobos and giggled as a guy dressed in a giant chocobo suit tried to hit on her. She's seen terrible poverty and tragedy alongside galvanizing joy and resilience. Her eyes have seen a beautiful rendering of space and the Lifestream, the sadness inside the depths of the Cosmo Candle, and the bravery of Seto. She's seen ancient and sacred beauty, the fierce and lovely colours of nature, as well as the bright gold and multi-coloured lights of the most amazing theme park in the world. She's had the chance to see so many new faces, and make those faces her friends, and forget some of the old sets of eyes and mouths in blue suits and labcoats who haunted her vision back home. Maybe best of all, she's sat in comfortable silence with Cloud, watching fireworks throw brilliant colours over his face, in a moment when their eyes did most of the talking.
But there were some things that night that her eyes could never say. She'd seen things that worried her too. Her eyes had watched Cloud move like Zack, gesture like him, fight like him and flirt like him. They'd also noticed the look in Tifa's eyes when he repeated the story of five years ago, how concerned and confused they became, as if waiting for something terrible. Aeris' eyes had been given a remarkable world by Cloud, but he'd also given her so much to be bothered and worried about, especially when he flashed a grin at her she last saw over five years ago. Those resemblances and repetitions disturb her deeply. Sometimes even she wonders who he really is and how much of the true Cloud was ever drawing her, but then she thinks of his eyes when he's ruffled and off-balance because of her teasing, or concerned because she's hurt, or the very rare moments when he seems to be happy and close to some sense of peace. That's when she chides herself for ever doubting.
When her eyes aren't showing the world her joy and laughter or her serenity as she learns something new about her heritage and the Planet, her eyes become watchful. They learn to divide what is Cloud and what is Zack and peer deep into whatever connects the two, searching and reaching out to the real Cloud with honest eyes that tell many stories of how much he means to her.
But for now, her worries are drifting. She's already looked straight into his thawing blue eyes at Gold Saucer and said her piece. For now, there isn't more she can do except know that he's trying, and that eventually he'll make it. Apart from Cait Sith, who insisted on tagging along and monitoring them since they uncovered his nasty little secret, it's been just the two of them at the Temple of the Ancients and he's never felt closer or more within reach than he does now.
After a tough series of battles as they navigate their way through the labyrinth, the two of them slump against a wall in exhaustion, sorely needing a ten-minute break to re-energize. Somehow, they both end up sitting down propped up against the slab of wall, shoulder-to-shoulder and leaning towards each other and gulping in embarrassingly deep breaths, too tired to worry about being caked in sweat and dust.
For a moment, the urgency of their quest and the excited, ecstatic cries of the Planet at having her so near fade away into the background, and her eyes drift comfortably shut from the bliss of being able to rest sore muscles. In the musty air of the Temple, Aeris receives the best assurance that there's more to him than borrowed fragments of her ex when the eyes lose their dominance and the other senses take over. There are no guards up during these moments, when tiredness and the kind of trust won from countless shared battles is the only thing that matters. The feel of him breathing so close to her, more awake and alert than she is at this moment, but generous to her and letting her rest.
For the first time, it hits her that he doesn't smell like Zack – her smiling and winking lost hero, all spirit and action, who always brought the scent of clean clothes, hair-products and cookies with him on dates and in his big, warm hugs. Cloud is different, always far more distant and withdrawn, and smells fresh and sharp, but always with an undertone of blood or the sterilized atmosphere of the labs she remembers so well. But now, underneath all that, Aeris smiles as she catches the scent of strawberries, and huddles just a little bit closer, aware that if she were more awake, she would be astonished to find so much of the real him on a level he can't hide under all his fake defenses.
This is the part she always has to remember, Aeris realizes. This is what proves that there's so much more to him, that he is his own person whether he wants to be or not. No matter what her eyes see in the future, she must remember all that can be learned when she sees through her other senses instead. Sight has given her so much happiness and wonder, but the world beyond it has its own promises too. No-one has stepped foot in this place for over a thousand years, and she wonders for long these tiny traces of herself and Cloud will linger in this world.
Breathing him in, Aeris is quietly amazed at how close two people can get if they just close their eyes.
-- FIN --