Friends in High Places
A/N: This is completely irreverent. But it came to me in a flash when I was watching AC for the second time (and it's so gooooood). Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to ruin it for yourself. SPOILDERS GALORE. I'm dead serious. Don't get angry at me for ruining the movie when I'm warning you now! I'll also warn you that this is pretty stupid. Well, whatever.
With Sephiroth finally (hopefully) relegated to living only in Cloud's memories, everyone cured of Geostigma, and the three silver-haired men gone, life on the Planet sure was looking up.
Cloud awoke after a restful night of sleeping in his own bed, and he had to admit that it was a lot more comfortable than sleeping on a blanket on the floor of Aeris's church. His back bent naturally, for one thing, and he didn't have to crack his neck! He stretched, yawned and headed for the bathroom to begin his normal lengthy routine.
After carefully crafting each delicate chunk of hair, he immediately went downstairs. He never needed to change into his clothes because, well, he was always wearing them. In fact, he almost never took them off. It was amazing how truly versatile black leather and a sleeveless sweater were. Cloud headed through the bar without greeting Tifa, even though she was standing right there.
Ignoring whatever lame speech she launched into, Cloud opened the door of the 7th Heaven and headed outside. Or, he would have, if it hadn't been raining like crazy. He blinked. The rain had been nice when it was healing Geostigma and everything, but he had just done his hair.
Cloud stared upwards like he often did. Before a flash of white could engulf him and transport his spirit to the Promised Land, he simply called out, "Aeris! Do you think you could make it a nice day or something?"
Immediately, the rain stopped, as if someone had just turned off a giant faucet. Cloud smiled and winked at the sky, then strolled outside like nothing had happened. He decided to grab some breakfast at the nearest undestroyed café. It happened to be at least a mile away, but it was no problem; Cloud would just brood on the way. Brooding being one of his favorite pastimes. Could he help it if he looked so damn hot pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes slightly to show off his long eyelashes?
Upon finally arriving at the café, a small, nondescript place, Cloud seated himself and waited for the waitress. She sauntered over and plopped the menu in front of him. It only listed three things, but Cloud didn't even need to look.
"Coffee. With lots of cream and sugar."
The waitress popped her gum uninterestedly. "Sorry. All out."
"You're out of coffee?"
"No, cream and sugar."
"But I can't have my coffee without cream and sugar," Cloud said darkly. His blue eyes shone from behind his thick, gorgeous lashes.
Obviously, the girl was a lesbian, as she was unaffected by his gloomy expression. "Sorry."
"Aeris!" Cloud said petulantly. In a flash of magnificent white light, a cup of coffee, prepared exactly the way he liked it, appeared in the startled waitress's hands. She was so startled that she dropped it.
"Aeris…"
Another cup appeared, identical to the first one, except this time it appeared on the table. Nodding happily, Cloud grabbed the cup and drank its contents in one swig before getting up.
"Hey!" The flustered waitress straightened herself and held out her hand. "Pay up, buster."
"But you didn't even give me that coffee." He protested. She shook her head and glared at him.
"What? Then where'd it come from?"
Instead of explaining about the dead girl/possible love interest he had up in the Promised Land currently helping him with every facet of his life, he simply shrugged. It was too early in the day to go into that, anyway.
Cloud reached into his pocket and stopped. It was empty. Then he remembered that he didn't even have a wallet; he had just spent all of his gil on a new cell phone, after his old one had gotten lost.
Without a word, he looked beseechingly to the sky. A wad of gil materialized in the waitress's hands, and this time she didn't drop it.
"Keep the change!" Cloud said generously, before strolling off.
While walking through Edge, he encountered a closed street, an enormous pothole, a crowd of people and a falling safe. Aeris dealt with each one, fixing up the street, patching up the pothole, dispersing the people with a mere touch of her will and blinking the safe out of existence.
Finally back at the bar, Cloud stepped inside. His eyes fell to his feet, so as not to accidentally meet Tifa's. He 'tched' in annoyance when he noticed a small scuff on his nice black boots.
"Aeeeeeris," he said sweetly, pointing at the offending mark.
With a blaze of unbearable light, he felt his soul lift up out of his body and pop into the Promised Land, which apparently consisted only of a field of yellow and white flowers. A light piano melody began to play softly, before being silenced with a screeching sound.
Cloud felt a small hand grasp at his arm, and he closed his eyes. He knew that if he tried to turn, she would disappear, like Eurydice before Orpheus. Whatever that meant.
He 'eeped' as he was roughly grabbed and forced around to stare into a pair of bright, forest green eyes. A pair of eyes that were normally filled with compassion and understanding. At the moment, they were filled with an emotion that looked an awful lot like unspeakable rage.
"Aeris?" Cloud said tentatively. The Ancient that had given her life for the Planet—and had stayed dead, unlike pretty much everyone else Sephiroth had stabbed (including but not limited to Tseng, Zack, Tifa and Cloud himself)—scowled back at him.
"Listen here, Mister Strife," she began in her beautiful voice. "I am NOT your personal servant. I was helping you before because you needed my help to save the Planet, again. I healed you because you wouldn't have been strong enough to defeat Sephiroth while sick. I gave you that 'helping hand' in the Bahamut fight because you wouldn't have flown high enough without it! I even frickin' talked to you almost every time you were under mental duress!
But the threat is over now. You're better, you have a family, all the bad guys are dead. So stop ordering me around! Seriously. You think all I do is sit around and watch you and jump to attend your every whim?"
Aeris's face was flushed by the time she finished. Cloud blinked at her.
"Um…yes?"
"ARGH!" She released him and crossed her arms angrily. "No, Cloud! I'm finally in the Promised Land, a place of eternal happiness and milk and honey and all that! I've got my afterlife to live, and I can't do that if you're constantly asking me to do stuff for you!"
"What's up here besides flowers, anyway?" Cloud asked. Privately, he was quite worried about losing the sweet gig he had going. At this rate, he would never have to do another stupid delivery again!
"Well, there's me for one." Cloud turned slightly to see Zack, his old SOLDIER buddy and alter-ago behind him. He smirked and gave a little wave to the blond, before moving over to stand at Aeris's side almost…possessively.
Ohhhh.
"I told you he was my first boyfriend, remember?" She sighed. Zack wrapped an arm around Aeris's slim waist.
"And we've got a lot of catching up to do." The black-haired man said, winking at her. She giggled as his hand slid down to her behind, then looked back at Cloud sternly.
"So stop calling me every time something goes wrong, okay?" Aeris pleaded. "It's tiring. And annoying. And childish. And--"
"Okay, okay!" Cloud said, throwing up his hands.
There was another flash and he was back in Tifa's bar, still pointing at his foot. An exasperated Tifa was standing in front of him, hands on hips.
"Cloud? Are you even listening?" She demanded.
An idea struck him like a giant metal sign on Rude's head. Maybe, just maybe, all was not lost. Perhaps he really could live on without Aeris.
"Tifa…?" Cloud whispered, turning the full force of his large and solemn eyes onto the young woman. They glimmered like the endless depths of a scared pool, like a clear and cloudless day, like a shiny materia.
"Y-yes?" She stuttered, caught in his stare.
"Do you think…you could clean this scuff for me?"