"Lust rubied my blood, gave me the gait of an uncaught criminal, and I felt like I could walk forever." ~ Stephanie Danler
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There are a millions ways to ask for 'help'. Reno had figured them all out before puberty-exhausted every single one. For some odd reason, he is still alive and he's not sure if escaping death so many times is something to proud be of.
The elevator doors slide open and Rufus greets Reno with smile that touches the corners of his eyes.
"What the hell..." Reno wheezes. The light of Midgar pierces through the glass walls. Rufus's reflection appears to be suspended along the glittering horizon. The stars are smothered by the orange glow of pollution, but Reno still hasn't gotten used to the view. There's something humble about how ugly the city looks at night; a visual reminder that he's not doing God's work.
"It took you long enough," Rufus looks down at his watch.
The elevator pings and Reno hastily stumbles in before the doors shut, sealing his fate. His soul evacuates his body, because he knew better but Rufus is also his superior. Reno stands across from him, crossing his arms. Loose ends of hair caught in his lashes–burning holes into Rufus's forehead.
"Daddy ShinRa pays me to be precise." Reno adjusts his suit jacket, a cough rattling his throat.
For five minutes, they say nothing to each other. The elevator floats downward, putting distance between Reno's throbbing headache and the starless sky. Rufus shuffles his hands in his pocket, his eyes never leaving Reno's, lips parting as if he were about to break into song.
If Reno were good at telling jokes, he would've made a witty comparison of the weather to the pending nose bleed of a slight overdose, but he can't say 'no' to Rufus. No one could and even if one were to turn down Rufus ShinRa, he would somehow bend the situation around himself anyway. Sometimes, it has little to do with nepotism. Rufus is just that good at convincing the masses to jump off a bridge.
"I'm clean." Reno's voice is the drop of a pen. Rufus pulls out a tiny clear bag and it's filled with Reno's worst nightmare.
"You are. And you smell nice." Rufus leans against the glass wall.
"I'm serious." Reno looks at the descending number of floors, blaring red above the buttons.
"You're a killjoy."
"Aren't we go'n on business?"
"Since when did that ever matter to you, Reno?" Rufus's pale hair catches the reflection of the flickering city lights.
The first time he pointed a gun at Cissnei and threatened to spell his name out with her brains along the wall. The last time he fucked her so hard, she bled. Tic tic tic. They both pause. Tic tic tic. Reno can hear Rufus's watch over the hum of the elevator.
Reno's silence isn't a good enough answer and Rufus topples into a fit of laughter.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder!"
"That is what they say. Too bad I don't got a heart," Reno says flatly.
Rufus leans forward, shoving the packet back in his pocket, narrowing his sights, hanging on to his last hearty suspire.
"People don't change, Reno. They only get older and slower. If this is about you becoming a better person..." Rufus swallows a cackle. "Then you need to take a sharper look at your surroundings. Good people don't kill. Good people don't sneak, steal, or lie."
Reno's eyes dart from Rufus's as he chews the inside of his jaw.
"You can help old ladies cross the street. Open doors for people. Give 1 gil to a homeless slug, but that will never erase all the times you've beaten someone to death. Nor all the unclean mouths that have sucked your dick." Rufus straightens himself as his mood dips and darkens. He gives Reno a fake look of empathy, steps forward, and jabs a finger in Reno's chest. "You're still that person and will die that person."
Reno is expressionless. Tired and cold. He licks his chapped lips, rolls his eyes and turns his back to Rufus. The elevator reaches the grand lobby floor and the bell hums.
"Suit yourself." Reno's voice vibrates.
The doors slide open.
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Aerith, are you happy?
The answer is made up of indifference. Aerith Gainsborough is far from unhappy, she sure as hell isn't content with the way things have turned out. Not with just herself, but with the state of everything else that surrounded her.
The mascara glues her eyelashes together. Her eyes are runny and red but the Honey Bee Inn is dark enough to hide her allergic reaction to the cheapness of her makeup. The shadows of the other girls dance across the cream walls of their dressing room. It's the only room that has a plain appearance– she has always wondered if the nakedness of their 'sanctuary' is intentional. It's dullness spited their gaudy uniforms. As she stuffs her tiny breasts inside of the low cut corset, she imagines Zack creeping up behind her, hiding his disappointment under the flicker of the fluorescent light bulbs. With a pair of sad pretty eyes that somewhat match hers– she has more than a mouthful for him. Anger too heavy for the ink to carry in her letters.
It's not like he ever wrote back. She thinks sourly, picking up the curlers to burn the silkiness of her hair.
But don't act like you don't know why he never wrote back. She checks herself. Soul-mates; that one and only individual purposefully crafted by the hand of god specifically for you. Whoever of whatever that is supposed to be simply doesn't live inside of her. Apathy has gutted her like a fish, hanging her skin and bones out to dry.
As she contemplates her womanhood, her body bursting from the tight confines of her nightly costume– her thighs squeezing through the fishnet stockings and the unflattering fold of armpit fat around her corset, Aerith cultivates an understanding. Like always whenever she starts to think that she's too good to be prancing around in glittery plastic wings. She cultivates an understanding that this is what happens when you're stuck in the slums. Cetra or not, you make shitty decisions. The curler sizzles around a lock and she grimaces at the smell of burnt hair.
Aerith, have you found what you've been searching for?
Would Zack truly be disappointed in her? She's only a bottle girl and hasn't fallen to the bottom yet to ever consider selling herself. For the time being, she has simply slipped between the cracks, accepting that happiness is an expensive religion and her smile is only a reflected fragment of her childhood. Being a kid was simple, even when the poisoned soil caught the sewage that ran thick through the streets, seeping from the top.
When Aerith finishes pinning up the ringlets of her hair, she observes herself in the mirror. She observes that she is the last girl standing in the dressing room. Always the last Honey Bee on the floor.
Look how far away you have strayed from yourself. Her conscience echoes. She remembers stumbling across a dead body in an alleyway. She planted a seed there when she was ten. A battered prostitute with blood between her thighs. Aerith broke off a piece of her innocence and gently placed it in that forgotten woman's hand, curling her fingers sweetly and kissing her knuckles.
Cetra. Misery. Compatibility most unfathomable.
Aerith applies a lip-gloss that tastes like chocolate, forgetting that she can't spell and that she has the reading skills of a fifth grader. Maybe Zack never wrote back because he couldn't understand whatever the hell she was trying to say.
She takes a deep breath and squeezes her boobs together to stir up false confidence, then drops her hands to readjust the itchy, frilly yellow panties that bottle girls were required to wear.
Who you are supposed to be tonight?
Aerith decides tonight that she will be Natalie. Like Sophie, Athena, and the bold Andromeda, Natalie will spill from their lips like an undiscovered waterfall. Never like the gentle pecks of the rain against blossoming petals.
What sets the Honey Bees apart are their shoes. It's the only mean that they have in showing their personalities. Aerith had long settled with a open toed chunky heel of five inches. Some of the Bees float around in seven inch stilettos, giving an air of perpetual ascension-reminding Don's 'good' patrons that they were still unattainable and leagues away.
You have my permission to touch me.
It's their mantra. The epigraph above the plush rooms that might as well be their graves (only Aerith thinks this grimly).
But her role isn't hard. Pour drinks, get them to stare at her forced cleavage until they are drunk enough to tip her. Conversation is easy and lying, for Aerith, is as natural as breathing. She thinks she's smarter than the rest of the Bees.
Too uppity for the black pasties, too pretty to wrap her legs around strangers but if she did, she tells herself she'd run all the other girls out of business. She would steal all of their customers. Bottle girls are the wingmen for the main attractions. Easy gil.
Don Corneo's 'kingdom' reeked of bloodied pride and the soiled panties of prostitutes. Stolen dragons of gold snake up pillars of red, stripped of their meaning. The 'Bee Hive' looks less like a honeycomb and more like a cheapened version of a Wutainese whorehouse. There are light fixtures with the semblance of fireflies dangling from the ceiling that grossly contrast the theme of the Bees.
"Table four," The Bee with a short pixie cut behind the bar slides Aerith a tray of two glasses. The dark liquor sloshes and spills over the brim.
"What?" Aerith stops staring at the fake fireflies, runs her hand along her corset and blinks away her self-depreciating thoughts.
"You're covering for Janice," She says between her teeth, cleaning out a glass. Aerith doesn't know who Janice is by face, but she hears the name a lot. They both stare at each other until Aerith floats back down to reality.
"Right..." Aerith reaches for the tray and wobbles off on her heels. She hopes Janice is ok.
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Reno sinks in the deep red cushion, revealing a pale ankle as he props a foot on his knee. Rufus stares ahead attentively, watching Don sift through tons of paper work under a thick cloud of cigar smoke. Reno's attention seesaws from the husky goons that gritted their teeth and the nice legs of the passing Honey Bees. He wonders how Tseng makes these trips and manages to keep his cool.
"ShinRa, you expect too much of me." Don coughed, breaking the fog of silence and dumps the papers onto the table.
"We compensate you well, Corneo." Rufus has this way of speaking that commands attention. His voice rises and disperses like a disease, or a familiar song that everyone knows the words to but wishes they could forget. His cadence penetrates the denseness of his surroundings. Rufus's hands move from his pockets to the table and from some hidden place he spins a pocket knife between his fingers.
"For what this contract is asking, I'm better off rebuking your compensation." Don's laughter is shrill and disgusting, but Rufus's lips curl. From the plastic bag, he empties the sparkling white clumps onto the glass table. Don's men stare at Reno as if they were waiting for him to combust, or they could sense his discomfort, but it was only a matter of time if they kept eyeing him like a rare piece of steak.
"I don't think it's asking for too much." Rufus cants ever so sharply, crushing the coke with his knife.
"It wouldn't be wise to decline it, fatso," Reno spat and his words are like bullets tearing through flesh, shattering bone.
Rufus glances at Reno sideways, still smiling as Don erupted into a storm of laughter crass enough to destroy the red walls. He rolls back into his seat and his belly jumps with his powerful chortles.
And Reno and Rufus laugh with him.
"You've got jokes, kid?" Those were fighting words. Reno's laughter flat lines like a dead thing. He lifts a leg and shoves a foot into the table, sending the bottles and glass and papers toppling into a mess. The crash rings against the floor and Don's men reflexively turn their guns and Rufus simply sighs. He leans forward, inhaling a long line. The room stops breathing.
"Are we not reasonable men?" Rufus sits straight, running a hand through his hair. His bangs curling back. His wet eyes shine with amusement.
A Bee drops to her knees and busies herself with cleaning the mess. Despite her efforts to remain unnoticed, Rufus grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks off her knees.
A yelp escapes Aerith, but she doesn't recoil from him. She obeys like all people did in the presence of rich men. Staggering to her feet, Rufus forces her to sit at the edge of his seat. Her hair still tangled around his wrist.
"You seem like a character with good judgment!" Rufus gestures at the surrounding men with his knife. Aerith knew misery, but held a closer relationship with fear. She becomes stiff in his grasp, his hands wandering from her scalp to the awkward bend of her hip.
"Do we not look like reasonable men?" Rufus ShinRa gapes at her with feigned perplexity, with bated breath for her most honest observation. Aerith's glare shifts around the table until her eyes lock with the man who owned her. Don folds his hand on his chest but doesn't smother his displeasure.
Even in the face of adversity, she is paid to sell fantasy. If that meant the fantasy of her death or abuse, she's expected to make it worthwhile.
"Well, Mister ShinRa..." It pumps her blood, makes her dizzy that she's in the clutches of her enemy. Rufus's attention weighs on her. He's prettier in person than in the daily paper. If only you knew– her conscience hums and for a moment she loses her grasp on the voices from the other life. Their whispers becoming louder. "I've yet to meet a reasonable man. What's a reasonable man s'posed to look like?"
Rufus shifts his posture, narrowing his eyes. His lips fall into a straight line as he contemplates the simplicity of her answer. He looks from her to Reno, who is even more on edge.
"Reno...what do you think a reasonable gentleman looks like?" Rufus's sincerity is severe.
A man cracks his knuckles but Don appears to be pleased with Aerith. He settles into his seat. What a mess it would've been to upset Rufus ShinRa.
"Shit, I wouldn't know. I ain't ever claimed to be reasonable." Reno's eyes don't ease.
"What do you think a good reasonable man looks like, dear?" Don's tone is pointed. Aerith shrinks a little.
Aerith bites her bottom lip and looks off as if she were truly thinking. She leans against Rufus and he reciprocates the gesture. In another life, she could have been an actress. Her life is made up of a nice act and fabricated truths. Zack never seemed to pick up on her bad habits, but his hands weren't big enough to hold her. Nobodies hands were truthfully. Being a beautiful concept has its perks, until she finds herself lonely.
She stops pretending to think, she stops biting her lips and they are swollen red. Aerith swallows the flavor of her lip-gloss.
"My mama always says that a good reasonable man knows when to be quiet. Like in school, we learned about predators and prey. Those funny pictures always showed a tiger peeking through the tall grass, watching and waiting...I think a good man is sorta like that. When he wants something, he waits for the right time to take it." Aerith's back is sore from balancing on the arm of the chair.
"Patience..." Reno's breath is a short laugh.
"Patience." Aerith glares at him, but he hasn't looked at her. What stands out the most about him is his dark suit. She knows it too well and it sends her heart crashing into her stomach. She resists the urge to run, the innate desire to flee– it's rooted so deep in her that it's like wanting water. Meandering between her wicked curiosity and disdain, she considers how much blood is trapped in the threads of his uniform. He isn't Tseng so there isn't any pity to fix on to her. She's not safe, but when has she ever been safe?
The hostility has died and the Honey Bee Inn regains the normalcy of its pulse. Save for Aerith.
"Patience!" Rufus sings, nodding his head at the table of men. He releases Aerith as he shifts in his seat. The fabric of his white suit hums against the leather seat. He bows his head once more and finishes the last line of coke.
"The woman has spoken!" Rufus beats a fist down on the table. "Patience! I have enough of that to extend to you Don."
He gains a grave look, his muscles shifting in the snugness of his suit, "To think Reeve was nice enough to type it all up for you. He's going to be so disappointed when he finds out that you didn't find it agreeable."
"The price isn't right." Is all Don said. His unwillingness to compromise shocks everyone but Rufus and Reno.
"Patience." Rufus utters once more.
For a while, no one moves. Not even Aerith. She waits for someone to give her an order. Rufus stands, readjusting himself in his suit. The glowing fireflies cast a pale halo around his crown. Aerith gets of sense of dread. Her throat tightens and her palms become clammy.
The moment Aerith thinks she's vanished into the obscurity of plastic wings, Rufus turns to meet her gaze, looking as if he's lost something or he's caught her in the middle of a forest. He smiles, just like in the many pictures she's seen. Rufus takes her in from head to toe, rolling his tongue around in his mouth.
"How much?" He says to her, as though he's happened upon an epiphany.
What she hears is; Who is Aerith Gainsborough?
"Oh...no..I'm not..." Aerith's voice becomes small. I'm just a glorified waitress in tacky lingerie.
"Tell him how much." Don insists.
Suddenly, her mascara becomes heavy upon her eyes. The Turk stands and their eyes finally meet. He stood a lanky six feet, a few inches taller than Rufus. Aerith's thoughts become crisscrossed as everyone waits for an answer.
The thing about hunger, literally and metaphorically, is that it leaves the jaws lax, loosens lips, and arouses goose bumps. Aerith stands a little taller, reminds herself that she's been starving for too long. Her mouth waters much to the displeasure of Gaia's garden locked inside of her. She imagines the flowers wrapped around her bones wilting.
"A thousand gil." Aerith states boldly. She sullenly muddles to herself– at least he smells nice.
Rufus's mouth cracks into a deep smile and when he laughs, the rest join him save for Reno. But Rufus is tickled for other reasons. In all of his endeavors at the Honey Bee Inn, he's never been demanded such a price. He glances at Don and nods slowly, savoring the moment.
"A thousand gil." Rufus digs into his suit jacket for a wad of gil.
"Yep." Aerith rolls a heel into the carpet.
He invades her personal space, raising the wad of gil above her head. Rufus is so close that his features become blurry and he smells like a field of opportunities. The things she will be able to achieve with a thousand gil. A new pair of shoes or a dress.
Aerith doesn't waver from his nearness. He looks less wicked holding the answer for tomorrow. Halo, shadows, and all. She knows that he wants her to reach and beg for it, but that's not how she plays games. Rufus becomes privy to her boldness when she pouts.
"The papers don't say nothin bout you be'n a bluffer, Mister ShinRa." She sweetly coaxes him.
With that he releases the gil and they flutter down and around them a hopeless flurry. Aerith doesn't immediately reach to grab the bills. She further cultivates her cheekiness.
"Go get me a drink and clean this shit up." Is all he says to her. Aerith knows better than to ask him 'what he likes.' Every Bee is supposed to be familiar with what he fancies. She nods, tucking a floppy curl behind her ear, dipping to collect her tip before she struts off to figure out what drink he is partial to.
Reno has been ready to leave the moment he set eyes on the glaring neon signs that dangled from the lopsided buildings. Being beneath the plate never meant anything good. No matter how much he wishes to escape it, he always ends up in this bowl of shit. Knee deep in someone else's shit.
He smothers a groan when he realizes that Rufus intends to stay for one of those night long binges that everyone in the company whispers about. The many nights Tseng had subjected himself to. Rufus opens his arms and turns on his heels.
"Gentlemen!" He starts but pauses. A cue for everyone to lean in and behold his gospel. "Let us put this disagreement behind us for now."
Reno flops back into his seat and the leathery cushions sigh at the impact. Rufus snaps his fingers at someone in the smoky distance then pinches the crease in his pants as he sat back down. Don's personal army disperses and it's just the three of them. Two powerful men in their own right and one unlucky asshole.
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Any moment now.
Reno and Aerith both think.
Any moment now, they'd be given some moment of freedom.
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Before Rufus vanishes behind one of those tomb like doors, he gently tugs Reno by the collar.
"What exactly are you trying to atone for?" His pupils have swallowed the color of his eyes, but his voice still retains that smooth finesse that convinces his victims to trust him again. The Two Bees he paid for slip around them, their heels clacking into the dimly lit room.
"Nothing. Nothing at all, boss." Reno says rather negligently. The long hours into the night had allowed him to shut off the visceral part of him that loves to destroy things. Because Cissnei had asked him to change, he still hopes, even in her absence, that his goodness would somehow manifest her back into his life.
Rufus's palm flattens against Reno's chest. He sucks in a breath and pats the Turk's chest three times. Rufus grinds his teeth together, searching for something to say but he's too smacked to conjure up his charm.
So he gives Reno a slow nod before dipping into his dalliance.
And Reno does what he is expected to do. Stand by the door unscathed by the evening's events.
Like a trained dog.
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It's much faster getting undressed. Aerith peels herself out of her uniform like she's shedding layers of dry, dead skin, kicking her shoes from her swollen feet. With the sleeve of her denim jacket, she wipes the makeup from her face carelessly. Her lip gloss smudges against the corners of her mouth and stains her teeth. And this is the pinnacle of her nights. It allows her to feel in control.
Barriers, that's what someone had told her. She had way too many barriers, but she remembers looking at them and wondering how the hell they survived without any?
When did having too many barriers become a problem?
Aerith flops into the fuzzy stool, bending forward to lace up her boots. Her curls are now stiff from all that hair spray and they part over her shoulders like separate extensions of her mood.
"You didn't fall on your face." A Bee named Pepper drops a small plastic bag in her lap. Inside are two fat pill. "Don says to take tomorrow night off."
Before Aerith can reject the drugs, Pepper is on her way out of the dressing room.
She stares down at the bag. Runs her fingers against the plastic and presses down on the pills. They are thick enough to put a horse to sleep. Five minutes pass before she accepts the weird place she's in. There's no point in daydreaming about the 'could bes'.
Some of the Bees like to go on about this thing called the 'glass ceiling'. Aerith always wonders why it matters to them. For one, the ceiling isn't glass. It's made of impenetrable metal. And two, no one leaves the sectors. Not without some soul shattering compromise.
"Honey, none of us are going anywhere anytime soon." They all had laughed but not like they believed it. They had saw some silver lining to their plight.
Aerith takes the bag in her hand, shoves it in her bra for safe keeping. Before reaching for the straps of her heels and tossing her purse over a shoulder, she gives herself a long look in the mirror.
This isn't rock bottom. Not yet.
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Aerith passes the bar. With her quick pace, her stiff hair and breast bounce. The tiny bag presses into her skin– she is sure later the friction will leave something similar to a paper cut. Someone says good-bye, three people speak to her on her way out but she shirks a very weak huff.
When her hand reaches the handle of the exit, she scoffs at the idea of her barriers as her feet squish against the cool sole of her boots. Not looking left, right, nor behind her. Straight ahead to nowhere in particular. Once she steps outside of the Honey Bee Inn she will become invisible. The burden is behind her for the next forty eight hours.
The strange thing about the slums, while poverty does require some level of self-awareness about the world, reality too is easily distorted. The world likes to scapegoat men like Rufus ShinRa for being hard to please, with his broad appetite for wickedness, but poor men are just as bad. There's nothing in the world more terrifying than a man who robs to feed his five children. Extreme conditions can cause anyone to be hazardous. It's why religions denounce excess. At least, that's how Aerith has figured it all for herself.
She steps outside of the brothel and is assaulted by the funk of sewers. Twenty something years and she's still not used to it. And the air always feels damp beneath the plate. Everyone gets a perpetual glaze of humidity on top of their skin.
Aerith pauses, cupping her hands around her chest to feel for the bag, considering if she should drop one pill down her throat for the agonizing journey home.
Someone next to her heaves a disturbing, long winded, wheezy breath and she turns to her side.
It's the red-head Turk. A cloud of smoke curling up and around his nose. She stiffens but doesn't readily let her limbs turn to jell-o. Aerith continues to pat at her chest and stares directly at him, with her heels dangling around her wrist.
"Do ya get a bonus for standing outside and groping yourself?" Though his eyes are in her direction, it doesn't feel like he's looking at her.
Aerith hesitates but eventually her lips curl, revealing her teeth. She hacks up an inelegant laugh.
"Nah. It's not like that at all. Just making sure I'm still all here. In one piece." She's not. Her insides rumble a little. For many reasons.
The Turk gives her a perfunctory shrug, lips spreading into a frown. It causes his face to wrinkle, but it doesn't lessen his slight appeal. He takes another drag of his cigarette and gathers a contemplativeness. She waits for him to say something profound.
"Are you not all there?" It's a rhetorical question. She knows the answer doesn't matter but she sometimes likes to hear herself talk.
"You ever shake a box filled with broken glass? That's me."
"Dark." This time the smoke pours from his nostrils.
"I'm a complex person."
"That's the right thing to say I guess." The Turk drags his eyes down the dirty street. The flashing signs reflect on his skin. It looks like he's glowing from within.
Aerith never forgets a face. It's names that she cant remember.
She's learned overtime that there are two types of people: the ones you're drawn to for no good reason at all, and those who are drawn to you for no good reason at all but you ignore them. It's the cycle of a snake eating its own tail.
"Can I have one?" She pipes up after a long awkward pause, dropping her hands from her chest. Her heels slap against her hips.
He plucks the cigarette from his lips, hands it to her half burnt. She notices how large and pale his hands are. As she reaches for the cigarette, Aerith resists the urge to touch the sharp jutting bone of his wrist. Her fingers do caress the rough part of his cuticles.
For no good reason, it makes the back of her ears hot.
"My mouth is hella dirty." He smiles for the first time all evening.
It was another one of those gross days. The rain above the plate seeps down into the potholes and splits. Lifting the smell of poverty, blood, and corroded metals.
Aerith wants him to look at her.
"Wouldn't be my first dirty mouth." She slides the cigarette between her lips and holds it there. "Why are you out here and not in there?"
"Don't need my dick stroked. I got better things to spend my money on."
"So you've got a strong moral compass?" Aerith has never smoked a cigarette in her life but she wants him to find her willingness attractive.
He's an acquired taste, but still pretty to look at. She notices how much darker his lips are compared to the rest of his skin. And she tries to imagine his nipples being the same color.
"Not really. Random sex is just boring. When you've had it one time, you've had it all."
"Only men in love say things like that." Aerith takes the cigarette from her mouth, observing it in her hands. The smoke is aesthetically pleasing set against her dark red nails.
"I think you're really presumptuous." He drops his head to give her an amused look. Her next rebuttal gets hung in her throat. She's thrown off by how bright his eyes are in the dark. Immediately she wants to get to know him. It's a depraved unladylike longing.
"You didn't say I was wrong." She doesn't shrink. If anything, she stands a little straighter. Her smile deepens at his challenging tone.
"I didn't say you were right either."
A burning sensation spreads in her chest. He's a Turk. He knows Tseng. He has no idea who she is. But he should...
They both stare at each other. Distant gun shots thwart the silence. Bullets ricochet against the pipes above their heads. Somewhere, someone has died or thinly escaped their ticket out of this wasteland.
Neither of them flinch.
"You wasted my cigarette." His lilt dips.
"I really just wanted ya to talk to me." Her voice is coarser.
Another long wordless moment. Aerith's footsteps shrinks the space between them. She's close enough to smell his sweat. Her head only reaches where his collarbone starts. Raising her hand, she brings the cigarette back to her lips, inhales deeply, puffing her cheeks until burn reaches the fingertips. She strangles on the smoke, choking turns into dry coughing and it all floats from her mouth.
Flecks of her spit sprinkles his throat.
"Now that you've got my attention– what?" There's a graveness about his voice. He's irritated with curiosity.
"I can help with that broken heart of yours." Sputtering, she holds up her free hand and wiggles all five of her fingers. "5 gil for my thoughts."
"This is really what you're good at." He says so bitterly, Aerith can taste the dip in his mood. But the Turk doesn't withdraw– his glower is so heavy she's sure he can see her pumping blood vessels. "Selling yourself."
"I only sell drinks and compliments." She paints his face in the back of her mind. His sharp nose, his clear eyes, the fried ends of his hair. She allows her gaze to wonder the sharp corners of his features, her eyes stopping at his dry but finely shaped cupid's bow.
"What's your name anyway huh?" She drops the cigarette butt to the ground.
"Does it matter?"
"I just wanna know. To be honest, I'm not used to your type look'n through me."
"What's my type?"
"Man is your type."
"Reno. Are you satisfied?"
"Reno..." She rolls the syllables on her tongue. Savors it. Not sure if she likes it.
"Your name?" The agitation in his voice dwindles to amusement.
"When the wings are off I'm nameless." She keeps her lips parted.
"I must gotta pay for it?"
"It has no price. You can try paying for a lie though." Still, after all this time, he's not ensnared by her charm.
And Reno laughs genuinely. Revealing his uneven teeth. The corners of his eyes wrinkle.
"Sure. Sure, miss." He throws his hands up and steps away from her, backs himself against the wall and digs into his pockets for another cigarette.
Before wishing him a terrible evening, Aerith digs into her bra for the pills. Reno watches her intently.
She fishes out the bag and the fabric of her dress bunches, creases around her bra. Aerith dips her fingers into the bag, dragging out the first pill.
Pops it into her mouth and swallows it dry. Her throat bobs when she throws her head back. When it gets all the way down she cries soft satisfaction.
"Knock yourself out." She tosses him the remaining pill. He catches it. "Hope it makes the time fly."
Reno eyes her back as she walks away. Doesn't look away until her body steps into the blur of the neon lights. Stranger things have happened. Stranger people exist. He opens his hand and stares at the pill.
There's no one around to witness him breaking a promise and time would either stop or jump forward.
With two fingers, he slides the pill on his tongue, fills his mouth with saliva then swallows.
AN: Clearly, this is an AU. I've taken many creative liberties. I've rewritten this story a million time over years. There's been many iterations of it and I think this is the version I'm happy with. Possibly sticking with. I know it's been two years since I've even started this thing and I'm just now updating. Thank you for taking the time to open and digest this. It means a lot when people read anything write. I hope you stick around.