When the sun reaches that one point and everything under it is gilded, she sneaks up on him and curls her fingers around his eyes. And even though his ears are as keen as any mercenary's would be, he waits until she does it and then pulls her hands down. Her bracelets jingle and her smile flickers.
"Guess who." He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and pushes another rod into the dirt. Her breaths mark each moment she waits, lips open and chapped, hot air on his neck. "Take a walk with me."
"This should be done before we go anywhere."
"I'll help." He hands her a mallet and rod, eyes like blue shooting marbles under the golden sky. Blue, not violet. He gets back on task and so does she, but out of the corner of her eye she sees the other woman flip her dark over her shoulder and purse her lips over a pile of smoke and sticks.
She's sorry and unapologetic all at once. Because fate dealt her these cards, fate has taken her love away and now she's been given an opportunity to get it back. Surely that was fate too. A voice in her head tells her she's selfish, and she wonders what the planet has ever done for her.
Just as the ground before the other woman erupts into flames, Cloud slides his hand down the side of the tent and nods. "Is it good?"
"It should hold up for tonight." She picks at her pink dress and assumes that means it is good. He holds his hand out for her and she squishes his fingers together in her haste. They proceed into the woods and she can feel eyes following them through the fire. Starting a conversation with him is still hard, even after he has stopped stumbling over his words and putting on such a front.
"You saved me today." Again.
"I told you I'd protect you." The sun is lower in the sky, and the noise of dead leaves under their feet puts her on edge. She senses something going on under the surface, like old gears turning, some sort of over ripe realization, too rank to keep quiet. Maybe she said too much.
I want to see the real you. She looked at him to find him watching her. And now that the sun was low enough the color of his eyes could have been a couple shades darker for all she knew. Could be violet. "Aerith." he says, like he doesn't understand it.
"Yes."
"I'm not sure...I'm not sure...tha-"
"You know, I used to know a guy who was a SOLDIER. Like you." He blinks and the words he had before die. They die and he looks like he wants them back, but can't seem to remember what he was on to. And he seems frustrated, as if he knows that in minutes the impression won't be as strong. Aerith turns her face away from him.
"Really?"
"Yeah, he was a first class. Like you." He smiles and puffs out his chest like a little boy and she feels sick. They stop in a circle of trees with branches like arms, waving the sun away.
She feels the familiar material of his shirt under her hands.
She's doing a good thing. By bringing it all up, she'll bring him closer to the truth. He'll realize. He can't possibly adopt anything else that isn't his. Right?
"Aerith." his voice is low, lips trembling at the top of her ear.
"Yes." There is a pause and she can her skeletons moving deep in the closet. She isn't stupid, she doesn't have to be a childhood friend to see how mixed...
"I don't know...I don't know-"
"He fought with a sword that was nearly larger than him." she said as if reciting a fairytale, successfully blotting out that stench of realization. She dips her hands into his hair, hands continuing to slide out through the air for longer, darker spikes.
"Like me?" she bows her head against what is now nearly a shadow under the black sky.
"Yes, like you."
a/n: this wasn't intended to bash any character. XD i had to write it out of my head, and of course reviews are welcome.