a&n: Alright, so this will be during the years of the war against Wutai... slightly AU, so the characters range from 18 to 25 years old; I know that, normally, Aeris is more of a teenager at this time, but I'm bending things a bit. Their personalities naturally suite their younger age and the events- though if there's something you don't like, you could always notify me... calmly. :) Hope you'll enjoy it!


1

Her hands were cold.

It wasn't a particularly frosty winter night, however. Snow never reached the slums, anyway- some liked to beg for buckets of the stuff from generous people 'up above' in order to strew their roofs with a sparkling white powder that would glint red and green and blue in the neon lights; each tiny flake containing in its core a shard of rainbow, like a trinket from the world from which they'd fallen.

The same little piece of rainbow seemed to be traveling down her cheek in a smatter of tears. His thumb caught it just as it came to her chattering jaw line, and he brought the wetness to his lips, pressing his thumb to his mouth and staring at her hard.

"Why do you always do the opposite of what I tell you?"

Her lips were moving; entrancing him. The skin around her eyes was shiny; the two circles of moss-green were fixed to his mouth, and it seemed her lips stayed parted after she'd opened them to utter that rhetorical question. But as soon as he rolled his shoulders into a reluctant shrug and leaned forwards to console her, she turned around stiffly, her braid slapping across his chest, and then she was off, walking away from him and clutching the furry red jacket to her slight body, tensing up to fight off the cold.

"Ris- Aeris-"

The snowflakes that had fallen from the roofs and littered the road seemed to absorb his voice into their icy bowels, and he decided to catch up with her instead of wasting precious breath- his boots slipped in the slushy snow, where a million cars and carts and chocobo feet had trodden. He reached out an arm after easily catching up with her, touching the white dress where it emerged from the hem of her coat- which meant, just above her backside- and she turned around sharply, whipping up a hand and catching him wickedly across the cheek.

"I don't want the company of a SOLDIER who doesn't know how to get his priorities right."

Her words were as cold as the sensation spreading over his cheek. Strange- he thought slaps like that were meant to burn. Well, all the same… with her, everything was reversed. Flowers bloomed in decrepit old churches. Old men smiled in the streets. Hell, even when they made love, she was always ontop, for god's sake.

"Aeris, this is my godamn job-"

"It's your job to follow the orders of some piece of scum who calls himself the President and bend to his every will, is it?" she snapped, not bearing that hateful sentiment that is loss, "Tell me Zack, would you get in bed with him if he asked you to?"

"Oh, for the love of-" He couldn't help snorting at that, earning a sharp glance from the pink-clad girl shivering in front of him. "It isn't like that, 'Ris, not like that at all. I've never even seen the damn man." Plenty of other SOLDIERs had seen the President in all his porky splendor in the annual ceremonies and banquets and such. Him, well, he'd only just fought his way into First Class, and after six months of harsh training under the General himself, with all the impeccable material and facilities offered to the high ranking soldiers, he couldn't say he didn't yearn for the quiet, humble sector of the slums where he had spent his childhood, from where he had so vigorously escaped.
"Besides, it's not from him that I get my orders, and even if getting in bed with the General is slightly less painful to consider, you know I would never-"

"It's not funny, Zack," Aeris huffed, hugging herself, a crease appearing in the tender, pale flesh of her bosom, disappearing beneath the spotty pink corset she was wearing over white skirts. "It's war."

The word was like a dramatic jolt. It should've stopped affecting him so much, but hearing it like that from those lips, well… he still had his weaknesses.

"Of course it's war. And I know I'm not proud of what it is I'm getting into: at least I'll be getting enough-" –spoils- "- payment to get us both out of here once it's over."

Aeris turned her head a fraction, her breath seeping from her rosy lips like twisting spectres, dancing up into the air before mingling with his own and traveling up, up into invisibility.

Zack understood what she implied by that tiny movement, that slip of body language that he'd come to masterfully interpret.

"I can't promise you I won't get my hands dirty, 'Ris."

Her dark lashes came down to touch her cheeks, and it seemed like she was inwardly withdrawing; storing herself away in a cool place where he wouldn't be able to touch her anymore, where she would be safe. In the cold.

He hated seeing her like this. He knew that she completely understood what he'd implicated and it hurt him so much to be sincere- but that's the way she wanted him to be. So as much as he would've liked to promise her otherwise… he knew he could count on no one to change the way his mind and body worked, so in the end, the inevitable was to be expected.

"…don't come tonight."

And away she went.

• •

"God- damn- women."

The bar was full of people, who were laughing and choking on ice cubes and sipping drinks through their muck-incrusted beards. No place better for three SOLDIERs to sit down for a night and contemplate their sleeplessness together, undisturbed, and considered as just three more hopeless cases who weren't worth a pitying thought.

The man with the stylish black top hat and round sunglasses smiled at his companion, seated at the bar to Zack's right, tipping his glass of Manzana with elegant fingers and watching the ice cubes knock against the sides with a crystalline sound.

"Welcome to the real world, Mr First Class," the top hat man purred with such a deep voice that it sounded like it came from the bowels of some deep-sea creature. "You didn't think the bliss would last an eternity, did you?"

"But they're so-" Zack hurled an animalistic groan into his glass, the reverberation distorting the sound so that it almost sounded comical. The man seated to his left, the one with the slicked crimson hair and sombre eyes that should've belonged to someone ancient, scoffed a little. "-whiny. You can't do anything without them clawing at you from behind, telling you to come, come, and then five minutes later there's a change of plans and they'll be telling you to go away, go away."

"Oh, those ones are easy to handle," said the redhead, scooping up the creamy froth that crowned his beer with Zack's plastic stirrer, long since finished with the jokes centered on the naked feminine forms of the thing in question. "Those ones come running at the drop of the hat; you can toy with them till you're blue in the face and they still won't see it coming. You just don't know how to deal with clinginess, darling."

"Eh?" Zack slurred, looking over to the redhead man to his left and raising an eyebrow. "Man, you're not getting me- I'm talking about a woman, here. So don't start waltzing in with your masculine experiences and all that bullshit, because it does not compare."

"Zack, Zack, calm down," the top-hat man crooned, a solitary smile appearing on his glacial features like a lonely isle, a little speck of expression in all that black and white mystery. "There's an entire subtlety to be known when dealing with women- men too, I suppose, though that's not my domain, I'm afraid…" A tragic swig of Manzana later, and his breath smelt sweet and fruity fresh. "You can't just classify them. But, you'll forgive me if I don't go further into the subject. It's a bore to try and make soldiers understand something that can be defined as subtle and complex."

"Ah, the great General has spoken," Zack smiled, accidentally raising his voice, bringing up his glass and tipping half the stuff on himself, leaning back as though he was toasting to his ever-secretive boss who shot him one of those sharp looks that meant, beat it, kid. But, Zack didn't care. He wasn't even half as drunk as they'd already seen him become, but he was well on his way. "Everything's a bore when it comes to enhancing our measly Mako-minds, isn't it? I mean, we don't fight well enough for you, we don't get up early enough, we don't resist alcohol well enough, and what, we don't fuck well enough either-"

The 'General' in the top hat was laughing darkly to himself, his lips tightly sealed, glossy with apple-scented alcohol residue.

"You're probably right, Zack, but that's none of my business, and I'd rather not know."

"Why are you so damn closed on yourself, man? You talk like a woman! You talk like my woman!" Zack was laughing, and the crimson-haired SOLDIER to his left was sort of looking the other way, sucking up the froth on his beer and pretending he was one of those melancholic poets who strolled the slums during the night looking heartbreaking and lived like rich bastards up above during the day. "There's not one valuable thing that you'll willingly share with us, you sodding clam!"

"Damien," the General baritoned down the bar, completely indifferent to what Zack was spluttering in his alcohol-induced madness, "I think you should go and put him away somewhere, preferably not between a woman's legs."

"Alright." The crimson-haired man gave his boss a knowing smile, trying to compensate for Zack's obvious lack of respect that was obliged still in casual moments like this one, and slid an arm around Zack's shoulders to 'help him up'; though, the movement was a little too suggestive to the General's liking.

"No, Damien- not your flat."

He swore the redhead looked slightly disappointed, though he covered it up well. Mentally, the top hat man made notes. That one's good at concealment, traitorous around the edges. And he's sly, and he's got a svelte physique. Hm… he'd make a good double-agent.

"But he's drunk," was Damien's argument.

"Yes, but not sufficiently so for memory loss, and I don't want any traumatized cases in my ranks."

Damien stared at him almost imploringly, before recovering his spirits and mumbling something about needing fresh air, getting up from his high chair in one graceful swing of the limbs and sweeping off.

The General tipped his top-hat, impatiently throwing back his head to finish the Manzana in one swig before turning around and heaping Zack's inert body against his chest, weaving an arm around his waist and helping him walk out without the slightest effort in the world, his gait steady as he headed for the door as though he wasn't dragging some 75 kilos worth of alcohol-soaked muscle and spiky hair. He knew it. No one could be trusted around here… not even to do a single helpful errand. Ah, mother.

• •

Aeris drew the covers closer to her naked body, shivering as the wind seeped past the cracks in the window and trailed cold fingers over the exposed skin of her shoulders. Had the cold woken her? Or had her dream worn itself out as they usually did? She tucked an icy foot in the crook behind her knee, warming herself and breathing on her cupped hands. It must've been one or two in the morning, judging by the darkness outside, where all the neon lights in her area had been shut off. What could possibly have-

The doorbell buzzed again, an irritably long while, and she groaned into her pillow. Ah, Gospel, if that's Zack, I swear… After all, who else could it be, asides from random beggars who knocked at her door sometimes to express their gratitude after spending the entire night trying to find her house- she had to stop paying these guys so many favours, if it was to get chopped up nights and compassion attacks at every possible hour.

Dragging her covers up with her and not even bothering to pull on some underwear, Aeris sleepily shuffled out of her room, down the stairs and to the front door, leaving on the latch as she unlocked it and opened it in a crack.

"Yes, what, what do you want."

There was a gurgle, and the unmistakable sound of a body being impatiently heaved up again by someone who was supporting it.

"I'm sorry but, I believe you left this behind."

The voice was unfamiliar- it was deep, crooked, and if she could permit herself, sensual somehow. It demanded admiration, at the very least. Perhaps mindless submission came afterwards. But that wasn't what struck Aeris at first- no, what struck her was that that voice certainly wasn't Zack's, and it certainly didn't belong to some dirty beggar, and most importantly, this someone was right there on the other side of the door, fully dressed, and she was half-wrapped in her woolly duvet, her hair all disheveled and crease marks cutting up her cheeks.

Crap, crap, double crap.

"Can you- can you just- a minute?" she said hurriedly, aware that her heart was leaping up her throat and she hadn't even remembered she had one, in all this confusing waking-up-and-remembering-your-life business.

"I'm afraid I can't," interrupted the sensual kook from outside; she hadn't even seen him, seeing as she'd opened the door and stayed behind it. "I'm sure you'll understand that your property has been drooling on me for the entire time it took to get to your house, and I'd rather drop it off quickly."

But I'm lacking underwear, was what Aeris wanted to tell the man outside, beginning to get ideas and fretting that this man was actually one of those rapist people who the kids kept trying to scare each other about- but then she heard another of those strange gurgles and it sounded very much like her name.

She gasped. "Zack?" My property…? Oh!

Telling herself that it didn't matter, and that people in the slums these days had seen their fair share of naked flesh anyway, Aeris took off the security latch and opened the door more fully, sticking a bare arm and half her face around it to see the couple on the doorstep.

That kook with the sensual voice actually looked quite… how to say it? He was dressed in a long black coat, a muffler was around his neck, and a top hat coupled with funny round sunglasses shielded his identity. He certainly was strange. But, that fine jaw line, that elegant nose; the finesse of his features that he actually let on show made her inexorably wonder how the rest of his features might match up, and she had to mentally shake herself to bring her eyes down to that shivering lump attached to the kook's side, only recognizable by those bulky shoulders and, obviously, that wild mane of ebony hair.

Ignoring the hot flush that rose to her cheeks, Aeris afforded the top hat man a shy smile, retreating even further behind her door, granting them entrance. Alright, so the guy had been a bit pushy, but it was unfair to leave him out in the biting cold when he'd clearly had a very long night.

"Forgive me for the disturbance," the kook spoke quietly as he crossed her threshold.

The hem of his coat brushed against her bare knee as he passed.

"It's- it's nothing."

• •