I own nothing, YOU HEAR ME, NOTHING … not even my sanity, I sold it for all it was worth … 25 pence.
Hi everyone, another week gone, another chapter here, enjoy.
Chapter 10 – First Date
Cloud rode Aeris home; they talked about the woman who owned Nightshade, wondering who she was.
However, talking to her had made them slightly late, because Echton had gotten home at the same time as they did.
"You're late, well late for riding a chocobo" he said, getting out of his car.
"Yeah, we had a little chat with someone at the chorale, another chocobo owner" Aeris explained.
"Well let's get something to eat, coming Cloud?" he asked making his way inside.
"Daddy … Cloud was going to take me out for dinner tonight" Aeris said, looking at the floor.
"Oh, I'll let your mother know, you best get ready. I suppose I'll be seeing you later Cloud?" Echton asked.
Cloud nodded "Yessir!" he said, saluting.
"Just get going" Echton said with a chuckle and Cloud left.
Once Cloud got home he found the rest of his family already eating.
"I told Mum that you were eating out with Aeris tonight so she served dinner without you" Seph explained, Cloud nodded and asked if he could be excused.
"Of course dear … Cloud, why are you shaking?" Jen asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea" he answered, visibly trembling.
Having already finished his food, Seph got up and strode to his little brother.
"It's quite simple Cloud, you're getting worries about your first date, come on, I'll help you out" he said leading Cloud up to his room, where he started looking through his clothes and threw a towel in Cloud's face "go have a shower!"
Cloud did as he was told; the hot water actually calmed him down slightly. When he was done he walked back into his room, all the bedrooms had an adjoining bathroom, and found that Seph had laid out several of his clothes on the bed.
"Right, I've just finished with both Tifa and Aeris, Seph's sorting himself and I'm here to help you out" said Rikku, loudly.
"Whoa, Rikku I'm in a TOWEL HERE!" Cloud yelled.
"Oh please, the amount of times my brother and old man decided to walk into the room butt naked, don't worry I'll not take the towel off" she said calmingly.
She proceeded to hold different shirts up to Cloud's chest, then at the same time hold a pair of jeans or dress pants up, just to see if they mixed, in the space of five minutes she'd picked out a red button-up shirt and told him to keep the top three buttons undone and to go with it a pair of Sephiroth's black jeans which he had 'donated for the cause'.
Finally she handed Cloud his razor "Now get a shave and try not to cut yourself, I'll check Sephiroth" and she left.
Cloud quickly shaved his face, surprised by how much stubble had appeared on his face in only a week.
He left the bathroom and got dressed, just in time for Seph to charge in, wearing a bright green, short sleeved, shirt and sky blue jeans. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it.
"Save me" he whimpered and, soon, it was clear why.
Rikku started thumping the door "SEPHIROTH THAT OUTFIT IS RIDICULUS!" she yelled through the door.
"She's got a point there mate" Cloud pointed out "maybe if you went with this" he held up a dark blue shirt with a black dragon pattern all over it, Seph quickly changed shirts just as Rikku burst in.
She was about to forcibly change Seph's shirt when she paused, tilted her head from one side to the other and nodded her head "That's perfect!" she exclaimed, jumping up and down while clapping her hands rapidly.
Shortly after giving Cloud directions from Aeris' house to a fantastic pizza parlour, Rikku went home.
Jen and Tiler wished both their sons good luck and told them to be back by midnight, which gave them seven hours.
Seph was glad that he and Tifa had eaten before leaving home, since he had to walk, Rikku had given him directions to Tifa's house. When he got there he found Tifa waiting in her doorway.
"Hi there handsome, Cloud and Aeris left five minutes ago, so I knew that you were coming" Tifa called when she saw him.
"I see, have you decided on something to watch or are we picking something when we get there?" Seph asked.
"When we get there I think, that way we both know what's on" she answered.
Seph smiled and, linking arms, started walking her to the cinema, following her directions.
Along the way they talked about Blitzball, his and Cloud's lives before moving to Besaid, Midgar, how Sephiroth had been suspended for fighting in the corridors when he was just defending Cloud and then Seph asked about Tifa's past and the crusaders.
Tifa told him how the group got together, it started small, they were just in the same year, but then, when they were all around twelve, Leblanc, Ormi and Logos had tried to beat up this ten year old, Besaid High was a Junior and Senior high school, Tidus had yelled at them to stop and they tried to beat him up instead.
Shuyin stepped in to help his brother and, to this day nobody knew why, Wakka, Lulu, Paine, Baralai, Gippal, Rikku (who was the ten year old), Yuna, Squall, Rinoa, Selphie, Irvine, Aeris and Tifa just jumped in to help. Leblanc and her cronies just ran for it and the crusaders had been friends ever since.
They got to the cinema, not having realised how fast they were moving, they saw Cloud and Aeris in the pizza parlour and waved to them.
They got to the cinema and Seph was surprised to see all the films being shown as posters on the outside, in Midgar you had to go inside to find out what was on.
"Hey, let's watch Taken, the trailer looked awesome" Tifa cried.
"What's it about?" Seph asked.
"This guy let's his daughter go on a trip to another country with just her best friend and get's kidnapped, while she's on the phone to her Dad, he talks to the kidnapper and tells him 'I don't know who you are, if you're looking for ransom, I can tell you that I don't have money, but what I do have are a particular set of skills, skills that I have acquired over a very long carrier, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it, but if you don't I will look for you, I will find you. And I will kill you' and the kidnapper says 'good luck' and hangs up" she explained.
"Well I'm hooked, let's go!" Seph yelled and they ran in, Tifa bought the tickets and Seph bought the 'munchies' as Tifa put it; in other words, he bought the sweets and drinks.
Back in the pizza parlour Cloud and Aeris were just being given their double cheese and pepperoni pizza, they had argued slightly, but Aeris had beaten him down to an agreement, he was paying for the meal and she was paying for them to get into the cinema afterwards, they were both paying for their own sweets and drinks.
"And what will you have to drink" the waitress asked, Aeris ordered a blackcurrant and lemonade and Cloud ordered a coke with lemon and lime.
They sat their, slowly eating their pizza, just talking about their pasts (A/N exactly the same that Seph and Tifa talked about, but from different points of view), but Cloud was getting confused.
"Aeris? Is this normal for a first date?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked, leaning on the back of her crossed fingers.
"I mean, for a first date … is it normal to just talk about the past?" he elaborated.
"Oh, that, yes normally you spend a first date getting to know each other, pasts, hopes for the future, hobbies, interests and other stuff like that" she explained.
"Don't we normally do that when we hang out?" Cloud asked.
"Yes, but on a first date it's different, for one thing we can tell each other things that we wouldn't tell anyone else about our pasts, and for another" she leaned across the table and kissed him quickly "if we did that while hanging out with everyone else we'd either get wolf whistles, cat calls or told to get a room" she explained.
"So the first date is kinda like hanging out, with some fringe benefits?" Cloud asked and Aeris laughed.
"Yes, kinda like that" she answered.
"So what happens on the second date?"
"I dunno, Zak and I never really got to a second date, after the first he would just pull me into quiet corners and force a make-out session onto me" Aeris said, she explained how sometimes, even in a crowded room, her ex-boyfriend would try and put his hands up her shirt.
"So … after tonight … we're both in unfamiliar territory" Cloud sighed with both worry, and defeat.
They carried on talking, mainly about what they wanted to do the next day, when Aeris remembered that she didn't have a change of clothes for the next day; she quickly called her parents, while Cloud called his. She asked her mother to get some clothes together, Cloud stating that she could bring her swimming things if she wanted, and Cloud asked his father to go to Aeris' and pick it up, giving him directions.
With that little crisis dealt with, they started laughing, finished their meal, Cloud paying for it of course, and walked across the road to the cinema.
"So, what's on?" Cloud asked, looking at the posters, Aeris had warned him in advance about the posters on the outside of the building.
"Well, there's Taken, Quantum of Solace, The House Bunny, City of Ember, Burn After Reading, Eagle Eye, Ghost Town and Mirrors" Aeris stated, making her way down the line of posters.
"What do you wanna watch?" Cloud asked.
"I'd like to watch Ghost Town" she said and they went in, she paid for their tickets, they had ten minutes until the film started, Aeris went to get herself some popcorn while Cloud called his parents to both check that her things had arrived, and to tell them that their movie wouldn't finish until about five minutes to midnight, so they would most likely be late home.
Tiler and Jen weren't happy about it, but they agreed to let them under the condition that, as soon as they got out of their film, they'd call home and stay on the line until they got home.
Cloud agreed and hung up, switching off his mobile in the process.
"Your turn" Aeris said cheerfully.
"Okay, my parents know that we're going to be late home, can you call them as soon as we get out and stay on the line till we get back?" he asked, she nodded and he went to get a pack of skittles, a pack of chocolate Maltesers and a large lemonade for them to share.
By the time he finished paying it was time to go in, he met up with Aeris and she turned off her phone.
Inside they saw a trailer for Saw V, Aeris told him that the first one was good, but they just kept repeating the same story, so they lost their appeal. They also saw an advert for Mirrors, which Cloud swore there and then that he would never watch, the trailer alone made him iffy about looking in a mirror ever again. Then there was James Bond 007: Quantum Of Solace, which, Cloud thought, looked absolutely awesome, Aeris told him she'd ask her father if he'd lend Cloud his James Bond collection. And, just before the film started, they saw a trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, having seen the first one, they were both highly interested.
The best part of two hours later Cloud and Aeris came outside, Aeris chatting to Jen excitedly. Cloud's mother wasn't the type to go to the movies but she did like hearing about a good movie, it gave her a good reason to either buy it or not when it entered the shops.
They walked over to the chocobo chorale, yes there was one at the local nightlife park, and found, unsurprisingly, Sunstroke asleep.
"Awe she looks cute when she's asleep" Aeris said putting Jen on speaker.
"What are you on about?" Jen asked.
"Sunstroke, she fell asleep" Cloud said, he tried to wake her up, and failed. So he tickled her, it didn't take long for her to bolt upwards, groggy, but awake. "Ready to go home girl?"
She cooed quietly and allowed him to climb on, Cloud helped Aeris on and she sat in front with Cloud's arms on either side of her, since she had to hold her mobile all the time, it wasn't safe for her to try and sit behind.
If they were wide awake the trip home would've only taken about five minutes, and Cloud and Aeris would've gotten home on time, but Cloud was getting drowsy, Aeris was actually starting to nod off and Sunstroke was weaving from left to right, no matter how much Cloud tried to keep her straight.
"Aeris, come on, just a little longer" Cloud said softly, giving her a gentle shake.
"Five more minutes Mom" she murmured.
"AERIS WAKE UP!" Jen screeched, making Sunstroke squeak.
"WAA!" Aeris cried and nearly fell off.
"Mother was that entirely necessary?" Cloud asked.
"Kept you from having an accident, didn't it?" she answered; he could tell that she was smiling broadly.
"Aeris nearly fell off!" Cloud yelled as they got back to the paddock.
"Oh, I'm sorry Aeris, I didn't mean for that to happen" she apologised.
The couple walked in and Aeris hung up, it was ten past midnight.
"Well it's not as late as it could have been" Tiler stated "now off to bed, both of you!"
Aeris never got the chance to ask where she was sleeping; she just fell asleep into Cloud's arms.
"Uhhh, where is she sleeping?" Cloud asked.
"With you, we're expecting a storm tonight so it isn't safe to use the tent" Jen explained, much to Cloud's confusion.
"Ok ... Mom ... could you ... get her into her pyjamas?" Cloud asked, blushing.
"Sure darling" she answered smiling.
Cloud carried Aeris into his room and gently placed her on his bed, then quickly scampered out of the room as fast as he could.
Jen did her best to get Aeris out of her clothes, without waking her up, she'd gotten her out of everything and was now fetching her pyjamas, when Aeris woke up and realised that she was naked. She bolted upright and made Jen jump.
"What's going on?" she asked, fear evident in her voice.
"Shhh, it's okay Aeris, you were asleep and I was changing you into your pyjamas, Cloud's standing outside waiting for me to say that he can enter" Jen explained soothingly, handing Aeris her clothes, she dressed for bed quickly and went to the bathroom, Cloud was allowed back in and Jen left for her own room.
Cloud heard the conversation from the corridor, so he didn't need to ask where Aeris was, he quickly got into his tracksuit bottoms, his PJ's, and heard the toilet flush, the sink run and a knock on the bathroom door.
"It's ok" he called and Aeris came in.
"Where am I sleeping?" she asked.
"In here, there's a storm coming tonight and it's not safe to use the tent" he answered.
"Ok then" she said, smiling, and gave him a goodnight kiss.
Cloud quickly used the bathroom, washed his hands and joined her.
They cuddled, he kissed her forehead, she kissed his neck and they fell asleep.
Cloud's last coherent thought was 'this has been the best night of my life'.
And that's all until next week. I'll tell you this much, it's my first ever lime chapter, now you have something to look forward to ^__^