Author's Note: Back with the flu again. Well, this story's slowing down review-wise, and remember, if I don't have even a small fanbase to write to, I slack off and my writing gets trashy. Remember 'Rise' and 'Scars', maybe? No one reviewed, I gave no effort. So, I'll need about five reviews a chapter to keep it moving. ( By the way, if anyone who read Hellmasker is reading this, if you have a friend in Minnesota named John, PLEASE CONTACT ME. ) And, yes, Thor, it was 10638.
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 1, 3076
Nighttime. Villa. Costa del Sol. 10:10 P.M.
"I'm shocked you're not speaking in tongues and sacrificing cripshay yet." - Aeris, Costa del Sol villa
Believe it or not, I spent over a month without stepping one foot outside, except when we bought the villa down the street and moved in there. Despite the efforts to get me to go to the beach with her, Aeris can't persuade me. December first? Another day on the calendar, another day of crossword puzzles, and another day of wondering if I should just walk out to the car and get my CD out, at least. After awhile, I think the cabin fever started to feel normal, though I'm not sure how sane I am, cutting out newspaper clippings and making fake articles that look way too authentic. My favorite:
"Veggie Surprise"
The self-appointed Potato Killer struck
again last night, deep inside the Gongaga
forests, presumably sneaking up on his
target and tying her up. He proceeded to
take her to her own house and stick tooth-
picks into her neck, slowly killing her from
the outside. To dispose of the evidence,
he wrapped her in tinfoil, broke her limbs,
stuffed her into the over, and turned it on
High, then fleeing the scene of the crime.
Many a-day I thought about sticking that in some unsuspecting person's newspaper, but that would mean leaving the villa. My permanent, as far as Aeris was concerned, home. She'd gotten used to me, and I had decided she wasn't as bad and two-faced as she had first seemed. For a lack of better words, I would just say we've grown up a lot.
I had taken a knife and made my hair a bit scraggly, so I would look like one of the local surfers, and although I still hold onto Tseng's Turk suit, I've gotten a local, brandname -- Shields, I think the company was -- T-shirt and black, baggy jeans. I look damn near normal now. Aeris has been buying me new clothes when she thinks I need them, and treats me like a perfectly normal person, even though I don't go outside.
So, how are we getting all the gil, you ask? She had taken a job at the bookstore next door, and in Costa, you were so drunk you tipped someone if they said Hello. She comes home with one, two hundred a day, just because she gets a lot of looks from the winos.
She goes to work early, comes home late, and usually carries at least a handful of groceries for the day. She never tells me how much she makes a day, but I have a feeling it's much more than she should be getting.
But why the hell would I complain? I toss in my own savings, too.
As soon as the door slams out front, I move from making a fake ransom note to standing in the hallway, waiting for her as she stuffs the end of a gil note into her coat pocket and hefts a bag of food higher into her arms. "And how're we today?" I often hassle her about being a bookworm or a nerd, but she laughs just as hard and usually comes up with a comeback. I love our little villa. I take the bag from her and set it on the kitchen counter, picking through it as I always do.
She grins when I look over my shoulder, a sure sign she has something in store for me. "What now?" I ask. "Not another bookshelf, I hope." Thought the first one's still sitting in my room and supporting my television. I go back to sorting through the magazines she bought us. A few homemaking ones, and then the heavy metal edition of the local music studio's. Kala and her three counterparts scowl from under the title: Mako Dreams. It's deposited directly into my huge back pocket for later reading.
The edge of her lip quirks up. "Thought you might like that one. Anyway, I've got a nice, little surprise for you."
I turn around. She's got a gun aimed between my eyes. In a few moments of pleading, I'm on the floor, dying in a cold heap.
Or, at least, I expect it when I turn. All she has is the same look on her face, so I decide asking, "What?" doesn't hurt. Seeing as how there's no gun, I don't think she has the mind to kill me here and now.
She wags a finger at me. "Nu-uh. If you wanna see it, you have to do something for me." I'm unnerved by the mischevous twinkle in her eye. Almost as if the request was outrangeous, but the reward very much worth it. I know about two things like this, and one punches me in the spine and makes me straighten.
"And that is. . .?" I don't want to let on any anxiousness, but she doesn't make a move. She just shows two rows of straight teeth, turns around, and points at our front door.
"You have to come down to the beach with me. Now."
My eyes bulge out a good six feet, or at least I think they would if they could. The beach. A place full of surfers, and more importantly, a very public place. A place where a guy like me sticks out and is an obvious target for lookers. "No way. You know my rules. I don't leave the villa unless absolutely necessary, like it burning down or something." My arms are folded over my chest. Three, two, one, stubborn!
She rolls her eyes and leans on the counter, staring hard at me. She wants me to move and just come down to the beach, but I'm as stubborn as they come, and I'm not budging. "Oh, c'mon. It's dark, late, and you looks different than you did in a suit. No one's going to see you, let alone reognize you and turn you into the police. I really doubt ShinRa has any reason to go down to the beach, anyway."
True. The bastards usually stuck, humped over their desk, in their office. No one went out and had time to get a tan; this is ShinRa we're talking about, here. Lucky, I got out of there before I was shot at my desk. I haven't moced a foot from my spot, though. "Is it worth it?" I ask uneasily.
She nods furiously. "Oh, for you, I'm sure it is." She doesn't have on a seductive smile, or I would see it right away and. . . Well, who knows what I'd do? As if that's all there is to it, she walks over to the coatrack, takes mine down, and hurls it at me. "Five minutes. That's it."
I stare at the coat in my hand. Black, just like my mood and the sky. My favorite color, the color of the Mako Dreams CD cover. This really has no relevance to the matter at hand, but I need to focus on something besides her face. If I do, I'll crumble like a thirty-foot stack of bricks. Five minutes. Five minutes can't hurt. Logic slaps me hard. 'C'mon, you paranoid fuck. Five minutes is nothing!' it yells at me. What I wouldn't give to punch it before I slide my arms into the coat and follow her to the door.
She gives me a weak smile and opens the door. If you don't step a foot outside for over a month, and then decide to take a walk on the beach, it's more of an experience than an event. Everything is seen in new color when you're not in a smoke-stained room, making fake newspaper articles. The buildings rush at you in a new light, not seen through fogged windows, and there is nothing that can compare to the smell of the outside world.
I was never a nature freak, but I think it's instinct to want to drop to your knees, praise the heavens, and kiss the cobblestone path. And if Aeris weren't standing there gauging my reaction, I just might. Wordlessly, we walk down the stairs to the villa, quickly stepping down the road and passing the dimly-lit bar, which smells just like my room now. Cigarette smoke and alcohol. I turn my head ever so slightly when we walk by, and look at the Inn. Our room's lights are off. Either it's empty, or they're asleep. I look up. No stars. Must be cloudy.
I stare at my arm when I finally see it. The back of my wrist almost glows in the darkness. I've been needing to go outside for some time now, but the risks are too great for broad daylight. Lost in my surprise, she asks if I mind if we rent out the spare room. I shake my head and look up just before I can fall off the edge of the wall by the stairs leading down to the beach.
"Never been down here, have you?" she asks, lowering her voice and looking around on the beach. The surfers aren't out. It must not be the right time of the year for them or something.
I pause, follow her down the stairs, and then shrug. Ever seen moonlight without stars? It's an eerie sight. "The old man might've brought me here when I was little. He travelled a lot with my mom, but I wouldn't remember any of it." Despite it being Costa del Sol, it gets cold at night, which would be the reason for coats. Coats on a beach. It's irony. I need to observe almost everything my first time out here in awhile, so I start with the odd ones.
She's at the water's edge. I'm still three steps up from the sand. As soon as she sees this, Aeris beckons me forward until I'm just a few inches away from where she's standing, then turns around and holds her arms out. "Welcome to the Costa del Sol beach. Love this place. Ignore all the litter and it looks really nice."
I'm on the fine line between paying attention and trying to breathe. The medication I ran out of wouldn't help this, anyway. The moonlight has magical powers, one might say. In the light of noon or so, not much is unique, but at night, bathed in silver, it's all kind of amplified. Features are more presented, eyes dazzle even brighter, even the slightest movement or touch is knee-buckling.
Ever been out at night with someone, and all of a sudden you want to grab them by the shoulders and bury your lips against theirs, not stop until the sun rises? Never release, and just pray they don't kick you in the groin, or it's all turned to ashes that not even a phoenix can rise from?
Well, dammit, I don't know if it's the moonlight or the old desire rising again, but I want it. Aeris is inches away, swaying and humming softly, her shoulder brushing mine as she rocks back and forth. My hand inches out, almost on its own power, and hovers above her left shoulder -- but I refuse to let it move any closer. I know the risks, were I to actually do something like this, and they aren't very appealing to me right now. Lose the villa, lose my things, and have to leave to live on the streets.
Most of all, though, losing her is the least welcoming of all.
Though. . .what if she does the same thing? Stands over me while I sleep at night, aching to come closer, wondering what I would do if she gave in? I woke up once, in the pitch black darkness, and slit my eyes to see her standing there, humming as she is right now, staring intently into my, so she thought, closed eyes. Was she worried that night, or does she continue to do it; stand watch and wonder and wait?
I'm old enough to make my own decisions, but I'm acting like a dumb schoolboy with a crush when I let my hand down and see her turn her head to me from the sudden movement of my arm. I pretend I was pointing the new moon out to her. She nods, turns around, and looks at me expectantly. "It's been five. You still want to go back?"
Hah. Do I want to go back home, or stand here with you, hair forever smelling of roses, infront of me? I just nod and lead the way this time, fist clenching and releasing in my pocket. Fuck. I had it; I could've moved in right then, but I'm a fucking wimp. Sephiroth, self-appointed enigma, doesn't have the guts to kiss a girl on the beach, possibly one of the most-romantic places man has known about.
Damn me and my worrying.
As soon as we're back inside, the bedroom beckons me to come in and suffocate myself with a feather pillow or two, but first, I want to know just what I was getting for going down there and enduring all that shit. "So, what's the big surprise?"
Her head shoots up. "Huh? Oh, yeah, that." Letting me down, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a rubber-banded stack of small pieces of paper, and tosses them to me. "This means you'll have to go outside again, y'know."
Even the sight of two tickets to a Mako Dreams concert in Junon and a backstage pass doesn't get me as excited as it could, although I do stutter for a moment, fling my eyes wide, and almost drop the little package to the floor. And God help me, it doesn't aid my resistance when I give into the instinct to hug her.
The next few minutes I ask questions about how she got them. She doesn't answer any, just saying I'll find out eventually, and then I go into the bedroom, put them on my nightstand, and throw myself under the blankets in my jeans and shirt. Not even worth taking the shirt off tonight. The moonlight shines on a picture of her standing infront of the Cougar that I took from the window of our Inn room. I put it facedown and flip over the other way.
I didn't have the guts to kiss her, standing in the lunar illumination, smelling and looking just like a beautiful, silver rose.
Not tonight, my dear. . .not tonight. . .
Author's Note: And now we have our semi-AeriSeph chapter. Ta da. I knew that title would come in handy sometime. Review, dammit!
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 1, 3076
Nighttime. Villa. Costa del Sol. 10:10 P.M.
"I'm shocked you're not speaking in tongues and sacrificing cripshay yet." - Aeris, Costa del Sol villa
Believe it or not, I spent over a month without stepping one foot outside, except when we bought the villa down the street and moved in there. Despite the efforts to get me to go to the beach with her, Aeris can't persuade me. December first? Another day on the calendar, another day of crossword puzzles, and another day of wondering if I should just walk out to the car and get my CD out, at least. After awhile, I think the cabin fever started to feel normal, though I'm not sure how sane I am, cutting out newspaper clippings and making fake articles that look way too authentic. My favorite:
"Veggie Surprise"
The self-appointed Potato Killer struck
again last night, deep inside the Gongaga
forests, presumably sneaking up on his
target and tying her up. He proceeded to
take her to her own house and stick tooth-
picks into her neck, slowly killing her from
the outside. To dispose of the evidence,
he wrapped her in tinfoil, broke her limbs,
stuffed her into the over, and turned it on
High, then fleeing the scene of the crime.
Many a-day I thought about sticking that in some unsuspecting person's newspaper, but that would mean leaving the villa. My permanent, as far as Aeris was concerned, home. She'd gotten used to me, and I had decided she wasn't as bad and two-faced as she had first seemed. For a lack of better words, I would just say we've grown up a lot.
I had taken a knife and made my hair a bit scraggly, so I would look like one of the local surfers, and although I still hold onto Tseng's Turk suit, I've gotten a local, brandname -- Shields, I think the company was -- T-shirt and black, baggy jeans. I look damn near normal now. Aeris has been buying me new clothes when she thinks I need them, and treats me like a perfectly normal person, even though I don't go outside.
So, how are we getting all the gil, you ask? She had taken a job at the bookstore next door, and in Costa, you were so drunk you tipped someone if they said Hello. She comes home with one, two hundred a day, just because she gets a lot of looks from the winos.
She goes to work early, comes home late, and usually carries at least a handful of groceries for the day. She never tells me how much she makes a day, but I have a feeling it's much more than she should be getting.
But why the hell would I complain? I toss in my own savings, too.
As soon as the door slams out front, I move from making a fake ransom note to standing in the hallway, waiting for her as she stuffs the end of a gil note into her coat pocket and hefts a bag of food higher into her arms. "And how're we today?" I often hassle her about being a bookworm or a nerd, but she laughs just as hard and usually comes up with a comeback. I love our little villa. I take the bag from her and set it on the kitchen counter, picking through it as I always do.
She grins when I look over my shoulder, a sure sign she has something in store for me. "What now?" I ask. "Not another bookshelf, I hope." Thought the first one's still sitting in my room and supporting my television. I go back to sorting through the magazines she bought us. A few homemaking ones, and then the heavy metal edition of the local music studio's. Kala and her three counterparts scowl from under the title: Mako Dreams. It's deposited directly into my huge back pocket for later reading.
The edge of her lip quirks up. "Thought you might like that one. Anyway, I've got a nice, little surprise for you."
I turn around. She's got a gun aimed between my eyes. In a few moments of pleading, I'm on the floor, dying in a cold heap.
Or, at least, I expect it when I turn. All she has is the same look on her face, so I decide asking, "What?" doesn't hurt. Seeing as how there's no gun, I don't think she has the mind to kill me here and now.
She wags a finger at me. "Nu-uh. If you wanna see it, you have to do something for me." I'm unnerved by the mischevous twinkle in her eye. Almost as if the request was outrangeous, but the reward very much worth it. I know about two things like this, and one punches me in the spine and makes me straighten.
"And that is. . .?" I don't want to let on any anxiousness, but she doesn't make a move. She just shows two rows of straight teeth, turns around, and points at our front door.
"You have to come down to the beach with me. Now."
My eyes bulge out a good six feet, or at least I think they would if they could. The beach. A place full of surfers, and more importantly, a very public place. A place where a guy like me sticks out and is an obvious target for lookers. "No way. You know my rules. I don't leave the villa unless absolutely necessary, like it burning down or something." My arms are folded over my chest. Three, two, one, stubborn!
She rolls her eyes and leans on the counter, staring hard at me. She wants me to move and just come down to the beach, but I'm as stubborn as they come, and I'm not budging. "Oh, c'mon. It's dark, late, and you looks different than you did in a suit. No one's going to see you, let alone reognize you and turn you into the police. I really doubt ShinRa has any reason to go down to the beach, anyway."
True. The bastards usually stuck, humped over their desk, in their office. No one went out and had time to get a tan; this is ShinRa we're talking about, here. Lucky, I got out of there before I was shot at my desk. I haven't moced a foot from my spot, though. "Is it worth it?" I ask uneasily.
She nods furiously. "Oh, for you, I'm sure it is." She doesn't have on a seductive smile, or I would see it right away and. . . Well, who knows what I'd do? As if that's all there is to it, she walks over to the coatrack, takes mine down, and hurls it at me. "Five minutes. That's it."
I stare at the coat in my hand. Black, just like my mood and the sky. My favorite color, the color of the Mako Dreams CD cover. This really has no relevance to the matter at hand, but I need to focus on something besides her face. If I do, I'll crumble like a thirty-foot stack of bricks. Five minutes. Five minutes can't hurt. Logic slaps me hard. 'C'mon, you paranoid fuck. Five minutes is nothing!' it yells at me. What I wouldn't give to punch it before I slide my arms into the coat and follow her to the door.
She gives me a weak smile and opens the door. If you don't step a foot outside for over a month, and then decide to take a walk on the beach, it's more of an experience than an event. Everything is seen in new color when you're not in a smoke-stained room, making fake newspaper articles. The buildings rush at you in a new light, not seen through fogged windows, and there is nothing that can compare to the smell of the outside world.
I was never a nature freak, but I think it's instinct to want to drop to your knees, praise the heavens, and kiss the cobblestone path. And if Aeris weren't standing there gauging my reaction, I just might. Wordlessly, we walk down the stairs to the villa, quickly stepping down the road and passing the dimly-lit bar, which smells just like my room now. Cigarette smoke and alcohol. I turn my head ever so slightly when we walk by, and look at the Inn. Our room's lights are off. Either it's empty, or they're asleep. I look up. No stars. Must be cloudy.
I stare at my arm when I finally see it. The back of my wrist almost glows in the darkness. I've been needing to go outside for some time now, but the risks are too great for broad daylight. Lost in my surprise, she asks if I mind if we rent out the spare room. I shake my head and look up just before I can fall off the edge of the wall by the stairs leading down to the beach.
"Never been down here, have you?" she asks, lowering her voice and looking around on the beach. The surfers aren't out. It must not be the right time of the year for them or something.
I pause, follow her down the stairs, and then shrug. Ever seen moonlight without stars? It's an eerie sight. "The old man might've brought me here when I was little. He travelled a lot with my mom, but I wouldn't remember any of it." Despite it being Costa del Sol, it gets cold at night, which would be the reason for coats. Coats on a beach. It's irony. I need to observe almost everything my first time out here in awhile, so I start with the odd ones.
She's at the water's edge. I'm still three steps up from the sand. As soon as she sees this, Aeris beckons me forward until I'm just a few inches away from where she's standing, then turns around and holds her arms out. "Welcome to the Costa del Sol beach. Love this place. Ignore all the litter and it looks really nice."
I'm on the fine line between paying attention and trying to breathe. The medication I ran out of wouldn't help this, anyway. The moonlight has magical powers, one might say. In the light of noon or so, not much is unique, but at night, bathed in silver, it's all kind of amplified. Features are more presented, eyes dazzle even brighter, even the slightest movement or touch is knee-buckling.
Ever been out at night with someone, and all of a sudden you want to grab them by the shoulders and bury your lips against theirs, not stop until the sun rises? Never release, and just pray they don't kick you in the groin, or it's all turned to ashes that not even a phoenix can rise from?
Well, dammit, I don't know if it's the moonlight or the old desire rising again, but I want it. Aeris is inches away, swaying and humming softly, her shoulder brushing mine as she rocks back and forth. My hand inches out, almost on its own power, and hovers above her left shoulder -- but I refuse to let it move any closer. I know the risks, were I to actually do something like this, and they aren't very appealing to me right now. Lose the villa, lose my things, and have to leave to live on the streets.
Most of all, though, losing her is the least welcoming of all.
Though. . .what if she does the same thing? Stands over me while I sleep at night, aching to come closer, wondering what I would do if she gave in? I woke up once, in the pitch black darkness, and slit my eyes to see her standing there, humming as she is right now, staring intently into my, so she thought, closed eyes. Was she worried that night, or does she continue to do it; stand watch and wonder and wait?
I'm old enough to make my own decisions, but I'm acting like a dumb schoolboy with a crush when I let my hand down and see her turn her head to me from the sudden movement of my arm. I pretend I was pointing the new moon out to her. She nods, turns around, and looks at me expectantly. "It's been five. You still want to go back?"
Hah. Do I want to go back home, or stand here with you, hair forever smelling of roses, infront of me? I just nod and lead the way this time, fist clenching and releasing in my pocket. Fuck. I had it; I could've moved in right then, but I'm a fucking wimp. Sephiroth, self-appointed enigma, doesn't have the guts to kiss a girl on the beach, possibly one of the most-romantic places man has known about.
Damn me and my worrying.
As soon as we're back inside, the bedroom beckons me to come in and suffocate myself with a feather pillow or two, but first, I want to know just what I was getting for going down there and enduring all that shit. "So, what's the big surprise?"
Her head shoots up. "Huh? Oh, yeah, that." Letting me down, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a rubber-banded stack of small pieces of paper, and tosses them to me. "This means you'll have to go outside again, y'know."
Even the sight of two tickets to a Mako Dreams concert in Junon and a backstage pass doesn't get me as excited as it could, although I do stutter for a moment, fling my eyes wide, and almost drop the little package to the floor. And God help me, it doesn't aid my resistance when I give into the instinct to hug her.
The next few minutes I ask questions about how she got them. She doesn't answer any, just saying I'll find out eventually, and then I go into the bedroom, put them on my nightstand, and throw myself under the blankets in my jeans and shirt. Not even worth taking the shirt off tonight. The moonlight shines on a picture of her standing infront of the Cougar that I took from the window of our Inn room. I put it facedown and flip over the other way.
I didn't have the guts to kiss her, standing in the lunar illumination, smelling and looking just like a beautiful, silver rose.
Not tonight, my dear. . .not tonight. . .
Author's Note: And now we have our semi-AeriSeph chapter. Ta da. I knew that title would come in handy sometime. Review, dammit!