Aerith was in her office when Genesis came fuming in and flung himself on her couch like he wished to break it and crossed his arms over his chest. She looked at him and saved the work she was doing, knowing she wasn't going to get it completed until he was done ranting about whatever was bothering him. Unfortunately, with his volatile temper that could be anything, but she suspected it had something to do with Sephiroth; it usually did.
"Trouble in paradise my great Commander?" she asked him from her place at the desk.
"That...jerk" he said not able to think of a word strong enough to describe how Sephiroth irked him.
"What did Sephiroth do this time?" she prompted him, angling her office chair so it was facing him and resting her chin on her hand.
"We were sparring in the virtually reality room. I was besting him and I tripped over a brick, in a virtually reality program. How is that even possible?" he snapped.
She was biting her lip to try not to laugh that Commander Genesis Rhapsodos, SOLDIER 1st Class looked like a petulant child having a temper tantrum, which he was. He looked rather endearing when he did this, all he needed was a pout. Although she would never admit that to him.
After the whole masturbation incident, she had been afraid he would try and corrupt her, but hadn't. He maintained his life style of having casual sex with near strangers and treated her as his employee, which she was. She felt she had changed a bit in the fact that she was more aware of how men stared at her then before. It was like she was more grown up and finally realized what was going to happen in her marriage bed, of course she had known what would happen before but now knew what her body enjoyed. She didn't do it too often or infrequently, it was something she enjoyed and harmed no one.
Her clothing had changed in that she still dressed conservatively, but ensued her bulky sweaters and shapeless dressed for more fitted clothes, not that there was really anyone to impress or so she told herself.
"It happens, you didn't do anything wrong. You're such a brat with that temper of yours that I sometimes want to put you over my lap and spank the nonsense out of you" she teased him.
"You wouldn't dare and you are not allowed to call me brat" he groused.
"No wonder you and Sephiroth are always at odds, you're fire, he's ice and Angeal is both your handlers. Gen, you shouldn't get so worked up, you're both equally as skilled with a sword, you're no slouch in the looks department either and have a lot better personality" Aerith said joining him on the couch when he sat up, still hunched over in anger.
"Take your trench off" she suggested.
"Now you're trying to get me naked?" he asked her facetiously but did as she requested and draped it over the arm of the couch.
"I have my Goddess seal to protect me from you" she said, being far cheekier than she normally would because of her good news. Zack was coming home soon!
"You're incorrigible today" Genesis observed, noticing how happy she seemed and couldn't help returning her smile and his black mood evaporated and he wondered why she and she alone had that effect on him.
"Face away from me" she said.
"Like this?" he asked her presenting his back to her. "The more interesting parts of me are in front" he teased her.
"More than half the women in town know that" she said and then reached forward and started massaging his shoulders through his thin black shirt and the areas of his broad back that his trench normally covered. Having a mother with a debilitating disease effecting most of her body had made Aerith a near professional masseuse as she lovingly massaged as much pain as she could away almost nightly.
"That feels so good" he moaned and relaxed into the motions of her small, yet strong hands as they found knots and with firm pressure and strategically placed rubs that seem to melt away to the encouragement of the highly vocal man. She thought nothing of wrapping her arms around him at the end and giving him a backwards hug before drawing back. They had become friends of a sort and she was a touchy feely sort of woman when she felt someone needed a hug.
"Thank you, but you shouldn't touch a man so causally" he cautioned her.
"Or what? You'll attempt to rape me, if you were to corrupt me anything further, we would be going on a date where you buy me a milkshake and then we go see a Disney movie and hold hands" she teased him.
"Would that be the sort of date you enjoy?" he asked her out of curiosity suddenly picturing what she was saying, it actually seemed like a fun idea. When was the last time just he spoke with a woman and held hands with one while watching a movie? Never, his times spent with them started where he met them and ended up in his bed with very little conversation exchanged.
"Down boy, I'm taken" she reminded him and wondered why he looked slightly hurt at that. "Besides, all I did was give you a PG-13 backrub and a hug, but I guess you're more used to people touching you when they're riding on top of you. You really do seem tense. Perhaps you need to get laid?" she suggested, quirking a slim eyebrow at him.
"The innocent Aerith is suggesting I need to get laid? This is a first" he observed, dismissing the strange twinge in his chest when Aerith reminded him about her fiancé.
"Well you haven't been lately and I'm starting to miss the porn film that is your life. I hadn't gotten any dick flashes from you lately" she teased him and gave him a leer.
"Now you're saying dick? you really are being corrupted by me" he said.
"Oh yeah our Ikea trip yesterday was the height of taboo" she said. Genesis had started giving her rides home because he seemed to be paranoid about the local public transportation system. She had assured him that it was perfectly safe and that only people you tended to meet on an average day that were odd, was the occasional crazy person. Yet he seemed to think that the only people riding the buses were dangerous criminals and rapists bent on harming her. Nothing she could say would dissuade him of this notion, even her offering to take him on the bus with her (a suggestion that had been met with a look of shock). So every morning a limo picked her up in front of her humble home and dropped her off in front his much more expensive one. Then either he would drive her home at the end of the day or the limo like she was precious cargo. It was very odd. The first time he had gazed upon the house she shared with her mother, he looked questioningly at it.
Soon her mother Elmyra learned that her boss was driving her home and insisted he be invited in for his trouble. She had been shocked when he accepted and had been polite when given a tour of their place, even though he did look a tad surprised that two people could dwell in so small a place. He had even accepted her mother's offer of homemade pie and tea and complimented her on both. He didn't act imperious or snobby, nor did he act like a young man courting. He accepted her mother's thanks for giving Aerith the job and didn't mention that it was her figure that netted her the position. Him coming in for a few minutes at least soon became a habit to the point he would be invited to dinner upon occasion but always politely declined. Aerith was surprised how many facets there were to the volatile man.
The Ikea trip hadn't been planned, the dresser Aerith had been coveting had finally gone on sale and she explained she needed to go there right after they were finished for the day, but she would take the bus. He had insisted on driving her and even accompanied her to the store, looking questioningly at the cheap items of furniture on display and at the overwhelming number of people there with small children.
His uniform and sword got quite the stares, especially in the cafeteria where he seemed unsure what to order, until Aerith ordered them two manager special meatball dinners and explained that going to the cafeteria was part of the Ikea experience. He had eaten while people stared at them and then they walked through the entire store until Aerith found her dresser and copied down the aisle and bin number.
Genesis appeared rather overwhelmed at how common people lived as he trailed along after her but had thrown a hissy fit when it was explained to him that he would have to carry the box and drive it home. So with it just wedged into the trunk of his sporty little car, he had driven her home and vowed to never go there again.
"So what are your plans for tonight?" Genesis asked her.
"Tifa's coming over and we are drinking wine and putting my dresser together, I've already thrown away the instructions" Aerith cheerfully said.
"Why would you do that?" he asked her.
"The instruction normally suck anyway so it's fun to try and figure it out like a giant puzzle" she explained.
"Would you like some help?" he asked her. He didn't know why he felt so curious about her life but he did, it was like he was snooping. He had so far met her mother, her very busty friend and her boyfriend, Detective Sergeant Vincent Valentine of the Midgar police department. Even Genesis had been a tad unnerved by his red eyed stare, quiet ways and the huge gun he carried that Genesis was positive wasn't standard issue.
Aerith bit the inside of her lip to stop from laughing at the image of the half assembled dresser crashing through her front window while her neighbours were treated to the sight of an elite army Commander stomping around like an enraged three year old holding a screwdriver and loudly complaining about how the piece of furniture was fighting him. They would wonder what the hell was defending their country. "It's women only" she hastily said. "I'm sure you have a blonde on the menu for tonight" she added.
"Something like that" he lied. He actually hadn't been taking women home for a while now and claimed that they had already left, while he had been waiting impatiently for Aerith to show up so they could have fruit and toast together. There was something so calming about her presence as she sat at his table with him drinking her tea in her charming way and going over his day. She reminded him so much of his long dead mother, the only person he had ever loved. Her smile alone would soothe him as much as his father's taunts would enrage him. After she died, he had started wearing loud red clothes that showcased his own natural hair colour, that proclaimed him not to be the true born son of Damian and Cassandra Rhapsodos, them both being brunettes. If he was going to be a redheaded mongrel, he was going to do it on his terms.
Damian's anger became focused on his son when his wife died, Genesis could do nothing right, he mocked everything about him, including his love for poetry and the theatre, he called him a fag and claimed he was having relations with Angeal. Genesis had taken an older woman, who always looked at him too longingly, right on the front lawn in full view of his father; he had been 14. He shared his body with all women who would have him from that day forward, paying his father back for his insult many times over.
Tifa's and Aerith's and Elmyra's eyes flicked from one part of the dresser to the other, having no idea how to assemble it. They each had a glass of wine.
"Perhaps you can ask Genesis for help?" Elmyra suggested again.
"Richie Rich would be as useless as tits on a bull. I doubt he even knows how to wipe his own ass" Tifa said dismissively.
"Language, I'm not such an old fossil that I can't put you over my knee and spank you" Elmyra chided her.
"Sorry, I'm just saying rich men are pretty useless when it comes to practical stuff" Tifa explained.
"I wouldn't call this practical" Aerith mournfully said, looking at the dismal unassembled sight before them.
"Well grab a power tool and let's get this party started" Tifa said, picking up an electric drill and squeezing the handle suggestively.
"I'm pretty sure we don't need a drill for this" Aerith said with a frown.
A couple of hours later, they looked in triumph at the dresser, "we did it and only have a couple of extra parts left" Tifa said.
"I'm sure those are supposed to be part of the dresser. Is it really supposed to lean to one side like that? The other dressers in the store were straight" Aerith said.
"Nah they always give you spare parts. The dresser is perfect" Tifa declared, giving it a pat that made it list even more to one side. "More wine?" she asked her.
"I had better not, I have to pick Genesis up in the morning" Aerith declined.
"What's going on between you two?" Tifa suddenly asked her.
"Nothing, we have a professional relationship" she dismissively said.
"Yet you go over every morning to get him ready for work like he's a three year old and not a man of twenty five. You work with him all day long and then he drives you home, to be invited inside your home. Are you sure there's nothing going on between you two? I'm only asking because I'm your friend and Zack's the best friend of my own boyfriend and your Lord Pain In the Ass has a reputation as being a hobag" she said.
"Nonsense, he acts like a perfect gentlemen when he's here. You shouldn't use that language" Elymyra chided her.
"He's not half as bad as he seems, he actually is quite charming when you get to know him. There is nothing going on, I am still a virgin saving myself for marriage. Nothing has changed about me" she lied, thinking about the purple vibrator concealed in her nightstand.
"Okay good, but if you were a different sort of girl free of religious convictions and not engaged, my advice would be much different. I would tell you to take him to your bed for a week and get him out of your system. I'm sensing there is more to your relationship then you are telling me. He may be high maintenance but he's a looker" Tifa whispered to her when her mother went to use the washroom.
"There is nothing going on but a rather weird friendship between us and an employer/employee relationship" Aerith assured her.
"Happy Birthday, someone's twenty five today" Aerith said and blew a blow tickler into his face that bopped against Genesis's nose, "I brought oranges and strawberries, but with chocolate dipping sauce in honour of your birthday" she said stepping into his place.
"That's very kind but I'm not much into birthdays" he said.
"So are any balls with fireworks being thrown in your honour?" she teased him.
"No I have plans with a pair of twins tonight, I'm taking them to dinner and then will have them for dessert" he lied. "You won't see it because you have the day off tomorrow" he reminded her.
"I could come help take the trash out...and the girls and then take you to breakfast" Aerith offered, somehow that he didn't have plans with even a close friend disturbed her.
"No, you should be with your mother in case she gets sick" he said, now knowing that Aerith took the job to support Elmrya after she had been diagnosed with Lupus and it had gotten worse to the point she couldn't work. The medical benefits had been the main draw and he wondered how anyone could be loyal to an adoptive parent. Of course he could understand doing that for his dead mother but his father...
"Is there anything you want for your birthday? Another pair of dangling earrings perhaps?" she asked him while they ate.
"No it's okay, you don't need to buy me a present" he assured her.
"Come on there must be some way that you celebrate your birthday, besides with sins of the flesh" Aerith said, giving him a hug without thinking and looking up at him with her gentle jade eyes and it was like he wanted to drown in their innocent limpid depths and he found himself telling her something he had never told a woman before.
"There was something I used to do with my mother when I was young. We would go pick dumbapples off this large tree on my father's property on my birthday and she would serve a freshly baked pie made for them the day after my birthday for breakfast to prolonged my birthday. I sometimes wish I could have that from her again...listen to me rambling, we should go" he said, feeling foolish. Getting his car keys, he locked the door behind him and Aerith followed him lost in thought, he rarely every spoke about his family.
She waited until she got into her office before she closed the door and she called Vincent "you know your friend the helicopter pilot? How much would he charge to fly me to Banora?" she asked him.
Elmyra and Tifa looked up in surprise when a highly disheveled Vincent and Aerith came into her house, Aerith had rents in her office attire and carried a basket of blue apples. "Okay what happened?" Tifa demanded, her boyfriend and Aerith had actual twigs in their hair. She and Elmyra had both gathered together at Elmyra's house after receiving a strange phone call from Vincent.
"I insisted on accompanying Reno and Aerith on this foolish mission" Vincent said.
"It wasn't foolish, I wanted to do something nice for a friend on his birthday" Aerith hotly objected.
"Yeah since when are you and Richie Rich friends?" Tifa asked but Aerith just ignored her.
"To get apples; you could have gone to any grocery store for those" Vincent shot back.
"Not these ones, they only grow in Banora" she said.
"So what happened?" Tifa asked.
"We got onto the property just fine and found the tree, I told Aerith to pick the ones off the ground but she insisted the ones on the top branches had the most exposure to the sun and would be riper as result. So she insisted she climb the tree, did I mentioned this was the biggest apple tree I have ever seen? I gave her a hand up and then suddenly we are surrounded by dogs and I ran and she scaled up the tree and shouted encouraging after me to "run faster"" he deadpanned. "Meanwhile I'm running and does she try to aid me in any way? Perhaps throw an apple at the dogs or try to distract them as I'm running all over the place? No, she's up the tree picking apples."
"I'm not the dog whisperer" she objected.
"The groundskeeper shows up and finally calls the dogs off but threatens to call the police, I told him we got lost and she climbed a tree to find our way back to the road. But he didn't believe me because she obviously had her backpack full of apples. Security guards showed up and we were escorted to the mansion, where we met Genesis's father" Vincent explained.
"Who's a real jerk" Aerith spat with distaste in her voice. "I explained who I was and why I was there and he said some horrible things about Genesis" she added remembering how his own father had referred to him as a bastard mongrel, who had more pomp than brains and a strutting peacock he was ashamed of.
"Then Aerith called him a needle dicked chicken fucker and just to add insult to injury added; really out of 100,000 sperm, you were the fastest? Then went on to imply his mother enjoyed the company of many bed partners" Vincent finished.
"I got mad" she said.
"Where did you learn such language? Not from me" Elmrya said with shock in her voice and Tifa blushed and looked away.
"Mr. Rhapsodos was very mad at the insult but said that if we gave him back his property and promised never return, he wouldn't press charges" Vincent continued. "It would have been fine if Aerith hadn't thrown her backpack full of apples at him. Well, I revealed my position in the police department and managed to get her released into my custody and brought her right home" Vincent said.
"Aerith, your temper's going to get you in trouble one day" Elmyra sighed.
"So where did these apples come from?" Tifa asked them intrigued.
"While we were dealing with security, the irate groundskeeper and Mr. Rhapsodos, Reno snuck up the tree and stole the apples" Vincent finished with a weary sigh.
"All that for apples? They had better cure cancer or something for all that trouble" Elmyra said looking doubtfully at them.
"No they're going into a pie" Aerith said, picking up the basket and walking purposefully towards the kitchen.
"I think I preferred when she was younger and all I had to worry about was her bringing home wounded animals" Elmyra sighed.
Genesis got up on a Saturday and planned to update his Loveless Memorabilia room. He had received some new rare theater posters and had those mounted for his collection. He went out front to get his newspaper and frowned to find it sitting on top of a white pastry box with a pink ribbon around it and a card on top. He read the card and realized it was from Aerith and could only wonder how she had gotten to and from Banora to pick the apples from his father's tree but cut himself a slice of the homemade pie, certain he would be hearing from his father soon. His closed in appreciation of the taste he hadn't realized he had missed so much and it was he was sitting beside his mother in the kitchen of the mansion again as her smile of pure love beamed down on him. His eyes opened when he felt moisture on his cheek and wiped away a tear and silently thanked the Goddess for bringing such a sweet woman into his life.