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They should be used to this song and dance by now. Countless days of hiking, feeling like they may never end — not that either minds, taking their opportunities to share their own brand of flirtation, always ending in soft smiles and comfortable silences. Fighting together in the odd scrap. It’s a nice routine.
Until it breaks.
One second they were listening to Barret and Tifa’s recounting of the time Marlene attempted to drag home one of the slums’ many feral cats. The next, they were ambushed, fighting tooth and nail, woefully underprepared for such an intense encounter.
Though they were able to escape with their lives, not a single one of them was left uninjured. Bite marks, lacerations, angry red wounds making their home on each of their bodies. Cloud especially, given the bodyguard’s tendency to block attacks targeted at Aerith with his strong frame.
As night inched closer, the group found their way to an inn. Given the state of their bodies, a few extra gil spent was well worth it.
The florist and the mercenary had silently gravitated toward one another, keeping in their respective orbits throughout the evening. As their motley crew splintered off, beckoned by the peaceful call of worn sheets and lumpy pillows, the pair remained. Neither seeming to be able to leave the other.
The magnetic pull the two felt remained as they made their way to bed. Any concerns about what others may think were pushed aside by their need for closeness. They had come so close to losing each other, they couldn’t risk even a moment apart.
After removing their shoes and battle equipment, laying the brunette’s ribbon and materia on a nearby nightstand, the pair settled onto a shared bed. Scratchy fabric of bed sheets felt like clouds against their tired bodies. They laid down next to one another, a certain restraint haunting them.
Despite it, they needed to be closer. She needed to melt into his warmth. To hear his breathing, to feel it. To know he’s still full of life.
The florist threw caution to the wind, wrapping one arm around his torso and laying the other half-hazardly against his heart, gently placing her head against his other pectoral. Despite a moment of frozen surprise, Cloud soon welcomed her embrace, bringing his arms around her lithe frame.
He was a surprisingly comfortable pillow, she thought. Given the man’s lean physique, she expected him to feel as though he was made of wood planks, stiff and smooth. But his chest, rising and falling with each breath, was like a freshly laundered blanket. His touch brought her back to cozy winter nights, safe in the shelter of one of Elmyra’s handmade blankets.
Letting the warmth seep in, Aerith snuggled in closer, eliciting a tiny chuckle from Cloud. Hearing the gruff tenor of his voice made her heart skip a beat, his hum resonating with its rhythm.
She felt his hands slowly move. Drawing higher and higher up her back, they soon began to gently run through the wavy, loose curls of her almond brown hair. She could get used to this.
After a few minutes, he shifted his hands to touch her back. Strong hands provided feather-light touches, running up and down between her shoulder blades.
In turn, Aerith’s hand began to absentmindedly move against his chest. Art and her had a complicated history. At some point, it had brought her great comfort. Later on, a period of time locked in the Shinra lab, isolated, expected to draw and draw and draw endlessly for prying eyes, soured it. It had become nothing more than a nervous habit. More recent requests for art on buildings from the kids in Sector 5 tinted it with a lighter hue, but it remained rooted in nervousness.
She began to trace outlines above his heart.
It happens without her thinking, the need to do something with her hands taking over.
A beat.
Cloud’s caresses still, morphing into the hallmark loops of bows.
Her movements became deliberate yet casual. The cold, empty walls of the Shinra lab were now replaced by Cloud’s chest. It’s warmth radiating, full of a tender heart. One that held such a strong sense of love for her, whether she knew it or not.
“What’re you drawing?”, he gently asks.
“Guess”, she shoots back, mischief lacing her voice.
Cloud lets out a sharp exhale, waiting as she begins to draw a large swoop, followed by a series of small swoops, all meeting together at the bottom. He looked up into the roof above them, his gaze blank as though he was completely lost, though he knew her silly joke plucked right at his heartstrings.
“A cloud?”
“That’s right!”, she giggled, punctuated with a sweet grin and a gentle tap on his nose. Try as he might to keep his expression blank, the bodyguard couldn’t help but let a tiny smile creep onto his face.
In seconds, they fall back into their ministrations like clockwork. The florist decides to make small flower shapes over his heart. Almost as if she knows, knows just how he cherishes the small hints of her presence he sees in each petal. He responds in kind, tenderness seeping through his light touches on the small of her back.
It’s in that moment of clarity that his resolve weakens. He could tell her right now, those three words. Words that can’t possibly express what she means to him. The comfort she brings, how she feels like home, how she tethers him when he feels as though he’s been lost. A guiding light amongst a dark storm.
“You can’t fall in love with me.”
Her past words echo with a chill.
Doubt comes in, and his daring dissipates. But still, he needs to tell her something, lest he crumble from the hold it has on him.
He settles for drawing little hearts, peppering her skin with those symbols of affection.
She pauses, and for a second he worries he’s destroyed it all. Just as he thinks to halt his touch, Aerith’s hand moves, making that telltale shape above his heart.
He softens, so much of his restraint melting. His fingers inch across, writing out a simple message.
Comfy?, he writes.
She sinks even closer into his embrace, snuggling up against him with a proximity that suggests she’s trying to melt them into one. Her cheek rubs against his chest, almost like a small animal rooting for warmth, and his heart soars.
Cute, he traces.
“Yeah, you are pretty cute, mister.”
He chuckles. Never a dull moment with her.
Just as they settle back into the comfortable silence, Aerith’s gentle touch hits him with such strength.
Safe here. Home.
Written directly above his heart.
At that moment, he breaks. She told him not to fall in love with her. Now he cannot hold it back, but some part of him knows it was always happening. Only now does he recognize it.
With the smallest of tremors, his hands work faster than his brain, writing out words he’s wanted to say for longer than he can pinpoint.
I love you.
Her absentminded fidgeting stops.
He holds his breath, heart beating as if he were in the midst of battle.
I love you too, she writes.
It’s like a dam breaking. The torrent of all they’ve been holding back now flows through them.
The florist brings her hand against his cheek, and he welcomes it, almost like a second skin.
Their gazes meet, and they freeze. It feels like time has paused, enchanted. Each detail on their faces stunning each other.
The gentle, faint freckles dotting Cloud’s nose. The perfect, verdant green in Aerith’s eyes. How soft each other’s lips seem.
Like magnets, their mouths are drawn together.
Noses brush, and lips graze. The softest of contact, laced with a certain sense of need.
A gentle, chaste kiss. It lasts only a moment, but it very well may be the best moment of their lives, for all they care.
As they pull away, a dull panic cuts through the bliss. Her previous words echo through his mind again.
What if this was just a mistake for her?
Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, Aerith smiles. A sweet smile, bursting with affection, punctuated with a gentle laugh.
Clear joy.
Caressing his cheek with her thumb, Aerith places a soft kiss on the tip of Cloud’s nose.
Relief washes through him, followed by a warm feeling of comfort as their foreheads touch.
The pair stays like this, newfound affection seeping through each touch. They drink in each other’s presence.
As their breathing slows, Cloud lets his nose rest on the crown of Aerith’s head. Breathing in the sweet floral scent that seems to always stick to her, he lays a tender kiss against her head.
They lay there, taking the rare chance to forget the world. Soon drifting softly to sleep, blissfully enveloped by each other’s affections.