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Cloud doesn’t drift peacefully into wakefulness; instead, he breaks the surface of sleep’s dark waters, gasping for air. It’s only when his sword is at the throat of whoever had woken him up that he realizes he’d stood up, let alone grabbed his weapon.
“Woah! It’s okay, Cloud, it’s just me.” The voice is familiar, but Cloud can’t process who it is, thoughts still dampened. He squints, trying to focus his blurred vision on who he’s threatening.
“...Aerith?”
The woman in question smiles, raising a hand sheepishly. “That’s me,” she says, voice oddly light. “Can you put the sword down now? I think Mom would kill me if I came downstairs with marks on my neck.”
Cloud’s ears burn pink. Only Aerith would make a lewd joke at swordpoint. But he lowers his weapon, shoulders hunching with sudden shame. “I’m sorry,” he forces out.
“No, don’t be.” Aerith speaks to him the way she speaks to the stray cats they’ve encountered in the slums. Soft, gentle, afraid he’ll bolt. It only makes him more embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that.”
Cloud breathes out, long and low, and re-familiarizes himself with his surroundings. Right, they’re in Aerith’s home. The spare bedroom is still as neat as when he’d first arrived, save for his few belongings lying on top of the dresser. All the pictures are the same as when he’d closed his eyes.
“Sorry,” he says again. He doesn’t fill in what he’s apologizing for, though his mind swirls with options. Sorry for scaring you. Sorry for being so fucked up. Sorry you have to put up with me. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asks instead.
Aerith sends him a look he can’t quite identify. Is she reproachful? Pitying? Concerned? Rather than wrack his exhausted mind, he focuses on her attire. This is the first time he’s seen her out of her usual clothes, he realizes. She’s dressed in a knee-length nightgown, yellow flowers scattered on a petal-pink background. It’s sleeveless, appropriate to the warm night. Cloud feels overdressed in comparison; he’s in his SOLDIER uniform, still wearing his boots.
“Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d check up on my bodyguard.” Aerith’s musical voice startles him, and he almost reaches for his sword again on instinct. He catches his sword arm with his other hand, holding it in place. “My turn to ask questions! Why were you sleeping against the wall?”
“That’s none of your business,” he says, feeling his defenses rise up to keep her from getting any closer. “Just go back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You’re right, it’s not, but I’d like to know.” She takes another step into the room, in what seems like blatant defiance of his words. “You realize that Mom has this spare bed so that someone can sleep in it, right? So her guest doesn’t have to have a crick in their neck in the morning. It’s a hospitality thing,” she finishes with a sly smile.
Cloud rubs the back of his neck. How does this girl see right through him? No reason to hide anything now, he supposes. “I like to be prepared. In case something bad happens.”
“Oh…” There is a long pause. Aerith opens her mouth a couple times, as though to speak, but she doesn’t say anything else.
“Go back to sleep, Aerith,” Cloud grumbles. He sets his sword back down where he left it, and begins to slide back down the wall. His progress is halted by a slim hand encircling his wrist.
“Okay,” Aerith says, too cheery, “but only if you come to bed with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, not like that.” She slaps his arm lightly. “Honestly, you’ve got to work on that dirty mind. I just mean to sleep.” The hand on his wrist begins tugging him toward the still-made bed, and he goes along with it, powerless to resist. Once they make it there, she spins them around. She presses on Cloud’s shoulders until he sits on the edge, then tuts at him. “Take your boots off, I don’t want you muddying up Mom’s nice sheets.”
It’s like he’s in SOLDIER again, having to comply with their strict cleanliness guidelines. The familiarity should be grounding, but it makes his stomach turn with wrongness . He ignores it as best he can, bending over to untie his boots. His arms dangle by his sides once he’s out of his footwear. Before he can ask what to do next, Aerith is clambering into the bed, snuggling under the covers. Her chestnut hair is splayed over the pillow, curls framing her cheeks and eyes.
“Is there room for both of us?” The question makes heat rise to his cheeks. But it’s a single bed, clearly meant for only one person.
“What? I’m sure you had to share a bunk with somebody in the military. This is no different,” Aerith says, scooting over just a little and patting the small space left behind. Another spike of wrongness hits Cloud, this time landing just behind his eyes. “Besides, I’m looking forward to having my own SOLDIER space heater! You can’t deny me that.” She sticks her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout.
Cloud sighs, looking down at his clothes. “I don’t have pajamas,” he says lamely.
Aerith blows a raspberry. “Who cares, just lie down already. The night only lasts so long!”
Well, he’s out of options. And the bed does look comfortable; his aching muscles cry out with the desire to lie down fully. So he awkwardly shuffles towards the headboard, getting under the covers himself. He does his best to shift as far away from Aerith as possible. To no avail; she closes the gap between them immediately, and flops fully on top of him.
“What are you doing?” The words come out harsher than he intended, but he’s focused entirely on the fact that Aerith’s chest and stomach are pressed against his own. He may have shared a bed before, but not like this. Every move she makes, the rise and fall of her breathing, each shift as she tries to get comfortable, it’s all passed on to his rigid form.
“Is this okay?” Warm breath fans across his neck, and he feels the rumbles of her words as much as he hears them. “Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, my mother would let me lay on top of her. It relaxed me, so I figured…maybe it would be the same for you?”
“Your mother…Elmyra?” Cloud pictures the disapproving look the stern woman would give if she discovered her daughter cuddling up to a SOLDIER. All the more reason to ask Aerith to get off of him, but he can’t do it. His arms twitch, instinctively wanting to wrap around her back and pull her closer to him. Instead, he balls up the sheets in his fists, staring determinedly at the floral wallpaper.
Aerith just hums, the kind of non-committal response he’s used to receiving when he tries to pry into her history even a little. Then, the pressure on his chest is gone as she rises up on her hands. “If this is uncomfortable, I’ll get on my side and you can have yours. No biggie!”
Swallowing, he glances at Aerith, at her sincere green eyes. Her hair falls forward over her shoulders, long enough to tickle his skin even as she holds herself a couple feet above him. No windows in the bedroom should mean he shouldn’t be able to make out much about her, but Aerith seems to have her own light.
“No, it’s fine,” he says, surprising himself with his own honesty. Clearing his throat, he looks back at the wall. “You said you couldn’t sleep, so do what you have to do.”
Slowly, her weight drops on him again. Once she’s fully lying down, she buries her face in his shoulder, humming contentedly. “Thank you, Cloud,” she says into his body. “Sleep well!”
Silence descends back on the spare room. Unconsciously, Cloud’s breathing syncs up with Aerith’s, following the slow rhythm she sets. He stares at the wall until his body becomes used to the deep pressure, and colors begin dancing across his vision. When his eyes fall shut, it’s of their own accord.
Cloud wakes a few hours later, for once gradually, instead of gasping his way out of nightmares he can never remember. For a moment, he wonders how he got so tangled in the sheets. It’s only when he looks down and sees Aerith’s head still pillowed on his shoulder that he realizes his legs are caught with her own.
He contemplates waking her up; he really has to get going, needs to get back to Sector 7 and Avalanche and Tifa, if only to let them know he’s okay. But her face is so peaceful, one of her hands holding his, her soft breathing filling the room and drowning out the white noise of the slums. His responsibilities feel so far away here.
That settles it. He’ll wait for her to rise naturally; it’s only polite, after all. Then he’ll leave, and probably never see the flower girl who found him in that church again. For now, he can pretend like none of that matters. All he has to do is stay still enough that Aerith doesn’t wake.