Potential - Jessie/Aeris (FFVII)
Title: Potential
Fandom: FFVII
Pairing: Jessie/Aeris
Prompt: Machine
Rating: PG
Words: 500
Spoilers: None.
A/N: Because I have a thing for pairings that make no actual sense...
Jessie's always been better with things than people. Machines have rules, algorithms - codes that always mean what they should and a set of principles that a smart mechanic can apply to any problem. People probably do too, but she hasn't been able to work them out to any satisfactory degree.
Aeris, for example. She doesn't know what to think about Aeris at all.
Jessie ran into her in the station this morning, selling flowers from a wicker basket on her arm. She had looked different, then - cheerful, yeah, smiling sweet as nobody's business, but tense. They had nodded to each other across the square, shared a look of tacit recognition, maybe something else. The loudspeaker system in the background had been crackling with news - another supply line down, casualties undetermined - and yeah, that had been them, that had been her. She could feel the flower girl's eyes on her, assessing.
Jessie had raised a hand in greeting, held her breath and crossed the station, her bootheels clicking out a rhythm to match the hammering of her heart. She usually feels at home in the slums, confident amid the dirt and noise of home, the dim neon-and-sodium glow of Midgar beneath the plate. She hadn't, then.
Jessie remembers buying a flower, only to wonder as she pressed a one gil coin into Aeris's open palm whether it had been the right impulse or a wrong one - a calculation error, maybe, some mistranslated signal. She hadn't meant to begin with a transaction, and that kind of thing always changes more than it should. But Aeris had reached up, stood on tiptoe to tuck it behind Jessie's bandana, and just for a second her smile had slipped from fixed to real.
And back at the hideout, she sits with the radio on again, holding the tenacious little blossom and remembering the way Aeris's fingers had brushed across her skin, maybe accidental, impossible to dispel. Remembering the way light had fallen in that old church, thinking about returning. It's the flowers, she tells herself, just that. She hasn't seen flowers in so long she can hardly remember, and these bright little yellow ones remind her of a time she barely has words for. She doesn't know their name, though she's too proud to admit it, or why they grow in that place at all, or why that seems to matter. Good soil, she supposes, good light, but Jessie doesn't know what's needed to make plants thrive or fail.
Machines, she knows. Machines are easy. Anything that grows, she's lucky if she doesn't accidentally kill it. And people -
People, she doesn't understand at all.
But she knows how to read a pattern, and she wouldn't be in AVALANCHE if she was scared to take a chance.
Jessie presses the flower between the pages of a tech manual, carefully, sets the book back where it should be. Tomorrow, she tells herself. She has time. Tomorrow, she'll find her way back.
Fandom: FFVII
Pairing: Jessie/Aeris
Prompt: Machine
Rating: PG
Words: 500
Spoilers: None.
A/N: Because I have a thing for pairings that make no actual sense...
Jessie's always been better with things than people. Machines have rules, algorithms - codes that always mean what they should and a set of principles that a smart mechanic can apply to any problem. People probably do too, but she hasn't been able to work them out to any satisfactory degree.
Aeris, for example. She doesn't know what to think about Aeris at all.
Jessie ran into her in the station this morning, selling flowers from a wicker basket on her arm. She had looked different, then - cheerful, yeah, smiling sweet as nobody's business, but tense. They had nodded to each other across the square, shared a look of tacit recognition, maybe something else. The loudspeaker system in the background had been crackling with news - another supply line down, casualties undetermined - and yeah, that had been them, that had been her. She could feel the flower girl's eyes on her, assessing.
Jessie had raised a hand in greeting, held her breath and crossed the station, her bootheels clicking out a rhythm to match the hammering of her heart. She usually feels at home in the slums, confident amid the dirt and noise of home, the dim neon-and-sodium glow of Midgar beneath the plate. She hadn't, then.
Jessie remembers buying a flower, only to wonder as she pressed a one gil coin into Aeris's open palm whether it had been the right impulse or a wrong one - a calculation error, maybe, some mistranslated signal. She hadn't meant to begin with a transaction, and that kind of thing always changes more than it should. But Aeris had reached up, stood on tiptoe to tuck it behind Jessie's bandana, and just for a second her smile had slipped from fixed to real.
And back at the hideout, she sits with the radio on again, holding the tenacious little blossom and remembering the way Aeris's fingers had brushed across her skin, maybe accidental, impossible to dispel. Remembering the way light had fallen in that old church, thinking about returning. It's the flowers, she tells herself, just that. She hasn't seen flowers in so long she can hardly remember, and these bright little yellow ones remind her of a time she barely has words for. She doesn't know their name, though she's too proud to admit it, or why they grow in that place at all, or why that seems to matter. Good soil, she supposes, good light, but Jessie doesn't know what's needed to make plants thrive or fail.
Machines, she knows. Machines are easy. Anything that grows, she's lucky if she doesn't accidentally kill it. And people -
People, she doesn't understand at all.
But she knows how to read a pattern, and she wouldn't be in AVALANCHE if she was scared to take a chance.
Jessie presses the flower between the pages of a tech manual, carefully, sets the book back where it should be. Tomorrow, she tells herself. She has time. Tomorrow, she'll find her way back.