(Untitled)

[1st_class_honor]

Characters: Zack Fair (1st_class_honor), Aerith Gainsborough (thishealingwind), Roy Mustang (thewarisover)
Location: HQ
Rating: PG
Time: Nov. 23rd, around lunchtime
Description: Zack’s back, looking for his lady friend and a job. What a coincidence that both are in the same building!

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[1st_class_honor]

“Awww, really? Maybe I’ll just be your human shield, then, and wear the red for you.” One hand brandished a crimson polo, and with a snicker, held it up. He looked ridiculously preppy, and worse with the blue pants that were awkwardly shaped, but it lasted all for a minute before he put it away with a shudder. Red was too much like Genesis; he’d just steal his coat if it ever happened.

Oops. Sooooorry~ Don’t know how this happened! It was like this when you gave it to me, tomatoes and all!

He resumed his clothing perusing, but now he was just flipping through shirts, pushing them farther down the rack and taking a few to try on that were clearly too small or too large. He settled them over his left arm, his eyes on her, staring. Multi-tasking came second, not when she was telling him something like this. But he’d behave, because it’s what she wanted and he’d deny her nothing.

“Don’t say that,” he whispered. It wasn’t easy for anyone, couldn’t be, could it? His hand grabbed some pink button down fiasco without looking, when he cocked his head to the side. “Changed you? You look the same, sound the same. What do you mean? What got messed up? Are you really okay?”

[thishealingwind]

She knew that he was simply going through the shirts without even looking at them, so she started pacing a bit around the rack, knowing full well that his eyes were likely following her even if her eyes were focused on the floor.

"It was fine," she assured him, and it was the truth. The Lifestream was warm, comforting. She wasn't afraid of it, even if it was a little lonely sometimes. And at the time, she hadn't even remembered this place. It was hard to miss something you couldn't recall.

Though that thought scared her, too.

"My garden was torn up during that day that I was gone. I'm pretty sure I know who did it, but he's since been dealt with by Shibusen, though that happened later. Cloud...didn't handle it well, either. He was in a coma when I came back, but he's fine now."

She paused for a moment, adding on the last part. "As for me, I'm not a Weapon anymore."

[1st_class_honor]

Fine. She said it was fine, and he had to believe her because he knew she wasn’t a liar, knew that he trusted her. Still, though, how fine could it be going back to that? To their respective fates? He knew he wasn’t looking forward to his, even if it was the starting point some people needed to get the ball rolling; did she feel the same way?

So, he let his eyes follow, sure, keen and on her while he picked another shirt (accidental, but at least this was navy blue turtleneck with short sleeves), and draped it over his arm. He gave her a nod, more of a I heard you rather than I agree. The thought would never be fine to him, but they could move past it for now.

“Who do you think did it?” Zack asked after he was finished balking at that. Someone tore up her garden? Really?! “Why? What happened? What did Shibusen do? And Cloud was in a coma?! What-How--?”

The guilt was starting to flare up, brighten like the sun. He wasn’t around. He wasn’t, and if he had been, maybe then the garden would still be standing, maybe Cloud wouldn’t have-

But he couldn’t make that call without knowing what caused it all. Not yet. He forced himself to calm down, take a deep breath, let it out. Calm. Sure. He could do this.

And… did he just hear her right? “If you’re not a Weapon, what are you?” Which was a “duh” question, he knew.

[thishealingwind]

"One of Sephiroth's remnants," she said. Aerith wasn't going to lie, and it wasn't uncommon knowledge that she was his enemy. He didn't exactly try to hide it. "His name is Kadaj. He...dislikes me."

That was an understatement. She didn't want bad blood between them, but that was like asking Sephiroth himself to be her friend. Farfetched and likely impossible. Something she had no right to ask for.

Aerith winced slightly at the memory of finding out about Cloud's condition. It had been...awful, not being able to see him. "Cloud ate the soul of a Kishin Egg. He had a violent reaction to it, since he's not a Weapon, and the soul had to be purged from his body. He was in bad shape for awhile."

She remembered when she'd found him in the elevator the day that they'd been properly reunited. He'd wanted to reach her himself, and it had only made him exhausted. She'd watched him sleep on her couch for a long time that day, after it had truly hit her how close she'd been to losing him.

And how it was mostly her fault.

"Oh, I'm a Meister now. It's why BREW sent me home, I guess."

[1st_class_honor]

“Remnants?” He wondered if it was like the obvious brother of the guy running around here, demanding to talk to his sibling (which Zack easily assumed meant Sephiroth; the guy looked just like him after all). “What’s a Remnant? And why does he dislike you? Shiva, how could anyone with a heart dislike you?”

Granted, if it had to do with Sephiroth, did there really need to be a reason?

Grabbing a final shirt (some white tee, cheap and thin), he walked towards the curtained section that served as a changing area before stopping in shock. Cloud… Dammit. “Why’d he do something like that?!” And that? That was going to earn the guy a cuff to the back of the head…when he was done trying to apologize to him.

Shiva, this was a mess. He just wished they had more time to go over it than her lunch period.

Sighing, he slid into a booth and closed it, started to put on the white shirt, and got as far as having it around his neck. A-“You’re a MEISTER?!” he yelled, tearing open the curtain and staring at her, still wearing his necklace of cotton. A Meister? Her? Going into battle, wielding someone, something.

“Re-really?”

[thishealingwind]

Hm, how to explain? "Sephiroth can't be fully absorbed into the Lifestream because of his Jenova cells," she said, trying to make her words simple and somewhat easy to follow. Not easy, considering the subject matter. "He made the remnants in his image with his memories out of tainted Lifestream, to find the remaining piece of Jenova so that he could be resurrected. Each remnant- there are three -represent a certain aspect of Sephiroth's personality. I think Kadaj is his hateful, violent side. Sephiroth hates me, therefore so does Kadaj."

Though, she was somewhat sure that Kadaj might hate her even more than Sephiroth himself did. At least outwardly.

Aerith shook her head sadly. "He probably thought it would make him stronger, the way it does for Weapons. Cloud does like to think he's invincible sometimes."

Aerith's eyes widened as Zack poked his head out of the dressing room, giggling as she pressed one hand against his chest and pushed him back inside, her other hand holding a finger to her lips to shush him. Instead of leaving him to his own devices, since they would never get anything done this way, she followed him into the stall, reaching for the loop of white fabric and starting to tug it over his shoulders and feed his arms through the sleeves. "Mhmm, that's right. Pretty funny, huh?"

[1st_class_honor]

…Well, that was something new. It was a lot to take in, a lot, and he tried dissecting it, figuring it out, all the different pieces. “Three different aspects of him, huh?” Which meant that other guy, the big, impatient guy he met when he first arrived, that must’ve been his strength. It sure as Shiva wasn’t his manners. “So, one of him wasn’t enough, now we need to watch out for three of them AND him? Shiva, this is worse than I thought.”

And that lead to one thing: he’d got into overprotective mode soon. Especially since one of these guys already attacked her garden. Who knew how long until they tried getting at her directly? Well, over his dead body!

…figure of speech, really.

Zack’s head shook sadly, thinking on Cloud. Who knew what could’ve happened? But-given the situation, wouldn’t Zack have tried the same thing? Desperate times, desperate measures? “He learned his lesson, though, right? He won’t do it again? You gave him a stern talking to?” Because he could count on Aerith for something like that, especially a stern lecture from the heart, out of love.

And did he yelp as she followed him in? You bet. He glanced down at her hand, not breathing for a second as he felt her working the shirt down over him. What were people thinking out there? What was she thinking in here? And why was he blushing, even though she’d seen him without his shirt the entire time?!

“Y-Yeah, funny. Ha, ha.” He smiled, a little worried, before trying to act nonchalant as he checked himself in the mirror. Not that he was looking at himself, oh no; his eyes were over his reflection’s shoulder and on her face. “Sooo, got a Weapon yet? I bet everyone’s been bugging you.”

Obvious snoopy questions were obvious.

[thishealingwind]

"Yup, that's pretty much how it is. From the sounds of it, though, Cloud is good at keeping Sephiroth under control, and Sephiroth makes sure the remnants don't get too out of hand. Kadaj still ended up getting himself into too much trouble." She thought about that briefly, looking a little amused. "That's another good story, actually."

"He won't," she said, nodding firmly. "He nearly died. I think it was a pretty good lesson." One that she would rather he hadn't had to learn, but it had turned out okay. Cloud was healthy again, and that was what mattered most.

One of Aerith's slender brows rose at his yelp before her smile broke into chuckles. "Don't worry, I'll play nice," she teased, being a perfect lady as she tried to help dress him. Was it her imagination, or was he suddenly acting nervous? Had she overstepped her bounds and made him uncomfortable?

...she hoped not, though the light color in his cheeks was sort of tell-tale.

"I did for a little while," she said, smoothing out the fabric against his skin as she spoke. "A young girl named Luki. Her Weapon form was kind of strange, but she went home not too long ago. But no, no one's been bugging me."

[1st_class_honor]

“No one can keep that jerk under control.” The words escaped before he could stop it, and he didn’t regret it, not one bit. He had a host of things, books and books, monologues of things he could say about Sephiroth, but he kept most of them under lock and key. Could he be expected to be perfect about containing it all the time? Really?

“‘Good’? Should I be worried about your definition of ‘good’ in this case?”

Whether Cloud was healthy or not, Zack was smacking him upside the head regardless. The kid was going to give him gray hairs before his time, and it was a crime to ruin black hair as fine as his! Blasphemy, man. Blasphemy.

And hey, at least she was laughing in here. …wait, was that a good sign or not? He smiled in return, some smooth, fluid thing that he offered receptionists and waitresses; it felt weird trying to give it to her, when he l-

“Well, don’t behave on my account,” and he wiggled his eyebrows…which went so smashingly with the color of his cheeks. When she was smoothing his shirt, he wondered if she could feel the way his heart was speeding up, the way it was skipping. Shiva, it was like he had never hit on someone before!

He turned to look in the mirror, assessing the plain white tee. “Strange, how?” And really? No Weapon, huh? Not a one bugging her, trying to get her eye? This might be just what the SOLDIER ordered!

[thishealingwind]

Aerith was a little surprised at the sudden and short outburst, but she could blame him at all for that. They'd all lost a lot because of the silver-haired man, and he was within his right to be angry. Perhaps even more than any of them. "Well, he hasn't hurt me, or anyone else in the city for as long as I've been here, so I can't judge."

Still, it was often awkward thinking about how much time Cloud spent with him. She knew she shouldn't be upset about it, and she knew that the blonde didn't mean to make her feel strange, so she did well to hide it.

"Ah, you know what I mean," she teased, shaking her head.

Aerith continued to chuckle as Zack gave her the funniest look. It was hard to take it seriously, the way he was blatantly flirting with her, but it was a part of his charm. Plus, she was much better at giving it right back now than when she was younger, which was obvious by the way he had pink cheeks to accompany his eyebrow waggle.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, pressing her fingertips a little more forcefully into his chest, leaning slightly into him. She could feel his heart thumping underneath his skin through the thin layer of fabric, and it only occurred to her then that maybe this wasn't just playful teasing. Hm...

"Oh, her Weapon form turned my arm into a mass of jagged metal. It was kind of scary, but not so bad once I got used to it." Enjoy that mental picture, Zack.

[1st_class_honor]

Hasn’t hurt anyone yet, he wanted to add in but didn’t, finding the strength to bite his tongue this time. It was difficult to hear her defend him when he knew, was told what happened in the future. He opened his mouth, wanting to snark, but his heart wasn’t in it so he simply closed it and looked away, defeated. Arguing with her wasn’t going to fix anything, not on this subject, and he had to just let it go.

Sometimes, you had to win by losing.

Shiva, she was pretty. He didn’t think about it, just reached out and tucked some hair behind the curve of her ear and was simply happy just to be around her. It made all that Sephiroth talk fall away from his mind, at least for now, and he appreciated the hair, the ear, all of her.

“Pret~ty sure,” he offered, and it made him think of how different she was, and how very much the same. Older. Wiser. Her hand was warm through the fabric. Hm. “But you could still change my mind, you know.”

Taking a step back, he started to strip the shirt and go onto the next one, that turtleneck and scrunched his hair before it slid down his face. “Into…metal?” His eyes flickered to her arm, confused, before laughing and shaking his head. “How…creepy. Did you ever have to fight with her?”

And he paused a second, before looking in the mirror, staring in it, waiting. “So, what’s your stance on swords?” Too late, he realized that he sounded like he was using a cheesy pick up line. Are your legs tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day. OH, SHIVA, WHAT AM I DOING?

[thishealingwind]

Aerith's eyes followed his hand as it reached forward, the backs of his fingers lightly brushing against her cheek as he slid his fingers through her hair and over the curve of her ear. A light pink blush rose up in her own face, so that they matched. Silly.

"And here I always thought boys liked a girl who knew how to behave," she teased, trying to joke over the sudden flutter in her stomach.

Aerith took her own step back in the small space, giving him room, though secretly she was concerned that if she didn't put a bit of distance between them, she might be too tempted to reach out and pull him close, and that would just be inappropriate. It was a testament to how fuzzy and warm her thoughts were that she couldn't entirely see the harm in it.

"Just once, when the city was attacked," she said casually. "But yes, you wouldn't have imagined she'd become something like that. She was a young girl, not even a teenager I think. Very excitable."

Aerith's eyebrows rose as she watched his face in the mirror, standing without a shirt and asking something like that. She couldn't help but release the laughter that rose into her throat. "Zack, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were coming on to me." There were so many ways she could take a statement like that, beyond the literal, and she found it hilarious.

[1st_class_honor]

Hey, at least he wasn’t the only one blushing. That was a comfort! …unless he was making her uncomfortable, and then-Shiva. Stop over-thinking it. He had to, he knew he had to, but there was so much history, so much that moved forward, and he didn’t know where they stood still, and-

“All depends on the boy. Some just like something with a heartbeat.” He laughed, rubbed the back of his neck, and looked away. “But this boy likes a girl who looks good in pink.”

There. There, in a roundabout way, he said it. Not the green light, of course, but it was out there, which meant he had to turn and stare in the mirror and examine the shirt. Because nothing cemented his seriousness on the subject other than awkward mirror staring.

“I’m sorry you lost your Weapon,” he said, and he WAS. He was sorry she lost someone she cared about enough to become partners with. But there was an excitement, too. A hope. Something that started to bloom-much like the blush in his face when she called him out.

“I-Well, I mean, I usually am! But this time, I’m talking purely business! Or, wait, not business, but--” Shit. Deep breath. Sigh. Indoor voice. “What I’m saying is, I think it might be interesting to see where things lead us, to see if we can go all the way.”

In partnership. Yeah. Partnership.

[thishealingwind]

She was thinking about this too hard, wasn't she? Looking for hidden meanings and false words, all so that she didn't fall into anything too deeply or too quickly.

But this was Zack. He wouldn't lie to her, and he certainly wouldn't lead her on. Tease her, flirt with her, sure. But he wouldn't do anything to deliberately hurt her.

Though, again, if it was all in fun, perhaps he wouldn't know?

Yes, she definitely needed to stop thinking so hard and just go with the flow. "You're still pretty easy to please," she said, grinning. "Though that's a bit better than settling for anything that breathes."

"You're usually coming on to me?" she teased. "Oh, I see how it is. You say that to every Meister you meet?" She gave him a mischievous smile to let him know that she was just kidding. "As for swords, I know quite a few people who are quite fond of them. I can't see the harm in trying my hand at it."

She glanced at the new shirt then, moving in close to again run her hands down the fabric covering his back. It reminded her a bit of his old one, and it made her smile quietly. "I like this one. It suits you, I think." Blue; it would bring out his eyes and go well against his dark hair. She liked him in darker clothes, anyway.

[1st_class_honor]

No, no, he’d never hurt her, and there were no hidden meanings, no false words, just a guy who was slightly clumsy and didn’t know what to say when it came to a girl he liked as much as he did her. It was hard to be honest when he wasn’t sure it was fair, but it was impossible to hold it all back, too. Instead, he was left with this tentative middle ground that was easy to sway from one degree to the other in ways that settled nothing, no one.

“I wouldn’t say ‘easy’,” he pouted, making a face in the mirror. “I like to think I have some standards.” Flower girl standards, for example. Flower girls that were brave and witty with pretty, pretty eyes and-

Okay, okay, rein it in.

“I only say it to the pretty Meisters!” he barked out, and he hoped for a second that she wouldn’t remember Carmine. But her smile calmed the nerves, and he grinned right back, relaxing underneath her hands. “Well, I bet I could help you with sword wielding, and I imagine Spike wouldn’t mind lending a hand. You know, not that he has a choice in the matter.”

He turned, resting his back against the mirror, and fought the urge to touch her hair again. It was difficult, but he managed. Somehow. “So, this one’s a buy, then? Tell Roy to reimburse you. It’s a bonus to get me back on the force.”

[thishealingwind]

Aerith's trouble came in the way she wasn't sure if keeping her true feelings hidden was just as unfair as sharing them. She seemed to change her mind between the two; was it better to simply leave things as they were? She wasn't unhappy, but it was hard to hold back sometimes.

"Mm, maybe a few. At least when it comes to certain things." But things like food? If Zack could eat her cooking, then his meal standards were about as low as they came.

"I'm sure I can manage to convince him," she said, knowing full well that for her it wouldn't be all that difficult. She had good luck getting Cloud to agree to things of all sorts.

"Mm, I like it. You should pick out at least one more, though. Can't live like Cloud did with only one shirt for months."