Chapter Text
- Aerith
The old wood of the cottage floor under Aerith's feet cracked as she walked up the winding staircase. She was carrying a metal tray with a plate of palm-sized blueberry cookies and a glass of goat's milk atop. The smell of the freshly baked cookies already filled the whole of the cottage by now and waved infront of her as she stepped up to the attic.
Holding her hand up to knock, she noticed the door was already standing slightly ajar.
„Cloud? Mother made you a night time snack to thank-", she began as the wooden door gave way with a creak under the kick of her bare foot.
Aerith fell silent as she noticed the boy who called himself Cloud standing at the other end of the attic, that resembled a narrow hall more than a guest room. He was henching over the end of the mattress on the ground, his cheeks puffed and he grunted and hissed as he was seemingly struggling to pull the duvet cover over the fourth corner of the mattress. His wiry body tensed in a weird angle as he pulled the material up while simultaneosly stopping it from jumping off the other sides.
She couldn't stifle a laugh, a movement that made some of the milk spill from it's glass.
„In need of some help?", she asked and placed down the tray on a dusty cupboard. Obviously startled by her presence the boy let go of the elastic material causing it to plop off two ends of the mattress and shrivel together uncerimonically in the middle of the bed. His body wheezed around to her, tense and bouncy for a second, the defense instincts of a SOLDIER breaking through, and then let his shoulders relax with a sigh.
„I – I was just making the" –
„Making the bed? Yeah, I can see that". Giggling now Aerith closed the space between them with two long strides. Up close it was impossible to miss that he was blushing behind his pale skin.
„Here. It's easier together", she said and pulled on the duvet cover from one side of the mattress. „You pull there now."
„Thanks", the boy murmured, not meeting her eyes, as he was marvling at the suddenly perfectly tightened material.
Aerith nodded at their work and allowed herself to take in the guest of her house for a moment. It was a while since they had had guests here, a while since the mattress in this dusty attic had been used. A while since she had brought a boy home, for that matter as well.
On their way through the slums they hadn't had time to exchange a lot of personal details, but she figured he must be somewhere her age in his early twenties or mid-twenty perhaps? He definitely looked younger now in the once white shirt she had leant him and without the officialism of his dark SOLDIER gear.
The boy cleared his throat and Aerith noticed that her eyes had layed on the tightness of the shirt hugging his waist for maybe a moment too long. She trailed a hand through her braided her and stepped through the room.
„Anyways, the cookies are still warm. You should enjoy them and get some rest". She smiled and waved at the tray.
The boy's eyes wandered to the cookies and then back to the mattress, seemingly searching for a hook, a problem, something to reject about his situation. But the bags under his eyes didn't leave much room for the rebellious energy Aerith had seen him fight with in the slums.
He peared at Aerith through strands of hair falling over brilliant mako-tinged eyes and - as if to prove that he wouldn't give in to his SOLDIER instincts to set off for his next mission in the middle of the night - took a sip of the milk.
„I haven't had that in a long time", he said, his pokerface voice tinted with a shade of sentimentality.
„Cookies with milk in the evening? Oh, it's the best you should –"
„No. A bed."
Aerith startled. This isn't even a bed, she thought looking at the tattered old mattress on the ground. She combed her fingers along her braid again, then threw her hair over her shoulder.
„Anyways, get some rest. You'll need all your energy for some more flower picking in the morning", she winked at him and twirled around towards the door.
„Sleep tight, soldier boy."