[ That echo of emotion roils on, seething both beside and around her own, building like storm clouds all but bursting with lightning and hail - the most destructive parts of the storm. And he is a force for destruction, isn't he? Someone who never knew the benefit of a little kiss on the forehead, who deals in plans so broad and sweeping the finer, softer things - the sunlight through the window, the ferns in the Shinra lobby when somebody remembers to mist them regularly and they get fluffy and healthy, things that don't reshape the world in the way that he does. He might always miss them.
And that isn't her problem. There's no version of the world (so far?) where it would be, just like there's no level of the universe where this - his hand on her skin, her heart forgetting how to beat correctly because of it, the slope of his nose etching its way insidiously into her memory - ought to be.
Aerith believes in things like compassion, convinced that there's beauty in everything and everyone. She's spent years figuring out the right angle to look at the Turks tailing her from, learning to see what made them people, what notes to play to get them to slip up and show her themselves. Her version of the reparations Rufus seems so adamant she takes - things she should not want from him as well, not now, not after everything that's happened. Even if she believes she can almost see him, does she have a reason for looking beyond that right now that amounts to something more than she wants to?
Why aren't you taking it? Because I don't know what it is yet. Aerith thinks immediately, her smile tightening in barely suppressed amusement.
She could laugh at him and tell him she doesn't want anything, that he's hard and cold and she's made out of things that are antithetical to that, maybe even offensive to his brutal practicalities, that it doesn't mean anything to her to share the weight of the words company asset.
Rufus Shinra is someone she could lie to without a problem.
Instead, her arms stretch, draping over his shoulders and the top of the bed behind him as she slowly shifts closer. Her eyes stay on his, the heat simmering through her by way of the champagne flaring, like it's pleased she's finally giving in, and it shows in her face, in the way she looks too long at his mouth again. ]
I don't think this will fix anything at all. [ The words are breathed sweet and conspiratorial against his lips, letting herself hover there for as long as she can until the demand of that keen, damnably exquisite awareness of him eats at the last of her restraint and she's kissing him like she's been waiting a hundred years for the chance. ]
bye
And that isn't her problem. There's no version of the world (so far?) where it would be, just like there's no level of the universe where this - his hand on her skin, her heart forgetting how to beat correctly because of it, the slope of his nose etching its way insidiously into her memory - ought to be.
Aerith believes in things like compassion, convinced that there's beauty in everything and everyone. She's spent years figuring out the right angle to look at the Turks tailing her from, learning to see what made them people, what notes to play to get them to slip up and show her themselves. Her version of the reparations Rufus seems so adamant she takes - things she should not want from him as well, not now, not after everything that's happened. Even if she believes she can almost see him, does she have a reason for looking beyond that right now that amounts to something more than she wants to?
Why aren't you taking it?
Because I don't know what it is yet. Aerith thinks immediately, her smile tightening in barely suppressed amusement.
She could laugh at him and tell him she doesn't want anything, that he's hard and cold and she's made out of things that are antithetical to that, maybe even offensive to his brutal practicalities, that it doesn't mean anything to her to share the weight of the words company asset.
Rufus Shinra is someone she could lie to without a problem.
Instead, her arms stretch, draping over his shoulders and the top of the bed behind him as she slowly shifts closer. Her eyes stay on his, the heat simmering through her by way of the champagne flaring, like it's pleased she's finally giving in, and it shows in her face, in the way she looks too long at his mouth again. ]
I don't think this will fix anything at all. [ The words are breathed sweet and conspiratorial against his lips, letting herself hover there for as long as she can until the demand of that keen, damnably exquisite awareness of him eats at the last of her restraint and she's kissing him like she's been waiting a hundred years for the chance. ]