Chapter Text
He was on his knees, clad in navy fabric, on a smooth blue pavement. Gleaming greenish tiles were inset into the floor, one by one, into purposeful swirls.
His vision swirled with them. What was he doing again?
The tiles were small and delicate –just like her– but made to bear the weight of the world. Just like her. The clear green glass refracted a whimsical inner sparkle just like her eyes . Green eyes... Where was she?
He looked around in confusion. A red stain dying the floor dark red, pavement and tiles. It hurt so much, in his guts, in his soul... His charred flesh, his poisoned blood, his heart pierced by a deadly blade; he would take any of them, would take all of them all at once instead of this pain, instead of burning eyes and tingling fingers and dry mouth. Instead of the sheer despair that paralysed him, that dominated his every waking and sleeping moment.
Where was she? She was supposed to be there in his arms, cradling his face oh so gently, smiling up at him. Could it be his bad eyesight preventing him from seeing? But the burning, the swirling, the water, they made his eyes clouded.
Drops fell from above into the dark red stain. Drip drop, drip drop, unending drops. They soaked the red, turning it pink. Right, pink. He loved pink. Pink is comfort, pink is home. Pink with red. And green. Rather than washing away the dark blemish, the water drops allowed the darkness to seep deeper into the pores and cracks of the light blue pavement, staining it profoundly, permanently. Snuffing out the green. Extinguishing the sparkle.
"Don't cry..." Right, he must've been crying again. He lifted his gloved hands to wipe the tears away, smearing his face with blood instead. "You'll make it rain." She often said that.
Where are you?
———
"Where are you, Aerith?"
His vision spun uncontrollably. The quake in his guts intensified.
— Aer... ith... Where... Aerith? — his tongue felt like lead, he was unable to muster anything beyond incoherent mumbles.
His surroundings blurred and shifted. He wasn't on his knees anymore but on his back. The dark red stain on the floor changed forms, flowing into a half-rotten wooden ceiling.
— Ahh... Ahhhh... Uh... AAHHH...!
His head was light, full of air. His eyes couldn't focus on anything for the life of him. All of his ten fingers were interred in something soft and warm. Like someone's flesh.
— Uuhhh, harder, blondie. Harder, rougher... ahhh... ahh...!
The blonde man tried to sit up, but his immense strength eluded him. His whole world was tilting and he didn't know how to right it. He felt like floating up high, however a skull-splitting migraine kept him grounded. He tried to grab harder onto whatever was between his hands to leverage his upper body up, at least.
– Yes! Like that, baby... Oh, yes...
— Whaa...? — he tried to sit up again to no avail. There was something funny going on in his stomach, he noticed with a slur, and it made him breathless, the air leaving his lungs and passing his parted lips in gasps and grunts.
As the mattress under him became more solid, he felt weary, weighed down. Someone was moaning nearby, a woman, and a bed was creaking unashamedly. His surroundings kept going in and out of focus.
— That's it, blondie... ahh, ahh... — nails raked over his naked torso — Fuck, your cock is fatter than I thought... Ugh... Uh, so good, baby...
A couple of his brain cells snapped back into the neural grid and he finally, finally figured out his situation. There's an unknown woman riding his dick. And he was letting her. His hands on her buttocks were pulling her down onto him, egging her on.
— Harder, I'm close! — as her bouncing started to get erratic, her nails dug deeper into his skin, dragging him back to the land of the living, just barely.
— No...! No, stop...! Stop...
Horrified, he tried to bat her hands away. Instead, she lost her balance and toppled over him, undeterred, still chasing her climax. He attempted to push her legs and get her off and away from him, only his arms didn't move the way he wanted them to.
The last hour or so came back to him in rapid, foggy flashes.
The Queen's Blood game he lost and the alcohol he had chugged down as punishment. He went outside to smoke. There was a woman there, wearing a jacket in a familiar shade of red, also smoking. She made light conversation, got him interested in some hand-rolled sweet-smelling leaves spiked with shrooms, their earthy base notes giving them away. The flowery scent – flowery smells were his favourite – was like a balm to his bleeding soul while the heavy smoke filled his hollow shell of a body as he craved relief. The mellifluous relief came after the third drag. She laughed at something he said, her blueish-green eyes glinting. He accepted a second rollie. Maybe a third. Maybe more... She eventually grabbed his hand and took him to her room at the small and shabby inn of Barret's hometown, all the while groping his crotch. He didn't mind, as long as his pain was kept at bay. His vision got blurry from the drug – a small price to pay for a moment of just peace and quiet inside – and he felt the woman undressing him, t-shirt first. He undid his belts helpfully and then sat down on the bed to take off those new boots that were skinning his feet. He was already half-hard when the woman kneeled between his legs and licked him up to full attention. She climbed into his lap and he slipped his hands up her back, under the jacket. He remembers nuzzling her neck, grabbing onto the red leather. Did Aerith wear a leather jacket? He chased the fading memories of the two of them together almost as if in agony, but only remembered the colour, not the fabric; it was so, so long ago... Fourteen years last week. He was beginning to forget such details...
Green eyes and brown hair, and he let her fuck him. And looking into such familiar eyes, with the red jacket just like hers , he fucked her back, not realizing his shattered mind was once again playing tricks on him – or, perhaps, deep down that's what he intended in his high; a fleeting moment with her again, replacing the image of her cold grey skin with a warm and flushed one. He felt like falling, and falling into nothingness, into the comforting embrace of unconsciousness. Only it didn't last long, though.
Now, it was too late for him. After the flood of flashbacks ceased, wallowing in renewed grief and self-loathing, Cloud came with an anguished slur of Aerith's name.