Note: my only contribution to @zerith-week. Wrote it for the Day 1 prompt: angel/heaven but thought it would also suit Day 2: dating and Day 5: tears/rain somewhat. (also yes, the ff14 ost title LOL)
Read on AO3.
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“Have you ever seen an angel, Zack?”
“Huh?”
It was a sunny day, or as sunny as it could be underneath the plates, but sunny nonetheless, the heat seeping through the gaps and slits of the metal sky. Zack half-turned, his chocolate ice cream almost completely missing his mouth. His tongue darted out to keep it from dripping onto his uniform. Beside him, Aerith chuckled.
“I just wonder, you know, since you called me an Angel once.” She licked her own ice cream—vanilla to match his chocolate.
They were sitting atop the rusted slides in Sector 6’s playground. Legs folded and hugged to her chest, Aerith looked somewhat forlorn.
Zack leaned back on one hand while the other held firmly onto his snack. “Well, that’s just ‘cuz I thought you were pretty,” he said. “And it was in a church. And I just fell down some hundreds-feet-tall. Couldn’t blame me for making a mistake.”
He’d meant it as a joke, which it was, though not entirely. Aerith was pretty. He’d said it as many times as she needed, or wanted, to hear, until that little gloom went away and there was nothing to hinder her from smiling her heart out. But whether it was a joke or not didn’t quite matter because Aerith laughed. It was more of a giggle or a chuckle, caught between taking a breath and eating her ice cream. A snort was probably the best descriptor.
“I’m sorry,” she said between bouts.
Don’t be, Zack wanted to say, but he was too captivated that all words left him.
Aerith cleared her throat before throwing a quick, rather self-conscious, glance at him. “Well, anyway, what do you think an angel would look like?”
Zack took another lick of his ice cream. “What’s with the sudden curiosity?”
“It’s not sudden. I’m just…”
There it was again: the gloom crossing over her eyes so quickly before she masked it with a shrug. She refused to meet his eyes. Zack watched her for a moment longer. When it was clear she had no desire to explain, Zack leaned back on one hand, his eyes drifting to the steel sky above.
“Angel, huh…”
He’s not one for religious beliefs—at least, not one with the common notion of angels and demons. But everyone knew what the popular depiction was: white wings and descending from the sky. Just like—
The ice cream got caught in his throat. He coughed, struck his chest for good measure, but the tightness showed no signs of leaving. A gaunt, pale face rose from the back of his mind. Gray locks of what once was jet-black hair framed the ashen countenance as Angeal held out his buster sword amidst the rubble and smoke.
White feathers drifted on the wind, landing softly by Zack’s feet.
“Zack?”
A gasp tore out of him when he felt Aerith’s cool touch on his cheek.
“Shh, it’s okay, Zack,” she said. Her thumb brushed against a wetness he hadn’t realized he’d shed. He leaned into her warmth, closing his eyes and breathing her scent.
“Sorry,” he later said, clearing his throat and rubbing his tears away.
“Don’t be. We all have our moments.”
Her smile spoke of sympathy, but he could see grief hiding just behind the curtain. A grief he only knew too well. He still had so many things he didn’t know about her.
“Well, what do you think an angel would look like?” he asked instead.
“Hm?”
“Don’t ‘hm’ me. You asked the question.”
“You’re right. But you didn’t answer, though.”
“Cheeky.” He resisted the urge to pinch her cheek. “Fine. White wings.”
“White wings…” Aerith nodded. “Very broad.”
“Isn’t that what people say: white wings coming from the sky, bringing sooth and succor to anyone who needs it?”
Aerith chuckled at his answer, but she remained silent, her eyes training at her feet or the ground. She played with her ice cream cone long enough without eating her ice cream that Zack thought she might have forgotten about it. When he was about to point it out, Aerith brought it to her mouth and took a bite.
“White wings,” she mused. “She doesn’t have that.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked at him and grinned. “Nothing. More importantly.” She pointed at his cone. “Yours is melting.”
He looked at his hand with a start just as the chocolate cream dripped onto his trouser.
“Shit.”
He leaped onto his feet, but the wild movement only made the ice cream fly everywhere. His final saving grace was to finish it before it melted any further. Once he did, his hand was sticky with chocolate ice that even after licking it clean, the stickiness remained.
There should be water nearby. It was a park after all, even if there were no greeneries. But Aerith said the faucet had broken years ago and no one saw the need to fix it. Dropping off the slides, Zack took a look around. He found it behind the swings in a patch of what was probably once grass. He turned the tap around. No water came out.
“See?” Aerith said behind him.
Zack sighed. “Guess I’m walking you home earlier than planned.”
Aerith giggled. She held her hands behind her back, then nodded to the other side of the park where the exit to Sector 5 lay. Her braid bobbed as she walked with a little skip to her step. She hummed a soft melody—foreign to him, but soothing somehow.
“Where’s that song from?” he asked. “The one you’re singing.”
She glanced over her shoulder, gaze clouding over before trailing it forward again. Her humming paused for a fraction of a second.
“My mom taught me,” she said at last. Zack waited for more, but Aerith didn’t elaborate.
Despite her lighthearted song, her back looked strangely small. Did it have anything to do with her question? Zack wasn’t sure. He still had so many things he didn't know about her. He wanted to ask, but would she let him?
A broken, fragile metal railing separated their dirt road from the rest of the sector 6 rubble. A junkyard for all he knew. Ruins and debris from decades back when construction failed and the Sector 6 Upper Plate crashed hundreds of feet down. Aerith jumped onto it, spreading her arms to keep her balance. Like an angel, Zack thought, with the sunlight at just the right angle that it made it seem Aerith had grown wings.
One step in front of the other, she carefully made her way forward. Zack caught up to her, hand outstretched and ready to catch her fall.
“I saw an angel once,” Aerith quietly said. “Long ago. Her hair flowed like river and her face as gentle as the moon. She didn’t have wings, though.”
Zack offered his hand to help her step over a crack on the railing, but Aerith managed it fine by herself. She grinned when he gave her an appreciative look.
“I asked her to take me with her,” she went on, before she paused at the end of the railing. A shadow loomed over her face, but this time, she let it linger. “She told me to stay.”
Aerith met Zack’s eyes then took his hand, letting him help her step off the railing. She went to move, to brush her dress and walk back home, but Zack tightened his grip around her fingers.
Her eyebrow quirked, emerald eyes questioning. He still had so many things he would like to know about her—things he wondered if she would ever let him know. Ever since meeting her, her smile had always held a lot of secrets. Would he be enough someday to catch her tears should they fall?
“Well I’m glad you stayed,” he said. A grin seamlessly slipped across his features. “If you'd left, we wouldn't have met.”
It was a stupid and silly way to cheer her up, but it brought a smile to her face and that was enough. She tugged at his hand and nudged him forward.
#the amazing digital circus
#coquette
#photography
#love and deepspace
#iron lung
