— ( with @makoxmind || continued from here )
For a brief moment after she's just gone and asked him the question she'd been rolling around in her head since almost the first moment she's seen him, Aerith and Cloud are simply staring at each other. Wide-eyed, verdant green to mako-stained blue, they stare at each other like startled animals, and she wonders, however briefly, if she'd made the wrong choice in tipping her hand so soon.
Yet, she'd heard him as he sat there, licking jam off of spoons and fingers, talking to ghosts in the room with all the gusto he could clearly never work up when she was in front of him. Sometimes, she wonders if she was so intimidating.
Then, she remembers that Cloud was wounded. That ex-SOLDIER or not, he was a broken boy, and he was trying desperately to make something work. That something was strange and nebulous between them, at once far-reaching yet fitting on a pinhead and even Aerith did not understand it. But she was compelled by it.
She was compelled by Cloud.
Yes, Cloud was wounded. But Aerith was there with a roll of bandages and a glass of water. She could help, she thinks. She would help.
His hands on her hips surprise her, like she'd never thought he'd hold her so gently or so cautiously. Or, perhaps, at all. Of course, he'd caught her every time she'd needed it. He held her hand. There had been some few moments wherein he had tried to initiate some semblance of contact but could only manage fleeting brushes before he shied away - and yet, in this moment, he is almost as brave as he sounded in the kitchen.
'If… that’s ok… with you.' At first, she wants to say, 'Of course it's okay, I asked you, didn't I?' But she doesn't. Instead, she listens.
He asks if he can take her on a date.
He says he wants to buy her things, to dress nicely for her.
And, he's staring at her as blankly as ever, and she can practically see the rubber band snap back into place as whatever part of his mind that generally manages the matter of speech claps its hand over the far less eloquent boy that had taken control of the microphone. He pulls away and presses that pillow over his face and he punctuates it all by telling her simply and straight forwardly; 'I really… like you.'
The hand that hat been curled against his chin slips down, brushing against his collar, as it seeks one of his gloved hands. Her fingers slowly splay his apart so that they can slot in with them, holding his hand carefully as the other pries the pillow away to send it tumbling away. It lands on the floor, and she does not care.
Leaning over, she tucks her head against his shoulder and brings his hand in close to hold it, provided he'd let her.
"I like you too, Cloud." She says, and quite firmly at that. "You can take me on a date. I already promised you one after all, I thought?"
