#spacebeyonce

Tifa looks at him, and reads his mind.

‘You can go,’ she says, ‘we’ll all still be here in the morning. No one would judge you.’

‘Thanks for the permission,’ he snorts, and reflexively lights a cigarette.

He stays until it – and the one that follows, and the one that follows that – are nothing but stubs, helping ferry people to and from places, helping set up camps for the thousands of people that need somewhere to lay their heads. He helps organise a watch; there are still monsters out on the plains, and they need dealing with, so he organises that, and he’s stood with Yuffie, watching out over the plains at some hollering Kalm Fangs, scrabbling in the dirt over some carcass or another.

‘What are you going to do now?’ he asks.

‘I’ll stay,’ she says, ‘for a little while. They need a leader, obviously, so I need to be around.’

He snorts. Typical Yuffie.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asks, and glances up at him.

‘I’m going home,’ he says, ‘just for – for a day or two. Then I’ll be back. You’re going to need engineers to rebuild this shit, and I’m the best one I know.’

‘Bring Shera with you, then,’ Yuffie says, ‘we’ll need her too, just to keep you from killing everyone.’

‘What are you saying about my work?’ he asks, but the bristle in it is gone.

Shera absolutely will keep him from killing everyone, and he has no shame in that. He owes her his life, more so than she owes him hers.

‘I’m saying it’s time to get in that hunk of junk and fly home, spaceboy,’ Yuffie says, kicks him in the shin, and legs it.

Brat.

He huffs out a breath, and turns away from the empty horizon, picking his way back through the crowds to the hunk of junk that is his ride home.

‘Cid?’ Tifa calls, and he turns back.

She’s flushed, and out of breath, and her brace is twisted. He wonders if he should tell her, decides against it.

‘You’re coming back,’ she says, not a question.

‘Obviously,’ he nods. ‘I just – want to see Shera, before we get stuck in.’

She nods. ‘We can manage everything here, don’t worry too much. Take a week.’

‘A week?’ he snorts, ‘you callin’ me old, Tifa? You doin’ that to me, on today of all days?’

She eyeballs him far more wisely than a girl barely in her twenties has any right to eyeball him.

‘I’m saying Shera called while you were waving your dick about,’ she says, ‘asked when you were coming back. I told her you’d be there before sun-up.’

The sun is just now peeking over the horizon, tinged green with what remains of the Lifestream.

‘I wasn’t waving my dick about,’ he protests, mutely, because he was definitely waving his dick about. He can’t help being the most experienced engineer in the room – on the plains – and everyone else being fucking morons.

Then he thinks about it and says, ‘you’re an asshole, I’ve got ten minutes. You absolute brat.’

As he jogs – fuck running, his ankles hurt – towards the Highwind, and the boarding plank, he hears her call that she loves him too. He sticks his fingers up, and her laugh follows him.

The crew aren’t on board, but that’s fine, he can fly this baby by himself, and he hits all the right buttons, in the right order, and yanks the right lever, and thank God everyone’s kept away from it because he wastes no time in getting up in the air and taking off.

Absolute brat, he’s got no time to get back to Rocket Town, fucking hell.

‘Tifa, you’re a brat,’ he tells the sun, and then points at the sun, ‘and you can stop laughing, too. I can hear you, don’t think I can’t. Being dead ain’t no excuse.’

Aerith’s laugh echoes behind his heart, and he tells her to fuck off.

The Highwind is mostly out of commission now, falling apart at the seams, and he’ll reconstruct her, make her better, more efficient, more able to do the jobs it needs doing, so he dumps it on the airstrip, and jumps out of the smashed front end. He hits the ground running, but Shera is already out of the house, sans coat and boots, just in the T-shirt she wears under her sweater, and her trousers, and she’s running to him in turn.

He has never been so grateful to see her, never been so glad to be alive. Skidding to a stop, he catches her as she barrels into him, and without thinking, kisses her. He kisses her hard, hand knotted into her hair, fingers digging hard into her hip. Not that it matters, because she has fistfuls of his hair too, and she’s kissing back.

‘I,’ she gasps, between kisses, ‘I’m glad you’re home.’

‘Me too,’ he replies, brushes their noses together. He leaves a streak of dirt on her nose, and she’s smelling of fresh soap, of clean clothes, of home.

‘Fucking hell,’ he breathes, and slowly eases the grip he has on her, cupping her face in his hands. ‘Fuck me, I’m – Shera, I’m – I want you to know.’

She shakes her head, strokes her hands over his scalp, and he can feel her seeking out the scabs from where he’s been clocked by rubble, but she doesn’t pick, just smooths over them.

‘It’s alright,’ she says, quiet, against his mouth, ‘I know.’

‘Do you?’ he asks, and his heart is doing so many different things, all his organs twisting on themselves, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh, cry, throw up, or just yell until he’s hoarse. ‘Do you know? Shera, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m sorry, and I’ve been a fucking asshole and I – I – Fuck sake, Shera, I want to marry you.’

She laughs, not unkindly, but it’s very much a laugh at him.

‘You’re such a fool, Captain,’ she tells him, and kisses him again. ‘You know I know that.’

He searches her face, sees no lie in it.

‘I love you,’ he tells her. ‘I’ve not shown it, but I do. I love you.’

She smiles, and strokes his face, runs her fingers across the wrinkles in his brow, down the stubble of his cheeks, her thumb on his lips. He kisses it, reflexively.

‘I know,’ she tells him, ‘I know. I love you, too.’

He nods, little jerks of his chin, more to assure himself that he’s heard her than to assure her that he has.

‘Come on,’ she says, and steps away. He feels bereft, cold. ‘I only had a strip-wash, there’s still hot water for a shower.’

Tiredness sweeps over him at the thought of the effort it would take to strip off and shower and then get dressed again.

‘Just five minutes, Captain,’ she says, reading his mind, taking his hand to drag him to the door. ‘Just five minutes, and then you can sleep. I’ll have tea for you when you’re ready.’

He breathes deep, and nods, slowly. Shower, and sleep, and she’ll have tea for him. That’s – that sounds nice. Sounds good. He can do that.

 -0-0-0-

 When he wakes, it’s dark again. The curtains are drawn, but the side light is on, casting the room into a low orange glow. He lies there for a second; Shera is talking, but there’s no answer. The PHS then, talking to someone. Tifa, no doubt, organising things for Midgar and Kalm and whatever else they’re going to do for the civilians.

She says goodbye, and it’s quiet for a moment, then she starts humming a merry little tune to herself. He can hear her pottering about, the gentle clink and clank of the teapot and the mugs.

Without thinking about it, he throws the covers off and makes for the stairs, britches be damned. She’s seen him in worse states than in a t-shirt and boxers, and it’s not like she’s never seen bruises before. Nothing a potion can’t fix, when he can be bothered to rub the lotion into his skin.

‘Shera,’ he says, at the doorway of the kitchen, and she turns, teapot in hand.

‘Captain,’ she smiles, and the atmosphere changes, tangibly heavier, thicker.

His fingers curl. She carefully puts the pot down on the side, turns the hob off. She looks at him as prey looks at its hunter, but defiantly. Daring.

His heart beats against his ribs, stomach full of moths, desperate to get to the flame of her expression.

‘Cid,’ he tells her, ‘’s my name.’

Her fingers curl against the countertop, as if hoping for stability. The room seems to echo with his heartbeat, no sound outside. He watches her swallow, feels himself echo it.

‘Cid,’ she repeats, soft, so soft he almost doesn’t hear it.

Then he’s there, three strides and she’s pinned between him and the counter, his hands holding her face so he can kiss her, and taste tea on her tongue, sweet with sugar and milk and her foot moves, ankle curling around his.

‘Cid,’ she breathes, and her body shifts, just a little, tries to get closer.

Her hands are everywhere, on his hair, his shoulders, under his t-shirt, digging tight into his arse, bringing him closer, closer. The counter can’t be comfortable, but she’s angling herself to make the best of it, leg moving to give them both room. He’s kissing her face, her jaw, breathing heavy into her neck, and she makes room for him, tilts her head with a sigh, a low moan.

‘Shera,’ he whispers, fingertips curling under her waistband.

‘Yes,’ she nods, ‘yes.’

There will be time later to think about it, to appreciate the other in the way they deserve, but right now he’s fighting her belt, and she’s mouthing alternating sweet platitudes and urges onward into his ear, his jaw, kneading the muscles of his back as he shoves her trousers down, leaving them to her to kick off.  She’s warm, and she gasps when he traces the elastic of her underwear, teasing.

‘Don’t tease,’ she says, and he pulls back to look at her.

Her eyes are dark, her lip between her teeth. Her breath is fluttering, hard and short, and he offers her a smile, gentle, gentle. She searches his face for half a second, and then her eyes are closing and her head throwing back, barely avoiding the cabinet behind them as he does as he’s told and stops teasing.

‘You’re wet,’ he says, as though it’s a marvel.

‘Fuck sake,’ she replies, and he laughs, stops stroking her to shove a finger inside. He’s not kind about it, because he doesn’t need to be. She’s wet enough, hot enough, and the noises she makes are going to be enough for him if she doesn’t stop.

‘You gotta stop with the noises,’ he tells her, angles his wrist to make it two fingers. ‘I’m gonna be done before we get anywhere if you keep it up.’

Her nails scrape his back before slamming into the countertop. ‘Cid,’ she gasps, ‘you gotta stop teasing me, then.’

He laughs, and kisses her, and fucks her with his fingers.

‘I want you to come,’ he tells her, and bumps their noses so she looks at him, heavy-eyed and chewing holes in her lip. ‘I want you to come on my fingers, and I want you to do it now.’

She snorts, and does bang her head on the cabinet this time. ‘Don’t work like that, Captain,’ she tells him. ‘I’ll come when – when – fuck – when I’m ready.’

But the way her hips are wriggling, the way her leg’s climbing against his, she isn’t far off. Has she wanted this, he wonders, biting at her neck, since it’s there, has she thought of him like this, two fingers deep in her cunt, thumb rubbing circles just to see what noises she can make, has she touched herself? He asks her, breathes it into her mouth.

‘Course,’ she replies, ‘just – please.’

He adds a third finger, because he’s a prick, and she ravages his mouth, holds his hair tight enough to burn, bites at his lips and his tongue and she’s exquisite. The wave of her orgasm crests, and her legs shake. It nearly does him in, but he fucks her through it, watches the way she watches him, hungry and sated at once.

‘In,’ she demands, and her hand on his cock is – is – is bliss.

‘Shera,’ he gasps, and she nods, fights to shove his boxers down.

‘I know,’ she assures him, working him with one hand and getting her underwear down with the other, kicking them off before hiking herself onto the cabinet. ‘Captain.’

He doesn’t even take a second to appreciate the sight of this – this fucking siren before him, legs parted to let him in, hand so dainty and so perfect around his cock, guiding him to her, her eyes dark and her chest heaving with the weight of her breath. He should appreciate it, he should commit it to memory. But instead her grabs her hips to angle her down a little, and then he’s home.

She shudders against him, legs trembling, and he holds them tight, takes a second to breathe.

‘Fucking hell,’ he says, and she laughs, strokes his face.

‘Heaven,’ she counters, ‘c’mon, Captain, all yours.’

A dangerous thing to say, but one he hadn’t known he wanted to hear.

It’s a fuck, a quick, dirty fuck, and he’ll make love to her later, he’ll make love to her for the rest of their lives, but this is a fuck. He cups a hand behind her head to protect it from the cabinet, and he drags her hips closer with the other. Hers claw at his shoulders, pull his hair, and she gasps out his name, cries out for more, and he does his best.

All told, he thinks he performs alright. She’s taking chunks out of his neck, and she’s meeting him thrust-for-thrust, and he – he – fuck sake, he loves her.

‘I love you,’ he tells her, pants into her ear, and she stutters, fingers digging tight for a second, two.

Oh.

A litany of foul language topples out of his mouth as if prayers before a shrine, and he buries his face in her neck, breathes the smell of her in. A moment passes, two, and her fingers are soft in his hair, her breath heavy against his ear.

‘Cid,’ she breathes, and he nods, presses a kiss where his stubble has rubbed, and peels upright.

She’s pink and hazy and beautiful, and he could marry her. Will marry her.

Her fingertips touch his face, trace the line of his eyebrow, his cheekbone, his nose, the dent of his lip.

‘You’d,’ he chokes out, ‘you’d best clean up.’

She nods. ‘Yes, Captain. You, as well.’

Her eyes are fire when she says it, and she tightens her thighs for a second before letting him go. Loose-limbed and blinking, he finds it in himself to pick his boxers up from around his ankles, and she slips down off the counter, pulls on her underwear, stretching her arms and rolling her shoulders.

‘You mean,’ he says, and she laughs.

‘I mean, it’s good practice to clean up.’

He follows her out of the kitchen and to the bathroom. ‘You know all about that, huh?’

She freezes for half a step, and then says, ‘I read about it, in a book.’

‘You read anything else in your book?’

Her ears are red behind her messy ponytail.

‘I read lots of things, Captain,’ she says, ‘I could show you a few of them, if you like.’

The smile she gives him is blistering, and he laughs, slaps her arse as she starts for the stairs.

‘Later,’ he tells her, ‘I need to get in touch with the kids, make sure they haven’t killed anyone yet.’

‘They’re good kids,’ Shera assures him. ‘I’m sure they can survive another evening.’