It'll Be Great

Airica slept very late the next day. When she awoke, she putted around her house, not leaving for any reason. She half-considered not coming in to work, but quickly decided against it, realizing that it would call up more questions than she was prepared to answer. She spent most of the day examining the fearsome-looking bruises on her neck, and the grisly round burn on her chest. Finally, the time came to go to work, and she put on a dress with a high neck, so her bruises couldn’t be seen. Her face appeared sallow, her hair a mess as she walked to the tavern, trying to ignore the outright stares of her neighbors. They had obviously seen the man entering her house the night before, and perhaps had even heard her primal screams. She shuddered as she recalled the events of the night before, and picked up speed a bit.

She entered the bar and was unsurprised to see Cid sitting in his regular spot, drinking heavily, and looking as though he’d lost a fight with an automatic meat tenderizer. The cuts and bruises on his face were swollen and made him look absolutely terrible, and the way he shifted around uncomfortably hinted at the injuries below his neck as well.

Arnie stood off to the side, wiping down the same glass over and over again and looking at Cid with a hint of concern on his face. Airica moved behind the bar with none of her usual flourish. She regarded Arnie coldly. She was not angry with him. None of this really could have been prevented. But she wanted him to be aware that she was upset about the Turks’ arrival in Rocket Town. He spoke haltingly as she slipped the apron over her head.

“They left this morning, in quite a rush. I don’t know what the hell happened between them and Cid, but I can’t get him to say a word.”

Airica glanced at her friend, who stared deeply into a bottle, only the hand which held his glass moving, from the bar to his lips and back again. Her blood boiled as she imagined Reno, Rude and Elena beating a man they must once have held in high regard. She looked away in disgust and set about her job, taking the glass and rag from Arnie and replacing them both on the shelf.

Arnie sighed sadly as he looked at her. He’d never seen her so dull before. Something had happened last night. He didn’t know what, but something had stripped her of that bright energy she brought to his day.

“Well,” he said finally, removing his own apron and standing there awkwardly, looking at the two of them for a moment. Finding nothing else to say, he turned and left.

Airica went about her business behind the bar, trying to think of something to say. She kept glancing over at Cid, but his eyes remained focused on the whisky in the bottle, which he helped himself to whenever his glass was empty. She finally decided to speak.

“What the hell did they want with you?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Her throat hurt when she spoke, but she tried not to let it show.

“They’re trying to take something I love away from me,” he said, his voice raspy as though he’d been yelling. His eyes didn’t leave the bottle.

She sighed and reached up to scratch an itch on her neck as she needlessly wiped down the countertop. Before her arm dropped, however, his hand snatched out and grasped her by the wrist. She jumped, looking at him with alarm. Cid released her arm and hooked his finger in the high collar of her dress and tugged it down. She jerked her head out of the way, but not before he saw the bruises Reno had left on her neck. He slammed his fist onto the bar angrily.

“Son of a bitch!” he rasped.

“Yeah, what a bastard,” she responded dully as she continued cleaning, trying to ignore his anger.

“I told him not to touch you!”

Her head snapped up and she glared at him for a moment.

“Oh, did you? And when have you ever known Reno to respond to threats, Cid?”

He paused and looked at her, his expression softening a bit.

“So, you do know him.”

“Yeah,” she snapped. Then, hesitantly: “We kind of used to…see each other. In Midgar. A long time ago.”

Cid merely nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. She knit her brows furiously, offended by his lack of surprise.

“I was young, Cid! I was young and stupid and in love!”

“Hey!” he almost roared back. “Calm down, woman! Shit!” His voice lowered a bit and he looked back down into his glass. “I been young and stupid and in love before. Hell, I been old and stupid and in love.”

One of her eyebrows raised slightly. But…no, she thought quickly. He’d given no indication that…yes, that was a silly thing to think.

When she looked at him again, she noticed him staring at her hips, a pained expression on his face. When he spoke again, his voice sounded very old and weak.

“He didn’t…did he?”

Airica looked away, cleaning twice as fast as her face flushed with shame.

“Fuck!” he yelled suddenly. “Fucking bastard!”

She stood in front of him, her shame gone, replaced by the good, steady pride of a farm girl.

“Listen to me, Cid. I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. I’m fine, and he’s gone. Okay? I’m fine. I’m fine…”

Her voice softened as she repeated those two words. He looked up at her, his face swollen and miserable, his eyes dull and weary.

“I just wish they’d leave me alone, Airica…” he mumbled. “Let me be old and die in peace.”

She reached out and gingerly grazed his cheek with her hand. He winced slightly, but didn’t move. She withdrew her hand and sighed, leaning against the bar, her face inches from his. He gazed at her with a strange look on his face for a moment before returning his attention to his glass.

“So, what, does he want you back, or what?” he asked gruffly.

“No,” she answered quickly. She sighed again. “He wanted a photograph I had.”

“A photograph?” Cid asked incredulously. “He tried to strangle you and raped you for a fuckin’ photograph?”

She flinched at his words. That was, of course, what had happened, but she supposed she hadn’t actually heard the words spoken aloud before. They made her stomach turn a bit.

“Yeah,” she said in a strained voice. “See, I used to tend bar at the Turks’ big hangout spot in Midgar. For the most part, it was boring. Same old same old, all day long. But Reno…” she couldn’t help but smile at how childish she’d been at the time. “He was different. He was more dangerous, in a way, and obviously the playboy of the group. He always went home with a different woman, every night. And oh, how I wished one night that woman would be me. And then, one night, it was.”

She stood back up and started to wipe the counter again.

“We dated for, oh, maybe three months. During that time, he treated me terribly. He humiliated me in front of my coworkers regularly, called me names, he even hit me once or twice. But, I was young, and in love, and the sex was good, so I just went with it.”

She paused to gauge Cid’s reaction. There was none, so she continued.

“Now, I had gathered, through listening to various barroom talk, that one of the Turks’ big missions in life was to assassinate important people. So it didn’t surprise me to learn that Reno had killed a few higher-ups in his time. But I also knew that it was very much frowned upon to kill someone they weren’t assigned to. One night, I was asleep in my apartment, waiting for Reno to return from his latest assignment, and he came in a few hours after midnight. He was obviously very drunk, and he had another woman with him.”

At this point, Cid made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, but still said nothing. She almost smiled at his interest, but thought twice and continued her story.

“I was horrified, of course, but I sat there in bed and watched them. He fucked her really good, too. Better than he’d ever fucked me before. I just watched, and oh, my heart was broken. I wanted to kill him, or kill her, or kill myself. I wanted somebody to die, anyway. After they were done, she promptly asked him for several hundred gil.” Airica stopped and giggled, as if remembering a great joke she hadn’t thought about in a long time.

“He didn’t know she was a prostitute. Anyway, he refused, and she persisted, and it went on like this – all the while, neither of them have noticed me sitting in my bed and watching them – until finally, Reno pulled a knife from his boot and stabbed her right in the heart.”

Cid’s head jerked up. It was obvious that the story had taken a turn he hadn’t expected. Airica smiled. “Oh, it ain’t over yet, honey. I was terrified, obviously. Now, he was drunk, and therefore you could argue that he had no control over his actions, but I knew that wouldn’t fly with ShinRa. So I did what any naïve young country gal trapped in the big city would do.” She smiled. “I grabbed my little camera and snapped a picture. It was a beautiful picture, too,” she sighed wistfully. “He’s standing right above her, knife in hand, while she lays twitching on the floor, blood everywhere…mm, beautiful.”

Cid began to shake his head, smiling wryly at her exuberance. He was glad to see her behaving more like herself.

“So, he finally notices me. He comes after me with the knife, gives me this scar…” Here she lifted her foot to the counter and gathered her long skirt just above the knee, showing off a long, nasty-looking scar on the inside of her leg. The scar was ugly, but Cid gulped, made anxious by the odd feeling in his stomach at the sight of her shapely leg. She put her leg down, not noticing his reaction, and continued with a smile on her face.

“Well, I escaped with my life, and the photograph, although I won’t say how. It’s pretty embarrassing. But needless to say, that photograph could completely end him.” She sighed wistfully again. “He’s probably destroyed it by now.” She smirked and got back to work, humming non-chalantly.

She tried to ignore the feel of his eyes on her as she worked. She ignored him for a good two or three minutes. Until he tried moving again. He grunted with such pain in his voice, it made her wince. She glanced over and saw him clutching at his side. He tried to hide it, tried to remove his hand before she noticed, but it was too late. She smiled softly and reached under the counter, pulling out a dusty old medical kit they kept for emergencies.

She walked around the bar, pointedly not acknowledging the scowling look he gave her, and sat on the barstool next to him, setting the kit aside for a moment.

There was a pause as she expressed her determination to help him with a wry stare. Cid returned the stare warily, suspicion in his eyes. She reached her hands towards the buttons on his shirt and he jerked back, wincing a little as he did so.

“Don’t you dare touch me, woman,” he growled. “You don’t think I took care of this shit myself? I ain’t a fuckin’ kid, you know.”

Airica dropped her hands and set her lips determinedly, glaring at him again for a moment. She reached forward again, and he jerked back again.

“Hey! What did I tell you?” he cried, a touch of alarm creeping into his face. This time, she didn’t drop her hands, but continued towards his buttons, slapping away his hands as they tried to stop her. Soon, he was looking at her as if she’d spontaneously morphed into a fire-breathing dragon and he’d left his lance at home. She tried to stifle her amused smile. Her eyes sparkled as she finished with his buttons. He was stiff as a board, and she wondered if he was more afraid of being touched by a woman, or being touched at all.

A quick glance at his wounds sobered her immediately. She swallowed hard. It was apparent that he had done nothing for them, perhaps feeling that getting drunk would ease the pain a little. She gently prodded at his heavily bruised ribcage expertly, determining that he had broken one. He whimpered slightly with every touch. There were several cuts that had healed over sloppily, and would likely get infected without treatment. She shook her head at him disapprovingly. He looked away sheepishly.

Airica opened the medical kit and pulled out a cotton swab and medicated oil to clean the cuts along his side. As she worked, she tried to force the image of Reno and his cohorts beating Cid to this degree out of her head. Finally, after several minutes of quiet labor, punctuated only by Cid’s hissing gasps and painful grunts, she was finished. She absently stroked her fingertips along his chest and stomach as she checked for spots she’d missed, and he moaned in a rather different way. Her head snapped up and she cocked an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he spat out, shooting her an intense glare. She jumped a little and giggled, looking back down at his exposed torso.

“Nothing,” she said innocently. Biting her lower lip, mischief in her eyes, she gently stroked his ribcage again, lightly grazing his skin with her nails. This time, he tried to muffle his vocal reaction, but to no avail. A quick downward glance told her that he was enjoying this more than he was letting on. She smiled suddenly, happy to be able to make him feel this way.

‘If there’s anything that this man needs…’ she thought to herself, the sentence trailing off unfinished. Her smile disappeared and her face took on a serious expression as her fingers lightly toyed with the upper hem of his pants. At this point, Cid’s breathing was beginning to sound labored and ragged. She glanced up and saw that his eyes were closed. Her stomach began to feel fluttery as she realized that he was giving her permission to do what she would with him. She decided to take this opportunity.

Reaching one hand back up to gently brush along his chest, the other began to slowly unbutton his pants. When the zipper gave her trouble, she continued stroking his collarbone and leaned forward. She caught the button with her teeth and pulled the zipper down the rest of the way. Her nose brushed against his abdomen, inspiring a rather loud moan to escape Cid’s lips. His hands reached down and gripped the barstool he was sitting on, as if he were preparing himself for a rough landing.

Airica sank down to her knees, positioning her face directly in front of his crotch, and slipped her hand inside his underwear. She almost gasped…the stories she’d heard about him had been spot-on. She paused a moment, then removed it from its fabric prison. She began to move her hand up and down the shaft, brushing over the head when she reached the top. Cid was now gasping and moaning openly with every stroke of her hand, and she began to feel a familiar heat between her own legs. She brought her mouth forward and slowly ran her tongue up the length of his erection, and he grew very silent. She glanced up at him and saw his eyes still closed and his mouth hanging open a little. He had thrown back his head, as if he was afraid to look down at her, as if he was afraid she would disappear.

She ran her tongue down now, back to where she’d started, then doubled back up towards the top. When she reached the head, she carefully moved her mouth over the top and slid him slowly between her lips. She’d had some practice with this, and had long ago learned to stifle her gag reflex, and she slowly took him in inch by agonizing inch, until she held him entirely in her mouth. After a moment, she began to bob her head up and down, and he cried out at her movement. With every noise he made, she changed her pattern, picking up speed or twisting her head back and forth, causing her lips and tongue to spiral around his shaft. Whenever she reached the top, her tongue would flick over the slit, causing him to groan loudly. At some point, his hands found their way into her hair. His fingers tangled into her boisterous curls, and he grasped her head gently. When she gauged he had neared his peak, she began to increase her speed, and he gasped again.

“Oh, fuck…” he whispered. “Oh, fuck, Airica…goddamn…I’m so goddamn close…”

Now she was bobbing her head almost ferociously, sliding up and down with an intensity she couldn’t remember ever exhibiting while performing oral sex before. He finally came with a mighty groan, his fingers gripping her head even tighter as she continued to pump up and down on him. He came for a long time, so long that she was beginning to feel a little proud of herself by the time he finished. When he was done, she continued very gently, very slowly maneuvering her tongue around him until he was soft again, illiciting halting, shuddering grunts and twitches from the ex-pilot.

She slid her mouth off of his penis slowly, then carefully tucked it back into his pants and zipped them up again. Her fingers grazed his chest one more time as she stood and looked down at him.

His head was lowered, almost, it seemed, in humility, as if he were bowing before her. A single wet drop fell upon his knee, causing a dark splotch, and she understood why he hid his face from her. A grown man wasn’t supposed to cry in front of a lady. She reached her hands behind his head and pulled him close. At first, he didn’t respond, but then he stood up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace. They stood like that for a long time, rocking back and forth slightly, before he finally pulled back. He opened his mouth to speak, to say anything, but Airica smiled and placed a finger over his lips. The tears that glistened in his eyes spoke to her louder than any words could. His hands still loosely wrapped around her waist, he bent his head and his lips met hers for a long, gentle kiss. He released her, turned, and slowly left the tavern, leaving Airica standing there, her knees weak and her hands shaking.