warning: this contains homosexual (male/male) content.
note: this is not a sad ending. Rufus will not die, and eventually the Geostigma is cured.
Pairing: Rufus and Kadaj
Plot Specifics: in a relationship where they are head-over heels in love with each other, but neither really says much about it despite the fact they are in a serious relationship, and there is always a constant battle for the upper hand.
"I found the apartment! I found it!" Kadaj came running up to the tall figure leaning against a broken building's last standing wall. With a flailing wave of his left arm, he called out, "Just the sort you wanted, President. Come on, let's go!"
Unfolding his arms from where they were crossing his chest, Rufus sighed and straightened up from the wall. The other man was being loud and obtrusive–noticeably so, as if he was seeking attention from everyone around him, not just Rufus.
Can't he be a little more patient or hold back some? he thought. But despite the admonishing words, an adoring smile pulled his lips upward and forced him to admit the impatience was something of a quality. It was just Rufus's luck, or fault rather, that he saw it as Kadaj's most endearing trait. Who else but him could see it as such?
Lifting a hand to tighten the bandage wrapping around his head, Rufus found that the looseness was beginning to stretch further. It was like a useless ribbon now. After unwrapping it quickly, he tossed it aside, allowing it to land on the shadowed ground of the alleyway first before flying off on a slight gust of wind.
I don't need it anymore anyway, Rufus thought with a shrug as he dug his hands deep into his coat's pockets and began to head out of the abandoned alley. When he heard another shout to hurry from the other man, he said, "I heard you, Kadaj. I'm coming."
At the response, Kadaj gave him a wide, open grin before turning and leading the way down the desolate street. No one but two dirt-smudged orphans were around, so at least Kadaj's yelling shouldn't bother anyone.
Except him. A head pounding suddenly hit Rufus so hard, he fell to his knees on the wet ground. Kadaj's voice began to echo with his previous shouts, his words of the past 12 hours repeating over and over in his ears and making him feel pained, irked, and crazy all at once, within mere seconds. It was beginning to drive him insane!
"President! Hey, Rufus!" Kadaj's voice in the present reached Rufus only distantly, but it began to push through the receding words of the past.
Nonetheless, Rufus whacked away the hand pulling on his arm and snapped, "Shut up! I hear you! Stop screaming in my ears all the time!"
Despite his protests, Kadaj didn't relent and began to pull Rufus up with a harsher force. Instead of being hurt or offended, he simply held him up using his body to support Rufus's weight and began to turn down the street once more. Kadaj mumbled under his breath, "I don't know what's hurting you, Rufus, but I'll drag you all the way to the apartment by myself if I have to."
The rather comforting words silenced Rufus and his struggling, and he let Kadaj take him toward their destination all by himself. The help had been offered to him, right? It would be rude to refuse it. What he found a little irritating was that Kadaj didn't find his weight a problem at all. He was definitely stronger than he looked.
"Hey, where are we going? This is out of the city, right?"
No answer was given. It was strange for the hyperactive guy to be so quiet. He never knew a moment when Kadaj had ever been quiet.
"I liked it better when you hadn't dyed your hair. Purple suits you." At that, he got a low chuckle in response. It felt soothing, in a way, to feel the shoulders beneath his head shaking.
"You don't like my hair black?" Kadaj asked finally, once they reached the building right on the border of the city. "I could always change it back. Anyway, we're here. I don't think we checked here before, right?"
"You're right," Rufus replied as he slowly began to pull his arms back and lean away to blink up at the tall building. Kadaj squeezed his hand and prevented him from straightening up, however, making Rufus return his confused gaze back to the other. "You can let go now. I can walk myself!"
Kadaj scoffed. "No, you can't. You're still shivering. I never thought I'd say this, but you feel weak. Or I mean, I feel you feeling weak. I guess I'm saying you look weak?"
Furrowing his brows in annoyance, Rufus muttered a few incoherent words and turned away to glance back at the building. He was only turning his attention on the apartment for a moment first, not escaping the argument he felt threatening to rise inside him. Just checking out whether the surprisingly clean metallic walls really aided the building's structure, or how what surely must be a strong ceiling and roof was carrying the huge satellite atop it all. As he noted the high class appearance of the apartment among all those not-so-tidy and poorly made buildings, however, the desire to argue with Kadaj was soon forgotten.
"How do you find these things?" Rufus asked in a wondrous tone. Stuff like this always managed to make him curious what characteristics or talents he never noticed in Kadaj, or more like what other things he was hiding from him. "And how do you ever find out the information that you know?"
"I have my ways. You've got yours, too, but you don't tell, now do you, President?" Kadaj replied with an arrogant smirk, then began to ascend the metal ramp toward the back of the building.
"It's the Shinra company. I have to keep our activities highly classified."
"Yeah, well, mine too."
"Because they're illegal, no doubt," Rufus muttered as he shook off the firm arm around his shoulders and dragged himself to the black leather couch sitting by one wall. They'd made it into their room which seemed already checked out to them. "And you moved in our stuff already as well? If you told me earlier, I could have helped!"
Sometimes Kadaj did things ahead without even informing him of anything, and it was times like this that made him feel completely useless. And now he was in pain for some unidentifiable reason, and Rufus even needed assistance walking over?! Digging his right hand into the armrest of the sofa, he glowered at Kadaj's back while the other pulled back the black curtains from around the floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the far side of the living room.
Their apartment room was pretty lavish, too, of a caliber that only his company should be able to afford. At least he knew it was his own money which had bought all this and their property, even if it meant bankrupting himself. Rufus could handle that. He just hated his helpless situation, abandoned by all except Kadaj.
Now the other man was replying, but Rufus couldn't hear a thing above the memories jumbling his mind. His brain was scrambling right that second with flashbacks of Kadaj, all those moments they spent in each other's company as enemies, all those days he spent in agony over the loss of Kadaj, those months which he lost Shinra Corporation by himself but lived in the saddening and yet needed presence of Kadaj.
Did all these images of the past mean something? Was there a purpose in having these flashbacks now, right this second?
No! The Geostigma is returning! But why, and how?! Rufus wondered as he stared at the grayness spreading down his sleeved arms into what's visible of his hands. The painful sensation was so familiar, and not in a good way.
"Kadaj!" Rufus called to the other, who was staring out the open window. When he turned, he shouted, "My Geostigma has come back!"
"Rufus!" Kadaj was beside him in an instant, kneeling and grasping Rufus's shaking hands in his own pale ones. "Hey, what's happening?! Why–Why is the Geostigma back?!"
Slapping his hands away, Rufus leaned into the back of the cushions and scrambled to the other side. "Don't touch me! I–"
If the disease is returning for some unknown reason, and I'm getting memory flashbacks of Kadaj because of it...Rufus shook his head to clear his confused mentality, which was obscuring the ideas emerging from his thought process. None of this has happened before. It could mean what was previously noncontagious might now be contagious. And Kadaj already touched–
Rufus shoved at the hands reaching out to him, then leaped off the couch. "Kadaj, this might infect you! Something odd is occurring, so that's not an impossibility!"
"But...Mother isn't here anymore, is she? How could–" Rufus was turning away to bolt, but Kadaj had already jumped out to keep a strong grip of his hand. "I won't let you fight it alone, Rufus! I won't let you leave me!"
"Kadaj." With a sigh, Rufus felt all his strength deflate and allowed himself to drop to the floor. If I'm having flashbacks of just Kadaj, which has never happened before, is there some meaning to it? Does it mean...I'll lose him a second time? Could it be "Mother's" way of warning me?
"I won't run. Let's see if any of the children also has this," Rufus suggested, forcing himself up to his feet again. With a short disbelieving laugh, he thought, Damn, I feel weak. I don't just look it.
"No, you'll stay here. I'll go check. Alone!" Kadaj pushed Rufus easily back onto the sofa, then left the room.
Yeah, don't want to be seen like this, huh? No, I can't even move anyway, Rufus thought with another sigh and dropped his arm to cover his eyes. Laying there, he felt a million times more helpless than he ever had before in the past year. At least it's no longer spreading. Only my hands and shoulders. Warning me in this way will definitely wake me up, Mother. I'll be sure he's care–
Bolting up into a sitting position, Rufus stared at the closed door in dawning horror. He'd let Kadaj go! Kadaj will never return to his side again–
The door slammed open, revealing the familiar sight of Kadaj's black suit-clad body, and Rufus sighed in relief. He had come back.
"Hey, what's up with the sigh? Explain to me why you did that!" Kadaj demanded as he stormed over and sat directly behind Rufus. "And I checked all around the neighborhood. No sign of the infection anywhere."
"I had visions of you in the past. Ever since the day we met," Rufus said. "You can piece it together. It started on the street corner right before we came here. I had them again sitting here just ten minutes ago."
"Right before the stigma appeared..." Kadaj mumbled. "Visions of me? Are–Are you saying Mother is giving you a warning?! About me?!"
Rufus didn't understand the angered reaction Kadaj was making until he said, "I'll never hurt you! Not you!"
"No! You're misunderstanding! Sh–She's warning me I might lose you again! That something will hurt, or even kill you!" Rufus rested his elbows against his knees and buried his face in his hands. "I don't want that to ever happen again..."
Rufus was startled when he felt the body pressing into his back and Kadaj's face burying in his neck, but then he calmed himself and shut his eyes, keeping them covered by his hands so that his tears wouldn't be noticed.
"You won't lose me. Believe that. I won't lose you, either. We'll figure out how to cure you. The Lifestream is still everywhere around us."
Sometimes Kadaj annoyed him, and he constantly had him seething mad. But sometimes he was also the hardest person Rufus had ever fought, and fighting him now was no different. Not as long as they still loved each other.
"I'll believe you."