Prompt: Tseng/Rufus, how they look out for each other, set to this SeaBound song - Watching Over You.
Warning: This story contains male/male relationships. If you are offended by that, go read something else.
Rufus stared out the window at the city. Midgar at night was a blaze of brilliant colours floating against the pooling shadows; it seemed as though no matter how many lights lit the city, they couldn't quite get rid of all those dark places. He'd think it an apt metaphor if he weren't aware just how useful those dark corners could be.
No need to get rid of all of them.
Midgar had been held up as a shining beacon of the future once, but it wasn't a clean or pretty kind of city, and Rufus had a hard time ever imaging it as such. But it was his, now. He wondered just how much went on down there that he would never know about; how many people already plotted against him? Avalanche was an enemy he'd thought dead and forgotten, but someone had resurrected it, made it a valid threat once more, and it felt a little like the past coming back to haunt him.
Rufus thought about the SOLDIER on the roof, the one who had almost killed Dark Nation. Strong, yes, but according to all reports he was also mako-addled, with no real recollection of his own time within ShinRa. One of Hojo's mad experiments, and Rufus thought it was past time the scientist be held to account for all that he'd done.
Unthinkingly, one hand reached for the other arm, for the place on the inner elbow where the veins showed vivid under the skin, and a small scar remained: the last trace of something he didn't even remember except in a confusing blur of images that sometimes surfaced in his dreams.
He had not been joking when he said that he saw no need to use money to gain obedience when fear would do as well, and there were some people that Rufus very much wanted to see cower before him.
Better still if it was the last sight that they ever saw.
The lights blurred as his eyes unfocused; it made the gap where a reactor flare should have been more noticeable. Once he'd helped a terrorist group strike against ShinRa, happy to see his father's empire take any blow, but now it was his. The destruction of one of their reactors at another's hands - that wouldn't be happening again.
Behind him, the door opened and closed. He didn't hear the soft footsteps that crossed the carpet, but he fancied he could still sense the presence of the man who had entered as he drew nearer. So he didn't jump when a hand rested lightly on his hip, although he couldn't quite halt the shiver as breath ghosted against the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck.
"Tseng," he murmured. He tilted his head to the side a little, let out a small sigh as the Turk stepped in closer, resting his chin against Rufus's shoulder.
"You don't approve," Rufus said after a long moment.
"It is not my place to approve or disapprove," Tseng said evenly, as if it were nothing to him.
Rufus made a small sound of derision. "Ah, yes, of course. Turks have no opinions of their own; they're company dogs." A pause. "Tell it to someone who doesn't know just how much you and your men have done in their own interests over the years." The words had a sharp lash to them.
"And since you threw your lot in with ours, have those interests ever conflicted with yours?" Tseng replied smoothly.
"It's a new game, now. My father is gone, ShinRa is mine, and the Turks are no longer unconsidered pawns. You find yourself in a position of influence; can you honestly tell me you have no desire to use it?"
Tseng was silent. Rufus swallowed, staring blindly at the glass before him and the reflections it held, because – what should he have expected, really? Tseng had always been surprisingly honest with him, but then he was all too aware that for every word the Turk said aloud, there were a dozen more that he held back. Rufus had grown up within the hall of ShinRa Electric Power Company, understood that power and politics were everything; why should this be any different?
For a moment, he felt too young, foolish, stupid, the teenager that he still was chronologically, and not the man he had made himself in a bid to not only survive, but come out on top. In the glass, his reflected face remained as impassive as that of the man behind him.
"When I joined the Turks, Veld told me that I was no longer an exile or an outcast; I had a place that I belonged, and it was there." Tseng's words broke the silence, and Rufus held himself still, because there were some things that Tseng never spoke of. "When I became his second, he told me that when I took his place, I would have two responsibilities. The first was to protect the company's interests. Although I have not always followed your father's orders, I do believe that I have done that. The second was to protect the Turks, and to recognise that in protecting the company I would do this, because it is where we belong. The Turks are mine to watch over, but they need a purpose, too, and that... is not something I can offer. You, though – you have always a clear vision of where you want to go, even if it's not what I would have chosen. You give them that."
Rufus twisted about in Tseng's arms they were face to face, Tseng's dark, enigmatic eyes mere inches from his own. "And if my vision gets your Turks killed?"
Tseng took a step forward, pushing Rufus backwards. Then another, until his back was against the window, and he could feel the cold chill of the glass even through the rich, heavy fabric of his clothing.
"ShinRa is not, and never has, been a kindly master, but Turks are junk-yard dogs. Vicious mongrels, all of us, regardless of breeding. We wouldn't know what to do with kindness." The words were a low murmur, soft despite the implicit threat. They held Rufus captive far more effectively than the body that pressed against his, than the hands that held his hips in a firm grasp.
Rufus had always known his Turks were dangerous, and Tseng, so soft-spoken and polite, the most dangerous of all. It was what drew him, fascinated him, and he knew that whatever words crossed Tseng's lips next – polite nothings or deadly threats – he still wouldn't pull away. That sense of impending danger drew him like a promise. "What makes you so certain I am any better than my father?"
"Because." Tseng ducked his head, closed his teeth on the skin of Rufus's throat, right above the pulse, and tugged just a little. Rufus let his head fall back, a shudder running through him. "We know our own."