Rufus stared down into those eyes that had held so much promise and so much love for the longest time. His breathing was becoming sporadic, was slowing down as the red locks were played through the president's fingers, stroked. Rufus watched the light starting to leave those eyes. He watched the redhead starting to let go, and in his mind, Rufus looked back on the things that had transpired to make things go the way they had.
**********
There were certain things to be said about a woman in pain. A woman that had caused so much pain, writhing in agony on the floor from the emotional pain that the bald man was channeling through his being, administering to her. Diane took a deep breath, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out if she was still alive or not. And that was the way Rufus liked it.
She was on the verge of death, and he loved it.
She was feeling every bit of the pain, fear, humiliation, and torment that Sephiroth had felt right before his passing. And it tasted so good. He could smell the fear, taste it, almost cut the tension that it caused with a knife, and the young ShinRa knew that the raw, untamed, wildness of it was going to be the woman's undoing. He wasn't going to let her die.
No, she was going to die until she broke into a million pieces, until her soul shattered the way that his friend's had, the way that Reno would never realize that his was. It would never be repaired, and the girl was going to pay in spades for what she'd done, whether she'd meant to break him to that extent or not.
He watched Rude step forward with the baseball bat, watched him level it to those lovely brown locks of hair, rub them to the side with the tip of the bat. One of the curls fell loose from the matted amount of blood on her forehead, dropping against her shoulder as those eyes followed the large end of the bat, up toward the sunglass-hidden eyes. "Please…"
Please? PLEASE?! Rufus laughed as he stood up from his desk and took a few steps toward her. He leaned in and pressed his fingers against her jaw, scratching lightly with his nails. "Please? I don't believe you. You just said please? Please what?"
"Please don't do this."
"Break her fucking jaw." He released her face and only seconds later, the sickening crack of a bat against flesh and bone reached his ears, teeth spattering out and bouncing across the carpet, blood leaving speckle marks against his beautifully pristine white suit and Rude's sunglasses. "Break it again. In another place." Rude stepped around Rufus, to the opposite side. The President saw in his peripheral vision, the sight of the large man drawing back in a swing. He brought the bat down full-force against the other side of the woman's jaw, displacing it, knocking it out of alignment with her face, sending a grotesque image across Rufus's mind, forever burned there but so gladly held onto. "Let's hear you say it again, bitch."
He heard the groaning mumble of the woman in agony, saw the pain and the fear in her eyes, saw the humiliation, saw how badly she wanted to be let go, to just get out of the pain. Hospital or death, he knew she didn't care. And he loved it.
"Let's hear you say you're sorry."
He heard her mumble some semblance of an apology, but the adrenaline and sick feeling in his stomach spurred him toward getting more out of it than just that. She said it again, but he shook his head. "Break her."
Rude didn't have to be told twice. He drew back and started to wail against the young woman's body. Rufus stepped back and took a seat upon his desk again, ignoring the blood spatter against his suit, against his walls, even against his clean ceilings, or formerly-clean ceilings.
**********
Rude took a step back and stared down at it. It being the body that was once a woman, the body that no longer held life or any soul or anything that would signify that she'd done anything wrong. That was the job of a Turk, to turn the guilty masses into a puddle of nothingness. Nothingness so that they could never be mourned for, so that they could never be marked and memorialized. And so she was nothing but a body to be burned and scattered in the slums.
The silent Turk dropped the bat to the carpeted floor with a dull thud, listening to the sound of the wood reverberate around the office. He reached down and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, tapping them to knock two out. He offered one without a word over to his boss/lover and then put one between his own lips. He lit his own, then passed the lighter to Rufus, taking a seat next to him on the desk.
The two men spent the next ten minutes in silence, smoking and staring at the corpse in their presence. Finally, Rude spoke up. "He's never going to get better."
Rufus pressed a hand to his face, holding back the emotion that he knew was threatening to spill forth from the subject. He'd been thinking about it for awhile now. He'd been plotting, thinking, planning. "I know he's not going to get better." He swallowed thickly. "A Turk is meant to die in a blaze of glory, to go down fighting for what he believes in, and I think the fact that we stopped him from doing that, from ending himself, we've really taken away what he was proud of and what he stood for. I've been thinking, thinking a lot. And I think that we need to-" He swallowed hard again, trying to not lose his composure. "I think we need to make him better in the way that he tried to make himself better."
"Meaning?"
Rufus reached into his pocket inside of his blazer, withdrawing a pistol that he kept hidden there. It was a backup from his normal firearm, his shotgun, but it was enough to do the job, should he have been threatened. "The way that he tried to end the problem, I think we do too."
Rude shook his head, pulling something out of his own blazer. "I've been thinking, too. About it, I mean, and I think we need to do it another way." He shook the pill bottle in front of Rufus's eyes. "Some way that's painless. He's had enough pain."
**********
It found them there, staring at the Turk that had once been his favorite. His eyes glued to the wall, his mutterings insane and undecipherable, only the mention of Sephiroth made out from the strangled phrases and dreams that only he saw.
Reno stared into space, chuckling. "Seph… Seph I dunno no more."
Sephiroth leaned down, pressing his lips against his lover's ear, smiling as he saw the newcomers, saw them enter. Or at least…felt or sensed. "They're here. Here to take you away. You've given up on things and allowed yourself to stay here, yo. You're not welcome here anymore and yet you cling to life. You give up or fight? Neither nor. You don't try to fight anymore, yo. Yer a quitter, yo."
Reno rocked back and forth, squeezing his fingers tight into the fabric of his restraining garment as he thought of that. "I ain't no quitter… Seph, I ain't no quitter. I love ya…please don't leave."
"I'm leaving, but… It won't be long." He disappeared as Rufus slipped right through his ethereal presence, scattering what was like he was merely smoke in the air. "Not long at all…"
Rufus stroked his fingers through his turn's bangs, pulling him back against him, placing his head down on his lap. "Hey Reno…" He heard Rude step up and sit down next to him. He watched as Rude leaned forward and clutched Reno by the shoulders, jerking him into a tight hug. He wore his sunshades just right but Rufus knew what was going on. He was saying goodbye as he knew he would have to.
The large bald Turk squeezed him tightly. "Sorry, kid. So sorry we let it go so long. You're going to be okay, promise. Everything's going to be okay. You were like a little brother." He pushed Reno gently back down to lie against Rufus.
Rufus stared down at the redhead, stared at those glossy green eyes, wondered exactly what was going on behind them. He knew it wasn't even worth it to try and find out. Reno wouldn't talk, wasn't coherent…couldn't even figure out they were in the room. "Goodbye, Reno. We're going to miss you. It'll never be the same without you around."
**********
Rufus stared down into those eyes that had held so much promise and so much love for the longest time. His breathing was becoming sporadic, was slowing down as the red locks were played through his fingers, stroked. Rufus watched the light starting to leave those eyes. He watched the redhead starting to let go, and in his mind, Rufus looked back on the things that had transpired to make things go the way they had.
Rufus knew that he wouldn't give Reno's memory up for anything. He knew he had to hold onto it else there would be nothing else left.
As Reno stopped breathing and went to sleep, Rufus collapsed back into Rude's arms and sat there as the body grew cold.
**********
Reno opened his eyes and saw light. Light? Wasn't that cliché? He didn't know if it was or not, though he figured it might've been, but he knew that he was looking at something that fit entirely into the clichéd scene, right down to the wing. Wing? Wasn't it supposed to be wings?
The green eyes were smiling along with the face of the man that they belonged to. Long, silvery white hair hung around his bare shoulders, wind whipping it gently in the light as if he were a seraphim, an angel waiting to take him home. The voice that rang out was rich, happy, something he wasn't used to, hadn't heard in a long, long time even if it belonged to the same illusion/person that he was in love with. "What took you so long?"
Reno looked down at the hand extended, waiting to take his. "Jus'… Needed a little push, yo." He reached out and took the hand, looking back over his shoulder at a solid plume of white. "Thanks, yo. For the push. I needed it."
The two rose quietly into what they were destined to partake in, despite their atrocities. When Reno inquired as to why they were there instead of further south, the beautiful seraphim laughed, those green cat-eyes dancing. "Because Mother forgives infinitely. She loves us, even if we hate ourselves."
"I love Ma, yo."
