Once more Rufus awoke to find himself on the metal operating table in the labs with Hojo watching and taking notes on the mako drip attached to the beaten body. The drip was actually a new thing, something that Hojo had introduced due to Rufus's growing tolerance of mako and the fact that it had different, smoother effects than thirty-minute shots. It was vaguely aggravating having a needle stuck into one's arm and no less painful than any other mako treatment, but it reduced the need for restraints and gave the scientist something to get excited about while his patient remained unconscious.
"Ah, you're awake," the scientist said, shuffling forwards and peering down at him. "Two minutes faster this time; your enhancement is remarkable."
Rufus, not yet able to speak yet as his jaw hadn't quite healed enough, managed a withering look and a weak flick of his left hand's fingers. Hojo nodded as if more than to himself than to his patient and jotted down notes on his paper, reaching over and adjusting the drip absently.
"It seems the mako is replacing your nutrition at this point. As a doctor, normally I would suggest you eat more, but I'm quite too curious on what mako as food does. You're definitely far more mentally developed than even Sephiroth was at this stage although I'm not sure that has to do with the mako or not."
The more time he spent around Hojo, the more the scientist became both endearing and loathsome. Frankly, Rufus couldn't stand the man, couldn't stand what he knew the man was capable of and had done, but he couldn't say that Hojo was not a good scientist. He was; he just wasn't ethnical. That was what bothered Rufus most of all—Hojo's lack of morals—besides the fact that Rufus himself was now starting to become quite dependent on the scientist's care.
"How much does the mako hurt?"
"Ergh," was all Rufus managed, his jaw and left cheekbone burning with the restorative properties. "Shit."
"Well, at this rate, you'll be fit to return to work in about two hours." Hojo looked distinctly disappointed. "Your father really is a stupid man. Mako always leaves a mark."
"Uhn," Rufus responded in agreement, his right eye twitching spastically in the pain.
"I wish you were my kid," Hojo said absently, shuffling back to the machines.
Silently, Rufus thanked whatever deity there was on the planet (no matter what the Lifestream said or did, he wasn't quite sure even that truly existed) that this was not the case.
--
Turkish Delights
--
9
Lolita
--
Dragon's Mists and Melts was certainly not a place a twelve-year-old would normally know about. But, Rude thought, considering who Rufus Shinra had as a father, it shouldn't have seemed so strange that the boy had requested that a Turk make contact with a whore. The President had requested much odder and uncomfortable things of the Turks before.
For a brothel, Dragon's was actually a pretty nice establishment; the sheets on the beds were clean and the workers were clean and well-enough mannered. It was also fairly expensive, and Rude himself had only been there a few times with other colleagues, normally the one standing outside and waiting to drive everyone else home. There was a wide range of selection, which, of course, was part of Dragon's appeal, so it attracted many customers and kept its clients happy enough not to complain too much if one fuck didn't go over well.
A tough man met Rude at the door, his arms crossed and effectively blocking most of the entrance. "What do you want here…" Eyes swept over him quickly, "Shinra security employee?"
Rude fished out the gil from his jacket pocket and handed it to the man, who counted it quickly before storing it away in his breast pocket. "I'm looking for someone named 'Reno'."
The man nodded and motioned Rude inside to the lounge. Motioning for him to wait, the bouncer disappeared behind one of the many curtains for a few minutes before coming back out, his breast pocket empty and another person at his side—a boy with fire-red hair and a slight playful smirk to his face. The child wore a black shirt with a splash of red on the front and similarly decorated black pants, but it was the smirk that truly made him stand out.
"Get out here," the bouncer snapped to Rude before returning to his post.
For a moment, Rude stared at the boy, wondering what exactly was going on until Reno reached out, took his hand, and lead him through the curtains. They made their way quickly down the hall and into one of the last rooms decorated in ornate, sensual furniture and beddings. Reno flopped down on the bed, crossed his legs, and smiled coyly up at the older man.
Rude stared. "You're Reno?"
The boy blinked, laughed almost but caught himself. "Yeah," he said in a cocky tone, "I'm him. It ain't like I'm pretendin' to be anyone else. But if you want me to…"
"Wait, wait, no." Rude waved his hands, groping in his pockets and extracting the box. "I was told to give this to you."
A suspicious look came to the boy's face, but he took the box tentatively, still eyeing Rude with apprehension. With quick fingers, he snapped the latch open and extracted a Shinra ID card and a folded sheet of paper, smoothing out the creases in a surprisingly gentle way, alluding unconsciously to his current trade. His eyes flickered over the letter quickly, eagerly, and it shamed the Turk slightly that he'd considered momentarily offering to read the note to the boy.
From between the thin, shapely lips, a small pink tongue darted out in thought and Rude shifted uneasily. The older man had long since come to terms with his own unusual tastes, but this… feeling… was wholly inappropriate. Not professional, not even legal, but this was Dragon's and Dragon's was special in many ways.
"So…" Reno's voice, for someone hardly into his teens, was thoughtful, calculating. "That's the offer."
"Offer?"
"You haven't read this?" Reno asked, looking up with an eyebrow raised. "I thought you was the one coming to do the persuading to make me a Turk."
Turk? "I was just delegated this job by service to a friend from someone higher up. If that's the offer there, then it stands as such."
Reno nodded, slowly, before reclining back onto the cushions on the bed, a vacant look in his eyes. He twisted a lock of red hair in his fingers, an action that made Rude become increasingly uncomfortable, and stared up the ceiling.
"…I didn't want this life," the boy said suddenly, pensively.
Rude shrugged, at a loss for words. "Does anyone?"
"My mother did. She loved it." Reno sat up, nodding to himself. "Take me up to the plate and this job, Turk-man. I ain't got nothing to miss here."
--
Damn it.
It was raining on the Wutai front. Men sat in their foxholes, breathing like amphibians in the mud, their eyes trained to the scopes of their guns and hearts pounding. Across the atrocious muddy field, they knew the enemy laid in similar wait, breathing just as they breathed and shivering in the wetness, the howling wind.
Damn it.
Zack wiped a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth and shifted uneasily, his legs brushing against the teen's at his side. Cat-silted eyes stared out over the top, and Zack had long since stopped questioning the Colonel's forgoing of the scope he wore at his belt. The rain drops pelted down on them and Sephiroth's hair was a dirty grey, purposefully dirtied to blend into the battlefield.
Damn it.
They hadn't had supply shipments reach them for the last two weeks, and the morale was dropping swiftly among the troops. Even Sephiroth had begun to show wear and tear, his lithe, young form slightly on the bony side and a certain sort of tiredness in his glowing eyes. When the dark, heavy nights settled, the wind carried the sounds of men crying, of men praying, of men singing or screaming.
Sephiroth blinked, faster than he normally did, longer than he normally did. The teen was tiring, both their stomachs growling, and Zack found himself sneezing much than usual. The Colonel's cape was wrapped tightly around both their bodies and they shivered together to generate warmth.
Their intercom crackled, the small machine running out of batteries. "Orders to attack at half-past, Squads Four and Five. Colonel Sephiroth, cover with your troops."
Zack resisted the urge to bash his head against his Buster Sword; it would neither him nor his commander any good at all. Sephiroth responded quickly, quietly, relayed the order, and then started to watch the field again, rolling his neck to get out the cricks.
And, for the first time, Zack heard Sephiroth say, so softly but so meaningfully, "Damn it."
--
His office smelt distinctly of cleaning products, and his desk was neat—something so odd that, if he hadn't known any better, he would have sworn he'd walked into the wrong room. The leaves of the potted plant in the corner were rather battered, and, Rufus supposed, he should request the plant replaced sometime soon.
Groaning, the boy sank into the leather desk chair, the mako still burning in his veins and the healing not fully finished. It frightened him slightly that he was becoming more and more passive in responses to the pain, but, he supposed, it was just something he'd have to deal with later on once this part of his generally constructed plan was completed.
The plan.
Rufus sighed and stared wearily down at his knees. Four months and counting with a good drink; he had never considered himself an alcoholic, but, the longer he went without his vodka and cognac, the more he found himself thinking about them, dreaming of them even. It was getting to be a distracting obsession, one that included twitches and sweats, nervous energy that he had to work very hard to burn off.
He drummed his fingers on the desktop.
Now that he thought about it, Solomon Shinra was an alcoholic as well. Maybe it ran in the family or something? But his father drank whiskey and gin, crappy stuff, really. Rufus ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head to clear his rampant thoughts.
The plan was going well so far. The speech had gone as he'd hoped and things were playing out as Rufus remembered although he had sped up a few happenings. It seemed that there were certain events that Rufus could not stop from happening; his mother was still missing and Tseng's family had still died. Tseng still had that way of stroking his hair, the way that always turned Rufus into a puddle of proverbial, senseless cooing goo. In fact, Tseng was way better stress relief than vodka had ever been and –
Rufus groaned aloud and resisted the urge to pound his head into the surface of the desk. He wasn't getting any work done this way, and there was no one for him to blame but himself and his emerging hormones. With some horror a couple weeks back he'd realized that, due to his age in this time, he would probably have to go through the entire process of puberty again. Mentally, he was already screwed over enough, but now…
"Rufus-sama?"
Mentally, Rufus screamed in frustration, but, physically, he just remained staring at his knees. In silence, Tseng entered the room, shut the door, and came over to kneel beside his charge in the leather chair. They shared a silent moment, one that Rufus broke, something sinking inside of his gut when Tseng's dark eyes softened into concern, the Turk's long fingers reaching up to tug down the collar of the black turtleneck.
"Tseng…"
The red, puckered skin there had not been healed by the mako as, technically, it wasn't damage that was actually done to the body. It was just an irritation, just a mark, but it hurt the most, made Rufus's chest constrict and his spirit bleed.
Rufus grimaced and pushed away Tseng's hand, smoothing the high collar back over the mark and hiding the others. Against his will, the Vice President knew his face was burning with the shame that seared his soul, knew that there was little he could do now that Tseng knew. The look in the Turk's eyes was enough to cut what little pride Rufus had managed to maintain since returning to this past.
"Rufus-sama…" Tseng's voice was even, but there was fire in the Wutaian eyes. "What is your father doing to you?"
It wasn't true; Rufus wasn't strong. Even as he tried to change the past, it was repeating all around him, no matter what he did. He couldn't change what he wanted to change. Hopelessness was already setting in. The plan was worthless, pointless, if he couldn't even stop his father from doing this to him again.
"Don't." Rufus moved to swat his bodyguard's hand away, but Tseng proceeded and yanked down the collar, the red skin splotches numerous along Rufus's neck line and shoulders. "Tseng, it's nothing. Please…"
Tseng's eyes had narrowed, and he ghosted the tips of his fingers over Rufus's skin, eliciting a shiver from the younger male. "This isn't right," he said venomously; "I know you want to stand up to your father, but if this is the price you're paying –"
The angry words were abruptly caught off. Rufus pressed his lips against Tseng's, silencing him effectively, breathing heavily, and reaching up unconsciously to catch the man's fingers in his small hand.
"Please…"
And time, for once, seemed to stand still.
--
Dedication Note for This Chapter:
To my father
Even though we don't see eye to eye
In politics, economy, or relationships,
You are my father and I your daughter
And I shall never hate you for that