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Chapter II
I realised why no-one in the boardroom was listening to me this morning. I was trying to outline new procedures for dealing with Weapon; if you could call them that. My prime directive was probably just to run away with Reno if it got dangerous. National defense plans were written, troops mobilized, what troops were left alive and sane. I spoke clearly, and slowly enough for even Scarlet to understand, but then something stopped me. The sound of laughter. Reeve was joking with the guards about meaningless things, Heidegger may as well have been humping the walls for all I cared, but they were paying no attention to me. And then I realised that they couldn't hear me, because........I couldn't hear myself. They filed out with an air of solemnitude, that last vestige of respect ground beneath their heels for me to sweep under the carpet; Reeve's cigarette ash, residue from the soles of Scarlet's cheap stilhettos. I sank into the cool concrete, a coarse triumph no expensive furniture could conceal. A twinkling sheet of heat and static blankets my brain, daily exerting the exact degree of pressure it needs to govern my father's empire, albeit with varying degrees of justice, and not a lot else. Vibrant Turk, protect me, calm my shakes with caffeine. Maybe I will spill a little on your smooth-scarred throat and spirit it away with featherlight kisses. My Reno, traverse these perspex citadels and find me, fly from the great swell of pain and visceral battle, the denizens of a false mirror image of feudal society, find me, save me.
* * *
I am still waiting, although what I am expecting, longing for even, has changed. Since Rufus called to me through screaming silence of a metropolis on its knees in desperation, to rescue him from his seraphic curse, those beautiful breathless convulsions he so fiercely denies yet could not survive without. I ran to him, my heart and my arms ablaze, devouring their own emptiness. I found him leaning against the wall of his office, his pupils dancing amid the shadows tattooing his opulent prison cell. If Shinra is the life-blood of this land, our love must surely be its tears. My employer's eyes shone with liquid, his gaze swimming toward me, his sobs floating on a sigh of something like relief. I held back my grief at having to see him so, and scolded myself for finding it so damn arousing. He cried for me once before, some private sodomite's peep-show, while I sweated and buckled beneath him, taking in hour after hour of tireless love on his mother's bed. Suddenly he moaned, perhaps to the tune of, "Cloud", that single sacrosanct mantra shattered our rhythmic synergy, his hot spasmodic thrusts each a spear marked for every ghost or demon in every corner of heaven who would deem our adoration immoral. The President's tears smashed against my arched spine, agonised needles raining down acupuncture on the nearest receptive underbeing, deliverance for the damned. Rufus, my lord, I love you. At that moment the aural world shifted violently although seeming to take for ever, an hour's explosion played out in a second. I heard a pulsing intonation coming from all around me, from inside my most secret self and from him. The resonance of a bell replaced the usual droning vibrations, as though the entire universe were glistening, baptised in the brilliance of the new-born night, and in the radiant black glow of our love. I smiled down at him, for the memory of that night and so many others, willing myself to tell him it would all be all right. I could not lie to him. He asked me why my eyes still mourn as my mouth smiles.... Iron-clad rose, why do you seek the answers you are already certain of? My eyes glitter with tears long after they are shut in sanguinary sleep for all the love I have lost, yet I smile for all the joy I have found in you. Why, then, will you not admit me here? Will I disrupt your power facade, darling? I am jealous of my lover's lap dogs, who are privileged enough to sit with him here, his polyester army suffocating him for the sake of democracy. One woman has remained in his employ for fifteen years, her sole duty to fetch the Shinra archangels their coffee. As if coffee was anything like what Rufus needed.......I made him one anyway. He likes it warm, not boiling, unsweetened, and stirred until it almost matches the colour of Tseng's skin. Not that Tseng is any kind of barometer because he's never here. Screwing that Ancient so relentlessly might have sent him green by now. I shuddered, envious for all the wrong reasons. I'm glad to be rid of him, but I know that the slums will not relinquish beauty without a fight. Neither of them will ever leave that subterranean temple, bound to each other by the genetically-ingrained filth of Midgar, they'll just burn each other out. Exactly like us.
Chapter 3 coming soon......beware
For everyone who has reviewed my various tortured ramblings, and for Miriya, just because I can, and because Dark Nation can chew my shoes anytime. *Ahem*.
Chapter II
I realised why no-one in the boardroom was listening to me this morning. I was trying to outline new procedures for dealing with Weapon; if you could call them that. My prime directive was probably just to run away with Reno if it got dangerous. National defense plans were written, troops mobilized, what troops were left alive and sane. I spoke clearly, and slowly enough for even Scarlet to understand, but then something stopped me. The sound of laughter. Reeve was joking with the guards about meaningless things, Heidegger may as well have been humping the walls for all I cared, but they were paying no attention to me. And then I realised that they couldn't hear me, because........I couldn't hear myself. They filed out with an air of solemnitude, that last vestige of respect ground beneath their heels for me to sweep under the carpet; Reeve's cigarette ash, residue from the soles of Scarlet's cheap stilhettos. I sank into the cool concrete, a coarse triumph no expensive furniture could conceal. A twinkling sheet of heat and static blankets my brain, daily exerting the exact degree of pressure it needs to govern my father's empire, albeit with varying degrees of justice, and not a lot else. Vibrant Turk, protect me, calm my shakes with caffeine. Maybe I will spill a little on your smooth-scarred throat and spirit it away with featherlight kisses. My Reno, traverse these perspex citadels and find me, fly from the great swell of pain and visceral battle, the denizens of a false mirror image of feudal society, find me, save me.
* * *
I am still waiting, although what I am expecting, longing for even, has changed. Since Rufus called to me through screaming silence of a metropolis on its knees in desperation, to rescue him from his seraphic curse, those beautiful breathless convulsions he so fiercely denies yet could not survive without. I ran to him, my heart and my arms ablaze, devouring their own emptiness. I found him leaning against the wall of his office, his pupils dancing amid the shadows tattooing his opulent prison cell. If Shinra is the life-blood of this land, our love must surely be its tears. My employer's eyes shone with liquid, his gaze swimming toward me, his sobs floating on a sigh of something like relief. I held back my grief at having to see him so, and scolded myself for finding it so damn arousing. He cried for me once before, some private sodomite's peep-show, while I sweated and buckled beneath him, taking in hour after hour of tireless love on his mother's bed. Suddenly he moaned, perhaps to the tune of, "Cloud", that single sacrosanct mantra shattered our rhythmic synergy, his hot spasmodic thrusts each a spear marked for every ghost or demon in every corner of heaven who would deem our adoration immoral. The President's tears smashed against my arched spine, agonised needles raining down acupuncture on the nearest receptive underbeing, deliverance for the damned. Rufus, my lord, I love you. At that moment the aural world shifted violently although seeming to take for ever, an hour's explosion played out in a second. I heard a pulsing intonation coming from all around me, from inside my most secret self and from him. The resonance of a bell replaced the usual droning vibrations, as though the entire universe were glistening, baptised in the brilliance of the new-born night, and in the radiant black glow of our love. I smiled down at him, for the memory of that night and so many others, willing myself to tell him it would all be all right. I could not lie to him. He asked me why my eyes still mourn as my mouth smiles.... Iron-clad rose, why do you seek the answers you are already certain of? My eyes glitter with tears long after they are shut in sanguinary sleep for all the love I have lost, yet I smile for all the joy I have found in you. Why, then, will you not admit me here? Will I disrupt your power facade, darling? I am jealous of my lover's lap dogs, who are privileged enough to sit with him here, his polyester army suffocating him for the sake of democracy. One woman has remained in his employ for fifteen years, her sole duty to fetch the Shinra archangels their coffee. As if coffee was anything like what Rufus needed.......I made him one anyway. He likes it warm, not boiling, unsweetened, and stirred until it almost matches the colour of Tseng's skin. Not that Tseng is any kind of barometer because he's never here. Screwing that Ancient so relentlessly might have sent him green by now. I shuddered, envious for all the wrong reasons. I'm glad to be rid of him, but I know that the slums will not relinquish beauty without a fight. Neither of them will ever leave that subterranean temple, bound to each other by the genetically-ingrained filth of Midgar, they'll just burn each other out. Exactly like us.
Chapter 3 coming soon......beware
For everyone who has reviewed my various tortured ramblings, and for Miriya, just because I can, and because Dark Nation can chew my shoes anytime. *Ahem*.