Rufus slipped into Tseng's office.

Between the two of them, there had never been a need for him to knock, or for Tseng to invite him in. As a Turk - however junior at this point in time, however held back by the bastards and bullies of the upper administration as he was - Tseng worked for the company, for Shinra, for Rufus. Endlessly. Tirelessly. Without question, and without distraction. Whatever the reason and whenever Rufus walked in, his presence was allowed - welcomed - by default. There was no longer very much space for awkwardness between them. They had been thrown together by time and circumstance and a shared outlook on humanity, and little could be driven between them. And there was their closeness. Rufus peered into the dim ambience of the Turk's office, the darkness seeming to inhibit the room and fill its corners. It was a deeper, older opaqueness than what the twilight introduced to his room. It was part of Tseng, verily, just as the coolness of steel and wide windows were part of Rufus. There were no windows here, only an antique office desk lamp which cast long shadows across the spaces between.

Tseng was getting changed, his jacket left hanging on the back of his work chair. Considering that he practically (and, on not rare occasion, literally) lived in his office, it was of no surprise to Rufus to find him in that state of half-undress. It was preferable to some of the states he had seen Tseng in; bleeding, bruised, injured, weary, exhausted, barely alive. His expression did not shift as he watched, the neutrality of his own face also shifted by the lack of light. Tseng had his chin lifted, the sharpness of his jaw a jagged, quasi-pale relief against the gradual slope of his shoulders. The dress shirt was already in place, its starched whiteness seeming to glow in the gloom. Rufus leaned against the wall and watched as the man slipped a length of black cloth about his neck, actions swift and sure and born of mechnical memory as the older man pulled the tie through a series of loops. The beginnings of a perfect Windsor knot began to form, and if Rufus had been one to allegorise it seemed like the gentle furling of some dark bud, complex and complicated and symbolic.

Rufus remembered the first time he had---

First day of school outside of the tutors which he had been brought up on. Rufus had been seven years old and uncomfortable with his stiffly starched white shirt. It was supposedly a public school which he was attending, but as his father would have it, the school was really not so much a "public" school as a "school where admission was not completely monitored by Shinra". Rufus did not understand then what it meant - "Need for a public figurehead, a simple representation of our integrity, a tangible object for public perception. He will do." - but he did understand that listening to what his father told him to do ensured that he avoided a beating.

On the dawn of the day itself he had stood, confounded, lost and confused with a tie in his hand and no idea what to do with it. His mother had been in her room, recovering from that which Rufus was not allowed to speak of. All the times before she had been there; holding his hand when his shoulders hurt too much, pulling his collar up when something had shown, adjusting the hem of his shirt to make him look presentable. He had been five minutes to late when his driver had sent someone authorised enough to head up the elevator to come collect him. The man in question had shot him a look with the wary eyes of prey approaching a downed predator before approaching, asking in a voice too timid for so large a man if sir had needed any help if that was not too presumptuous of him because well yes, yes sir.

Rufus had looked at him oddly, which made the man wince. He had merely needed to extend the tie - mute and unblinking - and the older man had attended hastily to him, almost afraid of touching Rufus, almost a plebeian in the face of a god.

He had gone to school feeling awkward, and tried to do something to make himself worth loving.

-

'Mother?'

'Yes, dear?'

Rufus shuffled into the room, face half flushed and a tie in his hand. He opened his mouth to mumble a request. 'I... want to learn how to tie this properly.' He stepped a little further into the room, edging closer in small degrees. He was a small child asking for a grown-up thing.

'Oh,' his mother gushed, bringing her petite hands up to her mouth as she looked at Rufus for a moment. From where he stood, eyes shaded because he was half looking to the floor, Rufus could tell that she was biting her lower lip.

He failed to see why. There was no way, after all, that he could possibly have understood how it was for the woman in white. He had no way of seeing how much it tore at her already wretched heart to see her only son and treasure demand, however unconsciously, for a further piece of his independence. A woman with so little was having more taken from her, but she had to bear it like a woman of true strength, a woman of tragedy.

'Darling,' she exclaimed softly in that melodic, unbroken voice of hers. She brought her hands down to smooth the material of her dress, wiping out the wrinkles in the fabric like she wiped the creases from her brow. 'Darling, you don't have to learn how to do that just now,' she cooed, stepping closer and stooping to Rufus' level, fussing over the turn of his collar and pulling it into place. She bustled forward, allowing maternal pride and maternal sacrifice to buffer her and give her strength and will enough to endure. Her child was growing up. She pushed the light blond strands of his hair - so very much like hers - back and out of Rufus' eyes, leaning forward to press a lingering kiss to his forehead. 'I'll always be here to do it for you,' she promised him, kneeling so that she could look directly into his blue eyes - so very much like his father's. She leaned in, breaking the gaze, and pressed a teasing kiss to his nose before reaching for the tie. 'Here,' she said, looking down to disguise the glistening wetness of her eyes. 'You do it like this.'

Rufus stood very still as his mother pulled the tie about his neck, turning up his collar as he did so. Why is she so tender? he wondered, blinking at the golden halo of her hair. Why is her touch so different from my father's, and why does she love me when he does not?

'You start,' his mother said, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly, 'like this.' She tugged gently on the material to get Rufus' attention, and he nodded blankly, still lost in thought and the dizzy ambrosia of her perfume. Why does she smell so beautiful? How can someone my father beats smell so beautiful? The tie was rearranged a little more, and then Rufus felt his mother twisting the cloth into shape. 'You pull it to the side,' she was saying, 'you pull it to the side like this.'

How can your hands be so gentle?

The material slithered into place, obeying the command of fingers which had never known brute strength. The whisper of it against his skin almost made Rufus shudder, the feeling of something so close to his throat for some reason not frightening to him at all. To a boy who jumped at shadows in the night, to a boy who felt fingers against his throat when he had a nightmare, to a boy who envisioned a life without abuse - to feel the pseudo-noose around his neck and to fear it not at all was a revelation.

'And then you double that side back...'

How can you touch soothe me?

A myriad of almost-tangles formed under those fingers, fingers which had the delicacy of a saint's, the delicacy and the hallowedness of a saint's. The snaking slip of cloth on cloth, layers of the same stuff winding around each other. Little fronds of fabric, a swift pull making them all come together. Rufus had never known anything so perfect than that moment; his mother's hands and his mother's skill and his mother with her scarf slipping off one shoulder to show a bruise.

'Tilt your neck up, darling.'

I would lift my head up high for you, mother. More than for anyone. Because you are so strong, and I want to be strong for you.

Pulled together, like a double-ended strand of fate, curling and made beautiful by a love Rufus could not hope to measure.

'Thank you. Now, pull it up through here.'

Do everything for you, mother.

'And then you push it up.'

Rufus found a perfect Windsor knot at his throat, a beautiful bloom pulled tight and kept shut. 'Thank you,' he murmured. His mother exhaled, pulling back. Then she could take the sight of him no more, and buried him in her arms, resting her cheek against the top of his unmoving head and saying in her voice, 'Oh, Rufus.'

-- tied a tie himself.