oOo

A/N- This will be the only chapter where the notes come first. I decided to revamp this a bit, and I'm thinking of retitling it because "waiting For Dawn' was just a title I pulled out of my ass. Also upping the rating due to future chapters, and adding little quote things at the beginning. They're all from VAST songs, and I want at least one line from every one of his songs, so you know this will be going for a while. After the quote I'm saying what song it's from instead of who said it, because the same person said them all.
Some of these chapters come from a separate canon than the rest, but I'll specify which ones do. They're not going to be in chronological order, though there will be 2-3 chapter arcs that are. FF7 isn't mine. Tom McKenna, Alden Telder, Nate Banning and Joan Masterson are. And I like boys.

With other boys.

Consider yourself warned.

oOo

Prelude: Of Musing

There was nothing for it, he couldn't work anymore. Rufus frowned as he set down his pen and stared at the half finished performance review. It was difficult to be objective about this one; he never found anything difficult to be objective about. This was elusive, but at least he knew how much it was. Before, this abstract invasion on his sense of detachment irritated him to no end, and he denied it vehemently. He wasn't sure what changed, but it made him smile as he shut the folder on the pen No, he knew he couldn't complete this review. The simplest solution would be to drop it into Tseng's inbox.

Wincing at the crack as he stood, though it didn't really hurt, he fussed idly with the slight disorder on his desk. Normally he could work for days at a time, stopping only long enough to reorganize his desk. His current record was over two hundred hours straight. The Turk head made him swear never to do it again after he passed out at the two-hundred-thirty-five mark during a board meeting. Insomnia was less of a problem now; he had a reason to go to bed.

File deposited. The chain of command was a beautiful thing.

At the elevator, he pulled out a card and key on a short chain, the card emblazoned with the metallic number "80" and waited. There were only two of these cards, and only one key. The eightieth floor was inaccessible from anything else. The plain metal key opened the elevator doors when it finally reached the pass card destination, and he was prompted for a pass. Leaning forward to the small embedded mic, he uttered his access code, gingerly, subtly touching the 4 and 8 buttons. These were the only two that scanned his fingerprints. Touching any other key while the security system performed this operation would give him, or anyone who tried, a considerable shock.

The doors slid open silently without issue, as always. The only door at the end of a short hall had no lock; after so many levels of security to get to this point, anything else would be pointless.

Keeping quiet, he took a quick shower- another change from before, when his showers tended to turn into lengthy endeavours. However, he paused when finished, standing before the clear mirror over warm counters. Though months had passed since his cure, he still marvelled at his clear skin, pale, almost silver fingers resting against the warmer hues of the marble surface. In his imagination he could trace where the stigma had tracked mercilessly over him. Very occasionally, he would check to see if it had come back.

He covered himself with a white satin robe and stepped lightly through his flat to the bedroom which had been his and his alone for years... now shared with another, though he didn't mind. Far from it in fact.

He was much more careful, conscious of every step as he came up to the bedside. Just because he'd been working late, he didn't need to wake the other, or there'd be a raucous almost every night. He beheld the form on the bed before him; he wouldn't be considering bed or sleep now were it not for this person...

He let the robe slide from his shoulders and gather at his feet, leaving him bare in the darkness at the foot of the bed. He stood a moment, feeling no shame or vanity listening to the soft sighs of his love. This wasn't anything he could have done before, and certainly not appreciate. Too abstract in his world of tact... though it wasn't so much so anymore. Like a scent on the breeze it found it's way into every part of his life, there when he denied it, when he took it in, always. It was choosing to see that it was there that had nearly destroyed him in the past... but time healed all wounds, it seemed.

In his practiced way, he slipped between the sheets, disturbing the mattress almost not at all and slid his arms around the one he loved.