Chapter 7

The cerise liquid was finally clouding his mind, and drowning away his emotions. Rufus gazed deep into his glass. The memories were beginning to recede again, which was good as he didn't feel like taking another trip down memory lane. He leaned back completely into his seat, his glass still in hand watching the bubbles travel to the surface.

He glanced about his surroundings, it wasn't his choice for this rich atmosphere. His eyes drifted to his company, the bright blonde in the red dress caught his attention first; a drink was held delicately in one hand while a cigarette was flung around wildly in the other as she explained something. Scarlet, his eyes narrowed, the woman's attire screamed whore, but contrary to everyone's opinion she actually earn her position as Head of Weapon Development. Still, that didn't mean that he cared for her at all, she was a twisted, bitter individual. Heidegger was next to her with that obnoxious laugh, he was Head of Shinra's Public Safety Maintenance. Heidegger and Scarlet had the most influence of what happened in Midgar, to much influence if you asked Rufus. Heidegger was a rather large man with an extremely short temper, however, he always managed to keep himself calm around Scarlet. Rufus often pondered if they had a secret life on the side, but shuddered at the mental images. On Rufus' extremely close left was Palmer, he was...special, which was putting it as nicely as he could. He was a short fat man that acted more like a child then an employee, how he ever became Head of the Space Exploration Department would forever remain a mystery. He was almost always at Rufus' side begging for things or complementing him at every chance he got. Rufus took a deep drink of his wine, Palmer would be lucky if he reached his next birthday before he strangled him with his own intestines. Now the only real person he could stomach here was Reeve, Head of Urban Development, he was always full of ideas and was without a doubt the hardest worker in Shinra. However, at the moment Reeve was quietly sipping his drink and listening to Scarlet. The only thing Rufus didn't like about him was that he wasn't nearly bold enough.

Rufus took another sip of his drink and looked back into it, watching the bubbles. Today was another bad day, he felt like jumping off the nearest tall building, or anything else that would even hint at the chance at death. He had to put up with his damn father again, still treating him poorly after all these years. He was twenty-four and more than capable of successfully running Shinra, in fact much better than it was currently. They often bickered over Shinra and it's many problems, but his father never took any of his thoughts into consideration. He felt, useless, to say the least, as if he had never aged in all these years. Maybe it wasn't him that needed to die, but his father, Rufus started to grin.

"Sir? Are you alright?" Reeve's voice broke his train of thought.

"Hm? Oh, yes I'm fine." Rufus pulled his eyes away from his glass and looked over at Reeve.

Reeve looked at him with a bit of worry plastered on his face, he then waited till Scarlet and Heidegger went back to chatting before he motioned a Turk over.

"Reno would you escort the Vice President to his apartment?" Reeve said bearly over a whisper.

Reno gave a slight nod and tried to help Rufus to his feet, but Rufus pushed his hand away and walked out of the restaurant fairly graceful. Nobody looked at him strangely, so that was good. Reno followed closely just incase he fell off course, and opened the limo door for him. Rufus stepped quietly inside and sat down, then quickly moved over as Reno pushed him further.

"Hitting the alcohol a little hard tonight?" he sprawled out in the seat.

Rufus glared, "That's none of your business."

Reno grinned and leaned back, "Have you ever considered getting laid?"

"Have you ever considered growing a brain? My sex life has nothing to do with my getting drunk. I'm just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Now if you'd remain quiet I could think this through."

He shrugged and looked out the window sitting quietly for a moment, "You know it's been a while maybe you need to vent? Always makes me feel better."

Rufus rubbed his temples and tried to avoid the subject, "What ever happened to Rhett and Randy?"

"Well, Randy got injured real bad and had to leave, then dad figured Shinra wasn't the same with him and quit shortly after he went to go work somewhere else."

Rufus just listened as Reno rattled on, it was good he was so easily distracted. Maybe now he could think about straightening his life.

Reno got silent then stopped the driver, "Alright if you don't wanna talk about it, then there's one simple solution."

Then again maybe there's more to Reno then everyone thought. He watched Reno leave the car and then return a few minutes later.

Reno held up a case of beer, "Alcohol has been known to help. "

Rufus opened his mouth to object but closed it again figuring maybe tonight he should just let it all drown away. He'd worry about everything thing tomorrow. The limo came to a stop in front of his apartment building and Reno opened the car door for him and slowly they made their way up to his place. Rufus groped the wall until he found the light switch then kicked off his shoes and threw his coat on the nearest chair. Reno had also made himself semi comfortable and collapsed on the nearest chair. Then the alcohol began to flow again, after the beer was gone they had raided the kitchen for Rufus' wine collection. Eventually, they began to relax a bit more.

"You know..." Rufus was staring at the empty bottle leaning on his leg, "I don't think I'm cut out to be Vice President. He never listens to me all he does it abuse me mentally, not only that but I want to kill Palmer. My life is going down the hole I don't think I can wait for my father to die."

Reno watched him quietly from his chair for a while before speaking up, "You'll do a great job, I've got a hunch your father won't last much longer. Not the way he's pissing you off," he swung his legs over the arm of the chair "Don't let it bother you he treats everyone like crap, I mean sure you've been taking it your entire life, but there are worse off people than you. Just stay on the bright side."

Rufus glared at him, "The bright side...right. I don't see how drinking helps me at all."

Reno grinned, "I said I had a solution I never said who's, you can't keep all this crap bottled up."

Rufus shrugged and went back to his drink and let it slowly take control of him. Morning quickly came and with it came a loud knocking on the door. The knocking was then replaced by the happy face of Tseng who gladly opened the curtains. Rufus tried to remain as still as possible hoping the nausea would pass, but instead he found himself running to the bathroom. Shortly thereafter he flopped back down in to his chair and looked out the window. Perhaps, he just needed to swallow his pride and just wait. After showering and getting ready he turned and looked at Tseng.

"How am I doing?"

Tseng smiled, "Your doing great, sir."

Author's Note: When in doubt talk it out! As you can tell by now I'm running low on brain power. So I'm making the official announcement Chapter eight is the final chapter. Weird, ending on my lucky number...ah well the last chapter is kinda planned out in my head. Another off note, I'm sure you can tell the difference between the first chapter and the rest of the story (at least I can), this is due to the fact that this story was started -counts on fingers- five years ago.