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damned_institute2007-01-22 01:33 pm
soul-defender.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2007-01-22 01:33 pm
Entry tags:
- albel,
- azel,
- barret,
- eddie brock,
- edgeworth,
- edward elric,
- hakkai,
- haku,
- havoc,
- hisoka,
- hojo,
- hughes,
- ichigo,
- kadaj,
- kaylee,
- kenren,
- lyta,
- mal,
- nowe,
- obi-wan kenobi,
- phoenix,
- qui-gon jinn,
- rabastan,
- reinforce,
- renji,
- reno,
- river,
- robin hood,
- rufus,
- schuldig,
- seimei,
- squall,
- vincent,
- xigbar,
- yohji,
- yuffie,
- zelos
Day 21 - Sun Room
Ichigo was only too eager to leave the cafeteria and its fresh memories behind when the softened chime of the intercome rang clear. What had begun as another ordinary meal, a rather agreeable one despite the lack of the proper utensils, quickly became somewhat unnerving. His conversation with...what was his name again?...took so many sharp turns, he should've felt dizzy. It was easy to feel a little sorry for the guy, though; surrounded by stangers in a very strange place, it was hard to blame him for being so alarmed.
The Sun Room occurred as a more enjoyable choice to spend the time; he had nothing against music, but something about being surrounded by some of the most unruly characters he'd ever met, each of them armed with cacophonous weaponry, didn't sound smart. Once his nurse departed, the young man picked out a cozy little spot near a flood of sunshine and settled in, cradling his head in the palms of his hands. There, he stared up almost bitterly at the ceiling with sharply focused eyes, still exuding the same unapproachable sense of being as ever.
The room was warm, even a little comforting, for any of the tired, weary masses found in Landel's halls, or even those who just craved a little peace and quiet. All he could hear, from end of the room, were soft footfalls and hushed voices. That sounded just fine to the 'berry head.
The Sun Room occurred as a more enjoyable choice to spend the time; he had nothing against music, but something about being surrounded by some of the most unruly characters he'd ever met, each of them armed with cacophonous weaponry, didn't sound smart. Once his nurse departed, the young man picked out a cozy little spot near a flood of sunshine and settled in, cradling his head in the palms of his hands. There, he stared up almost bitterly at the ceiling with sharply focused eyes, still exuding the same unapproachable sense of being as ever.
The room was warm, even a little comforting, for any of the tired, weary masses found in Landel's halls, or even those who just craved a little peace and quiet. All he could hear, from end of the room, were soft footfalls and hushed voices. That sounded just fine to the 'berry head.
no subject
A glance around the room brought some relief (Yuffie and Wallace were busy and wouldn't be pestering him), annoyance (Kadaj was there), straight out loathing mixed with the desire to shudder (Hojo) and while he did spot Reno, he didn't head towards the Turk for the time being. The man looked to be talking to someone else and Rufus usually disliked it when he was interrupted in something. For all he knew, the Turk might be working to establish his own network of people to move around at night with. Not a bad idea that.
Settling into a chair that left his back to the wall, Rufus studied the others in the room while his mind worked over the problem before him. He hadn't counted on Kadaj's ability to fall through completely, but it did give him information he hadn't possessed before. What he needed was a weapon in truth. That would make all the difference, at least in his mind. Unless it was a gun, it might be useless in his hands, but in that of Reno, things might be different.
What he needed now was another plan.
no subject
Reno dragged a chair up across from Rufus without much of a warning. He flipped the chair around and sat straddling it, his arms hanging off the backrest.
“Hey. You up to talk shop?”
There was still a bit of an awkward air between them, but he shook it off. Whatever had happened had happened, and however Rufus might be feeling was just that. Unless Rufus brought any of it up himself or it proved to be a definite wedge between them, Reno was more than willing to let it remain buried. There were more important things to take care of. Although he still couldn’t stop an inward wince every time the words he’d spoken last night surfaced...
Part of the pen cap snapped off inside his mouth suddenly. He frowned and spat it out. Jeez. He hadn’t been chewing that hard, had he?
no subject
When the pen cap snapped off in Reno’s mouth, he had to fight down the urge to smirk. It shouldn’t have struck him as funny, but it did. Sitting up in his chair, Rufus straightened his clothing automatically, remembering belatedly that he wasn’t wearing his usual suit. If there was thing he hated about this place besides the monsters and occasional homicidal maniac, it was the clothing.
“I will never wear clothing like this ever again once we get out of here, Reno. I swear it,” he grumbled as he gave the Turk his full attention. “And yes, we can if you like. What’s on your mind?”
He could hazard a guess at what it could be, but he preferred to be told rather than start babbling. There could be roughly three things right off the bat that he could think Reno would want to talk about.
“Missing the cigarettes still?” he asked, gesturing towards the pen.
no subject
“Hope not,” he said. “You might give Tseng a stroke.” He wanted his own damned clothes back, too. It wasn’t important, technically, but it was just one more shit detail in the pile.
“The coming nightshift, for one.” He drummed his fingers against the backrest of the chair. “’Leena’s healed up faster than expected. Seems that’s one bonus this place offers. If she’s up to walking, I want the three of us together tonight. I’m thinking me and Elena’re safe from the Special Counselling bullshit since we hitched that ride already. You’re injured, so you might have a good chance of catching a break, too.”
Hopefully. Or the bastards might have a Shin-Ra theme going on here.
“Kadaj would be the other.” He caught Rufus’ eye. “I’m not asking for a complete outline on whatever you’ve got planned, but anything that’s gonna involve me somehow...a heads up might be nice, is all.”
He glanced down at the mangled piece of plastic that was in his hand as Rufus pointed it out. The pens provided actually had more uses than he’d expected.
“Among other things.”
no subject
"While he might have a stroke at seeing us, imagine how he's look in here with us."
There was humour in Rufus' eyes, there and gone the next moment as his mind clicked on to something else. At the mention of them remaining together, Rufus' brows drew together, mouth drawing in a line. This was something that had to be said even if he'd prefer not to. Lying to himself hadn't ever been one of Rufus' strong points.
"Reno, I am aware that you are not my Reno. I trust my Turks. We went through the end of the world twice, once with Meteor and a second time with the remnants. You and Elena seem close. If you wish to not stand by me, I understand. I imagine I may be something of a disappointment to you as I am not your Rufus Shinra. Last night, you seemed more for it being you and Elena alone. I need to know where you stand."
He paused there, watching Reno with that bland look that said whatever he was feeling or thinking inside that none of it was getting to the surface.
"With Kadaj, things are over there. He's too dangerous and unstable to work with since he cannot do what I want. I'm finished with him. I've gotten enough seeds of distrust planted among him and Yazoo that it should slow them for awhile."
He feared as much as he needed Reno's answer. He could and would accept the man walking away from him. Or so he told himself. Rufus liked to know where he stood, to know who was at his back, and what he could count on. Reno's decision yesterday had taken away that solid ground. Not that he blamed Reno really. This was an odd situation all the way around.
"As for the Special Counseling, should I get it, I expect you and Elena to stay away from me. I tend to load my shotgun with birdshot. It would mow the legs out from under a person. My handgun is loaded with Glaser Safety rounds. They don't ricochet, and they blow apart on impact. Designed for large surface wounds, meant to cripple. I imagine your Rufus Shinra shoots like I do."
no subject
It was only with the mention of his being close to Elena, though, that he realized it wasn’t just about last night. It was more than that. He had, in effect, chosen to look after Elena more than Rufus, but—
“Fuck, it isn’t like that, all right?” he said, managing to keep his voice low as not to be overheard. The last thing he needed was for some outsider to witness this. “The problem isn’t you. You’re my President. We’re off by what, several months? A year? Elena’s off by a whole lot more, and I don’t know what the hell to do with that. She’s smart for her age and she’s even somewhat trained, but training doesn’t mean shit when you don’t have field experience. Besides, she’s still a kid. She’s sixteen, for God’s sake. Hell, I hadn’t gotten hurt that badly at sixteen, and I lived in the goddamned slums.”
He paused, taking a deep breath and raking a hand through his hair. “As it stands right now, I trust you can handle yourself better than Elena. At the very least, I know you can think clearly under pressure. It’s why I have a closer eye on her than you. But my loyalty remains with all of you and I’ll only say this once, but I do care about all of you, too, okay? The only reason it’s never been a damned problem is because you were the only one I had to watch out for. Now we’re in the heart of hostile territory, and I’ve got to watch you and Elena. I can only do so much. Don’t make me fucking choose who the hell I’m supposed to protect like we’re in some sort of goddamned protector-protectee twist on the love triangle. I can’t do it.”
For a moment, he watched Rufus, unsure of what he was searching for. He ignored the topic of Special Counselling and Kadaj for the time being.
“Now, my question is where you stand with me. We may not come from the same timeline, but I’ll be hard pressed to buy that any doubts you might have stem solely from the fact that there’s a bit of a gap, if you’d already trusted me at the point where I came from, and you still trust me at the point where you came from. Either something happened in between that time, or you haven’t trusted me up until the events I missed out on.”
no subject
Rufus continued to study Reno as he spoke, that poker face still all he let out. When their eyes met, there was nothing there except for the watchful wariness that was part and parcel of Rufus Shinra. He matched Reno’s low-pitched voice. This could very well land him without anyone on his side, and he had no desire for that to reach Kadaj’s ears. Rufus had a reputation for being brutally honest as well as cold and cruel. He knew it, and as much as he hated to now, he had to be. Landel’s was dangerous, and survival beat tact.
“I think you’re better off with Elena then, Reno. If something happens, and it’s me or her, I don’t want you to have to make that decision and I surely do not want to be on the losing end of it if I’m counting on you performing your duties. Kadaj said that Elena brings things on her, and I’ve read some of it. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. She has her protectors. You can go be one, but I don’t defend stupidity. Perhaps she needs to learn. I don’t know. I wasn’t associated with Elena when she was at that age and I don’t know how much of what Kadaj said is true.”
Rufus spread his hands apart, the mask cracking for a moment. The man inside it was unsure and worried, standing on the edge of frightened. His bland and remote expression was firmly back in place at the mention of his Reno and trust.
“I’m not a trusting man, Reno. You broke my trust the other night. I did defend you though while you were being mentally manipulated, and I would even now. You’re an unknown quantity. Even when you sat down with us at lunch, you chose between her and danger. I don’t think it’s conscious anymore. You two have bonded quite well in a very short time. For that, I am glad for you. All the same, I have to be concerned about my own safety now that I’ve found myself stripped of the protection I’ve relied on most of my life.
“I trusted and trust my Reno implicitly and without reservation even before when you were taken from your timeline. He and the other Turks could have easily left me for dead in the ruins of Shin-Ra Tower or while I had Geostigma. I sent my Reno along with Tseng and Elena to retrieve Jenova’s remains from the Northern Crater. As I said before, only Reno returned. He left them behind to accomplish the mission. Later, Kadaj discovered I had Jenova’s cells while he and the other remnants were searching the planet for them. In the course of events, he fired at me, and I jumped off the building. Tseng and Elena deployed nets to keep me from splattering all over the street. My Reno went up and over his own partner to reach me first while I was struggling to sit up in those nets. As soon as he did, the first thing I told him was that I needed him to risk his life for me again by going to set some of the most powerful explosives Shin-Ra had. He went.”
Rufus rubbed his hands together, the closest he was willing to come to showing upset over the situation in public.
“I don’t know if you would do the same.”
no subject
Dammitdammitdammit.
Reno tossed aside the pen he was still holding, frustrated. “Look, I don’t want to join her little group of knights in shining armour. What I want to do is cram years’ worth of training into her in as little time as possible so I don’t have to keep watch on her and you could have two Turks by your side. That would be our best case scenario right now, short of getting out of here. She’s not the most mature person in the world and she’s been a bit of an idiot when it comes to Kadaj, provoking him like that. But where I came from, she entered the Turks in the middle of a crisis. In that regard, she learned a hell of a lot faster than any of us. I’m gambling on the fact that her potential’s still there, and she can do the same even at sixteen.”
The response he got from Rufus was in no way a surprise. And he didn’t blame him for questioning the extent of his loyalty. But the sudden use of third person irked him. It shouldn’t have, but that the President was willing to let him go stung.
Dammit. Since when the hell had he become dependant on anyone?
“I know what happened in the Northern Crater,” he said. “I was there for that much. You wanna know why I left them behind? Because if I’d jumped in, all three of us would’ve ended up dead and we would’ve completely fucked up the job. My best bet was getting the hell out.” He leaned forward. “There are two reasons I do things. One is because it’s the best option I see. The other is because you tell me to. If I don’t have the second, I go with the first. And I haven’t had the second since we’ve been here. You’ve essentially left it up to me to make the calls, and I’ve made the damn calls. I’ve sworn loyalty to you and the Turks. My default setting is to protect both as best I can. I’d just as easily risk my life for any of them as I would for you. The only difference is that I don’t take my orders from the Turks.”
There was a brief moment of heavy silence as he paused. “Obviously, my word doesn’t mean much to you, and I know I can’t change your mind. I don’t know how to. But I can say that if you order me to do something, I’ll do it.”
Reno stopped speaking at last, meeting Rufus’s gaze dead on and letting the President search him for whatever the hell he wanted to. He’d offered all he could offer with his last words there. It wasn’t up to him whether Rufus took or not. He was too tired to give a shit anymore.
No, he was lying. He did care. But if there was one skill he’d mastered, it was bullshitting to himself.
no subject
“She is not the woman Tseng… what? He…?”
Needless to say, no one had ever bothered to inform Rufus that Tseng had done such a thing. While he hadn’t been blind to the situation, Rufus had honestly believed that nothing would ever come of it. It defied his logic to try to imagine Tseng of all people having a life outside of Shin-Ra. That matter had to be put away for now.
“Regardless, she is not the woman Tseng asked to anything, and when all things come to their end, his job is to defend me. I would like to think that means something to him.”
That cold look stole over Rufus again, the man shoring up his defenses and not allowing a sign of weakness. It irritated him beyond his ability to express that he was without the supports he had expected to be there for so long. Maybe that was why Elena irritated him. What he wanted was the older, more precise woman that he could understand instead of this helpless creature that came across to him as foolish.
He listened quietly to the explanation of what had happened at the Northern Crater. It didn’t shock him really given how the Turks operated. Rufus’ fingers threaded together, his gaze sliding down to them as he tried to find the words he wanted. Nothing seemed to fit, none of his usual speeches coming to mind. This was unfamiliar and uncharted territory for him. Again, he had that feeling of being balanced on the razor’s edge. He was trying to stay detached here, to juggle keeping Kadaj away from his people as well as keep himself alive, and now deal with this difficulty he hadn’t expected to encounter.
Every instinct in him had been screaming last night to simply kill Reno or at least rendered him unconscious. To hell with any sort of negotiation, just flick that EMR up to full power and let him have it. Intelligently, coldly, Rufus knew that’s what he should have done. However, it wasn’t what he did. His fingers tightened around each other, bearing down hard enough that he could feel bullet wound along his right arm begin to send out darts of pain despite what he’d been given by the nurse.
He hated not having control. Fucking hated it more than anyone would ever guess. It pushed him to his limits to not have a hand in how things went, who did what, and when it was done. His whole life had been scrabbling for that control, even going so far as trying to kill his own father while still a teenager to get it and keep it. This place, this Reno, and this Elena spun that control out of his hands as if it were a spinning wheel of razorblades, leaving him to stare stupidly at his own bleeding hands when it happened. While Reno could operate alone, Rufus didn’t have that experience. When he had looked to a Turk, there had always been at least one behind him… except for when Diamond WEAPON had nearly killed him.
“You fail to realize that I can’t order you to do anything, Reno. I can’t pay you. I can’t enforce any order. I can’t make you do anything. We’re not at Shin-Ra. We’re not even in our own world according to some of them.”
He lifted his head, staring at the Turk straightforward. That mask was there, but small cracks lay along the edges of it. This sort of conversation wasn’t one Rufus had or allowed himself to have, needing to win and needing to be right. It stressed him to attempt to be open like this when it skirted so close to a vulnerability. This frightened him more than Kadaj, more than the monsters of Landel’s. The worst they could do was kill him.
“I can’t order you to do anything.”