FF7: 23 Sep 2005
Crap fic. Not for publication. Doesn’t serve any purpose other than to showcase Rufus excuses, which is lame. Bits of it may make its way into a longer fic, and will likely get changed as I play more of the game. But for now…
Don’t ask me why the characters are there or whether it’s believable or whatever. I don’t know.
-
Alcohol
“Is this seat taken?”
The occupant of the table, a youth with a shock of spiky gold hair, didn’t bother looking up. His blue eyes were glued on the glass in front of him, and bottle that lay beyond was just a blur. A rather less full blur than it had been just bare minutes past, some part of his mind noted, and if he squinted he could see that there was only a thin film of liquid left, barely enough to coat the bottom.
His foggy brain remembered the question, and belatedly, he waved a hand in a permissive gesture. There was the scrape of a chair behind pulled out, and he caught a flash of white out of the corner of his vision as the newcomer took a seat.
“What do you want?” Cloud asked brusquely, draining half his glass in one gulp. He hardly tasted the whiskey; felt only its burn across his tongue and throat as it went down. Crappy alcohol, crappy company, crappy, crappy day… “What would make you venture from your glorious topside to come down to the slums, President?”
Rufus Shinra traced patterns in the condensation forming on the outside of his mug. He had decided to go for safe and stick with beer – at least if it was crap and tasted like piss… well, most beers did, these days, but they were still better than wine, and safer than the harder alcohols. Home brewed crap, mostly, which tasted foul at best and contained lethal amounts of methanol at worse.
His gaze swept the table, eyes narrowing as he noted the bottles that lay, empty on the tabletop, and finally coming to rest on the figure slumped across the table from him.
Tseng had suggested that It was Cloud’s way of celebrating – or more likely forgetting -- some anniversary. Zack’s death, or Aerith’s, or some other unfathomable reason. Rufus was well acquainted with getting drunk, but there was precious little – indeed if there was anything – that would drive him to drink just to nuke his brain cells in a vain attempt to avoid a problem. Avoidance never solved anything.
“I came with an offer, really.”
“Don’t wanna hear your offers.” Cloud’s speech was slightly slurred, and Rufus wondered if he had chosen the right time and place to confront the man. “Don’t wanna help you rebuild Shinra, so go back to your glorious seventy storey building and stop harassing me.”
Rufus sighed. There was no Shinra building. There hadn’t been one for years, not after Meteor had left Midgar a flaming wreck.
“Cloud,” he said patiently, “We’re researching alternative energy sources. We’re moving away from mako power.”
“You’re just in it for the money.” Cloud knocked back the remainder of his drink and called for another bottle. Rufus raised an eyebrow, but did not stop him.
“On the contrary, we’re not only non-profit at the moment, we’re making massive losses embarking on this.” His tone turned faintly ironic. “In the first place, there isn’t anyone left to pay us, let alone fund the research. If I may say so, we’re not trying to rebuild Shinra, we’re trying to rebuild Midgar. And hopefully do a better job of it this time.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
Rufus spread his hands, wincing inwardly at a twinge in his arm – some legacy of having survived Diamond WEAPON’s attack, or the Geostigma, or both. “We are also shipping in supplies to Midgar from other cities. Rations, building materials, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, our convoys come under regular attack, and while I’m not adverse to sparing supplies for the desperate ones who need it, it does mean that those supplies don’t reach the equally desperate ones here in Midgar. We’re perilously short on competent people to—“
The new bottle arrived, and Cloud knocked back a large mouthful of it without bothering to transfer the liquor to a glass first. “You,” he said slowly, almost carefully, “Are so full of crap.”
Rufus could have laughed at that. A trace of amusement flickered across his features, before it was quickly suppressed. “Am I, now?”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that little speech of yours that night when Sephiroth killed the old president. ‘Rule by fear’, you said. Don’t give me the bullshit that the old you died in the attack by WEAPON, because people don’t change like that, and the moment you’re back on the roll, you’re going straight back to Plan A.”
The vision in Rufus’ left eye had never quite recovered fully, so he turned slightly to his side to regard Cloud out of his right one. This aversion to anything even remotely Shinra related had gotten to him once, long ago, but these days that wound was long closed, scarred and calloused. It was merely an annoyance now, a little parting gift of his father and his father’s fucked up administrative policies, returning to haunt him from beyond the grave. And making it very difficult to get any work done, with all this resentment flying in the air.
He had to admit, though, that the “That Rufus Shinra died in the attack on Shinra HQ” was one of the better lines.
But talking to a recalcitrant Cloud was child’s play, compared to the diplomatic warfare that had waged, constantly, in the halls of Shinra Inc. A change of strategy was necessary, but not difficult: it was evident that inane repetition and predictability would not serve to drive his point home, not across ancient grudges and the haze of alcohol.
“No,” he said at length. “You’re right. I am the same person as I have always been. That Rufus Shinra never died.”
Cloud started, then turned his attention back to the bottle. “Exactly, so—“
He almost held up a hand in a customary gesture to cut off the interruption, then thought better of the idea. “—That Rufus Shinra,” he said, using his voice to override Cloud’s, “Never existed.”
Shinra Junior was as good as bullshitting as his father, if not better, Cloud reflected. This wasn’t a day where he felt up to dealing with anything, let alone a smartass fast talking power monger. This wasn’t a day when he felt up to anything Shinra, especially, not when memories were crashing down on his head – Nibelheim, Zack, Aerith, Sector 7, even the Midgar that he had once known – not when all those memories were indubitably tied up with that hated company in some form or another. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” he said wearily.
Rufus leaned back slightly, body language suggesting that he was backing off. But he continued speaking. “We at Shinra owe the world a huge debt,” he said, repeating the words he had spoken back in Healin, months gone in the past. Or was it years? Cloud couldn’t remember. “I intend to repay that debt. I have always intended to repay that debt. However…” he allowed his tone to sour, just a little, in recollection, “…that was not possible in the early days following my ascension to office.”
“I’m not interested,” Cloud shoved back the chair and stood, leaning heavily against the table for support.
“Cloud,” Rufus’ voice was quiet, but it rang with authority. “I apologize for past grievances.”
Silence reigned for a long moment. Cloud found himself staring into world weary blue eyes, noticing the way that the President favored the right one. Golden bangs had fallen across the left, but he made no move to brush them aside. As if consciously avoiding a gesture that had characterized him in the past.
“It was never my intention to rule by fear,” Rufus spoke softly. “Or to land the world in its present state, either directly or indirectly. That speech on the helipad was not for your ears and AVALANCHE’s alone.”
“What?”
“It was not solely for your benefit. Shinra was watching that day. Every executive, every employee that was still alive… had their eyes trained on that scene. Watching. Waiting. Weighing up the new President to see what he would do, faced with this bunch of terrorists who had just invaded and ostensibly killed the old man.”
Cloud found himself scowling. “So you played up a scene for them. Why couldn’t you have set a better tone for your in…inaug…stupid speech, if you’re really as concerned about the world and its inhabitants as you claim to be?”
Rufus sighed and shook his head. “Count yourself fortunate that you were never a Shinra executive. That place is a nest of vipers. Most of them thought I was far too young, too naïve, too inexperienced to take over the company. The old man dying in the confusion? Was a perfect opportunity to take over the presidency, whether by directly disposing of the next in line or taking him down more insidiously.” He leaned forward, beer long forgotten. “I very nearly did not make it back to Shinra headquarters that day. Stepping off the helicopter onto that roof was triumph in itself, and testimony to the skills and the loyalty of the Turks. However, no matter how competent Tseng and his men are, there is only so much they can do to protect me.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Cloud was all too aware that he wasn’t tracking well. The alcohol had hazed his senses, and Rufus’ rambling made it all too hard to follow.
“Succinctly, the old man had bought the loyalty of a lot of his top executives, and they may have been happy with the money while he was still around. I could have offered them the same deal, if not better, but that was no incentive when the greater prize was in sight – the opportunity to seize power themselves. I had to break away, step in a new direction… use a new incentive to keep them in line.”
Comprehension dawned. “So you used fear.”
“Scarlet, Heidegger, Palmer… these people do not —did not— know the meaning of altruism. The betterment of the world was not a phrase in their limited vocabularies. Loyalty and playing fair were certainly alien concepts. They did, however, understand the carrot and the stick perfectly well.” Rufus paused, evidently remembering his drink again. He took a long gulp, a distant look in his eyes. “There was no time for me to consolidate my position. Had things not turned out the way they had…” A pause, followed by a shrug that dismissed the issue and relegated it to the realm of speculation. “What is important is the future. And now that I am freed of any need to play power games, we can focus on higher things.”
“Money.” Cloud couldn’t stop the sarcasm from leeching out.
“Far from it.” Rufus passed a hand over his eyes, and Cloud recalled that it had only been months since Kadaj and the passing of the Geostigma. The illness was gone, but the man still looked tired, pale from years of hiding from the sun.
“Far from it,” Rufus repeated. “To be perfectly honest, I do hope to get Midgar’s economy back on its feet in the long run, but that’s for the city’s sake. As for Shinra, this research and start up is going to cost us a hefty amount… suffice to say that there’s no way we can recover the losses on this venture, let alone break even or turn a profit. Not even in the long term. Certainly not in my lifetime.”
“So why did you change your mind?”
Now Rufus ran his hands through his hair, brushing aside the unruly strands that fell across his face. “Don’t you see, Cloud? Money can’t buy you everything. Money in and of itself means absolutely nothing. I have billions of gil stashed away, and a fat lot of good that’s going to do me. Or anyone. I…” and Cloud saw something flash across the other’s face – longing, perhaps, or wistfulness. “…I have done this world a great wrong. Somehow, I was given the chance to correct that.” He turned away, gazing off into the distance.
“Please, Cloud. We need your help.”
You too, are a citizen of Midgar.
The unspoken words hung in the air, and it seemed as though all the alcohol had abruptly evaporated from his system.
Rufus. Asking. Pleading, in his own right, and this was not the first, but the second time he was doing so. Cloud could never have imagined the old Rufus saying these words.
That Rufus Shinra never existed.
“I’ll… I’ll consider it,” he replied, and Rufus glanced back, giving him a small smile.
“Please do.”
Rufus watched as Cloud weaved his way through the crowd, evidently more unsteady on his feet than he thought he was. As the doors to the bar swung shut, he glanced down at his beer, scowled, then shoved it to one side. The mug clinked against Cloud’s abandoned bottle.
“You are so full of crap, sir,” a grave voice sounded from over his shoulder. Rufus didn’t bother to glance up as Tseng glided past to take Cloud’s former seat.
“I’m hurt,” he shot back. “Do you doubt my sincerity?”
“You, sincere? I know you better than that.” But Tseng was smiling – the tiniest upturning of the corner of his mouth gave him away, and Rufus knew better than to take the comment seriously.
“I’m an asshole,” he declared nonchalantly, and not for the first time. “An asshole trained to say the right things in the right way. Playing politics, playing public relations, playing for the camera… do that long enough and you tend to forget whether or not you’re saying it because you mean it, or because they’re the right thing to say. The right thing to feel, even.”
Tseng raised an eyebrow. “Surely you would know if you meant what you said.”
Rufus smiled darkly. “I don’t. The world is a stage, and all that. In fact, I’m beginning to doubt if there’s such a thing as a real Rufus Shinra.”
“We keep the real Rufus-sama locked up a closet, never fear,” Tseng replied.
He had to chuckle at that. “What, for nefarious purposes?”
Tseng was unflappable. “Perhaps.”
Rufus considered his words for a moment, staring up at the beamed ceiling and resting his chin in one hand. His index finger tapped itself against his cheek, following some unconscious beat.
“No,” he said at last. “There is no real Rufus. Or if there is, I’d have no idea what he’d be like.”
Tseng raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but Rufus, staring off into the distance, failed to notice it. Failed to notice as his bodyguard’s thoughts turned away for the briefest of moments, peeling away the years and delving into the past:
A five year old child running through the corridors of Shinra Headquarters, trying to beat his bodyguards with a stick and staring, breathless, out of one of the highest windows of the building, down on the city at night with all its sparkling lights.
A fourteen year old who dared to face down the most powerful man in the
world, the day he decided he would not be a pawn any longer.
A twenty one year old, pulled from the wreckage of the
And a twenty three year old, who mourned the world and Midgar in his sleep.
And Tseng smiled, and said nothing.
Rufus contemplated the empty glasses for a moment longer, then shook his head and rose. “Let’s go.”