III: Tseng
The dry scratching of his pen had been the only sound in the room, until his phone rang, shattering the silence.
Sighing,
for that particular chime meant a Turk was calling, and that was never good
news, he reached for his hands free set and clicked it on, sparing a moment to
glance at the caller ID. “
“Ts…Tseng?”
The
voice that reached him across the line wasn’t the brash drawl of his newest
recruit. It was hesitant, somewhat familiar and yet not, which meant that
--The
thought arrived late, and blindsided him like a Shinra delivery truck.
Breath stopped. His heart might have stopped, caught in the pain that somehow, he had missed the boy growing up, missed his voice breaking and deepening into something that he failed to recognize on first hearing…
“Rufus?” he asked, throat constricting around the word.
“Tseng.” A quiet exhale of breath. “I got your dispatches.”
Breath. Heartbeat, one thump in a silence drawn so taut he thought it was going to snap.
“That’s good, sir.”
Breath.
A pause, both of them searching for words to say. Awkwardness. Two partners in the social dance fumbling for lines, tripping over each other’s feet.
I hope you’re doing well. I hope that
Sentences
spluttering to the fore, dying away, discarded letters ripped from the writing
pad and thrown into the bin. I hope that you haven’t
changed utterly beyond recognition—
“You should take a vacation. Come out here and have a skiing holiday. The snow is gorgeous,” Rufus said at last, all sunny and utterly fake nonchalance.
“Rufus-sama,
I wish I could—“
“We’re currently getting 24 hours of night, here, but the lights are pretty. So are the stars. You can’t really see them from Midgar.”
A small smile curved his lips. “I’ll try my best, sir. The holiday season is coming up, after all.”
Unfortunately, the holiday season for Turks meant twice the amount of work, as the President wined and dined Midgar’s – no, the world’s elite – and was wined and dined in turn. As Rufus well knew.
“Strange how the President hasn’t called me in to attend any of the functions this year,” Rufus said. “Perhaps I’m no longer photogenic enough?”
“I highly doubt it, sir.”
A
short laugh, much deeper than he remembered it. “Flattery, Tseng? Or are you
trying to hit on me?
Rufus never grinned, or least, Tseng hadn’t seen that particular expression out of him for all the years that he had known him. But perhaps he would be smiling.
“Don’t. He lent me his PHS, after all. I didn’t know that Shinra had satellite equipped ones.”
“They’re new,” he replied. “The Science department just issued the prototypes a few months ago. We’re field testing them.”
“How secure are these lines?”
“Much more than the standard ones. Our uplink is private and encrypted. Only Turks have access to it.”
“And the President?”
The… when had Rufus started addressing his own father that way? With that absent tone in his voice that suggested that he could have been talking to anyone? And the room was suddenly colder, and darker, and he couldn’t help but ask himself if perhaps he’d made a mistake, standing back and letting the President send his son far afield for so long, away from the only people he even began to trust…
“Tseng?”
It stung, how unfamiliar his voice was now. “Not even the President, sir. But perhaps the Vice President—“
“—don’t call me that. Don’t you, of all people, call me that.”
He paused. “I apologize, sir.” And he wanted to stop there, remembering a wide-eyed child whose life was slowly being eked out of him under the crushing weight of his training and responsibilities…
…he felt his jaw clench.
You do him no favors by trying to protect him from what is inevitable.
“—But,” he added, and his fingers tightened around his pen while he said it, as if he were signing some death warrant, “—you are the Vice President, sir. You can’t evade that responsibility by pretending otherwise.”
Sudden silence greeted him from the other end, the almost casual banter they had built up shattered in one terrible blow.
Tseng squeezed his eyes shut, willing his breath to stay even. A Turk always puts his job first. A Turk completes his job at all costs. When it comes to your protection, Rufus-sama, it means telling you the words you need to hear, not the words you want to…
What was it like over there in the Icicle Area? He had never been there during winter, himself. There had never been any need to. It was a quiet area, and quiet areas rarely attracted the attention of the President’s hired killers.
Twelve year old Rufus, animatedly talking about his first trip out of
MIdgar. Small hands shoving maps across the table, outlining routes and
reciting the things he had learnt about those places – all in books, of course.
Blue eyes sparkling as he promised to be back soon, in a few months, father
can’t send me away for so long, can he?
I don’t know, sir.
You’re such a pessimist, Tseng.
It’s part of the job, sir.
Don’t miss me too much. I’ll be back before you know it.
Is that an order, sir?
Yes. It is. And so is: ‘Try not to get killed.’
I hear and obey, Rufus-sama.
“Funny
thing,” Rufus was saying. “
He waited patiently for the boy to finish the sentence, but there was just silence over the line, and the slight crackle of static.
“
“Nothing.” A tiny tremor in that voice. “Nothing at all. Have a good holiday season, Tseng.”
“Sir…”
Silence again. No long tone of the other side hanging up. Just Rufus’ breath, feather light. And something that might have been a sense of severely neglected duty nagging at him.
“Funny how the years change people, isn’t it?” Rufus said at last.
“I regret my inability to be there.”
“I’ll bring you a souvenir.”
I’ll bring you a souvenir. And Veld too, although he’s been cranky
recently.
He’s been stressed—
You always have an excuse for everything, don’t you? No, and don’t tell
me it’s part of the job.
A helpless smile. It’s part of the training, then.
Whirr of helicopter blades. Someone yelling, several Shinra MPs milling
around uncertainly. Rufus, probational Vice President, standing there on the
rooftop, a slim briefcase clutched in one hand and a duffel in the other, and
looking slightly lost in his new suit as the wind whipped his hair into his
eyes. The President nowhere in sight.
You should go. It’s time.
Turks did not show emotion. He would die before he admitted to the lump
in his throat, to the sudden surge of protectiveness and concern, the urge to
straighten the lapels of the boy’s jacket and to remind him to keep his weapons
on hand at all times…
Tseng. A small frown, golden brows drawing together. Your tie is askew.
How unlike you.
Is it?
He glanced down, but his suit was as it always was: impeccable. When he
glanced up again, Rufus was striding across the rooftop to the chopper, head
held high. He did not glance back.
“And one for Veld too,” he said, unable to help it.
“And one for Veld,” Rufus said agreeably. “Tseng, I—“
A sudden wash of white noise.
The last word, torn in two, dying in an electronic shriek. A click, a hum, a long tone, then the operator, impassive: “Signal lost. Please try again later.”
He clicked the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. And dropped his head into his hands.
It was a long time before he realized that the pen had shattered in his grip.