hazelator (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} hazelator) wrote,@ 2006-09-10 18:36:00 |
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| Current mood: | devious |
| Entry tags: | before crisis, ff7, one shot, rufus, tseng, tseng/rufus, veld |
[FF7-BC] Into the Masterpiece
[FF7-BC] Into the Masterpiece
Word count: 2,197
Rating: PG for some violence, safe for work.
Warnings: BC spoilers for the ending.
One shot, complete.
Pairings: Rufus/Tseng
Summary: For c_core, who wanted Rufus/Tseng and KILL VELD.
Notes:
Writing this completely off the top of my head, from what I remember reading in the BC scripts from half a year ago. Please put down any inaccuracies to artistic licence.
For c_core, on account of having survived another year in the great game of life! 8D May the year ahead be filled with wonderful and sparkly things and Rufuses and Tsengs and closets!
Also... no, don’t ask me what I was doing. I don’t know 8D.
NOT BETAED OMG YEY.
You lose your grip, and then you slip,
Into the masterpiece
These are your orders.
The black of his jacket was impervious to bloodstains. Red met fabric, and he could feel the weight of it gradually growing, the same way his footsteps grew sticky as he trekked through the puddles.
To track down the traitor Veld, as well as the Avalanche leaders--
The gunshot echoed all the way down the corridor as he pulled the trigger, feeling the recoil like a jarring sting to exhausted muscles. A pistol in one hand and a rifle in the other, the smell of gunpowder and blood so thick in the air that he could choke on it.
And to terminate them.
Something trailed down his cheek: a splatter, perhaps, from an earlier kill. Not tears; his eyes were dry, dead, hardened to black ice to match the resounding nothingness in his chest.
And thereby to prove the loyalty of the Department.
No, not nothingness. Beneath the black void was a growing anger, a slow, bubbling fury punctuated by each shot. Earlier, he had ducked and run from hiding place to hiding place, riding on the knife edge of adrenaline, sniping, dodging, laying down cover fire as the junior Turks sped on ahead.
Now he walked, and bloodied footprints trailed out behind him, marking a straight and unwavering line. Towards his destination. Towards the inevitable showdown.
This is the decree of the President himself.
He remembered the flash of gold then, as stray hairs had fallen to obstruct blue eyes, and a hand carelessly brushed them away. White and gold, this once disgraced Vice President, absent for three years and recently returned to the seat of power in Midgar.
He remembered the twist in his gut, the realisation that although time mended wounds and changed some things, Rufus Shinra was, evidently, one of those who never learnt.
Or else, and the smile on Rufus’ face had been grim, the entire department will be labelled as traitors themselves, their lives forfeit.
Three years ago he had dragged him from the heart of a mako reactor, away from the Avalanche dogs who had turned on him. The boy had been shocked to compliance, shaken from the betrayal, a patch of bright red blossoming on the side of his jacket from a bullet scratch.
Three years ago they had parted on screaming match, wild, meaningless allegations flung without deliberation or hesitation. The words hadn’t mattered; drunk on adrenaline and battle induced nerves, they had been almost hysterical, thoughts fragmented, fingers twined in each others’ suit jackets and faces so close that he could see right onto wide, furious blue eyes.
In those eyes he had read the unspoken undercurrents: fury, jealousy, the mad power bid of a neglected teenager attempting to consolidate power and draw the eyes of the world.
And his eyes, he had realised later; realising finally, too late, the burning infatuation that had turned lethal in its proportions.
This is all the compromise the President will give, and the little bastard had had the audacity to smirk. One instead of all. His life is forfeit, anyway, and no maneuvering will save him now. ...I trust you can do the cost-benefit analysis yourself and arrive at the right conclusion.
Once, he had almost held to the thought that here, at last, was a leader he could respect and stand behind. But time and his father’s influence had worn away what good there had been in that young soul, until all that was left was an obsession with power that rivalled... no, put his father’s obsession with money to shame.
Instead of the shining leader they had all hoped to see, they had a monster who openly declared his intention to rule by fear.
Egoistic little brat.
“Area secure,” Rude radioed in, and he clicked the transceiver once to acknowledge, reluctant to waste words and unable to trust his voice. The rest of the Turks were fanning out, securing the perimeter as ordered, getting out of the way and leaving the final objective to him.
In his mind’s eye, Rufus smirked at him as he headed towards the Avalanche command center.
Jealousy. There were few people who knew what crossed his mind and heart when he looked at Veld -- his senior, his mentor, his commander. But Rufus Shinra had glanced across the room and straight into his soul.
When words had failed, when attention grabbing techniques had failed, the boy had evidently gone and spent the last three years in exile planning his revenge. And, in the dead hours of the morning, executed it with such perfect finesse that even he himself could not see any way out.
The rifle was a dead weight in his hand, and he handed it off to Reno, pausing only long enough to snap a new clip into his pistol. The main fight was over. What was left...
Was simply the easiest and the most difficult thing at all.
Here is a knife, Rufus might as well have said. Dig out your own heart and give it to me.
“You okay?” Reno whispered as he passed. “Look, if you don’t want to--“
“By my hand,” he ground out. “And none other. We owe him too much.”
What he would give to be able to put the next bullet through that too pretty blond head instead. To blow out the taint and filth and--
--the invisible knife that was in his chest twisted farther, and he felt his breath hiss through his teeth. No. No. He had liked the boy, once. He had been someone worthy of respect.
Once.
And he had failed to protect him.
And by doing so, he -- and the entire department -- had made their own way up the paths leading to this personal hell. There was no one left to blame.
The hinges of the door sighed as it opened. Light melded into darkness, his foot wavered for a moment over the threshold before coming down decisively.
“Tseng.”
The knife of his mind sliced through flesh and bone, and he physically stumbled as his resolve wavered.
I trust you can do the cost benefit analysis, a sibilant voice whispered in the back of his mind, as breath halted in lungs and he stared into that beloved visage. Senior. Mentor. Commander.
Veld.
If he had... all the years of his life to live again...
A lesser man might have wavered. The Director of the Turks did not. Could not. Wrist locked. Elbow slightly bent to account for recoil. The pistol in his hand swung unerring to target the critical spot between the eyes, and he thumbed the safety off.
“Will you fire?” Veld asked. Mildly. As if it were an academic question and they were miles and years away, lounging on the sofa in his office, looking over documents.
“Those were my orders, sir. I ... regret...” Everything? The necessity? Any inconvenience caused? Words failed him, and the trigger was so warm against his finger, slightly sticky from some splash of blood earlier...
“Do not apologise for executing your duty,” Veld said.
“Sir.”
Still he hesitated, dragging out the moment as the scene burned itself into his eyes. The bad lighting. A room. A desk. A doorway to another room which housed a bed, Elfe’s prone form upon it. Computers, their screens dimmed to screensavers. Communications equipment. Such a far cry from the operations room of headquarters...
“You look like a mess,” a new voice said.
Battle honed reflexes had the gun trained on the shadow that detached itself from the wall, and his nerves jangled enough to make him hit the trigger before he even registered who it was--
--Rufus Shinra dodged neatly, and the bullet thudded into the far wall.
“Do you always hesitate this long before going for the kill, Director? I was led to believe that you were rather more efficient than that.”
“What are you doing here?”
Something was surging to life again in him, something that had been cold and dead now sparking incandescent. All life was a game to this brat, but damned if they were pawns to toy with in this manner--
“Seeing that my father’s orders are carried out.” And Rufus did not smile. “Veld, tell him to stand down before he gets himself into something that even I can’t get him out of.”
“Tseng,” Veld said, and his tone was one of fond exasperation. “Calm down and listen to him.”
He glanced sharply over, lowering the gun but pointedly not holstering it. “Explain.”
“Such impatience,” Rufus remarked.
“Rufus,” Veld said sharply. “Stop being impertinent.”
“Of course.” The boy wandered over to the desk and picked up a black folder, extracting several sheets of paper from it. And thrust them at him. “Take it.”
His fingers left bloodstains on the white, and for a moment he couldn’t even read the words neatly printed across it, could only register Rufus’ signature on the bottom and the official Shinra letterhead in blood-red on top...
“As of...” Rufus checked his watch. “0823 hours today, Veld, former Director of Administrative Research Veld was executed by one Tseng of the Turks. As sanctioned by the President of Shinra Electric Company.”
“... witnessed and verified by Vice President Rufus Shinra,” Tseng finished for him.
“The second sheet repeats the same thing with regards to one Elfe of Avalanche. Keep those documents well. You’ll have to present them later.”
“What game is this?” he asked, and it wasn’t relief he felt, but the conviction that this was some kind of mad dream. “What kind of revenge were you planning? You wanted me to kill him. And yet you’re telling me... no, putting your life and career on the line in a betrayal that even you will not be able to get out of if wind of this gets to the President...”
“Tseng,” Veld answered. “Rufus is serious.”
“The threat of the Zirconade remains unresolved. We require all the resources we have at hand,” the boy said. “But there are no free lunches in this world. Until the regime that sanctioned this bloodshed has passed, you place your life... and his... on the line every time you attempt to contact him.”
“What is in this for you?” he said bluntly.
Rufus’ eyes were distant. “A world. A Department. A person.” Something sharpened in his gaze, and when their eyes met, Tseng realised that he had been wrong. Time did change people. Especially Rufus Shinra. The only question was how much, and in which direction.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged in turn,” Rufus said softly. He tucked the folder under one arm. “I’ll see you back at Headquarters.”
And then it was just the two of them.
“I guess we won’t be seeing each other for a while,” Veld said.
“He’s a brat,” Tseng swore quietly. “Three years and he’s still a brat.”
Veld chuckled quietly. “And you still don’t know what to make of him.”
“No,” he said, with one of those sudden flashes of insight that talking to his mentor always gave him. “No, I don’t.”
The beginnings of a smile etched themselves onto Veld’s worn features. “Fortunately, he’s bought time for you to figure it out.”
“And for you too,” Tseng said softly, as he snapped the safety of the pistol back on and jammed it into the holster.
“And for me too.”
*
These are your orders, the dispatch read.
He hurried down the corridor, cursing Rufus and his confounded obsession with early morning meetings.
Proceed to my office at your earliest convenience.
The zipper on his jacket got caught, and he spent hurried seconds throwing curses at it as he did it up properly.
Which, by the way, means before your morning expressoes.
Brat, he thought. Thrice-damned brat.
Coffee will be provided. As this is a meeting you would doubtless be interested in sitting in on, I trust you can do the cost-benefit analysis yourself. Besides, delaying your usual caffeine intake by a paltry ten minutes won’t kill you.
“Someone,” he growled, as he searched frantically for his keycard. “Is sleeping on the couch tonight.”
This is the decree of the President himself. And all the compromise he will give. See you in my office.
The doors parted with a swish, and he stormed in, caffeine-less and in a royal temper. “What was this meeting you were so--“
“Hello, Tseng.”
He paused, and breath halted in his lungs.
There was grey at his temples now, and a few more lines on his face, and his suit looked a little more worn, but there was ... no mistaking it.
Veld.
He was going to kill that little brat for not specifying this crucial bit of information in the communiqué... and more importantly, how had Rufus been in contact with Veld when the man had dropped off even the Turks’ radar in the chaos following Meteor and Kadaj?
“You,” a new voice said, right behind him, as a pair of white clad arms circled his waist. “Look like a mess.”
And Tseng gritted his teeth, snarling under his breath about killing certain bratty, power-hungry Presidents who never grew up.
But first, coffee.
--
END
A/N:
I killed the ending, didn't I?
I MURDERED IT. 8D
