Birds can Fly

Title: The Worst...
Timeline: Original game
Characters/Pairings included: Rufus/Reno, Rude, very briefly Elena
Rating: T
Warnings: Vague sexual hinting, but nothing much.
Summary: Bits and pieces of a relationship that was.
Notes: For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/mako_reactor>mako_reactor</a> claim, Rufus/Reno, fics in an arc, 1000+ words each. Throwbacks to a couple of no_true_pair prompts: Reno and Elena: O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance, 
Rufus and Rude: "Well, I never saw that coming."
 Because, you know, they were there.

<lj-cut text="Rufus would have felt much better about the whole thing if there had been kicking and screaming involved."> Dumping Reno was one of the worst mistakes Rufus ever made. He knew it at the time, but he did it anyway, because he had to. Because after so many years of trying to overtake his father, he was finally President. Because he was finally at the top and nobody was allowed to be there with him.

Rufus didn’t think about what happens when you put a block on top of a pile and then take out the one supporting it. Sacrificing friendship and sanity in exchange for power and wider respect--it was a fair trade.

---

The worst part of figuring out what to say was the reasoning for the whole thing. He had referenced his reputation, that Reno’s wasn’t so great, and that his needed to be spotless if he was going to get everybody to respect him as the new president.

In truth, it was that Reno was a weakness. Somehow over all that time, the man had wriggled his way into some small corner of Rufus’ heart. And it was great. It was fantastic, actually, to have somebody to turn to and listen to him in a sense other than taking orders. But it scared the hell out of him, to actually find himself relying on someone else. And if he was going to be the man at the top finally, he could afford no weakness. Was that so terribly selfish?

Not to say he didn’t trust the Turk. He trusted him like he trusted no other human being he had ever come across. And that was exactly why it didn’t work.

---

The words that ended their relationship were not the worst that had passed between them. In fact, they were remarkably cordial, and rather brief. The whole scene took place in Rufus’ office, and ended with Reno calmly walking out the door.

Rufus had expected something more than that. He expected Reno to get angry, to yell at him, to try to change his mind, to kiss him and prove the words a lie, or to curse and kick things. What he got was an “I see” and a door closing with remarkable softness.

The only thing Rufus could think was that Reno must have seen it coming. He wasn’t stupid, and he certainly knew Rufus better than anyone else. He had been prepared for it. And he had set himself up to have the worst possible effect.

Rufus would have felt much better about the whole thing if there had been kicking and screaming involved.

---

The worst moments were the ones that forced the two to acknowledge each other, and those happened on a regular basis. Reno was still himself, and that came with a certain amount of joking and resistance to orders, but when it came down to it, the answer was always “Yes, sir.” Strictly business.

Exactly the way Rufus wanted it, or so he told himself.

---

The worst admonition came from a somewhat unlikely source, a week or so later. Rude stood in Rufus’ office, having finished reporting what he had come to report, but surprisingly not turning to leave. Instead, he was looking at Rufus in a way that was somehow odd--intense, or questioning, or something. Rufus couldn’t actually tell through the sunglasses. But it was odd.

“You can go,” he prompted calmly, and the odd expression broke as the Turk turned to leave. But unexpectedly, he stopped at the door and turned again to face the President.

“Permission to speak frankly?” Rufus raised an eyebrow, curious, and nodded. How unusual for Rude to distinctly make a point of speaking his mind about anything.

“You are a horribly insensitive bastard, and I have no idea what Reno saw in you.” And with that he was gone, and Rufus stared at the closed door in silence.

He probably could have punished the Turk for that somehow, but he let it slide.

---

On second thought, the worst moments were when they weren’t forced to acknowledge each other, and did. There was a particular incident in which they quite literally ran into each other in the hallway. Apparently both of them had been particularly lost in thought, because neither was especially likely to crash into people. And yet.

It was careless, harmless, and quite possibly one of the most torturous moments of Rufus’ life. Because for a very brief moment, it resulted in something akin to an embrace.

“Whoa, sorry,” Reno exclaimed, hand briefly on Rufus’ shoulder to keep balance. “Oh, it’s you,” he observed casually, though his voice held a slight edge of animosity, and he backed off immediately.

“Me, yes,” Rufus replied coldly, “Apologies. For running into you.” So went the words. The thoughts? Something more like <i>I’m lying and I know you know it. I’m not sorry for running into you, and in fact I’m very sorry I didn’t run into you harder because there are many, many reasons I would dearly love to be laying on top of you on the floor right now, and why the hell did you move away so quickly?</i> He ignored the thoughts, and glared. Reno looked back at him quizzically. Could he read his mind?

“No problem,” he muttered, waving a hand dismissively as he turned to leave. “My fault.” Rufus glared daggers into the other man’s back as he walked away. He came very close to commanding the Turk to come back, but really, how would that have looked?

---

Meanwhile, Reno had taken the mention of his mildly promiscuous reputation to heart, and seemed to be trying to make it worse. Rufus had never been one to follow gossip, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid when you’re the type of person who always listens to everything going on around you. It would be wrong to say that Reno had managed to sleep with every employee of the Shinra Electric Company, but boy did it feel like it. Take it a step back to just having been involved somehow, and it ended up pretty close to the truth, as far as Rufus could tell.

It was a particular account of someone having seen Reno dancing with Elena that made Rufus wonder if the Turk was just trying to make him jealous. Surely, that one couldn’t be serious.

---

But the worst part of all of it for Rufus was the time he spent trying to fall asleep that first night. It was not the first time, even recently, that Rufus had slept alone. In fact, he usually did. But for some reason, that night he felt very alone, and his bed felt very, very empty.</lj-cut>