It was one week before Shinra Corporation’s Yule ball, the offices were gaudy with decorations, the backstabbing over seating arrangements had reached its annual fever pitch, and Tseng was airing out his formal robes.
Indications of the season indeed.
He lifted each layer carefully out of its drawer and unfolded delicate, crackling paper, spreading his armfuls of silk and shining embroidery out on the floor mats so he could inspect the seams before hanging them to air.
“I never realized just how much fabric that is,” Rufus said thoughtfully from where he was curled up on the end of Tseng’s couch. “What’s it like to wear?”
“Heavy,” Tseng told him dryly as he pulled out the last layer, that being the most pertinent part of the answer for Rufus. Before Tseng had gotten his shoes and jacket all the way off or undone his cuffs to roll them up, this evening, Rufus had already shed his linen suit in favor of an ancient T-shirt and sweat pants that had migrated to Tseng’s apartment in the city. He could, he supposed, imagine Rufus putting up with formal court garments if there was some overriding reason to do so, but he had no doubt whatsoever the complaints before and after would be epic. Rufus didn’t even like the mere two or three layers of Midgar suits.
So he was a bit surprised when Rufus made an interested sound. “They look easy to move in, though.” He rested his chin on folded arms across the arm of the couch. “Do you have any others I could try on, just to see?” Tseng raised his brows, and Rufus smiled. “You always look… different in them, at the Yule ball. I’ve been curious.”
“Hm.” Tseng sat back on his heels, considering the silk spread out around him. He did have casual cotton robes in this apartment, but that wouldn’t answer Rufus’ question, not really. And while a lingering part of him was shocked by the idea of dressing Rufus in these, another part of him was very entertained by the suggestion. It was the same part of him that kept thinking about taking Tifa on a tour of Wutai’s temples just so he could watch her wipe the floor with every master of their arts that she met.
And after all, weren’t Imperial robes appropriate to Rufus Shinra? Tseng knew he was smirking a little, and Rufus grinned back at him, straightening up. “We can use these,” Tseng said, picking up the short innermost robe and shaking it out gently. “You’ll need to undress again, though. Believe me, you don’t want to be wearing any extra layers under all this.”
Rufus shrugged and promptly stripped out of his shirt and sweats, tossing them over the back of the couch. He didn’t have anything under them, and Tseng reflected with some amusement that now he knew what Rufus had originally planned for the evening.
Perhaps they’d get to that later.
He stood Rufus in the middle of the room and draped him in one layer after another, fingers stumbling now and then as he knotted ties and folded belts because he was so unused to doing them this way around, now. They weren’t exactly traditional in any case; he had long ago cut each and every tie and belt somewhere unobtrusive and sewed in break-away snaps. The hems were cheated, too, carefully taken up so his feet were free under the last two layers. On Rufus they were actually far closer to the proper, floor-dragging, foot-muddling length. Even on these altered robes, though, the details were still fine enough, and many enough, to distract him from the point of the project until he tied the last, ornate knot and stepped back to regard his handiwork as a whole
And then the breath went out of him.
Rufus stood in the center of the room, straight and still under the weight of the robes, a straightness Tseng’s gut recognized; it was the way every noble child learned to stand, under those layers, and the sudden sight of Rufus standing with a noble’s still poise made Tseng’s chest tighten. The lift of Rufus’ chin was the same determination Tseng saw every day, but he now saw, abruptly, that it was also the straightness of honor fit to accompany the imperial seal embroidered into those robes. This, the silk whispered to him as Rufus shifted slightly, was indeed his rightful ruler, and the faint smile that grew on Rufus’ lips as he watched Tseng was weighted with all the knowledge a lord should have of his man.
The weight of blood and history, of need and duty, pressed down on Tseng until his knees hit the floor. Rufus’ eyes followed him down and the acceptance in them was not only the possessiveness of a son of Shinra. In the light reflected up from that rich silk and gold, it was also a ruler’s awareness of obligation, to and from those he commanded. It was everything Tseng had longed passionately to believe Rufus could do and be. Everything he’d told himself he must not dare hope for. It felt like falling and catching himself to complete his bow, hands spread out against the floor before him, head bowed down.
“Lord,” Tseng breathed in his own tongue, the single word bare of extra honorifics that proclaimed, not merely formal, but personal loyalty. The one word that paraded for all to hear that he belonged to this man, body and blood. He knew, he knew, Rufus wouldn’t understand all that it meant, but he couldn’t help offering it anyway. Offering it and claiming the rights of honor and service that went it.
Robes rustled with slow steps toward him, and the rhythm was off, more uncertain than any noble Rufus’ age would be. Even so, it was the sound that told him his lord approached, and it kept him down like a hand on his nape.
Until Rufus’ hand cupped his jaw and drew his head up.
Tseng was breathing fast, shocked by the intimacy of his lord stooping to touch him and raise him. Rufus didn’t mean it that way; he touched Tseng freely all the time. But feeling the weight of Rufus’ wide sleeves against his shoulder made Tseng shiver with his nearness, with the sweetness of being permitted this familiarity. There was heat in Rufus’ eyes, the heat that Tseng’s surrender always lit there. Tonight, though, Tseng finally thought he saw the measure of his own loyalty reflected, weighed justly by the one he’d given it to. As Rufus’ thumb stroked down the line of his jaw, he prayed to every god he’d ever tried to turn his back on that it was true.
“You’re mine,” Rufus told him, and Tseng couldn’t help the tiny sound that wrung out of him, because Rufus’ voice was quiet. It wasn’t Rufus’ triumph that Tseng heard in that claim tonight—it was his answer to Tseng’s need, and Tseng almost slid away from his hold to bow his head again in acknowledgement and gratitude. But resisting Rufus’ hand would be unthinkable, in this moment. “Yes,” he whispered instead.
Rufus’ eyes were dark. “Come and take these off,” he said, very softly, straightening up again to stand quiet and poised. Tseng shivered and nodded, wordless. He rose from his knees and began to undo Rufus’ robes, lifting each one off his shoulders with careful hands. When the last one was laid aside, Rufus leaned back against Tseng, and Tseng’s breath caught. He folded his arms around Rufus’ waist, bending his head to press his mouth to Rufus’ bare shoulder, a little dizzy with the feel of Rufus relaxed in his arms. This was a gift, not merely of Rufus’ trust but of his understanding. He’d seen what Tseng needed.
“I beg you to permit me,” he murmured against Rufus’ skin, and he knew Rufus wouldn’t understand the words but the language of Midgar didn’t have the words, the forms of submission and obligation, to shape his entreaty in.
Rufus seemed to hear what he meant anyway. He leaned his head back against Tseng’s shoulder, smiling, body language perfectly at ease in the curve of Tseng’s body. “Yes,” he said, and the word was permission and command. It shivered through Tseng and he gathered Rufus closer, one hand sliding up to press over Rufus’ heart, offering his own body as Rufus’ shield and shelter. This was his role, this was his place, and he was fighting not to flinch with the memory of every time the instincts of his upbringing had cried out for him to destroy whatever offered Rufus insult—and had to be stifled. This was his lord, and Tseng’s heart told him he had failed in what he owed far too often, despite his mind’s insistence that it was necessary, that Rufus himself would never have allowed Tseng to upset Shinra’s delicate political balance to answer those slights properly.
“Tseng,” Rufus said softly, and Tseng prepared to draw back, to box up this part of him again because he knew full well it was too passionate to let run free in this land. But Rufus didn’t move away. He lifted his arms up and reached behind him to twine them loosely around Tseng’s neck, uncovering himself completely. There was nothing to guard him at all, now, but Tseng’s arms around him, and Tseng’s breath nearly stopped.
“Rufus,” he whispered, shaking. Terrifying warmth curled through his stomach, that Rufus would give him this, trust him like this, see him like this. His hands stroked over and over Rufus’ body, helplessly protective, and Rufus relaxed into them, eyes closed. Tseng was speaking in his own tongue again, phrase after rippling phrase in the most abject form, begging humbly for the favor Rufus had just shown him because he couldn’t quite believe it was this simple.
It took a long time for Tseng to quiet himself again, and Rufus leaned in his arms the whole while, apparently perfectly content. His fingers combed lightly through Tseng’s hair now and then. “It’s okay,” he said at last, quietly, not opening his eyes. “It’s okay, Tseng. You’re mine.” He said it like it explained everything about this night, and after what Rufus had given and shown him Tseng couldn’t deny that it did. That Rufus was, indeed, a ruler who would give all of himself in return for the swords and souls his followers laid at his feet. The very one Tseng had wanted him to be, taught him to be, and never dared believe in.
It was shame for that lack of faith that put him back on his knees when Rufus finally straightened and turned—not something Tseng had expected to ever feel again in his life, but the steadiness of Rufus’ eyes on him told his heart that he should have known before this. He pressed a kiss to Rufus’ palm, and bent his head. “My life and honor are in your hand.” The words, finally spoken out loud, hung in the air of the room like a bird hovering.
Rufus’ other hand rested lightly on his head. “And my honor is in your care,” he answered. It drove a gasp out of Tseng, the gesture, the words, so perfectly right even in the clumsy language of Midgar.
“Tseng.” When Tseng looked up, Rufus was smiling. “Take me to bed.”
Tseng had to swallow. There was knowledge in Rufus’ eyes. Not the laughing victory he’d sometimes seen there when Rufus first understood his power over Tseng, nor the pleasure that had remained for all the years since. Only knowledge. This night Rufus knew, he understood the exact measure of Tseng’s surrender to his mastery. And he offered Tseng back his trust in the same measure.
Tseng rose silently and followed Rufus into the bedroom. Rufus stretched out on Tseng’s bed, relaxed and waiting, and Tseng had to swallow again against the tangle of desire and tenderness and reverence that rose in him. Slowly, every movement precise under the weight of Rufus’ eyes on him, he stripped off his clothes and folded each item. When he turned back to the bed, Rufus was smiling with the pure appreciation he so often showed for Tseng’s body. He held out a hand, offering and commanding, and Tseng came to him.
He was shocked all over again by Rufus’ pliancy against him, and found himself rolling Rufus underneath him, driven to shelter him. Rufus laughed quietly and settled against the covers, arms draped easily around Tseng’s shoulders. Tseng shivered at the sound, at the acceptance in it, and pressed his mouth to the curve of Rufus’ neck, open and deferential. “Will you tell me,” he asked, husky, “what it is you wish of me?” Because he wasn’t sure how much more he could bring himself to do without Rufus’ word. Not tonight.
“Mmm.” Rufus tipped his head back, relaxed, fingers stroking delicately up and down Tseng’s nape under the loose spill of his hair until Tseng was breathless. “I want you inside me. Slowly.”
Tseng gathered him closer, steadied by that direction. “Thank you.”
Rufus stroked a thumb over Tseng’s cheekbone, eyes dark; he understood, Tseng thought, how much the demands of this trust unsettled Tseng. Understood and required it anyway, and Tseng could only bend his head as Rufus pressed home that proof and reminder of just how complete Tseng’s submission to him was. That reminder was exactly what Tseng needed, and he was so hard from it that he was a getting little light-headed.
He went slowly, though, as Rufus had told him, gradually opening the tightness of Rufus’ body with slick fingers. The husky sounds Rufus made against his shoulder as he held Rufus close and sank two fingers deep into him made Tseng’s breath come quicker. And Rufus, almost without precedent, wasn’t pushing. Wasn’t urging Tseng on. Was relaxed in Tseng’s arms and moving against him with slow abandon, following the guidance of Tseng’s hands on him.
He closed his eyes and just breathed, trembling with the weight of everything Rufus laid so easily in his hands. No, perhaps not easily. But deliberately and without hesitation. “Please, lord,” he whispered against Rufus’ hair, not even sure what he was pleading for.
“Yes,” Rufus sighed, eyes half closed as he let his head fall back. “Now.”
The command, soft as it was, eased Tseng back from the edge again and his hands were steady as he laid Rufus back against the sheets and settled between his thighs. The vulnerable arch of Rufus’ body as Tseng pressed into him nearly undid him again. Even after taking so long in preparation, Rufus was tight and fiercely hot around Tseng’s cock, and his unrestrained moan cut Tseng’s breath into gasps. His eyes were locked on Rufus’ face, on the softness of his parted lips as Tseng drove into him with long, slow thrusts. To be given this, and to have this required of him… it was like a hand, Rufus’ hand, reaching down into him to grasp all the things that he held behind a proper reserve and bring them up to the light, laid bare. Tseng groaned wordlessly as Rufus’ fingers slid through his hair, down his throat to grip his shoulders. He was dizzy with the pleasure of burying himself in Rufus’ body and the sweetness of submitting to Rufus’ will.
Rufus moaned as Tseng drove into him deeper, hands stroking over his shoulders, down his chest. “Tseng.” The next words were a husky whisper, “This. Needed this. Need you.”
That admission, that need, broke Tseng open at last, broke through him in a graceless tumble of words gasped out between kisses as he gathered Rufus tight in his arms. “Yes, my lord, my love, I swear I’m yours, yours for all life and time, body and soul and blood, I belong to you…” Rufus’ arms locked around him and his body tightened on Tseng hard. Tseng fell right after him, shaking against Rufus as heat shuddered through his bones in hard, gasping waves and the acknowledgement of Rufus’ dominion wrapped around his heart.
Eventually they just lay together, panting for breath. After a few moments, Tseng stirred and murmured against Rufus’ neck, “Forgive me. Forgive me for not seeing, for doubting the heart of you. I offer no excuse.” This time, at least, he managed to translate his apology.
Rufus’ fingers stroked through his hair. “I should have asked,” he said quietly. “I was just… afraid of what the answer might be.” His voice turned wry. “I mean, there are all kinds of reasons you could choose to serve me without… belonging to me. Willingly, at least.”
Tseng swallowed and made himself lean up on his elbows to meet Rufus’ eyes. “I serve you willingly, with all my strength and soul,” he said, low. “I have belonged to you since the moment we met.” And before that, truth be told, but saying that would only distract Rufus right now. “I made that choice in full knowledge.” That, at least, was the whole truth.
Rufus looked up at him, eyes clear and bottomless as the sky. “Do you really…” He hesitated, eyes suddenly flickering aside as his fingers stroked lightly over Tseng’s chest.
Over his heart.
Tseng really did blame a great deal on the language of Midgar, which was so gracelessly frank about these things that it made Tseng downright embarrassed to speak openly of love. He pressed a kiss to Rufus’ brow and another to his lips and murmured, eyes closed for a moment. “Yes. I do. As my student. As my lord. As my friend. As my life.”
Rufus shivered and pressed closer letting out a slow, slightly shaky breath. “Thank you,” he said against Tseng’s shoulder. And then he added, rueful. “I don’t know the right words for any of it. But, yes.”
Fine tension Tseng had barely even noticed relaxed all at once, and he settled against Rufus with a soft sigh of his own. “Thank you,” he whispered back.
He might find the language of this city awkward and distressingly blunt for expressing heart truths in, but Rufus had never even really known the meanings of his own native words. To recognize love, loyalty, trust nevertheless… Tseng was grateful for that as he would be for any miracle. The fact that Rufus had worked this one out of the pure steel of his soul was exactly the reason every word Tseng had spoken tonight was true.
For the knowledge that Rufus truly cherished his people, that he knew the true measure of Tseng’s loyalty and could return it, Tseng might just be willing to offer up true thanks. At least, he would if he’d thought Leviathan or any other god had had a damn thing to do with it, which he most assuredly did not.
No, what he offered up was himself, and only to Rufus’ hands.
Which was why he wrapped himself around Rufus, close and protective as was his right. And smiled into the half-light of the city’s night through his window as Rufus settled against him.
He belonged to Rufus Shinra, and this was his.
End
Gah.
…now you’re making me want to go reread Lullabye for the New World Order a third time & with no hope of updates in sight. Cruel, cruel author-san–your words drab the robes of that continuity around my shoulders until there is no way to be but still and aware and warm.
*hearts* Thank you! I’ve been wanting to write something like this kind of forever, and Lullabye primed the pump delightfully.
..that would be ‘drape’, I meant, not ‘drab’. But yes. Glad I’m not the only one who’s been caught up in that vision of ffvii.
oh my God. I’m sorry, I would have something coherent to say here, except YOU BROKE ME.
Well, okay, maybe I have a few things to say.
Indications of the season indeed.
Oh, Tseng. Darling boy. Yule is not your favorite season, is it.
He lifted each layer carefully out of it’s drawer and unfolded delicate, crackling paper, spreading his armfuls of silk and shining embroidery out on the floor mats so he could inspect the seams before hanging them to air.
(psst — its, not it’s) I love, love, love the way he’s so … I don’t know the word I’m looking for here, ‘absentminded’ isn’t the right one, but. Unconcerned? Automatic? Just, like, “okay, took the robes out, time to do the maintenance.” Because, well. He no longer has the two dozen attendants to do it for him. And he’s more than okay with that.
“Heavy,” Tseng told him dryly as he pulled out the last layer, that being the most pertinent part of the answer for Rufus. Before Tseng had gotten his shoes and jacket all the way off or undone his cuffs to roll them up, this evening, Rufus had already shed his linen suit in favor of an ancient T-shirt and sweat pants that had migrated to Tseng’s apartment in the city. He could, he supposed, imagine Rufus putting up with formal court garments if there was some overriding reason to do so, but he had no doubt whatsoever the complaints before and after would be epic. Rufus didn’t even like the mere two or three layers of Midgar suits.
I just had to quote this entire paragraph back at you. Because, just, yes. Rufus can wear the layers of his suits (and if you look at Rufus’s suit in canon, it’s at least four layers; the cosplay version of his outfit that Sarah has — and looks incredibly hot in — is three, but that leaves out the bottom layer of the shirt and simplifies a lot of bits) when he has to, because it’s what’s expected of him, but when he’s left alone to his own devices and as soon as he realizes he’s among intimates, he’ll strip down in a heartbeat. The whole thing is just so metaphorical. Heh.
(Also, Tseng thinking about Rufus’s bitching is just adorable. He knows his liege so well.)
(Have I told you about the exchange that will no doubt go into Lullabye at some point? After a battle of some sort, and Rufus is cleaning himself up, and the suit is ruined, and Rufus says something rueful about, there goes another one! and Tifa says, why do you always wear white when you know it’s only going to eventually get wrecked? and Rufus says, when you are known for wearing white and nothing else, people begin to think you will care if it gets wrecked, and that is an advantage.)
And while a lingering part of him was shocked by the idea of dressing Rufus in these, another part of him was very entertained by the suggestion. It was the same part of him that kept thinking about taking Tifa on a tour of Wutai’s temples just so he could watch her wipe the floor with every master of their arts that she met.
This is because you are secretly a radical as-radical-if-not-more as AVALANCHE, Tseng. You’ve just learned to bury it really really well.
(And now I’m thinking, for Lullabye, what Rufus will do with Midgar’s relationship with Wutai once he’s in charge. Heh.)
He stood Rufus in the middle of the room and draped him in one layer after another, fingers stumbling now and then as he knotted ties and folded belts because he was so unused to doing them this way around, now.
Oh, I love that small detail. I love how this conjures up so many years of tiny!Tseng doing this for, like, his older brothers or his parents because he was too young to be pushed into court robes and paraded around but he wanted to help dammit, and how that was so damn long ago. (Do you know the 10,000 Maniacs song “Verdi Cries”? That’s the same kind of feeling: wistful nostalgia for something that can never be again.)
Rufus’ eyes followed him down and the acceptance in them was not only the possessiveness of a son of Shinra. In the light reflected up from that rich silk and gold, it was also a ruler’s awareness of obligation, to and from those he commanded.
I’ve already quoted these sentences back at you and squee’d all over them, but oh my goodness it is just so beautiful, and so Tseng.
Rufus didn’t mean it that way; he touched Tseng freely all the time. But feeling the weight of Rufus’ wide sleeves against his shoulder made Tseng shiver with his nearness, with the sweetness of being permitted this familiarity.
Oh, God, poor Tseng. He doesn’t know which set of cultural cues to listen to!
The description here is just gorgeous. All of it. The inside of Tseng’s head, and how he’s reacting to the familiar at the same time he knows he shouldn’t…
(Poor guy really should be running off to become a chocobo farmer in Costa del Sol.)
Tonight, though, Tseng finally thought he saw the measure of his own loyalty reflected, weighed justly by the one he’d given it to. As Rufus’ thumb stroked down the line of his jaw, he prayed to every god he’d ever tried to turn his back on that it was true.
Oh, Tseng. Tseng. Sweetheart. It’s always been there. Always. You just never dared to let yourself see it before.
He leaned his head back against Tseng’s shoulder, smiling, body language perfectly at ease in the curve of Tseng’s body. “Yes,” he said, and the word was permission and command.
The intimacy here is just stunning. And how comfortable Rufus is with Tseng — paranoid, standoffish, prickly Rufus, who is such a tactile person and who forced himself to not be, just leaning back naked against Tseng because he knows he’s safer here than with anyone in the world. *happy sigh*
This was his role, this was his place, and he was fighting not to flinch with the memory of every time the instincts of his upbringing had cried out for him to destroy whatever offered Rufus insult–and had to be stifled. This was his lord, and Tseng’s heart told him he had failed in what he owed far too often, despite his mind’s insistence that it was necessary, that Rufus himself would never have allowed Tseng to upset Shinra’s delicate political balance to answer those slights properly.
Oh Lord. (Uh, no pun intended.) This is just so stunningly perfect: of course Tseng feels like he’s been failing his lord, and no matter how much balancing of Rufus’s honor he (and the rest of the Turks) have been doing over the years, it’s never quite real to him, not to the deep-down part of his gut where all this seething mass of impulse lives, because it’s not the right set of cues. In Midgar, different things require retribution, and Rufus (that child of politics and manipulation) knows all too well which bits can be let slide and which can’t. And Tseng would know too, actually; he’s been playing court games his whole life, and although it took him a year or two to learn the difference in the rules, he can play the Shinra dance in his sleep. But sometimes he just wants to slap someone who touches Rufus’s neck without permission, dammit!
“Tseng,” Rufus said softly, and Tseng prepared to draw back, to box up this part of him again because he knew full well it was too passionate to let run free in this land. But Rufus didn’t move away. He lifted his arms up and reached behind him to twine them loosely around Tseng’s neck, uncovering himself completely. There was nothing to guard him at all, now, but Tseng’s arms around him, and Tseng’s breath nearly stopped.
I love this paragraph with an unholy glee that cannot be textually rendered. (I love the idea that Tseng boxes himself up because his instincts and impulses are too passionate for Shinra, where you are only allowed an excess of emotion in certain directions. He and Rufus are very much alike in that; I think Tseng almost certainly taught Rufus how to do it, and I don’t know whether he even knows he did.)
Rufus’ other hand rested lightly on his head. “And my honor is in your care,” he answered. It drove a gasp out of Tseng, the gesture, the words, so perfectly right even in the clumsy language of Midgar.
I squeaked. I actually squeaked.
There was knowledge in Rufus’ eyes. Not the laughing victory he’d sometimes seen there when Rufus first understood his power over Tseng, nor the pleasure that had remained for all the years since. Only knowledge.
Ohhhh, I love this. A decade of growing into their roles together in three sentences. *happy sigh*
Rufus stroked a thumb over Tseng’s cheekbone, eyes dark; he understood, Tseng thought, how much the demands of this trust unsettled Tseng. Understood and required it anyway, and Tseng could only bend his head as Rufus pressed home that proof and reminder of just how complete Tseng’s submission to him was. That reminder was exactly what Tseng needed, and he was so hard from it that he was a getting little light-headed.
Have I mentioned how much I absolutely love the way Rufus Shinra defines ‘topping from the bottom’ in this? *G*
To be given this, and to have this required of him… it was like a hand, Rufus’ hand, reaching down into him to grasp all the things that he held behind a proper reserve and bring them up to the light, laid bare.
Oh, man, this sentence. That’s kind of like the entirety of Tseng in one sentence, right there. And it is a gorgeous, gorgeous sentence.
That admission, that need, broke Tseng open at last, broke through him in a graceless tumble of words gasped out between kisses as he gathered Rufus tight in his arms. “Yes, my lord, my love, I swear I’m yours, yours for all life and time, body and soul and blood, I belong to you…”
This just broke me. Gnuh.
After a few moments, Tseng stirred and murmured against Rufus’ neck, “Forgive me. Forgive me for not seeing, for doubting the heart of you. I offer no excuse.” This time, at least, he managed to translate his apology.
Oh, Tseng. I love the apology, I love that he feels he has to give it, and I adore that wry little “managed to translate his apology” after it. (I imagine that every now and then he regrets not teaching Rufus Wutaian. …Every now and then.)
Rufus’ fingers stroked through his hair. “I should have asked,” he said quietly. “I was just… afraid of what the answer might be.” His voice turned wry. “I mean, there are all kinds of reasons you could choose to serve me without… belonging to me. Willingly, at least.”
OH MY GOD, RUFUS. OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY. YOU STUPID STUPIDHEAD.
How did you just manage to break my heart with one damn paragraph from him? OMG.
I think the thing I love most in all of this is how Rufus both knows and not-knows the context of how Tseng is approaching this whole thing: he has learned enough from Tseng to know what the right things to do are (mostly) and he has picked up more than enough of the philosophy, especially since Tseng has (partly consciously, partly unconsciously) been recreating the teaching of an Imperial Prince for him since he was eleven, but underneath it all there’s one tiny bit of him that’s so screamingly insecure he won’t ever actually talk about it. Because what if he’s wrong?
Oh, Rufus. (Seriously, the boy breaks my heart.)
“I serve you willingly, with all my strength and soul,” he said, low. “I have belonged to you since the moment we met.” And before that, truth be told, but saying that would only distract Rufus right now. “I made that choice in full knowledge.” That, at least, was the whole truth.
Oh, Tseng, the careful rules lawyer, so scrupulous in his phrasing, the chosen of the gods (in bed with another chosen of the gods) and, well. I don’t think he’d ever explain that to Rufus, because if he did, all Rufus would hear would be that Tseng had no choice. And, well, Tseng didn’t, not the way Rufus would think of it, but Tseng’s view on free will is a lot different than a child of Midgar’s would be, and for all he rails against being railroaded, he would make every single choice over again, because, well. It gave him Rufus.
I really adore the care and precision with which he phrases this.
“Do you really…” He hesitated, eyes suddenly flickering aside as his fingers stroked lightly over Tseng’s chest.
Over his heart.
AND THERE YOU GO BREAKING MY HEART WITH RUFUS AGAIN HOW DO YOU DO THAT
Tseng really did blame a great deal on the language of Midgar, which was so gracelessly frank about these things that it made Tseng downright embarrassed to speak openly of love.
*is laughing ass off* Oh, the poor darling! That’s such a perfect observation.
He pressed a kiss to Rufus’ brow and another to his lips and murmured, eyes closed for a moment. “Yes. I do. As my student. As my lord. As my friend. As my life.”
*melts*
And then he added, rueful. “I don’t know the right words for any of it. But, yes.”
He might find the language of this city awkward and distressingly blunt for expressing heart truths in, but Rufus had never even really known the meanings of his own native words. To recognize love, loyalty, trust nevertheless… Tseng was grateful for that as he would be for any miracle. The fact that Rufus had worked this one out of the pure steel of his soul was exactly the reason every word Tseng had spoken tonight was true.
Oh, God, what a devastatingly accurate picture of Rufus, painted in one paragraph. Flying entirely on instinct, without even the vocabulary to talk about it.
Also, “the pure steel of his soul” is the best descriptor ever.
For the knowledge that Rufus truly cherished his people, that he knew the true measure of Tseng’s loyalty and could return it, Tseng might just be willing to offer up true thanks. At least, he would if he’d thought Leviathan or any other god had had a damn thing to do with it, which he most assuredly did not.
No, what he offered up was himself, and only to Rufus’ hands.
Tseng, c’mere. I have a secret to tell you: it wasn’t the gods that did this. It was you. Well, okay, and the fact Rufus is more stubborn than a gold chocobo, but still.
MERE WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS OMG.
*heartheartheart*
Yeah, no, Yule is not Tseng’s favorite season I’m thinking. Way too gaudy and scrambling. I think he really just /objects/ to the Midgar lack of anything he recognizes as manners. They all act like /merchant townies/ for pity’s sake. I’m endlessly amused by his lingering snobbery.
Ack, ‘its’ is the bane of my grammatical existence. *goes to fix* But yes! Tseng has gotten so… housewifely about his kimono and various accoutrements over the years.
The suits! Even in-game, you can see that Rufus really doesn’t care about all that white, he just goes tearing off any old how, having shoot-outs with rebels on the roof and facing down freaking WEAPON artillery for pity’s sake. He’s such a tom-boy.
The question of how Rufus will deal with Wutai is a fascinating one. I so want to see Tseng interacting with Yuffie at some point, just to see the tangle of family-liege-nations. And surely Yuffie will be a firecracker, as much as Tseng is a rebel; I bet they’d get along in their own way, and that Rufus would secretly be going “awwwww” the whole time.
*grins* I totally bet Tseng used to help dress his mother, and would remember that if he ever had occasion to put Tifa in formal clothing. And she’d be rolling her eyes, but put up with it anyway, because it’s Tseng taking care of her in that little way, the same way the hair is.
Tseng spent so much of this fic so confused over the cultural cues! I mean, the poor guy’s head is just spinning from it (and in musespace he’s totally bitching about how he should have gone to be a rice farmer or something and told the gods to fuck themselves). And it doesn’t help that he /wants/ to read the cues from home so much, that he finds it so incredibly fucking hot.
And Rufus knowing he’s safe with Tseng, yes, so much. He /knows/, even though he’s been afraid he’s wrong or that it won’t be deep enough, and Tseng acting like this is reassuring him so much he’s just about to melt.
*wicked grin* Yeah, Tseng’s kind of caught in a bind, here. He’s so deliberately turned his back on his own heritage of ruling and defined himself as Rufus’ liegeman and Rufus warrior that his sense of his duty is just about screaming to walk into that damn boardroom with a drawn sword and /deal/ with all these insolent peons who /dare/ insult his lord. I’m endlessly amused by the extent to which he seems to define rank, in Midgar, based on who the gods have marked (despite spending so much time trying to ignore that). And Rufus is undeniably the trump card, there.
OMG, Rufus topped from the bottom like /mad/. I was seriously impressed. *snerks* And so was Tseng, I gotta say. Tseng really seems to love that sense of his own vulnerability to Rufus, that sense of being bare and undone in Rufus’ sight. Tseng strikes me as amazingly switch-y, depending totally on who he’s with. Rufus, on the other hand, will never not be top. *considers him and Tifa in bed and promptly dies of laughing* God, no wonder fighting is foreplay for them.
*giggling* Yeah, I think sometimes Tseng really wants to teach Rufus the /proper/ forms of language so he can say all this in a graceful, sincere, and yet decently reserved way.
I am not responsible for how much of a woobie Rufus turned out to be in the end! Totally not, he sprang it on my by surprise! Well, okay, not that much surprise, because it’s kind of a gimme that a boy that damaged and that determined to rise above it is going to be woobie-land all the way. But that heartbreaking simplicity, the way he’s willing now to show Tseng a little of that lurking insecurity, and omg it sends Tseng right into uber-protective mode. *rueful* I think Tseng kind of wants, not just to run off, but to /carry Rufus off/ to be chocobo farmers and tell everyone from Shinra to the gods to back the fuck off. Except he knows Rufus is way too responsible to ever agree, and that’s largely his own fault, so there you go.
He’s so going to sparkle over having Tifa to protect Rufus too, even if it /does/ mean they double-team him. Not like he’ll object to that /too/ hard. *grins*
Tseng’s snobbery is hysterical and I endlessly adore it. Someday I may write something involving Reno’s first year or so Above, where Tseng (who recruited him, and who will defend that choice to anybody) is assigned to knocking off just enough of the slum manners so he can not stand out too badly. Because Reno is probably the first one to put two and two together and realize Tseng is not, like, just a random boy who was chosen for temple training at an early age due to skill and thus given the same how-to-operate-in-high-society type training that Reno himself is being given. (I think the general opinion within Shinra is that Tseng was some minor court noble or something; Tseng always just smiles enigmatically.) Because Tseng teaches Reno not just how to fake it, but how to live it. (Reno is actually very capable of putting on those manners and mannerisms when he wants or needs to; he just doesn’t often.)
And yeah, I really can’t wait to get Tseng and Yuffie in the same room. Heh. (Tseng thinks Yuffie is hysterical, and considers her fitting revenge for his brother’s sins against him over the years!)
Rufus’s suits — the thing is, he wears those ten-thousand-gil bespoke suits like they are sweatpants and t-shirts, and it’s totally what marks him as having been born to his wealth and his role. Because most people who aren’t used to that kind of wealth and privilege will move differently in something that cost that much, and there’ll always be that little bit of discomfort, the “arrgh can’t wreck my clothes!” undercurrent. Rufus has lived in those suits since he was very young, and even though he prefers the casual clothes (it’s mostly association, I think; the suits mean Work and On Stage to him, while the casual clothes mean Off-Duty and Among Friends) he honestly doesn’t see the difference between wrecking the suit and wrecking the t-shirt and jeans. (And, in fact, he’s often more annoyed at wrecking the t-shirt and jeans, especially if it’s one of the things that has sentimental meaning. He’s gotten most of his casual clothing from others; he is always the clothing thief in a relationship, even if it’s just a one-night stand…)
Tseng really does want to read the cues from ‘home’ so badly. He’s become as Midgarian as anyone, really, but give me the child until the age of seven and all that, and so much of your cultural cues are set so early. The poor boy just never gets the right subconscious input! And I think Tseng was raised to be the youngest son, to serve whichever brother wound up on the throne, and as soon as the family realized he was so talented, he started getting that constant training of service, loyalty, fealty, submission to the will of the gods. And, well. He knew even then that his brother was not the one he was meant to serve, even if he didn’t know it consciously.
(I had a “oh fuck” breakthrough on Lullabye this morning: I realized that given Tseng’s place, and since he was given to the temple to train so early, he would undoubtedly have been not just trained as a warrior, but also consecrated a priest of Leviathan whether he liked it or not. And I stared at it a lot and then said ‘fuck’ a whole lot of times, because it made so much start to make sense.)
Rufus will never not be the one on top no matter what the actual activity going on, no. *G* I’m sure he and Tifa will break a few beds in their time.
I think Tseng’s impulse to grab Rufus and run off to be chocobo farmers must happen a lot, yes. And he knows Rufus wouldn’t, and that’s why he is so crazy-scary-devoted to the man. But still.
Oh, man, something with young!Reno would be /delightful/. Because Reno is so sharp. That’s one of the things I will never forgive Advent Children for. Game!Reno is /dark/, he’s /dangerous/ and /edgy/, he is a loaded gun with the safety off, and I love that about him. And then there’s AC, where he’s played for laughs. Okay, except for the moment when he and Rude talk about the bombs, and you can totally see that this is foreplay, and Reno /loves/ the destruction, and Rude is totally catering to that. But the rest of the time, argh.
*gales of laughter, thinking about Yuffie* Oh, man, Yuffie would have to be a Crowning Moment of Schadenfreude for Tseng. Like… schadenfreude /truffles/, something to be savored with every bite. A moment of telling Leviathan “okay, maybe I like you after all; just a little bit”.
O_O Oh wow, Tseng being trained as a priest makes so /very/ much sense. That sense of… intimacy with the gods. I mean, you don’t rage on an abstract like that; that’s the kind of anger a person feels for family (of a kind). Of /course/ he bitches Leviathan out with all the humble forms and yet with such familiarity. Of /course/ his spirit sense is so highly trained he can’t actually shut it off. So much sense! *wicked grin* Of /course/ Leviathan thinks he’s cute. *snickering*
…oh god, now I’m wanting to write more porn that posits Tseng’s sense of his submission to Rufus as a /sacrament/. Gngh.
I was snarly at AC for a lot of reasons, but Reno was one of them. I totally think it was a case of the fandom bleeding back onto the creators; I suppose we can just be lucky that they didn’t woobify Sephiroth. But yeah: “loaded gun with the safety off” is a good descriptor; Reno is all sharp edges and if you move wrong around him you will wind up cut to shreds. (And, of course, when he likes you, he can be just as dangerous. Heh.)
(The fucker also takes over every. single. fucking. scene. you. put. him. in, which is why I’ve avoided writing other things with him so far.)
AND YES, I KNOW. Doesn’t that just make so much make sense? Fourth son, given to the temple to train, taught loyalty and submission to the will of the Emperor and the gods from birth, except the will of the gods is whispering in the back of his mind that no, this isn’t what he was meant to do; this is not your destiny; this is not your true lord; go forth. And he is fucking furious that he’s being used as a pawn like this, and he is fucking furious that he was, essentially, created to be the one who falls (he and Mike Carey’s Lucifer would get along rather nicely I think) — especially when he fucking agonized over that decision, and made it thinking he was damning himself, and he is fucking furious at having been duped into doing it. (That, actually, is why he broke with the gods fully — not his experiences up until then, but the moment when he laid eyes on Rufus and realized all of this happened because it was the will of the gods. That’s when he said, all right, fuck you.)
And now, well. He’ll swear himself bloody that every decision he’s made since then has been made on his own and not thinking of the gods at all. Because he doesn’t believe in Them. At all. In the least.
…I would totally read that porn. A lot. *g*
Hohmygod, eeeeeeeeee this is fantastic, god. Loyalty porn and clothing porn and cultural porn all over the damn place. Damn, how are they so adorable?
*sparkles* They are just made for it, the both of them, this was so much fun. And kind of astonishingly adorable; I didn’t actually see that coming. *pets the boys* They really are /awfully/ sweet once they open up a little.
Gah. I’m so dead from the feelings and the hot.
(Also, when I have to try and explain my loyalty kink, I will now point to this.)
*grins* Thank you! It’s a personal kink of mine, too, so this one nearly wrote itself.
*___________________________* Your Tseng is all kinds of awesome. Can’t get enough of him.
*hearts* Syne is a dreadful enabler, and egged me on until I just had to write more of them. Tseng is just /made/ for the loyalty-porn, I swear.
Yes, he absolutely is.
Absolutely beautiful.
(And I can’t help but wonder if Rufus intended this very result, the sly bastard.)
Thanks! *wicked grin* I wouldn’t put it past him at all.
This was so expressive and beautiful and chest-clenching <3
Thank you!
I’m not exactly sure how I found this, but dear lord your writing is gorgeous and this was unbearably, smolderingly hot. I think you touched on several of my kinks here, haha (clothing porn! loyalty porn! command/dominance/obedience porn!). Such a lovely take on Rufus and Tseng.
*hearts* Thank you! *grins* This whole set of fics was totally “let the kinks run full out” time, and I loved writing them.
Oh my god. This is everything I never knew I wanted from this pairing. And it might just have to be my new headcanon for them, too. Really just amazing, I don’t have the words.
*sparkles* Thank you! These two are totally made for loyalty porn, so when the prompt came along I was a total sucker for it.