#«♕» m; Rufus

[architectofhope]

Reeve’s plans and proposals were good. All of them. Some needed a little updates, some Rufus wanted done in a different way. But overall there wasn’t much to criticize. Reeve was a pleasant surprise in the board of the Directors. Rufus had expected that none of them were useful beyond their respective fields, but Reeve… laying down the last document he had been handed, Rufus just barely nodded. A smile playing around the corner of his mouth.

“You will present these plans to the public and to our investors. Right after I spoke. And you will present Heidegger’s and Scarlet’s, too. They will just sit back, while you make their work sound more appealing… you might be the only one who can do that.”

@rufusofshinra​ 

Reeve stood by as Rufus read his proposals, attentive, hands clasped behind his back as if by habit of being symbolically tied while maintaining the air of a man with a broad, proud chest. The nod came at last, then the unsettling hint of a smile on the young President’s lips that caused fingers to curl into his palm tightly where nails would dig shallow crescents of anticipation.

 Rufus’ response went beyond the unexpected into strange and potentially dangerous territory, stealing any bit of excitement the director might have felt for having his proposal approved and replacing it with slight dread.

“Heidegger and S—…” he trailed off, taking a step forward as his hands came unbound with an inclination of his head. “I couldn’t, sir. I may not see eye to eye often with my fellow Directors, but they’ve worked hard for their proposals — they would take it as a slight.” But he was protesting too much, he feared, sobering himself quickly before bowing his head with due deference. “I appreciate your approval of my team’s efforts. Perhaps there is some other way…”

[architectofhope]

( @rufusofshinra​ continued from x )

  It was precisely this fact that he was counting on — that Rufus was not his father. Was better, saw with unveiled eyes, a clearer mind; had some compassion, for Gaia’s sake. But the look in those eyes was a warning, a reminder that he shouldn’t have been so bold so quickly. Rufus was an unknown quantity, a loose canon either waiting to go off or without fuse, merely smoking with the heat of wars that ended with his father. 

  Either way, Reeve’s convictions burned on as they had from the beginning, from All-Mighty Father to Prodigal Son it made no difference. Shinra wrote the bill, and the people of not only Midgar but the whole world paid the price.

  The director stood his ground as the younger man approached him nearly abreast with his intimidation, his low velveteen voice that might have commanded fear in some, and might should have commanded fear in Reeve as well if he hadn’t been just so damn tired of it all.

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, I don’t put my faith in gods,” he stated simply, eyes a hazel memory of vibrant living earth drifting between the cold steel of Shinra blue. “It wasn’t god who built this city with it’s plates and its artificial suns — it’s reactors that siphon life from the earth and its people...”

  He would willingly damn himself with his words; he was not a blameless party.

  “That is why I am standing here before you — one man to another — asking you to be better than this,” he tilted his head, leaning in just a bit with a lowering of his own voice, “asking you to help me find another way.”