plate_builder | [Open Post]

"I'm aware." Rufus will take some of what Tseng brought, plating it, but he doesn't say anything more for now. Maybe he knows what Reeve is thinking, or maybe he's lost in some of his own thoughts. After all, it's obvious that these two would become something else if they allowed this to occur again.

Perhaps it was obvious to Rufus that they might become something else if they repeated. That was not so to Reeve. No, he knew that for him it would be a situation where he would want more, and would know it would not be given. To expect Rufus to return affection would be something beyond thought, beyond consideration. And Reeve had too often worn himself away over pointless longing before.

Reeve being who he was, that realization only opened a door to other dark thoughts. None of which he could afford to allow himself. So he bit his tongue to use the pain to drive them away before taking a plate to load other things on it.

“I could still call a car to leave if you would like.”

After all of that, Reeve almost doesn’t know where he stands with the man anymore.

The remark sends an honest frown to Rufus' face, and he looks over at Reeve almost as if the man had scalded him, a flash of something behind his eyes and words almost leaving his lips before he draws a deep, shaky breath that shows the emotion behind the words he does speak isn't false.

If the low, cold, almost deadly and injured tone didn't give it away.

"Oh, yes, please feel free to call for a way out. It's easier to pretend it didn't happen at all that way, isn't it?"

Wait. What? Reeve is left there, shocked for a long moment, caught off guard by the sheer bile there. Clearly that isn’t what he expected. Once more he has stepped on a landline, and this time he doesn’t intend to leave it with Rufus calling him names and storming off.

“You think you’d be so easy to forget?” Reeve counters, his voice soft, even with a touch of warmth. “I only offer something to... we have put ourselves in an awkward place, Rufus. No. I have put us in an awkward place. What just happened was... I wish I had a specific god to name, to put it at their feet. It was good, it was amazing. What you lack in experience you show in a willingness to learn, an ability to accept attention given to you for your sake, and a mischievous streak that will be in my mind for a long time to come. I have no doubt that I shall carry you as a new stick to measure others against, if I can ever find a man who would want me. I offer because I don’t know how to make this easiest for you. Some men really don’t like a partner overstaying their welcome, and that welcome tends to end once you’re too exhausted to put out.”

He frowns at his own plate for a while. How much honesty does he owe Rufus now? How much would the man be willing to hear?

The first, at least, he has an answer for. He isn’t sure what physical gesture he could offer, if approaching would even be acceptable. So he continues to sit there and meets all the anger and injury in Rufus’s eyes with acceptance. And more honesty than he offers most people.

“I need to handle this in whatever way works best for you. Because frankly, I don’t know that I can trust myself if I made decisions here. I may be the one with more experience in a bed but I am also the one with more experience with myself. And I know that you are a different kind of problem. The men I fall for are dangerous, confident, self-possessed and wise because of what they have been through. The difference between you and them is cosmetic, and in age. The former easily dismissed, the latter usually lending experience and wisdom alone. Unfortunately for me the latter is just as easily dismisses when it comes to you. Which means that you, Rufus Shinra, are a danger I didn’t see coming. An equal in many regards who I am now very sure I have no small degree of chemistry with in bed. And I cannot trust myself with that knowledge now that I have it.”

He moves his attention to the meal and takes a serving spoon to mound some fried rice onto his plate. “I find myself needing guidance in laying down lines now, and phrased it poorly. Perhaps it would have been better to offer to stay on the couch if you would prefer. Or at the very least, on top of the sheer you lay under. If only to inspire a lack of wandering hands.”

Edited 2018-11-19 04:08 (UTC)

Rufus isn't sure what response he's expecting, only knows it's not the one he gets. Honestly, some part of him had expected some form of half apology, or even a real one, that he knows full well would not call the sting of Reeve's prior words; not some long explanation that leaves him confused and unsure whether to remain angry or feel something else entirely.

The worst thing is that he understands Reeve very well, what his words mean and what they imply, but it doesn't really settle him down all too much. Awkward? Yes, they had entered an awkward spot, but they've been in such before and are both mature enough to work beyond it. Suggesting leaving needn't have even come up. This is the part that leaves him angry.

The rest, well that's an interesting little mess. Something he wants to ignore, maybe even accuse Reeve of flattery and nice words - he knows how those work, has had enough for a lifetime - but it's not the style of this man. Reeve knows not to try empty words with Rufus.

Which is really the issue...

"So, because you are afraid of something, you want to run? And act as if it's because of me that you are doing it? And then you're surprised at my anger?" He lowers his eyes, watching his hand as he moves his food around his plate a little. "Do you even know what made me mad?"

“I am not a brave man,” Reeve admits. “Not when it comes to my heart. But I wish to understand.”

Let the man be angry. Reeve no doubt deserves it. He sighs and looks at his food. Perhaps he isn’t hungry.

“Is it that after I agreed to stay, I suggested leaving? Or the assumption that, despite your compliments, I defaulted to assuming you would regret it once you were really out of the moment?”

Ignoring the remark about hearts for now, Rufus makes a face, some small realization coming to him that he may have over-reacted, that his reason for the anger is foolish. Yet now that he's expressed it, asked the question, he supposes he has to respond.

"It's... even if you say if I want, it's the fact you suggest leaving. Like you've done something and have to leave. That now that you've had me, that's all. Time to go home. I'm just the excuse for you to pretend you're different from them."

Really?

Reeve shakes his head.

“That’s all? Leviathan’s fins. Rufus, right now I’m half planning another five nights. Picturing myself on my knees near your bed, wrists cuffed behind my back, trying to stay still and with you having a riding crop in hand. That one is a particularly nice one. I don’t want

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Really?

Reeve shakes his head.

“That’s all? Leviathan’s fins. Rufus, right now I’m half planning another five nights. Picturing myself on my knees near your bed, wrists cuffed behind my back, trying to stay still and with you having a riding crop in hand. That one is a particularly nice one. I don’t <I>want<:I> this night to end. I want to act like tomorrow will never come. To not be the Commissioner of the WRO for a night worried about how this might put me under your thumb. To be just a man for a night with about the only one who being with doesn’t potentially risk my life. I want to see what places I can get away with leaving the faintest suggestion of marks. I don’t want to go. I don’t know what you want. And as I said, I don’t trust what I do.”

But he gets what he did wrong. A different set of expectations. A different history.

Detailed much? Even Rufus blushes a little, despite what the man is saying not being anything particularly new for him. It's really more the source of the images being suggested that causes the blush. Reeve had thoughts of that form? Not something he would have thought.

"Sorry, not sure I go far beyond scratching to cause pain." It's the only thing he can think to say, but it seems he doesn't judge either, and that his mind is still working, next words slow and metered. "Reeve... don't... speak as if anything more will come of what's occurred tonight... if you aren't wanting something... even in your own confusion."

Strange words, somehow. As if he's heading off what Reeve's implying with his own implication. As if there were any form of possibility that anything more could even exist between two such different people. As if his mind had even thought of it.

“Not many can,” Reeve shrugs. He isn’t bothered. It’s one he can set aside. No, the more obvious thing to respond to is the other point. Reeve leans back in his chair and interlaces his fingers in his lap. How does he explain?

“What do you want, Rufus? To hear me assure you that I won’t assume this was more than sex? I won’t. It has been, may still turn out to be, amazing. Confusion and missteps aside, of course. What it comes to is that I don’t want a simple fuck. This won’t be repeated because I can’t afford the way it would break me. Neither I nor my ambitions to heal the harms we have caused would do well in the face of the way it cuts me. There is a chance this whole encounter comes as a result of learning that the only long term relationship I ever had turned out to be a lie, and the whole being married now to the woman he cheated on me with... perhaps I wanted to be wanted.”

More honesty than needed, but given anyway.

“I expect that you not only would not want me in such a way, but you wouldn’t seek such a thing from me as I would desire. So it’s moot.”

What he wants? Reeve seems to be putting everything on Rufus. Almost an irony, isn't it? Or is that the wrong word for this scenario? So desperate to crawl out from beneath the shadow of Shinra, to not follow the orders of this man, but when it comes to deciding something like this...?

Well, actually, he has to admit somehow that is sort of nice. He's not used to deciding such things, although he also admittedly isn't used to even half considering anything like what they are discussing. So why now?

Is this just a form of imprinting? Something like the kindness he's been shown is something he's not used to and so he's twisting it into something else? Or another game on his part? Or maybe it's just the after effects of the sex? Or...

Rufus sighs. He doesn't even know, and nothing is really making sense here. So strange he can't think enough to find any real words, or even a snide remark. Can he just stay quiet?

Probably not an option, so he looks at Reeve again, eyes calculating as he considers. He doesn't dislike this man, and he understands exactly what he's saying. Profit versus gain, logic versus emotion, pain on either side. Is that the only reason either is skirting the question about what this is, what it will be, if anything at all?

And why is it both seem to want to make it more, while not making it more? Such a thing isn't possible, and while most people might decide time is an advantage, let it decide for them when things aren't as they are now... well, both are still man of action.

So why not let action decide?

Rufus stands and moves slowly to where Reeve is sitting, leaning down to try and catch his eye, bring himself to a place where their lips are almost touching. What does he want? This isn't just his decision, is it...?

"I'll ask a simple question that should satisfy us both." He sounds amused, almost like he would sound when speaking to Heidegger to insult the man, but his eyes are those he would show the Turks; honest, unguarded, caring. "Do you want to stay sane, or do you want to taste madness and see where it goes?"

The two don’t really speak he same language, because Reeve wasn’t asking what Rufus wanted in that particular context. More a ‘what do you expect me to say’ than how it is taken. Still Reeve stays silent as Rufus clearly thinks. What about he cannot fathom. What he expects is disdainful dismissal of the way Reeve dismisses himself, pities himself. It would be suitable. Good thing he is not a mind reader.

To have his, clearly not clear to someone such as Rufus, explanation that he understood this has been only sex met with what came next, though... Reeve didn’t quite know how to process it. Rufus Shinra, leaning down to look at him like that, saying such things with those soft lips so close, inviting things he would never imagine... what a mess he has made of this whole day.

Sleep deprivation, days of hard negotiations so he am finally get the next phase of his plans really going, and a moment of weakness caused by a revelation of personal betrayal led here. And now, like it or not, he had a decision to make.

Down the rabbit hole and try to keep work and pleasure separate even as they tangled together? Remain the ‘sane’ and composed and quite possibly self-destructive man he had become to meet his ends? There is no right answer, and he knows it. Sex and pleasure and no guarentee of emotional support, and a very serious hance that he would find himself shattered by loss in the form of death by the Stigma or abandonment. Civil interactions for the purpose of the work but wondering in vain ‘what if’?

Two roads diverged in a lodge, and he...

Let no one ever say Reeve didn’t get himself in too deep. Every single time he tried something new, he got in too deep. This would be no different. Didn’t Rufus realize that Reeve didn’t do things by halves? Didn’t Reeve for that matter?

I warned myself to not get attached. I guess it was too little too late.

And it was. Reeve got too invested too fast, and once he agreed he knew he would be hurt. The question was just how far down the road it would be.

“I fear you have no idea what I seem to have gotten you into, Rufus,” Reeve sighs. “You don’t even know where the path you’re stepping on leads.”

If that isn’t answer enough, pulling Rufus the rest of the way forward into a searing kiss probably is.

Same language, different language, was Rufus so far off the mark? Perhaps Reeve meant something else, but his words had also let off hints of the question of where they were going. After all, they hadn't truly said it was going to be a one time thing; it just had seemed that the both of them needed to say it in their own minds to allow things to happen. It was only natural then that the discussion would somehow lead here.

As to the path he was stepping on...

Rufus enjoys the kiss, returning the passion with everything he has, before slowly drawing back and smirking at Reeve.

"I know enough to realize not to suggest things lightly, because you won't take it lightly. And that it's awkward and troublesome."

Reeve is left sitting there, lips parted just a bit, when Rufus pulls away. That was nice. He should probably show the man more types of kisses. “Is this where I ask if you are joking about my weight?” Reeve asks, a smirk curling on his lips. “I admit I haven’t had a lover in a while. Not sure how to play this one, given our rather interesting situation. I suppose I must warn you ahead of time that with the growth of the WRO I have had people sniffing around. Please talk to me before believing tabloids?”

Edited 2018-11-21 00:04 (UTC)

Rufus ignores the first joke, because really there isn't an appropriate response to it, and focuses instead on the rest of what Reeve is saying, and he chuckles. "Only Elena believes tabloids, though Reno eggs her on quite often."

He leans in to give Reeve a gentle kiss, before responding more seriously. "As to how it works, I suppose that depends. I've technically never had much in the way of lovers, so I can't say what I need. So why don't you say what you need and we can figure out the way it works from there."

“I suppose this is a different sort of dinner negotiation,” Reeve chuckles to himself. “Please sit.”

He has finally found his appetite again. And that is a relief. With his attention on his food this is easier.

“It might take me time to figure out what I would need, Rufus. This would not be a relationship such as I am used to. I can’t insist on dinners out and the like. Or to see you as often as I would normally look for. It may be that I would have to bring issues up as I come to them.”

What he does know is that business will have to be kept separate.

"As often as you like?" That's a curious thing to say, and Rufus considers it a moment as he sits down. "Meaning you like being around your lovers as much as possible?"

“I like to have dinner with them at least once a week. I am an affectionate man who likes to be close to the people I care for,” Reeve explains. “That isn’t exactly easy to manage, especially as I work trying to spread the WRO.”

More than that, Reeve shakes his head. “Most couples see themselves more than that. I became used to less when I worked with Shinra, given how many hours I put in to work.”

Rufus eats a little of what's been brought, and nice a little. Shinra could be a very time-consuming thing, even before Meteor and the scramble to do something about it. Except with his father, there had been so much more focus on optics and expansion, which made it impossible for much in the way of time off for those with any position of power.

Then again, under Rufus it probably wasn't much better, but he'd really not had a great deal of time to do anything with everything going on. He may or may not have been better. Not that it matters a great deal in this situation. Shinra doesn't exist, and the only drain of time was on Reeve's part. Sad. But workable. If you used Reno logic.

"We'll just have to work with what time you have. And if we can't see each other once a week, it isn't as if we can't communicate by phone. Not as much fun, but," Rufus smirks softly at Reeve. "I've had phone sex before if you need a little help..."

Reeve had been in the process of eating some of his stir-fried rice when Rufus spoke. Which of course meant he was coughing as he swallowed wrong. Once he has finished and caught his breath he looks at Rufus in askance.

“What did you say?”

Phone what?

Nice response. Please ignore Rufus as he watches with equal amounts amusement and concern. It wouldn't be any good if he accidentally killed Reeve. Especially with that comment being the impetus and what Reno would say.

When it's obvious Reeve is fine though, Rufus grins. "Phone sex, Reeve. I said phone sex."

“I... suppose I can extrapolate what that would entail from the name,” Reeve admits. And he’s realizing Rufus has access to and growing skill with a mobile camera in his apartment. “But clearly I have little experience there.”

"It's alright. I probably shouldn't." Perhaps he really should tell Reeve nevermind on this. The man might not survive him. "Although seriously, there's phones we can use to speak with one another if we need them.

"Although I don't know how much either of us needs that? We are both fairly self-sufficient, right? Then again... i admit I have no idea how a relationship is suppossd to work aside from Elena's romance novels..."

Yeah, maybe he has a bit more to learn.

“It matters,” Reeve counters as he finally returns to his food. “Being able to see someone you care about, to touch, to kiss...”

It matters so much. And it seems to him that he has more to teach Rufus. Quite a bit more. He considers what he would have to teach. If he could. There was, after all, a bit of a difference between being lovers and dating. Well he’ll have to think on it.

“You’ll clearly be the one taking the lead in phone sex. And I suppose you have the advantage, being able to watch as well as hear.”

"Considering what my life has been, I'll have to believe you." He smiles a bit, but he obviously knows that Reeve is likely right. He's just not used to a great deal of physical affection for the sake of comfort. Even the Turks were more or less hands off when it came to their boss.

As to the Cait unit, Rufus shakes his head. "That wouldn't be any fun, and I would also think it would be highly against what you designed the unit for. I'm horrible, but I won't disrespect you in such a way."

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Not a good choice of words, Reeve...

He doesn’t know that.

And may or may not realize what pissed him off

I am not even fully sure I get it.

We will let Rufus explain

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Will be back later and all. Am having dinner at place with bad WiFi.

Have fun!

Re: Have fun!

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