plate_builder | [Open Post]

Reeve's eyes turned to Rufus again, leaving Elena as she moved to inspect his leg. Damn girl was fast at figuring out where the pain was coming from. She'd even popped Reeve's own materia from it's bangle to treat his wounds. But really, the greater surprise--or perhaps it should come as no surprise at all--was Rufus having figured that much out.

Sure, it wasn't much, but it was something.

"No one knows about you, at least not from me," Reeve countered firmly. "But... I haven't been completely silent about my intentions about how to restore this world after Meteor. The WRO would be a temporary organization only, and completely volunteer. No substantial pay beyond reasonable living wages, no power grabbing. Like minded individuals with a not-for-profit organization trying to do what is right. I will be pitching the idea to the leaders of AVALANCHE soon, which should help underline that I don't seek a new ShinRa company.

"You start a group like that, even if it's not-for-profit, and you're going to get people who are sure you're up to something. Precautions should have been taken." There's a hint of chiding in his tone, as if something like that should be obvious. "Especially with your bringing in money for projects like you are. People will begin to suspect."

"Precautions? Like what?" Reeve asked, his leg flinching as Elena rolled up a pant leg and tsked at the bloody sight she found. He could even hear her mumbling about how he shouldn't have been able to walk on the thing. "Dammit, Rufus, I'm trying to help people, what else could even matter? If I get this started, just a little bit further, it won't even matter if they take me out. The plans for Edge are well underway and I've got them entrusted to people I know would see them completed. And, if Strife would stop dodging me, or even Lockhart, I could be sure there was a good person to take over if something were to happen to me."

And there was the honesty. Reeve didn't care about himself as long as the work was done. Nothing could matter less to him than glory or recognition. He just wanted the world to make sense and be safe. He wanted the WRO to help Edge and then reach out to the rest of the world and help them. Help them help themselves.

"And I'm the fatalistic one." Rufus sighs, standing to shuffle away for a time, and returning with a bottle of water which he opens as he leans over to help Reeve lift his head and offers him a drink. "You really are a very foolish person, you know. Now, drink, you're probably thirsty."

Edited 2017-11-05 01:14 (UTC)

"I have a goal and the goal is more important than I am," Reeve counters, but he accepts the bottle. And refrains from pointing out that chances were he wouldn't be missed.

He's careful not to drink too fast, taking it in small sips. It's as much to keep himself from upsetting his stomach as to prevent himself from choking. After all, Elena kept prodding his leg.

"Do you have to do that now?" he groaned. Just let him be stable enough to get back to Edge, thanks.

"Elena, leave for now." His words are surprisingly gentle towards her, despite being less so towards Reeve, and he is good enough to wait on her to leave the room with a small huff at being shooed away, before speaking again. "Your goals are as useless as a cat in the rain if you're dead."

It was a bit strange, Rufus knew, for him to be scolding someone like this, when his usual motif would be to find amusement in their misfortune, but somehow he couldn't seem to help the mild aggravation he felt. Maybe it was because he'd been scolded more than once for the same attitude Reeve had right now?

Either way, despite his tone, he keeps hold of Reeve and lets him drink until he's satisfied.

Really, Reeve doesn't want to be held up like this, but there is water and he drinks it while trying to ignore the fact that he was getting the start of a lecture from Rufus of all people. When he does finish drinking he tries to pull away from the other man. This was just all too much.

"You're wrong," he says. "Soon I will have everything set in motion that is needed to handle this, whether I'm here or not. But I have to get it started first."

Honestly, he hadn't realized just how stubborn Reeve could be, though he supposed it would stand to reason. Very few made it high in the ShinRa ranks, even fewer those who had no aim on the company, which meant that those who did make it without said goals had to have something more going for them - not the least of which was an iron will. Something he should have known, but didn't, having focused so little on the man before this.

Yet stubborn or not, Rufus is careful not to let him pull away in any fashion that might cause Reeve to hurt himself again, although he doesn't stop the motion altogether. And he's as ready with words as Tuesti is, fastening the cap back onto the water as he speaks.

"Are you really that much of a fool?"

"Ideas outlive those that propose them," Reeve insisted. And people weren't exactly keen on following him so there was that point. Perhaps he could set up the WRO and become a consultant for it but allow someone else to take charge? But no that wouldn't work either. He had to lead this as far as he could, and the fact that people didn't see how needed the organization was baffled him.

Clearly he needed to make a more public announcement, even if it did make him a target.

"Only if the person who proposes them lives long enough to get them set up." Rufus stands slowly, pain still obvious in his movements, but lessened from before, and proceeds to sit back down in the chair which Elena had used to watch Reeve. "Right now, your idea is so much in a fledgling state, that if you were to die, it would fall apart almost immediately.

"Even if you had people like Strife or Wallace on board, those two aren't truly leaders. Cloud may be closer than Barrett, but if you look at the rag-tag group known as AVALANCHE, the only reason it stayed together was because there was a higher goal in mind, a more focused one, than this group you are setting up has. Your little group? It has no ShinRa, no planet or Sephiroth, to bring it cohesion.

"So quit being stubborn, lie still and heal. Let the Turks figure out what is going on and handle the situation for the time being."

It isn't said, but Rufus' tone holds a bit of an order, as well as something else harder to place; Concern? Compassion? Something even Rufus isn't sure what it is, not entirely, as he settles back a little in the chair.

What Rufus was saying did, of course, make sense. That didn't mean Reeve was any less sullen to hear it. He knew what he needed to do, but could he really take that time to heal?

"This world needs action, Rufus. It doesn't need me lying on a couch feeling bad that I hadn't thought this might happen. People out there are suffering, and I have to help. My WRO would help them. It would be a hope for them. It could heal the pains of the world as it was."

And it was all he had, the only thing left to work toward. All he had was his work.

Rufus doesn't hide the roll of his eyes. Honestly, he'd thought this man was smart, and perhaps he was, but he was also too compassionate, too empathetic. Such emotions, he supposed, could be a good thing - they had helped him before - but at times, they were but a burden. At times, a cold, unfeeling look was needed to secure anything; something Rufus was very used to.

Something he uses now, his eyes looking at Reeve with the look of the Rufus Shinra, the man who had asserted he would rule the company through fear upon his father's murder, who had attempted to kill that self-same man, and who had paid for his callousness many times since, but existed at all times regardless of the softening of his ego and pride.

"Your WRO will not exist with a fool such as yourself running it if he doesn't cool his head and bother to think. People are suffering, and you have to help? Yet at the same time, isn't it also you who said you were not needed, as your idea would live on? What a conflicting load of bullshit." The last word is spat out, as if it were a disgusting piece of food, unsuitable for his pallet.

"I said that once I have it up and running, it will survive without me," Reeve counters, the same anger in his own voice. "I have no intention of making something so flimsy that it will fall apart if something were to happen to myself and my next of kin, unlike what you and your father established. You weren't thought dead for even five minutes before Scarlet and Heidegger self-destructed what took so much time to create, and it only took that long because Hojo wasn't paying attention to it at all. I have no intention of being so important that the world crumbles if I fall. I will start a ball rolling. Momentum will be what matters."

An advisory board that made the decisions, as well as an individual to lead. The board would be empowered to force the individual to step down, and would not have members which were known to the individual in charge. That way they could minimize bribes and coercive methods. He hoped.

Rufus raises a brow at the comment, standing swiftly as he undoes the water bottle's cap again, and just flat out dumps the contents onto Reeve's head, before turning and moving out of the room a lot quicker than he had been, only remarking to Reeve as he leaves, "Calm down and think for a little while, and then we'll talk like civilized adults."

He won't bother to let Reeve get another word in, or if he manages, Rufus will ignore it as he shuts the door leading into his own quarters, not intending to come back out for a time. He also seems to make a point that Reeve will be staying, as only moments after the door is shut, a certain other blond is in the room again, moving over to give Reeve a potion as she remarks. "What on earth did you say?"

Really? Had that really just happened? Reeve was left staring for a moment after Rufus and then he started to shiver from the dampness. Wonderful, he got the metaphor here, but he was really going to lay here, dripping wet?

"Don't suppose you have a towel," Reeve sighed when the blond woman arrived. He took the offered potion and frowned at it. What had he said? A number of things. "I believe that was my observation that Shinra was so unstable that it couldn't survive the loss of him, whereas I intend to make an organization that can continue to do good even if I pass away. Which seems more likely than I'd expected given what has occurred here."

Clearly that was the only offense he could have given Rufus.

The look Elena gives Reeve is one of pure bafflement, as if she doesn't understand why such words would upset her boss. "Well, of course ShinRa couldn't survive without the Boss. There was too much in-fighting, and he never had a chance to really solve that problem after the late President was killed."

As she continues to speak, Elena moves to one side of the room to open a chest, eventually returning with a blanket and a towel for Reeve, handing him the latter and using the former to cover him up.

"You have got to have said something else to make him dump water on you."

Nothing else comes to mind really. Except...

"I made it clear that the way I was going to structure the organization I am establishing, it would continue to run if I died. That I'm not so important, or aim to be so important, that the world falls apart without me."

Which things sort of did without Rufus. No one might like admitting it, but things got a lot harder after the Shinra company was out of the picture. Maybe they had been the enemy, but they had been a unifying factor. Even AVALANCHE hadn't lasted much as an organization after he and Sephiroth were out of the picture. But Reeve put even money on them banding back together if Rufus's survival became known, or perhaps if his reach started to expand and caught their notice. Though, truth told, he knew that Cid was already snooping into why Reeve was able to get funding for some of his projects. At least Barret and Cloud weren't looking into that same point.

"Maybe that's what you said, then." Tucking the blanket around Reeve, Elena gives him a serious look. "Here you are, coming to us after getting the tar beaten out of you and helping you, and you basically just throw it back like it's no real concern if you live or die. Of course he's going to be a bit mad at you.

"I mean, do you really think he doesn't have any emotion at all?"

Yes, Reeve doubted that was the reason he got doused. "I haven't gotten it all set up yet, so my life is important. So I am grateful for your help. Nor do I wish to die. I am just pointing out that there is a point past which that I do become disposable. If he was upset by that then I can only imagine that is because he intends to retain me for longer than my minimum necessity time for my plans so I can serve his before he sends one of you to arrange a convenient accident for me."

"Heyyy," This time, she actually sounds offended. "The boss isn't like that. Not anymore. He's changed a lot since we lost him after the explosion, you know?" And then, that offended tone turns to a face of oh crap, I said too much again, as she waves her hands a little. "Anyway, ignore that and just go to sleep for now! You'll heal faster that way!

"I'll be outside watching for the boys!" With this, Elena beats a hasty Turk exit, leaving Reeve to his towel and his nice, tucked in blanket, as well as the silence of the place.

Yes, Rufus was different now. Different enough to not off Reeve? Perhaps. Didn't stop him from thinking it was a possibility, because he highly doubted there was some other reason Rufus would be offended by Reeve's opinions. Especially since Rufus was only using him. Reeve knew he was a means to an end. They were using one another. Rufus only wanted to keep him around until he wasn't useful. Reeve intended to be around long beyond that point.

It wasn't like Reeve wanted to die. He had a lot to live for. He just knew that if he didn't survive then the world would keep moving without him. Was it wrong to want his ideals to outlast him?

With a sigh he popped the cap off the potion and downed it quickly. Once he had set the empty bottle aside he carefully dried his face and what he could of his hair without agitating his wounds before closing his eyes. Perhaps a bit of sleep would be nice.

Even while he rests, Reeve will probably hear the movement of the Turks, including at least one scolding after a burst of Reno's laughter, probably over Rufus dumping the water on Reeve knowing Reno, but is mostly left alone to rest.

Whenever he does wake again, he'll find Rufus sitting nearby again, reading quietly.

Sleep is a weird thing. It lead to dreams which were highly strange phenomenom. Strange like dreaming that he was fighting a massive Kalm Fang, one big enough to eat his whole car. It was such a terrifying image that, as the mako-distorted creature leaned down to eat him, Reeve shouted in fear and woke.

The sudden sitting up, of course, was desperately painful. Reeve winced as his hand moved right to where he might or might not have a cracked rib and panted to catch his breath. Too bad every breath hurt.

It wasn't easy to calm himself again, but when he did he finally acknowledged the presence in the room. And, god help him, he couldn't help but say the first biting comment that came to mind.

"So you know, spilled water is horrible for leather couches such as this."

Biting in intent, but he didn't have the energy to put any teeth behind it. He knew he should be nicer to the man who had saved his life, saved a good number of lives at this point to be honest. But the coat would be presented at some point and Reeve wasn't ready for that bill.

Rufus somehow doesn't jump at the sudden yell, perhaps because he'd already heard the discontent sounds of a nightmare in Reeve's sleep, and so he's quick to wave away whoever opens the door to check what just happened.

Even quicker is the response he gives, laying the book on his lap. "I'll get another. Besides, fairly sure blood is worse for leather."

Oh. Right. Reeve has the presence of mind to blush faintly at that. Whoops. His fault. Not that he had meant to get hurt. This whole thing was a giant mess really.

"Sorry about that. I will try to avoid it in the future. Perhaps I should learn how to fire a gun."

See, he did think about protecting himself, Rufus. It was just that normally he didn't have to. And normally he used magic.

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Please, tell me why I can play Elena

Because talent?

I don't want that talen! And lol, Reeve didn't catch the real meaning

Of course not. This is the man who had the brilliant idea to dress his military in white.

ahaha... Rufus... White... Uh....

Insert Freudian slip joke above.