[FF7] Across Distant Shores - 10
[FF7] Across Distant Shores
Point X - Though the Heaven Should Fall
FF7 - Rating: PG-13 - Part 10/? - Warnings: None
Pairings: Rufus/Reno (established) - Status: In progress, incomplete.
For codename_scar
Summary: "You're stuck on the shores of Hell, and the only way out...is through." Shinra moves against its own, the President against the Vice President, with the Turks caught in between. All loyalties and motives are called into question, and as the Company comes under attack by enemies, the Turks are forced to question just who and what they are fighting for.
Chapter Summary: Fiat justitia, ruat caelum -- (Latin) Let justice be done, though the Heavens should fall.
Chapter word count - 2,531
Fic word count -- 21,871
“I don’t see why you bother.”
The voice is nasal, the footsteps shuffling, and the man standing before the tank does not need to look up to identify the speaker. “Does it not appeal to your scientific curiosity, Professor?”
A gentle snort greets him. “My speciality lies in experimental cellular biology. Psychiatry barely classifies as a science.”
The man turns, glancing at the other. “Does it, now. Personally, I find it fascinating. The mind is such a very fragile thing. Malleable. And reshaping it ... is power in itself.”
White shifts as Hojo moves closer, peering at readings and the figure submerged within glowing green liquid. “There are easier ways of acquiring a loyal pawn.”
“Pawns,” the man says contemptuously. “I have enough pawns; I do not need another. I will turn him into a weapon. His mind is valuable, if only his loyalty can be completely and irreversibly secured.”
“This process is not foolproof,” the other warns. “The sight of that dog of his will likely trigger adverse reactions.”
“The usefulness of these Turks is rapidly reaching its end. There are more where they came from. And when Rufus is ready, his usefulness will far outstrip all of theirs.” The man smiles, something cold and humourless. “After all, blood runs thicker than water.”
*
“Rufus?”
He keeps his eyes glued on his laptop, biting back a flash of annoyance at being disturbed. “What is it?”
Fingers capture his chin and tilt it upwards, and he scowls, tugging away. “Did I give you permission to touch me, Re-“
But the red that shifts in his sight isn’t Reno’s hair, but expensive silk, and Scarlet smiles at him as she moves to perch on the edge of his desk. “Mistook me for someone else?”
He ignores the question, substituting it with one of his own. “Surely you have better things to do than to bother me.”
“You requested my presence, my dear President. Didn’t you remember?”
President? The sound of the word sends shivers down his spine, and for a moment his mind is awash with emotion - confusion, fierce joy, anticipation, surprise - “I wanted the reports,” he finds himself saying.
“Reports.” Scarlet leans forward, catches his chin again, and tugs him forward for a kiss.
Those nails leave scratches as he jerks backwards, fury bubbling in his stomach as he grabs his pistol from his jacket, shoving cold metal between them as his thumb pushes back the safety. “Your advances are unwelcomed. Consider this your only warning.”
It does not have the desired effect. Scarlet’s smile merely grows, and she rests her chin on her hand, studying him. “So hostile, Mister President. Do you really wish to alienate the entire Board of Directors so soon after your ascendancy into office?”
What happened to my father? he feels the urge to demand, but bottles it firmly within. He can afford no sign of weakness here. “Alienate? I hardly think so. Harassment of the President was a legitimate offence, the last time I checked...”
“And when was the last time you checked, boy?” a new voice breaks in, and he glances sharply towards the new voice. But he notices the background then, and its unfamiliarity jolts him, making him pause and take a look around.
As Vice President, both his Junon and Midgar offices are of a decent size, but neither compare to this room. It is huge, so large that he can barely make out the far wall. And the walls are not wood panelled, but stark metallic white. It takes a moment for the implications to set in, and his eyes narrow as he realises that it is the President’s office, but from an angle he has not seen before. It is the view of the world from behind the Presidential desk.
“Amendments would not have been made without my approval,” he says coolly, turning to the speaker.
Heidegger clasps his arms behind him and barks out a laugh, striding closer. “You say that as if you’re important.”
“The President carries the final veto,” he says, settling back, allowing his gaze to travel around the assembly before his desk -- when did they get here? The entire Board is here, even Hojo, who stands off to the side, nose buried in a report. All five of them-
He frowns, the vaguest feeling of something being amiss. Of course, there is no Vice President, but there is someone else missing, another Director...
He counts again, and realises that he was wrong, of course. The Turks have not had a seat on the Board ever since the... Incident.
“Of course,” Reeve says, speaking up from behind Palmer. “But the President may ultimately be vetoed.”
I sign your paychecks, is the first response that pops to mind, but a decidedly infantile and useless one. He hardens his gaze to ice instead, lowering the gun to the tabletop and folding his hands over it. “Are you threatening me, perhaps?”
“Stop fooling yourself, stupid boy,” Hojo snaps, looking up briefly from his report. “What do you think happened to your father?”
My father...
“And your father was a far more powerful man than you are, Rufus dear,” Scarlet says, still smiling at him, an expression that inspires a desire to back away.
“So just be a good pawn and nothing will happen to you,” Heidegger sneers, and breaks into laughter. Scarlet’s higher pitched screech joins in, then Palmer’s rumble, and even Hojo is snickering. He glances at Reeve, last bastion of sanity amidst the tide, to find the other smirking, eyes glittering as he watched him, a hawk eying a mouse.
If you do not control them, they will control you. His father’s words sound in his mind, unbidden.
People do not act rationally.
In order to be effective, we cannot pre-empt people. We must control them.
His father. His father who is, by all accounts, dead.
The gun is cold under his fingers, as mad laughter shrieks in his ears.
*
The wind is cold across his face as he steps off the helicopter. Tracing the scars along his cheekbones, it is cold and harsh enough that it feels like a million tiny knives cutting into flesh, carving away flesh and bone and his very soul until only raw determination remains.
Avalanche is there, of course. Avalanche is always there, the fuckers: always getting in the way, always getting underfoot. At least this time, they’re at the heart of the problem and he’s going to finish them off once and for all.
The EMR is frozen to the palm of his hand as he strides across the platform to the detonator. Somewhere in the back of his mind there’s a little voice, telling him to look down, at all the destruction that will be caused, at all the carnage and the unnecessary waste of life. But he’s a Turk, has learnt to switch that voice off a long time ago, and the words fall on deaf ears.
He feels a grin stretch his face, his voice pitching itself to a false cheerfulness. “You’re too late,” he tells them. The wind catches the tails of his jacket and tries to force him back, but he shoulders on. Someone screams at him to stop, someone pleads with him to turn back, and he can’t tell whether it’s real or in his mind. Something stirs within him, and he almost pauses, head tilted to listen, but there’s another voice now: a tired, exhausted voice, and it calls his name.
And he knows he has to go on.
The wind slices away all feeling, all emotion, and there is nothing but dead blankness when he hits the button.
That’s all folks!
Mission accomplished.
He has to fight after that, keep them there while the Plate falls and everything ends. He has no intention of dying, of course not, he has too many things to do, but he forgets, forgets, and faces are flashing before his vision even as he snaps the EMR to full extension and lunges. Chris. Dax.
The EMR connects solidly, metal shrieking against metal as the ex-SOLDIER blocks it with his blade. George.
He traps the dark-haired girl in a pyramid as she lunges at him, and evades a volley from the man with the gun-arm. Kazui.
Someone hits him with a bolt attack and he slams to the ground, rolling with the force of the blow as the pillar begins to shake, the explosives going off in the core. He’s on his feet in a flash, the pain dissolving, cast aside, ignored. And he lunges blindly, stupidly, carelessly at the SOLDIER, feeling the EMR strike flesh even as something bites into him, metal and tearing through his arm, blood going everywhere, and it burns like fire.
Rufus.
Something hits him, and he’s flying backwards, the view of the plate above streaking by. And he thinks, rather inanely, that soon, all of that will be sky.
He hits the floor, hard, and it takes him a moment to get back up again. He stares down the three, mentally calculating the best angle of attack, when there’s a sudden shake from his PHS, three long one short: the signal to fall back. He backs up against the ledge, hearing the whistle of helicopter blades from below. And he smiles, a crazed, manic grin, and jumps.
“Go.” Rude’s hand is on his shoulder, and Reno blinks at him in confusion as he slaps the bandage to the wound in his arm. He’s been shot too, he realises now that he’s out of the fight, several non-critical scrapes that are starting to hurt like a bitch.
“Go where?”
“Tseng will keep them occupied. Find the Vice President.”
It should have been obvious before, except for the sheer idiocy of the plan, and the look that he levels at his partner is considering. “You realise we’re not gonna be able to go home after this.”
Rude’s fingers squeeze gently as he inclines his head at the explosions along the central pillar. “You know the secure rendezvous points. Make sure you don’t get caught.”
“You’re serious about this.”
Rude smiles, very slightly. “Rufus will need Turks to consolidate his Empire.”
“Yeah,” he replies, taking a painful breath, realising that it’s not just the plate that’s falling right now. It’s a regime. “Yeah.”
*
There’s a rhythm in this, flying down the corridors of Shinra tower, as everyone takes one look at his face and scrambles to get out of his way. They say his eyes glow, when he’s on a mission, and the dried blood across his uniform is splash of red: warning, danger, get the fuck out of the way.
He can feel his feet hitting the ground -- one step, two - but inside he feels like he’s flying, jacket whipping around him and adrenaline singing in his blood. He screeches to a halt before the double doors, and a backhand slam with the EMR takes the entire control panel out.
It’s not hard to get the door open after that, because C4 explosive clears a lot of things, and he’s not concerned about making a mess. He’s through even before the smoke clears, EMR levelled at the nearest tech, the bolt materia glowing in its handle.
“Scram,” he says. “And no one gets hurt.”
He doesn’t stand around waiting for them to flee, although he does keep an eye out for possible threats and sudden movement. But nothing stops him as he strides forward to the tank, and he draws back his arm, preparing to swing-
“Unwise move.”
He spins at the voice, coming face to face with a shrunken, bespectacled man swathed in white. “Hojo,” he growls, itching to punch the EMR right through his face, and turn the current to full. “Get out of the way. I’m getting him out.”
Light glints as Hojo inclines his head. “Stopping the process midway will almost certainly have ...interesting... results.”
Which is Hojo-speak for disastrous. Reno’s eyes flicker between the tank and the scientist, to the readings across the board which waver at an unsteady high. “What kind of results?!”
Hojo shrugs, something surprisingly elegant for someone who reminds Reno of an over-sized vulture. “I have never had one of my experiments interrupted in this fashion.”
“Hypothesize,” Reno growls, and he doesn’t know when he crossed the floor, but abruptly his free hand is fisted in Hojo’s labcoat, and his EMR is hovering dangerously near the other’s chin.
Hojo smiles, completely unperturbed. Slightly amused, in fact, which sets off all the alarm bells in Reno’s head.
“Disorientation is almost certain. But judging by how advanced the process is, and how stubborn the subject is, this is unlikely to last long. 100% reversion to normality is a possibility over time.”
He knows that he’s getting the run-around here, but he doesn’t have time any more. Someone’s bound to have raised the alarm by now, and the last thing he needs is for all of Shinra security to descend on his ears while he’s trying to get Rufus out.
“Run,” he snarls, shoving Hojo away, watching with satisfaction as the man stumbles backwards and hits the wall. “Before I change my mind and kill you.”
He spins to face the tank, lashing out with his EMR, and metal meets glass with a shriek. The buffer solution breaks through, greenish liquid splashing across the floor, tearing away the rest of the glass with a satisfying crunch -- like the wave that’s going to sweep the past and the old away -- and shards crunch underfoot as he steps up.
Materia falls away as he wrenches the globes out of their slots, HP absorbs and MP absorbs mixed in with the other status effect and command types. For a moment he wants to fling them across the room, watch them smash against sensitive equipment and utterly trash the place, but better sense prevails, and he pockets a few instead. Then, only then, does he allow his eyes to drift towards his target.
Rufus is a mess of wires, slumped against the floor, a puppet with its strings cut. Action wars with indecision for a moment as Reno contemplates him, not knowing where to even start, given that he has no idea what crap they’ve pumped into him and whether pulling any of that shit out will kill him. He spins, and finds Hojo still there, and there’s a gleam in his eyes and Reno can’t stand.
“Unplug him. And make sure you don’t hurt or kill him in the process,” he growls at the scientist, who shrugs as if this is all routine. Maybe it is. Maybe Hojo sees weirder things on a regular basis. Reno wouldn’t put it past him. He watches, tense as a wire, as the various needles come out, watching Rufus intently for any sign of a reaction. The respirator is the last, and sparks a fit of coughing that makes Reno shove Hojo aside as he moves to cradle Rufus.
And so it is, that the first thing Rufus sees when his eyes flicker open is Reno crouching over him.
To be continued
Point X - Though the Heaven Should Fall
FF7 - Rating: PG-13 - Part 10/? - Warnings: None
Pairings: Rufus/Reno (established) - Status: In progress, incomplete.
For codename_scar
Summary: "You're stuck on the shores of Hell, and the only way out...is through." Shinra moves against its own, the President against the Vice President, with the Turks caught in between. All loyalties and motives are called into question, and as the Company comes under attack by enemies, the Turks are forced to question just who and what they are fighting for.
Chapter Summary: Fiat justitia, ruat caelum -- (Latin) Let justice be done, though the Heavens should fall.
Chapter word count - 2,531
Fic word count -- 21,871
“I don’t see why you bother.”
The voice is nasal, the footsteps shuffling, and the man standing before the tank does not need to look up to identify the speaker. “Does it not appeal to your scientific curiosity, Professor?”
A gentle snort greets him. “My speciality lies in experimental cellular biology. Psychiatry barely classifies as a science.”
The man turns, glancing at the other. “Does it, now. Personally, I find it fascinating. The mind is such a very fragile thing. Malleable. And reshaping it ... is power in itself.”
White shifts as Hojo moves closer, peering at readings and the figure submerged within glowing green liquid. “There are easier ways of acquiring a loyal pawn.”
“Pawns,” the man says contemptuously. “I have enough pawns; I do not need another. I will turn him into a weapon. His mind is valuable, if only his loyalty can be completely and irreversibly secured.”
“This process is not foolproof,” the other warns. “The sight of that dog of his will likely trigger adverse reactions.”
“The usefulness of these Turks is rapidly reaching its end. There are more where they came from. And when Rufus is ready, his usefulness will far outstrip all of theirs.” The man smiles, something cold and humourless. “After all, blood runs thicker than water.”
*
“Rufus?”
He keeps his eyes glued on his laptop, biting back a flash of annoyance at being disturbed. “What is it?”
Fingers capture his chin and tilt it upwards, and he scowls, tugging away. “Did I give you permission to touch me, Re-“
But the red that shifts in his sight isn’t Reno’s hair, but expensive silk, and Scarlet smiles at him as she moves to perch on the edge of his desk. “Mistook me for someone else?”
He ignores the question, substituting it with one of his own. “Surely you have better things to do than to bother me.”
“You requested my presence, my dear President. Didn’t you remember?”
President? The sound of the word sends shivers down his spine, and for a moment his mind is awash with emotion - confusion, fierce joy, anticipation, surprise - “I wanted the reports,” he finds himself saying.
“Reports.” Scarlet leans forward, catches his chin again, and tugs him forward for a kiss.
Those nails leave scratches as he jerks backwards, fury bubbling in his stomach as he grabs his pistol from his jacket, shoving cold metal between them as his thumb pushes back the safety. “Your advances are unwelcomed. Consider this your only warning.”
It does not have the desired effect. Scarlet’s smile merely grows, and she rests her chin on her hand, studying him. “So hostile, Mister President. Do you really wish to alienate the entire Board of Directors so soon after your ascendancy into office?”
What happened to my father? he feels the urge to demand, but bottles it firmly within. He can afford no sign of weakness here. “Alienate? I hardly think so. Harassment of the President was a legitimate offence, the last time I checked...”
“And when was the last time you checked, boy?” a new voice breaks in, and he glances sharply towards the new voice. But he notices the background then, and its unfamiliarity jolts him, making him pause and take a look around.
As Vice President, both his Junon and Midgar offices are of a decent size, but neither compare to this room. It is huge, so large that he can barely make out the far wall. And the walls are not wood panelled, but stark metallic white. It takes a moment for the implications to set in, and his eyes narrow as he realises that it is the President’s office, but from an angle he has not seen before. It is the view of the world from behind the Presidential desk.
“Amendments would not have been made without my approval,” he says coolly, turning to the speaker.
Heidegger clasps his arms behind him and barks out a laugh, striding closer. “You say that as if you’re important.”
“The President carries the final veto,” he says, settling back, allowing his gaze to travel around the assembly before his desk -- when did they get here? The entire Board is here, even Hojo, who stands off to the side, nose buried in a report. All five of them-
He frowns, the vaguest feeling of something being amiss. Of course, there is no Vice President, but there is someone else missing, another Director...
He counts again, and realises that he was wrong, of course. The Turks have not had a seat on the Board ever since the... Incident.
“Of course,” Reeve says, speaking up from behind Palmer. “But the President may ultimately be vetoed.”
I sign your paychecks, is the first response that pops to mind, but a decidedly infantile and useless one. He hardens his gaze to ice instead, lowering the gun to the tabletop and folding his hands over it. “Are you threatening me, perhaps?”
“Stop fooling yourself, stupid boy,” Hojo snaps, looking up briefly from his report. “What do you think happened to your father?”
My father...
“And your father was a far more powerful man than you are, Rufus dear,” Scarlet says, still smiling at him, an expression that inspires a desire to back away.
“So just be a good pawn and nothing will happen to you,” Heidegger sneers, and breaks into laughter. Scarlet’s higher pitched screech joins in, then Palmer’s rumble, and even Hojo is snickering. He glances at Reeve, last bastion of sanity amidst the tide, to find the other smirking, eyes glittering as he watched him, a hawk eying a mouse.
If you do not control them, they will control you. His father’s words sound in his mind, unbidden.
People do not act rationally.
In order to be effective, we cannot pre-empt people. We must control them.
His father. His father who is, by all accounts, dead.
The gun is cold under his fingers, as mad laughter shrieks in his ears.
*
The wind is cold across his face as he steps off the helicopter. Tracing the scars along his cheekbones, it is cold and harsh enough that it feels like a million tiny knives cutting into flesh, carving away flesh and bone and his very soul until only raw determination remains.
Avalanche is there, of course. Avalanche is always there, the fuckers: always getting in the way, always getting underfoot. At least this time, they’re at the heart of the problem and he’s going to finish them off once and for all.
The EMR is frozen to the palm of his hand as he strides across the platform to the detonator. Somewhere in the back of his mind there’s a little voice, telling him to look down, at all the destruction that will be caused, at all the carnage and the unnecessary waste of life. But he’s a Turk, has learnt to switch that voice off a long time ago, and the words fall on deaf ears.
He feels a grin stretch his face, his voice pitching itself to a false cheerfulness. “You’re too late,” he tells them. The wind catches the tails of his jacket and tries to force him back, but he shoulders on. Someone screams at him to stop, someone pleads with him to turn back, and he can’t tell whether it’s real or in his mind. Something stirs within him, and he almost pauses, head tilted to listen, but there’s another voice now: a tired, exhausted voice, and it calls his name.
And he knows he has to go on.
The wind slices away all feeling, all emotion, and there is nothing but dead blankness when he hits the button.
That’s all folks!
Mission accomplished.
He has to fight after that, keep them there while the Plate falls and everything ends. He has no intention of dying, of course not, he has too many things to do, but he forgets, forgets, and faces are flashing before his vision even as he snaps the EMR to full extension and lunges. Chris. Dax.
The EMR connects solidly, metal shrieking against metal as the ex-SOLDIER blocks it with his blade. George.
He traps the dark-haired girl in a pyramid as she lunges at him, and evades a volley from the man with the gun-arm. Kazui.
Someone hits him with a bolt attack and he slams to the ground, rolling with the force of the blow as the pillar begins to shake, the explosives going off in the core. He’s on his feet in a flash, the pain dissolving, cast aside, ignored. And he lunges blindly, stupidly, carelessly at the SOLDIER, feeling the EMR strike flesh even as something bites into him, metal and tearing through his arm, blood going everywhere, and it burns like fire.
Rufus.
Something hits him, and he’s flying backwards, the view of the plate above streaking by. And he thinks, rather inanely, that soon, all of that will be sky.
He hits the floor, hard, and it takes him a moment to get back up again. He stares down the three, mentally calculating the best angle of attack, when there’s a sudden shake from his PHS, three long one short: the signal to fall back. He backs up against the ledge, hearing the whistle of helicopter blades from below. And he smiles, a crazed, manic grin, and jumps.
“Go.” Rude’s hand is on his shoulder, and Reno blinks at him in confusion as he slaps the bandage to the wound in his arm. He’s been shot too, he realises now that he’s out of the fight, several non-critical scrapes that are starting to hurt like a bitch.
“Go where?”
“Tseng will keep them occupied. Find the Vice President.”
It should have been obvious before, except for the sheer idiocy of the plan, and the look that he levels at his partner is considering. “You realise we’re not gonna be able to go home after this.”
Rude’s fingers squeeze gently as he inclines his head at the explosions along the central pillar. “You know the secure rendezvous points. Make sure you don’t get caught.”
“You’re serious about this.”
Rude smiles, very slightly. “Rufus will need Turks to consolidate his Empire.”
“Yeah,” he replies, taking a painful breath, realising that it’s not just the plate that’s falling right now. It’s a regime. “Yeah.”
*
There’s a rhythm in this, flying down the corridors of Shinra tower, as everyone takes one look at his face and scrambles to get out of his way. They say his eyes glow, when he’s on a mission, and the dried blood across his uniform is splash of red: warning, danger, get the fuck out of the way.
He can feel his feet hitting the ground -- one step, two - but inside he feels like he’s flying, jacket whipping around him and adrenaline singing in his blood. He screeches to a halt before the double doors, and a backhand slam with the EMR takes the entire control panel out.
It’s not hard to get the door open after that, because C4 explosive clears a lot of things, and he’s not concerned about making a mess. He’s through even before the smoke clears, EMR levelled at the nearest tech, the bolt materia glowing in its handle.
“Scram,” he says. “And no one gets hurt.”
He doesn’t stand around waiting for them to flee, although he does keep an eye out for possible threats and sudden movement. But nothing stops him as he strides forward to the tank, and he draws back his arm, preparing to swing-
“Unwise move.”
He spins at the voice, coming face to face with a shrunken, bespectacled man swathed in white. “Hojo,” he growls, itching to punch the EMR right through his face, and turn the current to full. “Get out of the way. I’m getting him out.”
Light glints as Hojo inclines his head. “Stopping the process midway will almost certainly have ...interesting... results.”
Which is Hojo-speak for disastrous. Reno’s eyes flicker between the tank and the scientist, to the readings across the board which waver at an unsteady high. “What kind of results?!”
Hojo shrugs, something surprisingly elegant for someone who reminds Reno of an over-sized vulture. “I have never had one of my experiments interrupted in this fashion.”
“Hypothesize,” Reno growls, and he doesn’t know when he crossed the floor, but abruptly his free hand is fisted in Hojo’s labcoat, and his EMR is hovering dangerously near the other’s chin.
Hojo smiles, completely unperturbed. Slightly amused, in fact, which sets off all the alarm bells in Reno’s head.
“Disorientation is almost certain. But judging by how advanced the process is, and how stubborn the subject is, this is unlikely to last long. 100% reversion to normality is a possibility over time.”
He knows that he’s getting the run-around here, but he doesn’t have time any more. Someone’s bound to have raised the alarm by now, and the last thing he needs is for all of Shinra security to descend on his ears while he’s trying to get Rufus out.
“Run,” he snarls, shoving Hojo away, watching with satisfaction as the man stumbles backwards and hits the wall. “Before I change my mind and kill you.”
He spins to face the tank, lashing out with his EMR, and metal meets glass with a shriek. The buffer solution breaks through, greenish liquid splashing across the floor, tearing away the rest of the glass with a satisfying crunch -- like the wave that’s going to sweep the past and the old away -- and shards crunch underfoot as he steps up.
Materia falls away as he wrenches the globes out of their slots, HP absorbs and MP absorbs mixed in with the other status effect and command types. For a moment he wants to fling them across the room, watch them smash against sensitive equipment and utterly trash the place, but better sense prevails, and he pockets a few instead. Then, only then, does he allow his eyes to drift towards his target.
Rufus is a mess of wires, slumped against the floor, a puppet with its strings cut. Action wars with indecision for a moment as Reno contemplates him, not knowing where to even start, given that he has no idea what crap they’ve pumped into him and whether pulling any of that shit out will kill him. He spins, and finds Hojo still there, and there’s a gleam in his eyes and Reno can’t stand.
“Unplug him. And make sure you don’t hurt or kill him in the process,” he growls at the scientist, who shrugs as if this is all routine. Maybe it is. Maybe Hojo sees weirder things on a regular basis. Reno wouldn’t put it past him. He watches, tense as a wire, as the various needles come out, watching Rufus intently for any sign of a reaction. The respirator is the last, and sparks a fit of coughing that makes Reno shove Hojo aside as he moves to cradle Rufus.
And so it is, that the first thing Rufus sees when his eyes flicker open is Reno crouching over him.
To be continued