Final Fantasy VII: Beyond Good, Or: Evil (Tseng, Rufus, Reno cameo)

[karanguni]

Title: Beyond Good, Or: Evil
Characters: Tseng; Rufus and Reno
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Middle-sized Midgar AU. Bad religious overtones. Bad overtones! Written for roads_diverged on IJ; theme: battling the Devil.
Summary: Sometimes you need something more than a little morality.

4899 words; this is one of those which just don't budge no matter how much you pick at it or feel that it isn't right. I apologise on its behalf; it turned out more a mood piece than a plotty.



The coffee's cooling on the dashboard. He's been watching the lights go from red to orange to green for the last two hours, but it doesn't bore him so much as keep him occupied. There's a gun in his hands, and he's been taking it apart, putting it back together, taking it apart. Filling time. He's bored. It's two a.m. Midgar never sleeps; the roads are noisier than they are in the day. Modified motorcycles being ridden by hit-up boys. Exhaust-spewing cars that should've been scrapped five years back.

Tseng's sitting in a black coupe that purrs. He doesn't bother with the engine specs, though he knows them, and doesn't bother with plates, because there's no one in the city who's suicidal enough to want to trace a car like that. He's had it for a few years. Had to change the upholstery a couple of times since then for a number of reasons. The expenses don't bother him.

He takes a sip from the cup. Unsweetened black roast hits his tastebuds and it's like being clubbed with a blunt weapon. He savours it for as long as it lasts, then throws the cup of the window and watches it get run over three or four times, spinning crazily over the dirty tarmac.

At two thirty five, his cell rings. 'Tseng,' he says, flipping it open with one hand and turning the keys in the ignition with the other. 'All right.'

Directives that go to him are always short. Tseng's done in less than a minute; he's pulling out into the main junction of Club and Tower, edging out slower vehicles and riding down and out through the spiderweb of sliproads. He tails a white convertible; it stands out in the neon of the night, so obvious that it doesn't take much to follow it all the way to one of the more rowdy clubs that the city has to offer.

Something warms his gut, but it's not necessarily anticipation. Tseng's lost track of the number of nights he's spent out doing this. He enjoys a job well done; but it could be any job, he thinks. Sometimes this one gets too easy, easy in a way it shouldn't be.

The convertible stops right at the corner curb. The queue for the Bahamut snakes in front of it. There are people everywhere; talking, smoking, drinking, waiting, basking in the artificial sunlight of the streetlamps. Tseng gets out of the coupe before the convertible's engines are killed.

A Midgar crowd knows trouble when it sees it: a man walking with a gun in hand spells shit hitting the fan. The queue moves epileptically as Tseng approaches, but it doesn't quite break. It's as typical of them as it's typical of a Turk when Tseng strides up to the side of the convertible, takes one look at the man in the passenger's seat (Jericho, Adams; runs the drug supply for this part of town) and then shoots him in the face. Tseng turns his head so that the blood doesn't get into his eyes. The red stuff splatters mostly over the white leather interior.

The driver is swearing and shouting and making a hell of a lot of noise, slamming his foot down on the accelerator and reversing madly. Tseng steps up onto the sidewalk curb and lets the convertible make a panicked thirty-point turn out and away. By the time its fender disappears from sight, there's no sight of a firearm in Tseng's hands. He brushes down his suit. The crowd, tittering, marks his face and slowly, slowly slithers back into a proper line.

It's so routine that Tseng would feel sickened by it, if he had the kind of heart for that sort of thing anymore. Five or six years there would've been some resistance, at least - maybe the driver might've pulled out a .38, maybe some bystander would've yelled and picked a fight. Now they all just see the Turk instead of the person, and it scares the shit out of them. Everyone wants to roll over quietly, get it over and done with. It doesn't just take the fun out of the game, it makes the act even more depressing than it ought to be.

Tseng sighs. Midgar's the wrong place to philosophise about anything. Humans are pretty depressing creatures. He puts his hands in his pockets and shoulders his way past the front of the line. The bouncers pretend not to see him. No one voice any objections.

The inside of the Bahamut is dark and loud and hot. The smell of dust and ozone fades out; the sharp smell of alcohol, old sex and sweat rises. The dance-eletronica-whatever on the speakers blare and blare and blare. Tseng finds his way to the second floor by feel and by memory; they unhook the barrier and let him through to the VIP lounge, where it's a bit quieter, but a lot more fucked up.

Rufus is in the centre of one of the plush couches, surrounded on both sides by women wearing close to nothing and men wearing sleazy smiles. He's talking to the owner of the establishment; a Mister Hidermann who's taken enough drugs and shit to look ten years older than he really is. 'Ah, Tseng,' Shinra says, raising his glass in toast. 'I was just talking to Charles about you.' His eyes twinkle; Rufus is playing his usual game.

'Jericho's dead,' Tseng says, flatly. He's the trump card here; he always is, when Rufus calls him in personally. Hindermann's face goes white like he's trying not to yell or piss his pants or both. Tseng assumes that Rufus has been trying to broker a deal; channel in Shinra's new mako drugs and beat out all the competition. The economics of it are very solid: less competition means more demand, more demand means more money, etcetera, etcetera. Tseng has no idea why all of this still interests Shinra. Rufus has been doing it since he could speak, probably; aged twenty-six, the man's now got his fingers in everything. Doesn't matter if it's drugs or weapons or cars or people: legit or underground, Rufus Shinra's been there, done that; probably was the one to make up the cheesy line about the t-shirt, too.

'Then that settles things nicely, doesn't it?' Rufus is saying to Hindermann, reaching across the table to shake the man's limp hand. 'I'll run Reno down with the details tomorrow night. Why don't we celebrate now, stop talking business for a change.' Rufus rarely uses question marks. It's a waste of his time.

Tseng turns to leave; his work is done here, technically.

'Tseng,' Rufus says, calling him back. It's as predictable as everything else has been tonight. Tseng turns back, good and faithful dog that he is. He gives Rufus a look that says that he's not impressed, Rufus returns it, and better. Fucking self-satisfied son of a bitch. 'Come here,' Rufus says, patting the seat next to him.

The girls don't look too happy. 'There's not enough space, Rufus,' a particularly painted up one says. Tseng's ready to bet that she's had more silicon in her than flesh.

'It's all right,' Rufus smiles, showing teeth. He taps the floor space in front of him with his foot. 'There's always room.'

Turk is a very convenient label; it's neither "whore" nor "assassin", so it's all very neatly packaged for Rufus. Tseng brushes off his knees and kneels. 'What do you get out of this?' he asks Rufus.

Rufus likes lip almost as much as he likes Tseng getting blasé about sex. Another weird turn-on; the Turk won't speculate. 'You're special to me,' the blond says, eyeing Tseng from beneath his lashes. 'What else do you want me to say?'

'Stop wasting my time, Rufus,' Tseng replies, undoing the younger man's belt and roughly yanking down on the zip of his pants. 'Reno enjoys this more.'

'Did I say anything about enjoyment?' Rufus shoots back, burying one hand in Tseng's hair. 'Get to it.'

Tseng pushes Rufus' hand away and ties his black strands back. He doesn't bother to dissuade Rufus; it's no skin off his teeth to do it. He leans down and sucks. Rufus is already hard; probably the after effects of drugs, or maybe he's been holding off. It doesn't take long, in any case - Shinra tugs his head down, chokes him a little, runs his hand along Tseng's throat to feel the suck and swallow; Tseng adds a mental etcetera, etcetera to that, too. The girls watch them, half-envious and half-interested, but Rufus pays them no mind. He yanks Tseng's head back when he comes, painting the Turk's face dirty. Tseng snarls a little, and Rufus laughs. He doesn't laugh as much when Tseng uses his clean white shirt to mop up.

'Fucker,' Rufus says, a purr in his voice. He's not good at irritation when he's high on success. 'You missed a spot,' he points out, reaching out to wipe a patch of white and copper red from the ridge of Tseng's cheekbone.

'I'm done here,' Tseng says once the other man is finished preening. He stands and takes a sip from Rufus' drink to wash the taste of come away. 'Good night, Rufus.'

He can feel Shinra watching him as he walks away, but he stopped being concerned about that a long time ago. The only thing Rufus is really good for is putting out the pay checks and getting Tseng angry; the Turk isn't sure when Rufus will realise that not everyone on his tab thinks themselves subordinate to the heirling, but it won't be soon enough.

He drives back to Shinra's legitimate headquarters, which serve as a fine place to refuel, if nothing else. It's in the centre of the sectors; it's a faster drive there than back to his own apartment. The coupe slides into Tseng's designated lot (labelled "Research Director") and he slides out. The elevator slides up. The doors slide open.

Everything is so damn easy that Tseng feels like hitting something, someone. Rufus antagonises him more by the day, his job bores him by the night. There's almost nothing left here for him.

The 58th level of Shinra's building is Turk territory. Once upon a time (urban legend says) the place was full of frightened street kids dressed in unfamiliar clothes; once upon a time they needed things like teamwork and the reassurance that came with someone else getting their hands dirty next to you. Nowadays, Tseng's subordinates grow increasingly independent - they've grown up same as Rufus has.

Reno's a good example. There was a time when he'd wear a tie in Tseng's presence. Now he's in jeans, sitting on the lounge couch, high on (if the debris around him's any indication) vodka twisters and probably something else. He's a lot more for Rufus' holy trinity (sex, drugs, alcohol) than Tseng is; it's one of the reasons why Reno doesn't share Tseng's attitude to their boss.

'Hey,' Reno drawls, his vowels runny. 'Off the job?'

Tseng nods, stripping off his blazer and rolling up his shirtsleeves. The blowjob has him itchy in his own skin; jumpy. Reno can see it. They've all spent enough time in each other's company to tell when something needs scratching. 'Wanna fuck?' the redhead says.

It's too easy, again.

'Nothing so complicated,' Tseng growls, an aftershock of adrenaline and annoyance hitting his bloodstream. Reno grins. Tseng grabs him by the hair (same as Rufus) and pulls him down (same as Rufus) and does it the same as Rufus, the same as Rufus.

Reno licks his lips after they're done, though. Tseng wants to slap some sense into him. 'Rufus have you tense again?'

'When does he not?' Tseng says, rolling Reno off of him and reaching for the bottle of vodka. He takes a shot, drinking from the neck.

'All those rumours used to go round,' Reno laughs, his voice higher than it ought to be, eyes brighter than they should be. 'Rumours like Rufus liked you plenty much.'

'Rufus doesn't like someone who won't bend over backwards for him,' Tseng snorts.

'So you go around trying to take the shit out of him, just because?' Reno sniggers.

'I'm getting tired with being fucked around with,' Tseng says, ponderously.

It's dangerous, thinking in Midgar.

Reno's eyes snap open, losing some of their weird edge. 'Hey, hey. Are you getting at --'

'Maybe I am,' Tseng shrugs, oblique. 'We've got enough men.'

'That's not the point,' Reno says strongly. He has a point; Reno's always been smart. 'You think Rufus is just gonna let you walk out of here?'

'What will he do about it if I do?' Tseng asks, his cheeks more coloured than they've been in a while. 'Order me not to? Dock my pay? Threaten to never let me suck him off again?'

Never have allies stronger than yourself; Rufus should've been smart enough to know that rule.

'Rufus is the fucking devil,' Reno says. 'And if he thinks you've found conscience or religion or something, he's going to make your life a piss-miserable shithole.'

'It'd be interesting to see him try, actually,' Tseng says, wryly. He loosens his tie, checks his watch. It's getting late. He doesn't want to spend the night in Rufus' building. 'Maybe I'm talking rubbish,' he says, eyeing Reno. 'Maybe I never thought about any of this.'

'Didn't hear a damned thing,' Reno growls, but he's worried, the way that people will be when they've got investment in others.

Tseng smiles. It's not a particularly nice expression on a man like himself. Reno's right about Rufus; and there are plenty of things that Tseng's done - blindly - in his name. Finding conscience, huh.

He shrugs. 'Don't shoot up to the point where you're an imbecile,' he advises Reno before he leaves. 'Rufus needs people to do thinking for him, sometimes.'

The night swallows him whole when he eases back into it, which suits Tseng just fine.

He doesn't come into work the next day. He turns off his cell phone. When he turns it back on, it's one in the afternoon, and he's in a deserted coffee place, sitting with a latte in hand and no tie on. It beeps three angry messages and four missed calls at him.

Tseng finds himself laughing - honest laughter - for the first time in a long while. He leaves it on the tabletop, and watches the empty streets through clear glass windows. The sun makes Midgar shrink.

His phone rings at one thirty, which is when Rufus goes on break most of the time. Tseng picks up, lazily. 'Yes?' he says into the receiver. The diatribe he hears makes him smile. 'No,' he says, quite enjoying the tone of Rufus' voice. 'I haven't made any plans for any vacation.'

Confusion is a good sound on smug assholes. 'I think I'm fine without you, Rufus,' he replies to something the blond says, which is actually quite true. Tseng's been paid more money over the years than he knows what to do with -- there's nothing in the seething mess of the commercialised city that he wants, and even less that he can't afford.

'I'm not being a coward about anything,' Tseng says pleasantly. 'No, Rufus. No. I'm simply tired - of a lot of things. Of the job.' Rufus says something that makes him chuckle. 'I suppose retirement is the right word. And at my age, yes.'

Tseng's being positively talkative. It's remarkable what change can do to a person. 'A golden handshake? I'd have thought you more the sort to spit in my face, no offence intended. Fine. Move? Why should I? I'll meet you here.'

Tseng nudges his cell closed with his chin, and waits. He's been at the job a long time; negotiation is a skill he's long mastered. It doesn't take long before he sees a dark car roll up outside. Tseng can feel the barista stiffen; the man makes himself scarce in the backroom.

Rufus Shinra walks into a coffee shop with a package in his hands and a hard look on his face. He's not used to not getting his way. The blue eyes are sharp, glittering like diamonds. Tseng thinks that this must be better than sex.

'Tseng,' Shinra says, forcing etiquette.

'Rufus,' Tseng says, not bothering with.

The package is thrown onto the table. 'I thought that I'd best give you something,' Shinra says, declining Tseng's offer to seat himself. 'For all the years.'

'The gesture is appreciated,' Tseng nods. He touches it. 'Should I open it?'

'Please do.'

There's a gun inside, laid on top of a bible from the Ancient church. Tseng looks up at Rufus and raises a curious, amused eyebrow.

'Since you seem to want to quit this line of work,' Rufus cocks his head at the scripture. 'And the gun - you can shoot yourself with it when it gets too much.'

Tseng laughs in his face, but with dignity.

'Turks don't retire, Tseng,' Rufus says.

'I know,' Tseng says, putting the gun away and lightly flipping through the thick book. 'But I'm not a Turk anymore.'

Rufus is the devil, he hears Reno say in his mind.

The following nights are his first free ones in what must have been the better part of a decade. Against his own will, Tseng feels empty. The job had never been quiet; at first it had been exhilarating, then it had been questionable, and then it'd turned boring, but being a Turk had never been boring.

Tseng doesn't quite know what to do with Midgar's famous nights: he's washed the blood off of his hands, and now they're grasping at air. He ends up in the black coupe in the black suit with the black coffee in the black night. He avoids the Bahamut. He's never tried living like the living before - Tseng supposes he should start now. Thrill seekers flock to the city for a reason; Tseng follows the crowd, and sees where it leads him.

The clubs have the same amount appeal now as they had the night before. The crowds part for him. Tseng slips in. He spends time in the wash of bodies. They press against him. Sometimes he finds a mouth, wet with saliva and slick. Other times he finds someone pressing a pill against his lips. He always spits afterwards. The music fills him up, but then it overflows - thought isn't allowed on the floor, and the sweat and grind of it feels exactly like how it is to beat a man senseless. Tseng finds that he enjoys the latter more.

There is sex in the backrooms exactly like how there is sex in the private lounges. They use walls instead of couches. Tseng discovers that he's good at both. He fucks better than he's fucked; it has something to do with the way he can wrap fingers around a willing neck, the way nails can dig into hips and draw blood, the way that shoving in and crashing and crushing comes naturally to him.

By the end of the night it seems that he's not managed to retire from anything. Tseng takes a break against the bar, reaching across the darkness and stealing a cigarette from one of the anonymous crowd. The city's good for discovering vices, but all of the people around him seem petty; their sins petite in comparison to Tseng's own.

Nicotine, which he's always denied himself on the basis of needing to stay clear headed, tastes brilliant the first breath and fetid the next. Tseng tries one stick, then another. He chain smokes for a night and walks home the next day, watching the sun rise up above the Plate as the alcohol drains away and the stench of smoke evaporates.

He showers with his clothes on. There's no blood to wash off today. Tseng turns his face up into the spray and lets the scorching water beat warmth into his muscles. He jerks off, experimentally. His body responds, but his mind is blank. Maybe he's spent too much time waiting for orders, jumping to the sound of Rufus' whistles. Nothing he does on his own seems solid. Tseng stops trying, gets out, towels dry.

Angels and demons, but Tseng doesn't believe in superstition.

He goes to bed naked, idly counting his old scars. Tseng's an old dog by Midgar's standards. It's equivalent to counting sheep. It's bright out when he's done; Tseng is neither bothered by the sunlight nor sleepy.

He waits for phone calls, orders, people to kill. He closes his eyes, but the image of the last guy they interrogated paints itself there. His face is brown and black; blood and bruises respectively. Tseng can remember how he screamed as Rude stepped down hard on the arch of his foot. Tseng can remember standing there, asking the questions, getting the answers. This, of all things, gets him hard; the thought of the man begging gets him wet.

Tseng doesn't touch himself. He rolls over, tries to get to sleep.

The ticking of his watch on the bedside table drives him slowly mad. Tick tock tick tock tick tock. He hasn't slept in thirty odd hours, but he's used to it. He's used to a lot of things. Tick tock tick tock tick tock. He can count the seconds and measure it against a pulse.

At one thirty in the afternoon, someone calls. Tseng rises from the bed, snarling, and throws his phone against the wall. It shatters into component pieces and scatters all over the place.

Tseng goes into the bathroom to wash his face down. His soap smells of sulphur, or perhaps it's his imagination. The reflection in the mirror looks like him, but feels different. The withdrawal is getting to him, he tells himself, except that Tseng's never been on drugs, never liked the sex, never drunk much alcohol.

His doorbell rings at two p.m, interrupting Tseng in his reading of the Ancient bible. He's not sure whether to be thankful or irate; the bible is full of parables and stories and as much sex and violence as he'd credit to the forebears of the city.

Rufus is at the door. The Shinra doesn't bother to disguise the once-over that he gives Tseng, who lets him in dressed in only loose slacks and nothing else. 'Hard night?' the blond asks. 'I thought you'd might need some looking after.'

'I'm not your dog anymore, Rufus,' Tseng says, patiently, refusing to admit to himself that the only thing that's felt right for the past week has been the weight of the gun that he still keeps on himself. 'No need to feed me your table scraps.'

'Table scraps?' Rufus says. 'What do you take me for? No, I brought something else.' Rufus reaches for a basket he's left outside Tseng's door. It's filled with red apples.

'Are you trying to tell me something?' Tseng says, archly. Rufus points at the bible in his hands, smug.

Tseng resists the urge to say fuck you, because Rufus really is a snake.

'Want to come back yet?' Rufus asks before he leaves.

'Stop asking,' Tseng replies, and shuts the door in the face of his personal demon. He feels, oddly enough, like a vampire, standing there wishing that he were leeching the life out of someone instead of having it bleed out of him like this.

Whether it's because he's honestly gone crazy, or because he's curious, or because he's wondering if there's good or evil in the first place, Tseng gets up early one morning and goes to the church in the slums.

Their parish, or whatever they call it, is small and vaguely pathetic. Tseng, used to corporate extravagance and Rufus' outlandish indulgences, seats himself silently in the last wooden pew, out of place and obvious in the crowd.

The sermon starts, and Tseng listens and tries not to put it through the filters that he has in place. But some things are instinctive, and every word about hope and salvation and repentance and the inner redeemable is met, blow for blow, by cynicism and the inner monologue of a natural realist. Tseng doesn't have the facility of faith in him, or perhaps he's just not a good person. The thought is strangely comforting, even though he knows it shouldn't be.

They give out flowers after it's all over; flowers in Midgar. Tseng takes the bloom that they offer him, and looks at them in a way that makes the person in charge falter before saying the customary bless you.

Afterwards, the church empties quickly, too quickly; Tseng's not surprised when he finds Reno hanging around outside afterwards. Reno's uniform looks ironed. Tseng doesn't have to guess who's been picking up his slack. The redhead doesn't look too pleased. 'I think you--' are the first words out of Reno's mouth, and that has Tseng walking away, one hand reaching in for the gun.

Reno grabs Tseng by the arm, which is a wrong move in any circumstance. He finds himself staring down a gun barrel. Reno freezes. 'Still got it in you, I guess,' he says, in the kind of voice that is used to placate wild animals.

'What do you want?' Tseng says, his voice even. His blood seems to be boiling. Do it, do it, do it. The more he looks for reasons not to listen, the more he finds that there are none.

'We need to hit a guy,' Reno says, holding his hands up. 'I'm not here on Rufus' leash. But I figured you could do with a bit of --' Reno shrugs. 'Aren't you?' he asks, vaguely.

'Aren't I what, Reno?' Tseng says, tone dangerous.

'You're still pointing a gun to my head,' Reno says with all objectivity.

Tseng pulls the gun away. Reno shuffles backwards another step, for safety, out of respect, who knows. 'It gets to you, doesn't it?' the redhead asks, with the terrible understanding of someone who knows what it's like to fight the urge.

Shinra must've taught Tseng every one of the deadly sins, because the next thing he says is, 'Who?', and he never once asks what or why. There's nothing wrong, a voice in his head whispers, about inventing your own religion if you think that all the gods are false anyway and when your Lucifer is a mere mortal man.

The world realigns and reconfirms itself when Tseng stands in the confession box later that night. There's nothing much to confess, really; no words, certainly. He's getting blood all over the old wood, and if it dries it won't come out again; it's fitting like few things are.

Every beating he gives is a worry delivered. Tseng hits again and again and again; each time he does it, he's being cruel, being evil, being bad; every time he cares less, and less, and less.

The man is loud and impolite about it; he screams a lot, won't stop moving, makes things harder on himself. All of it becomes part of the soundscape of the night; no one comes running, and Tseng doesn't stop. It's familiar, it's typical, it's - startlingly, satisfyingly - natural.

The man is blabbering and writhing, but getting weaker. Tseng doesn't stop. It feels good in a way he can't explain. When he shoots the man through the head, he isn't thinking about justification or Rufus or any god; just control, and the fact that it's back in his hands once more.

Tseng pulls the trigger a second time. The gun goes click click; there was only one shot left in the cartridge, and Rufus had meant it for him. The hollow noise snaps Tseng out of a daze that's lasted a fortnight (or the whole of his goddamned life).

Rufus is the devil; quoting fucking scripture for his own purpose.

Tseng puts himself back together after the man stops twitching; buttons his blazer, wipes his hands, steps out of the box. There's a street urchin waiting at the far end of the church; the boy's twelve years old or thereabouts, an age Tseng remembers with not much fondness. He was like that once; a diurnal immigrant new to the nocturnal stage.

'Hey mister,' the kid shouts at him when Tseng begins to walk away. 'Aren't you gonna strip him? Take his wallet?'

Tseng turns. 'Why,' he says, calm settling all on his shoulders like a well-missed mantle, 'would I want money, or anything else that man had? Take it. It's yours.'

Scavenge, stay alive, go out and take someone's life and take someone over and then take over the fucking world if you have to, if you can, if you want. As he walks off, Tseng hears the noise of the boy ruffling through gil and going ewww in a half-fascinated and half-disgusted way.

Tseng heads towards Shinra, and imagines shoving the barrel of a gun into Rufus Shinra's mouth, of pulling the trigger, of hearing a coward's scream like the noise of beautiful exorcism, and of everything that will come after that.

Tseng fades back in out of the day and heads home to the centre. His smile is white against Midgar's black night; two a.m and there in resident hell.