We Invented the Remix...Redux V

Title: The Great Pretenders (The Cruel to be Kind Remix)
Author: sazzlette
Summary: Rufus ShinRa is used to getting what he wants.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Harry Potter/Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: implied Rufus/Draco, Snape/Draco, Rufus/Tseng, Tseng/Draco?
Warnings: Character death, some violence, disjointed narrative
Spoilers: None
Original story: The Great Pretenders by fleshdress.



v.
It was a long time since he'd visited the House of Flowers. The air was sticky and close, the iron-hard tang of blood intensified by the stuffy atmosphere in the room.

There was fresh blood on the floor and he couldn't help but wonder: had he got here five minutes earlier, he might have walked into a very different scene.

Snape crouched down beside the body, avoiding the blood-soaked white coat and reaching up to pull down the eyelids over wide, unseeing grey eyes. Overhead, the ceiling fan whirred gently.

Muffled laughter could be heard from a nearby room, and a neon sign was flickering in the window, throwing pink and yellow light into the room and across Draco's face. It tinged his skin unnaturally, making him look more like a dummy than a dead boy. Snape touched Draco's cheek; the skin was still warm under his fingertips, and he held back the urge to vomit.

Getting to his feet once more, Snape glanced around the room with distaste, his eyes lingering slightly on the green coverlet that had slid halfway off the bed. Snape closed his eyes. The materia Draco had taken from Spinner's End had to be here somewhere; pure magic wouldn't work so well surrounded by so much Mako energy, so he'd have to search for it by hand.

Snape moved about the room carefully, avoiding the spilled blood and checking in drawers and under clothes. Eventually he found what he was looking for, tucked in the back of a drawer and wrapped in a dirty handkerchief. Unwrapping it carefully, cradled in one spiderlike palm so that it cast a sickly greenish glow over his fingertips, Snape knelt down and took hold of Draco's wrist. At least he wouldn't be running away again.



i.
"So, Rude. Where d'you want to go?"

Rude shrugged. "You're the one that wants to get a drink. I've got paperwork—"

"Yeah alright, I get the picture," said Reno impatiently, stalking ahead of him. "We've all got paperwork, but I've already told you if I have to fill in one more form signed in triplicate, purple ink, and mailed to last Wednesday I might just kill something."

Reno stepped into the road without looking, causing a van to skid to a halt inches from him. The driver opened his window and started shouting obscenities at Reno, who stood with his arms folded and a beatific expression on his face, until Rude calmly knocked on the passenger window and gave the man a friendly smile. He quickly shut up, and Reno nodded at Rude before continuing.

"How about we go downstairs?" Reno asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking at an abandoned ShinRa Press. A picture of the President adorned the front page. He was shaking hands with some suited dignitary and in the background could be seen the swooping heights of Gold Saucer. "I know this great little dive in Sector Four—"

He broke off as his cellphone started to ring. He let it ring three times before Rude eventually cleared his throat. Reno groaned and retrieved the cell from his jacket, answering it on the fifth ring.

"Yes?"

"Sir?" It was Elena, a trainee that they knew pretty well, and Reno pulled a face at Rude.

"Yo," he said, sighing. "This had better be good. We're off duty, and I've got a date with a Flaming Bahamut."

Rude raised an eyebrow at him, no doubt thinking about the last time Reno had been drinking that particular cocktail. Reno stuck his tongue out.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Elena quickly. "But I thought you'd want to hear about this now."

Reno stopped pulling faces. "I'm listening."



vi.
Rufus handed the gun back to Reno with a brief nod. "Thank you," he said, reaching up to brush a strand of hair off his forehead.

"Anytime, boss," replied Reno, stowing the gun somewhere discreet.



ii.
"What does the Vice-President want to see me for?"

Reno smiled lazily and, moving a little closer to Draco, patted him neatly on the bottom. "I think you can guess."

Draco stared at him, dumbfounded. "He—he wants to fuck me?"

"Nice one," said Rude, looking faintly amused.

"Shut up," snapped Reno, before turning back to Draco. "No, you little smartass. The boss is just a teensy bit concerned that there's someone out there pretending to be him, if you see what I mean."

"You mean he's concerned that people want to f—"

"I suggest you put a stop to that thought right now," said Rude in a rumbling tone. The kid looked suitably chastised: Reno almost felt a little sorry for him.

"We know what goes on at the House of Flowers, kiddo," said Reno, opting for a friendly tone. "We know people pay big bucks to dip their wick in the 'Vice-President'." He paused and eyed Draco thoughtfully for a moment. "I bet some of them aren't very nice."

"How do you know so much about it anyway?" asked Draco, smirking, head tilted at a cocky angle. "You a regular?"

Reno smiled and then poked Draco hard in the sternum with the end of his buzzbaton. "I'd be more careful if I were you, sweetheart," he said pleasantly, enjoying Draco's scowl at the endearment. It was one of the things he personally had always hated most about—

"He used to work there."

Reno turned to stare at Rude in disbelief, narrowing his eyes to a glare when Draco laughed and said, "You're not serious?"

"Thanks for that," said Reno, turning back to Draco and seizing him by the shoulder before dragging him from the lift. "Come on, you."

"You really worked there?"

"Rude, I swear, I'm going to kill you while you sleep."



iii.
"I could have you killed, you know."

"Yeah? Why don't you just do it yourself."

With a furious cry, Rufus seized the lapels, of Draco's expensive jacket and shoved him up against the nearby pillar. "I could press a button now," he whispered, bringing his face very close to Draco's. This close, he couldn't see anything of himself there. "And you'd be dead in five seconds."

"Wait!" said Draco. One of Rufus' fists was pressing against Draco's throat and his breathing was heavy and constricted. "I know about Tseng."

"You don't know anything about—"

"I know how you feel about him." Rufus didn't reply to that, and Draco licked his bottom lip nervously. "I know," he said slowly, "because I'm the same."

Rufus growled and slammed Draco's head back against the pillar. "You're not the same as me," he said in a vicious tone. "We're not anything alike. You're just a common slut."

"I wasn't always," snapped Draco, then his eyes softened a little. "I know what it's like. Watching him, trying to get his attention, pushing your luck just that little bit further every time."

"Shut up!"

"No!" "You don't realize how lucky you are. At least he wants you too."

Without bothering to consider what Draco had meant by that, Rufus dragged Draco away from the pillar and spun him around so that he crashed into the desk. Draco's hands caught instinctively at the edge of the desk as he tried to stop himself falling, and Rufus laughed and shoved him forwards over the desktop.

"You think I want Tseng to fuck me?" hissed Rufus, one hand between Draco's shoulders to hold him down, and the other pulling his shabby coat out of the way. "Like all your bored business men fuck you?"

"Of course you do," said Draco placidly, staying perfectly still and submissive while Rufus tugged the coat off him and then untucked Draco's shirt. "But he won't do it."

"You're right," Rufus agreed. "He won't. But he might fuck you, if he hasn't already."

Draco made a soft noise of surprise as Rufus undid his trousers and yanked them down, leaving Draco in nothing but his shirt and waistcoat, trousers bunched around his ankles. Rufus stared at Draco's pale, bruised legs without compassion.

"Take off your waistcoat," he said shortly, allowing Draco up a little. Draco obeyed, slowly, fingers trembling slightly as he tried to work the buttons. "You can see the whole of the Plate from up here, you know. I bet that's not a sight you see very often, too busy scrounging about in the slums."

"Nobody chooses to live down there," muttered Draco coldly, dropping the waistcoat on the floor at Rufus' feet.

"Of course they do. My father—"

"Your father isn't right about everything."

Rufus noted the bitterness in Draco's voice with mild interest, and offered him a brief, cruel smile. "That's very true," he said, seizing a handful of Draco's hair and backing him against the desk once more. "And one day he'll come to realise it."

Draco glared at Rufus, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as his head was pulled back to what must have been an uncomfortable degree. "My father—"

Rufus sighed loudly. "Just shut up."



iv.
"Please don't turn around."

Before coming here Draco wouldn't really have known what a gun was. He knew that it was a Muggle weapon for killing people, and given that it was a Muggle invention, it was probably messy and unnecessarily complicated.

But now Draco had seen what a gun could do. It was just part of life in Midgar, particularly around the Sector 7 slums, and the cold metal of the gun barrel biting into the back of his neck made him tremble. He closed his eyes and waited. Music drifted down the corridor and the street outside buzzed with life. Overhead, the ceiling fan whirred gently.

After a moment the gun barrel was removed from his neck, and there followed an audible click, unnervingly loud in the small room. Draco waited.

Suddenly, a piercing tone trilled through the stuffy air. Draco recognized it as belonging to a cellphone; he'd sometimes seen clients using them, usually the better dressed ShinRa employees, and he held his breath as it continued to ring, shrill and demanding.

"Excuse me, Mr Malfoy," said Tseng politely. There was a faint whisper of cloth as he extracted his cellphone and flipped it open smoothly. "Yes, sir?"

Draco couldn't hear the voice on the other end, just the faint static hum of speech, but from Tseng's tone he assumed it was Rufus.

"I'm at the House of Flowers, sir," said Tseng. There was a pause while he listened to the reply, and Draco strained desperately to hear what was being said at the other end of the line.

"No, sir," he said eventually. "I haven't."

For a long moment Tseng seemed to be listening intently, and Draco held his breath until Tseng eventually replied again in the affirmative and snapped the cellphone shut once more. Again there was a soft rustle of cloth as he pocketed the phone.

"It would be best for everyone, and not least your own health, Mr Malfoy," he commented, "if you forgot the last three hours entirely."

Draco nodded, letting his breath out with a sigh. Tseng turned to leave, but Draco spoke, making him pause.

"You ought to tell him."

"Tell him what?" Tseng asked, his voice calm and polite.

Draco risked a glance at Tseng, half-turning towards him. "That you love him."

Tseng said nothing. His eyes were dark and impossible to read, and the odd familiarity of them made Draco smile and ache with longing.

"Goodbye, Mr Malfoy," replied Tseng eventually, and Draco nodded as he left and shut the door behind him.

It seemed awfully quiet now that the room was empty, and Draco sat down on the bed, resting his chin on his hand and looking around at the messy interior. He ached to go home again; it filled him right up to the brim so that he was exhausted with the desperate need for it.

"Draco."

Draco's head snapped up at the familiar voice, and he leapt from his seat on the bed.

"You! What are you doing here?"

Rufus smiled, slow and cruel.

"I came to say goodbye."


END.