The Roof, Wednesday Afternoon

[studyingfear]

As far as Tseng was aware (hopefully; Rufus hadn't yet had time to go through all of his own sources to figure out what Tseng did and didn't know about his comings and goings), he'd been dropped off by a portal Monday night, back on the island, and (relatively) safe and sound.

In reality, Rufus had gotten back just before his morning class, with enough time to drop a sleepy Dark Nation off in his room and make it there without looking ruffled.

If Tseng hadn't caught him, it meant that he'd managed nearly thirty-six hours out of the Turks' reach. On Gaia. That was (hopefully) a first. He'd confirm it later.

Now that class was over, he'd swung by the coffee shop, picked up a drink, and made his way up to the roof of the dorms to survey the grounds.

He was tired. He had things to catch up on and deals to review and plans to refine.

But, sitting out in the sun, drinking a coffee and looking down at everything… he was surprisingly content to just… be, for a small while. Eventually, he pulled out his laptop and his PHS and began to work.

[Open!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante wouldn't call himself a frequent roof dweller or anything, but it was sometimes a good place to just come up and brood smoke. He wasn't used to people being there; it was usually pretty empty.

So he already had a cigarette hanging from between his lips when he showed up and... spotted Rufus.

"Huh."

[studyingfear]

He raised one eyebrow as he glanced over at Dante. Huh?

"That's some greeting," he said mildly.

Rufus didn't actually care. Peridot tended to greet him with worse.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Didn't think anyone would be here," Dante said, shrugging one shoulder as he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. "It's not a big socializing spot."

[studyingfear]

"There's reasons to be places that don't involve socializing," Rufus said dryly.

Namely, he'd felt like it.

"It's a big roof. You can ignore me if you'd like."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Hey, if everyone decides to come up here to avoid socializing, there's gonna be socializing," Dante said easily.

Ignoring Rufus's last few words, he wandered over to the kid. "What're you up to? Computer stuff?"

[studyingfear]

"Computer stuff," Rufus agreed, not bothering to hide his screen. Half of it was filled with Wutaian characters, in any case. The other half was covered in a pile of numbers and other data that Rufus wasn't really supposed to have access to.

Like that had ever stopped him. It was harder now, not being on Gaia. But doable.

"I was originally checking to see if my guardian had noticed my playing truant."

The data was inconclusive on that point. It irked him.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante was the wrong Sparda twin to be making sense of what was going on on Rufus's screen even if it'd all been in English, anyway.

"What, skipping out on your like, two classes?" Dante asked, tilting his head curiously. "I don't think anyone here notices."

[studyingfear]

"Not that," Rufus said, vaguely amused. He only cared about the classes insofar as attending them kept people from paying attention to him. "I went home on Monday for an appointment. I got back just this morning, though my guardian believes I went back Monday evening."

Sorry not sorry, Tseng.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante snorted. "Skipping out to have some fun on the town?" he said. He eyed the forest behind the skyline. "I can't say I blame you."

[studyingfear]

"There were things I wanted to do," Rufus said easily. "It gets tiring having someone always watching."

Overthrowing his father would be much easier if he knew he could avoid the Turks, after all. And some business deals were things they didn't need to know about.

"And I wanted to see if I could manage it. So far, I haven't had a bevy of increasingly furious phone calls about it. I might be safe."

Or Tseng might be just. that. angry.

[rebelseekspizza]

Between this and the prank thing the kid had going on last time Dante met him, he was starting to get a picture of what was going on.

"Sounds like someone has really protective parents," he said, fishing around his pocket for his lighter. "I mean, not protective enough not to send you around the universe to boarding school. So the asshole kind."

He put the cigarette back in his mouth and lit it.

[studyingfear]

"Parent, singular," Rufus said, since his mother was... not in the picture. He didn't even know who she was and he didn't care. "My father's an important man, with a lot of enemies. I'm his acknowledged heir."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Rich kid."

You were lucky Dante already liked you, Rufus, or that'd be a big point against you. He took a drag off his cigarette. "No wonder you're pranking your babysitter."

[studyingfear]

It wasn't like he'd tried to hide it.

"Yes," he agreed. "The man assigned to look after me is... over-zealous. While despising me at the same time."

Rufus was quite well aware of that--hell, he'd made sure that he'd earned it.

"I'd rather take my chances with my father's enemies."

Given that he was currently laying the groundwork to fund his father's enemies... well, his chances were looking fairly nice.

[rebelseekspizza]

Somewhere, Vergil was calling that a smart play.

"He try to make your life hell?" Dante asked sympathetically.

He wasn't fond of anyone who sounded like an authority figure.

[studyingfear]

Mostly, Tseng's purpose was to observe and to keep Rufus out of danger. Rufus was not opposed to playing up to a sympathetic audience though. Not too much, since that was suspect, but a little.

And some of it didn't even need exaggeration.

"I have been on the island for approximately a month," Rufus intoned. "I have received nearly a thousand phone calls and texts combined from him."

Mostly because Rufus wouldn't pick up his phone but, still. Seriously, Tseng?

[rebelseekspizza]

"Maybe you should start answering him with YouTube clips," Dante mused.

He was never above helping people troll somebody in charge.

[studyingfear]

"Do you have any suggestions?" Rufus asked, since that sounded highly entertaining. Speaking of entertaining... "He was quite upset with the pictures I sent to him about the wedding."

Though Tseng had likely been more upset because Rufus had sent those pictures and then refused to answer his phone until he was back on Midgar.

That had only made it more amusing to Rufus.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante let out a soft snicker. "Yeah? Did he get icy on you?" he said.

He'd been living with an elemental mage until recently. The ice trick had been cool, but not outside of the ordinary.

[studyingfear]

"That's terrible," Rufus pointed out, since it was. "There was shouting involved. He doesn't do icy well, if you push him past a certain point."

And even before that point, it was just a veneer.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. He made his terrible puns for himself, not for anyone else. "Looked like you had your own back just fine," he said.

Yeah, sure, Rufus was like, what, fourteen? That was old enough to defend yourself, right?

[studyingfear]

Rufus grimaced slightly.

"He might not actually know that I can," he admitted.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Why not?"

That seemed the best thing to ask. Dante could think of a few things, but what the hell did he know about overbearing parent and rich kid problems?

[studyingfear]

"It's complicated."

Still, Dante could be useful in the future, so Rufus elaborated.

"But it comes down to the fact that years ago I decided I was safer if the list of people who knew what I was actually capable of was kept... very small."

Rufus had been designing escape routes throughout the ShinRa Building since before he'd been five years old. He'd always had a strong appreciation for keeping his skin intact.

... Except when he decided it was worth risking.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante blew out a long breath of air and rolled that over in his head.

"You don't trust your dad's babysitters to do the job right?"