Chapter Text
Tseng
I somehow managed to keep control through the debrief, helped by the fact that Elena and even Rufus were waiting in the hallway outside for their turns to speak with Veld. But my thoughts chased themselves in circles whenever there was nothing else to engage my attention. Had what I had seen in the helicopter been only misattribution of arousal on the others' part, or something more? Had Rufus shifted his focus?
And if so, why did it make me feel so deeply disappointed, when it would simplify my life so much?
I had been . . . anticipating for too long, I suppose. Thinking of him. Dreaming about him as many nights as not. I couldn't deny that I was attracted—not without lying to myself—and I had been expecting that, sooner or later, he would decide to court me. I had reached the point where I wanted him to. Gotten in too deep, even if only inside my own head.
And if he didn't, I . . . would just have to live with that. It would be better if Rufus settled on Elena—better for them, and better for Shinra. There were still some conservative businessmen out there who would not be happy if our President took a male partner. Individually, they had little power, but collectively—
"Tseng."
My head snapped up. "Yes, sir?"
"You're losing focus," Veld said. "Genesis Rhapsodos just messaged saying he'd finished freezing the Plate-drop mechanism. The terrorists still need to be rounded up, but Reno and Rude can handle that, along with a couple of squads of SOLDIERs. Go take a shower, eat a decent meal, and have some downtime—you've had a long day. I'll call you if anything crops up that requires your assistance."
"Understood." Even though I didn't much like being sent off to bed like an errant child, I knew Veld was right. I had been through several adrenaline lift-and-crash cycles today, and was no longer at my best. Better to rest while I had the chance.
I was in the elevator when my PHS chimed at me. Extracting it from my pocket, I discovered a message from Rufus: Come to my apartment. How . . . expected. I allowed myself a sigh as I punched the button for a higher floor than I had originally been headed for.
The apartment door would have answered to my keycard had I chosen to use it, but instead I knocked. In the few moments before Rufus came over and opened it, I heard another elevator stop and open behind me, and shoes against the muffling carpet that covered the hallways here.
"Sir?" Elena's voice. Of course.
"He did say he wanted to talk to both of us." Scarcely had I finished saying that when the door opened to reveal Rufus, hair blond again, wearing loose trousers, a bathrobe, and slippers.
"You're both here. Good. Come inside."
I had been in this apartment a few times since Rufus had moved in, and on the surface nothing seemed to have changed except Dark Nation's temporary absence from the dog bed in the corner. Rufus' preferred decorating style was sleek and modern, all white walls and dark grey soft furnishings and blue-tinted glass shelves and tables. The door Rufus had instructed us to use was the one that led to the living room, with its windchimes and large L-shaped sofa, rather than the one that opened on the small private office.
"Sit down, please, both of you." Rufus gestured to that sofa. The cushions, I knew, were firmer than they appeared—Rufus' Turk training was too thorough for him to be happy sitting on something that was difficult to get back off of again. I settled myself at the end nearest the floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire far wall, and Elena sat beside me. Rufus took the other end, where it would be easiest for him to see our faces. There was an unopened bottle of high-quality dumbapple brandy on the table, with three empty snifters arranged in a precise triangle around it, as though Rufus thought the conversation would require lubrication. He made no attempt to touch the bottle, however, much less to open and pour.
"Well all know what the behemoth in the room is, I think," Rufus said just as the silence was about to stretch into awkwardness. "I . . . This really isn't how I wanted to do this," he admitted. "Tseng, I wanted to court you. Give you gifts, take you on dates . . . show you how much I value you. Because you deserve that."
"Sir . . . Rufus," I corrected myself upon receiving a sharp look. "I am not something so special that the most powerful man in the world should need to work to gain my favour."
Rufus made a noise that I think was trying to be a laugh. "Should I just have ordered you to love me, then? Even I know that doesn't work. I want you to be my partner, not my servant. Or my prisoner. I've already got plenty of both of those."
"May I go now, sir?" Are you done torturing me? was what Elena's tone implied.
"No." And Rufus' tone didn't allow for any argument. "Like it or not, you're part of this too. I didn't realize that at first—not until I noticed there was a pattern emerging where I kept saving you, rather than the other way around. Not until I let myself admit that I care about you as well. Not as strongly as I care about Tseng, but I think that's just a function of my having known him so much longer. I don't want to hurt you either, Elena, and I was wondering . . . do you think we could make this work? The three of us, I mean?"
"Let me get this straight," Elena said. "You're asking me to be your girlfriend and Tseng to be your boyfriend? A threesome?"
Rufus nodded. "It seems to me as though it would resolve a lot of problems. And I know you like Tseng too."
"Yeah, but . . ." Elena looked at me.
"I have no intrinsic objection," I said slowly—Rufus was right in a way, but it wasn't a solution that would otherwise have occurred to me, because . . . "You are the one I would have expected would be jealous of any bond that might form between Elena and myself."
Rufus offered me the tiniest shadow of a shrug. "If you both belong to me, then whatever's between the two of you belongs to me too. If I let one of you go, and the one I keep still has feelings for the other, then there's some part of you that isn't mine. And that isn't acceptable."
I almost smiled, because that greed and posessiveness was so very Rufus. I would have found it annoying in anyone else, but coming from him, it was only natural.
Elena huffed a sound I couldn't interpret. "Okay, so . . . can I kiss you? Both of you? I mean, if it turns out there's no chemistry, this isn't going to work anyway, right? Plus, it feels too weird to have us all sitting here and trying to talk this out like a contract for canned beans or something."
"Canned beans?" Rufus said, raising an eyebrow. "So that's how much I'm worth to you, hmm?"
"Don't knock it," Elena said, although she was blushing. "No one from the Slums would pass up a can of beans: it's protein, it's cheap, and it won't break if you drop it."
It was, I decided, time for me to interrupt her before this got any more bizarre or ridiculous. So I put one hand under her chin, turned her gently to face me, and leaned in.
It was a sweet, gentle kiss at first. Then Elena's mouth opened under mine, and sweet became firey. There was certainly no lack of chemistry here. Rufus had a complex expression on his face as he watched, I noted out of the corner of my eye, but his trousers weren't loose enough to hide a sudden burgeoning interest. He pushed up off the couch and took the three or so steps necessary for him to settle on Elena's far side. The moment I let her go, Rufus swooped in to replace me, engaging Elena's mouth with his own, and it was my turn to be a voyeur for the second time that day. That, in and of itself, wasn't an unusual experience for a Turk, but I seldom ended up watching people who mattered to me, and I could feel myself hardening as a result.
Then Rufus broke off that kiss, and leaned across Elena to engage me, and I was lost. Been waiting for this for so long . . . I moaned into Rufus' mouth as our tongues battled for dominance. I didn't even try to hold back my voice. He would love the thought that he had torn such a sound from me, and I wanted him to have that pleasure.
Rufus pulled away and whispered, "Perfect." Elena was staring at us, flushed, and loosening her tie with one hand.
"That was hot," she said in a tone that was almost reverent.
"Good, because I want—" Rufus stopped in mid-sentence, and looked at me.
"Want what?" I asked him, bringing my hand up to cup his face and feeling him lean into my touch.
"You in me. Me in El. If that's acceptable to both of you."
"Greedy," I said, and he flashed me a smirk.
"Always. And admit it, you're getting turned on just thinking about it."
I could have lied, of course, and even made it sound believable . . . if no one checked below my waist, because I wasn't about to attempt the heroic feat of making my body lie about this. Not when I was this tired and this . . . wanting.
"I don't know if I'm up to more than slow and easy, after the day we've had today," I said, and snatched another quick kiss. "Perhaps I truly am getting old."
"You're not allowed to do that," Rufus said, straight-faced.
"Of course, sir," I returned dryly. Elena bit her lower lip—not seductively, but trying to keep herself from laughing. But . . . that wasn't a bad thing. Shared laughter would keep us together after the newness of this wore off.
"Maybe we should take this to the bedroom?" Elena suggested. "I mean, I don't mind doing this on the couch, but poor Tseng might not be able to get up again afterwards. And that would be a problem, with all those loose ends from the Landslide thing he's going to have to look into tomorrow."
Rufus kissed her cheek. "You're going to embarass him if you keep using him as an excuse . . . but you're right. And I'm itching to tear the clothes off both of you."
I hadn't been inside the master bedroom of this suite since Rufus' father had been in residence, and the Turk part of my brain insisted on taking notes about the changes—dark walls instead of off-white, dresser and two matching chairs of golden wood along one wall, and a king-sized bed with a white-on-white embroidered coverlet that had replaced the round, canopied monstrosity that the old President had spent a small fortune on custom-made bedding for.
The larger part of my brain, in the meanwhile, was occupied with kisses and touches and not catching my feet in the trail of clothing we were leaving behind us. Elena's and my jackets and ties, and Rufus' robe, had all dropped away, and there were a tangle of hands working at my shirt buttons. Until Rufus underestimated his strength and sent those buttons spraying outward in an arc. I was going to have to borrow one of his shirts when the time came to leave—fortunate that we were almost the same size.
Elena slapped his hands away when he reached for her. "Oh no you don't. I actually have to live on my salary, you know, and I'm past the limit for the number of shirts the department will foot the bill for this quarter. I'll have it off in a second." Her fingers were flying as she spoke, and a moment later she had the shirt fully open, revealing a sports bra in a boring shade of beige. "Sorry I didn't have the chance to put on one of the frilly ones," she added, pulling the undergarment off as well. "If you want to see that, give me a little more warning next time."
Her breasts, fully revealed, looked large enough to make a generous handful, and the nipples were pink and stood out against her pale skin. My instinctive reaction to them was to reach out and touch, and Rufus appeared to share it. We each ended up with a hand on her chest, cupping, weighing, stroking. Elena's nipple firmed under the touch of my thumb, and she flushed, although I thought it was more eagerness than embarassment. She reached out both hands toward us, then paused in mid-action.
"You're both so gorgeous I don't even know where to start."
I didn't feel particularly gorgeous. Of the three of us, I was the oldest and the most battered—you pick up scars after more than ten years in the field, even with the best healing available. The most prominent of mine ran diagonally down over the ribs on my left side, where a dying man's knife had left a shallow-but-wide slice behind.
And so I was a little surprised when Rufus slipped around behind me, all but draped himself over my back with his arms around me, and began kissing my neck and shoulders. Elena, in the meanwhile, stepped in so close that her breasts were brushing my chest, and then tilted her head up to capture my mouth. I gathered her in closer, and Rufus' hands moved between us . . . unfastening belts, I discovered when my trousers began to sag.
"Enjoying yourself?" I asked over my shoulder when Elena gave me a moment to breathe.
"Very much so," came the smirking reply. Rufus' lips closed over my earlobe, and his tongue began playing with my earring. I'd always been sensitive there, and this time it felt like a live wire running straight to my groin, forcing me to push my pants down over my hips and let them drop, because any kind of constriction there was getting uncomfortable.
I'm not entirely clear on the steps between that point and the bed. A terrible lapse in observation, but even I can't be the perfect Turk every moment of every day. Someone pulled the coverlet back, and someone kept me from tripping over my trousers, but I couldn't say who, or in what order those events happened.
Elena laid down on her back, nude, and, taking a firm grip on my hand, placed it between her legs. The invitation was unmistakeable, and I stroked lightly along the soft lips of her sex before sliding a finger inside. She was very wet already, and I could feel her muscles working as I fingered her, then pulled out again so that I could circle her clit with a wet fingertip.
"Tseng . . ." Her back arched, and she pushed against my hand. When I chanced a quick glance at Rufus, he was staring at us, pupils dilated, one hand in midair as though he'd been reaching toward us and frozen in mid-motion.
"You're the one who knows where the condoms are," I said to him, and he blinked, shook his head a bit, and leaned across Elena to reach the bedside table and open the drawer. Condoms. Lubricant. And a dildo, which would have been unexceptionable if it hadn't been bright purple.
"Reno," was Rufus' explanation as my eyebrow rose. And in this case, that was more than sufficient.
Elena made a dissatisfied sound and grabbed a condom, tearing the wrapper open. "We can play with the toys later," she said, reaching for Rufus. "Right now, I want someone in me."
"Tseng's hand isn't enough for you?"
"It's a nice hand, but I want something bigger." She was evidently past embarassment now. She also tweaked Rufus' nipple with the hand that didn't have a condom in it, and he jolted, then chuckled.
She clearly wasn't a virgin—even Turk training wouldn't have allowed her to cover for that with such enthusiasm. And she knew how to put a condom on a man, as she was demonstrating with Rufus. The moment she was done, I withdrew my hand to give him room to proceed . . . and drew a line down between Rufus' buttocks with the wetness that remained on my hand, feeling his opening pulse under my exploratory touch.
We still had his fantasy to fulfill, after all.
The lube was strawberry-flavoured, which I suspected was Reno's fault again, so I didn't ask. It didn't matter, anyway. It was still capable of doing its job.
Rufus' body accepted the invasion of my finger more readily than I had expected—perhaps he did use that purple dildo as more than a reminder of what tasks not to give Reno. I finger-fucked him as he pushed forward into Elena, then added a second finger and spread them inside him. I needed to be thorough, but I also needed to be quick. Because if I wasn't, I wouldn't be able to make it inside him. I was hard, I was leaking, and if my self-control hadn't been honed to such a fine degree, I would have been unable to keep myself from immediately impaling Rufus on my cock and thrusting until I came. The thought of his body closing around mine sent a shudder through me.
When I started to push the third finger in, Rufus vented a low moan and pushed back, impaling himself. "Enough with the prep, Tseng. Fuck me."
"Of course, sir."
Elena giggled.
"If I'd known you would be so agreeable, I would have ordered you into my bed a long time ago," Rufus said, his tone making me consider the idea of retrieving a set of SOLDIER-grade handcuffs. Next time, perhaps. Instead, I slicked myself up and thrust into him quickly, almost brutally, pushing him down and into Elena and pinning him there for a moment while I tried to pull myself together, because his body was everything I had fantasized it would be, hot and tight and incredible.
"Beautiful," I found myself whispering in Xiennese, as I looked down at the taut muscles of his back, and at Elena underneath him, who was looking up at me with flushed face and pupils blown wide. Because they truly were.
I forced myself to back off a little so that Rufus would once more have room to move, and made a low, involuntary noise as he pulled partway off me, then impaled himself again. A bit of confusion, and then we found a rhythm, the three of us together.
It had been some years since I had last been with anyone I cared about, and I had forgotten what a difference that factor made. The feeling of being wanted for something more than my pocketbook or my ability to bring another person brief physical release. I had forgotten how good it could be, and now, with Rufus' strong body under and around mine, and Elena reaching past his shoulder to play with my hair . . . Leviathan, I felt . . .
The rhythm of Rufus' movements under me changed, becoming quicker and more forceful and driving the introspection right out of my mind in a flood of sensation. I was utterly fixated on him, on the sounds he made when I glided over his prostate.
"Oh," Elena said suddenly, and tried to clamp her legs around him. She might have succeeded if she hadn't been trying to encompass both of us. As it was, her heels squeezed my sides and back as she rode the waves of her orgasm. Rufus let out a groan, and his body squeezed me as he reached his own peak. The tightness was too much, because I thrust one more time and came, hard.
I remained where I was, inside him, softening, while my breathing evened out again. Then I pulled loose and lay down beside Elena, who suddenly giggled.
"Did we just all come in order one after the other, like a stack of porn-dominoes?"
"Seems that way," Rufus said easily. "Best I've ever had," he added with a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk.
"I need to be more diligent in keeping the two of you away from Reno," I said.
"He has his uses," Rufus observed as he eeled his way into the remaining space between myself and Elena. "I'd much rather spend time with both of you, though."
And so, I reflected, would I.