his eyes reflect the shimmer of whiskey in his glass; warm liquor left stale when his thoughts had ran away from him. burn in the back of his throat, burn in the corners of his eyes. he’s so tired he can’t sleep. the general left in a strange state of restlessness.
to turn - would have him see the sky. stars dotted about blackness; something he’d have once found peaceful. a vision blighted by the glare of the burning rock that taints the sky. an amalgamation of space and magic and fuck-knows-what-
it had never been heidegger’s job to question; never been in his brain to work these things out. oh no. he’s a man who has forever followed orders, forever given them, too.
to look up and stare at meteor has him blinded; has him chugging back the rest of his drink. and how the fuck do they fight this thing? send a few thousand troops up into space? break it into pieces with the might of shinra-manufactured materia? or perhaps there’s a better way; destroy the root. march into the northern crater and hope for the fucking best?
his gaze parts from the sky, bottle retrieved from his desk - more than a quarter glass poured before the door to his office creaks open. heidegger would spare them a glance, perhaps even some formality…instead, all he offers is a tilt of his glass.
     ------HE’D SPENT HIS entire life following orders. when he was a boy it was listening to his mother to ensure he didn’t step on toes, didn’t get her into trouble at work ... even if he caused more trouble in the slums than she ever knew. then it was in the junon military academy, where a drill instructor stripped away every semblance of the man he was before he’d been given the nickname priest ... before it became his handle with the turks. then it was during the war ---where men like general heidegger ... and even heidegger himself a handful of times, had told him what to do. then it was shinra, and then it was specifically the turks within shinra ... he was good at following orders. he didn’t mind.
     whenever director scarlet was too busy to run public relations her secretary would descend into the basement of the shinra electric power company and find him in shared office. priest was usually alone: tseng had his own quarters to run his paperwork so that was never an issue, reno and rude were always in the field, elena was always getting information from someone, somewhere ... paperwork had to be done for the speech-to-be, key notes and things included on teleprompters to assure the citizens of midgar that shinra was doing everything in its power for them. often a lie, but priest was good at that, too.
     and he stayed late more often than not - it was easier than heading to his over-expensive, high-rise apartment with an echo and sleeping in cold, grey sheets. this night he needed to have things signed off on: by scarlet, by palmer, and finally by heidegger this evening ... then he was clear to give that address in ... five hours. his wristwatch was just a minute or two fast, even.
     admittedly he was surprised to find the general still lingering, when the door cracked. he figured he would find it empty, leave the file on his desk with a quick note, and go back to his auditing papers in the basement for a while. but the presence of the man, highly revered, was surprising enough. priest felt his fingers shift on the file and he nodded curtly. “ general, apologies, i didn’t think you’d still be in this late. ” and he paused, eyes glancing to the window to behold the thing even he had no idea how to fix. “ yes, sir. ”
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