[ If he can get a laugh out of Cloud, he can go willingly and happily to his sentenced electric chair. Even that tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth is enough to get him amped up with encouragement. Not that he spends his days lurking around the Edge bar, pining for the chance to share drinks with Cloud and gaze upon his dour face like some people, but this is kinda how it should be, right? Just a couple of guys in a post-Midgar world, both of them doing their bit to set things straight, having a cold one and shooting the shit. Especially now that all the trouble's been averted—they earned this after all that remnant shit.

He shrugs his shoulders, amicably accepting the assessment. ]

Yeah, and so're you. I'd at least throw a "but he's got some sick moves" out there in your defense before they send you to the firing squad, though. I got your back.

[ And there's the laugh. Not sure how he would've thought he'd react, but what he does is put his chin in his hand and smile like somebody's just started telling him a whimsical bedtime story. So that's how it sounds, huh? Cu—lmao wait hang on. His hand pulls away from his chin so fast he almost falls into the table. ]

Haven't even what? You can't just say two fucking depressing things back to back like that! Three depressing things, actually. That little girl's gonna give you hell when she hears you forgot about her. "Again," if my recollection's right.

[ No Rude, then, definitively. He could've guessed, seeing as he hasn't turned up by now, but it feels like a rock drops into his stomach when Cloud says it so pointedly. It's too early to start feeling some type of way about it, at least. They've been apart before. It's when the time drags on and the total absence—no way to contact, as if he doesn't even exist—that it might start fucking with his head. But hey, at least he's got his good buddy, the virgin Cloud. And—? ]

Wait, you talkin' about the Prez? Rufus? He's here?