tseng "assigned service top at birth" ff7r (q♦) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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etrayalogs2024-03-29 06:22 pm
nonvoting) wrote in etrayalogs2024-03-29 06:22 pm
nonvoting) wrote in etrayalogs2024-03-29 06:22 pm
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at least for tseng, his birthdays stopped making him feel older around the time he reached ten years old—after that, he was so world-weary that his birthdays were little more than a convenient way of marking the passage of time.
speaking of. ]
Oh? [ tseng tilts his head slightly, but he doesn't voice the question: what date is that?
mostly because he thinks he knows, but partly to give rufus the option not to answer it, in case tseng is right and he'd rather not give voice to it. ]
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He should have new calendars printed as a joke, as part of his ascension. Forget εγλ 0007. The true year is 1 AR.]
My mother would have liked you, I think.
[It's one sentence that carries the weight of a thousand. The sort of thing people say when they're nostalgic, when they're vulnerable, when they're thinking about moments that defined them. Liked him? His mother would've recoiled to know her husband's corporation had scouted and recruited a child her own son's age to be trained as a killer in the service of her family. Likely she would've wept, though whether it be for Tseng or for her own impotence would surely be anyone's guess.
It's one sentence that an outside observer would assume is raw and significant, a real letting down of his guard in this environment of trust. He doesn't regret it; using your own family as tools and leverage is a time-honored Shinra tradition.]
People say I look like her.
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they all say that rufus is her spitting image. his delicate features certainly don't belong to his father, of that much tseng is sure—save for the color of his hair, not much of shinra senior had been reflected in rufus' appearance. it seemed that all the late president had been responsible for was rufus' personality, however indirectly—his ruthlessness, his stubbornness, his determination to see things through. ]
It's a shame I never got to meet her. [ rufus' comment wasn't meant in sincerity, and neither is tseng's response. in point of fact, tseng doesn't think that rufus' mother would care much for him at all. ] Verdot once told me you have her eyes.
[ that part is true. verdot really did say that, once. but tseng never knew rufus' mother, and so to him, rufus' eyes have only ever been his own. ]
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[There's something powerfully funny about the idea of Verdot, former director of the Turks, being branded a gossip. As though being close-lipped and lock-stepped isn't a fundamental part of the job description. But it's not as though Aurora knows that, and it's to be expected that average employees of a normal company would talk amongst themselves, particularly to their subordinates, particularly about their boss.
It's still a thought that gives him pause, though, regardless. His mother's eyes. Some people might find solace in that, maybe. Some might find the connection a catharsis of sorts. Odd how the only thing that sparks at the notion is a faint, suppressed bristle of resentment. Bad enough that everything he has still bears his father's fingerprints, his filthy legacy, too soon and too recent to have turned the page on the new beginning he craves. Bad enough that it's his in name, on a technicality, but not yet where it counts.
He's already had to live thirty years of everything being his father's. He's not about to tolerate the loss of his own eyes, on top of it.]
And whose eyes did you steal? Your mother's, or your father's?
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in reality, it's a question tseng can't answer. his memories of his parents are few and far between and so hazy they may as well not exist; he never knew them, not really, not in any kind of way that matters. but, he thinks, aurora probably doesn't know that, and so he thinks on it for a moment and then lies, ]
My mother's.
[ well, he has a fifty-fifty chance of being right, at least.
it's not a lie spoken with the intent of fooling rufus. at this point, tseng doesn't even know if he could fool rufus. it's for the benefit of whoever else might be watching, to make it seem like they're both engaging with the mission. ]
Would you like that drink now, sir?
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[It's a good way of moving on from a topic neither one of them wants to dwell on, after all. A subtle way of pivoting the subject that still makes sense to the mission at hand, that saves them the trouble of both crafting a web of lies for the sake of keeping up appearances. Tseng would say that the best lie is the one that's closest to the truth. So much the better, to divert back to something they can both be reasonably truthful about, because there's nothing of consequence to it.]
I'm afraid I'm forbidden from telling you my favorite. You'll just have to guess.
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[ good thing that tseng is paid to know everything there is to know about rufus, then, isn't it? he stands from his chair in one smooth motion and walks to the minifridge, which he pulls open to reveal the contents. it's full of all kinds of things—milk, soda, something that looks suspiciously like an electrolyte drink—and, notably, contains a familiar bottle of luxurious whiskey.
in tseng's memory, whiskey neat hadn't always been rufus' drink of choice. at nineteen it had been midori sours, until one particular night of overindulgence had soured him on midori entirely; after that it was daquiris, and then cosmopolitans, and then sweet-and-sour amaretto drinks with skewered cherries floating on top. and then, one day—in a shift that feels as though it happened almost overnight, although factually tseng knows that can't be true—rufus started asking for whiskey and never asked for anything else again.
does it count as a favorite drink if it's something you've convinced yourself you like? tseng isn't sure. but there's no midori in the fridge, and no triple sec, so whiskey neat it must be. he pours two fingers' worth into an empty glass, caps the bottle, and brings it back to the table to set in front of rufus. ]
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It's a shame that Tseng's drink of choice isn't whiskey in return, for all that Rufus knows full well he'll follow along with it if he's handed a glass. It'd make things a great deal less complicated, but even that is no great matter. He'll just have to do his own thorough overview, when it's his turn.
Speaking of. He picks up his glass, turns it lightly in one hand like he's admiring the color of the liquid filling it, and brings it up as if to drink — but then stops short and smiles faintly before setting it back down on the tabletop.]
Favorite or not, it's boring to drink alone.
[It's his turn, then. Without preamble, he gets up and moves to the fridge himself, pulling the door open with already a fairly good idea of what areas to dismiss outright and which ones to scour more thoroughly. The milk is out, and so is the noxious-looking electrolyte drink. The soda might be useful if Tseng's drink of choice involved soda, but it doesn't. There are a few liquor bottles to the back, various shapes and sizes, but when he happens to glance up at the shelves above the fridge —
There's an electric teapot. Tea leaves. And for a moment, behind a mask of the same idle boredom he's worn as he's perused the other available wares, he considers.
Breakfast tea. Chocolate mint. Black with orange peel. Coffee.
It's a trick, and he's not careless enough to take it. He knows Tseng's private indulgence, what he opts for when he's alone and detaching himself from business — a difficult prospect, because observing Tseng at all implies his own biasing presence, and anywhere he is immediately becomes business — knows because of a box left behind in a back cabinet during his long lonely internment on house arrest, when he'd never quite been able to work out if it was there as insurance against the possibility that Tseng might someday want it, or as a subtle expression of sympathy for the imprisoned that Tseng would ever so rarely indulge.
The right one isn't there, and so much the better. Even if it had been, that memory isn't something Rufus is willing to relinquish, even with the planet on the line.
Fortunately, the gin is a little more conspicuous, and so are the fresh-cut limes. There's two bottles — another trick — and he takes a quick taste of both before choosing the more citrusy of the two and fixing a gin and tonic in one of the highball glasses, garnished with a wedge of lime.
Did he take too long putting it together? Hopefully not. If he did, it'll likely just get chalked up to the natural imbalance of power, the employer knowing the employee's drink of choice as a courtesy, but not as a matter of business.]
Been a while since I made one.
[He says, and returns to his seat, sliding the glass across the table with a dull wooden noise as the thick glass drags against the surface.]
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so, for a second, it actually comes as a relief that rufus hesitates—at least until tseng sees that rufus is hesitating because he's looking at the selection of tea on the shelf above the fridge. he's fairly sure he's never let rufus see him drinking tea—under torture, he's not even sure he would admit that there's a particular variety of loose-leaf green tea that he imports from wutai monthly to fulfill this exact indulgence. in every other way, tseng has severed all ties between himself and the culture of his birth, and the prospect of having the one remaining connection laid bare like this is... frightening.
but rufus looks away, looks to the gin instead, and tseng exhales a slow, silent breath he hadn't realized he'd caught. when the glass thunks against the wood of the table, tseng reaches out to take it to hand, turning the glass in a slow circle as if to examine it. ]
You wouldn't know by looking. [ that's... almost a joke, or at least as close as tseng gets to jokes overtly. obviously you wouldn't know by looking when both gin and tonic water are clear. ] Are we meant to toast?
[ to what? to gaia, may she continue to exist long enough for us to continue trying to undo her. something like that, maybe. ]
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[He studies Tseng a minute, quiet and careful, as they both take up their drinks. There's a moment where, for just a fleeting instant, he wonders if he's made it to Tseng's liking — not from any wavering in confidence or lack of certainty in his choices, but rather just...
Well. It's a strange thing to wonder, anyway. All things considered, he should be far more interested in his own experience, in the quality of the whiskey he's about to enjoy.
He eyes Tseng a moment, tilting his glass to regard the liquid inside, before raising it just an inch or two in the suggestion of a salutation.]
After all this talk of yesteryears, I say we toast to the future. The promise of tomorrow. New beginnings.
[And maybe their enigmatic abductors, if they're listening, will take pleasure in that — but of course it's not for their benefit that he says it. There's only one future that matters, and that's the future of Shinra; their planet, and everything on it, is really just an mere extension of it.]
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he lifts his own glass slightly in response and nods in acquiescence to rufus' words. ]
To new beginnings. [ or second chances. the future. the continued existence of their little blue rock in space. tseng lifts his glass to take a sip and is gratified to find that his assessment of rufus' drink-mixing skills was right on the money. ] You chose the less juniper-forward gin.
[ there's approval in his tone, just the faintest hint of it, although it's not tseng's place to approve of anything rufus does. ]
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More interesting, by far, is watching for Tseng's reaction to his own efforts — like everything else about him, it comes subtle and so understated it almost isn't there, but clear to a person who knows what to look for.
He wonders, just passingly, how many people in Tseng's life are ones who know what to look for.]
It was better.
[He says, simply, and means it's what you like better, because that's something he's entitled to do. He's Rufus Shinra; he's entitled to decree as objective fact the things he wants to be true on other merits.]
Acceptable, then?
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Acceptable, yes. [ perfectly so. more than, even, although tseng won't give aurora the satisfaction of seeing him break character so thoroughly as to admit it—nor will he give rufus the satisfaction of knowing how deeply it gets to him, to think that rufus might have paid him enough attention to know his tastes in gin.
isn't it backwards? tseng is only supposed to be the fulcrum; rufus shinra is the lever that would move the world. levers aren't meant to have enough time to know what gin their fulcrum takes in his drinks.
he takes another sip. the door will likely be unlocked now, if the notecard's contents hold true; tseng is content to wait to find out until he's finished his drink. ]
And yours, sir?
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[Of the two of them, he's the one who's allowed to say it — because he's the one who should demand perfection from everything delivered to him, the one who's expected to consider "acceptable" unacceptable. Tseng wouldn't deliver anything less into his hands, so there's nothing less he could possibly say about it.
What he isn't obligated to do is say it twice. But Tseng takes another sip of his gin and tonic, and Rufus watches him do it before enjoying another taste of his own, his gaze silent and steady as he levels it on Tseng's expression.]
It's perfect.
[Turks don't work for praise. They neither expect it nor accept it, and certainly not from their Shinra superiors. And it wouldn't be quite accurate to claim that it isn't the Turk he's addressing, either — because this is a mission, and they're both playing out their implicit predetermined strategy for winning it, so of course it's the Turk who's in here with him, who handed him the glass, who knew it would be perfect.
He says it's perfect and means we've gained. They've delivered on the demands of their mysterious abductor while giving up nothing of consequence in return. And precisely what rewards they might reap from it are still yet to be seen, but that's just another round of the game.
For now, victory tastes smoky, with notes of vanilla and oak, fitted perfectly into the palm of his hand.]