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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[ 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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]