( closed ) let me wrap my teeth around the world

[nonvoting]

WHO: tseng & rufus permanent catchall
WHEN: all at once
WHERE: everywhere
WHAT: everything
NOTES/WARNINGS: the usuals for ff7: parental death, mass murder, unethical human experimentation, less mass-y but still severe murder, ecoterrorism (both ways) etc. etc.

Comments

[unionized]

Why not? I'm certain we've done something to deserve it.

[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.]

[nonvoting]

[ lucky for rufus, it's not easy to fuck up a gin and tonic—but also, tseng's not worried. rufus is fastidious to a fault in most things, he has no reason to believe that cocktail mixing would be the one area where he gets sloppy.

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. ]

[unionized]

[How many times has he accepted a drink from Tseng's hand and felt the first hit of burn on his back palate when he's sipped from it? Too many to count, surely. Once upon a time, his drinks of choice were far more complicated, sweeter, flashier; he's since abandoned such whimsy and learned to associate a sip of whiskey with pleasure and satisfaction. This time is certainly no exception.

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?

[nonvoting]

[ not very many, is the answer. not many at all, and that's by design—it's so much safer, not to know anyone who knows how to read his tells. safer yet not to have tells at all. ]

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?

[unionized]

Perfect.

[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.]