etrayalogs | ( closed ) let me wrap my teeth around the world

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( closed ) let me wrap my teeth around the world

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.

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[The natural answer is yes. Where else should he want to go first, than the seventieth floor? He should want to step into that office, take that chair, establish himself — settle into the command he's coveted for years, or at very least the facsimile of it in this place where Shinra's foothold is limited only to this building and not to every corner of the world.

It's as he's considering it, though, that he notices a curiosity about the floor directory, and gestures to the panel with an idle flick of his gloved hand.]

Yours seem to have gotten a promotion.

[What could have motivated the companion bots to relocate General Affairs to the sixty-eighth floor? Questionable as it is, he's a little hard-pressed to say he minds it. Not least of which when it means his Turks have been positioned like a barricade between his domain and the rest of the building — between the executive floors and the labs, especially.]

Let's have a look at General Affairs.

[ following that careless gesture, tseng lets his gaze drop to the directory. he's not entirely surprised to see an incomplete listing of floors, considering how large the building is and how comparatively little time the bots have been at work on it; the fact that so many of the floors are accessible at all is already a victory. he is, however, slightly surprised to see that instead of being assigned to b3, general affairs has evidently been moved up to floor 68, tucked in neatly between the president's suite and the laboratory.

it's a good change, as far as tseng's concerned. would that he could always be such a buffer between rufus and hojo's corrupting influence. ]

I'm sure the view will be much improved. [ that's a joke. get it? because there's no view from the basement, ha ha.

tseng presses the button for the sixty-eighth floor and the elevator whirs to life, bearing them up at speed toward the topmost levels of the building. the view through the exterior glass is quite different than it would have been in midgar, but the thrum of the elevator machinery under their feet is reassuringly familiar. and when the carriage draws to a halt, letting them out into the familiar hallway leading to the general affairs auditing offices, tseng feels something similar relax in his own chest, a tightness around his lungs easing and allowing him to breathe.

home sweet home, he wants to say, but he swallows the words down. ]

It does seem to be a faithful recreation.

What view? You never look up from your paperwork anyway.

[If his mood wasn't already buoyant, it would be now, on the heels of the discovery that even Tseng is willing to crack a joke at a time like this. That's a rare thing for this environment in particular — while Tseng might certainly loosen up enough to have a little fun on the range or in the field, at headquarters he's always correct to a fault, unless he's absolutely certain that he's someplace secured.

Under his father's regime, there were very few places that could truly be called secured. Not so, anymore. This building is his. This building is theirs.

And the 68th floor is Tseng's, enough so that Rufus doesn't seek to stride several steps ahead the way he might otherwise be tempted to lead; he keeps himself just a half-step in front, enough to pay lip service to the idea that Tseng is flanking him as always, but more than near enough that they're all but walking side by side, this time.]

If it's as faithful as the rest, there'll be a stack of it waiting for you on the corner of your desk, just like always.

[ tseng quirks a faint smile. ]

The view of the paperwork in natural light, of course.

[ there is a certain lightness about this place that he'd never felt at the real headquarters back in midgar. an absence of certain influences, perhaps—or an absence of certain ghosts haunting the space. it makes it easier to release some tension from his shoulders. they're the only two who have ever made their mark here. it isn't secure, not until tseng has had a chance to get to work on whatever the companion bots have cooked up as a cctv and security system, but it's more secure than the tower back home had ever been.

flanking rufus half a step behind and to the right, tseng looks around the space as they enter it. it's a familiar room: large screens, long table, expansive desk behind which tseng can do as much paperwork as his heart desires. even the potted plants are the same. still alive, despite the fact that tseng knows for a fact not a one of the turks ever watered them. ]

Will you expect them on your desk by end of day or end of week?

[ there is actually not any paperwork on the desk, which is somehow both surprising and exactly what tseng expected. he still doesn't understand how the companion bots knew what to build at all, but it wouldn't have entirely shocked him if they'd been able to replicate the forms in triplicate. ]

Natural light. Tsk, tsk, such support for our competition.

[The real problem with this room's original location, Rufus reflects as he takes his own glance around the interior, had been that he'd rarely had an excuse to visit the basement floors to begin with. Had they been on the way to the conference rooms or along a convenient route from the helipad, a quick detour here and there would've been more than easy to facilitate. But for all that it isn't precisely familiar, there's still something of a nostalgia to it — and it's almost laughably easy to feed off of Tseng's pleasure vicariously and enjoy it for himself.

This is probably the most pristine Tseng's desk has ever been, right now, and probably the most it ever will be again. Reno would make an innuendo about things that might be expected on desks, if he were here right now; he can almost hear the way Rude would cover a note of fluster behind a feigned cough.]

I do want your observations on some of our fellow residents. Some are interesting. Some are useful. A few might just be both.

[ just like that, tseng has a purpose again, something to do behind this desk that isn't just muse on the nature of place and memory. he nods as he straightens up, tucking his hands behind himself in his customary at-ease posture, neatly slipping back into his role. ]

Yes, sir. I've taken preliminary notes already. I'll collate and have them to you shortly.

[ as soon as he started meeting people here, tseng started taking notes on them, so it won't be too much work to get those notes assembled into some kind of order for rufus' perusal. after this, though—they still have floors to explore. ]

Shall we go up, sir?

[It's a double-edged sword, what he's just accomplished — necessary, but a little bit pyrrhic, too. On one hand, Tseng with an objective is Tseng at his best, and there's something to be said for the comfort of familiarity and the reassurance of purpose (to say nothing of the fact that the benefits of intel in a place like this can't be denied). Yet at the same time, it's an accomplishment that comes with a loss in kind: that by giving Tseng an objective, he's also given him a familiar niche to settle back into and occupy, abandoning their more whimsical explorations for a dynamic as natural and well-worn as one of his own gloves.]

Let's.

[His own office — the president's office — is the next logical choice, of course. But that reinforcement of their roles is still lingering on his mind, and it's guaranteed to only escalate once they're back in the room from which the head of Shinra rules the world. Call him selfish, but —]

The next floor up. Let's see if they managed to make the suite more habitable than the apartments.

[ although tseng expects that they'll go up to the offices first—expects that rufus will want to see the room from which he will rule the world—he isn't entirely surprised by the decision to stop by the presidential suite first. the general affair offices are one thing, and the presidential offices are another, but the housing... there's an intimacy to it, in a way. in midgar, the suite that rufus had inherited was one that had been used by his father before him; in etraya, his will be the first feet that touch the carpet.

"more habitable than the apartments" is... ] An unambitious metric of success, sir.

[ like, no offense to etraya's extremely mid apartment situation, but also, the bar is low. for tseng himself, he doesn't care—the apartment he kept in midgar before he moved full-time into the turk housing in hq was far worse than the one they're occupying now in the complex. but for rufus, who has never known a life outside the luxurious appointments of shinra tower... tseng can imagine how it's chafed.

back at the elevator, a press of the button has the door swinging open, and tseng steps back to allow rufus to board first. up to the sixty-ninth floor they go, then. nice. ]

Edited 2024-04-20 23:32 (UTC)

[He doesn't smile, and he doesn't laugh, but the fact that he flicks a sidelong glance at Tseng at all essentially does the job of it. Unambitious is such a choice of descriptor, particularly when Tseng knows better than anyone that Rufus Shinra hasn't been unambitious about anything, from metrics to dreams, a single day in his godsdamned life.

(Abruptly, he remembers that Tseng has the edge on him in that, now — in days in their godsdamned lives. He's pulled out ahead for the four months and three days it'll take for him to catch up. That feels backwards, somehow — being born before the person you've sworn the whole of your existence to. It's also very like Tseng to get there first and make sure he's laid all the groundwork in advance.)

The ride to the sixty-ninth floor is uneventful — again, the voice that lingers in the back of his mind and sounds conspicuously like Reno offers a remark not fit for corporate consumption — but as they step into the corridor, it's his turn to feel an abrupt rush of nostalgia. More deeply-rooted than any other floor of the building, this one is home — his old bedroom a small carved-out niche of relative security in an ecosystem dominated by his father.

A pity they're not going there. Those are the rooms of the prospective heir; the king sleeps elsewhere, now.]

It still —

[He cuts off the thought, as they walk past his old room and head for the one that part of him still stubbornly thinks of as his father's. He doesn't need to finish it, to have betrayed where his thought process was going. It doesn't feel natural yet, but it will soon enough.]

[ if there's a moment of hesitation in rufus' step as he passes by the door to what used to be his bedroom, tseng doesn't make note of it. he just follows, as usual, behind and a little to rufus' right as they pass down the hallway, toward the junior suite and then beyond it, toward the master suite that is rightfully rufus'.

there's no need to hear how rufus would have ended that sentence. tseng knows. it still feels like someone else's home, someone else's space, but the only cure for that is time, and time is a resource they still have, at least for now.

something else that doesn't need to be said aloud is that tseng will enter first to clear the room. he steps neatly around rufus with a familiarity born of practice and lets himself quietly in through the closed double doors, sharp gaze casting around the darkened suite. there's enough ambient light outside to cast furniture in dramatic shadow, but the initial glance suggests no danger; it's just as tseng is turning to tell rufus that the rooms are clear when he hears it.

a sharp draw of breath, in the darkness. the rattle of metal on metal, a chain. tseng has one hand on rufus' chest and the other on his gun well before his mind catches up to realize that these are sounds he knows. ]

[What's strangest about the whole affair is, Rufus knows what that sound is before it even registers that he's heard it, almost. He knows it because he's heard it in a context that Tseng could never have, because by definition Tseng is one of the things known to provoke it to begin with. It's familiar, in a way that he knows on instinct and will only piece together into a whole picture after the fact — that what actually started the whole sequence of events was one of Tseng's near-silent footfalls on the carpet, and a breath of his scent on the displaced air.

It takes less than a second for Tseng to clock the noise as foreign and get a protective hand onto him, already poised to deal with an imminent threat. And while neither of them may have recognized it within that span of less than a second, it's the fact that the origins of those noises was able to recognize them that keeps Tseng from losing a limb or worse — because he is, perhaps, the only person that this particular intruder would allow to put a hand on him without instantly attacking outright.

Because he knows what made those sounds. He knows that whuffle. He knows that chain. He knows exactly the movement that made them, because he's heard those sounds go in tandem with Tseng's approach countless times before — the sounds that signal a rather large guard beast has just gone from lounging contentedly to propped upright in anticipation of a newly-arrived visitor.

He knows those sounds, but it doesn't seem possible. The companion bots, Aurora, Echo — they already produced this building for him. To go even further seems like there has to be a trick, or a catch, or a trade-off.

He ought to know better.

He doesn't care.]

D...?!

[Everything happens in less than a second: Tseng's reaction, the noises, his uncertain and disbelieving remark. By the time the next one arrives, there's a massive shadow moving sinuous through the dark, chain collar jingling and carpet creaking beneath its mass until at last the glow of its familiar red eyes becomes visible.

And he's not careless enough or overemotional enough to do something nonsensical like dropping to his knees or rushing to her side, but he does hear his breath waver as he sucks it sharply in, watching as Darkstar comes into view, regards them both, and sits obediently without being told, with only the slightest of wiggles like she's smothering a wag of her tail beneath her impeccable behavior. There are some who would call her a monster, who would look at her face and see nothing but the fangs and the malice; he knows better how to read the subtle tells of her expressions, knows that the look she's giving them both is one of approval-seeking eagerness.

Gods. Gods, what in the hell is she doing here?

Of course he'd missed her. The thing is, he hadn't realized how much he'd missed her until this very moment, hadn't realized the depths of the emptiness her absence had carved out of him until abruptly it's been filled in again.]

[ it seems improbable—impossible, even, that darkstar should be here. on arrival, once tseng had found rufus, his next task was to scour the city in search of signs of darkstar's presence—and he had found nothing, not a hint. yes, this place is mysterious, yes, there are forces at work here beyond tseng's understanding, but the skills to hunt down and find what he needs to find have been engraved on his very bones for the better part of two decades, and tseng knows beyond a doubt that if darkstar had been in the city upon their arrival, he would have known.

which means that either darkstar has been brought here only now by the same means that brought tseng and rufus themselves, or that the companion bots have somehow built a version of her to go along with their version of shinra tower. either option presents its own branching challenges, but between them tseng thinks he prefers the former.

his mind runs along these rails in a handful of seconds at most. meanwhile, his hand is already dropping from rufus' chest, his other hand already leaving its place on his sidearm. he straightens slightly, leaving his protective posture, and steps to the side from where he'd moved to put his own body between rufus and any potential threat. ]

It seems she was waiting for you. [ he keeps his gaze on darkstar, affording rufus his moment of emotion unobserved. tseng knows better than to think that rufus would ever be given to a dramatic display, but perhaps for that reason, the sharp inhalation of breath from him is nearly the same as a lesser man bursting into tears. ] Good girl.

[ this last point is directed to darkstar, who whuffs, her ears twitching. tseng rewards her with a smile, brief but real. ]

[Rufus undergoes the same set of calculations that Tseng does, with regard to whether the creature he's just been delivered was actually brought here from Gaia, or merely recreated like the rest of it all. The companion bots had made a mistake with the 68th floor, though; it stands to reason that if this version of Darkstar is only a copy, then they'll have made some manner of mistake with her, too.

And in fact, he gets his answer — or what he thinks is his answer, at least — when Tseng praises her, when he sees how she responds to it. If the companion bots were working off of copied information, then they would have created a Darkstar who behaved the way she was always supposed to on paper: one who cared only for him, loyal only to him, invested in nothing but defending him.

They wouldn't know the liberties she permits Tseng to take, and which ones she doesn't. How could anyone possibly know that, save the three of them? There's no blueprint for it, no repository of observations of it. But he knows. He knows, and it's more than enough to convince him.]

Release.

[He says it softly, granting the permission he knows she's waiting for with a word and the slightest flick of his fingers. It's the command that means they're not at work for a little while at least — permission for her to take the first step and bound over and push her sleek perfect head right into his waiting hands.

Everyone at Shinra knows that what goes on in the president's private chambers stays there. It's a rule that covered up his father's numerous affairs; it can be just as applicable to the way he scratches enthusiastically behind his dog's ears and cradles her muzzle in both hands, unwilling to break contact for even an instant as though he's half-afraid she'll vanish again if he does.]

Aren't you lucky. You might actually get a night off once in a while, now that D's here to relieve you.

[If he weren't so preoccupied with Darkstar, he might've remembered to hide his smile, might've trimmed it down to nothing more than a carefully-suppressed twitch of his lip. He doesn't, and so it beams wide instead, just for a moment — a flash of white teeth, a gleam of blue eyes. One more secret that will never leave this room, otherwise.]

[ from the corner of his eye, tseng catches a glimpse of that grin: wide, unrestrained, so clearly unintentional that it becomes all the more precious. an honest smile from rufus is something akin to a comet in the night sky, a solar eclipse on a clear day, a phenomenon as rare as it is beautiful. he hasn't seen rufus smile like that for years. tseng should look away, and he does, but it takes a second longer than he knows it ought.

perhaps predictably, the prospect of a night off makes tseng shift almost imperceptibly in his stance, his hands moving to their customary position clasped at the small of his back. there's a reason that back home, tseng has something like 2,000 hours of paid time off banked unused. "nights off" are not exactly in his wheelhouse. ]

Is that an order, sir?

[ does he gotta.......... ]

[Someday, maybe, he'll crack the enigma of what Tseng does in his off-hours — not that either of them are particularly accustomed to sitting idle, all things considered. There's a part of him that, when he tries to envision it, produces something along the lines of smoking rooms in paneled wood and earth tones, wingback chairs and amber drinks in highball glasses. It's the sort of thing that people like them are supposed to want, the sort of leisure they're expected to engage in.

But it's not difficult to imagine other pursuits, too — an upscale bar instead of an exclusive club, a jacket removed, a collar unbuttoned and a tie loosened and shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows. Maybe he'd pull his hair up into a full tail to keep it from spilling over his shoulders and into the way of the drink. Maybe someone would seek to bum a cigarette off of him, and he'd fish out his lighter as he gave it; maybe Tseng spends his leisure evenings being as little of a Turk as he can be.

He could make up all sorts of visions about it. That comes with the territory of being a visionary — vivid dreams, no matter the subject or object.]

I doubt even I could order you to relax and enjoy yourself.

[It's funny because he can order Tseng to do anything, without question. But the joke is a necessary one, so that the humor can carefully provide cover for what's coming next.]

The closest I'd get is doing it myself and taking you along with me.

[ what does tseng do in his off-hours. maybe one day rufus will be there to bear witness—to find that his imagination is halfway to reality and halfway fantasy entirely. he is right, at least, that sometimes tseng does put his hair up into a full ponytail to keep it out of the way.

the train of conversation makes tseng pause to think: which would actually be more relaxing? being ordered to take a night off, or going along with rufus while he takes a night off? neither seems restful, although each in their own way. an order would keep him home, but he would spend the entire night thinking about all the things he ought to be doing instead; going out with rufus would keep him on the job, but might be less stressful for his paperwork-oriented nerves.

what he lands on, eventually, is: ] Are you familiar with the phrase, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't"?

[ said lightly, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth that's very nearly a smile. it's almost certain that going anywhere with rufus would be preferable to being ordered to stay in alone, without anything productive to do. how do people relax, actually? ]

I know it ends with, "and best of all, the one on your payroll."

[The remark gives Rufus an opportunity to preen a little, though, which is beneficial in more ways that one. It's easy to turn a phrase like "the devil you know" into a sort of smirking variation on praise and approval. It's useful because it makes it easier to hide the thing he's really pleased about — the implicit validation that Tseng is enjoying himself right now, that he'd rather be here in a facsimile of Shinra Tower with a devil all in white than taking a night off to himself.

It's because it means his plan worked, and Tseng's birthday is proving to be a satisfying one. That's definitely why it matters that he's given a preference for being here, and not somewhere else.]

Shall we go up to the office?

[That's subtle, too — the fact that he phrases it as a question rather than as a direction. It's not as though he really expects Tseng to say anything other than yes, sir about it, but. Still, it matters, maybe, that he asked.]

[ unaware of exactly how much he's given away in such a simple response, but definitely thinking about how he has some devils on his payroll that he'd prefer over almost anyone else (and thus the implication that he might be the devil on rufus' payroll that rufus would prefer), tseng nods and steps to the side to hold the door for rufus. ]

Yes, sir.

[ it isn't really a question. in tseng's experience, when rufus says shall we he means we will, and thus there's no other answer to it than "yes, sir." but it is nice, that he phrased it that way. tseng doesn't dwell on it, doesn't even really notice it beyond a faint sort of appreciation spreading through him like oil on water, but it is nice, to be asked.

he lets rufus and darkstar through and then takes up his customary position, flanking rufus on the opposite side from darkstar. she can choose where she wants to walk; as always, tseng will fill in the gaps. ]

[There's only one floor left to ascend, now, and it's curious how his mood has shifted over the course of their little tour. The ground floor had been uncertain, even a little bewildering; General Affairs had proven eyebrow-raising but nostalgic. He'd had his reservations about the executive suite at first, then had them vaporized upon the discovery of Darkstar in what he can now, at last, begin to think of as his quarters. And now they're going up to his office, his demesnes. His throne.

It feels right, to do it like this: Darkstar to his left, Tseng to his right, one at each hand as he leads the way like the tip of a sword. It feels right to take the stairs up like he's ascending under his own power in a figurative way in addition to the literal one.

And there, at the top, it awaits him: Floor 70, the president's office.

He knows this room was designed to make any visitor that sets foot in it feel small and humbled before the opulence and power of the man who resides therein. The black marble and gold trim make it feel like a temple, and all the architectural sight lines naturally drag the eye to the chair at the focus of it, centrally placed with plate glass windows revealing the city skyline behind it. He remembers being five years old, and seeing the blueprints for this room one lamplit evening; whatever else one might say about his father — and Shiva knows there's a lot one could — he designed a hell of a room.

His room, now. He's not a visitor here. He's a boy-king come home to be crowned.]

It's perfect.

[He means the room, of course, because it is. He also means this moment, the very first one that passes once the three of them have crossed the threshold into the office. It's everything he could possibly have wanted: his throne, his Darkstar, and Tseng.

Again, the irony strikes him that he's the one getting everything, and he's not even the one with the best excuse of the evening for celebrating.]

Don't you think?

[ how many times has tseng crossed exactly this length of carpet, approached exactly this desk to deliver a report on some mission, some intelligence, some political opponent brought to their knees? this is a room he would know blindfolded, from the way his footfalls don't quite echo despite the cavernous space, the weight of the air, the size of the thing.

hundreds of times, by now. maybe thousands. and yet as they come up the stairs and enter the president's office, tseng is also keenly aware that this is the first time he's ever set foot here.

it is a faithful rendition, but tseng thinks that's most likely not what rufus means. not the replica, but the significance of it, what it means for rufus to be the only one to ever sit in the chair behind the desk ahead of them. ]

Yes, sir, [ he says again, and means it. ] It is.

[He'd thought that coming here would be a means, no matter how indirect, of giving Tseng something — the only thing he could possibly get away with giving, for the man who asks nothing and expects even less. The fact that he's been the one who's profited so much by it seems both laughable and yet somehow altogether aligned with the way the universe works. He's Rufus Shinra, and being a Shinra means having everything in the world at your fingertips. Turks don't stand out, don't claim favors. They simply deliver on whatever they're asked for.

Maybe this was all he was ever going to be able to do; it's not enough, and he knows that, too. He'd be hard-pressed to quantify all that Tseng deserves, after everything. His fidelity, his expertise, his confidence aren't things repaid with gold watches or time away from the office.

But better the devil you know, and this is the devil Tseng has: the two of them, in his office, so high in the sky that they can almost pretend it's Midgar outside the windows, provided neither one of them looks too closely.]

Then let's make it official.

[He wastes no time; he never does. He walks that carpet like he owns it (he does) and makes his way to the chair, pausing only to check one of the deep bottom cabinets on the hidden side to see just how faithful the companion bots were at recreating it — and there, indeed, is a half-full bottle of top-shelf whiskey and a handful of crystal tumblers, just like the old man preferred.

Just like he prefers, too.

He stays standing as he retrieves the bottle and two of the glasses, pouring identical portions before sliding one to the far side of the desk and keeping the second one close at hand. There's ample room on the carpet to the side and a little behind the chair; Darkstar seems to remember it, too, and settles in easily like the sentinel she is.

Everyone in their place, save him. He picks up the glass he'd reserved for himself, and raises it slightly in a mock toast.]

To perfection.

[He says, and takes his seat, and for a second, it all really is.]

[ but it is not, as it turns out, a zero-sum game. it isn't that if rufus gets something, tseng gets nothing, but rather that to tseng, the gift is in being able to grant rufus what he wants. to be here, watching rufus look around the room, to see him cross the space like he owns it (because he does), to see him reach into the lower cabinet to find the bottle of whiskey and crystal tumblers he knows will be there—

that is a gift, to tseng. what more could he want in this world than to see his boy-king take the throne?

he steps forward to catch the glass that rufus slides across the surface of the desk. it's against protocol for tseng to drink on duty, but he suspects that just this once, rufus will let the indiscretion slide. standing just how he's always stood—across from rufus, at ease, one hand at the small of his back and the other cradling his glass of whiskey—tseng lifts his glass to return the toast. ]

To perfection, [ tseng agrees, and takes a sip before rufus can. just in case. old habits, and all. ]

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( closed ) let me wrap my teeth around the world

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