( 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]

[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.]

[nonvoting]

[ 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. ]