[It's not even really a question; the implications speak for themselves. But they're words he'd sooner put in Tseng's mouth than attribute to his own, so as not to give the impression that it bothers him or anything.]
Not exactly the presidential suite, but they'll do. What of yours?
[Face cards are like celebrities here, he thinks, in fleeting recollection of what he'd been told on the beach. His next thought after that is, is this someone's idea of a joke.
The one after that is, Tseng must absolutely loathe the attention.]
Just one up, then.
[He's fine. Really. It's not like playing second fiddle has ever bothered him before.]
[ rufus is correct: tseng does absolutely loathe the attention. he's used to it by now, and he's figured out ways to use it to his advantage where he can, but the constant surveillance grates at him every time he goes outside. it isn't to the extent of wanting to rank down, particularly because that would lose him access to the parts of the resort reserved for face cards (and therefore full of juicier information), but still. ]
They can be particular.
[ and the elevator is for private use. rufus is more likely to get away with it as a ten than sasuke was as a two, but better safe than sorry. ]
We should speak in person, sir.
[ at least in his own room tseng has swept it for bugs and would trust the things they say aloud not to be recorded. he can't say the same for the watches. ]
[And frankly, getting his hands on the dossiers that Tseng has assuredly compiled by now outweighs pretty much any other consideration at this point. Even circumventing the awkwardness of meeting up in person after...all that.]
I'll be up shortly, then. Since you've told them to let me through.
[One floor up is a relatively short elevator ride, but it's still long enough for the staff to subject him to surreptitious, scrutinizing looks. That much is hardly unheard-of; people's eyes are always drawn to him, no matter where he goes, and all too often the attention isn't positive —
But as he arrives at the floor that accommodates the junior penthouses, the reality of the phenomenon really starts to sink in: that they're looking at him as though he doesn't belong here, because none of this opulence belongs to him. It makes his skin itch beneath the unfamiliar sleeves of his borrowed clothes (as close an approximation as he could get to the usual, a dark linen shirt and white trousers, albeit with no coat or tie), reminiscent of boardrooms he was barred from setting foot in, meetings where he had no voice.
It's an asset, he reminds himself as he breezes past a bellhop's lingering gaze and moves in search of Tseng's quarters. What does it matter whose name it's in, as long as it's theirs. What does it matter in the end.
He finds the door. Waits. Realizes a second too late that no one is going to open it for him, and bites back the flash of annoyance at his slip before he knocks.]
Room service.
[The humor is as dry as Midgar soil, but it's there nevertheless.]
[ well, that's a joke tseng hates. it feels... indescribably wrong, for tseng to be the one in the high tower and for rufus to be the one coming up to see him. it's an outsize kind of wrongness for the actual gap between ten and jack, only one floor, barely anything at all—but since they met, tseng has never been in a position of power over rufus. he's never wanted to be in a position of power over rufus, and it grates at every inch of him to think that's the case now.
he'll have to investigate the process for ranking another resident up. there's no way that tseng will be able to abide this on the long term, and, he suspects, rufus is no more eager to stay a floor below tseng.
the door opens quickly enough to make it obvious that tseng was waiting for rufus to arrive. he's not embarrassed about it. tseng pulls the door wide and steps back so rufus can enter, doesn't bother to say come in because rufus doesn't need his permission. ]
What can I get you to drink? [ in shinra tower, there would be assistants and receptionists to handle this for the offices; in the presidential quarters there would be domestic staff. none such, in the resort. ] I have water, tea, liquor. And dinner, if you're hungry.
[ in the context of their professional relationship, it would be almost too intimate to offer. rufus and tseng would have little reason to take meals together on purpose, except if there were a company dinner or food brought in during a strategy meeting. but here, it is a point of consideration: rufus is neither used to managing his own mealtimes nor particularly capable of complex culinary tasks. ]
[The door opens, and it affords him his first proper glimpse of Tseng since the unparalleled awkwardness on the beach — an awkwardness he's actually almost grateful for, in a perverse way, because if they're going to be walking on eggshells, he'd much prefer they be ones colored with the memory of long dark hair brushing his skin and a breathy demand to say please. Somehow, the sex is a preferable rift to the socioeconomic one. Possibly because at least the sex was earthshattering, while the matters of rank are just ruinous.
He sweeps through the door with a confidence that's a touch more of an act than he'd like it to be, taking a quick survey of Tseng's living situation as he does so. The aesthetic isn't at all surprising — modern, functional, and barely touched, looking more like a showroom than a residence. It's also significantly more expansive than his own, and he can see all too easily why Tseng would find it too large for his needs.
It feels strange. Tseng...hosting him. Offering drinks, and dinner if he's hungry. What even will happen, he wonders, if he admits he is? Will the resort staff come running, eager to fawn over their little lordling?]
Liquor. [He could use about twenty drinks. He'll start with one.] And...I am. Hungry.
[Then say please, he thinks, and doesn't shiver — but it's a close thing.]
You can bring me up to speed while you sort it out.
[ the resort staff would, indeed, come running if tseng called them, but he absolutely will not. he would sooner die than let any of the resort staff inside his private quarters, which he's so painstakingly swept for bugs and mapped for every possible point of ingress. so, yes, tseng will host rufus, and will take care of the liquor and food himself, because another thing he doesn't trust them with is rufus, however difficult it is for him to look rufus in the eye right now.
there is something huge and unspoken between them, the size of an elphadunk, the shape of the president's desk. tseng can't be the one to acknowledge it, but he feels its presence, just like he knows rufus does too. it's fine. they won't talk about it. they've always been very good at not talking about it. ]
Yes, sir. This way.
[ there is a dining area, but tseng leads rufus past it and into the kitchen, which is the only space in the entire apartment that actually looks like it sees regular use. there are stools tucked up under a long counter, and tseng pulls one out for rufus to sit on while he goes for the liquor cabinet.
whiskey, neat. tseng has the good stuff, top shelf—a privilege of his rank. he pours rufus two fingers, then passes the glass over; he won't pour any for himself until he's done delivering his report. ]
The resort is fully self-contained without any means of egress. There is an enormous population of what the resort seems to consider "long-term guests," but the population of newer guests hovers somewhere between 100 and 150 to the best of my estimation. The means of selection and the mechanism used to retrieve those guests is as of yet unclear to me, as I have been unable to find the center of resort operations.
Every guest is assigned a rank and a suit on arrival. It is unknown how the ranks and suits are decided. Ranks do not seem to correlate to a guest's social standing in their origin world. Suits possibly correlate to certain inherent traits within each guest, but the evidence is anecdotal and self-reported. Ranks are mutable and can be changed either by a guest themselves or by another guest on their behalf; suits are unchanging, to the best of my knowledge.
There is an expectation that all guests engage in sexual activity regularly throughout their stay. Consequences for failure to participate include first a slow darkening of the guest's suit mark, as well as physical symptoms that seem to differ depending on the guest's suit. The activation of a suit seems to begin after two to four weeks without sex, and can be reversed by participating in sex.
[ and here he pauses, for any clarifying questions rufus may have. ]
[It's surreal how Rufus genuinely can't remember the last time he was in a kitchen. The idea of Tseng having one at all isn't odd; the notion of spending any extended length of time there is. But that just means there's a certain novelty to hopping up onto the barstool and waiting for his usual pour, idly drumming his ungloved fingers on a countertop that's very unlike his father's — his desk.
Tseng's explanation, however, is roughly point for point what "Sasuke" told him back on the beach, when he was still a wildcard awaiting designation. Points in his favor; sources don't get much more reliable than having their facts confirmed by Tseng.]
The lower floors are inhospitable but anonymous. High cards are get lavish treatment but are under constant scrutiny.
[He picks up his glass, sipping at it. It's the good stuff. It makes him remember something else Sasuke had remarked: about how no one cares who you used to be. Freedom to reinvent yourself; he almost wonders if Tseng has, to cope with the demands of celebrity.]
And exclusivity affords little benefit. Playing their game conservatively gets you nowhere fast.
Precisely. [ whoever rufus got his information from knows their stuff. tseng nods once, approving. ] The currency in the resort is ostensibly the chips earned from gambling in the casino, but sexual congress is just as much a form of currency, if not more so. Active participation in their game seems to earn the favor of the house, and may be one of the ways the house determines which guests are allowed to increase their ranks.
[ another pause, this time while tseng gathers his thoughts. ]
After some new information about the resort came to light in May, I have developed a working theory that not only is sex a form of currency here, it may also be the energy that powers the resort itself. Energy output may also be connected to both a guest's assigned rank on arrival and their ability to increase or decrease their rank, as well as the rewards granted to them by the house. I'm attempting to seek out evidence that would either prove or disprove the theory. I have also been working on a comprehensive map of the resort. It's in my desk, I'll fetch it shortly.
More immediately pertinent is that food, drink, and even flowers in this place are occasionally dosed with a powerful aphrodisiac agent, which can cause immediate and powerful symptoms of arousal in anyone exposed. The resort also has the power to activate our suits at will, regardless of how much sex you've been having. My recommendation [ tseng is far too professional to let himself blush saying any of this, but his gaze does slide like one centimeter to the left, so he's not meeting rufus' eyes directly ] is that you carry lubrication and contraceptives as needed whenever you intend to be away from your suite for longer than an hour or two.
[He's got his glass halfway to his lips for another sip when Tseng starts to talk about the aphrodisiacs in the consumables around the resort, and he pauses for just a second or two, eyeing the amber liquid in his glass before giving it a flick of his wrist, an easy swirl, and taking another deliberate drink.]
Unavoidable, but occasionally possible to mitigate. I assume you vet what you keep around here.
[A little too late, he muses on how close that statement comes to I assume you're not going to feed me an aphrodisiac, and unfortunately now he's thinking about it.]
That explains a fair amount of what I've already seen. The food at the beach — during the registration festivities — was drugged. [He pauses, contemplative.] Not always with an aphrodisiac.
[ the only response that statement gets is the slightest lift of tseng's eyebrow. tseng doesn't want to dose himself with aphro, and he certainly isn't planning on using it on rufus. yet.
much more alarming is the prospect that rufus might have encountered dosed food or beverage on the beach while tseng was yet unaware of his presence. that thought gets a visible furrow in tseng's brow. ]
Did you experience the effects firsthand? What were the symptoms?
[ and this is why tseng is going to do his best not to let rufus out of his sight for the foreseeable future, smh. ]
[Here's the problem with contributing to what he knows full well is an inquiry designed to further flesh out Tseng's assessments of the resort: the fact that Tseng knows Rufus perhaps better than anyone living or dead, and so there's really no point in being selective about what he says or doesn't say. Tseng will read the unspoken implications as clearly as if he hadn't tried to leave them between the lines.
What remains, then, are two options: to deny him categorically, or to own the implications altogether. One would make him feel better. The other is the correct option.]
I had a drink from the floating bar. During the fireworks show. Gin, ginger beer, lime, raspberry. Edible flowers.
[Step one: identification. It might've been any one of the elements of the drink that carried the drug, or it might have been the byproduct of combining them. He keeps his expression carefully schooled, and knows that Tseng won't miss the fact that he'd accepted a brightly-colored cocktail, the sort he's not been caught dead drinking in public in years — a nostalgic product of a distant time.
He sips his whiskey. Fits together the next step in his thoughts.]
Symptoms...nothing physical. It impacted the psychological and induced a sense of intolerable isolation.
[An induced sense of isolation is perfectly clinical and serviceable. It doesn't sidestep the underlying implication, I felt lonely.]
So. An aphrodisiac variant. Compelled companionship, but targeted toward the psychological rather than the physical.
[ ah, yes. the drinks at the bar. tseng had experienced something related to those as well, although his symptoms were limited to a miraculous ability to breathe underwater for a couple of hours. that there was a cocktail that could inspire loneliness is... unsurprising, although he's not happy that rufus ended up drinking it.
it also doesn't escape him, that rufus' drink of choice was something fruity and brightly-colored. maybe it was just because they hadn't served whiskey neat at that bar, but if that were the case, then rufus could just as well have not drunk anything at all. the fact that he chose to order one of those cocktails regardless... it's been a long time since tseng saw rufus allow himself that kind of indulgence. ]
I see. [ rufus knows what tseng looks like when he's making a series of mental notes. loneliness, compulsion for companionship... not erotic companionship, but the simplicity of human connection. ] Finding the dosed food and drink is often a matter of trial by error. Please be careful, sir.
[ bodyguard, and food-taster, and private chef, and sugar daddy all rolled into one. tseng sure has gotten a job upgrade today.
he turns to cross the kitchen into the living room, where he goes through the drawers of his desk and returns with his work-in-progress map of the resort. while the residential floors are sort of glossed over, there are extensive notes on certain other areas of the resort—the maintenance tunnels below, the supply room with its multitude of guards, the jail, the library. tseng also hands over the notebook currently serving as his dossier, with names and notes written in his tight, meticulous hand. ]
[If the resort has the power to activate their suits at will — and presumably, to inspire them to have sex by it — then whether it happens by food or drink imbibed or by the will of their hosts, the outcome is ultimately the same. That said, if it were that simple, what would the point even be of drugging the food to begin with? So no, there must be plenty more effects like the compelled loneliness. The things that simply activating a suit couldn't do.
He mulls over that as Tseng leaves and returns again with a variety of documents to look at; he shifts his drink to his other hand and sets it well to the side to avoid the risk of any spills or condensation rings as he accepts the literature and flips open the dossier to peruse.]
...Tell me the worst you've seen. Of what they can do.
["The worst" is a subjective measure, but in this case, he knows it'll be pertinent. Tseng won't just answer it objectively, after all. He'll answer the worst thing he could see applied to Rufus, and that's an important distinction in the assessments he's going to need to make in the very near future.]
[ by the time rufus asks, tseng has already started retrieving ingredients from the refrigerator, so he doesn't have to look directly at rufus as he considers the answer. he can tell, on instinct, that rufus isn't really asking about the worst thing that can be done, morally—he's asking about the worst that he himself might expect, and that changes the answer somewhat.
tseng sets the oven to preheat, then puts the bag of potatoes on the counter and withdraws a handful of them. small new potatoes, easy to roast. ]
The resort likes to force us all to play games, sometimes. [ methodically, tseng chops each of the potatoes in half, setting them aside into a large bowl as he goes. ] There was one of them, several months ago, in which each suit was assigned an animal counterpart. Diamonds were rabbits, hearts were foxes, and so forth.
[ chop, chop, chop. ]
There was a hierarchy to it. Wolves at the top, eager to mate with any animal beneath them. Rabbits at the bottom, eager to be mated by any animal who could catch them. [ rufus can probably imagine how much tseng fucking hated feeling like prey. ] By the end of it, many of the rabbits were so desperate to be bred that they would allow themselves to be used by anyone who could get their hands on them. Like being in heat.
[ when tseng sets the knife down it's just a touch too hard. he makes up for it by being a little too gentle when he opens the cabinet in search of olive oil and salt. ]
To me, that's the worst the resort can do. Make us lose control of ourselves entirely.
[It occurs to Rufus then, listening to Tseng's explanation, that Tseng had never actually mentioned his suit — only his rank. Come up to the Jacks' floor, he'd said, but any mention of an accompanying suit had been omitted, either by chance or by design.
Well. He thinks he knows what it is now, in part from his miscalculation with the weight of the knife, and in part because of the animals he does think to mention. Rabbits and foxes; Tseng clarifies what the two of them would have been, had they both been here to experience it.
A rabbit, then. Desperate to be bred. It doesn't suit him at all.]
Strength in variation, then. It's an advantage that we're not the same suit.
[His attention drifts to the dossier again, a little less casually this time. Most of the faces are unfamiliar. A few are outright startling.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
un: shinra | text
[Time to be champions of Not Talking About It™]
un: tseng / text
Your rank and suit, sir?
no subject
At least no one can claim I'm heartless anymore.
no subject
I see.
It is possible to request a change of rank from the house. I will look into the requirements.
Are your accommodations acceptable?
no subject
[It's not even really a question; the implications speak for themselves. But they're words he'd sooner put in Tseng's mouth than attribute to his own, so as not to give the impression that it bothers him or anything.]
Not exactly the presidential suite, but they'll do. What of yours?
no subject
[ no, he's pretty much outright stating that they got it wrong..... ]
Large for my tastes, but tidy and functional. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a way to allow someone permanent access to my suite.
no subject
[Had closets. Will again, someday. The one he's got right now isn't altogether bad, though.]
What floor is it on?
no subject
[ it feels unspeakably strange to be ranked above rufus in any way. ]
I've told the staff that you're an approved guest to the junior penthouse floor. They won't disturb you.
no subject
The one after that is, Tseng must absolutely loathe the attention.]
Just one up, then.
[He's fine. Really. It's not like playing second fiddle has ever bothered him before.]
What makes you think they would? Disturb me.
no subject
They can be particular.
[ and the elevator is for private use. rufus is more likely to get away with it as a ten than sasuke was as a two, but better safe than sorry. ]
We should speak in person, sir.
[ at least in his own room tseng has swept it for bugs and would trust the things they say aloud not to be recorded. he can't say the same for the watches. ]
no subject
[And frankly, getting his hands on the dossiers that Tseng has assuredly compiled by now outweighs pretty much any other consideration at this point. Even circumventing the awkwardness of meeting up in person after...all that.]
I'll be up shortly, then. Since you've told them to let me through.
no subject
no subject
But as he arrives at the floor that accommodates the junior penthouses, the reality of the phenomenon really starts to sink in: that they're looking at him as though he doesn't belong here, because none of this opulence belongs to him. It makes his skin itch beneath the unfamiliar sleeves of his borrowed clothes (as close an approximation as he could get to the usual, a dark linen shirt and white trousers, albeit with no coat or tie), reminiscent of boardrooms he was barred from setting foot in, meetings where he had no voice.
It's an asset, he reminds himself as he breezes past a bellhop's lingering gaze and moves in search of Tseng's quarters. What does it matter whose name it's in, as long as it's theirs. What does it matter in the end.
He finds the door. Waits. Realizes a second too late that no one is going to open it for him, and bites back the flash of annoyance at his slip before he knocks.]
Room service.
[The humor is as dry as Midgar soil, but it's there nevertheless.]
no subject
he'll have to investigate the process for ranking another resident up. there's no way that tseng will be able to abide this on the long term, and, he suspects, rufus is no more eager to stay a floor below tseng.
the door opens quickly enough to make it obvious that tseng was waiting for rufus to arrive. he's not embarrassed about it. tseng pulls the door wide and steps back so rufus can enter, doesn't bother to say come in because rufus doesn't need his permission. ]
What can I get you to drink? [ in shinra tower, there would be assistants and receptionists to handle this for the offices; in the presidential quarters there would be domestic staff. none such, in the resort. ] I have water, tea, liquor. And dinner, if you're hungry.
[ in the context of their professional relationship, it would be almost too intimate to offer. rufus and tseng would have little reason to take meals together on purpose, except if there were a company dinner or food brought in during a strategy meeting. but here, it is a point of consideration: rufus is neither used to managing his own mealtimes nor particularly capable of complex culinary tasks. ]
no subject
He sweeps through the door with a confidence that's a touch more of an act than he'd like it to be, taking a quick survey of Tseng's living situation as he does so. The aesthetic isn't at all surprising — modern, functional, and barely touched, looking more like a showroom than a residence. It's also significantly more expansive than his own, and he can see all too easily why Tseng would find it too large for his needs.
It feels strange. Tseng...hosting him. Offering drinks, and dinner if he's hungry. What even will happen, he wonders, if he admits he is? Will the resort staff come running, eager to fawn over their little lordling?]
Liquor. [He could use about twenty drinks. He'll start with one.] And...I am. Hungry.
[Then say please, he thinks, and doesn't shiver — but it's a close thing.]
You can bring me up to speed while you sort it out.
no subject
there is something huge and unspoken between them, the size of an elphadunk, the shape of the president's desk. tseng can't be the one to acknowledge it, but he feels its presence, just like he knows rufus does too. it's fine. they won't talk about it. they've always been very good at not talking about it. ]
Yes, sir. This way.
[ there is a dining area, but tseng leads rufus past it and into the kitchen, which is the only space in the entire apartment that actually looks like it sees regular use. there are stools tucked up under a long counter, and tseng pulls one out for rufus to sit on while he goes for the liquor cabinet.
whiskey, neat. tseng has the good stuff, top shelf—a privilege of his rank. he pours rufus two fingers, then passes the glass over; he won't pour any for himself until he's done delivering his report. ]
The resort is fully self-contained without any means of egress. There is an enormous population of what the resort seems to consider "long-term guests," but the population of newer guests hovers somewhere between 100 and 150 to the best of my estimation. The means of selection and the mechanism used to retrieve those guests is as of yet unclear to me, as I have been unable to find the center of resort operations.
Every guest is assigned a rank and a suit on arrival. It is unknown how the ranks and suits are decided. Ranks do not seem to correlate to a guest's social standing in their origin world. Suits possibly correlate to certain inherent traits within each guest, but the evidence is anecdotal and self-reported. Ranks are mutable and can be changed either by a guest themselves or by another guest on their behalf; suits are unchanging, to the best of my knowledge.
There is an expectation that all guests engage in sexual activity regularly throughout their stay. Consequences for failure to participate include first a slow darkening of the guest's suit mark, as well as physical symptoms that seem to differ depending on the guest's suit. The activation of a suit seems to begin after two to four weeks without sex, and can be reversed by participating in sex.
[ and here he pauses, for any clarifying questions rufus may have. ]
no subject
Tseng's explanation, however, is roughly point for point what "Sasuke" told him back on the beach, when he was still a wildcard awaiting designation. Points in his favor; sources don't get much more reliable than having their facts confirmed by Tseng.]
The lower floors are inhospitable but anonymous. High cards are get lavish treatment but are under constant scrutiny.
[He picks up his glass, sipping at it. It's the good stuff. It makes him remember something else Sasuke had remarked: about how no one cares who you used to be. Freedom to reinvent yourself; he almost wonders if Tseng has, to cope with the demands of celebrity.]
And exclusivity affords little benefit. Playing their game conservatively gets you nowhere fast.
no subject
[ another pause, this time while tseng gathers his thoughts. ]
After some new information about the resort came to light in May, I have developed a working theory that not only is sex a form of currency here, it may also be the energy that powers the resort itself. Energy output may also be connected to both a guest's assigned rank on arrival and their ability to increase or decrease their rank, as well as the rewards granted to them by the house. I'm attempting to seek out evidence that would either prove or disprove the theory. I have also been working on a comprehensive map of the resort. It's in my desk, I'll fetch it shortly.
More immediately pertinent is that food, drink, and even flowers in this place are occasionally dosed with a powerful aphrodisiac agent, which can cause immediate and powerful symptoms of arousal in anyone exposed. The resort also has the power to activate our suits at will, regardless of how much sex you've been having. My recommendation [ tseng is far too professional to let himself blush saying any of this, but his gaze does slide like one centimeter to the left, so he's not meeting rufus' eyes directly ] is that you carry lubrication and contraceptives as needed whenever you intend to be away from your suite for longer than an hour or two.
no subject
Unavoidable, but occasionally possible to mitigate. I assume you vet what you keep around here.
[A little too late, he muses on how close that statement comes to I assume you're not going to feed me an aphrodisiac, and unfortunately now he's thinking about it.]
That explains a fair amount of what I've already seen. The food at the beach — during the registration festivities — was drugged. [He pauses, contemplative.] Not always with an aphrodisiac.
no subject
yet.much more alarming is the prospect that rufus might have encountered dosed food or beverage on the beach while tseng was yet unaware of his presence. that thought gets a visible furrow in tseng's brow. ]
Did you experience the effects firsthand? What were the symptoms?
[ and this is why tseng is going to do his best not to let rufus out of his sight for the foreseeable future, smh. ]
no subject
What remains, then, are two options: to deny him categorically, or to own the implications altogether. One would make him feel better. The other is the correct option.]
I had a drink from the floating bar. During the fireworks show. Gin, ginger beer, lime, raspberry. Edible flowers.
[Step one: identification. It might've been any one of the elements of the drink that carried the drug, or it might have been the byproduct of combining them. He keeps his expression carefully schooled, and knows that Tseng won't miss the fact that he'd accepted a brightly-colored cocktail, the sort he's not been caught dead drinking in public in years — a nostalgic product of a distant time.
He sips his whiskey. Fits together the next step in his thoughts.]
Symptoms...nothing physical. It impacted the psychological and induced a sense of intolerable isolation.
[An induced sense of isolation is perfectly clinical and serviceable. It doesn't sidestep the underlying implication, I felt lonely.]
So. An aphrodisiac variant. Compelled companionship, but targeted toward the psychological rather than the physical.
no subject
it also doesn't escape him, that rufus' drink of choice was something fruity and brightly-colored. maybe it was just because they hadn't served whiskey neat at that bar, but if that were the case, then rufus could just as well have not drunk anything at all. the fact that he chose to order one of those cocktails regardless... it's been a long time since tseng saw rufus allow himself that kind of indulgence. ]
I see. [ rufus knows what tseng looks like when he's making a series of mental notes. loneliness, compulsion for companionship... not erotic companionship, but the simplicity of human connection. ] Finding the dosed food and drink is often a matter of trial by error. Please be careful, sir.
[ bodyguard, and food-taster, and private chef, and sugar daddy all rolled into one. tseng sure has gotten a job upgrade today.
he turns to cross the kitchen into the living room, where he goes through the drawers of his desk and returns with his work-in-progress map of the resort. while the residential floors are sort of glossed over, there are extensive notes on certain other areas of the resort—the maintenance tunnels below, the supply room with its multitude of guards, the jail, the library. tseng also hands over the notebook currently serving as his dossier, with names and notes written in his tight, meticulous hand. ]
For your reference, while I make dinner.
no subject
[If the resort has the power to activate their suits at will — and presumably, to inspire them to have sex by it — then whether it happens by food or drink imbibed or by the will of their hosts, the outcome is ultimately the same. That said, if it were that simple, what would the point even be of drugging the food to begin with? So no, there must be plenty more effects like the compelled loneliness. The things that simply activating a suit couldn't do.
He mulls over that as Tseng leaves and returns again with a variety of documents to look at; he shifts his drink to his other hand and sets it well to the side to avoid the risk of any spills or condensation rings as he accepts the literature and flips open the dossier to peruse.]
...Tell me the worst you've seen. Of what they can do.
["The worst" is a subjective measure, but in this case, he knows it'll be pertinent. Tseng won't just answer it objectively, after all. He'll answer the worst thing he could see applied to Rufus, and that's an important distinction in the assessments he's going to need to make in the very near future.]
no subject
tseng sets the oven to preheat, then puts the bag of potatoes on the counter and withdraws a handful of them. small new potatoes, easy to roast. ]
The resort likes to force us all to play games, sometimes. [ methodically, tseng chops each of the potatoes in half, setting them aside into a large bowl as he goes. ] There was one of them, several months ago, in which each suit was assigned an animal counterpart. Diamonds were rabbits, hearts were foxes, and so forth.
[ chop, chop, chop. ]
There was a hierarchy to it. Wolves at the top, eager to mate with any animal beneath them. Rabbits at the bottom, eager to be mated by any animal who could catch them. [ rufus can probably imagine how much tseng fucking hated feeling like prey. ] By the end of it, many of the rabbits were so desperate to be bred that they would allow themselves to be used by anyone who could get their hands on them. Like being in heat.
[ when tseng sets the knife down it's just a touch too hard. he makes up for it by being a little too gentle when he opens the cabinet in search of olive oil and salt. ]
To me, that's the worst the resort can do. Make us lose control of ourselves entirely.
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Well. He thinks he knows what it is now, in part from his miscalculation with the weight of the knife, and in part because of the animals he does think to mention. Rabbits and foxes; Tseng clarifies what the two of them would have been, had they both been here to experience it.
A rabbit, then. Desperate to be bred. It doesn't suit him at all.]
Strength in variation, then. It's an advantage that we're not the same suit.
[His attention drifts to the dossier again, a little less casually this time. Most of the faces are unfamiliar. A few are outright startling.]
...The Ancient was here. And Reno?
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