Saturday Evening, Edge, Tseng's Apartment (NFB - Distance)
So, back in August, Elena had gone back to Edge, with Reno. A surprise visit while on the semester break, so she could kill monsters and maybe get Reno out of deep shit. And then she'd agreed to do some paperwork, for Tseng, and somehow that turned into "and at the end, we'll have a semi-date
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He was wearing his uniform as a last-ditch effort to remind himself that Elena was his subordinate, thank-you-very-much, and anything beyond conversation over a glass of wine or two apiece would be highly inappropriate.
In fact, he was the very vision of composure as he answered his door, offering the briefest, most professional of nods and--
...
Was that perfume? What was she wearing? That was quite the dress, and Tseng allowed himself only a flicker of an instant to let his surprise register in his features before he managed to wrestle his expression back to its usual stoic gameface.
"Good evening, Elena. I trust the trip in went smoothly?"
That dress was cheating.
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She'd caught that flicker, on his face, and -- and for Tseng, that was an open-mouthed stare from anyone else. And that made the dress the best idea in the history of ever.
She was going to need a moment while her heart entirely skipped a beat or two. Okay, it was back to a steady rhythm, even if it was a little fast.
Her own nod was solemn, and then she smiled.
If he was anyone else, she could have sailed into the room like a goddess or a queen. She was nearly pulling it off, anyway.
"Very well, and thank you," she said, her voice low and warm in her ears. "May I come in?"
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He stepped aside, gesturing with one arm to his living room. It was the sort of room that seemed, especially in a city as torn as Edge, to be perfect for entertaining ladies wearing dresses not unlike the one that Elena was wearing now, as a matter of fact. The furniture was sparse, but neat. A shelf across the room held a good many books, organized just-so, and they had obviously seen a great amount of care in spite of so many hard times behind them. There was art on the wall, something pleasing to the eye in neutral colors, that served to compliment the living space as opposed to distract from it.
Apparently, Tseng had managed to figure out the art of feng shui without the benefit of a lesson that left him with a blue face.
"Make yourself comfortable."
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And now she was going to glide into his living room. Somehow, this dress made walking into gliding. It might be the material, the way it flowed down around her ankles. Whatever it was, it helped with the "sauntering into the room as if you own it, or would like to consider buying it."
It was a very Tseng sort of room. Efficient, simple, and elegant. Curious, she wandered over to the bookshelves, glancing at the titles. Many of them were in Wutaian. An encyclopedia here, a weapons manual there, classic works of literature. All of them looked well-read, but also well-cared for -- no dog ears or torn pages, but plenty of gentle cracks along the spines.
"Where do you find the time?" she asked. Teasing, but gently.
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"And almost always when I would likely benefit more from sleeping. Do you prefer white or red wine?"
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"White, please," she said, "although I think it should be your choice, if we're ..."
Abruptly, she turned back to him.
"Wait. Don't ... open it yet?"
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Over there by his bookshelf. In that dress. With her hair down, the way he was used to seeing it, but longer. There was almost a twinge in his chest as he realized that it had been months already since she'd left. Months since he'd practically driven her off.
And now, here she was in his living room. In that dress. It was almost maddening.
"Did you have something else in mind?"
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What was she doing? She'd lost her mind. And her voice wouldn't work, and he was looking at her like ... like he saw her, standing here. That was not helping her nerves.
She cleared her throat and tried again.
"I don't ... think it was fair of me," she said. "What I ... asked you. You were desperate for help, and I ..."
You are a Turk, Elena. Act like one.
"That wine survived the fall of Midgar. It's yours. Not ... something to be part of a bet, or a deal, or anything like that."
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She had done some growing up while she was on that island, perhaps. Or else he'd been giving her entirely too little credit from the start.
... No. She'd definitely done some growing up.
"You merely laid out the terms, Elena. Do keep in mind, I'm the one who agreed to them." A pause, while he contemplated what to say next. And when he did speak, it actually was accompanied by a smile, not simply the shadow of one. "White wine, then."
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And then he smiled at her. He didn't smile enough. Not real smiles, that reached to his eyes.
And ... she smiled back, reflexively, and couldn't find a single word to say. Her face was feeling warm and her knees were liquifying and dammit, Elena, keep it together.
She nodded, then, crisply. "As you like," she said. Maybe her voice wasn't quite shaking. She could hope.
She turned back to the bookshelf and pulled out one of the titles, idly flipping through the pages. It was in Wutaian, and the symbols were beautiful but meaningless to her. She liked the pattern they made on the paper, anyway.
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She still seemed so much like the eager rookie, to some extent. The new blood that they'd hired to replace Reno while he recovered from injuries gleaned during the fall of the Sector Seven plate. She'd wanted to prove herself, to convince the world that she was more than just her father's daughter and her sister's sister. As a result, she'd done a good deal of speaking before thinking, or thinking when instead she ought to have reacted. There had been a fine balance that she'd needed to find, then.
This was the same thing, on a very different scale, Tseng mused, running his fingers over tinted glass as he contemplated the wine that he was keeping in the kitchen. She was out there, his guest, and it seemed as though once again she had something to prove. As though she was bound and determined once again to show him that she was Elena. The result was very different than it had been before, of course, but the sentiment felt much the same.
She was trying to impress him.
He wasn't certain that she was miserably failing at it, either.
With that thought in mind, he uncorked the bottle, and then made his way out to his living room once again, the bottle in one hand, two wine glasses held between the fingers of his other.
"You've picked a good one," he noted, seeing the book in her hand.
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"Have I?" she asked, closing the book carefully and replacing it on the shelf. "I can't read Wutaian. I've been trying to learn, a little, but it's been the alphabetical characters, not kanji."
One step at a time.
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Partly because yes, he was anal-retentive enough to have to make certain that it went back in the right spot, and partly because if he kept his eye on the book, then it would allow him a moment to get his head around the fact that she was trying to learn Wutaian at all.
"Is there any particular reason that you were looking to learn the language? Most Wutaians speak Standard now, as well. It was all but law, after Wutai lost the war."
After all, it was difficult to make a tacky tourist trap out of a conquered nation if nobody spoke the language.
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She reached out to take one of the two wine glasses he had carried in, holding it steady if he wanted to begin pouring. Feeling, it had to be said, a touch triumphant.
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"I had assumed that you might take the simple route and look it up on the internet," he noted, no small amount of bemusement in his words, now. "Have you made any headway in attaining that goal, by any chance?"
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She was in Tseng's apartment, and he was smiling at her and possibly flirting. This was the very definition of 'unreal.'
"I've run into difficulties with the diacriticals, and nonstandard spelling," she explained. "But I think I've made definite progress. I brought you something."
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