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Crisis Core fic: Fact of the Matter (Tseng, Zack)
Title: Fact of the Matter
Characters: Zack, Tseng
Rating: PG
Summary: Zack's spent too much damned time in helicopters watching Tseng watching him watching Tseng.
Warnings: Crisis Core insertfic just after Zack and Tseng have that... interesting conversation regarding Aerith outside the church.
1255 words. Genfic. Tseng is a bit twisty, but only if you squint.
They spent too much damned time in helicopters.
SOLIDER wasn't trained to fly them, so Zack didn't even have the small pleasures of begging the pilot to let him in on the job or giving constructive criticism or anything. The Security Corp people held their flying licenses over SOLDIERs' heads because it was really more or less their only trump card over the better funded, better equipped and generally better treated SOLDIER corps. So piss off the grunt in charge of the chopper and you could well end up weeding gardens in some remote village until they took pity on you and decided to pick you up again sometime next week.
But that wasn't the point: the point was that this was the third time in about as many months that Zack found himself in the company of the guy from "Administrative Research", and Tseng was fast going from the category of "humourless bastard" to the one simply labelled "bastard" instead.
It was a long, boring flight in from Midgar. They weren't even heading straight for Modeoheim; they couldn't: not enough fuel. So after two hours of deafening themselves with the whoong whoong whoong of chopper blades eating air, they were stuck at a Shinra outpost refuelling. The two Security people went out to stretch their legs. Tseng simply sat there murmuring into his PHS, and Zack would be damned if he didn't at least try to sit in and glean some information from the conversation. Turks did and knew a hell of a lot more than what even a 1st Class did, of that he was pretty certain.
Nothing this time, though. Tseng might've been talking to that hot chick (Cissnei?), or he might have been talking to the redhead guy, or he could've been talking to a wall. Tone of voice never changed, and it was all brief, sharp, short orders like take two more on that detail and assign him to the President. If it wasn't for Tseng's twisted sense of irony (he couldn't call it humour), Zack'd be sure that Tseng was made of stone. That, and the something else Zack imagined he'd heard in Tseng's voice when he mentioned Aerith not--
Didn't matter. Right now, Tseng was being an obliging partner in the staring competition Zack'd engaged him in. God knew what Tseng saw in him, but what Zack saw was pretty straightforward: brown eyes, pale face, strange dot. White shirt that looked like it'd been starched into whimpering submission. Suit cut close enough that it looked like you could cut yourself on him if you weren't careful, but loose enough that Zack was pretty sure Tseng'd beat any Security guy in a dead sprint. There were no creases on the uniform; Zack had to squint hard before he could even guess at the location of Tseng's firearm, or maybe firearms - you couldn't play anything less than safe with this sort of guy. The tie was outrageous, considering that they'd be going somewhere thousands of miles away from the next corporate attire-checker, but there it sat at his throat anyway, smug and civilised. Tseng had his legs crossed and his face blank and Zack couldn't take it anymore.
'Stop looking at me like that,' Zack said, not really aware of the fact that his right foot had been busy tapping away at the floor of the chopper in a noisy staccato counterpoint against Tseng's absolute lack of noise.
Tseng tilted his head to the side, just barely. 'I wasn't aware that I was looking at you in any particular way.'
Zack fell silent. Tseng didn't move his gaze. It was enough to make him want to twitch. After a moment, Zack's patience broke. 'Man, do you do anything other than watch all the time?'
'Watching is something I'm paid to do,' Tseng replied, calm as you'd please. 'Though I admit it's been an entertaining experience observing you bounce off the walls all day.'
'I'm not bouncing anywhere!' Zack objected. 'I just don't like the timing of everything. It's all a bit wrong, somehow.'
Tseng raised an eyebrow. 'Your job getting in the way of your extracurricular?'
Zack wasn't blushing, and he wasn't glaring, he was just really antsy today, that was all. That, and he wanted to wipe Tseng's smug un-smile from his face, preferably with a fist. He screwed up his face and lifted his hands, making quotation marks in the air. '"It's complicated",' he intoned, copying Tseng's words from where they'd met outside Aerith's church earlier that day. What the hell had Tseng meant, anyway? Whatever.
Tseng, on reflection, had pretty expressive eyes. What was scary about them was the fact that the man could erase all hints of himself from them. They were just flat, and brown, and serious. 'You shouldn't go after her. Aerith, that is, not any of the other five or six women you flirt with.'
'You must be real popular with people, huh,' Zack blinked, too amazed by Tseng's lack of - oh, basic etiquette? to really be able to get angry over the comment.
'I'm just saying that because it's true,' Tseng shrugged, looking away for the first time and fixing his gaze out of the chopper's small viewport. 'You wouldn't be good for her. None of us are.'
'Is this some seriously twisted case of jealousy and sour grapes?' Zack asked, staring at Tseng. 'Because you've got some major big issues if that's the case, let me tell you that.'
'I'm not the type, I think you'd say, to go after women,' Tseng clarified, his voice casually dismissive. 'I'm simply pointing out the facts of the situation for your benefit. You're not a bad human being, and Aerith...'
'And Aerith what?' Zack prompted when Tseng ceased to speak. The Turk just gave another shrug. 'And Aerith what?' Zack asked again. Tseng seemed to have turned on some filter, though - or maybe he just wasn't listening anymore. 'Tseng! Tseng, come on, if she's your girlfriend just spit it out already, because I'm going to keep bugging you and - Tseng!'
It took two minutes of loud, incessant yapping, but eventually the damned Turk looked back at Zack. 'You're in SOLDIER, Zack. But let me reassure you that it's not just your division of Shinra that has a good idea of what it's like to be monsters. It comes with the job, and doesn't differentiate between you or me or even the two young men from Security. You're Shinra,' the Turk said. 'You don't have to spread the joy, as it were, to anyone else outside company walls.' And then he shut his mouth, crossed his arms, and said no more.
The last time they had been in a helicopter together, they flew away from Wutai, leaving the country ravaged by war for reasons a lot less noble than "spreading the gift of Mako throughout all regions". Tseng hadn't blinked as they turned away from the town they'd all but destroyed and returned to the city, and maybe that was why Zack never bothered to ask about what the Turk had felt. Tseng wouldn't have been able to answer the question in any case - what he felt - personally - about anything had long ceased to be important to him. Even about where he'd come from, or who he'd known, or what he could've been.
Zack said nothing more to Tseng, the rest of the flight towards the Icicle region, and Tseng, for his part, kept his silences once more.
Characters: Zack, Tseng
Rating: PG
Summary: Zack's spent too much damned time in helicopters watching Tseng watching him watching Tseng.
Warnings: Crisis Core insertfic just after Zack and Tseng have that... interesting conversation regarding Aerith outside the church.
1255 words. Genfic. Tseng is a bit twisty, but only if you squint.
They spent too much damned time in helicopters.
SOLIDER wasn't trained to fly them, so Zack didn't even have the small pleasures of begging the pilot to let him in on the job or giving constructive criticism or anything. The Security Corp people held their flying licenses over SOLDIERs' heads because it was really more or less their only trump card over the better funded, better equipped and generally better treated SOLDIER corps. So piss off the grunt in charge of the chopper and you could well end up weeding gardens in some remote village until they took pity on you and decided to pick you up again sometime next week.
But that wasn't the point: the point was that this was the third time in about as many months that Zack found himself in the company of the guy from "Administrative Research", and Tseng was fast going from the category of "humourless bastard" to the one simply labelled "bastard" instead.
It was a long, boring flight in from Midgar. They weren't even heading straight for Modeoheim; they couldn't: not enough fuel. So after two hours of deafening themselves with the whoong whoong whoong of chopper blades eating air, they were stuck at a Shinra outpost refuelling. The two Security people went out to stretch their legs. Tseng simply sat there murmuring into his PHS, and Zack would be damned if he didn't at least try to sit in and glean some information from the conversation. Turks did and knew a hell of a lot more than what even a 1st Class did, of that he was pretty certain.
Nothing this time, though. Tseng might've been talking to that hot chick (Cissnei?), or he might have been talking to the redhead guy, or he could've been talking to a wall. Tone of voice never changed, and it was all brief, sharp, short orders like take two more on that detail and assign him to the President. If it wasn't for Tseng's twisted sense of irony (he couldn't call it humour), Zack'd be sure that Tseng was made of stone. That, and the something else Zack imagined he'd heard in Tseng's voice when he mentioned Aerith not--
Didn't matter. Right now, Tseng was being an obliging partner in the staring competition Zack'd engaged him in. God knew what Tseng saw in him, but what Zack saw was pretty straightforward: brown eyes, pale face, strange dot. White shirt that looked like it'd been starched into whimpering submission. Suit cut close enough that it looked like you could cut yourself on him if you weren't careful, but loose enough that Zack was pretty sure Tseng'd beat any Security guy in a dead sprint. There were no creases on the uniform; Zack had to squint hard before he could even guess at the location of Tseng's firearm, or maybe firearms - you couldn't play anything less than safe with this sort of guy. The tie was outrageous, considering that they'd be going somewhere thousands of miles away from the next corporate attire-checker, but there it sat at his throat anyway, smug and civilised. Tseng had his legs crossed and his face blank and Zack couldn't take it anymore.
'Stop looking at me like that,' Zack said, not really aware of the fact that his right foot had been busy tapping away at the floor of the chopper in a noisy staccato counterpoint against Tseng's absolute lack of noise.
Tseng tilted his head to the side, just barely. 'I wasn't aware that I was looking at you in any particular way.'
Zack fell silent. Tseng didn't move his gaze. It was enough to make him want to twitch. After a moment, Zack's patience broke. 'Man, do you do anything other than watch all the time?'
'Watching is something I'm paid to do,' Tseng replied, calm as you'd please. 'Though I admit it's been an entertaining experience observing you bounce off the walls all day.'
'I'm not bouncing anywhere!' Zack objected. 'I just don't like the timing of everything. It's all a bit wrong, somehow.'
Tseng raised an eyebrow. 'Your job getting in the way of your extracurricular?'
Zack wasn't blushing, and he wasn't glaring, he was just really antsy today, that was all. That, and he wanted to wipe Tseng's smug un-smile from his face, preferably with a fist. He screwed up his face and lifted his hands, making quotation marks in the air. '"It's complicated",' he intoned, copying Tseng's words from where they'd met outside Aerith's church earlier that day. What the hell had Tseng meant, anyway? Whatever.
Tseng, on reflection, had pretty expressive eyes. What was scary about them was the fact that the man could erase all hints of himself from them. They were just flat, and brown, and serious. 'You shouldn't go after her. Aerith, that is, not any of the other five or six women you flirt with.'
'You must be real popular with people, huh,' Zack blinked, too amazed by Tseng's lack of - oh, basic etiquette? to really be able to get angry over the comment.
'I'm just saying that because it's true,' Tseng shrugged, looking away for the first time and fixing his gaze out of the chopper's small viewport. 'You wouldn't be good for her. None of us are.'
'Is this some seriously twisted case of jealousy and sour grapes?' Zack asked, staring at Tseng. 'Because you've got some major big issues if that's the case, let me tell you that.'
'I'm not the type, I think you'd say, to go after women,' Tseng clarified, his voice casually dismissive. 'I'm simply pointing out the facts of the situation for your benefit. You're not a bad human being, and Aerith...'
'And Aerith what?' Zack prompted when Tseng ceased to speak. The Turk just gave another shrug. 'And Aerith what?' Zack asked again. Tseng seemed to have turned on some filter, though - or maybe he just wasn't listening anymore. 'Tseng! Tseng, come on, if she's your girlfriend just spit it out already, because I'm going to keep bugging you and - Tseng!'
It took two minutes of loud, incessant yapping, but eventually the damned Turk looked back at Zack. 'You're in SOLDIER, Zack. But let me reassure you that it's not just your division of Shinra that has a good idea of what it's like to be monsters. It comes with the job, and doesn't differentiate between you or me or even the two young men from Security. You're Shinra,' the Turk said. 'You don't have to spread the joy, as it were, to anyone else outside company walls.' And then he shut his mouth, crossed his arms, and said no more.
The last time they had been in a helicopter together, they flew away from Wutai, leaving the country ravaged by war for reasons a lot less noble than "spreading the gift of Mako throughout all regions". Tseng hadn't blinked as they turned away from the town they'd all but destroyed and returned to the city, and maybe that was why Zack never bothered to ask about what the Turk had felt. Tseng wouldn't have been able to answer the question in any case - what he felt - personally - about anything had long ceased to be important to him. Even about where he'd come from, or who he'd known, or what he could've been.
Zack said nothing more to Tseng, the rest of the flight towards the Icicle region, and Tseng, for his part, kept his silences once more.