Notes: This fic is a precursor to 'Loyal As A Dog', and is set in an alternative version of FFVII in which Tseng lived and Sephiroth was never given the black materia, so no events beyond that in the game would have occurred. Given that, it takes place roughly one year after the 'end' of the game.
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WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES
"Needs we must, when the devil drives." -anon.
They say that the lady is always the last to know.
Not necessarily true, Elena thought to herself, Usually the lady is the first to know- but the last to speak up.
She had picked at the memory like a scab, scratched it and worried at it until it scarred. It sucked at her like a nightmare tries to draw one back into sleep: that moment some months ago when Tseng had taken her into his arms, and as she had nuzzled her face into the coarse nap of his jacket, her nose had detected... something. Some nameless, phantom odor had clung to Tseng's clothes, ringing alarm bells in her mind she hadn't even known existed. Not oil or blood or cordite or anything that could be associated with their work... certainly not some new cologne... and thank god, not another woman's perfume... but puzzling and worrisome, nonetheless. Elena had dismissed it then- until the smell returned roughly a week later. Since then it had occurred with varying frequency, sometimes several nights in row, once with an entire month in between, and *always* after Tseng had gone off on a business jaunt with Rufus. For half a year, she had been fool enough to award him the benefit of the doubt... until the night before, when that ghostly fragrance had begun to undermine everything she had thought stable in her world.
She had slipped from her partner's drowsy embrace to go to the bathroom, her skin still glowing with sweat from their lovemaking an hour before. Elena's feet had hit the heap of Tseng's Turk uniform that lay in lascivious testimony on her bedroom floor. She had swooped down to gather it up and dump it down the laundry chute when the scent on his garments flooded her nostrils and clicked unpleasantly into place in her brain. It was the stench of a passionate animal; the warm, cloying musk of perspiration and lust that still clung to her own body- just as the reek of some stranger's clung to Tseng's clothes. In the seconds of stupid numbness that followed she had just stood there clutching the laundry, a flurry of different ideas rattling around her brain and pinging off each other like buckshot in a tin can.
It was that last one she had fixed on finally, territorial bloodlust razoring her nails into the collar of Tseng's shirt as she had slavered over visions of meathooks, piano wire and beheading by inches for the little *bitch* who had dared to... Scarlet's name was up for immediate consideration, but was also easily banished. Elena knew gaggingly well the suffocating floral musk that emanated from Scarlet's Silicone Valley cleavage. Don't they use chocobo piss to make that stuff or something? Aerith was dead, which neatly negated any threat from that quarter... so it had to be some other woman he was meeting on those 'business trips'. Grotesque images of Tseng and Rufus renting a 100-gil-an-hour whore and sharing her 'services' between them danced in lively technicolor in her imagination, but Tseng seemed much too much the straight man to engage in that particular form of male bonding.
Either way, she mussed grimly, she would know in a couple of minutes. Elena had slipped back into bed the previous night without giving voice to the questions in her heart, but when Tseng had left on another 'trip' with Rufus the next day, she had resolved to have it out with him as soon as he returned.
There was an agitated scrap of a keycard in the apartment's sticky reader You'd think Rufus could get us a place where the damned locks work! and then a familiar smooth black head peered around the edge of the door. Tseng gave Elena one of his slight, ghostly smiles and the ice around her heart almost... *almost*... melted. The other Turk held out his arms to her expectantly and she ran into them as was her habit, ever so careful to make every gesture look as if nothing was amiss. Yet she couldn't stop the shudder that snaked down her spine as she went up on tiptoe to kiss him and that sneaking, treacherous little scent of betrayal reached her nose again.
"Cold?" he asked her curiously, eyebrows knotting together around his bindi dot. Elena shook her head, nuzzling her golden mop of hair right under his chin.
"Tseng..." she began, running a casual finger over the lapels of his jacket, "Who is she?"
"She?" More eyebrow contortions. Elena nearly rolled her eyes in the first flickers of disgust. She could have guessed *that* particular response was coming.
"The one..." She slid her hands caressingly around to his chest- "...who I've been smelling..."- and shoved him violently away, Tseng's hands flying off her back and hitting the wall limply in shock- "...on your clothes for the past SIX MONTHS!!!" Elena had wanted to stare him down, to dare him to lie to her, but instead she found herself turning away, fists clenched in a struggle to hold her dignity together.
"She?" The blankness in Tseng's voice almost gave her pause, but her anger snuffed out curiosity with a single stamp.
"Don't give me that! You reek of her every time you come home from these little business trips of yours with Rufus- business trips to *where* I might ask? A whorehouse!?"
"She?" Tseng looked at her helplessly, as if pleading for more information- which Elena's shattered nerves could only read as denial.
"Don't you *DARE* lie to me!! Goddammit, Tseng- if you don't tell me who the hell she is right this minute, you and I are finished- do you hear me?! Finished!" Elena paused to catch a sobbing, unsteady breath and whirled to face her partner before resuming her increasingly wailing tirade. "How could you *do* this to me? Did you think it would be fun, having a little fling with your underling? Or did you just get lonely when that Gainsborough bitch died? Ooooohhh...!" With the sudden violence of a slap, Tseng' apparent cluelessness and the word he kept moronically repeating knit together to spin out different, more hideously accurate conclusion. "Ancients- I can't believe I've been such a fool..." A flicker of Hojo-esque hysterical demented laughter died in her throat as soon as it was born. "There isn't another woman in you life, is there?"
Tseng appeared to almost sag with relief, simply glad to finally be able to *understand* what this was all about. "Elena, love- of course not! Whatever made you think-"
"That's because it's a *man*, isn't it?"
* * *
Neither of them spoke for quite a long time, Tseng's checks blotching in a variety of interesting variations on carnelian as his mouth worked soundless syllables of protest. Elena felt the adrenaline stampeding madly through her veins starting to run down, and sat quickly on the edge of the couch behind her, knees locked together with tension as she tried to disappear into herself. "So I guess not even my gender is good enough for you, is it?"
"Elena, listen to me..."
There were tears now, bitter emptiness etching her words on the air like acid eating into glass. "Why?"
"Elena." She looked up in shock at the tone in his voice. It wasn't a request- it had been an order. Tseng stood before her, hands clasped behind his back him in an oddly businesslike attitude of contrition, his face that of a military officer delivering news to a recent widow. "I'm sorry. I guess I should have told you before about this."
"You damn well should have!!!"
"Elena!"
She fought the silly urge to jump up and say 'Hai, Tseng-san!' This was not going at all like it should have- and there was something very odd in Tseng's manner... He's talking to me like he did when we first met- that 'professional' attitude he gets when he's on the job! What *is* wrong with him?! "Tseng, please- at least just tell me who it is."
"Elena...." Tseng carefully looked off into another corner of the room before answering with no trace of remorse or shame: "It's Rufus."
Elena's entire cerebral cortex shut down for a good thirty seconds as it tried to process that information. Eventually her brain came back on line, followed by an powerful urge to laugh hysterically, followed by an even more powerful urge to be violently ill. Thankfully, she did none of the above, and she heard herself asking quite calmly, as if from a great distance, "Rufus? *The* Rufus Shin-Ra? Our beloved employer?"
Tseng closed his eyes briefly and an unreadable expression that might have been pain twisted his features. "If I didn't, who else is there to do it?"
"You mean this is a part of your JOB?" Elena winced at the shriek in her voice, and her desire to throttle Tseng evaporated into a cloud of incredulity and concern. "He isn't forcing you or anything, is he?!"
"No." Tseng replied very, very carefully. "Think about this for a moment: suppose you were a man in a position of great power like Rufus-sama, and you were all too aware that a great many people would like to see you dead. Now, there are few times in our lives when we are more vulnerable and more of our guard is down than in the bedroom- so any partner Rufus takes has to be one he trusts completely, both with his body and his secrets. This negates anyone outside the Shin-Ra corporation, on the chance that they might be a terrorist or a spy. And who within the corporation could be more trusted to have the discretion to make love to the president if not the one he trusts every day with his life?"
"Tseng...."
He stopped her protest with a gentle finger held to her lips and she was amazed that she didn't flinch at his touch. "No, I mean this- who else if not me? He isn't interested in women, so that takes out Scarlet and yourself. Palmer and Heidegger are too old; Hojo too dangerous; Reeve can't be trusted; Reno can't keep his mouth shut to save his life and Rude is so wrapped up in Reno to be any use. Oh, you didn't know about those two?" Tseng paused for a second at the blank look Elena could feel goggling across her face. "They've been an item for a long time- I'm surprised you haven't noticed. In any case... this is Rufus-sama's dilemma, Elena, and it's my duty to help him with this as well as my usual responsibilities."
"This is more than just duty, " she finally managed, unconsciously reaching out for his hands to draw him down to sit beside her. "Tseng... how is this going to effect......us?"
"Do you want me to stop?" There was absolutely no expression in his voice whatsoever. Elena bit her tongue. She wanted so badly to tell him yes, to indulge in another jealous fit, to roll him over on the couch and claim him for herself, but her lips instead wrapped gingerly around what she knew even before she spoke it to be the truth. "You won't, will you?"
Tseng was silent for a long moment, and Elena reluctantly let him slide his arms around her and tuck her head back under his chin, the steady rise and fall off his chest familiar, if not comforting. "My poor, poor, lovely bird- I wish you never had become involved in this mess. I tried to keep you from finding out because I knew it would cause you pain. I honestly don't want to hurt you, Elena- and I may have to sleep with Rufus-sama from time to time, but I love only you."
At another time, in another place, Elena would have eaten nails to hear those words- now they were cold comfort at best. "But you still won't stop."
Tseng's arms tightened their grip around her shoulders. "Elena, in his own peculiar way, Rufus needs me. It's terribly lonely to be in the position of power he holds- and even more so when he has to hide his 'preferences' from the outside world."
"'Preferences'?" Elena squirmed around to face him incredulously, scanning Tseng's visible skin for marks. "He isn't into.... that whips and chains business.... is he?"
"Hardly." Tseng seemed to find her fascination a little amusing. "But he spends all day in control, always having to run everything and be on top of the situation. When he relaxes on his own time, he's much rather someone else played that role. By the way..." Tseng's tone dropped back into the lawyeresque sternness he used on the job. "Not one *word* of this conversation goes beyond these doors. Do we understand each other?" Tseng's hands gripped her upper arms painfully until Elena nodded nervously. She rubbed gently at the sore spots that remained as her lover gave her his little flicker of a smile. "Well, I guess that clears that up. Come on, love-" he murmured as he pulled her too her feet, "Let's go see what I can find to make us for dinner."
Elena numbly let herself be led into the kitchenette, aware even as she unconsciously forgave him of something being torn open within her. Tucked away in darkness, it would only be a matter of time before it began to fester, and then turned septic. Tseng's heart belongs to me, she dully reminded herself.
But both our souls belong to Rufus Shin-Ra.