fandomtownies | Pick Your Poison, Sunday Evening

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Pick Your Poison, Sunday Evening

It was the sort of night where she wanted to do nothing more than to hole herself up in her lab and just lose track of time. Given who was on the island, though, she knew better than that, and was contenting herself with figuring out what, exactly, to send back with who Reno had dubbed Silver Fox Tseng.

Ino was pretty sure that Elena—that Elena, not her Elena—would also appreciate a few things.

So even though it wasn't her usual day or her usual hours, Ino had figured there was no point in being in the store and not having it opened.

Hey, maybe she'd get herself company while she sent texts to her Elena asking if she liked spicy or floral scents better.

Pick Your Poison is Open!

[And OCD free~]

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Tseng - Iris' Tseng, not Reno or Rufus' Tsengs - stepped into Iris' shop and took a quiet look around. Less checking out unfamiliar territory and more...

Honestly, just looking around. He didn't tend to spend much time in shops that were quite so into self-indulgence.

"Iris," he greeted. "You're working late."

Said vaguely as though this was meant to come off somehow as a surprise. She was a Turk. Of course it was not.

"It's a bad habit," she said, smiling over at him. "Might've learnt it from someone you know."

Given that she'd been more his Rookie than the Reno's that belonged to her Gaia.

"I'll have to talk to Rosalind about that," Tseng said, not missing a beat.

Because even an off-his-game Tseng was an on-the-ball Tseng. That was just how this worked.

"Busy?"

"Not with anything that can't be put off," Ino said, with a soft laugh for his retort. "You're here for business, then?"

"Of a sort," Tseng replied, reaching into his jacket and pulling out the bundle of letters. "I was hoping you wouldn't mind delivering these."

Ino blinked at him.

"To... Zack, I assume?" she said, tilting her head.

"Indeed," Tseng agreed. "Aerith wrote them. They were... intercepted, before making it to their final destination."

He wouldn't explain why.

She'd know.

This many letters?

She'd know.

Ino paused.

Then... kept on pausing there, as what he was saying... and the pile of letters... oh. Oh.

"You kept them."

She... honestly didn't know what to make of that.

"I intended to deliver them," Tseng said, his voice going softer. Just the slightest bit softer.

He'd intended to free Zack so, so much sooner.

He'd intended for a lot of things to happen that hadn't. Zack still being alive was one of the first things that had worked out, overall.

“You intended a lot of things,” Ino said, though her voice lacked the bite that comment would have had a year ago. “Good intentions don’t get most of us very far.”

Lack of bite, it was still the truth.

"They don't," Tseng agreed. "And that's why I'm respecting that he's washed his hands of me."

He held out the letters again.

"I see no reason to continue punishing Aerith for my failure to act."

This time, she took the letters, though she set them gently on the counter, rather than tuck them away into her suit.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, an edge to her voice. “Though you tend to be, ‘bout Zack. He ain’t come even close to washin’ his hands of you.”

If he had, Tseng wouldn’t be able to hurt him so much.

Tseng's brow creased slightly at that.

"He made it quite clear, Iris."

... Or had he? Zack's 'quite clear' was... confusing. For somebody he cared about so damn much, Tseng never really had been able to understand everything that was lurking behind those hell-bent smiles.

“No, he didn’t,” she said, confident in that. Ino knew Zack. “I’m sure he told you to go away. That don’t mean he’s done.”

Leaning against the counter, she studied Tseng.

“I ain’t sayin’ he ain’t mad at you. He is. And he ain’t ready to talk to you. But he absolutely hasn’t washed his hands of you either.”

He watched her in silence as she spoke, expression unchanging, hands settling at his sides.

Throat too tight to reply for a few moments more.

"He has no reason to ever be ready to talk to me."

Yeah, well, about that…

“You think so?” Ino shook her head. “He still cares ‘bout you, Tseng. That’s one of the reasons he ain’t ready now to talk to you. If he didn’t care ‘bout you—then you’d know you were done. He’s still got your number and he ain’t deleted it. He ain’t going to.”

The lines had gotten blurred, for her, since realizing there was a universe out there where they’d, and Zack, had been together. It didn’t mean much, really, in this universe and she didn’t know if it ever would, but it did mean that Ino approached her conversations with him differently.

Like he was a person, instead of just her boss.

“Zack still hasn’t processed a lot of what happened to him in Nibelheim,” she said softly. “It were more than a year before he and I could share a room together and I had no idea ‘bout anything to do with Nibelheim. It were just the fact that I were a Turk. You, though, you're a more complicated matter. The only reason he's got to ever be ready to talk to you is that he still cares 'bout you. That's all the reason he needs. He just ain't ready yet.”

Tseng didn't know what to do with that information. There was a leap of hope in his chest, something that almost managed to make his breath catch, and he stifled that, didn't let it even dare.

"I... don't understand how he does it. I couldn't."

Had he been in the same situation? He might have shot the person who had played Tseng's own role in his incarceration.

A few years ago, Ino would have agreed with Tseng and, honestly, if she'd been in Zack's shoes and met the person playing Tseng's role right out of incarceration... well, yeah, they wouldn't make it out alive.

But Ino had struggled with her own ability to forgive, since Zack had been rescued, and found that while she could never forgive a stranger... she could, eventually, forgive people she loved.

"He cares," she repeated softly. "That's how he does it. If he didn't--honestly, you'd probably be dead. I don't know when or if he'll ever forgive you, but he cares and I don't think he's ready to really admit that to himself yet either. It hurts too much."

"He wouldn't be Zack if he didn't, I suppose," Tseng sighed. He looked downward slightly. As close to bowing his head in regret as he'd allow himself. "I don't think he knows how not to care."

“Saaaa, you’re always the guilty one,” Ino said, falling into Wutaian as she shrugged. “While you’re waiting for Zack to be able to forgive you, I think you should try and forgive yourself.”

She didn’t know if he’d ever manage it, but it did have to be said.

“I forgave you.”

Tseng's head didn't have far to go, no, but it still snapped up so he could look at her, his eyes... not quite wide with shock, but alert. Processing that.

Grateful.

"I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to begin," he replied, his own Wutaian coming out crisply, professionally. If the squirrels didn't speak it, he wasn't going to give them an inch to assume weakness. "Forgiveness has never been my strong suit."

Just be glad it wasn’t a day where Rufus was doing the reporting, Tseng. Just be glad of that.

Ino met his gaze calmly. “I know,” she said, “but that don’t mean you can’t consider it.”

"I suppose it doesn't."

He'd be terrible at it. He hardly had any right to forgive himself for something that Zack was still suffering for, did he?

"I'll consider it."

"Zack's going to forgive you long before you forgive yourself," she predicted, but kept her voice gentle. "I ain't ever gonna say what you did was good. Or right. Or anything like that. I don't agree with what you did neither. But I choose to forgive you 'cause I love you."

And that right there was one of the reasons this conversation was easier in Wutaian--her choice of word for love was not one that implied romance. English was frustrating for lacking those shades of grey.

"Eventually, I think Zack'll get there too. I don't know that you will."

Tseng... didn't seem to like himself very much.

Tseng did the job.

A Turk didn't need to like himself to do the job. Sometimes it was better when they didn't.

"I appreciate your forgiveness," he said, quietly. "And if forgiveness is something Zack chooses, I look forward to that day."

And anything about his own ability to forgive was going to be left unsaid.

They both knew it wouldn't be so easy. Not for him.

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