McDonell Benedict "Kazuhira (和平)" Miller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warandpeace) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2017-04-16 08:52 am
warandpeace) wrote in thisavrou_log2017-04-16 08:52 am
(no subject)
Who: Kazuhira Miller | Various
When: April
Where: Wherever labeled
What: General OTA starters for this month
Warnings: Will warn in the title portion of tags.
pax hamburgana.
[Miller comes into his diner almost every day. He's lucky to have workers, really, but he'd still come in alone and work his little heart out if he had to. He would sweep the floors, he would bus tables, he would cook food and do dishes, whatever is necessary to keep things running. The luck of "space age" technology (or rather, very average tech here) is that much of that can be automated as necessary. But the "human element" or the near equivalent when there's such a mix of people requires a face at a bar and at diner booths or a body by the heat of a stove, as far as he's concerned.]
[Today isn't a cooking day, it's a serving day, and he's up front finishing up a wipe down of the bar after a daily shift change rush. He guesses it's Region One's equivalent of the noon lunch around here. A bunch of people get a break at approximately the same time and they come in and get food and either they love it or hate it and he's the one that gets to hear about it]
[Sometimes during the lull and most of the busy work is done, Kaz'll spend those spare moments to practice playing his guitar at a booth, soft acoustic sounds from expert fingers filling the restaurant. Good enough that at one point he could have been a professional so long as he didn't sing as well. Now being original is a trial, songs being difficult to generate on his own. Instead he plucks through ones he made years ago or learned in Costa Rica.]
[Either way, he'll find his way to anyone that comes in to eat.]
EN-Line.
[The worst part of taking up a new project is finding all the paperwork he needs to fill out.]
[One is a broadcasting office. One for him to ask about taxation and licensing because he has no idea how that works here. But it means a lot of walking and a lot of being told to go to another place and a lot more walking. Not long enough to take public transportation, but enough that the runaround gets exasperating (and he's a man that enjoys this sort of thing normally).]
[By the time he gets on the EN-Line to make his way home he's in a seat attempting with all his might to not nod off. A wearying battle that he loses, eventually doing so. That blond head tipping forward some, eyes closed behind his aviators, Kaz starts muttering a little to himself.]
Do you know where Miller is?
[He wakes up with a start from the sound of his own voice and shakes his head. Well, that's fun. He'll just try to find someone to talk and keep himself awake so he doesn't end up falling asleep and riding this thing in a circle.]
band night at a bar.
[It's been a hell of week, and Kaz has not slowed down except to sleep and that sleep is the sort of "decent" sleep that's like a marathon in itself. Check time, confirm time setting, lay down face first without undressing, sprint snooze. This is the first time he's taken some time off just to relax, going to a bar to enjoy himself and listen to some music.]
[But perhaps he should not have.]
[Once the live band hours are over, he's piss drunk. Somewhere along the line Miller forgot he's no longer twenty-eight and the last time he got drunk without strange mantid interference was back on the last birthday he could remember, at a party that Big Boss had thrown for him when they were both aboard the Moira.]
[And that has him ranting at some poor unfortunate soul near him.]
Did you know John put me in a slingshot? He tricked me. [Kaz slurs with spite, making himself mad all over again.] I almost died for a man that put me in a slingshot. You know how far I went? I lost my clipboard.
And his box was too tiny. I had to make him make it bigger. He barely listened to me over his stupid small box, I don't know why I thought he'd listen to me over nukes.
[This all makes sense to him. Even that hiccup that follows that odd assortment of words that are supposed to be a true story. Accurate punctuation.]
When: April
Where: Wherever labeled
What: General OTA starters for this month
Warnings: Will warn in the title portion of tags.
pax hamburgana.
[Miller comes into his diner almost every day. He's lucky to have workers, really, but he'd still come in alone and work his little heart out if he had to. He would sweep the floors, he would bus tables, he would cook food and do dishes, whatever is necessary to keep things running. The luck of "space age" technology (or rather, very average tech here) is that much of that can be automated as necessary. But the "human element" or the near equivalent when there's such a mix of people requires a face at a bar and at diner booths or a body by the heat of a stove, as far as he's concerned.]
[Today isn't a cooking day, it's a serving day, and he's up front finishing up a wipe down of the bar after a daily shift change rush. He guesses it's Region One's equivalent of the noon lunch around here. A bunch of people get a break at approximately the same time and they come in and get food and either they love it or hate it and he's the one that gets to hear about it]
[Sometimes during the lull and most of the busy work is done, Kaz'll spend those spare moments to practice playing his guitar at a booth, soft acoustic sounds from expert fingers filling the restaurant. Good enough that at one point he could have been a professional so long as he didn't sing as well. Now being original is a trial, songs being difficult to generate on his own. Instead he plucks through ones he made years ago or learned in Costa Rica.]
[Either way, he'll find his way to anyone that comes in to eat.]
EN-Line.
[The worst part of taking up a new project is finding all the paperwork he needs to fill out.]
[One is a broadcasting office. One for him to ask about taxation and licensing because he has no idea how that works here. But it means a lot of walking and a lot of being told to go to another place and a lot more walking. Not long enough to take public transportation, but enough that the runaround gets exasperating (and he's a man that enjoys this sort of thing normally).]
[By the time he gets on the EN-Line to make his way home he's in a seat attempting with all his might to not nod off. A wearying battle that he loses, eventually doing so. That blond head tipping forward some, eyes closed behind his aviators, Kaz starts muttering a little to himself.]
Do you know where Miller is?
[He wakes up with a start from the sound of his own voice and shakes his head. Well, that's fun. He'll just try to find someone to talk and keep himself awake so he doesn't end up falling asleep and riding this thing in a circle.]
band night at a bar.
[It's been a hell of week, and Kaz has not slowed down except to sleep and that sleep is the sort of "decent" sleep that's like a marathon in itself. Check time, confirm time setting, lay down face first without undressing, sprint snooze. This is the first time he's taken some time off just to relax, going to a bar to enjoy himself and listen to some music.]
[But perhaps he should not have.]
[Once the live band hours are over, he's piss drunk. Somewhere along the line Miller forgot he's no longer twenty-eight and the last time he got drunk without strange mantid interference was back on the last birthday he could remember, at a party that Big Boss had thrown for him when they were both aboard the Moira.]
[And that has him ranting at some poor unfortunate soul near him.]
Did you know John put me in a slingshot? He tricked me. [Kaz slurs with spite, making himself mad all over again.] I almost died for a man that put me in a slingshot. You know how far I went? I lost my clipboard.
And his box was too tiny. I had to make him make it bigger. He barely listened to me over his stupid small box, I don't know why I thought he'd listen to me over nukes.
[This all makes sense to him. Even that hiccup that follows that odd assortment of words that are supposed to be a true story. Accurate punctuation.]
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If asked about those western features, he would say he saw pictures of his father while he was young. And really, he did come out somewhere in between. A lovely young lady of a mother and an obnoxiously Western looking father.
He couldn't make the attachment to what Pharrah had told him right away, so he was interested more in the mechanics. "Were you primarily a combatant or on their R&D team? I was usually in command but I was sometimes cycled between departments to encourage the other soldiers. Motivate the staff a little."
At the observation of her singing, another grin crept across his face. "I'm good at guitar, but I bet... I could beat you at bad singing." And that challenge was followed by a shake of his finger. She probably would have to prepare herself, the nightmare was coming.
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"Research!" she says proudly with a quick nudge of her glasses. "Our world's climate was shifting really quickly, and a lot of people were blaming the omnics for it, so Overwatch sent out teams around the world to collect data and find the cause to see if we could stop it." They had really been doing work to save the world, and even though Overwatch is no more, Mei still wants the data from those Ecopoints. After talking with Soldier: 76 and him revealing to her that he's really her former Commander, she feels that lost data on climate change must be a part of the conspiracy too. Whenever she gets back home, she'll have to get digging again.
"Command is so impressive! You must have been a good leader to be able to motivate others like that." Mei tends to motivate people with her sunny disposition and hopeful manner. Either that, or they find it obnoxious. "Running a diner sounds so different. What made you want to do it?"
Her smile only grows at his teasing threat. Bad singing or not, she would find it really funny, as long as he didn't get kicked out of the bar for destroying eardrums. "Do you have a guitar? I would love to hear you play." Maybe that will distract him from attempting to sing and save these bar patrons' poor ears.
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"I uh... studied Military History in college. Got my degree in it. So it's always pretty interesting to see where government supported and private forces go to. Including research. There's been a lot of household inveshunses.. inventions that come out of military development. Like microwaves. Duct tape. Freeze-dried foods..."
It was at that point, he realized, he was attempting to talk about things he was not sober enough to talk about with someone much more sober than him.
"I decided to make a diner because I needed money and I can cook."
Yup. That was it. That was his only reason. So after a line-face of half-assed resignation (there was probably more to it, but he couldn't churn it up), he decided to follow the train of thought to the guitar. "Sure. I couldn't for a long time because I lost-" a pause and a grunt as he pulled off his right glove, holding up a half-see through hand "-my arm. I got a prosthetic aboard the Moira, so I've tried to get back into practice."
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"I'm afraid I don't know much about military history. I suppose you had to narrow it down a little? Like by country or continent?" Because there were just too many wars in the world throughout history! It would be mind boggling trying to learn about them all, especially more than just the forces if he studied the governments too.
Her lips twitch at his slight slurring and she finds she likes that he's making the attempt to talk seriously when his mouth can't quite keep up. She definitely won't poke at him to do more of it, however. She's nice that way.
"You're lucky you can cook! I can't at all. I can just make Cup Noodles." Mei shakes her head sadly. A genius she may be, but not in the kitchen. Everything ends up burnt or soggy. She has a lot of instant meals in her freezer or cabinets right now as a result. And this line face of his? She's blaming it on the alcohol. He's so nice and pleasant to talk to, so why wouldn't he be telling her the truth about something so simple, right?
She blinks at the prosthetic, adjusts her glasses and leans in across the table to get a closer look. One hand starts to move closer, but halfway through she realizes it's probably rude to touch someone like that and she slides her hand back with a sheepish look.
"It's very well made. What is it made of?" In her world, they use metal with plenty of sensors for finely-tuned movement. And seeing how the omnics caused a lot of damage back in the day, seeing people with a cybernetic arm or leg is nothing new to her.
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Those last words are accompanied by a gesture forward. Time pressing onward for different people. What's important for them, how do things change, what stayed the same.
He left the observation about cooking be, because he knew a lot of people who couldn't. Give some people flour and it'd end up on their face and everyone around them. Give some men fish and they'd eat it raw with no preparation if Kaz wasn't screaming over them to be decent about it. A failure at cup noodles was mundane compared to the madness he has seen. Woeful, sad incidents of brave warriors setting fire to toaster ovens.
"There was a combat practice room aboard the Moira. Same tech. It's not real. I can turn it off if I want. It has a generator. I wanted to be able to hide it if I needed to. No one expects to have their ass kicked by a man with one arm and missing part of a leg.
"Only it's been pretty useless for that. I just use it to touch dangerous stuff so it won't damage me." Though it did hurt a little when he did. "You can touch it if you want to. It doesn't do anything special really. Except have fingers." There was that drunkenness again as he wriggled them in demonstration.
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"Wow, that is awhile ago! And all of that happened in my world too. So far, I've found that the Omnic War doesn't cross over to other Earths. Everyone here who knows of it are people I already knew at home." Well, except Lucio, but it seems he's found his way back now.
Of all the reasons to want an arm back, Mei's a little surprised that he wants some sort of stealth mode to it, and to touch dangerous stuff too. Had he been one of those kids who always wanted to stick a fork in an electrical outlet? Her head tilts a little as she absorbed everything he tells her about his arm, and a shy smile comes to her face as she reaches out to touch those wriggling fingers, wondering if it feels strange because it's technically not real.
"Did you lose them in battle?" she asks gently.
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"There was a lot of different wars. I had been talking to someone discussing 'mutants' in her world, and while we had a few people with unique abilities? We didn't have those. Some people didn't have the occasional giant nuclear mechanical walkers that we had to deal with."
There was pressure there where the fingers should be, but no texture. It was the temperature of the empty air. Vaguely flesh tone and iridescent shades with solid objects visible through it. Originally it had been meant to be temporary- the skin tone would be filled in later.
But he'd never bothered. "No omnics for us. Still, it's interesting to hear about."
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"Oh, that's interesting. 'Mutants' in her case meaning they have these unique abilities?" The word could mean several different things, after all. "My world has that. Nuclear walkers, I mean. They're called mechs. Most countries have some form of them to fight the omnics."
Now she glances down, where she's had her fingers against his the whole time because the conversation had distracted her a little. Whoops. She draws back her hand, cheeks going pink.
"It's nice you think so. Sometimes I think I bore people. I tend to talk about subjects that are only interesting to me. But I'm working on it!"
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He had a lot of opinions on the Metal Gears. He could say quite a bit on their history, too. However, he would end up rambling even more uselessly than he had. And right now? Another bit seemed more important. "If someone isn't interested in the things you like to talk about they're probably not worth your time anyway." He made a dismissive gesture, accompanied by an artful "feh".
"And I'm not that strong. A lot of people out there stronger than me. A day longer, and I wouldn't have made it."
To be honest, he was just lucky. Things could have gone worse. He wasn't supposed to survive- he did by the sheer stubborness of will to wait for rescue. And even full of whiskey, stubborness didn't equal strength.
He wasn't even the fighting type while drunk. He tended towards the crass, goofy type. At least she was meeting him out of his bitter, cranky mood.
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"But it's not a contest, Kazuhira," she points out gently. "In any case, I'm very glad you're here now." Getting to know each other, being social; it's been a nice night so far. Now, she's sure that he has his demons from that experience because most people do. Even her. Mei might seem chipper and like nothing could ever dampen her spirits, but that's because she doesn't easily volunteer her story that ends with her abandoned and the only one left alive. It doesn't make for good "getting to know you" talk, so she'll try to steer things back that way.
"By the way, what's the name of your diner? I'm going to stop by." Since she's already revealed that she can't cook.
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Or not so secretly.
"And you know? Just because someone doesn't know what the hell you're talking about doesn't mean you're not interesting. I listen to people tell me about magic. I know I probably look like some yochien student and they have to be patient." Again. One more hiccup. But his mind seemed to be edging back to normalcy, and the hiccup was enough to ask a passing waitress for water. "But I am interested."
"It's 'Pax Hamburgana'." Better than Miller's Maxi Buns or Burger Miller's or any of the other franchises he'd come up with back home.
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And that would be a real shame, wouldn't it? Mei likes to think so.
"Magic sounds like a fun thing to learn about! If I could choose spells, I'd have ice powers. I like studying snow and ice." Hence why her gun converts water to ice. It's better than bullets, in her opinion.
Sitting her chin in her hand again, she gives him an impressed look. "Pax as in peace, and peace as in Kazuhira. It's very clever! I like it." If she had a food business, she'd probably sell frozen yogurt or popsicles. Something cold. It's sort of her thing.
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She seemed really excited about it, and if he managed to get his head back on straight he'd think to wax poetic about the fact that he had sweet potato as a shake flavor that she should try. For now he just asked generally dumb basic level science questions about what her job possibly was.
Even then, he held up his finger.
"Oh, do you do the thing where you look through the strat-if-i-cation of the ice for uh... chemicals. Residue... Something to tell you what was going on at the time. Like volcanic eruptions."
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His next question has her lowering her hand to the table, eyes wide. No one outside Overwatch has ever asked her a thoughtful question about her work like this. No one ever wants to know more, and certainly doesn't know a bit about it already. But he does, and once she gets over her initial shock, she's elated.
Seriously. She may be contemplating marriage because he's the only person who understands what it is she does beyond "science."
"I do! I've taken ice core samples. There is so much you can learn from looking at the layers. And like you said, volcanic eruptions are one of the things you can see because they leave behind an ash layer. If there's dust, that's a clue as to the wind speed of the area at that time. We can also test the air bubbles trapped in the ice to get an idea of the carbon dioxide levels in the air. We can determine how the climate's changed over thousands of years thanks to ice cores and the data they give us on air and water temperatures. Oh, and pollen! Did I say pollen? I think I forgot. But pollen can be found in the ice along with the dust too, so that's another indicator on climate."
Mei stops to take a breath. A very long breath. Then she takes a sip of her drink because she's gone all parched from babbling.
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"That's something they use to correspond seismic events with changes in ah..." Ope there went his words. He took another drink of water and made a bit of a face as he washed down some leftover whiskey flavor. "-Changes in society. Like you said, pollen. Or pollution. You have layered records of modern day events better than you can find in soil. In 1944 Visuvius went off, destroyed nearly a whole airfield of Allied planes. More than any Axis enemy. And in Hawai'i, in-" his eyes rolled up as he thought "-in 1786 Keoua and Kamehameha-" bless him he made it through all the words without stuttering too badly, a lot of syllables, and pronounced correctly, and only one extra meha before he rethought it "-were having a war for leadership. One of the first there using 'modern' firearms. And Keoua's forces were destroyed by a whole third by Kilauea. It gave Kamehameha and the Europeans he allied with a huge advantage."
He could go on and on about wars somehow fucked over by seismic events but by some miracle he cycled back around. A hiccup almost threatened him, before he looked dumbly at her again.
He was trying to think of wars affected by pollen.
Give him long enough, maybe he'd dig up something. Surely some great leader died of allergies. Wandering into new areas made them worse often enough.
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"Wow! It's amazing, isn't it? The history we know is one seismic wave from being different! All those lives affected by a natural disaster that they couldn't plan for or control. And what about the spread of disease? That's changed the face of the world too. Like everything lost during the bubonic plague spreading throughout the world. Think of all the people who were never born because of it." She picks up her glass with a thoughtful frown. "It's sort of sad, isn't it?"
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"Some of them could be useful to look out for and some of them I guess... I me wondering what kind of world I missed. Missed? Hnnn..." Again, another thought that was hard to articulate, and he found his own gloved fingers fascinating.
"Contagious diseases killed more soldiers in the American Civil War than combat. Ah... Oh, right. Pollen after the Japanese post war forestation went up. So people with especially bad hay fever can't join the JSDF." At least that was the case in his time, when he joined. "I knew there was something that slipped my mind. But yeah... all it takes is one little thing to change... a bunch of smaller things to keep it chugging forward."
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"Is that what you joined?" she asks, since he's Japanese but also a source of military history. It could go either way, really. And she's sure she could listen to him talk all night, because not only are they conversing about things they both know, but he's teaching her about stuff she doesn't know. It's like a university lecture and a pleasant conversation all rolled into one!
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"I've worked independently since." Sort of. Technically. Maybe.
"Ahab is actually my C.O. One eye. Scars. Shrapnel horn. Doesn't say all that much." Maybe she knew him. A surprising number of people did. There were always people everywhere wanting to follow the calming attitude.
Kaz started thinking again about whether or not being around a person with as much baggage as him was bad for that calming attitude, and frowned steeply at his own inner continuation of said baggage. Now he was wanting more whiskey. No, no. He'll just ask something else. "So where did you get started? Were you a scientist on your own or get your education through military funding? Do they still do that?"
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"Oh, I don't know who that is," she says with a brief shake of her head. But she does note that the way he says it suggests that Ahab is well known around here. Hopefully she'll come across him sometime soon. He sounds like he would be easy to pick out of a crowd.
The way Kaz frowns makes her want to ask what's wrong, but he speaks first and she's fine with moving past it for now. But if he's still looking sad later on, she'll want to cheer him up!
"They still do that, but I've never been in the military. I went to university in China and from there went on expeditions with leading climatologists until I attracted the notice of Overwatch and they recruited me. So off I went." And now she moves a hand through the air with the accompanying plane noise.
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"You get bright like... Northern Lights. I don't know if I'm sober enough yet for that to be a good poetic comparison." No one wanted his self-important speeches and aching metaphors. A quaint drunken observation was a call back to his youth that could be tolerable enough.
It was in this dim aftermath, too, that he realized he had indeed made that same airplane sound. And that alone staved off the search for more whiskey. Next he would get excited about trains again and that would lead to worse adventures.
"Or I could be wrong you could be secretly terrible and your hidden talent is actually Irish clogging." If she could actually do that he was going to feel embarrassed.
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"I think it sounds beautiful. No one's ever said anything half as nice to me and how I get about my work." And it's so fitting too, since she favors cold climates, like a place where you could see the Northern Lights. To be drunk and come up with that to describe her is an amazing feat.
She laughs and shakes her head no, but then leans forward, cupping one hand around the side of her mouth. "I'll tell you my hidden talent. I draw mediocre sketches on sticky notes and leave them for my friends." Sitting back proudly, as if this is a great reveal, she soon adds, "Though I haven't done that here. I should buy some and get back in the habit."
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Okay at coming up with decent metaphors (at least it wasn't the ones about feeling alive and missing limbs etc.) but apparently not okay at searching a device for its functions.
So instead he made one of his unhappy sounds, a soft grunt in the back of his throat, put his TAB away in defeat, and offered her his paper notebook and pen. Because lord help him if he got caught out somewhere and couldn't do emergency work.
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Sliding both pen and paper closer, she looks thoughtful for a moment as she decides what to draw, but then a smile touches her lips and she gets drawing. It's a simple sketch because she's no artist, and after a minute she slides the notebook back across the table to him with the pen on top. On the page is Mei's face: a circle for the head with her glasses, eyes, nose, and mouth, the latter of which is set in a bright smile. Her hair is done like how she normally wears it: bangs swept across her forehead with fringey pieces framing her face and the rest pulled back in a bun held in place with a hairstick that has a snowflake charm dangling from it. In a speech bubble beside her head, it reads: Thank you for making me smile! - 美
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He looked up and smiled himself. "You're welcome." Even if the smile looked about as confused as it did genuine.
Clumsily he put his notebook back in his pocket and pulled himself back to standing. "I should probably try to get home. Feed my dogs. Don't worry, I'll use public transit." He didn't have any personal mode of transportation anyway. "Thanks for talking to me." Even if he had no idea if what he said at any point made sense or not as a concept, just that he did concentrate very hard on getting those words out.
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