warandpeace: (αɴd тнιɴɢѕ woɴт ever cнαɴɢe)
McDonell Benedict "Kazuhira (和平)" Miller ([personal profile] warandpeace) wrote in [community profile] thisavrou_log2017-06-06 01:21 am

(no subject)

Who: Kazuhira Miller | Various
When: Through June
Where: Kauto Mostly
What: Posts in starters, OTA and Closed
Warnings: Warnings attached to threads

Starters In Comments
waspling: (When I come for you)

[personal profile] waspling 2017-06-06 02:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[Lisbeth doesn't cook.

And now everywhere is closed and those places that are open are being dicks and despite her anorexic looking figure she's not at all anorexic and she's starving. What she wouldn't give for a frozen Billy's Pan Pizza to microwave, she thinks with a heavy frown on her face. It's freezing cold and Pax Hamburgana looks like a refuge with its lights on.

As she approaches, Lisbeth notices no one else is inside except for a lone man playing a guitar. She gets a strange sensation like this diner is out of place and time and she's not in reality anymore, but then she rolls her eyes at herself because this is an alien planet and might as well not be in reality at all. It was a stupid thought to have.

She opens the door and hurries inside, as if doing so would prevent a few shreds of shivering air from escaping itself to join her in here. She pulls down the hood of her black hoodie, and quickly stuffs both hands back into the pockets of her leather jacket.]


Does this place have pizza?

[Not that she has anything against hamburgers, as evidence as common fair here given the name, but she's really craving pizza right now. Lisbeth doesn't mind interrupting his guitar playing. He's good at it but she's hungry and not very concerned with good etiquette.]
waspling: (Your end will be near)

[personal profile] waspling 2017-06-06 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[She still has that big frown on her face but silently accepts that she won't get any pizza tonight. That's alright, really, she thinks as she glances at the menu for half a second and then hands it back. Lisbeth removes her leather jacket and sets it on the counter barstool next to the stool she takes up for herself.]

I'll take a Monster Burger, bean burrito, and cheese fries.

[Now that she's settled and has the promise of hot, greasy food, she's feeling much better. The pizza is all but forgotten.]

And a cappuccino.

[She starts taking out a dented and abused golden cigarette case.]

Do you mind?
waspling: (The shadow of me)

[personal profile] waspling 2017-06-06 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[Small-talk has never come easily to her. She does, at least, retreat to the back booth as requested. Unless provoked, Lisbeth can actually be polite. Lisbeth watches him as she lights the cigarette and takes a few long drags on it.]

I don't mind the snow.

[She is from Sweden after all. Lisbeth pulls her clunky black boots up onto the bench in front of her and hugs around her skinny legs, still watching him. Her free hand moves to the hot cup of cappuccino and she blows on it before taking a sip.]

Is this common? The temperature?


alterplex: (95.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
[ Unrest is the great constant in every permutation of every universe, that familiar binary of ingroup and outgroup written into the DNA of every sentient creature regardless of time and space. Venom is used to it, of course— displace him in Bumfuck Nowhere, Afghanistan, and he still had to deal with the raging offshoots of the Cold War— so their current political climate planetside hasn't fazed him much beyond his strengthened arsenal when he conceals and carries.

This incoming call is a gamechanger.

He's tucked in the safety of their shared apartment when his TAB goes off, mid-situp with DD sitting on his feet. The name that appears on the screen doesn't alarm him— Kaz usually calls before heading home— but the voice on the other end when Venom finally picks up does.
]

—Kaz?

[ He jolts upwards, prompting DD to sit up and trot to the side. ]

Kaz, I hear you. What's going on?
alterplex: (39.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's the telltale sign of a handgun slipping into a holster, the rustle of fabric that indicates that the body on the other end is propelled into motion. ]

There's no time for backup.

[ Venom's tone is... clipped. Syllables snapped between his teeth, rattling against his TAB like bullet casing on asphalt; the curt pragmatism that used to be the constant back when the majority of his waking moments were spent in his ACC, hovering between missions.

(It's been a while since he's used this tone with Kaz.)
]

Stay on the line with me. Tell me where to go.

[ A door closes, followed by a click of the lock turning. If Venom is concerned, it doesn't reflect in his breathing— as always, the rhythm is slow and measured— but his grimace is audible in the heaviness of his footfalls, equal measures purposeful and hurried. ]
alterplex: (65.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 05:03 am (UTC)(link)
[ Venom absolutely doesn't bother opening another line of contact for backup, because he's run solo evac missions hundreds of times against odds that he could call catastrophic; unless Kaz is caught under the foot of a bipedal war machine (doubtful— his partner would have mentioned that by now), Venom isn't going to waste his breath or attention on doing anything else but getting to where he needs to be.

Kaz is still talking. That's good. Heartening, even, as he barrels through sidestreets and takes the shortcuts that he's mapped out, alley by alley, from the day he found himself here on this planet.
]

I'm calling 10 minutes for the ETA.

[ Inherent in that assessment is a question: you're gonna be able to hold up? Panic or overt concern is never a good idea in scenarios like this— when emotions are high, a professional's duty is to keep calm and reassure— so Venom draws on some instinctual experience, one that he knows now is a residual echo of when he used to be a combat medic. ]

Stay with me, Kaz. [ Rule of thumb is to always give your target (patient) something to focus on. Something safe. Familiar. ] You remember the lyrics to 'Diamond Dogs'?
alterplex: (55.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ Through fire and hell, Kaz will come first. After all— Kaz said it first, didn't he? That he'd rather be complicit than safe. Venom subscribes to that as well, misguided demon that he is.

The streets fade past him in monochromatic blurs. He hits his first landmark after a few more paltry minutes, ones that he spends humming the chorus of their namesake song to compensate for Kaz's exhaustion.

(This time, the memory his mind segues to is one of his own making; that decrepit hut in Da Ghwandai Khar and the beat that his heart skipped, the feeling of a burlap sack stained with blood and sweat between his fingers.)

It's only when he passes the aforementioned bridge and reaches the top of the winding path that he uses his words again.
]

Taking the walkway down. You hear anything?
alterplex: (78.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 07:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ "Right onto the next level", "factory", "topiary". Venom files the words in sequential order, bare-boned guidelines that are easy to keep and easier to toss. ]

Got it.

[ He says. His breathing is steady but his pulse is erratic, double-time— a mouse's heart in a man's body, whittling away at his lifespan for every second that he wastes talking instead of finding.

(this isn't just some—

—you can't be
taught to—

—the human brain is capable of forming attachments to nonexistent entities, but this is
—)

A hairpin turn brings Venom to the looming shadow of the quiet factory, dark windows glinting carbon-black in his periphery. The ground flies under his thick soles, hard concrete making way to unevenly-cut grass.

He nearly crushes the discarded pair of aviators on his way.
]

—Kaz! [ Does he even need the TAB anymore? Likely not; Venom raises his voice in the relative hush of his surroundings. ]
alterplex: (27.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
[ "Cold". Venom doesn't need memories of a medical degree to put two and two together for that implication. ]

Kaz. [ Repetition is the key, along with the use of short, digestible phrases. ] Stay with me. Almost there.

[ He crouches for the aviators, gives them a quick once-over to survey the extent of the damage. Extrapolates the extent of the damage that was dealt to the wearer, which makes his blood run cold and hot under the porcelain veneer of his calm.

No time to waste.

Eyewear tucked and secured into his hip pouch, Venom takes the stairs down two, three at a time. His bones rattle with each step, the impact of his weight to his feet like small-scale detonations in rapidfire succession. He falls down onto the next level in record time, single eye scouring the area for signs of movement.
]
gentlemenpreferblondes: (I'd like to share)

[personal profile] gentlemenpreferblondes 2017-06-07 11:41 am (UTC)(link)
[The mood around both Kauto and Chioni hasn't exactly been cheerful lately. Savrii acting more suspicious of them, storm and weather taking turn for the worse, Shepard being taken away. And on top of all that there's J's own personal mess, which is right now mostly showing with a light wallet. Which is one reason why she's here.

Seeing that J's own cooking abilities is limited mostly to opening cans and boiling things in the water, she prefers eating out. But thanks to being little too careless lately she doesn't have enough money to visit the restaurants she usually prefers and none of her 'patrons' have had much time for her, she has to go for something more... down to earth, let's say. And besides, who doesn't like burgers?]


Oh, well! If it isn't Mr. Handsome! [J calls out cheerfully as she enters the shop, seeing Kaz working.] Changing from military to culinary mastermind? Not bad.
alterplex: (25.)

[personal profile] alterplex 2017-06-07 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ This feeling isn't panic— no, Venom doesn't know what panic feels like. Big Boss doesn't know what panic fees like, not even when it stares him in the eye and tells him to get down and stay down, not even when the panic takes the form of a comrade, mentor, friend.

The city wind skids over unbroken surfaces of miles of concrete, and Venom tries to put a name to the sweat that cools under the tight fit of his thermals. It's the dread he'd felt when he woke up to hands dragging him to the nearest helo, the sink of his gut that he'd swallowed like broken glass after the silence following the question where's Quiet? It's the same sort of mental evisceration that never gets easier to compartmentalize for him, not even after licking the ashes of his dead off of his own fingers, not even after staring his men and women in the eye and pulling the trigger to do the job himself.

Kaz stops responding to his status checks. That's an objective fact that he remains cognizant of as he storms across abandoned walkways, ducking into alleys to sift through shadows and pry open lids of garbage dumpsters that smell like 2-day old rot. His fingernails cake with dirt when he rakes his hand over a stack of dismembered packaging material propped haphazardly against the wall, items that his experience in fieldwork dictate are candidates for shelter.

The search feels too long; he calculates the minutes it would take for a human body to bleed out.

(He tastes kerosene in the back of his throat, fire and sandstorms and iron.)

(This isn't panic, but it's a cousin once-removed, an estranged parent, a lost sibling.)

Venom happens upon the patio after minutes, a fragmented eternity that he spends dragging too many remnants of himself in too many streetcorners. It's an amateur job— the other him would tell him that he's gotten sloppy— but an evaluation of his covert operation skills can come much later (or never). His boots burn over the ground to where Kaz is, and the grimace that settles over his scar-patterned face is far from stoic or strictly professional.
]

Kaz.

[ It's a hiss, and his namesake would be proud. His sweat-slick hand presses against the length of a bruise formed on Kaz's jaw, ginger but steady. ] Kaz. Can you hear me?
Edited 2017-06-07 12:13 (UTC)
frostedplum: (that was great!)

[personal profile] frostedplum 2017-06-08 03:01 am (UTC)(link)
Mei's been in once late at night while Nyx was working, and she told him then that she would definitely be coming more often. The food shortages do have her wondering if the diner will be closed, but she's happy to see she's wrong and the light pouring out through the window is a welcome sight.

Unlike most people, Mei is used to the cold. She's spent a lot of time in the various mountain ranges of Earth, and of course there was Antarctica. So when she walks in, she's wearing the heavy parka she arrived in, and only her red ears and nose betray that she feels any cold at all.

"Kazuhira!" she greets excitedly, eyes focusing on his guitar. "I finally get to see you with your guitar!"
waspling: (You'll never see)

[personal profile] waspling 2017-06-08 04:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Pointless blame.

[She knows a lot about being blamed for stupid shit that's in no way her fault. She shakes her head slightly, as usual expressionless save for a slight pull of her lips to one side.

After another sip of her drink, Lisbeth pulls a pen, a small notebook, and a small paperback book from an inside pocket of her jacket. She begins writing carefully in the notebook, thoughtful, considerate with each mark she makes. The book is left unopened for the time being. Several times she stops writing and stares thoughtful at a random point either at the kitchen, at the worker, or at the nearest window.

All the while she works eagerly at her cigarette which is soon half gone, as is the cappuccino.]

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