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PAX HAMBURGANA | OTA | NO WARNINGS.

[Kaz has reduced the hours his strange Japanese/Central American/North American Diner during the food shortage. But rest assured, during the cold snap Pax Hamburgana is still warm. It's always open to anyone. It's open less, but during that time he's doing his best to work twice as hard.]

[It also means he's having to buy extra materials from Ingress discovered planets. Or rather, pay people that bring him things.]

[He has a list of items he needs. He's willing to pay anyone that brings something in. He's doing his best to conserve food. And in the few minutes of downtime, he drops into a booth and does financing (or by some miracle plays his old Spanish style acoustic guitar) until the next customer escapes the surprise chill.]

[He's going to have to find more to do with that out of work time.]

kauto rg. one | venom snake | violence.

[When Kaz picked the location for his restaurant, he had two reasons to pick where he did. One, it was comparatively a cheap area, and two, he grew up in a slum.]

[He's not been afraid to walk home alone even at the worst of times. When he was ten he strolled with groceries through the seediest and most grimy parts of Yokosuka carrying groceries so he could take care of his mother. He'd stop and talk to shady prostitutes and ask them if they wanted him to deliver any messages to their old friend. He'd argue with other adult vendors that his mother's little shop of cigarettes and knickknacks and magazines wasn't in their way and they could go to hell if they thought otherwise. He strolled home with black eyes left by children who hated his foreigner face.]

[He stood up for himself just fine. He was a tough kid. And as an adult, that brash confidence has lingered. It's not been misplaced for the most part; he's not felt uneasy despite anti-"immigrant" sentiments. Even as the aggression in those attitudes escalate.]

[That's not how things go tonight.]

[Kazuhira Miller, this brash, mouthy example of military aggression and ambition and human failty, has not had the best walk home. He crawls into a space beside of stone and concrete stairs, hiding behind a garbage can after dragging himself. His leg prosthetic off. His real ankle badly swollen and impossible to put weight on. Again, everything is hurting, his glasses are gone, he's covered in bruises and a couple of angry deep wounds that he's done his best to muffle, and he's fumbling with wet fingers to activate his tab.]

[No video. He knows V will see him eventually. He doesn't want him to be more upset than strictly necessary. Just sound for now. Kaz has done his best to maintain a level voice to guide him.]

[So he'll try it again.]

Boss?

[The strain in his voice is palpable.]

Boss, come on... Pick up. [As if it's a phone.]

[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.]

[Kaz puts down his guitar when she comes in, brows furrowing a bit over his glasses as cranes to see who's coming in.]

[Luckily he's from an era where here general aesthetic was shared by a lot of punks rockers. But it's more the consistently dark funeral level clothing that gives him pause.]

[Guess who's never seen an industrial goth before?]

[But other than a curious tip of his head there's no commentary (and silently thinks she's probably a "normal Earth" human being that she wants pizza) and he rises up out of his seat.]

Menus are over here... [He goes to grab one for her.] No pizza, I'm afraid.

[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?

[It's cold out, so he doesn't say no. Instead he hands her a cup to knock her ash into.]

Go ahead. Keep it to the corner booth, though. [So customers can still avoid it. After all, he knows Snakes. So smoking isn't that obscene and doing it in restaurants is still legal in his time.]

I guess this is one of the times it's actually appropriate to talk about the weather. [He goes to pour her the cappuccino first, and puts in the order for the food.] At least there's no snowfall that I've seen.

[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?

No, the planet's fixed to a temperate climate. This is completely new. [He brings her her cappuccino and puts it down.]

Normally I wouldn't mind snow either. It's just not good if we end up blamed for it. Apparently a lot is being blamed on us.

[He returns to the counter to immediately clean up his mess. There's not a terrible lot to do today. The weather's been keeping most people in as far as he can tell (that's his excuse anyway).]

[ 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?

[There's no way of seeing it, but Kaz closes his eyes and holds his TAB to his chest for a moment. Not that he doubted Snake would answer at some point; he's always been reliable. But for a moment he was worried he would catch that one day that V had silenced his TAB. That he'd be out here smelling his own blood for-]

[-He's not sure he'll be able to keep his head in the game for more than a twenty minutes. A half hour.]

[Kaz's adam's apple bobs as he swallows down rising feelings of anxiousness.]

I'm not really sure. [That does sound dubious.] I got a little lost and I can't walk right now, so I'm going to have guide you. I remember some landmarks, I think I can lead you that way.

[The next sigh is audible, along with muffled noises of the TAB resting against fabric again as he stops to consider. He knows he probably won't listen to him. But he's going to try.] Call someone to meet you so you don't go alone.

[ 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. ]

But- [Whatever argument dies in his throat, that tone still recognizable. It inspires a Pavlovian reaction to heel, even if it's an irritable one. He doesn't want Snake getting out there and having someone provoke him.] Fine. [With that heavy resignation he always uses when he's not getting his way. It didn't matter if he was unraveling at the seams like a poorly made doll, he can always manage that mildly petulant quality.] Just have someone's contact pulled up.

[Not that Venom Snake can't take care of himself, there's just less of a chance some ideologically bitter Savrii citizen would take their woes out on two people instead of one. This has never happened before as far as he knows. But there's also never been a cold snap and a parasite infestation, there's never been this much hate for the Moirans or the ones that came after.]

[Back to sounding professional, then, if a bit strained.]

I picked the way way back from work that goes under the tall bridge. [One that's a few stories up, old and rusted and carrying foot traffic for a whole other level of city.] You'll have to walk along that side street until you reach a walkway meant to loop down towards a factory. I ended up taking that way.

[At the mouth of that walkway, cracked with a few weeds growing out of it spitefully, challenging the chilly weather. There's some sort of refuse bin that's been knocked over carelessly at the corner of the building next to it, heavy enough that it took something knocking into it.] Tell me when you've reached it.

[ 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'?

[This time it's a matter of Kaz not wanting Venom to have to fight at all. To add an extra presence to ward off unhappy strangers. He knows Venom can stand up to almost anything. But he doesn't want to give the Savrii more excuses to narrow eyes at them.]

[And besides, Kaz's flesh and blood knuckles are bruised from his own end of a fight. He doesn't know what will happen if word gets around. But one of them should be in the clear.]

10 minutes...

[Funny how many of their confirmations and inquiries are just repeated words. This time it's as if he's gauging time. Can he hold out that long? Probably. He's been conscious through more.]

I remember... um. "As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent, you asked for the latest party. With your silicone hump and your ten inch stump." Yeah I think I remember them all.

[It's not even remotely sung, just spoken. Words he churns up because tunes can't reach his throat right now. He tries to find if there's a way to send V his location on the tab. Some sort of tracking? There's a red smear across the screen and he rubs it on his coat to try and clear it. When he looks again, he's managed to open three other things with the gesture and close something else he'd been trying to get to.]

[All fabric rustles and a soft, tired sigh there.]

[ 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?

[The humming is a nice distraction itself. It gives him a moment to close his eyes and try not to think about how bad both legs are hurting. Wouldn't John be laughing at him now. He'd expected him to have made it all the way home like this.]

[Kaz bets he could have if he hadn't wanted to hide. He could have crawled home. But then someone might have called the authorities.]

[The words stir him back to reality and he thinks back. That first guy pushed into him. Right. Kaz felt a tug on his coat, a slight one. It was his wallet. Miller shouted at him and ran after him...]

The path slopes down right onto the next block level. Go past the factory. [He had cut through it chasing him, didn't he? There's still a scrape along his wrist from where he crawled over the wall. Across the empty lot and then over the next fence where-]

Once you make it around to the other side [-he does not give instructions to potentially trespass-] there's some trees and shrubs. Looks like whoever planted them let them go.

[And that's where there'll be a pair of aviators laying in tall grass, possibly missed if someone's eyes aren't keen enough. Arm of the glasses twisted and a crack through the lens. They've been knocked off his face by force, by object or by fist. Some of the brush is trampled. It was an ambush attack, and there was a fight.]

[ "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. ]

[There's a soft laugh over the TAB.]

Close, Boss, but no cigar.

[Even now, in how he's feeling, there's some humor in him. An amusement at being able to use a terrible expression at a bad time that fits so well. And is oddly tied to a pleasant memory.]

[He's damn tired.]

There's a railing and a ledge. Goes down to the next level. [He'd gone over during the fight, shoved hard by one of his opponents. The landing was crooked and his real ankle had bent in a way that wasn't anatomically prudent. The prosthetic at his knee busted by the impact. So he'd moved as fast as he could.] There's some stairs that'll take you down there, too. You're doing good... It's really cold out.

[Kaz's steady voice has started to drift. It is pretty cold, but finally he's starting to feel... well, not comfortable. But hanging on is taking too much trouble. He needs a rest. A small one.]

[ "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. ]

[There's a stretch of bland concrete in either direction, another broken walkway in this stacked city. Rows of matching, cheap looking apartments that all are cookie cutter copy and paste. Kaz probably wouldn't have been able to give the best description from that point.]

[But he doesn't respond. His hiding place of safety also being a hiding place from safety. Stairs that lead up towards a lonely patio area of an building in need of a new lease concealing him.]

[He should have just called in the robbery. He shouldn't have chased the guy. He shouldn't have followed him right to his accomplice. He shouldn't have been wandering out alone in a place where everyone hated what he was and what every Moiran was. He shouldn't fight back knowing fighting with so much legal baggage and then letting it hold him back.]

[He needs to appreciate his good luck that there are people out there that will come rescue him from things he did wrong.]

[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.

[ 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)

[Kaz doesn't respond immediately, his head dead weight, reality still lost on him. But it comes back muted, his eyes opening in that out-of-order way in which the lids part as the eye's still sliding back into place to look forward rather than some healthy artful flutter. The world is a tunnel and all his senses feel as though they're packed into himself.]

[Those blues look duller than they ever did while glassy and silver, and at first it seems like he's staring directly into some figurative abyss. But his gaze finally does spark, center, and the first thing he picks up finally is-] Snake?

[He made it. Of course he did. The legend had to. No one with him, of course. He probably didn't line up a back-up number, either. Bless this stubborn demon.]

[Kaz realizes forgot to ask him for the medical kit (though it's likely that he has one, being as prepared as he is for any mission), or that stuff that's supposed to help you heal quicker (he has some at home that he'd saved from the Moira). He'd just been thinking to get help, get out of here, and to keep Snake out of the same trouble he might have just got himself into.]

Next time I'll make sure I leave you a map.

[The loose attempt at a dull joke is followed by he tips his weight towards Venom. He'll explain. But he wants his breath and he wants warmth first. But there's enough evidence across Miller's body to tell more of the story.]

[Beneath the soaked spots on his coat are deeper wounds, made by some sort of small knife. Quick stabs that had been fended off with quick defenses. Afterward, he'd pressed the broad side of the heated blade that Rinzler gave him to the gashes, cauterizing them in his desperation. The ankle is swollen badly enough that the shoe over the foot should probably be removed. Might as well, as it's friend has been lost to the ages since the prosthetic isn't functioning.]

[Some of the bruises are pretty deep, painful, but not the issue. Not as bad as someone attempting to perforate Venom's partner for the contents of a wallet and out of contempt of his origins.]

Edited (cutting out some unnecessary lines that I can come back to later) 2017-06-09 01:07 (UTC)

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!"

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.]