thisavrou_log | our friends, our drinks, we get inspired (open)

Entry tags:

our friends, our drinks, we get inspired (open)

Who: tetora nishizono and various
When: after arriving on ~~vagina~~ avagi
Where: all over
What: chilltober things
Warnings: language at the very least

OPEN POST

[ whether or not it's at the arboretum-turned-wildgarden, the observatory, or the stench-soaked hallways of the lower decks, tetora can be found running around on mostly silent feet. there's no rhyme or reason to his running, truthfully; he's never been one for keeping still. running - figuratively or literally - is how he passes the time when he has no idea what to do with himself.

even rarer is finding tetora in the labs. he has four certain reasons to be there (four named persons, in fact), but he doesn't stay longer than he can stand, and tetora's working on standing a little more than before.

all that considered he's bumping into a lot of people for the near possible future, and he's going to be rude about it. ]

[or leave a prompt! ]

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[ the 'suites with no name' (as Ocelot had taken to calling them in his mind) weren't exactly the nicest place. hell, nowhere really was at this point. but, for the time being, they served their purpose.

still, he hadn't expected to see a familiar face there in the hallway. ]

Hey, kid.

[ good to see he survived. not because he particularly cared one way or another, but because it was a genuinely good thing for Venom. he'd always been pretty good with the kids back on base. not that he was really that much of a kid. hell, Ocelot himself was already an officer at his age.

(on that note, maybe he sees a little bit of his younger self in him as well. not that he'd ever say it.) ]

Edited (HTML) 2017-10-06 06:07 (UTC)

[ he's had about up to here with the 90s pop music constantly warbling down the halls, that tetora's resorted to running around the suite floor to tire himself out before tucking in to sleep. so far, it's been effective; running clears his head down to a pleasant hum, leading to a dreamless, restful sleep.

this time is no different. he's on his last few loops around the floor, his beat-up trainers squeaking against the scrubbed linoleum, the chilled stale air from the vents huffing down tetora's exposed back. he's stripped his shirt earlier, not wanting to soak through it and then have to put it through the wash when he can just sleep in it after he's showered off the sweat. he's looking forward to it, too - cool water on his face, the static sound of water hitting tile in cascades, the refreshing feeling of patting himself dry with a towel.

what he isn't expecting is to see ocelot's face. tetora slows to a jog, then ultimately stops in his tracks before shifting weight from foot to foot to delay cooling down. their little fight had ended with tetora on the losing side, even with the knife; he'd expected not to win, in all honesty, but a loss is a loss and tetora is a sore loser.

(if ocelot cares to pay attention, and tetora's certainly paying attention for any comment about it, he'll notice that tetora is completely scar-free for someone who plays with knives all the time.) ]

Hey, butthead.

Your maturity really is impressive.

[ but he supposes that he can relate, to an extent. after all, when he'd been around the kid's age, he hadn't taken his losses well either, nearly risking the mission for a chance to best the asshole who'd so thoroughly bested him.

come to think of it, things hadn't changed that much, in certain ways. ]

[Badou's draped across Tetora's bed, book in hand while Tets is nearby somewhere, and the only thing that'd set this domestic scene of youth is some tunes on an obnoxious stereo.

A savage sound renders into the air, a long horn, and Badou immediately snickers.

So a fart will have to do.]

[ holy. fucking. christ. ]

ASSHOLE!

[ tetora's been cleaning his gun on a rag on the floor - he has just the one back in his possession, while a wakizashi lies peacefully on its place of honor above the bed's headboard. he's doing pretty well, being focused and shit, and then badou farts like his asshole connected directly to hell, and it's just bad. ]

The fuck did you even eat?!

[the laughter goes from a snicker to a scream, a shriek that has him rolling around the bed, simultaneously waving the fart air towards his buddy, his pal]

Whatever the fuck I could find, bro!

[ badou, he's a friend and all, but it doesn't stop tetora from swinging a fist right at his face. ]

Don't fucking eat garbage and then come here, what the fuck!

[another shriek accompanied by a scream of pain, bright hot pain that forces him to lash out with an arm]

FUCK YOU! YOU CAN'T STOP NATURE!

YOUR NATURE IS GROSS.

[ tetora dodges the arm, at least, and doesn't retaliate. he does, however, lean back and cover his nose and mouth before talking. ]

Did you find any cigarettes yet?

[just for that he should keep farting
give him a few minutes to load up]

Not enough...'m dying, dude.

[ he will stuff you with an enema don't even think about it!!! ]

Figuratively or literally? Have you tried the labs, maybe they have patches to sort you through this in the meantime?

I don't wanna patch I want the real thing!

[he's definitely kicking his feet like a little tantruming kid

don't suck his ass stopppp]

Obviously! No one wants a dildo when there's a real dick around, but you gotta make do if you don't wanna go crazy, right?

[ is. is he concerned. for a person. NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN ]

That's not necessarily true-- but the patches don't work on me.

[that's sweet..........................]

The dildo or the crazy? Whatever, have you even tried? You could slap a hundred patches on yourself if you have to.

I don't wanna be covered head to toe in that shit! I wanna keep smoking!

[He doesn't sleep, honestly- most normal things humans do, he doesn't. At the moment, he's currently sitting on the bed in his room, eyes attentively on a certain little shit of a cat and trying to train him to stay in the room.]

Sit down. [Silber obliges, surprisingly, though it's apparent he immediately wants to hop back up to Siegfried's lap.] No, not yet.

[At that, Silber wiggles a little on the floor, impatient. Siegfried sighs.] Silber. Stay.

[....that works about as well as the thought of telling a cat to stay anywhere would work. The cat rebels, turning on its heels and bounds out of the room, meowing as a retaliation. As if to make matters worse, he decides to pick a room that obviously has the smell of someone being in there recently, and paws loudly on the wall right by the door. Namely, Tetora's room.

If that isn't annoying enough, Silber goes and yowls at the supposed neighbor in the room. Save him, he's being forced to actually obey his owner, this is a travesty.]

[ augh, what the fuck. just as he was getting some sleep?!

siegfried's cat yowls like the evil creature it is, its paws and claws dragging on the wall in sharp noises that penetrate through the pillows he's smashed over his own head. what did he do to deserve this kind of life? this kind of punishment??? did he kill one too many persons????? probably. doesn't mean he can't hate this, though.

with a pathetic whine tetora slides open his door and hisses back at both the cat and siegfried. ]

Do you have any idea what time it is?!

[If Silber had any idea or any care of what time it was, maybe he'd be nice and stay away- but Silber is a cat and therefore clearly does not think about any of these things. As soon as the door slides open, he heads directly for the space in between Tetora's feet, winding between it and trying to sound as pitiful as possible.

Siegfried steps forward to grab the cat and stops just as he hears Tetora's voice. Oh. Tetora came out of that room.

Which means he lives here.

Which, technically, means they're neighbors?

........Suddenly he's a lot more unsure about his choice of residency. Why does his cat have to ruin everything.]

Tetora. [He blinks, trying not to look too surprised, and tries to go for Silber.] Sorry, he should be staying in my room. [But obviously didn't is left unsaid as he glares at his cat.]

Edited 2017-10-12 01:15 (UTC)

[ the labs. tetora would've stayed down here if it weren't for the fact that it's still every inch a lab - too many memories of being restrained and held down being dragged up from recall for him to linger at any one place for too long before feeling an itch under his skin to rip shit up.

so of course his luck turns out that snake and miller choose to stay in one.

he can't blame them; it's ideal. the location, the supplies available, the easy access to specialized amenities — tetora gets the appeal. the associations he has for such a place, on the other hand, are pretty hard to get over. much as he tries to act like he's not tied to his past beyond the deaths it's left behind, tetora gets that he's got a ways to go if he wants closure.

tetora doesn't have time for closure just yet. what he does have time for, however, is a quick visit for two people he's come to value. there are some things they need to talk about, and better now than later.

complications and shit, you know?

he doesn't knock - d-dog announces his arrival for him anyway. ]

Yo, SD. Are you in here?

[ Complications and shit. Yeah, Venom knows what that's about.

He's running logistics on himself when Tetora comes on by, doing one-armed pushups on the floor with his bionic fingers blooming red over slick tiling. It's easier to concentrate on his self-flagellation in the privacy of his room, in the quiet of his own cage, to the backdrop of his own breathing— his pain is on his own terms, away from prying eyes, and it makes the process that much easier to push through.

Tetora's voice cuts through the silence right between a two-digit rep, harmonized by DD's throaty warning shots. Venom picks himself up from the ground, wipes the buildup of sweat that'd collected around his shrapnel with his idle forearm, and answers the door with a low exhale. ]

—Tetora.

[ Voice low like a running engine, Venom bites through his words. ]

Need something?

[ he ducks under snake's arm and gets himself up on a slab as his way of greeting, sitting on it with his legs dangling in a slow swing. the lighting is as harsh as ever, just the way tetora had expected it to be. good thing his shirt has a hood he can pull up, to hide an emotional need to stay covered with an actual function.

tetora tracks snake's progress around the room with eyes brighter than they normally are. ]

Kinda, yeah. We should talk about some things.

[ he takes a hand out from his jacket pockets and tosses a small object snake's way - a yellowed pillbox, which should be familiar. snake's seen it before, down in the subways back in kauto. ]

Starting with that.

[ DD weaves figure-eights around Tetora's feet, feeling Tetora's creature discomfort with an acuity that humans lost somewhere in their ascent to bipedalism. He whines once, inquisitive and demanding, before curling into a tight ball where the shadow of Tetora's legs lattice over the floor.

Venom, on his end, catches the little box and holds it to the light. ]

...Your medication?

[ 'Drugs', whatever. White pills roll in plastic, like a psychotropic windchime. ]

[ noncommittal humming seems like a good idea, so tetora does so, tucking his shoulders forward while slipping off a shoe to run socked toes along DD's spine. it's nowhere near eloquent enough; it's a stopgap.

for the first time in months, tetora's carefully - carefully - thinking over his words before he speaks. ]

When you found me in the tunnels down in Kauto, remember what I was like down there? [ he remembers himself as a hot bloody mess, which is honestly par for the course. some things have stood out since then though. ] When you were holding me, I told you I saw Miwa, didn't I?

She's my other half. I guess you could say she's my twin. She's already dead, but... I wasn't hallucinating.

I know how crazy it sounds right now. [ he's lived this for so long, and he's still aware of how balls-to-the-wall insane it all is. he points a finger to himself, taps right over where the heart is. ] This isn't my first body. You know that, you saw that when I— anyway. You know.

[ he mimics a gun with his hand, points it to his head. bang. ]

That's just a part of it. The people behind this whole thing have been doing this for decades, refining the science while they built the foundation of their political power all over the world. Just think about it - three generations of clones, scattered all over, and each one of them is an organic data terminal. The things that make us different - the skills, abilities, all of it - they can't control it in one body. They can't just force all the code into one meatbag and hope it sticks - clones are based off humans, and humans can't fucking handle this shit, you know?

So they make us integrate. We fight each other until we die. Every time one of us dies, all of their memories get downloaded by whoever has killed them. Whoever survives goes on to fight the next one, and the next one, and so on until there's only one left.

[ he lets that hang in the air for a moment. saying it all out loud is a trip - he's never talked about this with anyone. ]

This isn't my first body. This is the strongest one I've been in, sure, but— this isn't just mine. Anyone can take it over, because inside this body is a lot of people and we're all jockeying for our time out in the daylight. I killed Miwa. She's here with me. In me. As is every motherfucker I've ever killed who had a barcode on their eye. And there's a lot of us. Men, women, kids — the minute you put us all in the same place, someone ends up dead, because that's how things go for us.

If I stop fighting, I die. I could die in this body and no one will know, so I can't stop. It's that simple.

Edited 2017-10-10 06:26 (UTC)

[ Tetora hits the word 'hallucinating', and that's Venom's cue to take a seat. He settles on the lone chair stationed just over the demarcation line separating the work area from the rest area, toys the border until the majority of him is on the side of repose.

(this isn't an obligation; this isn't a briefing.)

The lights above them burn white-blue, and Tetora is a mass of dark shapes and morbid gestures. Venom listens with patience and presence, absorbs the meandering details of Tetora's history until it all trails off into the impersonal buzz of dead air caught in ventilation.

It's a lot. ]

...'Simple' isn't the word I'd use.

[ But maybe it is that simple: survival of the fittest, in its purest form. Orchestrated by men and women who fancy themselves gods, but the principle is still the same.

Which isn't to say that it isn't an effort, to calm the cold wave of revulsion that makes his insides lurch. ]

But I'm guessing this has something to do with "handling the code".

[ The rattle of pills against plastic again. This is as calm as Venom can get without letting his personal feelings climb into his expression, as diplomatic as Venom can be without swerving into resentment on someone else's behalf (something Tetora never asked him for). ]

Edited 2017-10-10 07:49 (UTC)

[ tetora winks; there's absolutely no mirth behind it. ]

It keeps me from collapsing inward. It holds me back.

[ this time, he leans back on his hands, scratches DD behind one ear with his toes. the fur is warm even through the cotton - a counterpoint to the coolness under tetora's fingers. ]

There are eight pills. Zero through seven. I only need them when I'm pushed to physical limits - you know that feeling when you're so tired your mind blanks out but you don't pass out? When I get to that point, it's like— [ he imitates the sound a bomb makes. ] Blood down my nose. Scrambled eggs for brains. If not that, I lose control of this body and someone else takes over, and then I might as well be dead.

Zero's the last one. One through seven in that order, and then zero. If I take them out of order, I die. If I don't complete the doses, I die. If I don't take zero, I die. If I take too much of any one pill, I die. And every time I need them, I'm usually on the brink of insanity. I can keep taking zero to delay the seizures, but it only works for so long before things get worse.

We weren't built to last.

[ it's... almost a relief, to admit to all this. enough that tetora actually smiles, peacefully, like a weight has been taken from him. ]

I'm leaving those pills with you. Do you get what I'm saying?

[ They built Tetora's life on a countdown— of course they fucking did. He'd laugh right along with Tetora's humorless smile if he could find it in himself to be wry, but that well's been dry since the moment this conversation started.

The pillbox weighs a million goddamn tons now. Or, well. Weighs approximately as much as a 5 foot 10 teenager with identities stacked on top of identities, so—

—yeah, a ton is about right. ]

Tetora.

[ The name comes as a whisper, the first gasps of a record when the needle settles on its grooves. He won't make Tetora barter for the conditions of his life; doesn't have the heart to. ]

—Fine.

[ His eye closes briefly, expression concealed from the way Venom tucks his chin in tandem with his hand tucking into his pocket. The pills settle in the nest of his fatigue bottoms, right where his pistol would be if he were armed. ]

Can't promise I'll be gentle with you, if the time ever comes.

[ Read between the lines, here— Venom will fight to keep you alive, you stupid endearing kid. ]

I don't need gentle, anyway.

[ he doesn't mean to come off as dismissive. he shrugs his shoulders like he didn't just fight his way through kauto guards at the reclamation depot to get his possessions back, only to hand his stabilizers over like it's nothing. it's everything. it matters, but for whatever reason he's decided that snake's trust matters a little more, and the thought of it doesn't leave a bitter taste behind.

it's the dawn of new revelations. it's a terrifying landscape. every step he takes towards becoming more human is fraught with these little horrors of mortality and compassion. little pieces of confused need to connect. this must be the struggle of humanity, tetora thinks - this balancing act of selfishness and selflessness.

he doesn't know where the line lies, and he's never wanted to stumble over it - but lately, he's finding it easier and easier to grasp the shape of it.

but on to other things. now that they've gotten the first thing done with, tetora leans on his knees now, looking at snake intently. ]

There's another thing too. It's important that you know, especially since you're essentially my handler now. [ oh, huh. tetora blinks a bit at the realization. it's a discomfiting realization; he's falling back into familiar patterns, like a piece of metal unable to resist a magnetic pull. ] ...Hah, shit. At least I got to pick.

Anyway.

You know some of what I can do. The fighting, the bombs. The mental projection, which... I'm sorry. You shouldn't have seen it. It's— [ at this, he makes a small frustrated noise. ] It's why I don't like being touched. On top of all the torture and other bullshit - skin to skin contact leaves me with no choice on it. If I touch someone with my bare hands, it just happens, I haven't learned to control it yet.

[ he looks fondly down at DD, though. the implications of this ability is clear: whatever honest contact he's had with others, they've been rare, too few and far between. ]

It's less effective with animals, probably because they don't have complex thoughts the way people do.

But the thing is, I don't need to touch people to do it.

[ It's a little underhanded, Venom thinks. Not Tetora— not the sum of Tetora's trust or the preconceptions he has to kill in the process of understanding himself— but himself, 'Venom Snake', this soulless husk. His reliance on others to give him purpose doesn't escape him; he knows that there's something dirty about the way he exploits this young man's faith to remind himself that maybe, just maybe, there's a sliver of humanity left in him.

It paints his insides black, thinking about it.

He shifts in his seat, idly listening to the metal legs scrape and buck against the imaginary Maginot Line in the room. The word handler would make him balk, but the reality is that he's nothing without these labels.

So he accepts it. At the end of the day, it's Tetora that has his empathy on a leash. ]

...You can project your intent on others using your mind?

[ Brows furrowed and chin tipped, Venom tries to do the math. His past skepticism is shelved for now; he's been proven wrong before. ]

Like reading minds?

[ christ, get with the program grandpa ]

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our friends, our drinks, we get inspired (open)

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