(no subject)

[warandpeace]

Who: Kazuhira Miller and Various

Thread 1: Closed to Big Boss

Thread 2: Closed to Ocelot.

Thread 3: OTA and Link

Thread 4: Closed to Solid Snake

When: Month of March

Thread 1: Ambiguously dated to after this and this.

Thread 2: Ambiguously set after this.

Thread 3: Date open.

Thread 4: Morning of the 19th

Where:

Thread 1: Training room.

Thread 2: Rec Room.

Thread 3: Gardens.

Thread 4: Cargo Bay.

What:

Thread 1: Miller's going to have a "talk" with Big Boss.

Thread 2: Post Big Boss talk, Miller watches a movie with Ocelot.

Thread 3: Miller has a hissy fit but gets calmed down playing music.

Thread 4: David meets a husky

Warnings:

Graphic descriptions of violence, no death. Swearing. Mentions of horrible disease.

Comments

[warandpeace]

☄ You give love a bad name
[It's a moment that Miller's both been dreading and hoping for. He's already met with him once, but Miller's words, the pain he's felt escalating for months, they had no effect. Big Boss hadn't cared. What got him, though, was meeting the Phantom again. "Ahab." The asshole hadn't told him.]

[Bucky Barnes had told him about his cardboard tank in time for him to see the message about the Cargo Bay. It probably would have been prudent to point out the responsible parties, but something in that one little act had made something snap in Kaz's head. He wanted Big Boss to hear his speech the way he'd heard one of his own in a sauna so many years ago, with stinging marks on his skin and bruise and blood. He knew he couldn't win, not really. But he knew he could make his words count.]

[He would call for medical help again as soon as the fight was done. He knew it wouldn't get worse than that. For all that he was battered, he could take more than he used to.]

[When he enters the simulation room he doesn't change the setting, though the urge to create the MSF base is there. He knows, if he saw it, it would be too much of an open wound. No. He wanted this to be as raw as that fight years ago, even if it was the environment that's exposed this time. He's leaning heavily on his crutch because he's not wearing his usual leg prosthetic. The pant leg dangles loosely open, and his existing foot is barefoot. He's wearing his custom uniform overcoat, but the other uniform parts underneath it are disheveled. When he comes in, he takes off his beret, tosses it down by the door, and the glasses to follow.]

[A small voice in the back of his mind tells him this is a bad idea. It needs to shut the fuck up. He'll never be whole again, no. And this won't put him back together. But he will make sure that "Big Boss" feels something. He practiced for this. He's not leaving until there's blood on his knuckles.]

[camouflage]

[if thought about the situation honestly, john had absolutely no idea what to expect as he made his way to the training room. he wasn't stupid, he knew what "talking" would amount to in a room meant for combat. if kaz really wanted to talk, he could've picked any other room on the ship. hell, he could've just kept it to the communicators.

after that initial meeting between the two of them, john had been left with the impression that kaz would not want to see him again for as long as he was able. did he have inclinations to eventually patch up their broken relationship? sure, as much as he knew it was mostly a pipe dream. after he had gotten the news about where miller's loyalties now lied, before his space adventure, it had felt like a piece of him had been ripped away along with kaz's friendship. john very rarely opened himself up that much to other people, not after being burned so many times before by people he considered important to him.

if kaz wasn't willing to rebuild the bridge between them, then big boss wasn't sure if he would willing to ever again go out on a limb for anyone.

john enters the simulation room a minute or two off the hour mark he had suggested, dressed in only half his uniform (he figures the thermal he has to wear underneath his outfit is fine for a shirt) and his black boots. he doesn't know how a double amputee plans on acting out against him in a training environment, but he's prepared if things get hairy.]

Kaz. [he says lightly, walking up to where the man in question is standing. john takes stock of him, notices he's barefoot and his glasses are missing.] Hope I didn't keep you waiting.

[warandpeace]

[Here it comes. The moment he's been waiting for. The words make him breathe a laugh, his stomach tying in a strange knot and his pulse picking up. Fear? No. It doesn't feel like fear. Fear was those things in the mist. Fear was that parasite bitch skulking around the base.]

[What he feels isn't fear. Doesn't know what it is though.]

Do you remember that base in the Caribbean. Swan? Gazelle? [He sort of smiles.] Armadillo. I said he fell so hard the birds flew from the deck. You never bought it.

You made damn sure I knew what fidelity was. Loyalty. It was rough, but you taught me a lesson that day.

When you were asleep... [He takes a step forward with the crutch.] I only slept with two... maybe three other people. For the most part, there was only one person, Snake. I don't know if you ever realized that.

[Or if he had and it didn't matter.]

I probably should have said it sooner. Maybe I would have saved us a lot of problems.

[camouflage]

[the sheer confusion he feels must show on his face, he can feel the way his brow contorts. why this all of sudden? as soon as those particular code names come up, he definitely remembers the day kaz is talking about. that had been...mildly embarrassing after the fact; fist-fighting kaz naked in front of all their soldiers, in front of paz.

granted, he would do it again were he in the same situation, and he won't apologize for it, but he had still berated himself for acting so unprofessional.

anyway, while the memory is surprisingly fresh in his mind's eye, he still doesn't understand why they're recalling it. john had taught him a lesson about fidelity because it wasn't right for MSF's XO to go around sleeping with everything on two legs. so what was with this about him sleeping with people while he was in a coma?]

What're you talking about? What should you have said? [who was the 'one person' he mentioned?]

[warandpeace]

[And this is exactly why he needs to punch him and now all the harder. He resents that he has to say it. It was obvious to all the wrong parties, everyone but Snake.]

I didn't fucking wait for you, listen to Zero's bullshit, because I was just a loyal soldier. I did it because I wanted to be with you. I didn't care if it was physical, or just in spirit. I wanted to build a life with you. Stand beside of you.

They wouldn't even let me bring you flowers. So I made up my mind. I was going to have diamonds for you when you woke up. A new home. I always thought that's how it was supposed to go. [You didn't dump money on them and run, like his father did his mother.] That's what you do when you commit to someone you love, right? [And damn, if that "L" word wasn't hard to reach.]

Like I said. I could have saved us a lot of problems.

[He takes another step forward, balance steadying.]

[warandpeace]

☄ Rec Room
[The smell announces Miller before he can be heard coming. He actually brought fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, perfectly proportioned ingredients, still with that strong odor of having come out of the oven. As for him? Without his crutch he's actually completely quiet. And to be honest, he's nervous of having left it behind for this.]

[At least this time he's wearing shoes. But he can't really hide his right hand. No gloves.]

[He sits a plate down, that plate covered in a napkin and that napkin covered in snacks. Still of that fresh, magma temperature content because he was in a rush, but well made. If nothing else, he's a good cook. Besides those awkward adventures in tending to Code Talker, he had to fend for himself as a boy, cook for his mother when she was ill. He has an odd assortment of skills that are hard-earned. This is just one of them.]

[Might as well deal with depression in a better way than usual. No enemies to track down. No books to fastidiously keep outside of shoving his face into his work here. There's just a movie and some asshole to watch it with.]

[yer_pretty_good]

[Ocelot is already in the rec room waiting for Miller to arrive. He was promised a movie and cookies, and dammit he was going to get them.

Something so simple and normal was actually a nice break from the whole novelty of being on board a space ship and flying through space to an unknown destination. It made him feel like his feet were on the ground again for a time.

The smell is what gets him. He turns to look, resting one arm over the back of the couch and watches for Miller until he arrives.]

Damn, that smells good.

[warandpeace]

They're still hot. Watch your mouth. [Which is about the nicest context he would ever say that to Ocelot in. He leaves the plate with him and goes to the DVD player to set the movie up.]

[After he sits down he messes with the remote control to turn subtitles on, but not before accidentally changing tv sources for about five seconds. They didn't miss anything, but still...]

Did you bring something to wash these down?

[He takes off his beret and puts three cookies into it, leaning back with it like it's his own temporary cookie bowl.]

[yer_pretty_good]

Sure did.

[Ocelot reaches down next to the coffee table. There's a bucket of ice on the floor and that bucket is full of bottles of beer. Cookies and beer. He can't think of a better combination than that.

The first beer is offered to Miller before he takes one for himself and opens it up.]

[warandpeace]

[He settles in beside of him. It's a long movie, from back when attention spans could go longer than two hours. But it's not as if both of them can't find free time now. And he knows Ocelot has been caught in the middle of something that's... well, it might be Miller's fault in Ocelot's mind. He doesn't think it entirely is. He just wanted his friend to be told the truth, and another unfortunate revelation happened to spill out with it.]

[He takes the beer to drink and leaves his hat-full-of-cookies in his lap for the moment.]

It's a little like watching a movie in Shakespearean English, by the way. An older dialect of Japanese.

[warandpeace]

☄ Star of Bethlehem
[The sound of the MSF guitar hurts more than he expected as he plays in the gardens. The chords are familiar like a face he lost. The ghost of a hand across the strings, sensation and texture, vibration against his fingertips, exactly as he recalls. It was supposed to feel good, wasn't it? That's why he picked this arm rather than some mechanical piece. Rather than some protective armor. He wanted to feel again. Feel over the pain.]

[It's not supposed to hurt worse.]

[It makes him angry. Angry for all the things he lost again, the persistent reminders, the idea that all he has is a future where he lies dead and forgotten on a floor. No one to visit his grave. Maybe a life better lived than Ocelot, but really, no life at all. Maybe if he knew about the marriage. The child. But even those will be gone to him. All he has is this.]

[Miller stands up from the seat he's sitting on, gripping the neck of the guitar. Stepping over a kitten on the floor, he makes his way over to the thick tree in the gardens, beautiful and reverent, and pulls back the acoustic guitar with every intent of smashing it against the tree. He has a new guitar! Eggsy got it for him. He can get rid of this one, he can finally give it up. All of it. Every last thing.]

[It's as if something snaps.]

[Instead he turns with it and grabs it to himself as if it's the most valuable thing he owns. The last thing. The only thing they can't take from him again, because it's his. This is his and no one else can have it and nothing's going to break it.]

[He sits down with it at the base of the tree.]

[ersatzeverything]

Nice guitar. Sometimes I wish I could play. The radio back home doesn't have much variety and sometimes I just want to hear something new.

[Deacon sits down on the ground next to him, leather clothes creaking as he bends his knees. Hey Miller, you look like a guy who shouldn't be alone with his own thoughts right now.

Also like a guy that's been through a cage match in the Combat Zone.]

Got a favorite song?

[He doesn't think that Miller would just immediately confess his troubles to him, a near stranger, so he offers a distraction and, if Miller chooses to take it, a means to express whatever's going on while in the guise of music.]

[warandpeace]

[Miller realizes he's been caught, and notes the ridiculousness of how possessive he's being over a musical instrument. Physically shielding it as if he'd take down anyone that would come near it. He relaxes his hold and shifts it to hold it properly.]

I have a lot. But I used to write music.

[Sometimes.]

[He starts playing Koi No Yokushi-Ryoku, the last song he ever wrote. It was intended for a celebration called "Peace Day", a day where the base was to lay down arms and only celebrate. A day that never came.]

You wouldn't want me to sing the lyrics that go with this. I've learned to only sing when other people are.

[ersatzeverything]

[He rests his head back against the tree and closes his eyes to slits (just open enough to see movement if a sudden attack comes so he won't be unprepared--old habits).]

Beautiful... [He says quietly. There isn't much music like that in the Commonwealth.]

...

[But then, because he doesn't want things to get too heavy if he can avoid it...]

I mean, maybe not as good as a rousing polka because nothing can beat a polka, but for non-polka music, it's pretty excellent.

[warandpeace]

[He's happy to play the song, missed it after all this time. Paz, she had a beautiful voice. Such a small woman that managed to destroyed his world.]

[He's glad to see it appreciated too. Mostly fond memories then.]

[But a mention of a polka coaxes a face out of him, and he stops playing to look at the guitar.] This was still on a base I used to help run when it was destroyed, sent under. It came a month ago, but I couldn't play it. [He knows that Deacon saw him without his arm. The ghosts of fingers resting across the strings are what he's working with now.]

[rraidergirl]

[ She goes to find him. It would probably have been easier to ask where he was at any point in their conversation over the MID, but there had been other things. Besides, Lara's life has turned into something of a search. If she's looking for someone important to her, at least she knows the search has a definitive end.

She finds him in the gardens, in enough time to see him make as if to smash the guitar in his hands, only to hold it close. The moment feels too personal, too private and she almost wishes she hadn't seen it. Somehow she's hopped and skipped right past her usual reserve when it comes to Miller.

She moves towards him, giving him something of a smile even as her eyes flick over him, trying to asses how hurt he is. She's always looking a little unkempt, forever rumpled and on the wrong side of not enough sleep, but at least currently, the only bruises she has are the ones a lack of sleep left under her eyes. ]

I can't tell if you're looking better or worse than the last time I saw you.

[warandpeace]

[It's an awkward moment to be caught during, sure. But he's the one to let his temper slip past him in public. Anguish. Whatever it is. Miller has some of his father's shortcomings besides some of his genes. The depression that eventually took him is there, strengthened by the toll of several years.]

[Sometimes, rarely, it leads to him punching a wall, shoving by someone, slamming his currently absent crutch against something. Just sometimes, though. Not often.]

[In this case, better judgement saved that guitar at the last moment.]

Sorry. [He knows how it looked. He at least managed to make it to Med Bay. Removed the reminders of wounded pride.]
This guitar... I used to play it a lot on our old base. [He admitted.] The one that went under. It should be at the bottom of the ocean. Yet, here it is.

[rraidergirl]

[ She considers both him, then the guitar, trying to find the words that might help a little. ]

If the Ingress can bring people from all over, different times and worlds, it makes sense it could do the same to objects, the same way it brings people we know from different points in our lives. [ her eyes go from the guitar to Miller.] I don't know if it helps to think of it that way.

[songoftime]

[The tree is becoming Link's favorite place to spend his free time. He still tries to avoid having too much of it. Even after spending over a month on the Moira, it still makes him feel...

... wrong. Like it's time he's wasting. Time he's losing. More time he can't get back.

Still, he's been... trying. People have said to him, more than once, now, that kids should stay kids as long as they can. Link doesn't know if he's still a kid any more, really, not after everything that's happened. But when he hears them say that, and he stops to really think about it, then, he...

Now, go home, Link! Regain your lost time! Home... Where you are supposed to be... the way you are supposed to be...

It's what Zelda wanted for him, isn't it?

He's trying.

The tree makes him feel closer to home. Wherever "home" might be. But it brings those feelings up in his chest, warm and snug. He hasn't found the strength to ask other people if they'll play with him, yet, but he sits under the tree and... tries to play. Sometimes, he brings the paper and the coloring sticks called "crayons" he's scrounged up and draws pictures like he used to with berry paints or etchings on the trees in the Kokiri Forest. Sometimes, he leaves them in his room and only comes with his ocarina.

So, today, when a man marches right up to the tree with purpose, Link is there. He's tucked up along the side of it, settled down among the roots, etching a little fairy on the Hero's Bow. Link looks up at the sound of the footsteps, watches the man swing his guitar back, and he instinctively braces for the impact.

... but... it doesn't come. Instead, he starts... holding on to it like it's -- like Link would hold on to the fairy ocarina, sometimes, when things got too hard, and he wanted nothing more but to crawl back to his tree house and curl up in the bed that felt too small to him now.

Link starts to feel like he shouldn't have seen that. But... At the same time, the weight on that man's shoulders... Link's fingers start tapping out the fingerings to the Song of Healing on the bow.

After a moment, Link puts the bow away and gets to his feet. He steps over the roots to the front of the tree, where the man is sitting. He's holding the Ocarina of Time in his hands, fingers rubbing over the tone holes. He sits down next to the man and looks up at him for a second, but then he lifts the ocarina to his mouth. He inhales, and starts to play.]

[warandpeace]

[He stalls as Link comes over, there being something very sad in losing ones temper in front of a child. Even if that child was already accustomed to violence. But instead, Link just sits and pulls out an instrument of his own.]

[He settles down beside of him, looks at the strings of the guitar, listens carefully to what Link's playing. It takes the second go around before he gives him an accompaniment. He has to correct himself a couple of times, but otherwise does pretty well.]

[He probably should actually talk to him.]

[He doesn't.]

[Kaz just focuses on keeping time.]

[songoftime]

[It's okay, Link doesn't seem to mind at all that he doesn't try striking up a conversation. But once he joins in with Saria's Song, Link starts to sway a little, toes tapping, so he's... pleased by that, it seems.

He also seems content to continue playing for as long as Kaz wants. He loops the song, the same way Saria used to when they sat together in the usual spot. She'd play it for him when he needed cheering up, after Mido had been especially mean. And later, he'd play it for Darunia, to cheer him up when he was stressed about the Dodongo Cavern. It just seems like the right song.]

[warandpeace]

☄ Dogs of War
[Miller rushes from his inbox into the Cargo Bay. He's not even limping today. Just makes his way in immediately, upright and fine.]

[Somewhere in there is a live animal crate he needs to find, and he's holding a slip of paper.]

David! [He yells out when he sees Snake.] I need a hand. I had something come in.

[soldiergenes]

[ If there's one thing that will get Snake's attention instantly, it's someone yelling his name across a large, echoing room. He's had to accept that his given name is going to be common knowledge around here. He could ask Miller to employ some more subtlety, but somehow it wouldn't feel right to do that.

So with a long-suffering sigh, Snake glances up from the inventory sheet he'd been scribbling on and walks over to meet his Master. ]

Come in? What is it?

[ Item drops usually get placed in the personal mailboxes of the crew, rather than in the cargo bay. The exception is when something is too large to fit in their mailbox, so whatever Miller is looking for, it's probably big. ]

[warandpeace]

It's a dog.

[He's actually looking like he's in a pretty good mood now. A far cry from what he was when he first came on the ship (or the day he got miserably drunk). He has gloves on, custom made to suit the MID, so the half transparent hand is hidden.]

Never managed to be anywhere long enough with enough free time to manage a pet on my own. I seem to have it here, and I like huskies.

[Despite figuring out what he does know, he wouldn't know Snake already knows that. He uses his MID to bring up the mail number.]

[soldiergenes]

[ A dog? That's not anywhere near to what Snake expected, and he frowns as he takes a look around the area. If a crate had come in here with an animal in it, he would have noticed, so he hopes the dog hasn't been trapped for too long.

When Miller mentions his love of huskies, Snake's eyes grow light with the hint of a smile. ] So do I. [ Maybe it comes with the territory of living in Alaska, but Snake's fondness for the dogs had gotten a little out of control.

He'd never thought about having a dog here, mainly because that was a part of his life that had ended a long time ago. But maybe it isn't such a bad idea... ]

All right, let's see if we can find it. It can't be that easy to miss. [ Snake starts moving through the cargo bay, ears trained for the sound of a dog shuffling around or whining. ]