thisavrou_log | (closed) i dont find trouble

Entry tags:

metal gear: solid snake

(closed) i dont find trouble

Who: snake senpai and snake kouhai
When: vaguely towards the end of APR
Where: medbay (ocelot's office)
What: boss goes straight to the source for his information digging.
Warnings: liberal use of restraint, will update

[normal people, after hearing the news of their death by their own progeny, might act in a more rational manner than what john was about to engage in. maybe they would confront said child and try to get to the bottom of the situation or maybe they would try to prevent it from ever happening.

well, the situation wasn't normal and john was barely a person at this point in his life. so none of that worked.

in another life, one where he was more informed, big boss might have just confronted snake and demanded to be told the truth. here, though, where his clones have been thrust upon him once more, he doesn't know if can trust either of them enough to tell him the truth. so he contacts snake, tells him to meet him in private so they can speak. isolate him. then he'll interrogate him, just like any other soldier he needed information out of.

big boss stands outside of ocelot's office down in the medbay, his arms crossed and stance stiff, as he waits for the man who kills him.]

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[ After their last conversation, Snake had thought he and Big Boss had agreed to leave each other alone to exist in their own separate pockets on the Moira. That made everything much less complicated, since the idea of trying to have any kind of relationship with his biological father seemed both pointless and impossible, and Big Boss obviously felt the same way.

But the text message he sent him had been urgent, which had to mean something had come up. On his way to the med bay Snake tries to anticipate what this could be about, but there are so many different possibilities that there's no way to know. Maybe someone died, or maybe Liquid had snapped and attacked someone. Maybe Big Boss had learned something he wasn't supposed to know about his future. It could be anything.

Either way, Snake's come armed with his tranq gun, ready for any outcome. He already doesn't like that they're meeting at Ocelot's office. Anything with that man's name attached to it tends to stink.

Snake finds Big Boss standing in front of said office. His body language is difficult to read. He seems tense, but then again, he always seems that way. Pausing a few feet away from him, Snake stands with his arms at his sides, but his hand isn't that far from his M9. He looks Big Boss over with narrowed eyes. ]

What's this about?

[unfortunately, snake, all bets are off when your brother decides he wants to spill every detail about their sordid futures. john probably should've tried to draw as much from liquid as possible, given how big his mouth happened to be, but again, how much of whatever eli told him was actually true would be hard to say.

after all, eli's ego obviously fed off of how much people were paying attention to him. he could literally say anything about what happens to big boss and outer heaven.

as snake approaches, big boss barely moves, only watching him. he makes note of the pistol the clone's come with and how he stands just out of reach if boss wanted to grab him. not that he does, but it's always good to be ready for any kind of fight.]

I know we said we would stay out of each other's ways, but it's about your brother. [he goes for the most dire and serious voice he can, which is saying something, considering he sounds like that all the time. and anyway, it's technically not a lie, saying this is about liquid since the blond was the catalyst for this conversation.] I want to keep this issue in-house, not have it all over the network. Our business is our business. [thus explaining why they needed to be in-private for this.

finally, john uncrosses his arms and starts to head inside the office.]

C'mon. It's just us. [he has no idea what snake's relationship is with ocelot, but he can take an educated guess based on how much david seems to like john. after all, ocelot and big boss are pretty much two sides of the same coin.] Close the door behind you.

Edited 2016-04-24 23:12 (UTC)

[ Snake really shouldn't be surprised. Somehow, it always comes back to Liquid, and it had only been a matter of time before he made some kind of trouble among their ranks. And to think that they had all somehow managed to go a couple of months without killing each other.

It's not as if Snake can argue with wanting to keep this private, although the use of the term "our business" causes him to raise an eyebrow. He hadn't thought there was any real cohesion between them, anything that merited being referred to as "ours."

While Ocelot supposedly isn't present, Snake doesn't find the assurance that it was "just them" all that assuring at all. Still, maybe he's just being overly paranoid. Big Boss has already proved to him that he doesn't want him dead, seeing how he'd willingly donated his DNA to help Snake and Liquid alike.

So after a moment of hesitation, Snake steps inside, turning back around to shut the door. It's only for a split-second, but as he does that his back is exposed to Big Boss. ]

[using the term 'ours' was more referring to the entirety of everyone from their world: him, snake, liquid, kaz, ocelot, and venom. john thinks he might have seen venom interracting with a blond kid here and there, wearing a sneaking suit of all things. but that's a different subject entirely.

anyway. don't worry, snake, he's not implying you and he share anything besides genetics.

he watches his clone carefully, waiting for an opening to take a shot at him. the mk22 weighs heavy against the small of his back. it was already loaded, thankfully, because the opportune moment comes as snake turns his back to close the door. john slides the hush puppy out, quickly firing a tranquilizer dart at snake's neck, and then waits for him to drop like a bag of rocks.

after that, it's only a matter of tying him up to one of the chairs in the room with a bedsheet he had placed there earlier. the knots are done in such a way that even john's not sure he could get out of it if he needed to. if this clone was good enough to kill him, then there's no use taking chances. when he's satisfied with his work, boss leans against ocelot's desk, waiting for david to come to.]

[ There's a quick burst of pain in the back of his neck, and Snake has enough time to reach for that spot and feel the shaft of the tranq dart, turn around toward Big Boss, and look vaguely offended, before his body collapses to the floor.

As he passes out, his last thought is that in the future he's going to trust his paranoid thoughts because most of the time they turn out to be completely valid.

It's about half an hour later when Snake finally comes to, the fuzziness in his head and the blurriness in his vision unfortunately a familiar set of sensations. He's been in this situation before, multiple times, and he hadn't really been planning on an encore.

There's Big Boss, off to the side against a desk, looking way too smug for his own good. Snake bites down on his tongue to force himself more awake, and while his words come out a little slow, he manages not to slur. ] Should have known we couldn't play nice for long... [ He'll be angry -- just as soon as he's awake enough to be. ]

I meant what I said about leaving you alone. [it was unfortunate that he couldn't keep the same promise with liquid, who worked with him. not mention lived on the same deck as him. it's hard to ignore someone you see that often, even if he never meant to delve any furth into the man's personal life than he already has.] But then your brother opened his big mouth and spilled something interesting. So you can thank him for this. [see? he wasn't actually lying when he said that this was about liquid. who knows what other crap the egotistic blond was spouting off to anyone who'd listen?

john doesn't outright tell snake about what he found out, though. let him squirm. if david had any other secrets he was holding out against big boss, then maybe he'd accidentally lef them slip.]

It brought up other questions. Ones that I'm going to ask you and you're going to answer. And don't try to escape. I'll dislocate your arms and let you flop around on the floor.

[ It's not as if this is the first time that Snake has found himself captured and restrained because of Liquid. It's also not the first time that Big Boss has believed that he had the upper hand over him. Snake's jaw clenches as the disorientation wears off. There's a reason he had wanted to keep as far away from his family as possible, and this is why.

Granted, there's plenty that Snake might have to answer to here. What could Liquid have told Big Boss that would make him react like this? Well, the real question is if Liquid told the truth or fabricated some lie, but chances are he wouldn't have bothered lying when the truth speaks for itself.

While Snake does test the knots tied around his wrists and ankles, he does it subtly, not thrashing against them but simply checking what kind of range of movement he has. It isn't good, to say the least.

Squaring his shoulders, Snake keeps his gaze directly on Big Boss, not looking away for even a second. ] Oh, don't worry, I'll thank him. [ It's not going to be pretty. ] What did he tell you? [ He's definitely not going to give anything away, even though he already has a pretty good idea of what this is all about. ]

[for his part, mum's the word as far as what liquid told him. and, if he was being honest with himself, what disturbs him the most is not that snake killed him. if anyone on earth had more reason to want john dead than the twins who had been brought into the world to live up to his accursed legacy, not as people but as things, then big boss didn't know about them. he didn't hold anything against david or eli for their hatred and never expected otherwise.

what disturbs him the most is that he may have actually cared what kind of life the twins might lead if their genes had been left unchecked and one of them was potentially a cipher agent. maybe that's hypocritical, considering how big boss had treated people who had gone behind his back before or were considered to be his 'enemy'. but these are the things that zero had meant to replace him. he thinks his wariness is warranted.]

What do the words 'Patriots' and 'Cipher' mean to you?

[he completely ignores david's question, of course. big boss doesn't know what kind of deja vu this might bring up for snake, but he needs to know where the man stands on the subjects. as far as he knew, zero had erased the patriots name to rebrand himself as cipher. did the old name ever resurface?]

Edited 2016-04-26 21:16 (UTC)

[ Here they go again. It seems like Snake isn't going to be able to wrest himself away from the Patriots until he pulls them out of power with his own two hands. Granted, that's what Solidus had wanted to do, even if he'd gone about it the completely wrong way. Snake and Otacon have to figure out a way to free the world from the Patriots' control without destroying it in the process.

He has the disc with the names of the supposed members here with him, but he hasn't trusted anyone enough to help him decode and analyze it. He'd probably only put it in Otacon's hands, and for all that people from his home have populated this ship, the one person he'd like to see the most hasn't shown up. So he's put it from his mind.

Until now, anyway.

Letting out a sigh as if he's mildly inconvenienced instead of tied to a chair, Snake recites what he knows. ] They're a group of people who function above even the president, who exist outside the government, and who control virtually every aspect of people's daily lives. They have a stranglehold on the economy, the military, pretty much everything you could think of. They keep everything under control, but they also rob people of their free will without them even knowing it.

[ Snake's aware that he's been their puppet just as much as anyone else out there, but not now. Not anymore. ]

I hadn't heard of Cipher until Miller brought it up here, but from what I can tell, it's just a synonym for the Patriots.

[ And something to do with a man named Zero, someone so shrouded in mystery he doesn't even have a name.

Snake juts his chin up and stares Big Boss down. Was that what he'd wanted to hear? ]

[god help john if he ever learns there was a third clone and that it was rapidly aged to look like him in his 60s. two is quite enough for him, especially when they are at least 20 years older than the last time big boss heard about them.]

It's not a group of people. [at least, not anymore. thinking back on it, had it ever been a group effort? had any of them ever been considered peers by zero? john knew, at the very least, that zero had never meant for him to be part of the patriots. not in the core of it, anyway. the legacy of big boss and his men at foxhound were more important to the major than the man known as naked snake had ever been. the only reason the soldier had been let into their illustrious circle was for ocelot's benefit and nothing more.

after john had left, effectively splintering the group into two factions, all he cared to know about cipher and the patriots was what ocelot told him. including the fact that, with anderson's help, the major had been rebuilding his consciousness into computers. the ultimate play at omniscience. and just when john didn't think the man could get any crazier.] Not anymore.

[the fact that snake thinks so is telling. this whole interrogation was to ascertain if the man was, in fact, one of zero's agents. if he really were such, there would be no reason to count off details like this. better to play dumb than to be caught in a blatant lie, especially considering big boss was one of the founding members. granted, a lot could be different between the 1980s and... whenever snake was from, but john seriously doubted much would change in the patriots with zero at the helm. for all that he was illusive and mysterious, the major's egotism wouldn't allow him to not micro-manage every aspect he could.

the point is: either snake is as in the dark as he sounds or he's just a very, very good liar. short of big boss keeping track of his pulse, the man seemed to be telling the truth.]

Why would Miller be talking to you about them? And why would you be so open with the information?

[because if snake wants nothing to do with big boss, it wouldn't be the much of a mental leap that the man wouldn't want anything to with his associates. then again, john and kaz hadn't been on the best of terms before he was kidnapped to the moira. three years of silence; miller could've gone back to cipher for all he knew.]

[ Snake isn't going to say more than he has to, which is why he hasn't explained Solidus to many people. Their position here on the ship is complicated enough without throwing the existence of another clone into the mix. He might end up regretting that if Solidus ever joins them here, but it also isn't his job to make sure that everyone is braced for it.

When Big Boss corrects him, Snake sits a little straighter in his seat. He may be restrained, but Big Boss hasn't gone so far as to hurt him. Snake's guess is that the decision to tie him up had been more due to Big Boss' paranoia and to ensure a captive audience than anything else. Ocelot's the torturer. ]

I know a lot of it is run by AIs now, but... [ There's a list of twelve names. No, he doesn't need to get into that.

Big Boss doesn't seem to understand the relationship between Snake and Miller, which goes to show that Miller has kept a lot from him. Which is surprising, since Miller really only met Snake here, and yet he's trusted him over a man that he knew for years. Then again, Miller's still got a lot of anger related to Big Boss stirring around inside him, and who can blame him? That anger ends up leading Miller to help Snake kill Big Boss, after all. It never fades completely. ]

We have a history together. He hasn't lived it yet, but I guess he trusted me when I explained it to him. [ Because Snake has no real reason to lie. ] And there's no reason for me to keep the Patriots' secrets for them. I want them gone, but it's easier said than done. [ He'd been working on that particular problem when the Moira decided to intervene, and here they are. ]

[while snake's guess as to why john went through all this trouble isn't wrong, the older soldier had no qualms with using violence to get what he wanted. though many people were more familiar with shalashaska, big boss had his own way. it just happened to be with a lot less finesse.

the abrupt ending of that thought makes john want to ask him to finish what he was going to say. he had thought there would only be one ai, zero's, not that there would be multiple. then again, he really understood nothing about computers. maybe anderson had to make more? who knew. he's curious about who else could have possibly been the bases for these programs, but no enough to ask outright. it doesn't matter in the long run, anyway.]

You two must've been close if he trusted you just like that. [had kaz ever trusted anyone that implicitly? even the two of them, in the beginning, had a rough relationship. john had never quite trusted miller completely not to kill him if ever presented the chance. miller obviously hadn't trusted big boss enough not to play games with the enemy behind his back. john wants to believe that, somewhere along the line, they had come together, for better or for worse.

kaz had been in love with him, after all. isn't that love is? loyalty?

john almost feels a little jealous, but mostly angers boils in his gut. how much more was his former second keeping from him? kaz obviously had a knack in lying straight to john's face, wearing those glasses like a mask. he'd have to find out later, from the man himself.] You want the Patriots out of power. [john watches him very closely, trying to find any tick in snake's behavior that might belie his true intentions.] But you attacked Outer Heaven. Why?

[ It's not that Snake doesn't think Big Boss is capable of using violence to get the answers out of him if it comes to that, but he hadn't started off with it. Ocelot would have, Snake knows that from experience. The fact is that torture usually doesn't get you the answer that you want, anyway.

Snake isn't that interested in explaining the complexity of his relationship with Miller to Big Boss. It isn't his business, as far as Snake is concerned. (Except where it absolutely is, but he doesn't feel any obligation to say anything anyway.) Along with Gray Fox, Master Miller is the person who influenced Snake the most, which makes him reluctant to admit that. Miller is a weakness, and one that Big Boss might be willing to exploit if he knows too much. So all Snake does in response to that is shrug. Yes, they had been close. That's all Big Boss needs to know.

But then Big Boss' confusion becomes more clear. Snake's current feelings don't really match up with what else Big Boss has heard, and for good reason. He's come a long way. ]

Back when that happened, I was still being controlled by them. I didn't know it -- I was a member of FOXHOUND, so I followed their orders and took the missions they gave me. [ Big Boss had actually been the one to send Snake into Outer Heaven with the intention of wiping him off the map that way. Snake could clarify that, but why? It might change Big Boss' mind about how to handle him here, and they're already on shaky ground. ]

Even if it hadn't been under orders, though, you needed to be stopped. [ Snake won't mince his words with that, and he looks right at Big Boss as he says it. A second later, though, and his gaze flicks down. ] And by the end, I think it's what you wanted too.

[when snake drops foxhound's name and tells big boss he had been among its ranks, john can't find it in him to act surprised. he knew what he had been giving up the day he had left america. he knew the moment he stepped foot out of the country, zero would move in like a shadow to engulf the unit he had built into the patriots' fold. the major had always lacked a proper military force for his organization, which was where john had come in. if big boss had realized earlier what zero's intentions had been, he would've never even breathed life in foxhound.

but hindsight is 20/20.

all john could do was leave loyal men behind and hope campbell, as its new CO, wouldn't be completely charmed by the patriots' power. either roy had crumbled at the feet of a growing monster or snake had been zero's ace in the hole. john wants to ask, out of curiosity, but in the end, did it matter? he was never going back. whether major zero had consumed foxhound as his own or not would just remain to be seen.

besides, what gets big boss' attention isn't that snake was a former foxhound agent, but rather what comes next. when he hears that he needed to be 'stopped' and that he 'wanted' it, he doesn't bother holding anything back.]

Stopped? From what? [if there was anyone who should understand what outer heaven stood for, it should be the man who was only brought into this world to be a chess piece on someone's board. living under the yoke of a government who didn't care about him, in the grip of a man who controlled his every move, surrounded by the reminder that he was nothing more than a shadow of some myth. big boss had wanted a place where people could live freely from oppression, where they could carve their own destinies if they were strong enough.

all he asked in return was that they followed him.]

From giving people like you and me a place to be free? To let anyone suffer a moment longer in the kind of world the Patriots wanted? All you did by killing me was knocking down a wall in their way. If it weren't for me, Ocelot, and your mother, the man at the head of the Patriots would've had his way before you were even born.

[and maybe that's too much information to be giving someone he had just considered a spy moments ago, but even if john still believed it, snake would already know zero's targets. he's sure ocelot and eva would've been brought already or eventually.]

[ Maybe under other circumstances, if he had been raised a different way (like Liquid had been), Snake would have had more sympathy for Big Boss' cause. In theory, Snake sees where he'd been coming from. Too often soldiers are expected to sacrifice everything for their country, only to be left out in the cold when they return home. He's seen it happen plenty of times. But making war simply so that soldiers can still be soldiers is sick no matter which way you look at it.

As it turned out, Snake had figured out a way to make his own destiny, and it didn't involve joining the private army of a warmongerer. No, it just involved him and his nerdy best friend and whoever else agreed with what they were trying to do.

Right as Snake is getting ready to tell Big Boss exactly what he's responsible for in his future, that entire train of thought is derailed by two words.

Your mother.

Snake's throat goes tight for a moment, but he swallows it down and keeps his expression impassive as he asks the question, unable to hold it back. ] What does my mother have to do with this? Wasn't she just a surrogate?

[there's clear confusion written across his features for a matter of moments before it's back to careful neutrality. it's just another sign that the man before him knows way less than john initally thought. sure, he could just pretending, but the way he says eva was just a surrogate suggests that zero never told him. from the reports of eli at motherbase when he was young, john had always assumed the twins knew who their parents were.

after all, eva had actually considered them her children, just as zero considered them big boss' children. for a long time, he imagined that eva would have some involvment in their lives. but he guesses that wasn't the case.]

So, you really don't know anything.

[john has to wonder how far in the dark zero kept the twins about their roles to the patriots. did they know they were just substitutes for the real thing? hell, had they ever really known where their genes came from? after all, eli could have come to the conclusion on his own; the twins weren't idiots.]

Your mother's name is Eva. She's a spy I met in 1964, along with Ocelot. The three of us have been sabotaging The Patriots ever since 1971. When we left it.

[ Snake can't help the way that his lip curls in distaste when Big Boss makes a point of how little he knows. He's had to deal with people holding his lack of knowledge over his head for a while now, years even, and he's grown tired of it. With Big Shell, he thought that he and Otacon had gone in there with an understanding of what was truly going on, and even then they'd had the rug pulled out from under them to some extent.

Will the secrets ever end? No, probably not.

Just as it had been surreal to learn that his biological father was Big Boss, it's uncomfortable hearing about the woman who had given birth to him and Liquid. Snake does his best to remain impassive as he digests the information. This interrogation really hasn't gone in any expected direction.

If they had all been so interested in sabotaging the Patriots, Snake has to wonder how they'd let him fall into their hands in the first place. ]

What happened to her? [ His voice is quiet but firm as he asks. ]

[when snake shows how much he appreciates being kept out of the loop, john doesn't feel an ounce of guilt. everything he was telling his clone was privileged information, things he probably would've never found out on his own. he should be glad that big boss was willing to tell him, considering snake had killed him and had said he would've done it even not under orders.

there's a part of him that tries to reason that arming david with what he knows could only be for the better. no matter what, he's going to die and it's going to be before zero's plans are stopped. if snake really is adamant about erasing the patriots, for good, then it would make sense to help him. the other part of him, though, the part that's kept him alive for so long, says it's too dangerous to bring such an unknown element into the fold.

everything he knows about what miller did and what he's going to do flashes fresh across his mind.]

As far as I know, she's still around. [granted, they hadn't really spoken face-to-face in more than a decade. tapes, correspondence, proxies; he didn't even know if she looked the same anymore.] We haven't really spoken to each other since she got pregnant. I don't think she's been back to the states since Cipher took you two from her, either.

[ Since Cipher took them, Big Boss specifies. It implies that this Eva hadn't wanted to give them up, but the Patriots hadn't given her a choice. It's not so different from Olga and her child; apparently this has been a pattern for some time now. That doesn't explain why Eva had never tried to track down him or Liquid, but Snake bites down on his tongue before he asks about that. Big Boss probably wouldn't be able to answer, and Snake refuses to admit to the fact that he'd care.

His parents hadn't wanted him. That much seems clear given how everything played out, and he made his peace with that long before he'd known their names.

So instead of progressing that topic of conversation, Snake slumps his shoulders and then yanks at his restraints again. ]

So. Are you going to untie me now?

[ It seems pointless to keep up this charade now that Big Boss has asked his questions, and Snake's wrists are starting to get raw. ]

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(closed) i dont find trouble

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