McDonell Benedict "Kazuhira (和平)" Miller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warandpeace) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-06-30 11:02 am
warandpeace) wrote in thisavrou_log2016-06-30 11:02 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Who: Kazuhira Miller | Solid Snake
When: During the IC planning week for the June Event.
Where: Solid Snake's room
What: Mate tea, a sick Snake, the story of how his master lost an arm and a leg, and Miller asking about why Snake killed Big Boss.
Warnings: Discussion of torture
[It's been two weeks at least since he saw Big Boss fall in the Training Sim Room, since he failed to resuscitate him, and Miller at this point is guessing the efforts at revival aren't going to work. That has to be the case, because no one else that he's heard of has taken that long. Kaz knows, realistically, he'd already taken the last step in losing his friend the moment that he and Big Boss discussed the future, when he tried to dissuade him from his future mistakes. When he told him what his own new plan was. He even wondered on and off if this would generally be better for the world. That doesn't mean that seeing the heart of a man he loved stop twice is anything that would ever settle well with him.]
[There are two Snakes left aboard. One his future student. One a man that'll probably kill him. But like the Boss said; their enemies are human beings, capable of changing allegiances, feelings. An enemy today could be a friend tomorrow and vice versa. Words that Miller himself never heard outside of the vague concept he and Big Boss shared. At one time, Miller more vibrantly embraced, when he was a brighter man, radiated like the sun, who loved the future and felt his past could build him rather than break him. Before he became a black hole of depression and rage, struggling to let any light shine out. The twins, both of them, are the only future he has left.]
[Especially this one. When Miller had arrived, he had no hope, no future, no home, no friends (that he knew of). But then there was Snake who looked at him like he was the world. In that moment Miller realized he had one single glimmer of hope, there was a future where he'd be respected and loved as a mentor. In one look, he could find the straggling strands of an ambition outside of "make the people who hurt me suffer".]
[He's only a year older than this Snake, but this is still his student, this is still his chance at a decent future, and that's why he shows up at his room to deliver a capped cup of mate tea and discuss plans relating to the attack and make sure he's doing okay. He has a cup of his own, so he thumps the door with his foot. His leg aches again, but it's nice to go around without the crutch. He's gotten used to it.]
When: During the IC planning week for the June Event.
Where: Solid Snake's room
What: Mate tea, a sick Snake, the story of how his master lost an arm and a leg, and Miller asking about why Snake killed Big Boss.
Warnings: Discussion of torture
[It's been two weeks at least since he saw Big Boss fall in the Training Sim Room, since he failed to resuscitate him, and Miller at this point is guessing the efforts at revival aren't going to work. That has to be the case, because no one else that he's heard of has taken that long. Kaz knows, realistically, he'd already taken the last step in losing his friend the moment that he and Big Boss discussed the future, when he tried to dissuade him from his future mistakes. When he told him what his own new plan was. He even wondered on and off if this would generally be better for the world. That doesn't mean that seeing the heart of a man he loved stop twice is anything that would ever settle well with him.]
[There are two Snakes left aboard. One his future student. One a man that'll probably kill him. But like the Boss said; their enemies are human beings, capable of changing allegiances, feelings. An enemy today could be a friend tomorrow and vice versa. Words that Miller himself never heard outside of the vague concept he and Big Boss shared. At one time, Miller more vibrantly embraced, when he was a brighter man, radiated like the sun, who loved the future and felt his past could build him rather than break him. Before he became a black hole of depression and rage, struggling to let any light shine out. The twins, both of them, are the only future he has left.]
[Especially this one. When Miller had arrived, he had no hope, no future, no home, no friends (that he knew of). But then there was Snake who looked at him like he was the world. In that moment Miller realized he had one single glimmer of hope, there was a future where he'd be respected and loved as a mentor. In one look, he could find the straggling strands of an ambition outside of "make the people who hurt me suffer".]
[He's only a year older than this Snake, but this is still his student, this is still his chance at a decent future, and that's why he shows up at his room to deliver a capped cup of mate tea and discuss plans relating to the attack and make sure he's doing okay. He has a cup of his own, so he thumps the door with his foot. His leg aches again, but it's nice to go around without the crutch. He's gotten used to it.]
no subject
Given that they have a whole ship full of aliens who are deadset on revenge, the timing of this couldn't have been worse. Snake hadn't been able to put off getting the antiviral, though, not when Big Boss' body was still lying cold somewhere.
It had been a while at this point, but it's hard to imagine that Big Boss would actually stay dead. It can't happen that way, not for any of their futures to remain intact. It's something Snake might have thought to ask the captains about if he wasn't feeling so shitty.
When the door nudges open, Snake looks up from his bed. He's got blankets piled on him, a wet cloth on his forehead, and a trash can next to the bed that he can puke into if needed. He's expecting Wash or Alphys, so when he sees Miller instead he's a little surprised. Only a little, though -- Miller had said that he would check in on him at some point. ]
Hey. [ The weakness taking hold of his body can even be heard in his voice. Snake waves Miller in. ] Sorry in advance if I puke on you.
no subject
[He offers him the hot drink.] Here. Should either keep you hydrated or give you something to get rid of. [And he goes over, smooths out his sheets by a habit he picked up a long time ago, when his mother used to struggle in and out of bed, and checks the garbage can to see if it needs to be dumped.]
[He can do a few things like that while he's here.]
No better, huh? [He looks like death so Kaz knows the answer to that. It's more a rhetorical question.] Sit back down, I'll take care of this. And don't complain about it.
no subject
The trash can does have some vomit in it, but it had thankfully been lined with a plastic bag which means that getting rid of it shouldn't be too bad. ]
I told you I didn't need a nurse. [ Snake grumbles to himself as he pushes up in bed until he's leaning against the headboard. Even that small amount of movement makes his stomach turn on itself, and he gives himself a few seconds before sipping at the drink.
The warmth of it flows through his chest and his stomach, and the taste isn't bad either. ] Hnn... this is pretty good.
no subject
[There are sometimes he's just like his damned father. That better sense of honor wildly telling. But that insufferable (but endearing) pride being another one.]
[He takes the garbage can out with him, and returns with it and a fresh plastic bag. At least he spares Snake anything too demeaning.] After Big Boss's heart stopped the first time, I made a point of trying to learn to deal with it in the future.
I guess FOXDIE was a hell of a virus. Didn't give a damn about anything I did.
no subject
Stubborn as Snake might be, he's feeling too awful to put up much of a fight. When Miller disappears with the trash can he takes another couple sips from the drink, sets it aside, and then burrows back under the covers.
He remembers doing this in Alaska when it got particularly frigid. He'd had a whole pack of huskies to help keep him warm then, whereas he just has the one now. Who's currently being very good, curled up in the corner keeping watch.
When Miller returns and continues to fill up the silence, Snake watches him curiously. ] The first time? You mean when he went into that coma?
"a week" fuck you, tiny word, I see what you did.
Yeah. They told me they didn't bring him back up in time, so he was in a coma. I was in the same crash as he was. They put me under to work on me, and when I woke up, he and the medic that were involved in the crash had been moved off to some secure location.
I didn't see him during it, though. Just waited for him to wake up. [Like he's waiting now.]
no subject
It had been a long wait, too, if Big Boss had truly been in a coma for nine whole years.
Snake nods, though instantly regrets it when it makes his head spin and his stomach roil. ] What kind of crash?
no subject
Helicopter crash. A man who hated Big Boss planted a bomb inside of a POW, a spy that once worked with Cipher that we wanted to retrieve, and he let us extract and rescue her. She leapt out as her last act. Didn't completely clear the distance, though.
The medic took most of the damage meant for Snake. And it went down. Waited nine whole years to get him back. They said they would tell me when he woke up, and when he did... [Kaz trails off to ponder how to describe this, what they had. He doesn't know if this is a weak comparison or not.] ...You know how you feel about Otacon? That's how I thought Snake felt about me. And I knew how I felt about him. We didn't have a great relationship in the beginning but we at least had an understanding that we built into something more, and I was willing to put up with nine years of people like Ocelot just to see him again. He was my partner. We were building a future together. Didn't matter how long it took.
[Like he's telling some sort of bizarre bedtime story. "This is how I met your father." Though Snake is too old for those. But he's been deprived of a lot of meaningful stories in general, a lot of history. Snake deserves to have a little more story.]
I wanted him to have a new home. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted to get back at the people that took everything from us. So when I was told he was awake the first thing I did was take on a mission far away from him, with the understanding a rescue team would get him out while I played decoy. Didn't go too well for me...
no subject
He can't say whether or not the comparison to him and Otacon is really accurate, but it's probably the closest that Miller can get. He and Big Boss had been partners, working toward a common goal. That isn't so different from what Snake and Otacon do with Philanthropy, so he'll accept it. Except that obviously Big Boss hadn't been as dedicated to that as Miller, seeing how everything had deteriorated between them.
The story does its job in taking his mind off of how shitty he feels, at least.
Acting as a decoy, requiring a rescue team... Snake can see where this is going. His eyes go first to Miller's fake arm, then his leg. ]
That's when all that happened?
no subject
They didn't do it, they just... found me and decided to take advantage of the situation since I'd been training enemy rebels.
I spent ten days like that. The nerves never healed right, the wounds stayed raw, so they didn't stop hurting. Made interrogation a lot easier to ignore, I'll tell you that. But I never gave up hope he'd save me. And when I saw him...
[He remembers how happy he'd been, how fulfilled, despite everything. He'd done so much to prepare, and despite his own losses, it had happened.]
Big Boss had already woken up. I'd been decoy for the decoy. And it was that man that carried me out of Afghanistan on his shoulders. I thought the coma had made him reconsider his choices in life, made him more sensitive to my injuries. No... Like I'd mentioned. Different man, didn't even know who he was.
I hadn't seen Big Boss again before we ran into each other here. I watched a whole unit worth of men die saluting his double as if it were him, not knowing... And Big Boss didn't care, never saw their faces. I forgave him for some things but I don't know that he'll ever relearn that same love of his men we used to share.
Anyway- [he holds up his right arm.] That's what happened.
no subject
While Snake himself has been captured and tortured, it had never been for such a long period of time. He's never been a POW, so he can't imagine what Miller's experience had been like, other than harrowing and horrific.
Miller had essentially sacrificed himself for Big Boss' sake, only to be saved by an entirely different man. No wonder he's so bitter, even if he has seemed to work things out with Big Boss here on the Moira. Well, had, since Big Boss still hasn't revived. ]
Sounds like you've got plenty of reasons to hold a grudge, then.
[ Snake could say that he's sorry, offer condolences, but he knows that wouldn't go over well. Sentiments like that aren't meant for men like them. ]
Holding onto the pain isn't going to help anything, though. You're better off... [ He breaks off and turns his head, placing his hand tight against his mouth as his stomach churns. Eventually he finishes his sentence. ] Moving past it.
no subject
[Like a snake, he guesses.]
[He also knows if Big Boss is dead for David, then the pain didn't go away for the man Solid Snake knew. It was always there for him the same as it is for this younger version. Kaz will never be able to agree with all Big Boss did, all he became, how detached in pursuit of his goals. But at least here, he found some sliver of hope the man he knew in the Caribbean was still under there (and if he wakes up...). And maybe, outside of playing guitar, Kaz is finally accepting that the man who smiled like the sun was shining just for him can't be salvaged. He is who he is, now.]
[So instead he just says-] And that's why I need you. [While he gets up to go get some paper towels for what looks like inevitable damnation heading Snake's way. It's more than him wanting to fix things.]
After what his Phantom did for me, did for all his men, the sort of man that would take a knife in a quarrel between them rather than have them wound each other... the sort of man that would hurt from having to harm them. He's a better man than Big Boss. He was as good a fighter as Big Boss. And he could have been so much more. So if you get a chance to go back try to remember him for me, if the Ingress lets you.
It's the only way anyone will.
cw vomiting?
But it's kind of nice to learn that there's more to the man than what he'd known, that he's as human as the rest of them.
As Miller speaks of Ahab, of a man who Snake had never truly gotten to know here, he does his best to hang on each word, to let Miller says his piece before he lets the nausea take over. It's only after Miller's done that Snake pitches over and pukes into the trash can, his body convulsing and shuddering as he empties the small amount still left in his stomach.
Once he's finished he pushes himself up and against the headboard again, wincing at the acidic taste in his mouth. ]
Sorry.
[ He'll give a response to what Miller said, just... give him a second. ]
no subject
[David gets to lead a better life because Kaz's was relentless and unforgiving. That's the point anyway. He wants to believe that in another universe, he did actually care about what David turned into. So far, he hasn't seen one character trait he's disliked.]
It's fine.
[No apologies needed. Kaz resumes his perch at the end of the bed.] Just take it easy. I'm not going anywhere.
no subject
He slumps back against the pillows instead. ]
You said you want me to remember him, but... I'm the one who killed him.
[ Snake meets Miller's eyes, but only briefly. He doesn't know if the guilt that he can feel eating away at him shows on his face, in the wry way that his mouth twists. ]
Don't think I'm the right person to be carrying that on.
no subject
[There's a look that crosses Kaz's face briefly. Disappointment. Anger. Not at Solid Snake, though. Just at the confirmation. At knowing in some universe, the inevitable happened, and Venom Snake had accepted his fate.]
I saw... the day that man went from the most important man to modern warfare, a man everyone respected and lit up when they laid eyes on him, to the most expendable one of us. You could see it in him. That he knew it.
That's how he had to live out his life. Probably was ready for you to take it.
[Though he knows it's not a consolation, and it's not meant to be. Just an acknowledgement that a soldier as good as Big Boss fizzled out of existence.]
They treated him as if he'd died in the crash with us. I was there. I saw him still alive. I checked to make sure he'd lived. But they still treated him as if he'd already died. I think he believed that, too.
no subject
All the same, Snake had been sent in to take him out without understanding the circumstances of what he was doing. He doubts that Ahab had been an innocent man by that point anyway, but it still makes him sick realizing how much he'd been manipulated back then. ]
Maybe you're right. But it's not like I ever got the chance to talk to him about it when he was here.
[ Snake hadn't known what to say or how to explain it. He swallows around the bad taste in his mouth and closes his eyes, a new wave of exhaustion hitting him. ]
no subject
[Figure out how he's gonna deal with everything when he gets back.]
Probably should have told you all this earlier.
[Then it sounds funny. Yeah. Should have told Snake a lot of things earlier. Back before he agreed to play along with something he hated to get rid of something he hated more. But now he doesn't bear so much of that hate. In his fucked up, emotionally stunted way, he guesses Big Boss didn't leave him to die. He counted on Ahab to save him. He thinks he would have been sad to hear it if Kazuhira did die, but whatever importance they had to each other had obviously diminished. Big Boss failed as friend and partner, but he hadn't been as particularly malicious as Miller had first supposed. The balance of hate had shifted back towards Cipher's favor.]
[Despite wanting to maintain that drill sergeant personality, that concerned caretaker one shows through again, and he settles in to stay for a while. Just to stick around to make sure Snake comfortably drifts off.]
You know what else he did? ...The day he brought me back to base, he put me upright so I could make my own way to the waiting medical team. He let me stand up in front of my men. But I felt like hell and it was a struggle to make it that ten feet or so. Don't look at getting help like you're being treated as weak. Just figuratively helping you stand up on your own later.
no subject
He's seen shreds and slivers of the person that Liquid could have been if he hadn't had Big Boss' legacy shoved down his throat from such a young age, but Snake figures at this point it's way too late to really unearth it.
With everything Liquid did at Shadow Moses, he's past the point of no return.
Snake keeps his eyes closed as Miller talks, focusing solely on his mentor's words instead of his own physical state. Somehow Miller manages to steer the conversation into a lesson, and Snake can't say he's all that surprised. One eye flicks open as he gives a very small nod. To his credit, he had let Miller help him in the end, though a lot of that has to do with being too weak to really form an argument. ] I'll keep that in mind. [ A pause, as he fights for words. ] -- Thank you.
no subject
[Kaz shifts, doing his best to situate himself on the edge of that strangely shaped bed before he finally just pushed back to sit closer to David's feet, alongside the dog.]
[Ten years ago he would have loved this thing, especially if he could have convinced a couple of people in with him. The thought's kind of funny now.]
no subject
[ The words come out almost slurred as Snake drifts into sleep. It's not many people that he would let his guard down to this extent around, but the man wedging himself against his feet absolutely falls into that category.
A few seconds later, David's breathing evens into the relaxed in-and-out that comes with being fast asleep. ]