MGS: Drabbles 1

[what_we_dream]

MGS General Drabbles part 1
Pairings: Snake/Otacon, one Snake/Otacon/Natasha
Ratings: None above PG

Easy for firefly99 (Snake/Otacon/Natasha Philanthrothree)

“It will be easy,” Natasha had said. Well, okay, no, what she had actually said was something along the lines of “it is the duty of those who still believe that responsibility incorporates action as well as ideal to see the plots they set in motion reach a conclusion they find acceptable,” but Otacon had rewritten in his head as “it will be easy,” because that was simpler.

Snake had just muttered, “clean up your shit,” and seemed happy enough. Happy for the soldier, as far as the engineer could tell, was: not upset, angry, furious, boiling mad, betrayed or sad. This whole reading people thing was turning out to be not as difficult as he had imagined. Probably he had just convinced himself it was harder than it actually was.

Currently they were sitting together in Natasha’s loft, which was short and dusty and smelled of mouse droppings and cedar and just at the moment of cigarette smoke because no space shared by Snake and Natasha for long smelled otherwise. There was an old card table with a green felt surface crisscrossed by bone-white scratches and scarred here and there by a cigarette burn. It reminded Otacon, who had never seen one in real life, of a mah-jong table. There were even four mismatched chairs gathered around it, presumably used by Natasha to host illicit meetings with publishers, weapons experts, political scientists, philosophers and whoever else she had been rubbing elbows with to prepare for her book. Their book.

Otacon, folded in a rickety wicker chair with a wide fan back and a cat-scratched pillow on the seat presumably to prevent wicker-marks, looked at his computer screen. The computer was almost too much weight for the flimsy table, and it was definitely keeling slowly towards the engineer. The lack of a cooling pad for its base was an itching concern in the back of his mind, and it was making him jittery. That, and the brandy Natasha had poured for him. Really, it was all like bad film noir, except no one was wearing trench coats and fedoras and he couldn’t possibly imagine Snake with a Humphrey Bogart accent although the voice quality was actually quite close. Probably all the cigarettes and liquor. It was certainly true at the moment; Snake cupping a cigarette in his right hand while the fingers of his left rested on the tumbler with the same brandy Otacon was not drinking. Natasha seemed to have stocked up on it.

“Of course,” she was saying, “even if we self-publish, which is in effect what we will be doing since we will be backing the independent presses ourselves, circulation can and will be effectively crushed by the government. If we’re lucky.”

“Uh,” said Otacon, still very much a civilian. A civilian who had never really come up against politics or history in any meaningful way. He had a feeling this was going to change very shortly.

“And by the CIA, the NSA, and some real unhappy folks in the Armed Forces if we’re not,” said Snake, colouring in the details for him. “Your basic shoot-first-question-later type.” He took an unconcerned gulp of brandy, watching the wall rather than either of his fellow Philanthropists.

“Precisely,” drawled Natasha in her loose tones. Otacon was uncomfortably aware that while Snake seemingly had no interest in either of them, the situation, the fact that he was sitting on a canvas camp-chair, or really anything other than his cigarette and his glass, Natasha’s eyes flitted back and forth between the two of them like a hawk waiting to dive. She had no glass herself, and her cigarillo seemed to be an extension of herself, something she took no notice of at all even when she was sucking in a lungful of smoke.

“Is there anything we can do about that?” Otacon was also aware of the fact that somehow there seemed to be an entire other conversation going on beneath this one, and he had no idea where it began or ended or even how it was being conveyed since he sure wasn’t part of it, and Snake wasn’t paying attention to anyone and Natasha couldn’t be having one all on her own. And somehow the fact that none of them were part of it meant they were all part of it, in an equation with more holes in it than any given Microsoft OS.

“Well,” said Natasha thoughtfully, “we could throw away our ethics and not publish the book.” She took a drag of her cigarillo.

“Or we could move to Borneo,” suggested Snake, doing the same. They let the smoke out nearly simultaneously. Otacon took a deep gulp of brandy to try to clear his burning throat, and remembered after the last moment that it was brandy and not water, and ended up coughing all over his laptop.

“It’s not that bad,” said Snake, in what the engineer was pretty certain was deliberate misunderstanding. “Some of the local rebel factions can be real friendly, once you let ‘em know who’s boss and promise not to screw up their gunrunning.”

“Do you think you two could stop smoking? For maybe five minutes? Because I’d really like to be able to breathe, here,” snapped Otacon, wiping at the screen with his sleeve.

“Majority rules,” replied the soldier, but he did turn his head to look at Otacon. Look at him with a predatory look at least as evident as Natasha’s burning in his eyes. Otacon swallowed, throat protesting, as his thoughts scrabbled like crabs trying to scuttle under rocks.

“You’re welcome to join us,” added Natasha, producing a naked, virgin cigarillo from a gold case. Otacon rolled back his thoughts, and highlighted his vocabulary in disturbed puzzlement.

“No, thanks, smoking is disgusting and a terrible health risk with no real benefits as well as being a major financial burden especially to poor families with fewer educational chances who get suckered into it.” He watched as Snake turned to give Natasha a long, thoughtful look, before they both turned back to him. “Not that you shouldn’t be free to do what you want I know you can make your own choices and I’m sure you know all that anyway,” he added in a rush. Beneath the table, an ankle accidentally knocked against his. And then definitely-not-accidentally-at-all began to stroke his calf. Otacon jerked bolt up-right so fast he nearly broke through the bottom of the wicker chair and had to throw his weight to the side to save himself from falling through the hole. A second later he was on his feet and edging towards the door. “In fact, maybe I’ll just go outside for some fresh air and let you two finish – finish –” he groped behind him for the door and came across something which was very definitely not it. Turned, to find Snake watching him with an expression which was not upset, angry, furious, boiling mad, betrayed, sad or happy.

“Ah,” he said, as everything fell into place, tetris-like.

“Wasn’t that easy,” purred Natasha from behind him, draping an arm over his shoulder to slip her hand under his shirt and run warm fingertips over his collarbone.

And, surprisingly, it was.


Jealous for kiasca (Snake/Otacon jealous!Snake) I hope never to write jealous!Snake again as long as I live, sorry kiasca!

“You smell of smoke,” says Snake from the couch, without turning around. “You should take a shower.”

“Amazing how, despite years of campaigning, millions of people in this country keep it up, especially at the bus station,” says Otacon just a little sharply, answering the unspoken concern before wandering off to fetch his laptop.

“You got a haircut,” says Snake, only glancing at the engineer once before returning to his stir-fry. And then, “The fringe is crooked.”

“It’s nice to be able to see sometimes,” says Otacon with more than a spoonful of sarcasm, responding to the underlying suspicion and then leaving to round up the laundry.

“You’ve been very busy,” says Snake, eyes on the gun he is cleaning in disassembled pieces on the table. “Maybe you should relax a bit.”

“Funny how international crime doesn’t slow down for you,” says Otacon blandly, going in to the office to put down his briefcase.

“You –” begins Snake as Otacon walks in, and doesn’t get any further.

“For Christ’s sake, Snake, I’m not cheating on you. Stop worrying,” says Otacon, face suddenly only inches from his partner’s in a move the soldier would have been proud of otherwise. “Although it is kind of flattering of you to think I could be keeping another lover on the side,” he adds, with a grin that is entirely a challenge.

“You look like you should come with me,” finishes Snake, and swings his partner over his shoulder before Otacon has time to answer.


Dreamer for musexmoirai (fun with Mk II)

Otacon dreamed big. Growing up as an engineering prodigy who was the son of an engineering prodigy, he had learned very young that there were few doors not open to him – at least any involving schooling, employment, and technology.

So, when it became apparent that Snake would need some sort of back-up from now on, he sat back and dreamed. It would be a Metal Gear, of course. Apart from the fact that it was ridiculous to expect a painter to turn out a sculpture, or a sculpture a sonata, or Hal Emmerich a mobile robot which was not a Metal Gear, there was a very satisfying feeling to knowing Snake would be fighting Metal Gears helped and protected by a Metal Gear. A Metal Gear as it was supposed to be. He liked the way the idea fit into his mind, cool and crisp and precise – precisely right.

He envisioned something in the shape of REX initially, because REX was invariably the blank pallet he began all his designs from, the first brilliant child he based all his others off of, even when he was aiming for a garage-door opener. But REX, beloved as it was, had been a creation of military practicalities rather than the masterpiece it could have been if he had been given full control of the project. Now he toyed with all the blueprints decades of anime had funnelled into his brain, with Wing Zero and Unit 00 and Shinkirou, juggling infinite possibilities, infinite strengths and abilities and designs with ease to create the perfect robot.

And realised after an hour of day-dreaming that it was completely unfeasible. At that scale, nothing modeled on the human body would be practical; too many joints, too many unnecessary parts. No useful weapon could be miniaturised to that extent; anything the robot was equipped with would be for limited protection with absolutely no offensive possibility. It would be everything he could do to create something which could follow very narrow parameters acceptably.

In short, the Metal Gear Mk. II would exactly like its ultimate master, Philanthropy. Created towering and successful in dreams, and crushed to meagre acceptability by the weight of reality.

It might have been the bitterness which gave the Mk II its not-entirely-necessary resemblance to an overexcited chicken. It was probably pathetic that, in the end, Otacon didn’t love it any less. He did wonder what REX must think of its gawky baby sibling, though, so much the opposite of the towering Metal Gear. Just as he wondered at how a handful of years, scars and hard lessons had managed to twist the same dream so very much.


Stealth also for musexmoirai (Snake going incognito on mission) having failed so hard at the fun aspect of the above drabble.

This is an incredibly bad idea, growled Snake for the ears of his partner alone, watching the entrance from a hundred yards up the road in the shadow of a news stand.

Don’t worry so much. You shouldn’t run into too much difficulty.

Easy for you to say, you’re not the one out here dressed up like an idiot –

Hey!

–Pretending to be something you aren’t. He slipped forward anyway, after a careful backward glance.

I thought you were a master of going incognito.

By stealth, pointed out the soldier heavily, gritting his teeth as he approached the entrance. This is not stealth. This is impersonation and I cannot believe I let you talk me into it.

It’ll be fine, you’ve got me right here to guide you through everything. Besides, it was your idea in the first place.

No, my idea was that you shouldn’t go.

It all amounts to the same thing. And besides, you’re in disguise, aren’t you?

A shave and a hair cut do not constitute a disguise, Otacon.

Relax, there haven’t been any photos published in years, and I doubt they’d have old ones on hand.

Great, snarled the soldier, and pulled his suit jacket closer around him for all the protection it offered. Nudged up his glasses with his knuckles, then remembered himself and did it with his middle finger instead. At the entrance, a guard– an usher, Otacon’s voice from the earlier briefing reminded him – standing behind a high counter straightened as he approached.

“Your name, sir?” He picked up a pen, glancing down at the open book in front of him. Snake noted that, while there was a bunch of flowers in a glass vase, a crystal bowl of plastic-wrapped hard candies and a telephone on the counter, there was nothing resembling a weapon. Somehow irritated by this, he glared at the large banner behind the man, 2006 Annual U.N. assembly of American NGOs.

“Hal Emmerich,” he answered gruffly, and tried to ignore the engineer’s snort of laughter in his ears.

Taxes for attalander (Snake/Otacon, Otacon in charge) Sorry, it's not very romantic in any way shape or form.

“And then you just subtract the amount on line 328 from 105 and multiply it by 7%.”

“Wait, what? Where the hell was line 105?” Snake flipped back through the book of recycled paper in front of him, already covered with ink stains and beginning to crease at the corners.

“Come on, Snake, keep up. Line 105 was the amount you made this year.” Otacon didn’t look up from his own booklet, which was significantly neater.

“But I didn’t make anything this year, I spent it all crawling through ventilation shafts and getting shot at!” The soldier’s tone was less one of protest than desperation.

Otacon looked up, glancing at him sideways. “Which only shows you should have believed me when I told you the M9 jams if you don’t give it at least three seconds before shots.”

“I was in a life or death situation, Otacon.”

“Look, I told you,” said the engineer, ignoring him, “we need to keep at least one spotless cover each, and spotless means you do your taxes. Robert Hutchings ran a telemarketing service from his home and made,” the engineer reached out, turned the pages of Snake’s booklet, and turned it towards himself to read, “$25,193.40 doing it, probably through slave labour. Do you need the calculator?”

“But – where did 359 come from?”

“328 is the amount of your deductibles.” A sigh, and Otacon flipped more pages. “1,392.15. So that’s…” a quick pause, the engineer’s eyes glancing up at the roof as he thought, “$23,801.25.”

“Can’t you just fill it out for me?”

“No, because we’re operating on a basis of equality and forcing me to do your taxes just because I happen to be a mathematical genius while you are a socially irresponsible wheedler who has never filled out his taxes is class prejudice not equality.”

“But –”

“Ah! And no more complaining; Robert Hutchings, unlike Stan Welford, has no investments, RRSP or charitable donations.”

“So basically, while you made my cover a introverted tick with no sense of forwards planning or charity, yours is a nice guy with a future?”

“Bizarre how that happened, isn’t it?” said Otacon, savagely scribbling a figure in a box.

Snake sighed. “Where’s the calculator?”

Ghosts

Snake slipped from under the warm cover of sleep into the chillier, sharper world of consciousness knowing someone was watching him. Standing right at the foot of the bed, staring at him. At them. Eyes weakened by sleep, he forced them open anyway, and focused nearly immediately on the unaltered M9 on the bedside table beyond Hal’s shoulder.

It was less a matter of considering action than taking the distances into account, and then he was rolling, catching up Hal as he went, and grabbing the gun as they fell together, soldier bottommost. He hit the ground hard with Hal flailing against his chest and with his left arm crushed the engineer against him, palm spread over the back of the man’s head pressing it down further from the line of fire even as he aimed the M9 with an unwavering arm at the end of the bed.

There was no one there.

Snake had hauled them both to their feet in a second, and pushed the engineer into the corner closest to him. “Stay there.” He dropped to his knees and ripped the blanket away from the side of the bed to peer under it, gun held horizontal to the aged carpet. Nothing. A quick search of the closet and the one remaining corner on the other side of a particle-board dresser produced the same results. He snarled, and strode to the bedroom door. “Don’t move,” he ordered the engineer, and banged out into the apartment.

Hal waited for the slamming to stop, then blinked as Snake banged back in and switched the light on without warning. The bulb flashed a few times before settling into a steady groove as Snake walked over to the window and gave it a good yank; it rattled but didn’t open.

“There was someone there,” said the soldier, indicating the foot of the bed with the gun.

“Okay.” Hal nodded, prepared to take the man’s word for it.

“It’s damn well not okay. The door was closed, and the window was locked. While someone could have come in either way, it would’ve woken me up. What woke me up was someone staring at me, not them coming in. Which is far from okay.”

“Well, what did they look like?”

“I didn’t see them.”

“But –”

“I was lying on my stomach; if I’d turned over they’d’ve known I was awake. When I got a good look, there was no one there. But someone was watching. Staring like a damn owl.”

“So someone was here, without coming in.”

“Right. Which is impossible. Unless there’re, I don’t know, ghosts or things…” Snake gave him a hard look, which said: tell me there are not ghosts or things.

Hal shrugged. “Sure. Could be.”

“Ghosts,” said the soldier flatly. “There are ghosts.” And then, “And you can see them?”

“Sometimes. If they want me to. If they’re not paying attention, I guess. They’re not uncommon in big cities; you see one every couple of days, downtown. You’ve never noticed them, though, as far as I’ve seen.” The engineer moved to sink back onto the bed, and looked down to its foot. “I haven’t seen any here, though.”

He became aware of the fact that Snake was still staring at him, and turned back. The soldier had flicked the safety back onto his gun, but was holding it in a ready grip.

“You see ghosts. And you never thought about mentioning it?”

“It’s just a thing.” Hal shrugged. “They don’t bother me, just like they don’t bother 99% of people; the nasty ones almost always have specific targets.”

“Fine. So how do we find out if there are any here? Can you… I don’t know, feel them? Get the shivers, hairs stand on end?” Snake’s tone indicated there was a plethora of things he would rather be talking about than supernatural calling cards, up to and including items like the last time he crashed the engineer’s computer or got into a needless firefight on a mission.

Hal rolled his eyes. “They’re just like people, at least to me. I don’t feel it when people are around, and I don’t feel it when they’re around either. If I’m looking at them, I’ll see them, unless they don’t want me to.”

“So one could be here right now, and you wouldn’t know?”

“Not if it didn’t want me to.”

“And this doesn’t bother you? These things could be anywhere, and you wouldn’t know until they popped out on you,” said Snake, clearly in the middle of a security nightmare.

“Yeah, but like I said, malevolent ones don’t just float around killing people. They’re tied to locations, and even then they usually only target specific people; family members, friends, people who were associated with them somehow.”

“So what if one’s tied to this goddamn apartment? We’ve only been here a couple of weeks, we wouldn’t know –”

“Yeah, but the people who’d been here before us for four years probably would have noticed an angry spirit mauling them. And the people before them, for two.”

“You check for this kind of thing?” Implicit again was: and you didn’t tell me?

“It’s an unconscious mechanism. You just learn what to look for, and look without thinking about it. Just like I’d never walk down streets with aconite and nightshade growing in planters, or go into a house with any kind of perching point directly over the front door if there was a cross-shaped crack on the ground under it, or sign anything on non-standard paper.”

“Great. So, we may or may not have a ghost, which may or may not be harmful on a maiming-to-deadly scale, but at least I know not to sign anything on Hippie paper.” Snake pulled the clip from the gun, checked it, and slammed it back in, teeth slightly bared.

“Relax Dave. If it is a ghost, it’s almost certainly not here to hurt us; vengeful spirits aren’t known for their self restraint. It would have torn us up long before now.”

“Good to know,” growled the soldier, glaring at his partner.

“Look, all we have to do is move; almost all of them are tied to a certain location. If there is one here, it’s not going to follow us. We can be out by this afternoon, if you’re that worried about it.”

“What’s really surprising is that you’re not.”

Hal shrugged. “Like I said, it’s nothing new. You have no idea how many schools are haunted, and universities are even worse. You get used to it.” He shuffled over on the bed, and pulled the blanket over himself. “Wanna turn out the light?”

“Yeah, right.” Snake slid back into bed without approaching the far wall, gun still in his hand, back straight against the headboard.

“You’re not going to sit there all night with the gun, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Because we’re getting up at six to start packing.”

Hal groaned, and pulled the blanket over his head.