lesser but greater

Under normal circumstances, John would have taken the time to explain himself properly, laying out all the background and making sure Liquid understood each step before he went on to the next one. Being punched in the face by his resurrected, part-cybernetic clone after himself undergoing a similarly bullshit process of undeath is, thankfully, not normal circumstances even for him.

“I’m not senile,” he snaps, tossing his head in irritation even though it’s been almost thirty years since he had hair long enough to make that worthwhile. “It’s been three decades, and now you want to show up and have this damned conversation?” He puts a gloved hand to his face, checking the healing process and wincing when it isn’t as far along as expected, and sighs in frustration. Just his luck. This, he thinks he does deserve.

“Adam really should have had this talk with you at some point,” he continues. “Anyway, look. If you met Big Boss in the eighties, and I don’t remember you - which I don’t - then there’s a perfectly logical explanation here. He had a metal arm?” He gesticulates with his perfectly intact left arm (well - mostly. Some of that may have been Solidus’s at one point, now that he thinks about it.) “And shrapnel sticking out of his head?” He waves his hand at his face. “Not me. Body double. I was busy at the time.”

“---What?”

That’s the only intelligent thing out of his mouth for a second -- he’s too busy staring and trying to resist the urge to swear in all seven languages he knows. A body double? A fucking body double?! Is he serious?! No, he has to be serious, it’s too crazy to be a lie. And the lack of shrapnel and both arms, of course, that helps solidify the truth. But fuck, that just-- fuck, really?

He stares in blank disbelief for a moment and then starts laughing bitterly, shaking his head. “Remind me to strangle Ocelot if I ever get to see him again,” he mutters to himself. “You shouldn’t expect him to tell anyone anything if it doesn’t serve his own purposes.” It had been better to keep him stupid, hadn’t it? Keep him in the dark about everything -- he was easier to control that way, a lit fuse that just needed pointing at, and if Ocelot could point him at who he wanted, all the better. Even now, even if he doesn’t know everything, he’s well aware the man had played him for a fool. That much he does know.

A deep breath to steady his nerves, always frayed but even worse at the moment. “So,” he says finally. “Body double.” God, he wants to kill someone. Not sure who, though. Just-- shit.

Maybe I should have seen this coming, John thought dimly as fist after fist connected with his face, sending him stumbling back into the alley wall behind him. Adam had warned him that the second son had started out angry with him and then only gotten worse - apparently even after “death”. Clearly this wasn’t going to be the same kind of confused but ultimately amicable reunion he’d had with Snake.

Finally he collected himself enough to push through the pain and catch Liquid by the wrist, then dodge the last punch so his fist drove into the brick where Big Boss’ rapidly-bruising face had been a second ago. Coming from a body that strong, with that much distilled fury behind it, a fifth hit might well cause damage even nanos couldn’t fix. He could already feel (or perhaps imagine) the buzzing in his veins as they set to work repairing the fractures he’d sustained so far.

“That’s a hell of a way to greet your father for the first time. Even if he probably does deserve it.”

When his fist -- thankfully the artificial one, so it didn’t hurt as badly -- meets the brickwork he pulls it back roughly, ripping it out of Big Boss’s hand. (His real hand, he thinks absently, which is strange but something he’ll deal with later.) “Probably?” He snaps, bristling. “I think there’s a good deal more certainty than just ‘probably’ deserving it!”

It’s a good thing it’s late and he’d managed to corner the man in an alley, otherwise he’s sure he’d be drawing a crowd. As it is, the streetlights flicker around them and make the scene look almost eerie, the lights casting long shadows across their faces. He doesn’t feel bad at the bruises he’s caused, really, but the anger that’s existed in his chest his whole life fades as quickly as it returned -- he’s too tired these days to keep feeding it fuel; it doesn’t burn so hot anymore, not since the Patriots brought him back.

His hands are still curled into fists, but the tension slackens slightly.

“It’s hardly the first time,” he grinds out after a moment, jaw twitching but otherwise managing to remain civil. “Unless you forgot the eighties already? Didn’t think you were senile.”

Eli’s answers raise more questions than they started with, something he didn’t expect but should have seen coming. Big Boss knits his brows at the mention of the project and feels his jaw tighten at Cipher. Does he know, he wonders, that the organization that ruined their lives is still around? The original may have been shattered, but like a starfish, it only takes one arm to regrow.

Given the anger in Eli’s eyes, this may actually be easier than he’d thought.

“What’s the truth?” he repeats, tapping his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Heh. Knowing Cipher, take whatever they told you and find the opposite. I wasn’t involved, and I sure as hell never wanted to be cloned. As far as I can figure, they stole my DNA while I was under for some repairs in ‘71. That’s as far as anyone can say I was ‘involved’.”

It doesn’t even register in his mind that Eli might not want to hear that he was unwanted. He asked for the truth, and the truth (or most of it) he’s damn well going to get. There’s a lot that he could say if he felt more inclined to run his mouth. He’s not about to bare his soul now, but maybe when they’ve gotten to a point where the kid’s not about to boil over in rage, he’ll bring up just how deeply he felt that betrayal. 

“The only reason you do exist is because I was about to walk out,” he says instead. “Cipher wanted to keep Big Boss in his pocket like a tame snake, but I was tired of being used to further his agenda. So he decided to make his own, in case I left and turned against him.” 

Big Boss pauses to sip at his coffee, mostly for effect. “Which, of course, I did. After that, the project was dissolved before he had a chance to use his little insurance policy for its intended purpose, and you know the rest. Now,” he says, leaning forward and looking across the desk meaningfully, “what is this about tests?”

He got a few reports back from Mother Base and Outer Heaven, after the first danger had passed - just basic information, things he needed to keep up with their progress and tell the truths from the lies. He had assumed until Eli mentioned test results that he hadn’t heard about him before because they simply hadn’t realized who he was. Damn it, Adam, you had excruciatingly simple instructions. Don’t tell me you screwed those up.

He falls quiet as Big Boss starts talking, and he starts smiling before he’s even finished -- it’s not a nice smile, or a pleasant one. It’s bitter and humorless, but it’s about as genuine as it can get. “You’d be surprised to know how much better that makes me feel,” he says darkly. “Now I really know who to blame.” 

His father had nothing to do with his birth, his creation -- he hadn’t even wanted it. Anyone else might have been almost hurt to know their father didn’t want them, but not him. He’s almost happy. It meant that his father hadn’t chosen him to be the inferior one, Cipher had. Cipher had. Cipher’d done it all. They’d fucked his father over just as much as they’d fucked him over.

Just like that, the one and only reason for him to hate his father is gone -- the anger will never go away, though, he thinks with some wry amusement. Cipher has seen to that. But then...Cipher also has seen to its own destruction, if he has anything to say about it. They’re the only one to blame. They’re the only target now. And he gets the feeling his old man feels the same way.

Once it comes down to it, just because he doesn’t hold his father responsible for his birth doesn’t mean he likes him. It just means that the hatred is wiped off the blackboard, leaving it blank. He doesn’t know this man, not at all, and he won’t know him for a while yet. He holds no love, no hate, nothing. He’s a stranger with his face. And somehow that’s comforting.

He’s asked about the tests and the snorts, sitting forward to balance his mug on his knees skillfully, and tries not to smirk. “DNA tests,” he says. “When the Diamond Dogs picked me up from Africa, I knew exactly who and what I was -- I’d known my whole life. Guess they didn’t believe me, or weren’t sure, or what, because they took a blood sample to run tests. Came back negative, apparently, so that was the end of it as far as they were concerned. Thought I didn’t know what was going on, but I did.”

muse.

name: Eli Barton / Liquid Snake nickname: many zodiac sign: Libra / Rat gender: male. favourite colour: -- average hours of sleep: 4-5 on a good day. last thing they googled: ‘hamilton soundtrack’ height: 6′0 even

mun.

name: -- nickname: kitty zodiac sign: Scorpio / Rooster gender: female favorite colour: grey average hours of sleep: 5-6. last thing you googled: 'chinese zodiac’ height: 5 foot 2

No one’s dared approach him directly about the issue, but there isn’t a whisper in this fortress that doesn’t reach the President’s office. He knows people are talking. So he makes sure Eli gets called up to meet with him as soon as he’s allowed out of bed - at the very least, they have to get their stories straight. Of course, there are some other things he wants to discuss.

Once they’re alone, Big Boss looks up and gestures with a small sigh to a chair he keeps pushed against the wall. “Bring that over and have a seat, Eli. I think that we owe each other a few explanations.” 

He doesn’t leave much room for argument, but waits patiently for the young man to comply. When he does, he reaches for the coffee carafe at his elbow and pours two cups full, pushing one across the desk before taking a sip from the other. See, no funny business here.

“First of all,” he says, “you have to understand that Big Boss is not a man. Big Boss is a legend - a kind of living mythology. Some of his exploits are stolen, some are fabricated, and they’ve all been rewritten at some point to suit the teller. I like it that way. It keeps the world interested. Keeps them guessing, if nothing else. Maybe more likely to listen to what I’m trying to say, even if they’re only listening so they can deny that it’s true.” 

He pauses, takes a drink; he’s getting off track. It’s been a while since he spoke on this particular matter. “So. Yes, I was the genetic donor for the project that created you - if you can call that donation. For most of his history, Big Boss has been me. From ‘84 to ‘95, however, there were two of us. It was a reasonable solution at the time; I’m sure you can understand how much harder it is to hit two targets at once, especially when one of them is always in the shadows. No one knew which of us was which. Not our enemies, and not our friends.

“To make a long story short,” Big Boss continues, “and as I probably should have said to begin with: I, personally, was never in charge of the Diamond Dogs. That was the other Boss, and unfortunately, I was never able to get a full debriefing before his…untimely demise. Whatever happened between you two is something that I had and want no part of.”

He looks at Eli pointedly. “Even though we all look the same, he was no more me than you are. Understand?”

He hates being made to wait for answers, but there’s nothing else to do -- and at least he’s not being dismissed outright. This Big Boss...he doesn’t know why he’s not the one he knows, or doesn’t seem like it, but this is a wild card. He doesn’t know how to read him yet, not at all (not that he ever could read the one in the eighties), and it’s setting him even more on edge than usual. 

But he drags the chair over and sits in it stiffly, letting Big Boss take a sip of coffee first before he sips at his. Well, at least it’s halfway decent coffee, he thinks sarcastically.

He’s not sure where the man is going with his explanation -- but he understands some of it. A legend more than a man, that makes sense in a way. It’s why he and his brother were created -- to carry on that legacy, whatever it was. He doesn’t bother to hide his grimace when his father mentions the project, but in the back of his head he’s got a dozen more questions, all of them to do with what he’d been told. The way his father put it and what Cipher had said...more goddamn discrepancies on top of discrepancies. When will he ever stop being fucking lied to?

He stares after his father finishes talking, and then barks out a bitter, startled laugh. “Two of you,” he says. “Two of you, and he wasn’t the real one.” He feels like he should have known, but...goddamn it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but not unexpected. “That’s why the tests came back negative,” he mutters to himself wryly. (They’d thought he didn’t know about them, but he was more clever than they’d give him credit for.)

He sets his jaw to keep from lashing out -- wonders what he’d say if he knew the shit he ‘wanted no part of’ involved his double beating his ass a few times and leaving him to either die or kill himself -- and tries instead to form questions. “Understood,” he grits out eventually, trying to wrap his mind around that last phrase.

‘No more me than you are.’ The first person to ever tell him something like that and it’s the man himself, the one he’d always been told had been part of the Project from day one.

You Are 40% Gryffindor, 21% Ravenclaw, 21% Slytherin, and 18% Hufflepuff!

Just like Hermione Granger, you were ultimately placed in Gryffindor, but the Sorting Hat seriously considered putting you in Ravenclaw. You are a natural born leader, often taking control of the reins from others whose recklessness or dedication to facts and knowledge clouds their judgment. You are intelligent, but acknowledge that there are more important things in life, and therefore aim to use your intelligence and determination to fight for what you believe to be right.

Your slight compatibility with Slytherin house suggests a determination to succeed, though not at the expense of traits from your more dominant houses.

He lets the boy fall, watching with an indifferent eye as one of the on-hand medics rushes forward and picks him up. There’s obvious interest, though, from the few people gathered within earshot. He realizes too late that Eli’s been talking loudly enough for them to have an idea of what’s going on.

“Take him over to the infirmary,” he says, seeing that Eli’s unconscious and not responding to the medic’s attention. “No, wait. Does he have any identification on him?” As it turns out, he has a set of British ID tags tucked under his shirt - not in his own name, but that doesn’t mean anything. Big Boss pockets the tags and waves them off before he ducks out himself, his no-nonsense expression killing the question on everyone’s lips. Yes, this is obviously his son. No, he does not intend to talk about it.

Zanzibar Land may not have many allies, but Big Boss has held onto a few cover identities that still open doors. Back in his office, he sits down and makes his first call on the satphone. 

The tags in his hand, he eventually works out, were issued in 1995 to keep track of “James Lowell” while he was hospitalized in Baghdad, using the same service number that had been assigned when he first joined SIS. What happened in between those events isn’t clear; he hangs up when the hospital contact starts asking where Lowell is and what condition he’s in. He presses the intercom button on his desk and informs the infirmary head that as Eli’s been comatose for the last two years, he suspects exhaustion more than anything as the culprit for his faint. And then he sits back and lights a cigar while he thinks all of this over.

Eli didn’t expect to find him here, that much is evident. But is he more surprised by Big Boss’ survival in Outer Heaven, or by the physical differences between the one he remembers and the one he’s seeing now? True, he was out of it at the time, but it seems like the whole world knows about what Solid Snake did in South Africa. There are still too many variables for his liking. 

If he doesn’t know…Big Boss lets the smoke sit on his tongue for a long minute while he considers. As long as he and Snake are still both alive and on opposite sides, the possibility exists for a repeat performance of the fall of Outer Heaven. His dark-haired clone is so deep in FOXHOUND’s pocket that he’ll never come around; he’ll have to be eliminated before Big Boss feels secure in his own fortress again. And after seeing what happened before, it will have to be done by someone exceptional. Someone who can play the part of Snake to his Boss better than David has.

He smiles at the seeds of his own plan, and wonders why he’s never thought of this before.

It takes a few hours for Eli to wake up, and when he does he very nearly has to be restrained by the attending medic for a few moments -- waking up in unfamiliar places still isn’t comfortable for him; he’s still too fresh out of that desert hell. He relaxes without the need for sedation, thankfully, when he realizes that he’s in an infirmary, and more pertinently, he’s not a prisoner. He’d half expected to be thrown in a cell, or cuffed to the bed, or...something beyond this. But...

As expected, he gets an earful from the medic once he’s paying attention again, that he should not have been so active so soon, et cetera -- he touches his chest to check, and his tags are gone. Figures his father would be smart enough to take them and have enough pull to get some kind of information on him. He’s surprised he cared enough to check, though. But then, this whole day has been a parade of surprises. 

It’s the next day before the medics let him leave, though he’s fairly sure given the scolding and general attitude that they expect him back every so often. He’ll do so grudgingly, as long as they let him walk around, honestly -- he refuses to be cooped up in a hospital bed. 

He overhears a pair of them discussing him as he walks out, and he catches enough to know that his conversation with Big Boss had been overheard. One’s speculating whether or not he really is the President’s son, and the other makes a comment that they’re certainly both not very good at watching their own health. That amuses Eli more than he’d say aloud, really, as much as it frustrates him. He hadn’t wanted to...he didn’t want to always be ‘the son’ or ‘the clone’. He hated that. He wanted to be his own man. And here it goes again.

A soldier is waiting patiently for him outside the infirmary, and escorts him to the President’s office -- he catches the man giving him odd looks as they walk, and he swears internally. This is why he’d used so many fake names, signed on with the SIS, tried to be someone else. Tried to be...anything but the terrible child that he was. Once again, he’s failed that. 

He’s more frustrated and resigned than he is genuinely angry (though the anger is there; it never leaves) when the soldier announces his arrival and leaves him alone with his father -- with Big Boss, and he has to admit he doesn’t know what to say, now. He watches the older man at the desk, trying to puzzle out where things are going to go from here, and sticks his hands in his pockets almost sullenly, waiting to be acknowledged like a schoolboy awaiting a scolding.

“Yeah. I have blood and other bodily fluids soaked into my uniform. You’re probably gonna want to shower since I just bear hugged you.” She gave him a small smile. “Wasn’t fun, but you got to do what you got to do. Just glad we all made it back.” It had been a long couple of weeks, but at least she was back now and she could get cleaned up and hang out with Mamba again. “I think he goes after you for everything that goes wrong. Seems almost like an obsession at this point.” She had no idea what Miller’s problem was. The guy was simply an asshole to her and all the other kids. 

She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder as he sipped the coffee. Her eyes closed, humming softly, “Well you get plenty of sleep these days. Nice, cozy and warm. And with coffee in bed. No doubt it is a welcome change of pace. Even if it is just for a little while.” She chuckled, eyes opening as she peeked up at him. “You can take a nap later if you really are that tired.”

–The Diamond Dogs. The phantom. Africa.

Ah. Of course.

Big Boss brings his hands back together in front of him, the smile fading to a raspy chuckle on his lips. “The Diamond Dogs,” he repeats, now regretting his failure to pry that far back into the other’s history. He can get away with ‘misremembering’ the rank and file, but not his clone. “Yes. Of course, we met on Mother Base. You’ll forgive me - the eighties weren’t my best years. You might say I wasn’t quite myself at the time.”

It’s a cheap joke, one he tells variations on often - but it still amuses him, and he’s going to have to explain the deception sooner or later anyway. Keeping up pretenses with Eli would be both insulting and a waste of energy. Not here, though, and not now; there are too many ears close by, not to mention that the kid seems to be looking for any excuse to break his face in. He doesn’t want to take chances with that kind of limited discipline. Eli won’t like what happens here to soldiers who strike a superior officer, and he’s far too valuable for that.

Looking again at the anger in his eyes, he wonders uncertainly what the other Boss did - if anything - to earn a grudge that’s burned so hot for so long. Nothing, perhaps. He was angry himself when he found out about Les Enfants Terribles, and he wasn’t even the one who had to be born that way. If Eli’s anger can be put to good use, he’ll encourage it; if not, it’ll have to go. Only a long conversation behind closed doors will show which case he’s dealing with.

“That was quite a show you put on down there, Eli,” he says, with a firmness that says they will not be returning to the other topic. “It’s been a long time since I saw that kind of skill in hand-to-hand combat. You’re pretty good…when you’re recovered, I’d like to see what else you can do.”

He growls slightly, barely managing to restrain himself from reacting any further than that. “Not quite yourself,” he repeats, searching for hidden meaning and finding a thousand different things it could be. He wants to demand answers, shake him until he explains himself -- he wants the goddamn truth, and he wants it now. 

But he’s shut down and he twitches, the firmness in Big Boss’s voice nearly making him react badly again; he can’t stand orders given like that, and he still hates his father, but he knows better than to attack him like this, now, in front of who knew how many soldiers. At one point in time, he would have, but not now. He’s not letting his temper rule his head so easily, even if it’s so very tempting.

He takes a deep breath to keep himself from lashing out, quietly shocked at the praise. Not once, not ever, had he been praised by his father for...anything. At least not that he can remember. Just scolded or admonished or condescended to, treated like a child. He can’t hide the startled pride the flickers on his face, but he nods stiffly.

“I’m fine,” he says, not even bothering to add ‘sir’ or any other term of address. “There’s no need to worry.” It’s rude and sarcastic, but he has no reason to be polite to his father, really, none that he can think of. Even if it’s a lie; he’s not really fine -- a mental checklist finds that he’s having difficulty staying on his feet, and his headache has steadily gotten worse. He’s only been awake for....god, two and a half weeks? Two weeks to walk again, and then by that time he’d found out about Zanzibarland -- and it was a five day trip to get here from Baghdad. He hasn’t sit down properly since then, and...

Actually pausing to think about all that makes him falter slightly, the water bottle in his hand slipping by an inch or two. God, he’s tired. And doing all that fighting’s made it even worse. Maybe he shouldn’t have done all that, he thinks. But he wanted to, even more than he had to. He refuses to let a two-year coma set him back. He can’t-- he won’t--