#autexousiius

Snake had expected a rejection, for Kaz to try to laugh it off - quit messing around - but maybe the scent, and taste, of alcohol on his lips was making him hazy-eyed and romantic enough to make him consider thinking twice.

Snake liked Kaz from the start. He simply couldn't let Kaz's brilliance go to waste, like capturing sunlight in his hands. He was losing so much, letting it all slip through his fingers to a void inside him where killing The Boss had ripped him open. Losing, always losing, always killing, always having things he coveted torn apart with his own hands and shoved into that void. Gone.

No more. He saw a warrior in Kaz and he wouldn't let him go.

Was he concerned that Kaz was a man? Only slightly. He'd prepared himself to be rejected, after all. Snake only saw warriors and civilians - and he loved nothing more than a fighter like Kaz.

"Kaz."

Snake touched his hair, lips brushing against the taste of his neck. The ocean salt carried on a sea breeze. Yes, he could want more of that.

His eye met with the shine of Kaz's glasses as he smiled.

"Y'know, Kaz... I still have my doubts about this offshore plant." Snake said, seemingly out of the blue, he'd probably startled his second in command. Still, his point held. Snake ran a hand through his now longer beard, thinking on how to word his doubts. "Have you considered how we're going to get more food? I doubt we can fish every day. And I don't want any governments knowing where we are just because we imported a bunch of things." Even if he would miss the Calorie Mates.

"I try not to hold still for too long out here-"

Things could change on a mission the way a misfired bullet could kill an ally instead of an enemy. What if the mission had to change when he arrived at the target? What if he didn't speak the right languages?

"- unless I have to."

Very informative, Snake.

He needed to be precise, and he needed to be flexible.

That was why he had a robust radio support team behind him every step of the way. Supposedly, he was meant to do more than call them to goof around, but it helped just to hear another person's voice.

"Are you ex-CIA? I know they were trying to bring scientists like you to Chile to study the American-backed regime."

“Consolidating.”

That's where they were. Big Boss had two heads, two ‘sons’, and two armies, and he was going to erase any difference between them like it was a mark on paper. Strategy, plain and simple - a rung on the ladder heading towards the totality of his achievement.

Outer Heaven.

Independent, armed, sovereign unto itself in a perpetual standoff against a world that had determined a soldier’s life was a worthless thing to be sacrificed on the altar of Peace.

“You wanted to be bigger than Cipher. With your Diamond Dogs joining Outer Heaven, we’ll become just that, closing the book on Cipher, Zero, all of it.”

The glow of his cigar cast light and shadow over his face as he considered Kazuhira Miller for the first time in a long time.

“Unifying now under one banner- Kaz, we’ll command an army the size of a nation that can subdue any PMC or PF that tries to move against it."

A trickle of smoke rises when he breathes, hanging in the air like mist.

He felt Kaz’s anger, and it didn't hurt or make his heart hammer on his chest because he’d been too bitter and too cold for anything to move him at all. Maybe it would have, years ago, when he felt so close to MSF and held fresh rage in his heart, the bonds with his soldiers forged through circumstance and firepower. Maybe he would have felt something then.

Now, looking into him was like looking into the brutal, wild face of a mountain. Unmoving, and unmoved.

This is what they wanted, isn't it?

“We have that now, thanks to you, but Ocelot tells me there's no convincing you to stay."

There wasn't even anything sinister about the way he said it. He thanked him like he’d just given him a light for his cigar and moved on.

"I won't make you. I want you to stay, but I won't make you." he shakes his head, "But there won't be many places to go. Not once we unite our forces in South Africa and Central Asia with this one."

we're dumping out Revas' bag || accepting

A small book full of pressed leaves & flowers; The book holds detailed notes about each plant with a small doodle of any associated produce with it. It also notes about tastes, and how poisonous it may be, along with if you can cook the poison out of it. Other notes are also her opinions on whether one should use them at all, how much she enjoyed them and whether or not she thinks they can help with magic or healing.

Snake, knee deep in the waves off the coast of Costa Rica, had found something interesting - a brilliantly colorful fish. It's from a species of bright yellow, green, and blue fish somewhat common to Costa Rica - mahi mahi.

He doesn't really know these things - just that it's exceptionally edible fish. Has Kaz tried one of these things? Did they eat fish like this in Japan?

He brings it ashore, not quite dead and still flopping now and then, mouth agape.

"Hey, Kaz. Ever eat one of these?"

The fish looks at Kaz as Snake holds it up to him like a trophy. Or a sandwich. Snake himself is still drenched in sea water.

"They're good. Hardly any fishy taste at all. Want me to save some for you?"

the art of touch.

"Did you find… fulfillment?" 

Fingers wrap around her wrist, tight despite being on death's doorstep. Warm, even in the oppressive cold of the edge of the universe. Lump growing in her throat, Therith looks sidelong at her lone companion, body unwilling to move despite her desire to curl into him. If they were to die here together she'd rather die in comfort with him one last time. But this will have to suffice. 

Zenos' words bounce around her head. Did she find fulfillment? She blinks in and out of consciousness, memories of the past six years flashing by. Moments of triumph and defeat, times of genuine happiness and times where she felt like giving up but marched on anyways. That felt like fulfillment to her, at least.

Somewhere next to them something clatters to the ground— something metal and beeping. The teleporter device. A panic grips Therith as her mind begins to race. 'Do I leave him here? Do I take him with? Could I leave him here?' No. Not after everything they had been through. All the stolen moments throughout the years, the secret spars and kisses and the genuine affection they had formed for each other in their weird ways. Not after the fact he had absorbed the last of Hydaelyn's aether and raced through the cosmos to help her. Fulfillment means nothing if she leaves him to rot here.

Snake frowns with concern, the kind that shows through whether he wants it to or not. He's never been great at lying through his eye.

"Just that, huh? A little brain damage?"

There's an animal quality to how Snake grabs him. His hands are accustomed to the handling of breaking bones and flesh, both to heal and to harm.

Mostly just the one, but he doesn't want Kaz getting away before he can get a good look at him, moving his hand to the back of his head to check for blood or swelling. That was just good field medicine, right?

"I need your brain. It's keeping us afloat."

Snake relaxes - nothing major, but Kaz had already told him that. He smiles. At some point this had turned into giving Kaz a hard time for not being careful. As though Snake himself wasn't constantly being thrown around like a ragdoll and ignoring his personal symptoms until they stopped or damn near killed him.

How many times had he been on the literal edge, hearing Kaz's voice start to raise in panic?

"You're my expert. Don't forget it "

Someone's gotta save his ass now and then, right?