#unoculusrex

ZANZIBARLAND, FALL 1997

Eli had to wonder, bitterly, if the universe just straight-up had a grudge against him. As if his childhood hadn’t been bad enough -- pushed into war when he was barely 5 years old, treated like shit by his handlers until he ran away into the wilds of Africa and lived like a feral soldier with a band of his own until he was 12. And then the Diamond Dogs and his father had to ruin that. He’d tried to carve out a new life and identity for himself in the SIS and SAS, and it had worked...well, worked until once again, he was deemed useless and unwanted and thrown away. Two goddamn years as a POW and two more in a coma in a field hospital -- can anyone blame him for going AWOL as soon as he could walk?

He doesn’t think anyone here will. He’d heard the whispers of this place, passed from soldier to soldier in the weeks since he’d disappeared from the hospital in Baghdad -- Zanzibarland, a nation for soldiers and by soldiers, where they are treated like men, not tools. Considering how his life has gone so far, he can’t think of anywhere better to flee to.

It’s cold, he reflects, and a different sort of cold than English winters. This place borders Russia, doesn’t it? Most of the men are in heavy coats save his little bundle of newcomers, all in whatever they’d been wearing before they’d caught whatever transport that had brought them in. Eli’s canvas jacket isn’t quite warm enough, but it’s all he has -- literally, too. The only things he’s carrying are the clothes on his back, his dogtags, and the ivory-handled switchblade he’s carried since he stole it from his Cipher handler before he ran away. And the clothes don’t quite fit him right, since he’d grown thin during his time comatose -- he feels a little small in the fatigues and t-shirt and combat boots, despite his near six feet of height. Small and pale and weak. 

The Zanzibar soldiers give him odd looks when they see him, but he writes it off to his recovering health -- he’s more focused on the fact that they lead the group into a warm indoors area and set them at each other. Apparently the President is watching, or something; Eli thinks that figures; if this place is for soldiers, the leader should want to see the mettle of the people that come seeking asylum and shelter.

He sees several of the biggest, nastiest looking recruits coming at him -- they must think he’s easy prey, a 20something pretty-boy with a ponytail and looking sickly. They think they’ll break him. Aside from that fact that breaking someone weaker is no true proof of skill, Eli is vaguely amused and insulted. 

       You're no different. They'll forget about you, too... but he wasn't like them.... Snake glanced over his shoulder at the bodies piled in the elevator, wiping the blood from his knife on his pant leg. Blades had never been his preferred weapon, but in close quarters, they certainly came in handy. Perhaps it was selfish of him to be relieved that he hadn’t recognized any of the ‘Four Horsemen’, but he could already feel the memories of Schneider and Gustavas’ glassy eyes sinking into his skull, ready to resurface the instant he lay down to sleep. They weren’t the first, but the list never got so long that he stopped counting. He had lost comrades in the Middle East. Some FOXHOUNDers had died or disappeared. If he had stopped to look at Big Boss’s face while fleeing for his life from Outer Heaven’s compound, maybe that would have made an appearance in his nightmares, too. Instead, his nightly reconstruction of what had happened was hazy, filled with shadows and red glows that might have been eyes or hands or alarms; he could never tell.

Anyone who saw the old man sitting at a corner cafe in DC probably wouldn’t recognize him as the crazy terrorist of only a few months ago, now -- and hell, Liquid Ocelot was dead as far as the world knew. And he was, really; only Adamska was left, one last trick pulled on the world...and all for nothing in the end, huh? Saved himself only to find that John had left him behind again. Stupid to the end, he figures.

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.”

🎹 - Do they play any instruments?

Nnnnnno, I don’t think so. He’s never had the patience to sit and learn, and no one taught him given that it wasn’t really useful to a soldier. He might have stolen a harmonica or something small and handheld from a Mother Base soldier to mess with it, but that’s about it.

If he picked one he wanted to learn, though, probably guitar.

🕕 - The longest they’ve ever been awake

Hm. Well....hm.