Honey, I'm gonna make it out alive.
Who: steel_goddess and youendthewar
When: Backdated a bit to the 2/18 attack on the Core, after Sirens, during the blackout.
Where: Startin' out at the Baseball Field
Summary: ...Spending Friday night with a friend? :|a Snake and Samus after the mess at the core falls apart.
Warnings: A bit of monster-related violence, maybe blood, ...likely some language.
( The path you walk on has no end. )
When: Backdated a bit to the 2/18 attack on the Core, after Sirens, during the blackout.
Where: Startin' out at the Baseball Field
Summary: ...Spending Friday night with a friend? :|a Snake and Samus after the mess at the core falls apart.
Warnings: A bit of monster-related violence, maybe blood, ...likely some language.
( The path you walk on has no end. )
"...Hm?" He looked over at her for the first time since they'd crossed the threshold. Type? Never really thought about it. Maybe someone would sooner expect a snake. But he'd always been fond of dogs. Smart, loyal to a fault. And if one happens to bite the hand that feeds, it's never out of hate. Strong pack mentality, too. Someone with a little more insight might have said Snake had subconsciously surrounded himself with a couple dozen of them to try to compensate for missing something.
"Used to have a whole pack of 'em." He explained. It was actually something he really didn't mind talking about. A high point in a less than smooth time of his life. "I raised sled dogs for a couple years after I left the military. Raced 'em, too." There's something a little wistful in it. Leaving them behind to run missions for Philanthropy had been hard. He didn't regret it, but it had been the only thing outside of a fight that he'd ever found much purpose in.
With Samus in a more accommodating mood than his master, the dog butted his head into her legs for more attention. Beside them, Snake took a deep breath and levered himself off the door to limp into the hall. Light. There ought to be candles or something in the kitchen.
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Rubbing the dog's head she padded along after Snake, following him into the kitchen. "It sounds like you had a good time doing it. What made you stop? Or was that when the Core pulled you?"
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"That's where I met Otacon." He explained, flicking his lighter closed. And Meryl, too; which wasn't the easiest of topics but he kept coming back to her in his mind because Samus did remind him of her quite a bit, sometimes. "A couple months later he contacted me about working together on a more regular basis." Snake's home was a bit too remote to commute.
A ghost of a wry smile, though it might be a trick of the flickering light. "...People don't like it when you take away their weapons of mass destruction. We move around a lot." Especially once they were publicly framed as terrorists and on the run. He'd griped once or twice that they might as well live on the road.
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Padding into the kitchen, dog at her heels, Samus waited for her eyes to adjust before indicating a chair. "Sit down, let's take a look at your leg and see what we can do about it."
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"Ever since the specs got out, everyone with the funding has their own version of Metal Gear." He said. "Otacon handles support. I do all the grunt work." They had a couple benefactors, and Nastasha and Mei Ling helped out when they could. But for the most part Philanthropy was essentially a two-man job.
He eased himself down into the chair obediently, untying the bloodstained field dressing and tearing the leg of his pants away from the wound to get a look at it. Looked pretty messy in the low light, and now that they were safe and the adrenaline had mostly faded from his system he was really starting to feel it. But he was lucky, at least, in that the bullet seemed to have passed right through.
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Kneeling at his feet, Samus leaned in to inspect the wound and shook her head slowly. "Messy. Through and through it looks like though, so there's that at least."
Straightening up she went to the sink for a wet washcloth. "Don't go anywhere" she quipped over one shoulder.
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"Bipedal tank and mobile nuclear platform." He clarified. Which was putting it simply. Every model was different, but it didn't take much imagination to see how dangerous it was for someone to be able to launch a nuke from just about anywhere in the world.
He watched her cross the room and exhaled sharply in what might have been a dry laugh, if he wasn't busy bleeding all over the kitchen. She didn't have to worry about that, at least. Not going anywhere for a while if he can help it.
"Nowhere else to be." He said. Liquid and Kadaj could wait. He knew how to pick his battles.
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Wetting a cloth and wringing it out she padded back over, scratching the dog on the head on the way by. "I shouldn't have to tell you this is going to hurt but...this is going to hurt. Don't suppose you have a first aid kit lying around?"
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"I wasn't kidding when I said I've had worse. Don't worry about it."
Hell, it was a luxury to have anyone around to help him out at all. He seemed about to continue, but cut himself off and pointed her in the direction of what first aid they had in the house instead. It wasn't much of an uncommon occurrence for one or the other of them to need a patch job. Not much in the way of painkillers, though. Good thing he had a high threshold for it.
He raised a somewhat grimy hand to rub at his eyes as he waited for her to come back. By the time she did, he seemed to have sorted out what he meant to say in the first place.
"...thanks. Samus."
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Crouching back down on her knees she began the thorough process of disinfecting and binding the wound, thankful there wasn't a whole bullet to be removing. As it was, looking for fragments would be a pain in the ass.
"I should get you a suit like mine."
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"...no, thanks." He said, carefully level. Not that he didn't appreciate the concern and all. But it wasn't really his kind of weapon. Worked for Samus and Olga well enough, but the price paid for that kind of technology in his own world was a little too high. And hit far too close to some of his nightmares.
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Not that people hadn't tried, over the years, to mimic the Varia suit, but that's all they were; mimics. Nothing even came close to the advanced suite of weapons and defenses it boasted.
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"Different," he continued, slowly. Snake had mentioned Fox to her once before, but only in passing. It was rare he spoke openly about it, even to Otacon or Meryl. Seeing Olga in such a similar suit had been a bit of a shock. Seeing Samus in hers had come pretty close as well. "Less heavily armed. But damn dangerous if the right person was using it."
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"...It's David, by the way." He said, apparently apropos of nothing. All this talk of Metal Gear and Otacon and his home back in Alaska. The reminders of Fox and Meryl. Pretty damn nostalgic and he wasn't sure he liked it. "My name."
The codename was largely just symbolic in this place, but he was nothing if not careful. And it had been a long time since he'd been anything else. Even Otacon called him "Snake" more often than not. His civilian name was reserved for special occasions nowadays. But he had a name. Even if he protected it. And that was important.
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Looking up she smiled, "David. It's nice." A little colour there. "I wish I had something to tell you too."
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