fissionmailed | Metal Gear Noir

Entry tags:

xmas_is_here

Metal Gear Noir

[After the scintillating conversation of this, Novel!Snake and ~~KidNovel!Snake~~ Justin Halley wander the corridors in search of an Otacon. Snake vaguely remembers that one of them lives on this floor, but he's not sure in which room.]

[Snake hears muffled music coming from behind one of the doors. The low mournful wail of a saxaphone - it's oddly compelling. Ignoring Halley's protests and neglecting to knock, Snake opens the door and steps inside.]

[This joint may have been glitzy once, but it's fallen onto hard times. Whichever auteur designed the place oughta be shot - the decor is classic 1940's Americana with Oriental elements. Added for the flavor, I suppose. The contrast is horrible. The cracked paint and chipped tiles don't help.

There's a upraised stage in the middle, surrounded by chairs. The saxophone player looks at the ground as he plays. The chanteuse - a sad-eyed thing with a lovely rosebud mouth - sways in her qipao and begs her small audience to take her away. They are hard men, tired men, and they stare back with cool disinterest.

A large faded poster dominates the right wall, featuring a happy couple dancing and words printed above them. Some comedian's taken a pen and scratched out some of the letters: NO PLACE TO ~~GO? TRY~~ HIDE~~O'S!~~

Only the barkeep seems happy, whistling tunelessly as he cleans and stacks glasses.

I settle down in front of him and signal for his attention.]

Two Jack Daniel's. Neat. On the rocks. And before you go...

[There was a man I was supposed to find, but I can't remember his name. The words sound wrong as soon as they leave my mouth.]

...Do you know a man who goes by the name Octagon?

[He smiles apologetically and shakes his head. I sit and wait. For what? I don't know. But it'll find me soon. Trouble always does.]

((OOC: Requesting

justin_filtrate and open to anyone who wants to channel their inner Raymond Chandler. You may also suffer slight memory loss, since characters with mysterious/repressed/unacknowledged pasts are a film noir staple.))

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[Some days it's like you're a rat in a maze, chasing after another, smaller rat. No matter how fast you move he can see you coming, and he keeps playing clever tricks with the rat version of Nikita missiles.]

[Like any good labyrinth, be it designed by Daedalus or whatever poor bastard makes the ones for the backs of cereal boxes, at the center was a bar.]

[They said the cocktails were to die for but I'd already tried that. Didn't take.]

[I order vodka and slide into a corner booth, shifting my cannon to the side. She's a little heavy but I know she'll never run off with the milkman.]

[The old sayings don't lie, though you can make them mean whatever you want. When the currents change, the walrus is the first to know. Something's going on. The trick is catching your ice floe before it's too late.]

[Two seals walk into a club. The story ends there.]

[Octagon. I used to think that I had eight sides to me, all kinds of different emotions wrapped up like sides to a $50 coin. But now I'm starting to realise that, like an octagon, I never had a third dimension.]

[That's what this man told me, anyway, sweeping into my life in a cloud of cigarette smoke smell, deadly as a killer trained scorpion. His eyes were hazy with lines sharper and smarter than the ones used by a top-class floozy on an unsuspecting sap. And he said that he's some other version of me.]

[Justin Halley. I don't remember Mr. and Mrs. Halley. I don't think I ever had them. I don't remember being a child - I don't think I was ever considered that deeply - but I know two things; first, when I was a child, I used to play with action figure soldiers and comic books; and second, I never grew out of it - just made the figures bigger and the comics' pages into a map.]

We're freed from our prose here, I think.

...Would you call it an improvement?

[The barkeep returns with our drinks. I hand one to young Halley and down the other. The liquor burns the back of my throat. Cheap. Disposable. But sharper in its own way than the quality stuff.]

Freed? No. The style changes but the patterns remain the same.

[The patterns haven't been the same since I came here. This whole world is all wrong - out of the two Snakes I know, I'm the only one who still believes that it's right to crush mice and rabbits. But as I knock back the drink, waiting for it to rot my mind like I knew it would, the reason I'd never had drunk it if not for this soldier sitting with me, I realise I'm starting to wonder. All I ever did was capture black pawns and knights and rooks, but sooner or later I'd have to catch a piece that was gray.]

Tell me, soldier - there a CaTaffy in your world?

[Solitude. We all have our reasons for seeking it out. Some men are trying to forget the girls that did them wrong, some are hiding from their shady past or present, and some just prefer the company of a cool windy night. Me? Something strange is going on, and I've got to know what it is. I have no clues but an uneasy feeling in my gut. Nothing I can put my finger on. But I've learned to trust my instincts by now.

The barkeep sees me coming in and slides me a hot mug of coffee, bitter and dark as the soul of this miserable building. Fitting, that it's my oldest and dearest friend.

I sit at the far end of the bar, nursing my coffee, watching the door. Can't be too careful in a dive like this, even if I can hear them coming.]

[Did somebody order a femme fatale?

I'm sittin' quietly in the corner, in yet another dark, smoke-filled dive. Another day, another cliche. I tug the brim o' my fedora down a little lower, survey my surroundings, calmly scopin' out the place and the faces.

Each face tells its own story, and I've told tales aplenty in my time. It's been far too long since I had my own to tell. Hell, I'm not even sure I remember how it goes anymore. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe it's time I started anew. Turned a new leaf 'n' all that metaphorical jazz.

An' speakin' o' metaphors, who do my eyes behold but tall, dark, an' tattooed, the man o' my dreams. Smartest, sweetest, strongest man I ever met... what could he see in a disreputable dame like me?

Ah, hell. Ya only live once. Or twice, whatever. He said somethin' to me once, about a heron an' open plains. It stuck with me, I guess, 'cause here I go. I down the rest o' whatever alcoholic swill is in my glass in one gulp. A little liquid courage before I head over there.]

Hey Raven. [I slide into the booth across from him, trying for a sultry purr.] What's a nice guy like you doin' in a place like this?

[Ilya's hitting the joe again, what a surprise. Not like he ever gets anything else. I worry for his health, naturally - should the laws of science someday suddenly reassert themselves, I wouldn't want him to wind up a spectre like me. Still, it's his life, his decisions; all I can hope for is to influence him for the better, just a little bit.

Some days I almost see myself as his guardian angel. He'd punch my lights out if he knew.

I slip onto the stool beside him, leaning close to be heard over the din of the bar.] Hello there Ilya. Not partaking in your usual brew?

[To say that my life's been hell lately would be a grave understatement. To make a long story short, let's just say that I've been roped into a whole mess of things that a person like me would normally have no interest in. Let's just keep it at that.

Normally, I'm not the type to indulge in the pleasures of alcohol, but for tonight, I'll make an exception. I need something to quell the stress in my life, after all. Even if just for a little while.

So I make my way to the bar, not paying much attention to the surroundings that pass me. I'm the type that would typically would know every nook and cranny of the place, but I have a lot on my mind. Surely I can let it go for once.

Once I make it to my destination, the bartender throws me a blank stare. He asks me if I'm from 'around these part of the woods'.

I simply reply with a glare as sharp as the tip of the bayonet that took the life of my mother in Kurdistan.

But that's in the past. There's no need to dwell on that now.

The bartender only gives a slight shrug before asking me what I'll gave to drink.]

Martini. Stirred.

[I always hated the idea of the Bond films. Even if I never did bother to watch any of them.

As the bartender prepares my drink, I take a seat in the furthest corner of the bar I can find. I'm not too keen on the whole social aspect of bars. Especially in ones as run-down as this one was. I find that dilapidated bars produce dilapidated people. My standards are far higher than that.

I get so lost in my own thoughts, that I barely notice when the bartender placed the martini in front of me. Slowly, I tip the gin and vermouth concoction down my throat.

I know it won't change my current predicament and it sure as hell won't make it any better. But all I want is respite. Even if it only lasts a little while.

As I sit, alone, at my bar stool. I wait for my buzz to kick in.]

[I look up and into half-hidden eyes. I'm glad to see a familiar face, including one that's never the same twice.]

Octopus. Good to see you.

[This dame's a hard one to figure. She's got a way of looking at 300 pounds of Inuit with a cannon on top that says she sees something most don't. I don't know if it's just what she wants to see. I'd tell her this bird on my head doesn't mean I can fly, but I don't know she'd believe me.]

Whether lion or gazelle, all come to the river for the same purpose.

[I nod toward my glass, sitting there innocent as a shiny, half-full lamb.]

...to drink. It's a joke. Sort of.

[The glass is tiny between my meaty fingers. I turn it around and it sparkles like an 80-proof smile.]

[Something about the look on her face, wearing honest like a mask that didn't fit quite right over the ears, pulled the truth out of me like a carnivorous centipede lured out of its hole with a piece of bacon on a string.]

You ever miss the old unit?

[I take off my hat, toss it over to land whimsically on top o' Raven's cannon, and grin at his little joke. He don't gotta explain to me, o' course, but I reckon the poor fella's just so used to people hearin' him without really listenin'. Me, I could listen to him talk fer hours, just th' sound o' his voice, the way his face gets all-

...he just say somethin'?]

What, them? Eh, kinda. [I'd like to say we had some good times together, but I never really fit in. Not exactly a social butterfly here. Most o' what I liked most about them days is sittin' right in front o' me. I shrug at him.] Least I still got you. And you got me, man, right?

[It was 3 AM on another weatherless night in the building of the damned.

I was looking for someone. The one man I hated more than Father. I thought I would find him here, in this dank bar room. I had searched for years to find him. Finally, the time had come.]

[I spied the two lowly creatures at the bar. I didn't need to see his face to know it was him. He had the kind of hair that stuck out in a crowd. The kind of butchered hair cut you can only find in the lowest of mobile home parks.

There was a chance it wasn't him. But here and now... it could only be one person.]

[I strode up behind the man whom I had hated with a seething passion all my life. You could ever love or hate a man like him. You can probably guess which option I chose.]

Brother!

[I smile at Octopus' toss. She's got a kind of vivacity, like she picks up all the little details other people don't look close enough for. There's no keeping her down.]

In the old days, it was simple. War, the hunt, comrades, those are natural and easy things.

[I brighten up like somebody's wiped the dust off me, the way they hadn't with the table for a good long time.]

That's right.

Life? Easy? Hah. Only when it's tryin' to lull ya into a false sense o' security. [Not that I'm complainin'. It's a kinda nice false sense of security, sometimes. And around Raven...well, it's not false at all.

Hey, 'least it looks like I've cheered the guy up a little. If only he knew that he don't just got me, he's got my heart as well. I don't dare tell 'im though - what answer could he give me but "Thanks, but no thanks"?] There, ya see? Life's not so bad now, is it. Sure beats the alternative.

[Soldier? Was that what I was? Yes, another lifetime ago. Mercenary now, and a shit one at that, one whose dying conscience still twitches and kicks with disturbing regularity. I slip a hand into the pocket of my trenchcoat ~~which I hadn't been wearing before this room~~ and run fingers over my wallet. Inside is a flimsy piece of plastic bearing the name "David Benson." It's my second chance, my best hope for a new life away from the mess that was "Solid Snake." Away from ol' Frank and his laughing, sparkling Gustava, and away from what I did to-]

[I drag my thoughts away before the past hooks its claws into me again. Take a long swallow of my drink and grimace at the burn of it down my throat.]

Kid, I haven't been a soldier in a long time.

[I look at young Halley. Impossible - but he seems changed since we entered the bar, his softness and naiveté sloughing off like so much snakeshed until only the hard and cynical was left. I wasn't sure I liked the change ~~though hadn't this been what I wanted?~~ I wonder if it's this place that does that to you.]

[Halley says the name "CaTaffy" with distaste but no real vehemence, which tells me it isn't personal.]

And I don't know any CaTaffy. He one of your jobs?

[I turn at the sound of the word "Brother," uttered in a voice that never failed to raise the hairs on my neck. Oh hell, it was him. I was tired, suddenly, of the ghosts of the past. Of lovers who haunt you with their memories and enemies that failed to stay dead.]

[I really wished I had a smoke at the moment. But the liquor will have to do. There. Now I can deal with him.]

Liquid. What's a bastard like you doing in a nice place like this?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Metal Gear Noir

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

HI, I CAN'T WRITE NOIR FOR SHIT.

probably fail.

Because apparently Wolf is TL;DR in Noir form.

Hush, you're doing great.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject