route_1065 | //itsu no ma ni ka bokura nanigenaku deatta

Entry tags:

//itsu no ma ni ka bokura nanigenaku deatta

Who: Hal Emmerich, Liquid Snake
Where: Azalea Town
When: Midday, October 10th
Summary: Hello, I am a crack pairing between two socially awkward people.
Rating: idfk, T or something
Log:
What had he been thinking? What had possessed him to offer to find a restaurant with Liquid? Sure, his cooking was a nightmare (and Otacon planned to bring back something nice for Heather to make up for it), but this was Liquid.

...as he got ready to leave, he idly wondered if Snake was alright wherever he was. Otacon was worried sick, though he hid it the best he could. His first and closest friend was in pain, possibly even dying and there wasn't a damn thing Otacon could do. To say it upset him was an understatement.

But this wasn't the time for that. He'd promised some food that was actually edible, and that's what he'd get them. If there was nothing he could do to help Snake...then he'd just wait and worry in silence.

"Ready, Liquid?" he asked with a smile, recalling the angrily hissing Kotai and slipping her Pokeball into the sleeve of his kimono--what her problem was with him, Otacon wasn't entirely sure.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"A mad version of it."

Bunnies and puppies were cute. Giant betentacled abominations and eleven-foot-long snakes were not.

"Maybe. I dunno. M'not one to decide what's normal and what's not."

"Don't worry about it now."

He led the engineer safely into camp; not an easy task when Otacon got drunk so quickly. He made a mental note to force him to drink water and take a few aspirin before he went to bed.

"...kay. Probably a good idea. You can call me crazy later."

Oh hey, Liquid. Your hand is now property of the nerd's hand again.

...He just wasn't going to argue with the drunk nerd anymore. It probably wouldn't have done any good.

"Let's just get you back to camp and let you sleep this off."

"But m'not tired."

"No, but you're drunk. You'll be tired once a little more of that alcohol hits you."

"I'm not drunk. Least I don't think so."

"Trust me, you are."

A cute drunk, but drunk nonetheless. And probably going to wake up with a hangover tomorrow, too.

He walked into camp with Otacon in tow, and looked around for their fugitive camp-mate.

"Heather?"

No answer. Huh. She must've gone somewhere.

"Hm."

"!"

Rock, meet Otacon's foot. Otacon's foot, meet rock.

Liquid, there is a nerd falling against you. Course of action?

Course of action? Catch the nerd, same thing he did every time Otacon tripped over his own feet.

"I told you you're drunk."

"...o-oh."

He turned a slightly darker shade of red, staring at Liquid for a few seconds.

Come to think of it, he was very cute. And very warm and fit very comfortably in Liquid's arms.

There was that strange compulsion to kiss him again.

Whether it was from the alcohol or simply because Liquid was bad at resisting compulsions, he pulled the engineer close to his chest and kissed him like a sailor on VJ-day.

"--!"

Was it startling? Hell yes, and the way Otacon froze up at first probably showed it. He didn't know if it was the alcohol or not, but once the realization sank in that a) someone was kissing him and b) they were really good at it, he slowly relaxed in Liquid's arms.

"Mm...mmn..."

Slender hands moved to Liquid's shoulders, one reaching up and tangling in his hair--just as soft as it looked, impossible as that might have seemed.

Some people say that God has no sense of humor.

Others would point at the entire course of history and stare at the first people, with one of those 'you've gotta be kidding me' looks on their faces.

It's impossible to say who's right and who's wrong, but if one had to base their theory entirely on this situation, they'd probably go with the latter.

Their pet fugitive had gone somewhere, as an admittedly small-and-hard-to-see-in-the-dark note left on top of their pile of rolled-up sleeping bags would have told them if they'd found it. That somewhere had been into town (don't worry, she'd brought her Box (tm)) to visit her injured pal Rise and have some much-needed girly bonding time (though she'd resisted at first).

The Heather that was making her way through the woods back towards camp looked more or less the same, but with noticeably shorter, fluffier, and black-root-less hair. Turned out Rise really knew what she was doing with scissors and dye, she'd done a better job than even Heather had back in the old days when she'd done it herself in that shabby little apartment bathroom.

Squinting through the dark, she rubbed the back of her neck as she finally breached the brush at the edge of the clearing, box hanging over one shoulder like a really weird, strapless backpack. Was that them standing there already? Good, they'd made it back without dying or something.

"Guys, I'm back," she announced herself a little sleepily, taking off the box. "Listen, sorry I haj-gghfffwhoa."

RECORD-SCREECH MOMENT.

Now, had Otacon been sober, he would have jumped back and scrambled away from Liquid like the soldier had just jabbed him with a stun gun. He would have adamantly denied anything had happened and quickly tried to make some sort of awkwardly handled subject change.

Arguably luckily for all involved, he wasn't exactly sober.

"Heather~!" he practically chirped, puling back from Liquid slightly. "Where've you been--oh hey, I didn' know you knew the cardboard box trick. Don' think the police around here are as dangerous as FOXHOUND, though..."

He trailed off in his ramblings, looking deep in thought and seemingly forgetting he'd been making out with a hot blond supersoldier mere seconds beforehand.

"...I brought y' some riceballs."

SMILE~

Liquid, however, was sober, and he jerked back from Otacon like the engineer was on fire.

"Heather!"

There was not enough 'oh shit' in the universe to adequately describe this situation.

"This isn't what it looks like."

As much of an obvious lie as that was, it was the first thing that came to mind for this. What else was there to do but vehemently deny that anyone had been making out with anyone here?

So, there were a few ways she could react to this.

One was just keep standing here and making things really awkward.

The other was.... um. .... Well, she'd just keep standing here for the moment until the other way came to mind.

It wasn't some sort of horrific world-bending shock-- Heather wasn't sheltered, she'd been acquainted with The Gay, and to be honest, Otacon had always come off as a little.... _{well, fruity} to her anyway. That was chill.

What did surprise her was .... well, IT JUST WASN'T WHAT SHE WAS EXPECTING TO WALK BACK IN ON, OKAY?

Give her brain a moment to catch up with her.

.... Okay, it's caught up.

First things first, Otacon. She can smell the sake from here (it's pungent stuff, after all), and her first, immediate concern, as after-school-special as it sounded, was 'He's totally drunk. Is he being taken advantage of, and if so, in what way?'

He proceeded to answer her question by being woobly and cheerful and off-topic and obviously not upset about the fact that he'd had Liquid's mouth all over his face at all. Heather's previously-written mental note (now old and a little wrinkled from the time in between now and that long-ago day where they'd all gotten stupidly drunk together in Violet) that Otacon was hilarious and adorable while drunk was reinforced.

Crisis averted, the nerd was okay. ... Totally schnockered, but okay.

"... What? ... I-- ... oh. Thank you." Awww he brought food for her. Too bad that didn't make this any less awkwaaaard.

SECOND CONCERN.

She turned her attention to Liquid and gave him a very pointed look.

It wasn't angry, but it did say very clearly:

YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAININ' TO DO, BRO.

"No problem. I was gettin' tired of cooking anyway--kept burnin' my hands."

Awkward? What was awkward? Otacon certainly didn't notice any awkward. Then again, at this point he wouldn't have noticed if Kotai put on a top hat, sprouted legs, and started tapdancing.

The nerd stumbled slightly--because how dare the ground tilt without warning underneath him--winding up with his arms around Liquid's neck to steady himself.

"Whoops." he said with a laugh that was more than a little goofy. "Hi, Liquid."

...There was a nerd hanging around his neck like a very strange necklace, and Liquid wasn't quite sure what do to about it. All of a sudden, he didn't know where to put his hands, because everything seemed like a bad idea when he had Heather giving him that Look.

"Hi, Hal." Oh God, this was so awkward. He gently pulled the engineer's arms from around his neck and started leading him over to one of the tents they'd been sleeping in.

"Look, why don't you just take a seat in here and let me talk to Heather for a bit, all right?"

He was going to have a lot of explaining to do, and there was the possibility that putting Otacon and bed in the same location would get him to maybe sleep some of the booze off.

IT WAS ABOUT TIME OTACON GOT TIRED OF COOKING I mean what.

Some of the shock was wearing off, because... awkward scenario was awkward but it was hard to remain as thoroughly surprised as before with Otacon drunkenly swooning around like a kid on too much Benadryl.

She waved a hand as he was led towards the tent (thank god there was SOME shelter from the elements now, at least). "Good night, Otacon."

She was patient. She'd wait for Liquid to come back out. And then... THEN she'd see what was going on. >8I

"Mmkay, if you say so." Otacon replied dazedly, letting Liquid lead him over.

"Night, Heather~!" he added after a moment with an overblown and massively dorky wave.

He got the engineer into the tent without incident and left him in there, telling him to lie down and get some sleep before he got out.

...This was going to be so incredibly awkward.

"..."

He's so not making the first move here.

You bet it was going to be so incredibly awkward.

Heather hadn't budged. She'd folded her arms and was looking straight at Liquid with an expression that-- ... well it didn't look MAD, but it didn't look... um, friendly either.

"... So how was dinner?"

THAT SENTENCE WAS LADEN WITH MEANING.

She really had an uncomfortable stare.

"...It was fine."

He really shouldn't have let Hal drink, but the whole conversation had taken a bad turn and it really hadn't seemed like such a poor idea at the time.

"The, uh. The food was pretty good."

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