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

"--!"

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."

Her orangey eyes could look pretty damn unsettling when she turned them on people accompanied by an unpleasant expression.

"That's good to hear. So, at what point did he--" She pointed at the tent and presumably at the nerd within. "... wind up drunk off his ass and locking lips with you?"

It's okay Liquid, she's not judging you! ... YET.

You'd just better give her some satisfactory answers.

Edited 2010-10-14 05:10 (UTC)

Liquid scrubbed one hand over his face and sighed.

"Look, the conversation veered towards Snake and things got... unfortunate. He ordered a bottle of... something and at the time we both needed it."

When did Liquid's life suddenly become complicated? "Look, I don't know what made me want to kiss him, but I highly doubt if it's ever going to happen again. It was nothing and it's not going to end up being anything."

Otacon cared for Snake; hell, he probably loved him. Liquid just looked like him. It didn't take a genius to put those two together.

Heather listened with a calculating expression.

... Okay. She could buy it.

And to be entirely honest, no matter what Snake worried about, Heather did not think that Liquid would hurt Otacon. If he had any intention of causing harm to the scientist, he'd had ample time to do so already and given his track record of flying off the handle and quite blatantly showing when he was mad, she was pretty sure that if he DID want to hurt anyone, they'd have known about it well before now.

"... All right."

She broke the glare and shut her eyes, rubbing her temples a little.

"Look, I'm not-- ... I just wanted to make sure he was okay, all right? I'm not like-- ..."

Okay awkward, but she'd figure out how to say it, she WOULD.

"I'm not trying to get in the way or anything. If... you two... you know, are into each other."

Okay, that was a pretty good way of putting it.

"That's fine. ... I just wanna make sure nothing happens to him."

She'd given Snake her word. Obviously she wasn't gonna bring that up to Liquid, but no matter how lousy she'd been at promises in the past, she was determined to start keeping them.

"He'll be fine. He'll sober up and tomorrow this will just have been a foolish mistake and we'll all forget about it."

Liquid would never have intentionally hurt Hal-- when he did it unintentionally, he'd felt strange twists of guilt that he hadn't felt in years. As weak as he thought it was, he liked the engineer enough to never bring himself to raise a hand against him.

"I'm not talking about the alcohol."

Heather was no relationship expert. She'd never had a serious one herself, and she had a good enough head on her shoulders to know that romance movies were NOT how it happened in real life. A 'foolish mistake' like that was not something you'd generally forget.

Finally leaving the place she'd apparently been rooted to, she took a couple of steps towards Liquid, pointing a finger at him. Her stride held no hesitation.

"Whether you DO forget about it or whether it winds up going somewhere is none of my business, but I will say this. You're one of my best friends, Liquid, and I'm awful fond of you, but if you ever hurt him, I swear I will rip you limb from limb. Got it?"

Oh lol the scrawny little girl threatening the big muscle-bound supersoldier, how cute!

... Except she looked and sounded like she really did mean it.

... Did I mention that Heather could actually be legitimately scary, in a weird, unsettling way that was hard to put a finger on, when she really wanted to be?

There was something in Heather that was... disquieting. Something that shouldn't be in a girl as young as her, and, though it took more than that to scare him, it surprised him.

"In all honesty, Heather, do you really think that I would ever intentionally hurt him?"

It came with the territory of what she was.

She paused, taking a deep breath, then shook her head.

"No, I don't. At all."

She folded her arms, grip on her own upper arms unusually tight.

"... But I've been wrong about people before."

"If I'd wanted to hurt him, you would have known before now. I'm not known for my subtlety."

Understatement of the year.

The corners of her mouth crept upwards in a ghost of a smile.

"I know."

That was why she was pretty positive he'd never hurt Otacon on purpose. God knew he'd already had plenty of opportunity to do so and she didn't peg him as the type to wait around indefinitely for no apparent reason.

"... Look, it's nothing personal. I'd say this to... anyone. It's a matter of principal."

Except for the part where Snake had made her promise to look out for Otacon and make sure Liquid didn't hurt him. But the point remained.

She trailed off here and looked off into the trees surrounding the clearing, brows furrowed.

"Would you?"

It was the furrowed brow and the stare at the trees that made him think that there was something more on Heather's mind than just his kiss with Otacon.

"... Yeah, actually."

She rubbed her arms a little before looking back up at him, her brows creased upwards.

"He means a lot to me. ... And I told him I wouldn't let him down."

Sighing, she lifted a hand to her temples and just... massaged.

"And he's...."

She paused, trying to think of a word that held a meaning similar to 'delicate' but a little less ... stupid-sounding. He'd told her about the thing with his stepmom.

She wasn't about to tell Liquid that. It wasn't her business to spread around.

But it was one of the reasons she was... you know... a little protective.

"... I just don't want him hurt, okay?"

"He's not going to get hurt."

He didn't know about Otacon's stepmother, and wouldn't have been able to guess that he had that kind of trauma in his past. If he had known, he would have been more careful.

Otacon didn't need the kind of train wreck that a relationship with Liquid would be-- he wasn't planning on letting it get that far. A kiss stolen after a few drinks was one thing, but if there was a thing as 'boyfriend material', Liquid was the exact antithesis of it.

Strange, how he was trying not to be selfish for once.

"Just promise me that whatever winds up happening, you'll make sure he's okay, all right? I have to hear it."

It was tempting to mention it, because-- hell, HEATHER never would have guessed it herself (it had been a bit of a shocker when Otacon had told her, even), but as brash as Heather often was, some things just were not meant to be shared. Other peoples' secrets regarding... that kind of topic were one of them.

Heather did note the attempts at unselfishness, though. And they made her feel better.

The fact that Liquid was even capable of that at all was reassuring.

//itsu no ma ni ka bokura nanigenaku deatta

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