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Base/s: Metal Gear Solid 4
Title: Be Still Their Beating Hearts
Summary: They were just three tired men, weary and spent, sitting in their flying behemoth, waiting for the beginning of the end.
Music used for inspiration:
It is almost silent in the main area of the Nomad.
Silent isn't really the right word. 'Still' would have been a more appropriate one.
The hum of the engines provide a bass drone, mixing with the steady whirr of computers and the steady, staccato beep of a life support machine.
Occasionally, there is a small noise from one of the terminals, their glowing screens giving little insight into what they were doing, save scrolling masses of code and incomprehensible diagrams.
Three men are in that room, although it is difficult to tell if their minds are in the present or not.
One is sitting at a computer, his eyes staring at some point above the screen.
Another sits on a folded chair, his head bowed and eyes closed.
The last of the men is lying limply on a table top, his head to one side, hidden from view. An oxygen mask is strapped to his face, and the beeping of the machine is his own life rhythm.
The man at the computer will occasionally sigh, blink and attempt to work, and the sound of a few keys tapping will break the stillness, before he falls into lethargy once again. His face is lined, weary and washed out. His eyes are exhausted and his posture slumped. He's not a soldier. He isn't at home on the battlefield, not like the other two. He knows that better than anyone.
His slim fingers will slow their typing and eventually they will stop, his eyes not fixed on the screen anymore, but at some point no-one else can see.
He can smell the sea. The salt is on his tongue and the bitter wind stings his face.
He sees her fall. She has managed a few steps after the fact, her stomach fading to red and her face a mask or surprise.
The sniper shot had not been enough.
She pitches forward and falls.
They are inside and away from the salt and the sea and the wind. She is holding on, for them. For him. He lies for her.
She bares her soul to him.
He does not have the courage to give his own confession until the light has died from her eyes and she is lying, cooling, in his arms.
Perhaps that is for the best. His own confession is not a happy one. It would have been cruel, he supposes, to have told her that as his last words to her.
And then she's gone.
His other secrets will wait to torment him another day. This day is hers.
He can smell the sea. The salt is on his tongue and the bitter wind stings his face.
The man sitting in the chair coughs. It is not the kind of cough that goes away. It is the kind that, while you may not have heard it before, tells you that it is not something to brush off.
It's harsh and rough. Painful. Deep.
He looks tired. They all do. It is a bone weary tiredness born from giving too much and receiving too little.
But his tiredness is different. It's the kind of tiredness you acquire that eventually, and that you just learn to ignore. You function as though you have never been without it, as though it is a part of you and you would not know what to do if it was not there.
He tilts his head back and lets it rest on the bulkhead behind him. His face twinges, the burns on one side causing him to twitch.
He has the look of a man who has accepted. Accepted anything, everything. Accepted that that loss happens, and that he's seen too much of it to feel much more than this.
He's learnt to expect this. People die. Missions fail. Get over it.
He never anticipated her living. Not really.
He'd almost let himself hope though. He'd squashed that dangerous feeling before it had taken hold.
He knows what he has to do. He knows the score. He keeps them all together and he knows it.
He doesn't even wish that he didn't. He's too old for that now.
The last of them doesn't look as though he is even among the living. Only the steady beep of the life support machine and the soft rush of air into the mask gives away his status as alive. Living, though, is a relative term. His body is metal and man-made fibre. Fast, strong, deadly. Combined with his mind (and his bloodlust), he makes the perfect killer.
Born to spill and bathe in blood.
He eyes are open. Silver blue eyes stare at the bulkhead listlessly. He's almost angry.
(He doesn't want pity)
He's almost filled with self-hatred.
(Pathetic. That's what he is)
He's almost crippled with guilt.
(It's his fault. He knows it)
Underneath it all though, he's terrified.
He's knows it. He doesn't run away, not this time.
He's terrified of being alone.
Of not having the safety net of others to fall back on.
He'd always had that, before.
Even in Liberia.
He's always been able to run.
He's used to losing things too. He never had friends while he was growing up in the civil war, but losing people was not something he liked. He lost his parents, he lost his innocence, he lost his childhood, he lost his purpose, he lost the woman he loved, the man who trained him, the man who was a surrogate father, his guidance, his body, his mind, the child he never got to see-
He's managed to stumble through all that though.
He's messed up (It's hard not to see, the light in his eyes when he spills blood). He knows it. Hell, everyone knows it.
But if he loses the only person who gave him truth in all the lies, he doesn't think he'll even be able to run this time.
The cabin is still, if not quiet.
None of them men say anything to each other.
The three of them know that eventually, they'll reach the end. The stillness will be no more and whatever is coming will find them, and they will meet it. The outcome will be whatever it will be.
Nothing is said, because nothing needs to be said.
They all know.
They are just three tired men, weary and spent, sitting in their flying behemoth, waiting for the beginning of the end.
- End –
I've been wanting the new Metal Gear Revengeance for a while now, and in preparation, I've been replaying all the games. I started at two, since that's the earliest one I own and I just finished four.
I tried to capture my impressions of Otacon, Snake and Raiden as they struck me after the death of Big Mama. This was pounded out in about one and a half hours, at half two in the morning because well… it came to me at half two in the morning. You all know how it is. I wanted to write more for Raiden, but I don't want to seem biased because he's my favourite character. ._.
Still, did you enjoy it? Anything you think should be added? Taken away?