Just Be Quiet
A Metal Gear Solid FanFiction
Chapter One: Punishment
(*****)
A/N: This Fanfic will be dealing with the nine year timeskip between MGSV: GZ and MGSV: PP, and the idea of Chico becoming Quiet during that time, and the journey behind that theory. While I am in support of the theory, I realise that not everyone would agree with me. Everyone has the right to their opinion. If you wish to leave a review, please don't flame, but please criticise in a constructive manner. Your words are important to me and I enjoy knowing where I've gone wrong.
Warning: Death, torture, mentions of sex/rape, self-mutilation, profanity, and gender identity issues. Also, Skull Face, and my attempts to make him even worse.
Rating: Mature/NC – 17
Characters: Chico/Quiet, Kaz, Paz, Big Boss, Skull Face, Huey
Disclaimer: I own nothing, more's the pity.
Special Thanks: To Hideo Kojima for producing the MGS series, Zoehi on deviantART for their work 'Just be quiet Metal Gear' which got the plot bunny jumping and serves as the cover image, and heroX7 on the same for helping me with refining some of the plot.
(*****)
"Your favourite song… Nicola, Bart – immigrants, wrongly executed… But their deaths served as a message to others: that ours is a society that murders the innocent. Do you, too, believe that your sacrifice will change the world?"
Skull Face, Camp Omega, 1975
(*****)
"Snake!"
"The explosion was nothing but a smokescreen…"
"This isn't right! That was ours…"
"Bomb! There's a—"
"It's alright. We got it out."
"There's another… in my…"
"NO!"
(*****)
Through the windows, the sun burnt a blinding white.
Chico lurched forward off the gurney in a blind panic, adrenaline pumping through his veins as the nightmare ended and reality beckoned. His body screamed as he hit the floor, and he screamed with it, pain in its purest form washing over him like water. Whimpering, oblivious to the arms that encircled his abused body and placed him gently back on the gurney, the gruesome images replayed behind his eyes. Mother Base in flames and ruins, his compas dying in droves, Paz…
He wanted to be sick.
Dimly, he could hear people rushing around him, could feel hands touching his wounds, applying salves and bandages. He cautiously opened his eyes again, slowly this time to give them time to adjust to the brightness. There were men and women dressed in white, doctors and nurses obviously, congregating around someone in his line of sight. The nurse in front of him moved out of the way, and he saw a blood-stained figure with an eye patch whom served as the centre of attention. On the far side of the room, another man on a gurney, equally slathered in blood and wearing a pair of aviators, watched them go about their work, anguish and pain twisting handsome features.
"Don't you die on me, damn it," he cursed as Chico looked on in dawning horror. That was Kazuhira Miller, second in command of Militaries Sans Frontières, and there was only one person in the world he'd look that stricken for. The soldier who was a legend in the eyes of the battlefield, the hero who had saved the world three times over from nuclear destruction, the man that treated all his comrades as his own family…
The friend that had convinced Chico to live on and stand tall as a new man, who had saved him from the depths of hell even when by rights he should have left him behind.
He lay there, limp and unmoving, not quite dead, but not quite ready to join the land of the living.
'Snake!'
Just as realisation poured through Chico's mind, the heart rate monitor started flat-lining, the shrill tone screaming through the eardrums of those present. Doctors rushed around the fallen soldier, doing everything they could to bring him back to the land of the living. He could barely hear the staff as they rushed, but Chico's eye, so good at noticing details, caught one thing in particular.
FOX
XOF
A monster masquerading as a man, his tone civil and chillingly calm, and his face ruined to the form of a skull
"Your boss and I go way back."
"Clear," snarled a doctor as he defibrillated the inert form, a cool sweat clinging to his brow in response to the life or death situation. The charge went through Snake's body, but there was no improvement from the monitor. In a flash another member of staff started pumping Snake's chest before giving up. "No response! Hit him again," he ordered his colleague, who complied. Again the FOX patch caught Chico's eye, the start of a connection forming in his mind.
"Clear," the doctor cried again, and this time it worked. The monitor started steadily beating at a regular rate, confirming Snake's survival. Chico let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Whatever was up there hadn't abandoned them yet.
"How's he doing," Kaz asked from the other side of the room. The doctor had his back to Chico but the boy imagined a small frown on his face "Well, he's stabilised," he replied, "but it took too long. He's in a coma." As he spoke the nurse that had been blocking Chico's line of sight moved again and he saw Kaz again, with the blond staring as if he was only just noticing him.
"What about him," he almost snarled and Chico flinched at the venom in his tone. He knew Kaz was angry, knew that he wanted to blame someone, and that he was directly responsible for passing information on MSF and Mother Base. It didn't make him any less nervous of the older man. If there wasn't a comatose Snake and his own wounds between them, there was no doubt the soldier would be grappling him and demanding answers.
The doctor attending to Chico chose to speak up at that point. "Broken ribs," he noted dryly, "numerous scars and welts which were inflicted prior to this accident, a hole in his chest resembling a headphone jack, broken leg, and to top it all off bolts driven through his heels for whatever reason." He locked eyes with Chico and gave a sincere smile. "You'll make it if you get the right treatment, but I don't think you'll be walking again son." His expression promptly turned stony. "Who did this to you?"
Chico screamed as the first bolt pierced through his tendons. The soldier in charge hit him until his cry had morphed into a sobbing whimper. "Prepare yourself for round two," he intoned emotionlessly, and nodded to his subordinate to continue.
Every time a bolt screwed through flesh, Chico screamed and cried. Every time he did so, he was beaten until he stopped, at which point the procedure continued. It was a vicious cycle.
This was his reward. This was his punishment. And all throughout, Skull Face watched impassively, his amusement hidden under sheer professionalism. Leaning on the bars, he grinned at the stricken boy.
"Can't make this too easy for your boss, can we?"
A loud grunt shook Chico from the painful memory. Kaz, despite his injuries, had propped himself on one arm and was trying to shift the rest of his body off the gurney. "Why," he hissed at the prone boy, "why the hell do you get to live after what you've done!?" With a mighty effort he pulled himself upright, barely catching an I.V. to stabilise himself.
"It's because of you that we lost everyone! It's because of you that those bastards destroyed our dream! It's because of youthat Snake's in a coma!" A doctor tried to restrain the blond but Kaz shook him off roughly. "Did you hear that Chico? The men who trusted you, the people who were your comrades are dead because you bleated like a sheep! Guess history decided to repeat itself. You sold us out, just like you did your compas!" He started forward, inching around the unresponsive Snake. "Well Chico? You got anything to say?"
"Th-they were hurting Paz-"
"I don't give a damn about that bitch," Kaz roared as he limped even closer. "She betrayed us and by all rights she should have died a long time ago. What did you think was going to happen when you decided to play 'hero'? That you'd rescue the girl like in the movies and everything would be sugar and rainbows? What did they do to get you to talk? Promise the two of you a way out? A fresh start as Mr and Mrs Valenciano Libre? No, don't answer, I already know. You decided that everyone, every damn person on Mother Base, meant absolutely nothing compared to a traitor you deluded yourself into thinking loved you!"
"I…I…"
"Oh, so now you decide to go quiet on us," Kaz sneered in disgust. "Where was that muteness when it really goddamn mattered, huh?" Tears streamed down his face in grief and rage, and Chico could feel his own falling down his cheeks. With strength born of anger Kaz lunged at Chico, pinning the teenager under his more developed physique. "Oh, don't you dare cry! You don't have the fucking right to that, you hear me you lousy traitor!?" Bandages tore under Kaz's hands and wounds reopened, soaking Chico's prison uniform in fresh blood. "It should have been you that died! It should have been YOU!"
"Sir, stop this" a third voice entered the fray. Another man, his face covered in his own bandages, grabbed Kaz's shoulders and pulled with a heroic effort. "Sir, please! You could kill him!" The blond snarled at him, "That's the plan!" Chico gasped for breath as Kaz's crushing hands found their way to his throat. The Medic gave another fruitless tug before an orderly, whom had been standing by in shock, rushed over to help.
Kaz struggled even as they restrained him. "You're a piece of work alright. You sell us out, then decide to feel bad about it? If I ever," the aviators fell off as he was pushed back on the gurney and Chico recoiled at the pure loathing and hatred in his superior's eyes, "if I ever see your face again you son of a bitch, I'll make you suffer for what you've done, traitor!" Behind Chico, the orderly pushed the gurney through the doors leading to the hall, and the last the scout saw of Kazuhira Miller was his face, his features distorted by hate and grief, and his eyes smouldering with the embers of revenge.
The injured boy was pushed through the adjacent hallway, as sterile as the emergency room. If there was anything different to it, Chico didn't notice. Inside his mind, he replayed Kaz's words over and over again, each repetition more painful than the last.
Traitor,
Traitor,
TRAITOR!
He was starting to feel lightheaded, and for some reason the pain was leaving, only to be replaced with a freezing numbness in its wake as brilliant red life-blood steadily vacated his body. Dimly, he could hear the orderly call out for help, before everything went dark.
(*****)
"Chico…wake up…."
Chico groaned as the voice reverberated through his head. No, he silently begged, just leave me be.
"Get up!"
With great effort, if only to make the voice stop, he opened his weary eyes, and wished he hadn't. Skull Face stood behind bars in all his grotesque glory. Or rather Chico was behind bars, as the rain and wind blew up a storm through his cage. His torturer smiled at him, and disappeared in a blinding flash of lightning.
When the light had vanished, Chico realised that he was standing, and more importantly, who was strung up in front of him. Paz, beaten, whipped, and naked, but still beautiful despite all that, looked at him with determination and resignation in her eyes. With a lurch he realised where he was. No, he begged, anything but this.
"What's the matter boy?" Chico shuddered as a faux-friendly arm draped itself over his shoulder. "I thought I told you to get on with it?" The arm tightened briefly in thought, as if its owner was considering the implications behind Chico's hesitance. "Ah, of course! Doubtlessly such a," a mocking pause, "repulsive woman has left you quite unable to perform. No matter. I've…prepared for this." The arm withdrew, and Skull Face entered Chico's vision, a bottle of unmarked pills in one hand and a canteen in the other. "These," he gestured to the pills, "are to help your performance while this," now the canteen jiggled, "will help you keep it down." A nod to an unseen figure, and Chico felt an impact centred on his back, making him bend over in pain. As he opened his mouth to cry in surprise, a pill was shoved into his mouth, and then water flooded it. Choking, he didn't resist as Skull Face pushed him towards Paz. "How's it feel now then," he chuckled with grim amusement.
Chico trembled as his body started 'reacting' to the drugs, unable to look Paz in the eyes while blood rushed to his lower body. No, he couldn't, he couldn't do THIS to her, he couldn't…
A clap of hands. "Let's get the show going, shall we?"
With great effort, he raised his eyes to meets Paz's, and saw courage that he knew he never had.
"Begin."
And with that the world changed again.
MSF personnel fighting against the unknown forces, dying in droves. A soldier took a shot to the head, and Snake charged back out, pure rage fuelling his charge. Another flash and Snake was lying on the gurney, his life fading fast and the doctors slathered in his blood. Chico stumbled forward, and a final flash lit up.
Paz was before him again, lying on the chopper bench, free yet trapped. Chico blinked and Snake and the medic were cutting her open. She screamed as Snake's hands dug around inside her intestines, and Chico found his hands pushing down on her stomach, nausea rushing through his stomach as he tried to keep as much of her guts inside her as he possibly could.
He shut his eyes once again, and when he opened them, hell rose before him.
Fire ate its way through Mother Base as it sank into the sea, and with it so many lives, hopes, and dreams. The man beside him cried hysterically as Morpho flew them away from the destruction. Tentatively, Chico tried to comfort him as best he could under the circumstances. Raised voices caused him to turn around and see Kaz manhandling Paz. He grabbed the man's shoulders, only to be thrown back, and the scene fast-forwarded to the worst part.
Paz, her face panicked and drawn, opening the hatch of the helicopter,
The jump, Snake lunging forward to stop her,
The explosion…
The dead accusing him with glares, wounds that had killed them highlighted in bright crimson,
A XOF patch burning itself on his retinas,
"Growing up means choosing how to live your life."
"You're a 'real man' now, soldier."
"NO!"
"NO!"
A cry of anguish ripped from Chico's throat as he was wrenched back into consciousness. Drenched in sweat and panicking, he threw the sheets covering him to the ground and stood, only to collapse as his legs buckled beneath him. Blood surged through his brain as he tried to pick himself up. With a heroic effort, he grabbed the railing attached to the bed and stood, pain flaring through his tendons. Tears welled in his eyes as the nightmare caught up with him.
Kaz, Skull Face, Paz, they had all been right, Chico realised with cold clarity. He had played the traitor, fitted into the role like he was born for it. Hell, maybe he was. Selling people out seemed to be a running trend when it came to him. His compas, then MSF, who else would his cowardice betray?
Within his mind, the voices resonated their condemnation.
Traitor!
TRAITOR!
TRAITOR!
Groaning, he tried to take his mind off of the phantoms by appraising the plain room he'd been placed in. Small, with an ajar door leading out to a hallway, and a tray of medical utensils and medicines on a countertop. With no one else in sight, the evidence suggested someone had left the room in a rush or they were just sloppy and unprofessional. Something shiny caught his eye.
A simple scalpel laid on the tray, polished metal gleaming in the stark light. Suddenly, with the same clarity, Chico knew what he must do. It was simple really. All he had to do was make sure he'd never sell out anyone ever again.
Slowly, as if he was still in a dream, he grabbed the tool from the tray, urging himself not to back down. With slow and deliberate movements, he raised it to his mouth and placed it on his tongue, the sharp, cool metal sending a wave of fear through his body.
Paz screaming at him, strung up against the wall, bloody yet defiant,
A movement of the arm. A voiceless howl. Blinding pain. A splatter as the organ fell to the floor. Blood filling his mouth.
"How does it feel to play the traitor?"
He hacked at the tongue, focused all his hate and pain and self-loathing into the task as blood dribbled down his chin. Tears flowed freely as he soldiered through the pain, as he sliced through tender meat and turned it into ribbons. He didn't even hear the nurse scream and run for the doctor as she walked in, so fixated on his task, his punishment.
They forced him back on the bed, restrained him to prevent any more self-inflicted injures, and as they staunched the bleeding from his mouth, all Chico could think of was the faces of the dead, eyes boring into his soul with their judgement.
'This is the least I deserve…'
(*****)
Morpho limped down the hall, leaning heavily on the loaned cane he was given. He'd come out of the crash with only moderate injuries to show for it, the worst being some shrapnel in his back and a wrenched leg. To say he got off lightly was an understatement: by all rights he should have been in an even worse condition than Snake. Still, maybe some deity up on high decided to cut MSF a break and let them all live. Maybe they were just being toyed with.
Shit, it didn't matter. Morpho had more pressing issues on hand anyways.
Here it was. Room 113. He knocked once before entering quietly and shutting the door behind him. What was about to go down was for MSF ears only.
The kid lay unmoving on the bed, silent as the grave, and if not for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he could be mistaken for being dead. He made no attempt to acknowledge Morpho's presence, and his dulled eyes stared at the ceiling unblinkingly. According to the nurse that gave him the directions to the room, he'd stayed like that ever since he'd cut his own tongue out, an act that made Morpho shudder in sympathy pains. The pilot gingerly moved towards a seat and sat, stifling a groan as he did.
For a while, quiet reigned supreme, the boy incapable of speaking, and the pilot formulating his thoughts. Morpho winced as he leaned forward and started to speak.
"Kid," no, kid didn't sound right. "Chico," he amended quickly, "I've, ah, got a few things I'd like to discuss with you." Right, discuss with a mute. Great phrasing right there.
No response. Right.
"Look, I wanted to say that…not all of us hate you. The MSF survivors, I mean." Morpho ducked his head as he rattled his mind for the right words. "A lot of them are pissed off royally at you. No, that's an understatement. They're baying for your blood right now, claiming that if you hadn't….broken…back at Camp Omega none of this wouldn't have happened. Heck, a few of them were all for putting a bullet in you or worse until Commander Miller stepped in."
A slight shift of the neck, and they were eye to eye. Now he had the boy's attention.
"He said you weren't worth the bullet."
Chico resumed staring at the ceiling.
"Uh…anyways, the Commander's grouping everyone back together. Anyone who was off-base or got off in time is to regroup back at the base in Columbia and figure out where to go from there. The Boss," here Morpho bit back a sigh of despair at the memory of the legend trapped in his coma, "is going to remain here for the time being until he wakes up or if something changes. Doc said he that they have no clue when or if he'll wake up though, but the Commander's made all the arrangements."
Still no response. All right, commence Plan B.
"I brought something for you," the pilot muttered as he pulled an object out of his dressing gown. Chico's stomach lurched as he watched from the corner of his eye.
It was his Walkman. By some small miracle it had survived the crash as well. Morpho deposited it on his bed, headphones and all, and grinned at him. "Nice surprise, huh? One of the other guy's pulled it from the crash site before we were evacuated here. Little dinged up but," he tapped the device gently, "it's still able to play cassette tapes. Heck, someone even put a tape in for you!"
Chico stared at the Walkman for some time before nodding and giving a wan smile. Morpho had given him it as a friendly gesture, and that deserved some recognition, didn't it?
Morpho grinned wider, bolstered by his success before his expression turned serious again. "Look Chico, I came here because I wanted to let you know that I don't blame you for what happened at Camp Omega, alright? Shit I," he grasped for the words, "I can't imagine how much you went through down there. Both you and Paz were victims, even if you broke. I saw both of you when the Boss extracted you and you both looked like you went through the wringer. I mean," he nodded at Chico's useless tendons, "that's brutal, especially on someone your age. And that bomb stunt they pulled with Paz?" He shook his head in disgust, "That was just plain wrong on so many levels."
Chico felt moved by Morpho's impassioned spiel. Sympathy for him, and more importantly Paz, would be few and far between the remaining MSF personnel. Struggling to a sitting position, he held his hand out to the pilot, and tentatively, they shook with respect and understanding. The older man smiled at him, appreciative of the effort. "I guess you're a real man now, eh soldier," he teased.
Suddenly it felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees in the room. Chico's hand yanked itself back and where there had been a smile was now a fierce scowl. His eyes burned with barely restrained anger, and surprisingly self-loathing, and Morpho instinctively knew that his welcome was over.
"I'll, uh, see myself out," he stammered as he picked himself out of the chair. "You don't have to worry about the bills for your treatment. Doc talked Kaz into doing you one last favour after he said they weren't gonna kill you." Chico made no move to acknowledge his words and sunk back down to the bed listlessly. With a backward glance, Morpho opened the door and left the room, knowing in his heart that he'd just said the wrong thing.
Chico scowled as Morpho's words, mingled with the sour notes of Skull Face, played through his head. A real man, huh? Maybe, once upon a time, he would have taken that as a compliment and be proud. Now though it only served to remind him of his failings and misdeeds towards those he cared about, a statement that filled him with shame and remorse.
Ever since he'd been a small boy he'd wanted to prove himself to his family and compas, to prove that he was one of them. He'd mapped terrain, gathered food when rations were low, cleaned and maintained weapons, all to make them treat him as a man and not as a child. Well, he was a 'man' now, and it sure as hell didn't feel like anything remotely close to what he'd envisioned. If anything, he reflected, Paz had shown the qualities that he had lacked. The courage to defy her captors to the end, the strength to withstand their torture, the compassion to comfort one whom didn't deserve it…
Shifting his body, he felt an object digging into his side. Grasping it, Chico realised that it was his Walkman, forgotten during his self-reflection. The tape was still inside and the boy couldn't help but feel apprehensive about it. Morpho claimed that it was placed there by someone, which in turn meant that it could have come from anywhere. For all he knew it was one of Skull Face's recordings, a reminder of the monster he didn't really need.
Still, it was there, and Chico remembered a saying Snake had told him once. Inquiry killed the Ocelot or something?
Don't be stupid, he chided himself as he fitted the headphones in. At the very least he could tear the headphones out if the subject matter proved to be too personal, right? Repositioning himself, he pressed Play.
A familiar clearing of a throat.
Wait…
"Chico."
Paz….
(*****)
"I am borrowing your recorder. Hope you do not mind." Paz glanced around the cage, checking to see if any guards had heard her speak. They hadn't, and so she continued on, the unaware Chico snoring softly by her side.
"I know it hurts right now, but it will all be over soon. Just thinking that helps keeps the pain away." Oh yes it did. Chico's being here meant many things; the idea that MSF would no doubt launch a recovery operation now that he was captured chief among them.
But most of all, Chico was a symbol of something she had almost forsaken: hope.
"Chico…I would do anything to get you out of here." That was truth, pure and simple. She'd die before letting anymore harm come to him, especially from that monster. "It is funny…I have never helped anyone else before, only Cipher. That is the truth."
"I…I never imagined you would come for me." If anything she'd imagined Snake, his eyes blazing with hurt and suspicion, coming to her rescue, not Chico, the boy that had always had a kind word for her and was so amusingly shy when they spoke. "I was not very nice at first, I know. But I did not mean it. I…I was afraid they would try to use you, somehow." They had in their depraved ways, and Paz mentally vowed that Cipher and Skull Face would be punished for harming Chico, be it by her hand or another's. "But to be honest… Having you with me here put my mind at ease. I hope that does not sound selfish. I thought I would never make it." On an impulse she placed a hand on his head and stroked his hair with fondness. He shifted slightly and curled up closer to her, his expression softening, and Paz felt her heart glow at seeing him find a small measure of peace.
"But together, I think we can. I am watching you sleep as I record this. You have made me believe. That I will make it out of here… And that – no matter what happens – it will not be the end for me."
Softly, so as to not wake the slumbering boy, Paz bent and placed her lips on his forehead in a gentle butterfly kiss.
"Thank you, Chico."
(*****)
As Paz's soft soothing voice faded away, Chico felt fresh tears running down his cheeks. She…she had believed in him? Even after everything he'd done to her, she still saw him as a beacon of hope?
Reverently, he closed his eyes tight, and in the steadfast quiet made a vow.
"This is not the end for you Paz. No matter what has happened, you will live on through me."
"For peace."
"For justice."
"For hope."
"For love."
"I will remember you as you were."
Never again would Chico fail another human soul like he had Paz. Never again would he betray those he called compas. Never again would he submit to the monsters of the world.
In that moment, that one perfect moment of clarity, Ricardo Valenciano Libre ceased to be.
"From now on, I will be…..Quiet….."
(*****)
The on duty nurse glanced at the chart in front of her. "Are you sure that Mr Libre knows you?" She frowned at the man on the other side of the desk. "No one's come to see him in the last two months, and forgive me for being discourteous, but you don't look like family."
"That's not a problem Miss. Chico knows me well enough."
"Very well. As long as you follow our regulations, I'll allow you to see him. To whom shall I refer to you as then, sir?"
The paraplegic adjusted his glasses and gave a nervous smile.
"Mr Huey Emmerich."
(*****)
A/N: Annnnnd that's a wrap!
So, what did you think? Please leave a review if you have the time, and thank you for reading. Chapter Two will begin its first draft soon.
Until then!
(P.S. did you see Mother Base at the end of the E3 demo? The Phantom Pain is shaping up to be as awesome as it is dark.)
