~But mostly words

Got a few things actually! I updated my little MGS art dump with some stuff fairly recently, for those who don't dig through the dorky rambling on my lj for update notices and such. I'm also working on what may be a fairly huge MGS flash project but it'll be a while before that's finished. BUT IT IS IN PRODUCTION. For now anyway.
Also two tiny quick Ocelot/Solidus sketches that haven't made it up to the site yet. :O I might ink that second one if I get around to it. if this flash doesn't kill me first

I also uploaded some subtexty conversations from MGS4 to youtube, although of course SPOILER WARNING for those, so be careful if you're avoiding them.

And also, a shortish fic! Although it's not related to the challenge, sorry. :B


Title: Look Up
Pairings: I wrote this with Snake/Otacon in mind, but it came out more like subtexty gen. Whoops.
Game: Post-MGS4, with spoilers for the state of some characters at the end of the game. I'm trying to be as vague as possible about this.
Rating: G
Warnings: Alternates between light-hearted and depressing, so... watch out for that? I'm again trying to be vague here. :O
Summary: Is this a bad time to go into a long, boring ramble about something unimportant that we all probably already know and don't really care about?
Apparently not.



He woke up to the sound of the jeep going through a bush.

He sighed a bit, reconnecting where he was and who he was with and what they were supposed to be doing, and he wondered if he'd have to actually open his eyes.

"Otacon, what's going on."

"Taking a detour, Snake," Otacon said, as if there was nothing weird about the fact he'd veered off the road into the Alaskan wilderness without warning.

"To where?" There was nothing to do in these situations but simply take them in stride.

"Well, I was just thinking..." The car swerved to one side. Snake finally decided this might require more active attention and turned to face forward, slowly opening his eyes. A tree flickered through the headlights before vanishing in the darkness. "It's a really clear night tonight, you know? I could see everything outside the windshield, even the stars."

"And?" Snake scratched his head a little as the jeep bumped its way down a fairly steep incline. Otacon seemed unconcerned.

"Well..." Otacon took one hand from the wheel to adjust his glasses, and the jeep jerked and trembled beneath them. "How long has it been since you really looked at the stars, Snake?"

Snake looked at him, and Otacon kept his eyes focused on the countryside with a faint smile.

Eventually Snake rolled his eyes and decided there was nothing to do except wait for the car to stop.

---
It was Otacon's idea to take a trip back to Alaska. They asked Jack if he wouldn't mind taking care of Sunny for a few days while they were gone, and since Sunny and John kind of got along, all things considered, Jack agreed eventually. Something about bringing Sunny with them felt strange to him... Otacon couldn't place exactly why, but he'd been trying (as difficult as it was) to let Sunny interact with real people more anyway, so it worked out well on both fronts.

As for the trip itself, as far as Otacon could tell Snake seemed to be enjoying it (he told him it was a good idea), even if he spent most of his time asleep. He didn't blame him for that really... after everything he'd been through, he deserved some rest.

And, that timer in the back of his mind kept reminding him, it had been almost eight months. As much as he wanted to forget to add each passing day to his mental countdown, he couldn't.

But that was why he wanted to do things like this, anyway.

Otacon stopped the car and stepped out into the crisp night air. He took some deep breaths that burned in his lungs in a familiar way, then went around the front of the jeep to see if Snake was going to join him, or was going to pretend to be asleep in the front seat.

Instead, Snake was just watching him from inside through barely open eyes, his expression too faint to be easily read. He looked so exhausted, so worn most of the time that it was hard to see anything else. Otacon tried not to think about it, and he opened the door.

"You just going to stay in there?"

"I was thinking about it," Snake said. Otacon tilted his head, frowning.

"I'm already out. You could at least walk with me a little. The fresh air would probably be good for you anyway."

"Where are we going?"

"I told you before!" Otacon gestured at the sky. "Come on."

Snake stared at him for a few long seconds, and Otacon stayed where he was. Snake then slowly sighed and made his way out of the jeep a bit haltingly, shaking hands braced against the door and seat to keep his balance. Otacon was tempted to offer his hand for a second to help him, but he had a feeling Snake wouldn't take it. He usually didn't.

At least he was out of the car, so that was done anyway. He shut the door behind Snake to cut off any thoughts of escape, and Snake took a few steps away and stood there, surveying his surroundings with a fairly unreadable expression. After a moment's pause, Otacon decided that it'd be best if he led, as usual. Snake was used to that. He started walking.

He looked behind him to see that Snake was following him, although he was taking his time.

"Why the sudden interest in the sky?" Snake asked eventually, his voice rough.

Otacon saw something close to a clearing up ahead... that'd be the best for what he had planned. He nodded authoritatively. "Well, have you ever really looked at it? You didn't really answer my question, you know."

He slowed down a bit so Snake could catch up. "No, I haven't."

"Too busy with things on the ground, huh?" Otacon smiled back to him, a bit weak. "Me too."

"Too busy with your computer stuff is more like it."

Otacon ignored that and stepped into the center of the patch of open grass, waiting for Snake to join him. Instead, Snake lingered by the edges of the clearing, as if weighing whether or not he should just go back to the car. Not when they'd come this far, and Otacon walked back over to him and held his hand out to Snake, then realized Snake wasn't going to return that offer and just took his hand instead. Snake's eyes widened for a second, but he let Otacon pull him forward, probably in part because Otacon's grip made it clear he was not taking no for an answer.

"Come on, Snake." He pulled Snake to stand beside him in the center of the clearing, and looked up at the sky, gesturing for Snake to do the same. He waited until Snake did so, with a sigh, and then continued. "You can see everything, can't you?"

"Mmm."

"In the city, you can barely see any stars at all." Otacon pointed a bit with his free hand. "All the lights there drown them out. There aren't a lot of places anymore where you can really see stars. Deserts, of course, but sometimes in places like this, too. You can see a lot more than usual."

Snake made another affirmative noise, but didn't say anything further. Otacon decided to take advantage of this moment while he had the chance, and he sat down on the grass beneath him. Snake gave him a puzzled look.

"What are you doing?"

"Sit down, Snake." Otacon tilted his head at him disapprovingly. Snake kept staring.

"What?"

"Sit down. If we keep looking up like that, it'll mess up both our necks." Otacon rubbed the back of his to emphasize his point, and Snake looked distinctly unimpressed with the theory. Not that Otacon was going to give up so easily, and he tugged Snake's hand a few times. Eventually Snake relented and sat down beside him.

"Now lie down."

"Why?"

"Because that's how normal people stargaze, Snake." As if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Otacon sighed to punctuate the point. Snake still seemed unimpressed, and he shrugged somewhat.

"We're not normal people," Snake said, a bit rough.

"I know you're-" Then he thought better of it, and he flopped back against the grass with a huff and ignored how his back ached a bit at the sudden movement. He wasn't as young as he used to be. "Come on, Snake, it won't kill you."

Snake grumbled a bit, resisted his attempts to pull him down to join him, but gave in eventually as he thought he would. Side by side in the grass, and this would be much more comfortable.

"I didn't know you were into astrology," Snake said. Otacon was still holding his hand.

"They're kind of beautiful. The stars and the moon. It's one of those things you don't think about very often. I always liked them... I used to read books about them when I was a kid." A faint smile. "But when I grew up I never really saw them much, since I was always in a lab or on a computer. When I was driving back there, I really saw them for a second." He paused. "I thought you might want to see them too."

"Mm." Snake took a deep breath, and Otacon was sure he wanted a cigarette. He'd so far kept his word about quitting, although he made no secret of how difficult and unpleasant it was. "People don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on over their heads."

Otacon held up a hand, stars between his long fingers in the night sky. All it took was a slight movement of his hands, a fingertip and a star's light was blotted out. One moment shining, and the next gone. "They get so caught up in the daily grind that they don't appreciate the little things. They don't really look at things anymore."

"It's easier that way."

"Yeah, but I thought that as long as we're here, we might as well see something we don't see very often." He glanced over at him with a soft smile. "Makes sense to me, anyway."

"Yeah."

A pause, and Otacon thought about the immense distance traveled by each ray of light, all to make it here tonight. Huge spans of time gone in an instant, all spent for this moment. "We've been watching them for centuries, eons..." He wasn't even aware he'd started talking, but decided to keep going. "Our ancient ancestors were looking at the same stars we're looking at now."

"And in the future, when we're gone, the next generations will do the same." Snake's voice was softer.

"That's right." Otacon nodded, trying his best to smile through the growing pressure in his chest. He wasn't sure he succeeded. "Stars are kind of eternal that way."

A long pause. He glanced over and Snake's eyes were closed, his hair faintly lit silver by the moonlight.

"Yeah," Snake said, finally.

Otacon watched him for a few moments, his heartbeat picking up just a little, his throat tightening, and then he snapped his eyes back to the sky above, searching a bit wildly.

"How many constellations can you see, Snake?"

Snake coughed a little, his fingers tightening unconsciously in Otacon's grip. "I was never too good at that stuff."

"It's not like they're hard to find," Otacon said, laughing thinly. "They're pictures in the sky, after all... I mean, even cavemen could find them!"

"Huh," Snake said, exactly as he usually did when feigning interest in something he couldn't care less about. His eyes were still closed.

Otacon forced himself to look back up. He raised his hand again, a black silhouette against the dark sky and its dozens of sparkling pinpricks. "Do you see those three stars there, very close to each other? They're pretty bright." He pointed.

"Uh huh."

"That's Orion's Belt." His voice hesitantly fading into the calm, even tone he used to explain things to Snake. Technology, current battlefield conditions, mission objectives, now constellations. They'd done this millions of times, it was normal. It kept his voice even and would hopefully quiet the growing fear he felt. "Orion's also called the Hunter. It's one of the easiest ones to find... even you can find it, Snake."

"I see it," Snake said, faintly. Otacon kept his eyes on the stars above him, his arm locked upright and his fingers spread to hold the sky in his hand.

"It's visible all over the world... even if you're in a big city, if you know where to look for it. Although not everyplace calls it Orion. You can also use Orion to find other stars... if you follow the line of the three stars, the belt, southeast, you can see the Dog Star, Sirius." He swallowed, and it was difficult. The cold air was drying his throat. "Sirius is one of the brightest stars in the sky, so you can see it pretty easily. It's called the Dog Star since it's part of another constellation called Canis Major, or 'Big Dog' in Latin. But if you ask me, I think Canis Major looks more like a cup than a dog." Otacon paused to steady his voice. "I know where the stars are and what constellation they go to, but sometimes I wonder how people could see dogs or swans or bears in them."

The feeling wasn't going away.

"Kind of funny, if you think about it..." He blinked several times. "Maybe earlier civilizations were more creative than we are. We've got TV and VR and the internet, and all they had were a bunch of dots. But they could see beautiful things in the sky, and nowadays most of us can't see anything! ...It's so easy to lose our focus on what's important. And if you're not using a skill it's going to atrophy of course... we don't need to see pictures in the stars, we can see them everywhere else..."

His voice died in the night air, the sound of crickets chirping and his increasingly ragged breathing filling the void. He tried to find it again, make his tongue move, his throat stop constricting. He blinked again, his face warm against the night air, and he felt something fall from the corner of his eye. The feeling rose up like it was going to swallow him whole, but he trembled and tried to keep going.

"Even brighter than Sirius..." He took a deep breath, nearly gulped. A cold trail marked along the side of his face, now joined by its twin on his other side, his vision blurring beneath his glasses. The sky now a dark mass, the faint light from the moon the only distinguishable thing. "There's something even brighter than Sirius... I mean, it's almost the brightest thing in the sky. Besides the Moon and Venus, and... and sometimes Mars, maybe, depending on its orbit. Do you-" He choked for a second. "Do you know what it is, Dave?"

He tightened trembling fingers around Dave's own, both cold from the night air. He blinked again, tears falling now more rapidly.

Almost a whisper. "Dave?"

He turned his head to look at him, and Dave had his eyes closed, silent and still, one hand resting on his chest. Otacon stared at him for a few moments before he let his arm fall over him, curled up close and buried his face in his shoulder. His glasses jabbed into the corners of his eyes.

Choked and thick through a broken sob.

"It's Jupiter."