Being a smell John is not too bothered by, he immediately takes notice how Solid isn't the slightest bit bothered the closer he came in -- actually, truly happy. He has to nod Marie down to sit, however, but is grateful when Yuuko understands this wouldn't be her kind of meal.
He bows in thanks, and before eating... he notices Solid's portions are second biggest to him. Him. His physiology needed more calories and a defined diet, and it was something Marie Zofie was quick to remind friends of them that wanted to cook for him.
As Marie gladly comes to ask for cooked rice with egg sauce, John turns to him, asking lowly.
"You've eaten this before?"
He could understand if he was a soldier, and like him, he was adapted to eat anything on the field. But this food brought him joy. Happiness. Much in the way she and Marie eat the Moa that had only been found in here.
[Aand Sumomo gets up, and gives Yuuko a "I told you so" grin at that, and goes to warm up some plain white rice for Marie. She gets some egg sauce for her, and also some tofu with ground meat sauce too - Variety was the spice of life, she felt.]
[And then she set both in front of Marie with a florish.]
- Oagariyo!
[Yuuko snickiered - Which foodie manga had Sumomo been reading now, anyway?]
[And then she turned her attention back to David and the rest of them.]
[David, in the meanwhile, was wondering how to explain this.]
When I was 13 going on 14, two big things happened in my life - James came to live with us, and we were downsized for the last time.
[Technically speaking, the part that had been downsized had been Dr Jane Clark's part of the Les Infants Terrible project, and she'd had plenty of other things she'd been dipping her toes into even at that time, but never mind that.]
- So we moved again, and all of a sudden, we had less the 60 people living in the same building, including all the guards and the research assistants and the janitorial staff.
...And then, the other problems started - There was something wrong with the food HQ was sending us, for whatever reason, and Dr Clark said that she wasn't going to waste her time trying to eat unedible food, and that we should go to the supermarket and buy the food we needed to the problem cleared up.
[David smiled again, remembering the first time he'd gone to one of those mega sized supermarkets, a wide eyed James at his side.]
[So. Much. Stuff.]
...And then Sergent Kim wanted to make kimuchi, and Sergent Watanabe said that if Sargent Kim was allowed to make kimuchi he should be allowed to go buy some natto, and then Mrs Thaksin said that she would take over part of the cooking since she'd had some experience, but she was a Thai curry lover as it turns out -
And all of a sudden, the our everyday food became much more international. Not to mention... interesting.
[So many different kinds of food and so many sauces to go with them.]
[David smiled, then, remembering something else.]
- I wasn't allowed to eat the same stuff the rest of the people were eating at first -
["At least I don't have to keep track of his diet"
The research assistant had sighed, looking at James standing in line at the cafeteria.
"They decide what they're cooking right on the same day, can you imagine?"]
But then they caught James giving me some of his food, and Dr Clark decided that I should be allowed to eat with the rest of them, even if it made my diet hard to keep track of.
- And the problems with HQ cleared up after a while, but Dr Clark decided that we should just keep buying our food, since we had much less people they we used to anyway.
[David's smile faltered a little, then. When had he realized that James probably wasn't even mentioned in their budget at all anymore? That everything that James needed was probably being paid out of Dr Clark and Commander Zero's pocket money?]
[Their own little personal project.]
[And then he smiled again, a bit artificially.]
...And that's how we both learned how to love kimuchi, natto, and also Thai curries. Oh, and bean stews too. Lots of rice dishes. Hamburgers. Japanese food, korean food...Oh, chinese food, too.
- We're not picky, as long as it's good, I assure you...
Marie blinked, and bowed with a smile. "Thank you, Sumomo." She still knew a little japanese, mostly over her world having had entire continents occupied not just with hungarian colonizers, but of the hundreds of cultures of Earth.
And while she was in good company, she took the big bowl with meat and tofu nicely on the side, and ate happily, if a little not too fast for someone her size and age.
As she ate, John turned to Solid, his own portion mostly untouched, as he listened to him, coming to remember the similar case that was with Spartan training. In his case, food like that was a reward, something to make them do better -- but they never got a chance to select their own food, only when it was found during their wilderness training missions. Some Spartans kept their sense of wonder about food, still loving the things that weren't MREs. For him, food was nourishment, and even food like this had been a privilege for him after he began wandering through universes.
But then again, he felt the same towards Moa meat.
When he realizes he had left his meal untouched, he calmly eats some of it, to not let it turn cold just yet. The taste didn't bother John, and in fact it reminded him of some greasier animals he had hunter from time to time. Upon swallowing, he notices the faltering smile in Solid. He comes to remember how James had to be saved.
"You two were still soldiers." He began on the first thing he noticed. "But there were too many budget cuts." Too many, in the way he notices, how even their lives were disposable.
[Short, scrawny, much to good at connecting the dots James. If there was ever a utter opposite of a poster child of any supersoldier project...]
- And then - Dr Peter Clark was most insistent that his Projects were worth much more funding then the projects of the lady who he used to be married to, who happened to me our Dr Clark - Dr Jane Clark, that is.
And there were other factors, but...
[David smiled, then.]
I did recall thinking it was rather odd that my life became so much more...fun after all the downsizing.
James was there, and we even got to go outside the grounds to someplace that wasn't the local amusement park.
- My training was rather haphazord, compared to the what had been first planned, I think, but still - Things were so much more interesting, after that.
James. He was deemed weak by those above him. Disposed of. Almost abandoned. After he discovered the SPARTAN-IV, he also realized they wanted to replace him. Much unknown to many in Infinity, one of his bigger fears, and reasons he looks after both Snakes.
But for the two of them, it meant a more normal life. While he was comforted to know they wouldn't be as scarred as Spartans, he hoped they would become as capable.
"Interesting how?"
Under Chief Mendez's instructions, 'interesting' meant 'there is always a trap. Always.' And under budget cuts, in spite of their freedoms, some trainers knew how to get by.
I had a couple of trainers, on and off, but one day, Dr Clark came and introduced me to Master Miller.
I don't think he was sure whether I was worth training at first, but he took me on anyway, part-time, because Dr Clark asked him to, I guess.
He was terribly strict, but a very good trainer.
[Unlike Father. Who apparently didn't have any trouble at all training anybody who wasn't a product of the Les Infants Terrible project, but that was Big Boss for you.]
But one day - He had a very odd training mission for me.
He said he'd asked my brother to run some errands for him, and my mission was to figure out where he was, and bring him to him from the hints he gave me.
[David sniggered, then.]
...I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew exactly where James was at that certain moment - He was looking at us from about 200 meters away, on top of a local supermarket. With binoculars, though he didn't really need them to figure out where I was, I think.
Terribly strict, but a very good trainer. It was the way trainers were supposed to be. And every Spartan held enormous respect towards Mendez because of it: For all the hell he put them through, he prepared them for a worse one.
And this mission... sounds just as much from Mendez'. Training with a trick. In this case, a classic one, information that is intentionally false.
And just as well, a nigh-telepathic instinct among teammates that just happened. One born before he dabbled into other worlds and into the supernatural.
Marie finished eating her first bowl, but her red eyes had already turned to David as he told the story, picking the last pieces of rice from her bowl. She is the one that asks, more in a concerned tone, like a mother hearing of a danger she already had seen her children in.
And so he gave me some hints. I figured out most of them were rubbish from the get-go, but I pretended to believe him, and I spent about an hour of a half running about before "managing to find James at long last" and bringing him to Master Miller.
And he smiled, and said I'd done well, but later that day...
[David's expression became a bit wistful, then.]
He came up to me, and told me that...I shouldn't be too dependent on it.
[Not that he'd mentioned what "it" was actually supposed to be, but.]
- That there were ways to block things, and ways to feed one misinformation, and people could do lots of things if they were stronger then I was in that aspect.
...I pretended not to understand what he was saying, but I did get the point.
- I think.
[And anyway, he could "track" James if he wasn't too far away, somehow, but it didn't go the other way around, he thought...]
There were times in which Spartans would hide their own efficiency. He understood that well. Frederic himself intentionally put himself in second place in almost every competition... and, most likely, he was the reason John himself became Squadron Leader - even Fred came to depend on him.
But even Mendez would know when that happened. And this trainer was not different with Solid.
His head turns to his side... how could he have realized about Solid's ability? Could he have known, or just suspected? However... he did bring a good point.
"... He is right." He mutters. "Never rely just on a single ability."
It became the reason he tried to master every known skill -- not above Frederic's abilities with melee, Kelly's speed, or Linda's accuracy -- but balancing all of them to fulfill anything his team couldn't.
"David...?" Marie uses his real name. She notices his hands vanishing, she is not sure if John did so, but his reaction was much less active. The way he looked, almost as if he knew this was inevitable.
John put a hand over Marie. He turned to Solid.
"James is waiting for you."
In this world, and his own. If he did not return to him.
[...And Yuuko came over and grabbed John and Marie's hands, Sumomo clinging to her shoulder -]
[And this is what they all saw next.]
[It was a dark place, cool and senere, but somehow, filled with the currents of life.]
[And floating in the middle of it...]
[A purple egg rocked, and started to crack from the inside.]
[Chip chip chiiirp!]
[And from far away, riding a current...]
[A strange critter that once had looked a bit like a small dog with wings but was now covered with eyestalks and tentecles swam, heading straight for the egg, and what was hatching out of it.]
- Pyaaaa!
(Daviiiid!)
[And that was when a dark purple Eastern dragon pup cracked the egg at long last, and started to push it's snot out of the egg...]
[And James's spirit animal reached out with it's tentacles, hugged it close.]
Many here returned to their worlds the very second they left. After all these years, John couldn't imagine returning to his very place, second, and moment where he began. Like he said James, the moment you get too close to death, you become a different person. He had already changed so much.
He blinks when Yuuko holds him, and Marie as well, until the calculated glow she emits through her hands makes him understand. He quiets his mind for meditation, letting her thoughts come in...
The essences are familiar. Energies that are known to him.
[Yuuko nodded, and grabbed their hands more tightly.]
[And in the dark space, James's spirit animal critter slowly took one of David's dragon claws in it's hand, and blew a lighter sized burst of fire his way, happily.]
...Pyaaaa~!!!
(...Let's go, Brother! I'll show you the way home...)
[David's eastern dragon nuzzled him and hissed his way, too, affectinately.]
- Hiissss!
[And so the dragon uncurled inself, and the critter spread it's tentecles, and they both began to float, pushed by the dark current...]
[James hugged his brother, sleeping on the bed. David was back with him, at long last, and it felt like years and years and years since he'd last seen him - Much longer then the 2 years or so it actually had been.]
[And then he sniffed, and patted David's cheek.]
...Is it just me, or do you smell of kimuchi and natto, a little? ...And soap?
[It had to be just him, James was pretty sure - Who would bring along kimuchi and natto in that kind of mission, anyway? The smell would give them away if one was unlucky enough...]
[And so he hugged his sleeping brother, and curled up next to him.]
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 05:00 am (UTC)He bows in thanks, and before eating... he notices Solid's portions are second biggest to him. Him. His physiology needed more calories and a defined diet, and it was something Marie Zofie was quick to remind friends of them that wanted to cook for him.
As Marie gladly comes to ask for cooked rice with egg sauce, John turns to him, asking lowly.
"You've eaten this before?"
He could understand if he was a soldier, and like him, he was adapted to eat anything on the field. But this food brought him joy. Happiness. Much in the way she and Marie eat the Moa that had only been found in here.
1/2
Date: 2013-10-03 06:17 am (UTC)[And then she set both in front of Marie with a florish.]
- Oagariyo!
[Yuuko snickiered - Which foodie manga had Sumomo been reading now, anyway?]
[And then she turned her attention back to David and the rest of them.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-03 06:20 am (UTC)When I was 13 going on 14, two big things happened in my life - James came to live with us, and we were downsized for the last time.
[Technically speaking, the part that had been downsized had been Dr Jane Clark's part of the Les Infants Terrible project, and she'd had plenty of other things she'd been dipping her toes into even at that time, but never mind that.]
- So we moved again, and all of a sudden, we had less the 60 people living in the same building, including all the guards and the research assistants and the janitorial staff.
...And then, the other problems started - There was something wrong with the food HQ was sending us, for whatever reason, and Dr Clark said that she wasn't going to waste her time trying to eat unedible food, and that we should go to the supermarket and buy the food we needed to the problem cleared up.
[David smiled again, remembering the first time he'd gone to one of those mega sized supermarkets, a wide eyed James at his side.]
[So. Much. Stuff.]
...And then Sergent Kim wanted to make kimuchi, and Sergent Watanabe said that if Sargent Kim was allowed to make kimuchi he should be allowed to go buy some natto, and then Mrs Thaksin said that she would take over part of the cooking since she'd had some experience, but she was a Thai curry lover as it turns out -
And all of a sudden, the our everyday food became much more international. Not to mention... interesting.
[So many different kinds of food and so many sauces to go with them.]
[David smiled, then, remembering something else.]
- I wasn't allowed to eat the same stuff the rest of the people were eating at first -
["At least I don't have to keep track of his diet"
The research assistant had sighed, looking at James standing in line at the cafeteria.
"They decide what they're cooking right on the same day, can you imagine?"]
But then they caught James giving me some of his food, and Dr Clark decided that I should be allowed to eat with the rest of them, even if it made my diet hard to keep track of.
- And the problems with HQ cleared up after a while, but Dr Clark decided that we should just keep buying our food, since we had much less people they we used to anyway.
[David's smile faltered a little, then. When had he realized that James probably wasn't even mentioned in their budget at all anymore? That everything that James needed was probably being paid out of Dr Clark and Commander Zero's pocket money?]
[Their own little personal project.]
[And then he smiled again, a bit artificially.]
...And that's how we both learned how to love kimuchi, natto, and also Thai curries. Oh, and bean stews too. Lots of rice dishes. Hamburgers. Japanese food, korean food...Oh, chinese food, too.
- We're not picky, as long as it's good, I assure you...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 05:47 am (UTC)And while she was in good company, she took the big bowl with meat and tofu nicely on the side, and ate happily, if a little not too fast for someone her size and age.
As she ate, John turned to Solid, his own portion mostly untouched, as he listened to him, coming to remember the similar case that was with Spartan training. In his case, food like that was a reward, something to make them do better -- but they never got a chance to select their own food, only when it was found during their wilderness training missions. Some Spartans kept their sense of wonder about food, still loving the things that weren't MREs. For him, food was nourishment, and even food like this had been a privilege for him after he began wandering through universes.
But then again, he felt the same towards Moa meat.
When he realizes he had left his meal untouched, he calmly eats some of it, to not let it turn cold just yet. The taste didn't bother John, and in fact it reminded him of some greasier animals he had hunter from time to time. Upon swallowing, he notices the faltering smile in Solid. He comes to remember how James had to be saved.
"You two were still soldiers." He began on the first thing he noticed. "But there were too many budget cuts." Too many, in the way he notices, how even their lives were disposable.
Like the SPARTAN-III.
"... What happened?"
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 06:03 am (UTC)...James happened, mostly.
[Short, scrawny, much to good at connecting the dots James. If there was ever a utter opposite of a poster child of any supersoldier project...]
- And then - Dr Peter Clark was most insistent that his Projects were worth much more funding then the projects of the lady who he used to be married to, who happened to me our Dr Clark - Dr Jane Clark, that is.
And there were other factors, but...
[David smiled, then.]
I did recall thinking it was rather odd that my life became so much more...fun after all the downsizing.
James was there, and we even got to go outside the grounds to someplace that wasn't the local amusement park.
- My training was rather haphazord, compared to the what had been first planned, I think, but still - Things were so much more interesting, after that.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-04 07:11 am (UTC)But for the two of them, it meant a more normal life. While he was comforted to know they wouldn't be as scarred as Spartans, he hoped they would become as capable.
"Interesting how?"
Under Chief Mendez's instructions, 'interesting' meant 'there is always a trap. Always.' And under budget cuts, in spite of their freedoms, some trainers knew how to get by.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 04:59 am (UTC)[David thinks about this.]
I had a couple of trainers, on and off, but one day, Dr Clark came and introduced me to Master Miller.
I don't think he was sure whether I was worth training at first, but he took me on anyway, part-time, because Dr Clark asked him to, I guess.
He was terribly strict, but a very good trainer.
[Unlike Father. Who apparently didn't have any trouble at all training anybody who wasn't a product of the Les Infants Terrible project, but that was Big Boss for you.]
But one day - He had a very odd training mission for me.
He said he'd asked my brother to run some errands for him, and my mission was to figure out where he was, and bring him to him from the hints he gave me.
[David sniggered, then.]
...I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew exactly where James was at that certain moment - He was looking at us from about 200 meters away, on top of a local supermarket. With binoculars, though he didn't really need them to figure out where I was, I think.
And then...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-05 06:58 am (UTC)And this mission... sounds just as much from Mendez'. Training with a trick. In this case, a classic one, information that is intentionally false.
And just as well, a nigh-telepathic instinct among teammates that just happened. One born before he dabbled into other worlds and into the supernatural.
Marie finished eating her first bowl, but her red eyes had already turned to David as he told the story, picking the last pieces of rice from her bowl. She is the one that asks, more in a concerned tone, like a mother hearing of a danger she already had seen her children in.
"And then what?"
no subject
Date: 2013-10-08 05:49 am (UTC)And so he gave me some hints. I figured out most of them were rubbish from the get-go, but I pretended to believe him, and I spent about an hour of a half running about before "managing to find James at long last" and bringing him to Master Miller.
And he smiled, and said I'd done well, but later that day...
[David's expression became a bit wistful, then.]
He came up to me, and told me that...I shouldn't be too dependent on it.
[Not that he'd mentioned what "it" was actually supposed to be, but.]
- That there were ways to block things, and ways to feed one misinformation, and people could do lots of things if they were stronger then I was in that aspect.
...I pretended not to understand what he was saying, but I did get the point.
- I think.
[And anyway, he could "track" James if he wasn't too far away, somehow, but it didn't go the other way around, he thought...]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 05:07 am (UTC)But even Mendez would know when that happened. And this trainer was not different with Solid.
His head turns to his side... how could he have realized about Solid's ability? Could he have known, or just suspected? However... he did bring a good point.
"... He is right." He mutters. "Never rely just on a single ability."
It became the reason he tried to master every known skill -- not above Frederic's abilities with melee, Kelly's speed, or Linda's accuracy -- but balancing all of them to fulfill anything his team couldn't.
"Learn all you can. So you are never disarmed."
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 05:59 am (UTC)Oh, yes - Master Miller was right about a lot of things.
[Not everything, though, David thinks.]
[Not by a long shot. He's not quite sure just what happened between his old trainer and Father, but - ]
[And that is when he blinked, and put his spoon down.]
[His hands were starting to go half transparent.]
...Ms Ichihara, Miss Kitty, Marie...
[And he takes a deep breath, and looks at John.]
- Master Chief John.
...I...
......I think I'm going to go back, now.
[Not go home, though - David isn't going to be really going home yet, he thinks.]
[Not until James comes and gets him.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 06:37 am (UTC)John put a hand over Marie. He turned to Solid.
"James is waiting for you."
In this world, and his own. If he did not return to him.
"... I'll tell him you said 'hi'."
1/2
Date: 2013-10-09 07:15 am (UTC)Thanks. For everything.
[And then he smiled.]
And I'll tell him you folks said "hi", too - If I remember anything, that is...
[And if this wasn't a really strange dream after all.]
[But no - If this was just a dream...]
[...His whole life was just a dream, too.]
[David almost giggled, then.]
[ - But whose?]
[And then, he flickered out of sight -]
2/2
Date: 2013-10-09 07:17 am (UTC)[And this is what they all saw next.]
[It was a dark place, cool and senere, but somehow, filled with the currents of life.]
[And floating in the middle of it...]
[A purple egg rocked, and started to crack from the inside.]
[Chip chip chiiirp!]
[And from far away, riding a current...]
[A strange critter that once had looked a bit like a small dog with wings but was now covered with eyestalks and tentecles swam, heading straight for the egg, and what was hatching out of it.]
- Pyaaaa!
(Daviiiid!)
[And that was when a dark purple Eastern dragon pup cracked the egg at long last, and started to push it's snot out of the egg...]
[And James's spirit animal reached out with it's tentacles, hugged it close.]
no subject
Date: 2013-10-09 08:00 am (UTC)Many here returned to their worlds the very second they left. After all these years, John couldn't imagine returning to his very place, second, and moment where he began. Like he said James, the moment you get too close to death, you become a different person. He had already changed so much.
He blinks when Yuuko holds him, and Marie as well, until the calculated glow she emits through her hands makes him understand. He quiets his mind for meditation, letting her thoughts come in...
The essences are familiar. Energies that are known to him.
"It's the two of them."
He mutters.
1/2
Date: 2013-10-11 04:05 am (UTC)[And in the dark space, James's spirit animal critter slowly took one of David's dragon claws in it's hand, and blew a lighter sized burst of fire his way, happily.]
...Pyaaaa~!!!
(...Let's go, Brother! I'll show you the way home...)
[David's eastern dragon nuzzled him and hissed his way, too, affectinately.]
- Hiissss!
[And so the dragon uncurled inself, and the critter spread it's tentecles, and they both began to float, pushed by the dark current...]
2/2
Date: 2013-10-11 04:06 am (UTC)[James hugged his brother, sleeping on the bed. David was back with him, at long last, and it felt like years and years and years since he'd last seen him - Much longer then the 2 years or so it actually had been.]
[And then he sniffed, and patted David's cheek.]
...Is it just me, or do you smell of kimuchi and natto, a little? ...And soap?
[It had to be just him, James was pretty sure - Who would bring along kimuchi and natto in that kind of mission, anyway? The smell would give them away if one was unlucky enough...]
[And so he hugged his sleeping brother, and curled up next to him.]
[They were going home.]