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Dorm Log The Sequel To End All Sequels

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"Boxes." Rick parroted again and sniffed with a little nod, but with a little more consideration. Acceptance. Crazy concept, but he tended to like those.

There was a pause and a second sniff, this one acute to an actual smell rather than added emphasis to his words. Smell was such a weird sense that humans had. It was so damn hard to identify and describe smells.

"That smell..." He was sure he'd smelt this one before but this was faint and almost acrid, clinging to Snake's clothes. Reminded him of burning.

"'S not box-smell, is it?" He guessed burning was a thing boxes (and almost anything else for that matter) could do.

He almost said he didn't smell a damn thing. Except he knew better.

"Boxes don't really have smells."

Well, he guessed they did. It depended on what was in the box before he started using it for his own devices. Some boxes smelled like fruit. Like oranges. Some smelled like military equipment. In fact, most boxes Snake had been intimate with had smelled like something to do with some kind of military. Or Patriots, he guessed.

So he settled for the next best thing. No reason to deny Life's Little Treasures. Patting himself down, he offered up his pack of cigarettes. "This is what you want."

YEAH. Yeah that looked about right. Rick reached out and helped himself to a cancer stick without thinking much of it. He had peripheral knowledge of the stuff--something akin to sticking a child in front of campy, big action movies all day and all night until it corrupted practically every facet of their thinking. Obviously cool guys smoked. He was totally a cool guy.

Obviously Aperture knew they caused tumors and stuff in humans (among dozens and dozens of other things)--could just scoop those out later, so Rick wasn't worried about the repercussions at all. He had this human body now, and he was going to USE IT.

"That's it."

Rick could only get about as far as getting it between his lips before looking to Snake expectantly for a light.

Edited 2013-04-10 09:17 (UTC)

Not that Snake was completely in favour of sharing his smokes with some random guy who looked like a homeless man mooching off the academy's living quarters. But to say that his cigs hadn't come through for him at various points in his life would have been a lie. Cigarettes and Snake were something of a kinship that just couldn't be compared to anything else. Where the rest of the world could fail him, he could still light up at the end of it all and have that 'companion.'

The romanticism in smoking, he guessed. Not that many people would have agreed. In fact, most just classified it as a Mostly Disgusting Habit, and Snake supposed those people had a point. Maybe he just didn't care. Yeah. That was probably it.

Shaking his pack just enough to get a stick for himself, he stashed it away afterward. Then like the good samaritan he was, he leaned over to light up Rick's first.

With little hesitation, Rick took baby's first drag. He took it like a well-practiced pro! A nice deep inhalation that filled his lungs and burned everything from his nostrils all the way down to the very bottom of this throat.

He would savor this manly breath of air.

Savor the flavor.

Savor the...

"..."

...Not five seconds later Rick keeled over, red in the face and coughing like some omnipotent force just sucked all the air out of chest.

Snake had actually thought he was a pro. But somehow watching Rick suffer those brief instances where he lacked air seemed to be a bit nostalgic. How long ago had it been that he'd had his first cig? The reaction wasn't that different. He'd thought he was a macho man, just like he did in the present, and it had turned out that cigarettes had thoroughly kicked his ass.

He couldn't resist that crooked smile of his as he moved to light himself up. And in that 'seasoned pro' fashion, he took a long drag, casual, as if nothing could possibly pull him from his moment's peace.

And then.

"Good, eh?" was the question that accompanied Snake giving Rick a friendly pat on the back.

If Rick were paying much mind, he'd probably give Snake a stink eye for his seasoned pro fashion, but he was too busy trying to catch his breath.

"Great." He managed to get out in-between coughs. He figured this was just a hurdle and if he could force himself to take another drag it wouldn't be so bad.

The second one was met with more coughing, but not nearly as much.

"Wonderful."

He laughed. He actually... laughed. In the 'haha, I'm laughing at you' kind of fashion. It wasn't very nice of him, but who ever actually ever said he was a nice guy? (He really wasn't.) After it died down, he shook his head at Rick.

"I didn't know you were a rookie." He still wore that half-smirk, but his eyes held a little bit of... Well. Sympathy wasn't the word, but something skin to it. "For the first few minutes, you think you might just die and then comes the light at the end of the tunnel and suddenly you're in Heaven."

Then he added as an afterthought, "On Earth."

Let it be known Rick was not a big fan of being laughed at, especially when it wasn't his intention to be laughed at.

"I'm no rookie!" He snarled. "...Just been off the horse since. Now." It was obvious his defense was crap, so he focused on taking another drag. Again, he seemed to do better and better with each breath. His chest burned and his throat and eyes felt dry and ragged, but he was absolutely convinced at this point this was super manly and cool; ergo, something he must do.

"Pretty sure I'd be closer to the regular non-Earthly definition of Heaven by now if I couldn't handle it." Rick exhaled through his nose.

"Been there once anyway. Not as great as everyone makes it out to be."

Snake was no genius, but he knew when someone wasn't exactly being clean. So while he continued to wear that same slightly irritating smirk of his, he listened halfway attentively. Where the other half of his mind went seemed like some kind of autopilot, something he could easily dismiss in the event that Rick said something he might find slightly... crucial.

"The regular non-Earthly definition of Heaven, huh?" Just where was this guy from anyway? Didn't know a decent smoke. Comparing Earth Heaven to otherworldly Heaven. And truth be told while Snake believed in all kinds of things - especially regarding conspiracy theory - he wasn't sure about the otherworldly shtick.

Regardless of Samus and her space excursions.

"When you say you've been there, you mean the Earth Heaven or what? That's the only Heaven I'm familiar with." And he wasn't exactly in a hurry to get there either.

Rick was a robot and believed in Robot Hell and that was pretty much it. Any other beliefs were human conventions he adopted superficially and only circumstantially so.

"Up there. Space." Rick jabbed his index finger at the ceiling, finally feeling like all the burn of the smoke was settling into a tolerable feeling. "...I guess space Heaven or whatever some people believe--up beyond the clouds and all that. You been there? Didn't think a human could survive up that high, frankly."

Edited 2013-05-19 08:32 (UTC)

"No."

It was a rather simple response to all of that. Then he figured a little clarification couldn't hurt. "I've never been in-" Wait. His eyebrows knit together. Had he? There was that...

...Just a memory?

"I prefer being here on the ground." Helicopters were okay, he supposed. And harriers. But at the end of the day, it probably really depended on the company, too. He just didn't want to bring that up. "What were you doing up in space?" Make it about Rick, not about him.

"Punched a guy so hard it ripped a hole in time and space." This was complete with excitable gestures, a steady firm SMACK of Rick's fist hitting the palm of his other hand. Then it slid off into a 'swoosh' motion, a little trail of cigarette smoke outlining his movements in the air.

"BAM! Like that. Then I slipped through the hole, spit me out on the other side of the moon. True story."

Rick stuck his chest out a little, a billow of smoke following in his movement. "He was a bad guy though so it was alright."

Seriously. Seriously?

Snake thought he was full of shit, honestly. But he'd also seen some pretty crazy things. It still sounded pretty far out in left field. He made a note to ask Samus later if that kind of thing was even possible. He was pretty sure she'd say it wasn't.

"Yeah, well..."

Because he didn't want to come right out and call bullshit. But sidestepping in a conversation wasn't as easy as it was in a corridor. No. After a moment, he decided there was no point in trying to 'play nice.'

"You're full of it."

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Dorm Log The Sequel To End All Sequels

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