05-13-2010, 10:19 PM
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Having anyone behind him that close was almost torturous. His trained soldier's instincts were screaming at him to remove the problem—he was exposed, he was vulnerable. One stab in the back was all it took, and it had pretty much happened with Daisuke before. But Snake tried to calm these irrational fears, undermining them within himself as much as he could. The conflict was pretty easy to see; right off the bat he was doing opposite of what Daisuke had asked, tensing up with his internal struggle. It took every ounce of self-control to force himself to edge backwards just a little distance, to resist the screaming instincts that were as unavoidable as the reflex to swat at a fly. The man's familiar voice as an unseen whisper in his ear made an alien shiver run invisibly down his spine, but it wasn't like there was time to think about it—the moment Daisuke's fingers began to work at the warrior's nerve-knotted muscles, his reflexive soldier's instincts gave one last screech and then went quiet.
He had never really gotten a massage before, so he didn't know what to expect. Pain, probably—tension was caused by pain, therefore he would expect it would be released as such. But it was much more of a relief to find the knots being worked out, enough to make him have to place his elbows on his knees for support, so he wouldn't topple over. When the wolf took his head and cracked his neck, it took him by surprise and hurt a little, but afterward it felt normal for the first time in months. The coyote growled an, "Ugh," though with one rotation of his head he knew that it felt twenty times better than before. He gave a rattling sigh.
It was almost hard to focus on conversation, but he picked out the question about the status of Haku. "He's alive. Not in Dahlia, anymore—out and about. Watch out for him... He's big, usually in Secui form with chocolate-brown fur and blue eyes." It wouldn't surprise Snake if Daisuke happened to run into him while out there, and he would hope that his friend would be able to outrun the demon as Snake had once.
The warrior had taken his own cigarette in his hand and hadn't remembered it since the massage had begun. It was only when Daisuke commented on it that he brought it back to inhale. "Well, I don't know what else you're smoking," he said slowly, though he could only guess. "No, cigarettes don't really do as much to you as others would, though." He exhaled, a cloud of smoke flowing around his head as the wind brushed it backwards and inland. He listened sedately to the wolf's justification of his own moving. He considered how a nomadic wolf was generally atypical of the species, though Snake couldn't judge—a sedentary coyote was just as strange. But the loosening of his muscles also seemed to have loosened his tongue—the coyote continued conversationally, something that he rarely did, "I don't understand having a den underground, cave or otherwise. What if something happened and you got trapped under there—" He shuddered. Snake didn't fear many things, but one of the ones that he did (almost ironically) was a close-kept claustrophobia. He hated being underground or in small spaces, and he supposed that it came from living beneath the crumbling buildings of New Haven where collapses caused deaths often enough. "But yeah, I suppose if you want to move there you can. It'll take a while for it to recover from the fire."
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Having anyone behind him that close was almost torturous. His trained soldier's instincts were screaming at him to remove the problem—he was exposed, he was vulnerable. One stab in the back was all it took, and it had pretty much happened with Daisuke before. But Snake tried to calm these irrational fears, undermining them within himself as much as he could. The conflict was pretty easy to see; right off the bat he was doing opposite of what Daisuke had asked, tensing up with his internal struggle. It took every ounce of self-control to force himself to edge backwards just a little distance, to resist the screaming instincts that were as unavoidable as the reflex to swat at a fly. The man's familiar voice as an unseen whisper in his ear made an alien shiver run invisibly down his spine, but it wasn't like there was time to think about it—the moment Daisuke's fingers began to work at the warrior's nerve-knotted muscles, his reflexive soldier's instincts gave one last screech and then went quiet.
He had never really gotten a massage before, so he didn't know what to expect. Pain, probably—tension was caused by pain, therefore he would expect it would be released as such. But it was much more of a relief to find the knots being worked out, enough to make him have to place his elbows on his knees for support, so he wouldn't topple over. When the wolf took his head and cracked his neck, it took him by surprise and hurt a little, but afterward it felt normal for the first time in months. The coyote growled an, "Ugh," though with one rotation of his head he knew that it felt twenty times better than before. He gave a rattling sigh.
It was almost hard to focus on conversation, but he picked out the question about the status of Haku. "He's alive. Not in Dahlia, anymore—out and about. Watch out for him... He's big, usually in Secui form with chocolate-brown fur and blue eyes." It wouldn't surprise Snake if Daisuke happened to run into him while out there, and he would hope that his friend would be able to outrun the demon as Snake had once.
The warrior had taken his own cigarette in his hand and hadn't remembered it since the massage had begun. It was only when Daisuke commented on it that he brought it back to inhale. "Well, I don't know what else you're smoking," he said slowly, though he could only guess. "No, cigarettes don't really do as much to you as others would, though." He exhaled, a cloud of smoke flowing around his head as the wind brushed it backwards and inland. He listened sedately to the wolf's justification of his own moving. He considered how a nomadic wolf was generally atypical of the species, though Snake couldn't judge—a sedentary coyote was just as strange. But the loosening of his muscles also seemed to have loosened his tongue—the coyote continued conversationally, something that he rarely did, "I don't understand having a den underground, cave or otherwise. What if something happened and you got trapped under there—" He shuddered. Snake didn't fear many things, but one of the ones that he did (almost ironically) was a close-kept claustrophobia. He hated being underground or in small spaces, and he supposed that it came from living beneath the crumbling buildings of New Haven where collapses caused deaths often enough. "But yeah, I suppose if you want to move there you can. It'll take a while for it to recover from the fire."