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Russian laughter sounds like rattling of chains. The Skulls don’t laugh, just rattle their breath like gravel and leather. The bright white grins and the glowing blue eyes are all Kaz can see as his vision tunnels into darkness, his arm pulled taut, stretched out.
He tries to pull back, but so many hands are holding him, bone claws sinking into his flesh.
no he screams, нет, нет, пожалуйста, нет but they are still laughing and it’s deafening, drowning his hoarse voice.
Then the machete cuts the air, and sinks halfway into his shoulder.
Kaz screams. The Russians laugh.
They keep chopping and laughing, blood and chunks of his own meat hitting him in the face, his arm limp as the tendons and joints are hacked through and why is he not passing out, why is he not going into shock why does he have to see this
Then Kaz wakes up, the scream still in his throat, the machete in his shoulder still burning. He claws at his face to get the hood off, but scratches his lips and nose with too long nails, catches into the tubes in his nose.
Hands are holding him down.
“Let me go! No! Нет!”
“Kaz, Kaz please calm down, it’s me...”
It sounds like Snake but it’s not, it can’t be.
“It’s me. Snake. You’re safe.”
Kaz’s hand paws blindly - why is everything so dark, he can only see vague colorless shapes - finds a face, finds the leather of an eyepatch.
“S-Snake...?”
Then his fingers find something else. It’s hard and warm and sharp, like a knife. Like a Skull’s armor.
Kaz flings himself back, tubes pulling painfully at his body. “No!”
“Kaz!”
A hand grabs Kaz’s own and it’s not a human hand. It’s metal and cold and hard and inescapable, it’s one of them, it’s gonna crush his other arm, he’s gonna....
Something pricks him in the neck.
Kaz stops struggling, and everything goes black.
The Russians and the Skulls were waiting for him. They are still laughing as they go for his leg.
***
Kaz wakes slowly from a sleep as deep as the ocean. Everything is still in the dark.
Something moves at the edge of his vision and he drags his eyes through the Afghan sand towards the vague shadow.
Even in the dim surroundings he can make out the silver hair and imagine the red scarf.
He sighs, relief flooding him. It was just a dream. The monster with Snake’s voice wasn’t real, it’d been Ocelot all along, like it’d been for the past decade.
Something cool and metal touches his mouth, and ice chips make his lips tingle. Kaz opens his mouth to let the spoon in, drinks hungrily, his throat parched and desperate for moisture. Ocelot gently feeds him more ice and then wipes his chin with a paper towel. Kaz is still thirsty, but not painfully so.
“Oce...?”
“I’m here.”
“Why’s...so dark?” he rasps.
“Dark? It’s not...” he trails off. “I’ll speak to the doctors about that.”
“Thanks.”
He feels himself sink into the mattress, heavy and slow. How much morphine is in his body right now?
“You panicked pretty badly yesterday,” says Ocelot, and Kaz is almost asleep but still feels the whisper of bare fingers pushing his hair off his forehead. “The Boss is very worried.”
“He’s not real...” he mumbles, his brain disconnecting. “Jus’ a ghost....”
“I’ll tell him to wait a few days before visiting, then,” says Ocelot, rough fingertips lingering on Kaz’s temple even though he can’t feel it anymore.
***
When he wakes the next time, Kaz can’t open his eyes. He tries to move, and his arms are restrained, unmoving.
Just as he’s starting to panic he feels a warm, large hand on his elbow.
“Kaz,” says Snake.
It’s him. It’s really him.
“Don’t panic. They say you have a form of retinopathy. Your eyes are just bandaged.”
Has Snake ever said something like “retinopathy”...?
“Snake?”
“I’m here. The doctors say we need to wait for you to be stable before you can get surgery.”
Kaz exhales.
“Okay.”
“Are you thirsty?”
Kaz nods. The ice chips feel even better than last time. As he’s sucking them thirstily, he feels Snake undo the restraint on his left wrist. His arms ache.
“Can you undo the other too? I’ll be good.”
Snake hesitates.
“Snake?”
“Kaz, uh...”
His fingers are thick and warm in Kaz’s hand. He missed his hands so much....
But why isn’t he untying his arm?
“I’m sorry, Kaz,” he whispers, and presses Kaz’s hand to his own shoulder.
Kaz’s breath catches in his chest. Because there’s nothing there, his shoulder ends, abruptly, in a mass of rough bandages.
The laughter of Russians roars in his ears. His arm burns, throbs, even though it’s not there anymore, claws of steel through his flesh.
“Kaz,” says Snake firmly. “It’s okay. You will be okay.”
“Okay?” he croaks. A weak, hysterical laughter escapes his dry throat. “Okay. Ah. Ah ah. Okay....”
Snake pulls his hand off his arm - his stump - and then Kaz is touching warm, lightweight metal. Snake drags his fingers up, to where the metal ends and warm, scarred skin starts.
“We both lost a part of us,” says Snake softly.
Kaz remembers the metal fingers whirring on his cheek, back in that room. The strong fake hand holding him up as he limped off the helicopter. Yeah. They both lost so much.
At least Kaz didn’t lose nine years of his life.
“I-I’m sorry,” he sobs, and Snake’s closer now, his weight grounding. The scent of his body is so different from the animal he used to know, but his warmth hasn’t changed.
“Shh,” he says, soft lips against his temple. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I took too long. I took so long, and they hurt you...”
Kaz clings to him with his only hand, like he clung to him in that sea of fire and debris.
“It doesn’t matter,” he breathes into his hair, so long and soft. “You came back. You came back for me. That’s all that matters. We’ll take it all back...together...”
Snake holds him until exhaustion takes him again.
He doesn’t feel whole, and he never will again. But in this brief moment, he feels safe.
***
He wakes briefly to a gentle touch along his jaw, a tender drag of scarred fingers.
He is shivering, and a blanket is tucked around his shoulders. He is burning, and a cold compress is laid on his forehead, cool and soothing.
“Snake...?”
Snake doesn’t answer. He just pets his hair until Kaz falls asleep again.
***
Kaz feels better this morning. Or at least, what he thinks might be morning. His eyes are still bandaged. He does feel like his fever has broken, even though it means the sheets are soaked in cooled sweat. He kicks them off clumsily, pulling at his IVs and the catheter, almost falls off the bed while doing so. He lies on the bare mattress catching his breath, absently touching his empty shoulder.
It feels so weird. He wonders when he’ll get used to it. When he’ll stop expecting to feel his arm there.
He hears Ocelot come in from a ways off, just by the sound of his spurs. It’s oddly comforting.
The door opens.
“Hi,” he says.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“No,” he tries to sit up, but he’s still so weak. Ocelot helps him and it’s much easier, even though he’s a little dizzy. “The sheets were all sweaty.”
Ocelot touches the inside of his wrist to Kaz’s forehead. “You’re much cooler today. Can you stand for a little bit?”
“I can try.”
Truth to be told, he would fall over on his face if Ocelot wasn’t holding him up and helping him into the chair by the bed. He’s already exhausted.
“Give me a second. I’ll change these.”
Kaz listens to Ocelot fuss around the bed and...a cabinet, maybe? Yeah, he’s pretty sure the single rooms in the medbay have a cabinet for fresh linen and gowns.
He startles when he feels Ocelot’s gloved fingers undoing the straps of his gown.
“Can I? You’re soaked.”
Kaz nods sharply. He shrinks into himself as Ocelot pulls the gown off him. Of all people he should not feel exposed with him, but he can’t stop shaking.
Ocelot puts the clean gown over his raised arm and around his shoulders quickly, ties it up clinically. Kaz can’t see it, but he knows he’s not looking at him.
Then again, why would he? There’s not much left of the man Ocelot was attracted to. Just a broken spirit in a broken body. Blind, maimed, destroyed. Damaged goods.
“All done,” he says quietly, with a brush of fingers through his hair.
It’s better like this, considers Kaz. Now that Snake is back, Ocelot feeling only pity for him will make things easier.
He would feel even worse if he were pining.
Ocelot helps him back into bed. The sheets are cool and clean. They feel good, as does the steadying hand on his hip. When he feels better, he’ll have time to feel ashamed and humiliated by Ocelot’s pity.
Right now, he’s so tired it kinda feels good. All he wants is to wallow a little in his misery.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Kaz considers this. “No, you can stay. Get me up to date.”
The scrape of the chair as Ocelot sits down.
“So, as you know, the Boss is back...”
Kaz dozes off after a while, after Ocelot has gone over the important mission details and has moved onto Mother Base gossip. His deep velvety voice lulls him gently and for once, he doesn’t dream of laughing Russians.
***
“You’re stable enough for local anaesthetic now, Commander,” says the nice medic who identified herself as Blind Nightingale. “The surgery is very quick and not invasive, but I need your approval for it.”
“Sure,” sighs Kaz, fingers twined with Snake’s thick ones. “I’d like to be able to see again.”
“You’ll still have to keep your eyes bandaged for at least a week, to let them heal.”
“Better sooner than later then, right?” he laughs humorlessly.
Everything goes well until they undo the bandages. Kaz can’t see anything but he can feel the bodies crowding him, their heat and their smell, he tries not to panic, he tries so hard, but his breath is quickening and the second hands touch him he’s screaming, begging to be let go.
They put him under after that. It takes so long for it to kick in, his heart thundering in his ears, his fuzzy brain convinced he’ll never wake up again, that he’ll wake up and they’ll have gouged his eyes out, cut his other limbs, left him as the Skull fuckdoll the Russians wanted to make out of him.
He wakes nauseous and sore, his eyes aching under the fresh bandages.
“Snake?” he croaks, reaching blindly with his left hand, relaxing only when Snakes grasps it firmly.
“I’m here.”
“Did...did it go alright?”
“It went just fine. The doctors say....you might still have reduced vision, some discoloration. And the light sensitivity, but that...”
“That I already had,” he smiles. He’ll take some reduced vision over being entirely blind.
“Yeah. You’ll be fine soon.”
“I can’t wait to see you,” he blurts, and then regrets it. He’ll laugh now...he’s always the same sentimental idiot....
But Snake doesn’t laugh. He squeezes his hand tighter, and Kaz feels soft lips against his temple. “I can’t wait for you to get better.”
God, he missed him so much.
***
Ocelot is rummaging into the cabinet.
“What are you doing?”
A hollow plastic sound, like a bucket.
“The doctors say your injuries are healed enough for you to wash up.”
Every muscle of Kaz’s body contracts in panic.
“I thought you’d be more comfortable if I do it. I can ask one of the medics though. Or the boss.”
Kaz relaxes a little. “No. It’s...okay. If you do it, I mean.”
Ocelot has seen him in some pretty awful states. They both have nursed each other back from injuries and sickness. It will be fine. It will....
Kaz swallows.
It will be fine.
He listens to the water running, the sound of soap bars and buckets being placed around the bed. Ocelot gently helps him turn, places towels under him, removes his gown. He leaves it covering him from the waist down, and Kaz is incredibly grateful.
“I’m going to remove the bandages but you should keep your eyes closed.”
Kaz nods.
Ocelot isn’t wearing gloves. He can feel his scars and warped nails on his skin as he undoes the bandages. He almost feels ashamed of how dirty his hair is.
He’s afraid he’ll panic, but Ocelot’s touch is gentle and slow, letting him always know where his hands are, and the damp washcloth feels so good. How long has it been since he’s washed? A month now? The water is warm and the soap smells nice, and Kaz lets himself be washed, lifts his arm and moves his neck and shoulders to give Ocelot access. He even carefully cleans between his fingers, and then between his toes. At least, the ones he still has. He washes up to mid-thigh, and carefully avoids the covered part of his body.
Kaz’s stomach twists as Ocelot empties the basin and fills it again. At least he’s not wearing the catheter anymore, they took it out a couple days (maybe?) ago, and they took the...stitches...out as well, but he knows he still has the marks of what happened. And even if it’s Ocelot, he doesn’t want anybody to see.
He still turns on his side, jaw tight and tense as Ocelot carefully washes his back, wipes the weeks old sweat.
“May I?” he says, incredibly quietly.
Kaz nods. Tears are already stinging his eyes.
“It’s all right,” murmurs Ocelot gently, pushing the gown off his backside, snapping latex gloves on. “I’ve seen worse.”
Kaz swallows thickly as the washcloth lingers on the small of his back, wipes his cheeks slowly.
He isn’t breathing when Ocelot lifts his leg to wash the inside of his thighs.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, and the tears spill out of Kaz’s closed eyes. “I know what they did to you.”
“Do you?”
“I know what the doctors told me. That you were raped.”
It almost feels good for Ocelot to say the word so matter of factly. He was raped.
“For days,” he adds. And then he can’t stop his own tongue. “It wasn’t just the Russians. The Skulls took their turns, too. Those always hurt the worst, they cut and scratched and bit me. Their...their come burns, did you know that? Some were regular, every few hours. Some came and went. They never stopped before I was passed out.”
Ocelot gently runs the washcloth in his crack, along his perineum, washes where it still stings, where he can still feel the pressure, where he can still feel the day old come leak out of him when he wakes.
“Did the doctors tell you they raped me with objects? Handles of knives. Whatever the Skulls are made of. Guns. The leg of a chair. When they were cutting off my arm they kept saying they’d fuck me with the machete next, gut me out like a pig.”
Ocelot’s hand shakes, almost imperceptibly, against his sensitive skin.
“I didn’t know,” he whispers.
“And I’ll kill you if you tell anybody.”
“It will die with me.”
He turns him on his back again, wipes the panicked sweat soaking his pubes, carefully cleans his cock.
Kaz wishes he could feel any pleasure from Ocelot’s hands holding his cock. He used to like it so much, used to love his messy handjobs under the desk after a long night of mission planning.
Right now the idea of sex makes him want to vomit.
He is still crying when Ocelot covers him again, pulls a clean gown over him.
“All done,” he says. “I’ll wash your hair now, so you can relax a little.”
He leads his head into the slot of a new basin. The water is warm and clean. The gloves are gone and his hands gently pour water on his head, rinse his hair. He massages baby shampoo into his itching scalp, thumbs the tension into the soapy water. After he’s done and has dried his hair with a towel, he wipes the tears off his cheeks and replaces the bandages over his eyes.
“I’ll let the doctors take care of the arm and leg. I shouldn’t put my hands around those while they’re still healing.”
“Okay.” He’s exhausted as if he ran a marathon. But he’s also a little lighter than before, and it’s not just the feeling of being clean.
“I have to go handle a few things now. I’ll tell the boss to come visit.”
“Hm. Hey, Ocelot?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He can’t see him, but he can feel his smile when he says “Anytime, Miller,” and leaves.
***
Snake comes in only a few minutes later. Kaz is happy to see him. Or not see him, as it is.
“You smell good,” he says, his lips curled into a smile as he kisses the top of his head.
“You smell weird,” says Kaz, who is starting to notice more things now that he’s not hallucinating most of the time.
“Oh. That’s probably the cigar.”
Kaz scrunches his nose. “That doesn’t smell like cigar.” He hasn’t been around Snake and his disgusting cigars for almost a decade but he remembers how those smelled.
The chair scrapes as Snakes sits down. “It’s not really a cigar. It’s more like...an electric pipe, I guess? It burns herbs. Medicine. Wormwood. Ocelot got it for me.”
“Why medicine?”
“It helps with the pain.”
Kaz swallows. “You’re in pain?”
Snake just makes a quiet hmm sound.
“Is it the arm?”
“Among other things.”
Kaz raises his hand. He aches to hold him, to touch him, to take his pain away. Instead, Snake cups it gently, and brings it to his lips to kiss his palm. Kaz runs his fingertips along Snake’s cheekbone, finds a deep crevice in the skin.
“This is new.”
He follows it with his fingers, up all the way to his closed eye, across his lid and eyebrow, and up all the way to the strap of the eyepatch. There’s another deep scar a little to the side, jagged and crooked, pockmarked with stitch marks. Scars at the side of his eye, one running all the way to his ear. Snake doesn’t lead his hand, but rubs the back of it with his thumb as Kaz explores the rest of his face, so alien and familiar at the same time. There’s a straight scar across his nose. Kaz can feel where the bone was chipped, a little soft depression under the skin. There’s another line bisecting his lower lip, tiny marks and cuts in his thick bristly beard. That beard, at least, never changed.
The eyepatch feels different than it used to. A thicker, waterproof material, three straps instead of two. And then...
Kaz gasps as his fingers trace another jagged scar, finds odd bumps and valleys, and finally touches something that, without doubt, is not flesh.
“What the...”
“It’s shrapnel. From the blast.”
There’s more of it, and it feels as if it never ends, splitting Snake’s flesh like a hard spike. It’s huge, and long. The tip is dulled out but still pointed.
“You have a horn,” he mutters.
Snake chuckles. “Kind of, yeah.”
How can anybody be alive with this much metal in their skull? “Why didn’t they take it out?”
“Apparently I’d die. It’s stable where it is. Not too much brain damage.” Another quiet chuckle. “Not that there was much to damage to begin with.”
Kaz smiles, but his hand is still feeling the extraneous body sticking out of Snake’s head. “It doesn’t hurt?”
“Sometimes. The cigar helps.”
Kaz stops touching the...horn, for lack of better words, and cups his face. He can feel his smile.
“There’s more, but you’ll have time to see them all when you’re better.” Then he stiffens. “I mean. When you’re...if you’re okay with....”
Kaz finally laughs, and it feels so weird, a braying sound that hasn’t made it out of him for who knows how long. “I get you. Don’t worry. I’m going to have fun finding all the new scars.”
Snake pulls up to him and kisses his lips. Kaz has the time to think he can feel the scar on his lip before he melts into his soft, wormwood-laced kiss with a sigh.
***
That night, Kaz dreams of Snake.
They are kissing, and he’s so tender, so careful. His hands so gentle on his body, he feels no fear. Kaz buries his fingers in his hair, and realizes there’s more horns under it, dozens of them. Some are twisted, others are sharp and cut his fingers. Some feel like teeth, some like the blade of a machete, some like human nails.
He tries to pull back, but his hands are pinned to the sharp horns, they’re growing through his flesh like the spikes of a Skull. He struggles and pulls, and his arm pops off, like that of a doll. He tries to scream, but Snake’s mouth is still on his, and more horns are pushing through his throat and lips, stabbing his tongue, his cheeks. He rips his only hand and the horn running it through comes along, and so does Snake’s skull.
Snake comes apart. Bloody spikes grow out of him, tear his face and skin apart. His eye pops wetly in Kaz’s face, and he screams.
The skin falls off, and under it there’s only glistening, bloody darkness, a mass of twisted metal and teeth.
“Kaz, it’s me,” he growls, closing his millions of teeth on his throat, and Kaz wakes howling.
***
Kaz tries not to think too much about the dream when they finally remove the bandages. He’s already worried enough without the images of a monstrous Snake to make things worse.
“Are you ready, commander?” asks Blind Nightingale. “We have dimmed the lights to the level you use in your private quarters. You should be fine.”
“Do it.”
The bandages come off slowly, the soft light filtering through Kaz’s closed lids.
“You may open your eyes now.”
Kaz opens his eyes slowly, even the low light stinging like needles.
Nightingale checks his vision, makes him move his eyes following her finger, tells him his eyes won’t look the same when he sees himself in the mirror, about iris discoloration and clouding, but Kaz isn’t really registering any of it.
His eyes are fixed on Snake on the other side of the room.
He doesn’t look like a monster at all.
He’s so beautiful Kaz feels like crying, and before he knows tears are streaming down his cheeks.
“Are...are you hurt?” frets Nightingale, before Snake cuts in.
“Can you leave us alone for a few minutes?”
“Of course, boss. Just ten minutes, though. I will finish my round and come back.”
“Thank you.”
Snake approaches as soon as she leaves, his rough fingers so light as he cups Kaz’s cheek.
“Sorry if I look a little different,” he says.
Kaz shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not quite how you remember me, either.”
Snake rests his forehead against his. Kaz can feel the cool press of his horn. That’s going to take a while to get used to, but now that he’s seen it, it’s not that bad. The scars add something new to Snake’s face. Somehow, they make him softer.
“I haven’t seen you in so long,” he says, and his voice breaks, stupidly, over a choked sob.
“I won’t be going anywhere again,” says Snake, cool lips against his hairline. “I promise.”
As he pulls back, he slides Kaz’s aviators on his nose, gently making sure the temple tips are tucked safely behind his ears. Looking through the dark lenses at Snake’s smile, Kaz feels more like himself than he has in a decade.
***
Ocelot swings by a couple of hours later, when the novelty of seeing again is starting to wane.
Kaz smiles. “Man, I can’t believe I’m happy to see your face.”
Ocelot smiles back, lines crinkling at the sides of his eyes in that cute way they do when he smiles genuinely. “Well, you’re insulting me, so I don’t need to ask you if you’re feeling better.”
“I am. Starting to feel a little bored, though.”
Ocelot grins with a lot of teeth, and produces a ream of papers and folders from behind his back. “Well, that’s good, because you’re a month behind on paperwork!”
Kaz groans, dropping back into the mattress, but his missing right hand is itching. He wants to do paperwork. He wants to see how much debt Ocelot has put them in - for the life of him he will never manage to teach him the value of money and how to exchange it for goods and services in a favorable manner - see who joined now that the Boss is back, go back to work. Be Kazuhira Miller again, Commander of the Diamond Dogs, instead of a broken doll in a hospital bed.
At first it’s not easy. He can’t read for long before his eyes tire, and can’t write or sign. But Ocelot reads the smaller print for him, and copies his signature perfectly (so that’s how those guns of his got approved) and has actually managed not to plunge Mother Base into the red for once. He’s almost proud of him.
“No, no, we’re not dealing with that PMC.”
“Why not? I’ve had my team go through their ranks. They’re legit and their books check out.”
Kaz shakes his head. “They’ve been very visibly involved in ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka. I’m not working with them.”
Ocelot stares in that way that says he doesn’t understand why something is morally reprehensible, but he realizes that it’s important to Kaz.
Kaz sighs. “Let’s make it simpler: we are on the payroll of several NGOs that will kick us off if we make a deal with them. And we can’t afford that.”
“So...secret deal?”
“No, Ocelot.”
Ocelot shrugs. “Fine. You’re the boss.”
Kaz smiles. “Not quite anymore.” It feels good not to have the entire base on his shoulders. Especially now that his footing is not as safe as it used to.
“I guess I could ask the boss about this, but I imagine he’ll have the same response.” He draws lines across the PMC’s name and flips the page. “Got any suggestion?”
Kaz thinks about it. “I think we can handle it on our own. Now that the Boss is back, we should assume we can’t trust anybody else.” He chews his lower lip. “And to be honest, I don’t want to trust anybody else. The last thing we need is to drag others into this mess, or have to watch our backs extra hard.”
“Fair enough.”
“Speaking of the boss...how is his...you know. Is he cleared to be in the field?”
“He was cleared enough to come get you. I’ve been working on getting him up to date.”
“And...?”
“He’s not twenty anymore, but he’ll do fine. He’s as strong as he ever was. It’s like those nine years never happened, to him.”
They exchange a glance, both sporting plenty of marks that they took the brunt of those nine years. Ocelot with his hair completely gray, the scars and hardened injection dimples Kaz knows he’s hiding under his clothes. And Kaz, well....it’s a miracle Snake even recognizes him now.
“That’s good,” he says. “Especially now that neither of us can be in the field anymore.”
“I can start sending him out pretty much anytime, but....”
“But?”
Ocelot lowers his eyes, worrying the corner of the paper he’s still holding. “I was waiting for you to get back. You’re more experienced in radio support than I am.”
Kaz is halfway to reaching out to touch Ocelot’s face before he realizes it’s not an appropriate gesture anymore. Even if he is touched by his thoughtfulness and the rare admission that he’s not as skilled as Kaz is, kissing him is not how he should conduct himself anymore.
Ocelot wouldn’t appreciate it, anyway.
“Thank you,” he says instead, and takes the pile of papers from his hands. “I can see now, so....it shouldn’t be too long. I can’t wait not to be stuck in here anymore.”
“Good. The men are getting antsy. It’s almost as if they like you, or something.” He closes a folder and pulls up a budget report, “now, before you start yelling at me, you should know that we’ve had an influx of volunteer recruits in the past two weeks...”
Kaz groans, hiding his face in his hand. It’s “good” to be back.
***
The pain starts that night.
Kaz wakes gasping, clutching his stump, clawing at the bandages. It feels like his arm is still there, and it’s being run through with a million burning blades. He’s grinding his teeth so much they creak when he finally reaches out for the button at the side of his bed.
A harried, tired nurse shuffles in a minute later, and Kaz’s jaw is so tight he can barely tell him what’s wrong. The morphine he injects into his IV takes forever to take effect. Even as he drifts into a fitful sleep, his arm throbs and burns.
He wakes drowsy and disoriented, his mouth too dry to speak. Snake is at his side, but he looks a little like somebody else. In the dim light from between the lowered blinds, his horn looks longer and sharper, cuts odd shapes and shadows on his face.
“Who are you,” he says, but only a muffled croak comes out.
“How are you feeling?” says Snake. Up close, he looks like Snake again. Kaz is tired.
“Bad,” he mutters.
Snake runs cool fingers in Kaz’s hair. “Nightingale says there is no sign of infection. You probably rolled onto it on your sleep, or the lowered painkillers dosage made it hurt more. Does it still hurt?”
“Hmm. A bit.” it thrums, softly, under a skin he doesn’t have.
“It will settle eventually. Your nerve endings are still confused.”
Kaz tries to wet his lips but his tongue feels like fleece. “I feel weird.”
“Ah, that. It’s the morphine. Apparently it took a lot of it to knock you out.”
Kaz closes his eyes. “Do you feel your arm?”
“The one I’m missing?”
Kaz nods imperceptibly.
“Yeah, sometimes. The prosthetic helps. Sometimes it feels like I have two, though.”
“Hmm.”
Snake takes his hand, and Kaz feels it so distantly it’s as if it’s happening to somebody else. He can’t muster enough strength to hold it.
The only thing he can feel is frustration, a dull anger than aches in his chest. This shouldn’t have happened. Neither of them should be broken and in pain, neither of them should have the lives of thousands of their own on their conscience. Snake shouldn’t have lost nine years of his life and shouldn’t have a timebomb in his skull. Kaz shouldn’t have been shot and stabbed and betrayed and tortured and mutilated for those nine years.
His eyes move like old doll eyes in his sockets as he drags them to Snake. He seems so calm these days, so tired and resigned.
“Why aren’t you angry?” he whispers.
Snake brings Kaz’s hand to his lips. Kaz barely feels the kiss to his knuckles. “I am. But anger doesn’t help us build a future.”
Kaz tries to laugh, even though only a weak huff comes out of his mouth. Typical Snake. Always looking ahead, even buried in his own past mistakes.
“I will help, though. Point me, and I will be your gun. And when you are ready....we can build that future. Together.”
Kaz feels tears trail down his temples and into his ears. “You won’t...leave again?”
“I’ll be at your side till the end. If you’ll have me.”
Kaz closes his eyes, the throb of his missing arm and of his rage subsiding. “Nobody I’d rather have more.”
Exhaustion takes over, and Kaz slips back under, Snake’s fingers twined with his a solid tether to reality. He has no nightmares.
***
The best part of recovery is that Kaz can focus for longer stretches of time. Do some work. Talk with Snake, tell him stories from the nine years he’s missed. He has a lot of stories. He can eat solid food again. Both Snake and Ocelot sneak him treats from the mess hall.
The worst part of recovery is the pain. The pain is constant, and some days completely unbearable. How do an arm and a leg that don’t exist anymore hurt this bad? When it’s not phantom pain it’s his stumps that buzz, ache, itch, generally drive him insane to the point he has to beg for sleeping aids. And with the pain comes the frustration, the shame. He can’t cut his own food. He can’t wash. He can’t go to the bathroom on his own. On one particularly embarrassing occasion Snake changes his bedpan because the smell is getting distracting, and Kaz stares at the wall and wishes to die.
Nightingale tries to convince him to get fitted for a prosthetic like Snake, but Kaz refuses. It’s stupid, but this pain is keeping him awake and angry. He feels as if he will lose himself if he gives it up, will lose his drive. After a lot of fighting and Snake intervening, Kaz compromises for a leg prosthetic. Not bionic. Just a support, to help with the physical therapy he’s starting. He plans to dump it into the sea when he’s back on his feet. Or foot. Whatever.
Getting around with the crutch feels like a conquest, but it’s also exhausting. His left arm most definitely didn’t expect to be literally pulling his weight around, and it hurts almost as much as the missing one every night after Nightingale’s hellish therapy course.
Snake massages it, and his legs, every night; his flesh hand warm and soaked in a cooling gel that makes Kaz’s nerves tingle, his bionic fingers incredibly delicate and strong on his knotted up muscles.
Kaz is exhausted, frustrated, and in inordinate amounts of pain - but he starts looking forward to their evening massage session, to being pampered and left loose like a cooked noodle by Snake’s hands.
He’s getting a long, luxurious thigh massage when he realizes he’s feeling a hollow, throbbing sensation he hasn’t felt in a while. And the last times weren’t....consensual, nor pleasant. He tries to scoot away, but the way his sweatpants are starting to tent is impossible to miss. Especially since Snake is rubbing slow circles so, so close to it.
Kaz doesn’t know if he wants him to continue, or to stop. He knows he won’t be able to handle Snake in the state he’s in, no matter how careful they are. His heart is hammering when Snake finally looks up from between his legs.
“Snake...” he breathes, because god....he really does want him to flip him on his stomach and fuck the memories of laughing Russians and cold sharp metal out of his body.
Snake rests his hands on Kaz’s hipbones. “May I?”
“I....I don’t know,” admits Kaz.
“I’ll be gentle. I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.”
Funny he’d say that, with all the rough sex they had in the seventies. But they are different people, now, aren’t they....?
“O...okay.”
“You can tell me to stop at any time,” says Snake, slowly peeling down Kaz’s pants, enough to expose his hardening cock.
Kaz is expecting to be stripped down, but it never comes. Instead, Snake wraps his hand around his erection, squeezing gently, dragging a gasp out of his mouth. He strokes him slowly, thumbing the head to smear precome down the shaft, make him slick.
And then, he takes him in his mouth.
Snake has never sucked Kaz off. Ever. Kaz can do nothing but stare, slack-jawed, as his cock disappears slowly in Snake’s scarred mouth, wet and soft and hotter than a furnace. He reaches the base, slides back until Kaz’s cock pops out with a wet smack.
“Okay?”
“Yes. Yes! Very okay.” Kaz reaches for his face, tangles his fingers in his hair, clumsily. “Are you okay with this?”
“I just want to make you feel good, Kaz.”
Kaz swallows, floored by the intensity of that blue eye fixed on him. He remembers what he asked him, in the helicopter.
Kaz, what should I do? Tell me, like you used to.
“Please...keep going.”
He leads him gently back to his groin, sighs as he slips through his lips and across the rough texture of his tongue. It feels so good, and knowing Snake is doing something like this, that he’s probably not done a lot, just for him....
Soon Kaz is whimpering, hot all over, Snake’s tongue rubbing along his shaft, his throat working against the tip. Of course he’s a natural, he’s a natural at everything....
Kaz comes with a choked cry, pulling on Snake’s hair and for a long, beautiful moment he’s not in pain and he’s not angry, he’s not anxious or stressed. The laughing Russians and the glowing eyes are nowhere to be seen, all there is is Snake, his solid body between Kaz’s legs, the heat of his mouth, his hands on Kaz’s thighs, his rasping breath as he pulls back from his softening cock.
Kaz rubs his thumb on his shiny lips. “Thank you, boss.” Snake smiles, and it’s so sweet Kaz might die right here and now and not care.
“Anytime.” He rests his cheek on Kaz’s thigh, his beard tickling his sensitive skin.
Kaz swallows. “I...I don’t think I can....you know. Reciprocate. Not...yet...”
Snake reaches out to take his hand, squeezing gently. “You don’t have to. I know you had a hard time. I would never force you.”
“You’re being so gentle,” breathes Kaz, who remembers being bent over his desk more than once. “Why are you...? Please, if it’s just pity, don’t....”
Snake crawls up to take Kaz’s head in his hands, forcing him to look deep into his eye. “I’m being gentle because you’re injured, and you need care. And because I love you, Kaz.”
Kaz can’t breathe. He stares, unable to comprehend the words he’s just heard. “You...you never told me...”
“And I’m telling you now. We aren’t the same people we were before it all went down. And it’s about time I tell you how I feel.”
Kaz kisses him. Licks his own musk off his lips, holds him as tight as he can, whispers all the I love you’s he never said in the past dozen years all over his lips, cheeks, throat. He feels him, heavy and hard, weight on his bare hip, and wants nothing more than take him inside himself and be his.
But he’s scared. He can feel panic bubbling up along with the excitement.
“Snake...I want...I...”
“Kaz,” he whispers on his lips, his voice thick and aroused. “It’s okay. I can wait.”
“No.” Kaz squeezes his thigh. “Touch yourself for me.”
Snake kneels back between Kaz’s legs, knees spread and cock straining his fatigues. His eye is dark and focused on Kaz and Kaz alone as he unbuttons his pants, cradles his cock out of his underwear.
He has scars even there, a small pale crescent on the underside, and shrapnel pockmarks peppered in his thick dark hair. He strokes himself slowly, squeezing and thumbing the head in a sensuous manner that makes Kaz’s mouth water. His animal smell hangs thick between them, and his chest hitches with every pull.
“You’re so beautiful,” breathes Kaz, watching sweat blossom on Snake’s white t-shirt, his lips parting to breathe deeply.
Snake smiles, his hand moving faster, precome glistening the tip of his cock. “No, you are.”
“Even....like this?”
“Always.” His hand gets rough, pumping hard. “There’s nothing they could do to you that could....”
“Make me see it,” he croaks, throat dry and blood throbbing under his skin. “Make me see how much you want me.”
Snake groans, bucking over, his come hitting Kaz’s still bared stomach. When he offers his fingers, Kaz hungrily sucks on them, drunk on his taste, a little sour and a little fruity. Somebody’s been feeding him a lot better than the old jungle fare.
“Thank you,” sighs Snake, looking at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
As long as he keeps looking at him like that, Kaz knows he’ll get over anything.
***
“Do you think he’s...different?”
Ocelot glances up from the recruit reports he’s signing in Kaz’s name. “Who?”
“Snake.”
Ocelot absently spins the pen in his hand. “A little, yes. He seems...calmer, in a way.”
Kaz hums. “I guess nine years changed us as well, but we were...you know. Awake. Mostly.”
Ocelot draws little precise parallel lines across the corner of the page. “I’ve seen the x-rays. The horn is, as one would say, just the tip of the iceberg. There’s quite a large chunk of metal melded into his brain - I suppose that kind of head trauma can cause personality shifts.”
“And the drugs, I guess.”
“That, too. Is this going to be a problem?”
Kaz shakes his head. “If he’s still as ruthless in the field, it won’t. It’s just weird for him to be...so gentle.”
Ocelot snorts. “Were you expecting him to start knocking you around like it’s 1974?”
“I don’t know what I was expecting. I wasn’t really...expecting him to wake up at all at this point. It’s...actually kind of nice.”
Ocelot’s smile is weird, muted. Kaz considers himself fairly skilled in interpreting his weirdness and predicting his mindgames, but sometimes he’s still at loss at just what the hell is going on in his mind.
Sometimes, he’s gotten the impression even Ocelot is at loss with what goes on in his own mind.
“You don’t mind that we’re. You know. Back together?”
Ocelot chuckles. “Why should I mind? Snake is my oldest friend. Jealousy is a petty emotion for petty, small-minded men.”
“Oh yeah, not like you to ever be petty, my bad.” What about me? Kaz doesn’t ask. Whatever it was that they had while Snake was sleeping, they’d agreed long ago it would end once he came back. And he doesn’t think he has any claim to Ocelot’s...affection, such as it is. Not in this state, not looking like this for sure.
It doesn’t matter. Snake is back. He said he loves him. Ocelot has to stay now that Kaz is disabled, as the immeasurably precious asset he’s always been, and Kaz doesn’t need anything else, only them and his revenge.
He lies back against the pillows, suddenly too tired to sit up.
“Done for the day?”
“Mm.”
He packs up the papers and reports scattered on the bed. “By the way, I was checking your files earlier.”
“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that.”
“I do whatever I want, Miller. Anyway, it looks like Nightingale wants to release you this week.”
“Oh.” Kaz thinks of his quarters in the command tower, the small balcony where he smoked after a long day, the lack of elevators that was never an issue before. He guesses that can go to Snake now.
“I’ve taken the liberty of clearing the quarters on the signals floor. There are elevators directly to it from ground floor and you won’t have to climb three flights of stairs to do radio support. The living area is smaller, but it has a half room you can use as an office.”
“It’s fine.” He doubts he’ll be in it much. He wasn’t in his original quarters much either, and now that Snake is back and they have a clear objective...
“I’ll get a couple of men to move your things, then?”
Kaz bites his lip. “Can you do it?”
Ocelot nods. “Of course. I’ll make sure nobody sees your stash of frilly panties.”
“Ha ha ha. Fuck off.”
Ocelot waves and leaves, leaving Kaz alone with his exhaustion and his slowly thrumming shadow limbs. He needs to learn to type one handed or reports are going to take forever. He tries to remember the layout of the rooms on the signals floor. Wonders if he’ll be able to shower in the small stalls even officer quarters have. He can’t keep getting sponge baths, as pleasant as they can be when Snake is holding the washcloth and touching him oh so softly. How long can he keep up doing radio support now? He used to be able to do two days straight, three if Ocelot didn’t hog the pick-me-ups, but now he gets tired and in pain so quickly. And it’s been so long since he’s worked with Snake in the field, for both of them. What if something happens? What if the shrapnel in his skull isn’t as stable as they think?
Worrying, Kaz slips into a fitful sleep he knows he’ll wake from in a couple of hours when the phantom pain starts. It’s amazing how used he’s gotten to that, by now.
***
Kaz is released from sickbay five days later. He leaves on his own feet, even if it’s just the few steps to the jeep waiting, and even if Snake is hovering carefully with his hand on his hip, ready to catch him if he falls.
It feels good to be outside, to breathe fresh air again, to see the men standing on attention on the command platform.
Kaz tries to ignore the pity he sees in their eyes. He’ll show them, he’ll show them all. He will be their commander again. They will be proud of him again.
His new quarters are next door from the signals room, his desk and his books barely fitting in the small anteroom. Somehow, Ocelot has managed to maintain the same exact order everything was before he left for his last mission. It’s kind of unsettling to see open maps and books on different surfaces of a different room. It’s extra unsettling to see the last notes he took with his right hand, still out and marking the place where all his best men died to protect him.
As soon as Kaz is through the door (with some difficulty, these pneumatic doors are pretty high to climb over without a leg), Snake rushes to lower the blinds. Even those are the same he had in his old quarters, as are the darker filters on the windows. When the room is at the level of light Kaz finds comfortable to be at without sunglasses, it almost feels like home.
“Do you need...?”
“I’m fine,” he says quietly. His chest hurts from exertion. “Can I be alone for a little bit?”
“Of course.” He kisses the top of his head, pressing Kaz’s iDroid in his hand. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll be here in a flash.”
“Thank you, Boss.”
Kaz takes off his only shoe and lies on the bed. This one is new, for sure. It smells fresh and clean, definitely not like sweat and spilled coffee with a hint of Ocelot’s cologne. The case of his aviators is open on the nightstand, and he flips them closed and lays them onto the deerskin. In a fit of curiosity, he opens the drawer to find the half-empty bottle of lube he remembers keeping in his old quarters, and what looks like a brand new pack of condoms.
Oh, right. He should really use those with Snake now. He can’t guarantee to be clean for a while. He needs to ask Nightingale about...about that. He already should have. They shouldn’t have already....He grips the strip of foil packets so hard his hand hurts, a ragged panicked wheeze escaping his mouth.
If only he could stop seeing those laughing Russians crowding him, if he could stop hearing the rattle of the Skulls as they tore into him as if he was made of butter. He drops the condoms and paws blindly at the radio alarm clock next to his glasses. It comes awake with a crackle, and the FM radio he and Ocelot set up in the intel tower in ‘82, and that Biting Dove tends to as if it was her own child, vomits peppy music at him.
Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
Kaz laughs. It’s hysterical and hollow, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. Sure. He can still stand, somehow. He reaches for the crutch, getting to his feet. He’s still a little wobbly, and he feels like he might never get used to the leg prosthetic, but he can stand.
It’s better than nothing, right?
He checks out the bathroom, expecting it to look exactly like the one he had downstairs. It does not. Bars have been freshly installed next to the toilet and above the bathtub.
The bathtub is not regulation, either. Everything else on base has a more practical shower stall, but Kaz’s bathroom has one of those walk-in tubs with a sealed door and an elevated seat. He sits on the edge, opening and closing the door with a pleasant pneumatic pop. There are shiny chrome jets inside, like those of a hot tub, and bottles of soaks for muscle and nerve pain line the corner.
“You’re not supposed to spend our budget on these things, Ocelot,” he whispers.
Then he kicks off his clothes, steps inside, and turns on the water.
It feels incredible. He’s still going to chew Ocelot out for spending what is probably enough money to feed a specialist for two months on him, but he will not hold a grudge all that long. He closes his eyes, breathing in the warm steam, the radio stuck on what sounds like an accidental Toto marathon in the other room. No amount of soaking himself will wash away those hands and bodies that violated and mutilated him.
Revenge won’t, either.
He knows that, already. He isn’t stupid. But what else does he have right now?
He watches the water swirl down the brand new drain, revealing his healing, broken body. How can Snake even feel any arousal looking at him like this, he just doesn’t know. And even if he does, nobody else will again. The one thing that always gave him an edge in a world much more ruthless and bloody than him was ripped away from him, and he’ll have to rebuild his entire personality from the stumps up. He’s not looking forward to it, and angry and vengeful feels like a good compromise personality as he recovers. Feels right. He's done being soft, being hurt.
Once he’s out, he stands for a while in front of the full figure mirror, naked and leaning heavily on the crutch. He hasn’t had a chance to really look how bad it looks. The scars crawl all the way up what’s left of his shoulder, the flesh that had infected or was cauterized discolored forever. It kinda looks like Ocelot’s lightning scars, only much uglier, still bruised and angry. His leg is a cleaner cut, right under the knee, but it still looks jagged and patched up, the scar of the sutures reaching mid-thigh.
“Gross,” he grunts, letting himself fall into bed. He’s exhausted. He could sleep. The radio is playing something slow and soothing. He closes his eyes. This bed really smells odd, impersonal.
The next song sounds like rattling chains.
He turns off the radio.
He thumbs the iDroid on, Snake’s frequency already open.
“Boss?”
“Kaz? Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I was just wondering....want to break in this new mattress with me?” it sounds fake and weak, his flirtiness fragile like thin ice, but Snake’s breath hitches anyway.
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He doesn’t bother dressing just to take the clothes off again. The quicker he can get their sweat deep into the thread of the sheets, the better. And the quicker he can get Snake’s handprints over the phantom ones grabbing him in the night, the faster he can be reliable support, the faster he can crush them all.
Tomorrow he’ll go into the signals room and guide Snake through his first real mission in a decade. He will be at his best, and make no mistakes.
Kaz is way past over making mistakes, losing people and parts of himself.
He’s not going to lose Snake again, he promises himself as they sink together into the new bed, clinging to him with all his remaining limbs.
Nobody will take this from him ever again.
And if they do, there will be hell to pay.