Chapter Text
His first inkling of what “getting older” really means – not in a distant, theoretical sense, but as something tangibly matter of fact; something he can feel, in everything from his bones to the tingling-numb tips of his fingers – comes more gently than he might have expected.
But then again, why not?
Not everything is a head-on collision; the white-hot flash of a knife up under the edge of his tactical vest, or the crack of a rifle shot over a still, wooded ridge – coppery-wet taste in his mouth, sharp as an electric shock. Sometimes, the universe can be excruciatingly subtle.
At any rate –
Enough.
It starts with a straightforward debriefing session, like so many others over the past five years.
“Well,” says Otacon, shaking the remains of a flat, misty drizzle off the sleeves of his windbreaker. “At least we beat the rain, right?” This has been something of a running joke. You can never beat the rain, in Oregon. Not for long.
The rusted aluminum door bangs shut behind them.
A late night, but that’s nothing new.
Car keys and laptop case on the kitchen table. Snake switches on the lamp in the adjoining living room, and begins the methodical process of emptying his various pockets and holsters – digital camera, cigarettes, combat knife. The M9, with its chamber and safety catch checked. A handful of unused tranq darts, and a forged ID card.
“Dinner?”
He grunts. How many hours had it been, since either of them had eaten? It’s always hard to remember, on mission days. Prep work, execution – infil, exfil, done. They’re fewer and farther between than they used to be; less work for Philanthropy as a two-man team, and more for Otacon on his own. The Patriots – whatever the fuck they are, exactly – operate more in the shadowy digital world of information gathering and data transfer, than on the more familiar (to Snake, at least) physical template of underground storage facilities and paramilitary goon squads.
Times change, he supposes.
Less razor wire to climb through, at least. So that’s something.
From the kitchen, he can hear the low whine of a cabinet door being opened. “Looks like we’ve got ramen, and… more ramen. Sriracha chicken, or lime chili with shrimp.” Some further rummaging sounds, and a contemplative pause. “Or else, I think there might still be a couple of your peanut butter keto things in the car, if you want to go look.”
Thigh holster unbuckled and set aside. He can finagle the harness straps off on his own, in a pinch, but it’s easier with a second set of hands. Instead, he focuses his attention on undoing the snug, skin-tight fastenings at the back of his neck; working by feel, tugging the tiny steel zipper loose.
Outside, the half-hearted patter of small, isolated rain drops has strengthened into something with considerably more energy.
“I’ll take the ramen.”
“Which one?”
“Surprise me.”
It’ll be the sriracha chicken, he already knows. Otacon gets flushed and teary-eyed with too much spice.
The op had been a simple one, as these things went. An in-and-out sabotage mission in a dilapidated industrial warehouse, converted from whatever its more wholesome origins might have been into a slapdash manufacturing center for black market weapons. Some off-the-grid DOD contractor or another, according to the mountain of research Otacon had turned up – all the names run together, after a while.
The trouble with warehouses is that there’s too much open space. Guard presence isn’t normally as heavy as it would be on a military installation, or even an upscale office building on lockdown with a private security firm; fewer cameras, and no biometrics. But, the wide-open lines of sight and lack of any useful visual cover present their own kind of tactical challenge.
“Look on the bright side,” Otacon had said – reasonably enough, when they’d sat poring over the first batch of ill-gotten satellite images on his laptop screen the week before. “At least it’s standard-gauge chain link, on the perimeter.”
“Mm.”
“No drainage ditch, this time. No dogs.”
Which is true, and not an insubstantial thing.
Still.
The upshot is that he’s spent the better part of the past six hours wedged into one of the smallest ventilation ducts they’ve ever worked with – tiny, fractional movements. Down from the ceiling in a pitch dark storage closet; up into the scaffolding over the main work floor and then inch-by-inch along the upper part of the wall, with his toes braced on a galvanized steel beam no wider than the palm of his hand.
Take the photos.
Plant the charges – time-delay, no rush.
Back the way he came.
He picks up the pack of cigarettes, and shakes one loose. Fumbles in a separate pocket for his lighter; then takes another look at the sullen downpour outside, and thinks better of it.
There’s no television, here – too far out for cable service, in the larch-covered rural hills of Marion County. Even Otacon, with all his ingenuity and the rat’s nest of wires and extension cords they’re always lugging from place to place in a series of increasingly threadbare cardboard boxes, hasn’t been able to hammer out any kind of reliable internet hook-up. Beware of banjos, a hand-lettered sign on the marquis board of the last gas station on the way out of Stayton had sardonically advised – a level of cheeky self-awareness that makes him think of roasted wood rat on a pinesap-smelling fire in his FOXHOUND survivalist days.
But, anyway, just in case: they have what amounts to a good-sized armory in the trunk of their beleaguered Subaru, parked a stone’s throw from the front door. A pawn shop 92FS Beretta tucked under the edge of the mattress in the bedroom, and the clunky old USP in a kitchen drawer for safekeeping.
So far, so good.
His partner frets over the lack of connection to the outside world, but Snake doesn’t mind. They keep the back-up generator fed with propane, and it hasn’t been cold enough yet in the evenings to miss the luxury of central heat.
The house itself is an old one – more solidly constructed than most, but long-enough abandoned that Mei Ling was able to pay next to nothing for its use. Good bones, as they say. The original owner had evidently been operating on the earnest belief that if a few small, rustic touches are good, then an interior design scheme that looks to have been transplanted in its entirety from a pioneer era cabin would be infinitely better. There are wood-paneled walls in every room – bare, and unapologetic – and rough hardwood floors, badly in need of refinishing.
An old iron woodstove in one corner of the living room with a chimney pipe that isn’t connected to anything, even if they had dry firewood to burn. A constant draft from the ragged gap under the front door.
There’s nothing easy about any of it; nothing soft, or comfortable, but it gives the place an incongruous sense of nostalgia – the way their voices echo in the empty rooms; Otacon’s footsteps creaking on the stairs at 3 AM, going up and down from his makeshift office on the second floor. A kind of brisk, breathless chill in the air, layered over the all-pervading smell of cedar chips and mothballs.
This, too, he likes. It reminds him of Alaska.
Boots off, and the harness strap across the front of his chest loosened up enough to stretch the pins-and-needles burn from his upper arms – and at that point, before he can fall too far down into the rabbit hole of his own thoughts, the microwave beeps.
Glass-topped coffee table and an old, sagging sofa in utilitarian plaid.
A house to come back to, maybe.
Dinner is the haphazard, questionably edible affair it always is, when their tenure in a given hideout is winding down and they haven’t had time to make a last-minute grocery run.
Two bowls of ramen noodles, as promised; augmented with an ancient bag of frozen peas and several leftover take-out packets of soy sauce. This, Otacon asserts – somewhat optimistically, in Snake’s view – makes for a richer flavor profile and gives the whole thing a bit of authentic, homemade flair.
It isn’t that it’s bad, exactly.
It’s hot, and the texture is decent. Beats the hell out of the canned chili they used to get on Wednesday nights in the mess hall at Fort Benning. He’d learned in his first year of basic training that just about anything tastes good if you’re hungry enough, and it’s a steadfast truth that hasn’t failed him yet.
More to the point: he didn’t have to make it himself, so he doesn’t complain.
When the dishes are rinsed and drying by the sink – finally, with the digital clock on the microwave flashing 12:36 AM – they adjourn to the living room sofa to get down to business.
“Did you get a good angle on the support structure, underneath?”
Otacon has the digital camera in his hands; scrolling through the saved images, squinting down at the tiny screen. His laptop is open on the coffee table for ease of correlating the various photographic details with a circulating blueprint of the latest black market war machine du jour – recovered a month ago from some godforsaken corner of the dark web, via a complicated process of interpersonal negotiation on a series of cryptic message boards and a certain amount of flat-out technological wizardry that Snake has never pretended to understand.
Something involving back door ports, and targeted system override codes.
“Should be in there somewhere,” Snake says. “Looked pretty much like the last few we’ve seen, but that’s your department. I’ll set charges for anything on two legs with a rail gun attached.”
“Ha. That reminds me, though – no trouble? The guy we got that C4 from seemed kind of…” Otacon gestures in the hair with one hand held flat, tilting it back and forth to indicate a general sense of scatter-brained unreliability “Well. Unofficial channels, you know how it goes. They’re always a little hinky.”
Snake shrugs. “Beggars, and choosers. It’ll get the job done.”
“Feels like that should be our motto, some days.”
“No luck with the paperwork. They must have an off-site office somewhere.” He’s concentrating hard; staring at the yellow legal pad in his lap, making a series of handwritten adjustments to the rough building layout they’d come up with beforehand based on aerial photos and some educated guesswork. Not likely that they’ll need to go back – he knows this, of course he does – but it pays to be thorough. There’s always something to be learned from the inevitable, trap-sprung gap between conjecture and reality. “No bill of sale, or anything like that. No names. But there were serial numbers, already – guidance system up and running in the cockpit. Testing logs. Makes me think we had a close shave.”
“Huh,” his partner says, absently. Still scrolling – zooming in on the relevant frames; double-checking them against the design specs on his computer screen. And then, wide-eyed: “Wow. No kidding. Another week or two…”
“Nothing like the last minute.”
It’s a sobering thought.
Otacon sits up, reaching forward to set the digital camera down on the coffee table.
“I take it back,” he says. “There’s our motto. Thank God I’ve always worked well under pressure – you can’t produce an entire dissertation from scratch in six weeks flat without losing some critical, self-regulatory part of your humanity.” The laptop case is propped on the floor beside Otacon’s sock-covered feet and he leans over, rummaging in the outside pocket for a moment before coming up again with a tiny cable. “Lucky we made it out before shift change, right? Thirty more minutes and we’d have been stuck there all night, trying to find a good opening to make a run for it.”
“Fucking duct work was a mess,” says Snake, shortly. “Takes as long as it takes.”
This comes out a bit harsher than intended.
Otacon has the digital camera connected to his laptop, now; typing in a quick series of keystrokes, selecting the images he wants. He watches the screen until a gray dialogue box pops up (download in progress) before glancing sideways at Snake, mildly.
Fuck.
“Sorry,” Snake says, and he is. “Just feel kind of… off, tonight. For some reason.”
“I know you’re exhausted.” His partner’s voice is quiet – pitched low and gentle, scooting the computer back out of reach with an air of finality. Softer than he deserves; soft as the hand up behind him, slipping in through the half-open gap in the back of the suit to press flat against the taut, knotted space between his shoulder blades. “It’s okay. Those are the high points, anyway. We can sort the rest out tomorrow.”
Snake grunts, eyes closed.
“Never used to get tired like this.” He leans back into the touch, concentrates on Otacon’s thumb rubbing back and forth over the muscles along either side of his spine. Feels the beginning of a headache coming on, throbbing slow and dull behind his eyes. “Don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
His partner sees it, too. The tightness in his voice, probably; the involuntary tensing of his jaw when he tries to turn his head. The hand on his back withdraws, repositions, and then Otacon is shifting beside him – c’mon, scoot over – pulling his legs up to sit half-curled against one arm of the sofa, easing Snake’s head down into his lap.
And, this…
It’s good.
It’s always been good.
He lets out a breath. Feels the pressure ease a bit at his temples; a slow release of tension he hadn’t entirely realized was there. His partner’s thigh is warm, denim rough against his cheek.
They sit, with the rain noises from outside filling up the silence.
Field ops have always taken a toll. The frenetic expenditure of energy, the adrenaline crash when it’s over – augmented by a cocktail of artificial stimulants and the inevitable abrupt withdrawal, as a U.S. military asset. They don’t work like that anymore, but his body still remembers.
Tonight, it’s hitting him like a ton of bricks. Worse this past year or so, than it used to be – even after Shadow Moses, or the most punishing, brutal jobs he took in his freelance days.
Sore muscles, in places he doesn’t remember having.
Exhaust fume smells from the duct work.
A dozen-odd men on rotating patrol, with M4 carbines slung over their shoulders and keen, trained eyes in the dark. Moving like part of the rusted metallic landscape – slow and smooth, alive, with his senses sharpened to a glittering knife’s edge; feeling no pain at all – breathing in the sheer, dizzying clarity of moonlight through a dusty single-pane window.
He can still shoot straight.
So there’s that, at least.
“Well, old man,” says Otacon, with the philosophical air of one who’s had this conversation a time or two before. Teasing, just a little. “You’re not twenty-five anymore, as you’re always reminding me.”
He snorts at that.
“You’re worn out, too,” he says, reaching up to encircle his partner’s forearm with one hand. Rubs his thumb lazily over the wrist, feeling the pulse point there. “You’ve been up twenty-four hours straight. At least.”
“Yeah, well. The computer chair is a little less taxing than what you’ve been doing. There’s a reason I don’t do field work.”
The legs underneath him adjust themselves, a little – going numb from the cramped position, probably – and his partner smooths the hair back from his eyes, sticky with sweat from being trapped under the bandana; drags his blunt fingernails lightly over Snake’s scalp and then sets to rubbing slow, careful circles along his forehead. With his other hand, he tugs at the fastenings along the exposed shoulder of the sneaking suit, already half-undone.
“We need to get you out of this before you fall asleep.”
He hums, a vague assent. Otacon’s fingers in his hair are hypnotic. Drowsy. “And then what?”
“Not much, unless you get a second wind.” He cracks an eye open at that, to see his partner smiling shyly down at him. Nudging his shoulder with one knee. Gentle. “Hold that thought for tomorrow, okay?”
Fair enough.
Otacon tugs lightly at his hair, one last time; taps his side the way he’s felt a hundred times before – come on, then – and he heaves himself up.
At this point, two things happen in quick succession.
First. Over the droning white-noise patter of rain on the old shingled roof, there comes an unmistakable and altogether terrifying sound: a sharp knock at the door.
For an impossible, slow-motion instant, nothing moves. And then –
Gun off the coffee table, in hand – the SOCOM, not the M9 – with the safety off, trained steadily in the direction of the front porch before he’s fully up and on his feet. Old habits. Some flat, distant part of his brain marvels at the ease of it, still; the quick jolt of adrenaline, sharp as a nicotine hit.
Second –
What is it, exactly?
Something else, harder to explain.
As he sights down the muzzle at the center-mass zone below the deadbolt, his body feels… different. Something light-headed, too fast. A blunt, squeezing twinge behind his sternum, like he’s been hit in the chest with something heavy. He catches himself on the arm of the sofa; turns his head to the side – coughs, once, and it’s gone.
That’s all. Such a small, senseless thing.
Focus.
He thinks about the series of helical grooves on the inside of a handgun’s barrel, and the thrumming, vital weight of a double-stage trigger against the steady pressure of his touch.
One twist in 15.74 inches on a .45 caliber round.
Conservation of angular momentum. Aerodynamic stability, dependent on the spin rate of the bullet. He knows the words; knows the science, in an abstract sort of way. Physics has never been his strong suit – all the precise, numerical minutiae of wind speed and atmospheric pressure, but he understands the practicalities better than most.
A neat cluster of holes punched in black paper, or else –
Well.
Take up the slack, and move.
And in the next moment, none of it makes any difference at all because he’s jerking his head at Hal – behind me; stay back – and wrenching open the door in one brutal motion.
The figure standing outside in the steady downpour is, quite possibly, the last person in the world he’d expected to see. How long had it been? A year, at least. Maybe two. He’s less striking in civilian clothes – no skull suit, today – but there’s no mistaking the way he carries himself; still FOXHOUND-light, up on the balls of his feet, or the pale gold hair dripping water onto the concrete porch steps.
Somewhere behind him, Otacon barks out a startled, slightly hysterical noise that might have been a laugh if it were a bit less strangled sounding. Snake narrows his eyes, and lowers the gun.
“For fuck’s sake, kid,” he growls. Get inside. Slamming the door shut behind him, after a quick visual scan of the empty dark between the front of the house and the tree line. “Call ahead, next time.”
No sign of a weapon.
Still. He watches.
“Yeah.” Their guest is considerate enough to keep his hands where Snake can see them – holding them casually away from his body, in the rote, no-offense-taken way of a veteran field agent at a checkpoint. Not his first rodeo, anymore. “Sorry about that. You guys are hard to reach.”
This much, at least, is true.
The house had come equipped with a bare-minimum supply of toiletries and bed linens for two people, but Otacon scurries off in the direction of the bathroom while Raiden – Jack, he thinks? not that it matters, overly much – plops a sodden duffel bag off his shoulder onto the floor.
“I didn’t hear a vehicle.”
“No,” says Raiden, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. His eyes are ever so slightly bloodshot; not so anyone would notice, if they weren’t looking. Blank. “Didn’t have one, so. I walked. Got the location from Mei Ling.”
“Walked… from where?” Otacon says, faintly, coming back into the room with a single clean, threadbare towel that probably represents the sum total of absorbent fabric that’s left in the tiny linen closet. It’s a forty-five minute drive from city limits, on a good day – dry roads, and no deer.
The kid’s boots are caked with mud. Dark jeans that have seen better days; an oversized, blue and white track-style windbreaker that gives the impression of being more suited for soccer practice warm-ups at some city college than hiking through God-knows-how-many miles of wooded terrain, in the dark.
Raiden reaches out for the towel, and gives his hair a practiced back-and-forth once over that leaves it absurdly disheveled.
“Look,” he says, a little wearily. Which is fair, Snake supposes. “I caught a charter plane into Corvallis this morning, okay? Hitched a ride from there as far as Mehama, with a guy driving a semi. I can answer anything else you want. But – do you mind if I get changed, first? Maybe hang some stuff up to dry?” He nods at the bag, which has now left a discolored wet spot on the raw, unvarnished wood beside the door.
For a long moment, no one answers.
It’s not lost on Snake that their guest hasn’t looked directly at either of them since he came in, and when Raiden glances up in his direction, finally, he sees it – there. Hollow-eyed, skittish; gaunt as a ghost, with his cheekbones just a little too prominent in the unflinching incandescent light from the old floor lamp in the corner. The slight, nearly imperceptible tremor in his right hand; clenching itself into a fist, reflexive, before he remembers to shove it into his pocket.
Too late.
Snake knows that look. All the various physical tells he’d been intimately familiar with, at a certain time in his life. There were good reasons he’d never kept a mirror in the cabin.
Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?
No hard liquor in the house, tonight – just a couple of Blue Moon bottles in the fridge, with half a six-pack of Gatorade and twenty dollars’ worth of Hal’s ridiculously expensive sugar-laced energy drinks, which perhaps saves all of them a difficult conversation.
Not that it’s any of his business.
“Bathroom’s through there,” he says. He can feel Otacon’s eyes on him as he watches Raiden disappear into the shadow of the short, dark hallway with his gait remarkably steady, all things considered, and the bag hefted over one shoulder.
The slow, insistent throbbing at the base of his skull is back with a vengeance.
Holes in a black paper target, or else –
No.
Not tonight.
The door shuts behind Raiden with a muffled click, and slowly – eventually – the familiar rattling sound of the economy-size Advil bottle in their medicine cabinet filters out into the silence. Old pipes groan as the shower kicks on, and something stretched tight in the echoing, hardwood living room relaxes.
Snake checks the SOCOM one last time; thumbs the safety back into place, and sets it on the kitchen counter.
“Well – ” Otacon begins, sounding entirely too optimistic for the shit show that’s unfolding in real time in the middle of their quiet, post-op evening.
“It’s two in the morning. What the fuck.”
“Maybe he just has some intel to pass along,” says Otacon. “It’s probably nothing. He can give us what he’s got, and be on his way in the morning.”
The rain outside shows no signs of letting up. Snake fills a glass of water in the sink; frowns out the window, squinting his eyes into the gloom while the soft, white-noise pattering on the roof thrums like a pulse in the background.
“Can’t do that over a secure remote connection?”
“Maybe not. Could be something for us to coordinate on.”
“Right.” He wants his own fistful of Advil – but since the bathroom is currently occupied, it’ll have to wait. “That’s why he’s here with a fucking overnight bag and no warning, in the middle of nowhere.”
“I’m just saying,” says Otacon, exasperated. That note in his voice he always gets when Snake is out-of-sorts about something he thinks isn’t worth it; affectionate and reproachful, all at once. “He’s our friend. If he needs a place to stay, for whatever reason – ”
“We worked with him once, in passing. A long time ago.”
“And he did the job.” Otacon is rummaging in the cabinet by the fridge, now, elbow deep in empty Tupperware containers and disposable cutlery so that his voice sounds muffled through the cheap plywood framing. “It was a team effort. How many people have you ever trusted, in the field?”
“He looks like shit,” says Snake, bluntly, and his partner winces.
Not much room for argument, there.
They’ve just determined that, indeed – as Otacon had forlornly concluded only a couple of hours ago, though it feels like far longer – there aren’t any more packages of ready-to-eat Hormel meatloaf in the dusty back corners of the pantry; no dried macaroni or jars of expired pasta sauce lurking behind the haphazard detritus of Clorox wipes and garbage bags under the sink when the light switch in the bathroom makes its distinctive, heavy clicking sound.
Otacon looks at him, eyes wide, and he shrugs.
“Kid’s on his own for dinner,” he says.
So what?
The hallway floorboards creak, and Raiden wanders back into the kitchen with his hair dripping wet all over again, in a clean pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt with the logo of some metal band Snake doesn’t recognize, looking for all the world like the three of them are about to have some sort of unorthodox, domestic terrorism-themed slumber party.
He’s washed his face, Snake notes. Cold water.
The overall effect isn’t much improved.
“Coffee?” Otacon offers, nonsensically. It’s habit, by now; glass urn in his hand, halfway to the sink before he stops himself, blinking. “I, ah… actually, you know. I don’t think we have any decaf, and it’s probably not – ”
“I’m good,” says Raiden. And then, after a beat – because why the fuck not, Snake supposes. “Or else, I could go for a beer. If you’ve got one.”
He leans awkwardly against the countertop, looking into the kitchen (no bar stools, here). His eyes follow Snake to the refrigerator; searching, a little hopeful. Trying not to seem obvious. He’d seen the ramen packaging in the trash can already.
It’s all Snake can do not to roll his eyes.
Still –
The peanut butter keto bars are retrieved from the old Subaru’s glove compartment in due time, against his better judgment. Raiden takes the last three remaining in the box, and stands in the kitchen eating them one after the other in steady, methodical bites that don’t reflect any particular opinion of the way they taste – as if they’re expired MREs, or the bland freeze-dried nutrient cubes the higher-ups used to distribute before long-haul endurance exercises in basic training.
Chew, and swallow.
Again.
There’s something poignantly relatable in it. Or there could be, at least – if it weren’t for the wet clothing draped over the non-functional woodstove; the extra set of boots by the door, itching like a heat rash up under his skin.
Too many things that don’t belong.
“So,” says Raiden, at length. “I know you’re probably wondering why I’m here.”
It’s just the two of them in the kitchen, now. Otacon had excused himself to take the trash out, originally, and is now moving back and forth through the house; tucking satellite photos back into their manila folders, and gathering up spare magazines for the ammo case in the bedroom. Putting things back in order as unobtrusively as possible – a little bit of normalcy, under the circumstances. He shoots a wide-eyed glance at Snake every time he passes through the living room on the other side of the counter, in a way that makes him feel like his partner is trying to give them privacy for whatever sordid story might be about to unfold under the dreary, jaundiced light from the naked bulb over the stove.
Get in here, he wants to say. You’re as much a part of this as I am.
Whatever the fuck it turns out to be.
“Wouldn’t blame you if you guys threw me out. It’s just… well. It’s a long story.” Raiden glances up from his half-empty beer bottle, sardonic little twist to one corner of his mouth, as if he can see what the whole thing must look like – the stereotypical, down-on-his-luck ex-soldier with a visible drinking problem. “Work-related, so. No worries.”
“Thought you were taking a step back from all that.”
“Yeah,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate. “Anyway. I’ve been sifting through back-channel recon reports, mostly. Just odd jobs here and there – freelance stuff, off the grid. After FOXHOUND, I just figured – ”
Snake snorts, and takes a long pull from his own bottle. Cheers to that, anyway. “Right.”
Raiden shrugs, disinterested. His eyes have returned to the curled edge of the blue-and-tan label, coming loose one absent, excruciating millimeter at a time under the blunt pressure of his thumbnail.
“It pays the bills.”
“Still in New York?”
“No.”
“What about…”
“She’s not – ” This, at least, gets a flicker of… something from their guest. A quick, convulsive jerk of his head; glancing up at the window behind Snake’s head. Just a little too matter-of-fact. “I mean… we’re not. Together, anymore.”
“Oh.” There had been a baby, he thinks. Vaguely.
There are legitimate logistical questions here. Not that he gives a shit about the kid’s private life – it’s just basic operational security, to know who might want you dead. But Otacon is shaking his head; gesturing frantically at him behind Raiden’s back – abort, abort – so he lets it go at this.
Conservation of angular momentum. Isn’t that always the way?
Alaska had been cold and silent, especially in the winter. But at least the ground was frozen, mostly. You wore layers, and kept moving. No fog in the valleys. It didn’t rain.
Paper targets on the firing range.
And then, later –
Dark, man-shaped silhouettes against the skyline. Nothing ever lasts.
(Not that it matters, anymore.)
Before either of them can figure out how to back out of the awkward conversational dead end, one of the backup laptops half-open on the coffee table in the next room begins making an insistent beeping noise and his partner moves to scoop it up, socked feet sliding on the hardwood floor. Raiden tenses and turns to look, eyes narrowed.
“Perimeter alarm?”
“Oh!” Otacon’s voice comes drifting in like the click of suit-snaps coming undone; something easy and familiar. The lateness of the hour hits him all over again. “No, it’s fine. It’s just – ”
Snake nudges his side, none-too-gently. “Stand down, kid.”
“That’s all the photos, I think.” On the other side of the counter, he can see his partner thumping the computer down onto the kitchen table – awkwardly, as best he can while also juggling the still-attached connector cable and dangling digital camera – and adjusting the screen to get a better look.
Their guest leans forward at this, interested in spite of himself. “You guys got one, tonight?”
Wonderful.
Snake fishes in his left hip pocket – force of habit – before remembering that he’d left the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table with all the other odds and ends from the mission. Raiden, for his part, has already wandered out into the no-man’s-land between the living room and kitchen and is peering over Otacon’s shoulder at the grid of postage stamp-sized images arrayed neatly on the monitor. “Wow. Hope you blew it sky-high.”
“Yeah,” says Otacon. He sounds tired, but proud – glancing back at Snake with something close enough to open admiration that it catches him off-guard, still. “It was pretty close to completion. The tip came from one of our DOD informants, originally, but it took a few weeks to confirm the information through the company’s internal server, and by then – ”
“I’ve got someone in Eastern Europe,” says Raiden, abruptly. Otacon blinks at him. “Like, an honest-to-god insider. I came here, because – ”
“Nope,” Snake interjects, but it’s too late.
Jesus fucking Christ.
There’s not enough ibuprofen in the world.
“Another Metal Gear? Here?” His partner’s eyebrows have ascended up into his hairline; head cocked to one side, still leaning forward over the computer’s keyboard with his body half-twisted to see Raiden’s face. From where he’s standing, the kid must be backlit against the yellow glow of the old stove bulb. Ominous. Inscrutable.
“No, not that.”
“Not our problem, then,” says Snake.
“Listen, it’s big. It’s more like… “ Raiden stumbles a bit on his explanation, here; words a bit more slurred than they ought to be. Flask in the duffel bag, Snake thinks. He’d bet money on it. “I mean… I’m not 100% sure what it is, exactly. But – ”
Enough.
Snake steps between them, and reaches over Otacon’s shoulder to close the laptop. (Gently. He’s been on the receiving end of his partner’s consternation about mishandling delicate technical equipment, before.)
“Save it,” he says, shortly. “Unless we’re moving out in the next six hours, I don’t want to hear it. It’s the middle of the fucking night.”
Raiden laughs, a little. It’s a rusty sound.
“No kidding,” he says. Beer bottle down on the kitchen table – empty – with a decisive clunk. He starts to say something else, but the words end up stretched around a yawn – blinking, unintelligible; a teenager up past his bedtime, with the baggy T-shirt stuck to his shoulders in patchy wet spots where his hair is still drying in the clammy, humid air. “Guess you can only save the world once, in a day.”
He moves past them to the sofa, and sits down. Digging in the bag beside his feet until somehow, miraculously, he surfaces with what appears to be a pair of dry woolen socks – absurdly bulky, and oatmeal beige in color. While Snake and Otacon watch, he works them carefully onto his bare feet.
Flash of something silver among what’s left of the folded boxer shorts and hoodies, and Snake thinks at first –
But, no.
He knows the glint of a blade when he sees one.
Otacon has followed the direction of his gaze, and nearly hiccups out loud; eyes wide. They exchange glances, and Snake shrugs. “Is that, ah – ”
Raiden looks up. “What?”
“Do you have… a sword, in your overnight bag?” His partner’s voice sounds faint.
“Oh.” Raiden goes back to adjusting the seam across his toes, flexing his ankle to test the way it feels. “I mean, it’s quieter than an M-16. You know?”
“So is manual strangulation,” says Snake. Toneless. “That’s not what you like about it.”
Raiden doesn’t argue this particular point. Instead, he reaches in and carefully works the weapon free of the zippered opening, brushing aside what looks like a second pair of sweatpants identical to the one he’s wearing. He straightens up, sword in hand, and hands it to Snake for inspection.
Up close, it’s an impressive thing to behold. A little shorter than an M4 carbine, and much lighter; deceptively elegant, in a lacquered wood sheath. The handle is wrapped in dark silk cord with textured copper studs peeking through – finger-grip spacing, he notes – and the graceful slimness of its shape is offset by the diamond-hard, cut-glass edge that rivals the sharpest whittling knives he’s ever worked with.
I’m not a big fan of blades. He’d meant this.
Still –
Snake can respect its singleness of purpose, if nothing else.
“Japanese design,” he says. That much is obvious, even to a dyed-in-the-wool firearm aficionado with very little interest in swordsmanship. “Katana?”
“Won’t fit,” says Raiden. “That one is a wakizashi.” At Snake’s furrowed look, he clarifies: “The samurai used them as a kind of backup weapon… good for close quarters fighting, or self-defense. I mean, they usually carried both. But I don’t have a horse to lug all my gear around. And longer swords are kind of conspicuous in downtown Portland, out on the street.”
Snake grunts, and turns the blade over in his hands; testing the whisper-smooth weight of its graceful, elongated shape. Not bad, he supposes.
He'd never trade a good SOCOM or carbon fiber combat knife for it, but he can appreciate a beautiful weapon when he sees one. There isn’t anything ornate or ostentatious about its design – this is not a replica, or an expensive antique showpiece. Nothing to garner a second look, from an armchair collector with too much spare cash and a hard-on for old Japanese art.
Rather, it’s the kind of beauty that comes from clean lines and good balance; a practical, ruthless thing. He has no idea what Raiden’s been up to in the intervening year or two since the Big Shell went under, but something in the way the kid is holding himself tells him the blade has needed cleaning more than once.
He hands it back.
“Planning on beheading some caravan bandits out in the Oregon woods?”
Raiden shrugs, enigmatic. He checks the fit of the blade in its sheath, once – habit, Snake assumes – before setting it aside and resuming his task of sorting through the contents of the duffel bag. (Sure enough, something sloshes quietly. Snake says nothing.) After several long seconds during which the rain pattering on the slate roof intensifies briefly to something that sounds more like a tropical monsoon than a businesslike mountain squall, he comes up with a well-used toothbrush and nearly-empty travel tube of toothpaste.
Finally he says, without looking: “Your op was in Mill City, right?”
“Lyons,” says Snake.
“Okay, so. What are you guys doing all the way out here?”
“Running a bed and breakfast, apparently.”
Otacon nudges him. Be nice.
“Well, there you go,” says Raiden, as if this somehow proves his point. He zips the bag shut over the still damp, dorm-room tangle of odds and ends inside, and sits up against the musty cushions behind him. The sheathed sword – lying on top now; out in the open – gives the entire scene a sense of unreal, dreamlike absurdity.
Manhattan all over again, Snake thinks. The ex-President in octopus gear. Fucking Russians.
Not in a good way.
They’ve dealt with enough cyborg ninjas and rogue AI bots to last a lifetime.
It occurs to him, in the part of his brain that’s always leaned a bit too much towards the neater, more clinical forms of self-destruction, that perhaps a few fingers of cheap Tennessee whiskey all around wouldn’t go amiss. Headache, get fucked. But the night is half gone already, and the kid looks a good sheet-and-a-half to the wind without any extra help.
“Sorry to put you guys out,” says Raiden, peering blearily up at both of them.
“Um.” Otacon is visibly fretting about extra blankets, now. Glancing uncertainly towards the bedroom. “Listen, we’re okay. We can give you the – ”
“Sofa pulls out, if you need it.”
“Thanks.” That sardonic little quirk of Raiden’s mouth, again. It makes him look older than he is. Or, at least – older than the fumbling, earnest rookie Snake remembers. “Anyway, you’re about twelve miles off the last paved section of Route 22, cross-country. Due north. In case you’re curious.”
“That’s the idea,” Snake says, gruffly. He retrieves the SOCOM from the kitchen counter, confirms a full magazine and a round in the chamber, and places it deliberately on the coffee table beside what appears to be Raiden’s own cigarette lighter. Better and better. Again, he doesn’t ask. “You can watch the door, since you’re out here. You remember how to use this thing, right?”
Raiden makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like he might be flipping Snake the bird, but he’s already reaching for the light switch in the tiny indention where the hallway starts, so he doesn’t bother to look back. He can hear Otacon scrabbling on the kitchen table, gathering up his laptop and the digital camera; and then light, anxious feet on the floorboards behind him as the room – finally – is plunged into blessed, quiet dark.
******
In the bedroom, his partner makes quick work of the suit.
He’d nearly forgotten it was still gaping open along his back until he turns around to close the door behind them, and an unseasonably frigid gust of wind from the half-open window across from the old, rickety nightstand catches him square between the shoulder blades with enough bite to make him swear under his breath.
Almost October, already. The Pacific Northwest is a far cry from Twin Lakes, in some ways – too rainy, too wet – but at night, when the temperature dips down low enough to leave traces of frost on the single-pane glass, the spruce trees on the mountain still smell the way he remembers.
“Eastern Europe,” says Otacon, with something like amazement. “How did he get hooked up with someone there, do you think?”
“Don’t know. FOXHOUND doesn’t go in much for CIA-style tradecraft, in the field.” Snake braces one hand against the wall in front of him. Deep breath. Waiting. “At least, they didn’t. Back in the day.”
Hands on the back of his neck, undoing the last remaining clasps keeping the tactical harness attached to the rest of his gear, and he tilts his head forward a bit without being asked. Like that, he thinks. There’s something about the sudden release of tension along his shoulders; the shy, careful weight of Hal’s body pressed up close behind him in a way that’s maybe not entirely accidental, that – paradoxically, perhaps – always makes it easier to breathe.
Forget the fucking third wheel on their sofa. For a few minutes, an hour; until morning. Samurai swords and musty rain-damp duffel bags, and not a scrap of uneaten food in the house.
The bedroom door has a lock, with a deadbolt.
It feels like enough.
“Mm.” A tickling sensation; Otacon’s hair brushing against the exposed skin of his right arm, and Snake closes his eyes. Focus. “Sorry, I just need to reach – ”
The belt buckle in front, now. Technically speaking, he could unfasten this part himself.
He isn’t complaining.
His partner is an expert at all the little intricacies of this process. God knows he ought to be, considering how many times he’s done it – a rote, well-learned sequence with a particular order. Harness, and chest straps. Collar. Lower back. Always the consummate professional when they’re pressed for time: off, and into the shower. First aid kit at the ready, if there’s any blood.
(There isn’t, tonight. He’s already checked.)
In those first early days, when Philanthropy was just getting off the ground, Otacon’s hands had been nervous and quick. A little flustered at the forced closeness of it all; no military background, Snake supposes. There had been no group barracks in the engineering department at MIT, where the nighttime air was always heavy with other people’s sweat and the regular sight of someone else’s naked, unapologetic ass – up close and personal, as often as not – was part of daily life.
After the Tanker, things had changed.
Snake had nearly died, and he remembers the suffocating burn of salt water in his lungs with a terrible, crystalline clarity that still pulls him bolt upright out of a dead sleep, more nights than he’d like to admit. (Hal knows this, too, of course he does. It’s hard to miss.) But on the plus side, he’d been on the receiving end of the best goddamn blow job he’d ever had in his life, and now –
Well.
Among the other tangible benefits of their partnership as it currently stands – RIP to several motel table lamps, he thinks; an ugly polyester bedspread from the thrift store that fell victim to their first halting experiments with oil-based lube, and one particularly flimsy kitchen table in a termite-infested walk-up in Poughkeepsie, NJ – is his partner’s burgeoning, hard-earned sense of confidence in indulging his own interests. These have included some truly inventive forays into the realm of experimentation over the years, which Snake mostly takes in stride.
Some of these interests are work-related.
Some of them are not.
Honestly, Snake doesn’t mind either way. Watching Hal work up the courage to ask for what he wants in bed – blushing and stammering, with his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and a tiny, hopeful wet spot clearly visible through the thin fabric of his boxers – is enough of a turn-on that he’s never been overly fussed about whatever happens next. There have been internet purchases of questionable origin; and sometimes, reference materials that defy easy classification.
But as a more practical part of their day-to-day life: when it comes to stripping Snake out of the suit, it’s no secret that he likes to linger over the details. (“It’s just… the aesthetic,” Hal had tried to explain, at one point. Snake had shrugged. So what? His partner likes giant robots, and stylized cartoon women with big tits, and – evidently – glimpses of bare skin under a snug-fit polythermal lining.) The end result is that this particular interest has led to enthusiastic, adrenaline-fueled, post-mission sex on enough occasions that they’ve both developed something approaching a Pavlovian response to the sound of stainless steel zipper closures and HDPE-covered snaps coming loose, when the safehouse is secure and they can afford to take their time.
And so, tonight –
Fuck.
It feels good.
Deft, careful fingers working at the laced nylon webbing across his lower back. Steadying hand on his waist – easy, almost done – and it’s all he can do not to grunt out loud when Otacon gives the cord a particularly hard tug. Squeezing his hip; holding the pressure just a little longer than needed.
“Doing okay, there?”
Snake snorts. “You tell me.”
He shifts his body a little, under Otacon’s touch. The restrictive fit of the suit between his legs leaves very little to the imagination – both a blessing, and a curse – and he’s fairly sure the developing situation there hasn’t escaped his partner’s notice.
Keep going.
Sure enough, there is a moment of hesitation; a quick, hitching stutter in the movement at his back. Almost too mechanical to mean anything at all, except that Snake’s half-hard cock is fully aware of every minute shift in the air between them. Quiet little huff of breath, and then –
The edge of a fiberglass lens frame pressed against his back; tickling sensation of Otacon’s hair (rabbit-fine, so different from his own) on the old, surgery-smooth knife scar along his right shoulder blade. Squeezing, a little harder.
Keep your hand there, he wants to say. Lower down. Just a little.
Touch me, like that.
Under the suit.
Another gust of wind lances straight through to what feels like his bare, unprotected bones; stiffening muscles in his neck, his upper back – fucking cold, now. Unwelcome. He can feel Otacon’s eyes resolutely fixed on the stubborn steel-rimmed eyelet near the top of the corset (not a corset) that always gives him a bit of trouble.
Snake waits.
“It’s late,” his partner says, finally.
“You don’t mind. Pretend you’ve got a Cowboy Bebop marathon to watch, on that Romanian satellite channel you hijacked last week.”
“Uh huh.” His breath is soft, on Snake’s back. “An hour ago, you were telling me all about the trials and tribulations of middle age. Headaches, and long hours. You almost passed out on my lap.”
Patient, as ever. Both hands now – leaning back, professional.
Working the cord loose.
“I’m up now.” Snake’s body weight is still braced against the wall in front of him, so his options are limited unless he wants to interrupt what Otacon is doing. He closes his eyes. Something to rub up against, fuck. He settles for one gloved hand down along the front of his body, reaching for the stiff, too-snug straps on his upper thigh; giving himself a discreet squeeze. Come on, then. He wants out of this thing, post-haste. “We both are.”
“Hey!” Sharp tug at his back, again; feels like something inside is cinching tight and this time Snake lets a low, guttural sound escape. Forehead pressed hard against the wall. Jesus. “Behave yourself, or we’ll be here all night. I’m almost done.”
Fighting words, but Otacon doesn’t mean it.
Stop.
Snake can hear the attempt at self-control – his partner’s ‘one of us has to be a grown-up, here’ voice, but they both know that’s never lasted long in the face of any real, concerted effort on Snake’s part when he’s horny and determined. Even something as weakly innocuous as a well-timed corny pick-up line has been enough to do him in, on more occasions than either of them would care to admit.
(“Is that, uh… just a modified M9 tranq pistol in your holster?”)
Eye-roll. Snort.
They can do better than that, tonight.
He takes a half-step backward; shifts his weight, just a bit. Enough to feel his ass press up against the front of Otacon’s groin, where his jeans are decidedly tighter than they were a few minutes ago.
Fuck, yes.
And then –
Balls pulled up tight against his body; uncomfortable, too much. He’s so hard it almost hurts. The distant sensation of falling; cargo bay door of a C-130, wide open to the dark. Rucksack-weight. Oxygen mask. The sickly green glow of an altimeter on his wrist.
Failure to fire protocol, he thinks – apropos of nothing. Lightheaded; can’t feel his legs. Find cover, watch your six.
Head down.
Seat the magazine. Check. Firm strike, with the heel of his hand.
Rack the slide.
Back on target.
There’s an answering shift in his partner’s breathing; hand slipping down to touch his inner thigh, finally, as the top part of the suit loosens enough for Snake to get his arms free. He shoves the sleeves down, ripping open the snap-shut closures on each wrist and peeling off the gloves as he goes. The wet chill in the air feels bracing, now – hits the clammy sweat along his ribs and chest and sticks there, like stepping into a refrigerated room with his shirt off. Grounding. It helps to clear his head.
He swallows. “Hal – ”
Fingers in the hair at the base of his skull, where it’s stiff and still a little damp – perspiration, or leftover traces of rain. How long ago? Otacon squirms a little, up against his bare back. “You okay?”
For a dizzy, spinning moment or two, he doesn’t know how to answer.
It feels like the wall is taking more of his weight than it ought to. He isn’t nauseous – not that, exactly. Doesn’t have a name, for what he feels. The way he can’t quite make his lungs work; the sharp, squeezing thing behind his sternum that isn’t quite arousal.
The living room sofa all over again.
Or else –
Not just that, he thinks.
Then what?
The Hudson River, maybe. The safehouse in Manhattan after the Big Shell went under, with his entire body bruised and sore; suture kits, alcohol wipes, and a half-forgotten, bloody bandage in the bathroom garbage can. A thousand other field ops in a thousand nameless places.
Headaches, heating ducts. Exhaust fumes.
Come on then, old man.
What does it matter?
Otacon was right. It’s late.
With an effort, he pushes himself upright and reaches back; feeling for the hem of his partner’s T-shirt. Otacon lets out a startled little squeak – not displeased; he knows the difference, now – as Snake grips his arm as easily as he might shoulder a practice dummy, nudges him off-balance with an abbreviated hip throw, and reverses their positions in one smooth motion. He’d learned years ago (after much coaxing, and no small amount of paranoid safety talk that very first time) that his partner gets almost impossibly hot and bothered with a little bit of manhandling, especially with Snake still suited up and dangerous in the half-hearted glow of a naked light bulb, late at night. Both of them buzzing on the adrenaline high that makes the risk in every risky idea feel just a bit more out of reach.
And so –
Enough.
Stop thinking. His body knows the rest.
Hand twisted in Otacon’s hair – gentle; careful – to protect his head from any accidental impact with the wall while he works one thigh up between his partner’s legs. Eyes closed, face pressed into the crook of Otacon’s bony shoulder. Come on. Working by feel, with the top half of the suit flapping loose around his waist and one empty sleeve bunched awkwardly between them.
Fuck, he thinks.
No good.
With a frustrated growl, he pulls back long enough to shuck out of the thing entirely; brute force this time, snaps and buckles be damned. He thinks, just possibly, that he hears something rip – catch of finely-tuned smart material on a barbed wire fence – and Otacon winces. “…Sorry,” he says, belatedly.
“Listen – ”
Nothing but a pair of dry-tech leggings underneath, and those are simple enough to roll down with one hand. Okay.
Whatever else his partner might have intended to say on the subject of proper care of his Very Expensive and Finely Tuned tactical gear is lost to the ether when Snake’s fully erect cock – accidentally, almost – nudges directly up against the tented crease in Hal’s jeans.
Long fingers curled around him, warm. Like a reflex.
Like that.
They’re very nearly past the point of no return – both of them breathing hard; mouthing along the hot, fragile skin of Otacon’s throat while his partner chokes helplessly and tries his damndest not to collapse both of them onto the floor in a half-dressed, disheveled heap – when the distant sound of something he doesn’t recognize at first worms its way through the buzzing in his ears to register, dully, as part of his conscious perception.
Otacon hears it too.
The blunt, muffled whoosh of the toilet; not ten feet from the locked bedroom door behind them.
Fucking shit, he thinks, tiredly.
It’s fine.
The two of them dead silent now, waiting. Frozen like actors in a pantomime; midway through peeling Otacon’s newly-unzipped jeans down over his hips, in a scene that Snake has no doubt might have felt comical if it weren’t for the maddening, not-enough sensation of his partner’s cotton boxer shorts against the wet head of his dick.
Hold still.
They listen intently as the bathroom door squeaks on its hinges. Familiar sound of the light switch snapping off; and then slow, uneven footsteps making their way back towards the living room. The old sofa springs groan audibly under the weight of a body – slimmer than Snake’s; too drunk to arrange itself in anything approaching a comfortable position, and God knows he remembers how that feels – falling like a sack of dry goods against the cushions.
Another beat; two. They wait.
Nothing more.
Rain patters outside the open window; a constant, thrumming source of white noise, so monotonously steady as to be nearly impossible to notice except when everything else is still.
Across from him, Otacon’s eyes are wide.
“Should we go check, do you think?”
“Check what?” Mouth on his partner’s throat, again; reaching up under the T-shirt to thumb at a hard, sensitive nipple. “He’s alive. More or less.”
“Well, that’s charitable.”
“Not much else to do, except make sure he doesn’t choke on his vomit. Kid seems like he’s got the drill pretty well down by now.”
The old, leftover bitterness in his own voice surprises him, a little – something he hadn’t expected. He’s fucking tired. What difference does it make? Sleeping dogs, and all that. He presses his hips forward, insistent, and Otacon makes a hiccupping, breathless noise against his neck.
Working a hand down in between them; reaching for the waistband of his partner’s boxers.
Fuck, he wants to come.
“Dave.” Some minute shift in the set of his body must give him away – tense; frantic, just a little, and God damn his fucking perceptive partner for being able to read him like a book. Otacon pulls back; flattening himself against the wood-paneled wall, craning his head to try and look into Snake’s face as best he can from the awkward angle. “What’s wrong?”
Fingers in his hair, again – dominant hand. (Right hand, gun hand.)
Angular momentum; a projectile, moving through space.
Stop.
This is Hal.
Gentle pressure, grounding him. Okay?
(He grunts. Okay.)
And then, more tentative – cupping his jaw; stroking the sweat-damp fringe back from his forehead. Running a thumb along one cheekbone, slow. Back and forth, like petting a skittish animal.
This happens, sometimes. It’s fine.
Start over.
Tap, rack, bang.
The point is: Otacon’s face in the glow of a low-wattage bedside lamp with his glasses knocked askew and his neck flushed blotchy-red up under his collar like he’s coming down with a heat rash, is the most beautiful fucking thing he’s ever seen.
“I’m good,” he says. And he is, of course he is. He will be. “Just… want you. Up inside you.”
Not six inches apart; close enough that he can smell Otacon’s day-old deodorant. (Or maybe it’s his own? Too warm now, in spite of the intermittent gusts of rainy wind.) The only thing Snake knows is that if he doesn’t manage to get off within the next two minutes, somehow, he’s going to end up doing himself permanent damage.
Otacon swallows hard, visibly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Nuzzling into the crook of his partner’s neck; following the sharp line of his collarbone down to where it disappears beneath the faded, peeling image of some sort of stylized pixie girl with unnaturally vibrant hair. Fuck, that T-shirt needs to come off. Now. “My fingers, or else – ”
“Just your fingers?”
Christ, he thinks. Still dizzy. They’re both a mess.
He’s just determined that his partner’s skin tastes faintly of salt and lime chili-scented MSG when Otacon – with what appears to be a truly Herculean effort; on par with shutting his laptop mid-sentence on a heated debate about the relative merits of ‘original recipe’ Fullmetal Alchemist vs. the remake on some god-forsaken online message board – puts both hands on Snake’s shoulders and pushes back. Not hard. It’s going through the motions; giving them just enough space to breathe.
“Okay.” Blinking at him over the cockeyed rim of his glasses; mussed and sex-drunk already. Trying valiantly to form a coherent thought. “Okay, but…”
Snake grunts. “Okay.”
Neither of them moves.
“Seriously, though,” says Otacon – a bit weakly, Snake thinks. Hedging, the way he does when he already knows the cause is lost. “Let Raiden sleep, even if you don’t want to.”
“What’s Raiden got to do with anything?”
“We can’t – ah! God,” Otacon whispers, fingernails digging into the bare skin on Snake’s upper arm. (Fuck, his partner is as palpably hard as he’s ever been; brushing accidentally-on-purpose against him, still half-clothed. Neither of them are going to make it.) “We need to be quiet. You and I both know that mattress would wake up every neighbor in the building, if we had any.”
With the part of his rational brain that’s still more or less online, Snake thinks about pointing out that this, of all things, ought to be one distinct benefit of setting up camp in a respectable, free-standing cabin in the middle of nowhere instead of a shitty roach-infested apartment building. No prying eyes. Twelve solid miles off the nearest paved road should be worth something.
In the living room, something clunks softly against the coffee table.
Glass of water, maybe. He hopes.
Instead, he pins Otacon hard against the wall; reaching around to cup the backs of his thighs with both hands. Squeezing. Suggestive.
“Who said anything about the bed?”
“Thought your shoulders were hurting?”
“Two words,” he says – letting his voice drop into the particular low, gravelly register that nearly always inspires his partner to kick off his pajama pants and strip naked in less time than it takes for his ancient spare hard drive to settle creakily into power save mode. “Second wind.”
In point of fact, his shoulders are hurting.
So what?
Otacon looks like he might, just possibly, have more to say on that topic, but who the fuck can tell, tonight, and if he does, it’ll keep until tomorrow.
For now, it’s warm in their tiny wood-paneled bedroom. His partner’s body feels fever-hot under his touch, and there’s lube in the near-side nightstand drawer.
Seat the magazine, rack the slide.
We’ll talk about it later.
A language they both understand.