#foxdied

His instinct to go to the CODEC for this is strong, but he resists, because the one person he might call, the one he knows will always be there to answer him, frequency 141.12 or, alternatively 140.96, would have no way of knowing this most important of answers. 

“Hnn... I don’t know, not for sure.” His lips purse in contemplation, brows knitting at the center of his forehead, affecting deep thought. It hadn’t been one point in time, but many, converging into a conversation that ultimately led them to each other, as all conversations inevitably did when one was truly, madly, deeply in love. 

He recalls distinctly, however, the moment that Hal “Otacon” Emmerich had wrapped his shivering arms around his waist, leaning heavily upon him to fight off the Alaskan chill as they escaped Shadow Moses. Otacon had asked him a strange, yet illuminating question and Snake’s entire world had tilted on its axis. He explains this as best he can. “And then suddenly, he was my axis.” 

Words did not usually fail the gruff-looking mercenary. Despite his appearance, Solid Snake was an eloquent man, maybe even loquacious, a fact that likely had not escaped Otacon, who seemed amused at the redness blooming high on his cheeks. 

“Hhrn,” he grunted, his voice soft in that way it only took on when speaking to the engineer, “okay...”

Grooming, brushing, or tending to their hair //Hhhhh you’ve got it~

It is not downtime, so much as a pause, the intake of breath between hoarse, sometimes bloody exhalations. Snake is going over the blueprints of a new Metal Gear. The organization which owns these incidious things has already begun to produce them regularly and deactivation is up close and personal. It is not his ideal, but Philanthropy rarely has the option. As he sits on the ottoman near the sofa of their newest rental—this one is a bit less rat-infested than the last—he feels, suddenly, hands upon the sides of his head, fingers curling into his thick, brunet hair, and nails softly scraping along his scalp.

“Hnn… Otacon,” he murmurs, grip upon the schematics slipping ever-so-subtly, shoulders sagging with relief of tension. His hand rises to stop the action, but Snake cannot complete it. Those fingers on his scalp feel too damn good.

“Otacon... hn...” The name spills from Snake’s wide mouth easily; he is accustomed to speaking it, in low tones and soft tones and any tone for which an occasion may call. “He’s... everything I’ve ever fought for... in one person. I’m... lucky--no... fated to have met him. We belong together.