Archive of Our Own

Running from one mission to the other had always been a circumstance they tried to avoid. Especially given that Philanthropy operated on the very outskirts of the law at the best of times, after they got out of their latest operation, ideally they needed at least a day to regroup.

With how narrowly they had gotten away from the Tanker Incident, they’d both hoped that future missions would go at least a little bit smoother – but just when he and Otacon had hoped that their lucky strand might at least last long enough to save Olga’s daughter from the Patriots, everything had gone tits up again.

“We’re running out of time,” Dave ground out between grit teeth while Hal hunkered down next to him, trying to tighten up the bandage around his chest enough to keep it secure without causing major discomfort. “Sure, we never even got close, but they’ve gotta know something’s up now. The kid’s not safe.”

“You can’t go back like this,” Hal said quietly, hands sticky with blood. “You’re lucky they missed your vital organs.”

Dave said nothing, just ground his teeth. Hal was right – much as he hated to admit it. The mission had been a complete disaster, and it was a damn miracle he had gotten out relatively unscathed. Well, by his standards. He’d lost so much blood that he’d been barely lucid for a tense hour or two.

He was riddled with wounds and running a low-grade fever, his collar bone was likely fractured if not outright broken, and there were still two places on his right leg where Hal would have to not only extract the bullets that had wedged themselves into his flesh, but also inspect the holes to ensure no shrapnel or shreds of fabric remained. He’d live – but doing a mission like this, especially one this risky, was nothing short of glorified suicide.

“We don’t have a choice.”

Hal was silent, moving from Dave’s torso down to his legs. With a hiss, Dave lifted his leg up to let him peel down the remains of his suit. “What about Raiden?”

“We can’t send him in there! If they catch a single glimpse of him, the kid’s dead!”

“She’s dead either way if we don’t have someone go in as soon as possible!” Hal shot back, balancing Dave’s butchered calf on his thighs. “If she’s still alive at all.”

“They’re using her, so they won’t kill her if we don’t force their hand.”

Hal said nothing, but Dave knew his answer all the same. They already had. And they’d failed. They had run out of time, and the best they could do now was one final, last-ditch attempt.

With a grunt, as Hal sat by his side and tended his wounds, Dave reached for his ear. “Mei Ling? Can you locate Raiden for me?”

It took them the better part of a week to make their way to Raiden’s location. While not exactly in hiding, he had for all intents and purposes fallen off the face of the earth nonetheless.

“I’m going in alone,” Dave said, in that voice that allowed for no argument against his decision. Hal still opened his mouth, eyes glued to the spots on which he’d kept changing what little gauze and bandages they had. Despite himself, Dave felt his gaze soften. “It’s just Raiden, and it’s some dingy trailer park in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be fine. If anything, it’s safer with you keeping an eye on things from your laptop.”

“There’s little for me to use,” Hal said anyways, casting a doubtful look at his equipment, piled up on the rickety kitchen table of the otherwise nearly barren safehouse they’d made it to.

Usually, all of it piled precariously in the back of their van. It was a rundown old thing, with far too many miles under its belt, leaking oil and being all around on its last legs. But it was transportation, and that was as much as they could currently hope to get.

Hal had slept in the back during their week-long trek through America, curled up under old blankets they’d nicked from a random motel. He’d insisted that Dave take the reclining passenger’s seat, to try and allow him a miniscule level of comfort while he healed.

Dave dug out the provisionally repaired sneak suit from the singular pile of items he’d brought in. “I’ll wear this, if it makes you feel any better. It’s not perfect condition, but it’ll help. And you’ll find something to keep track of. You always do.”

With a heavy sigh, Hal assented. He did have a knack for utilising even the most remote satellites in his favour, and he knew that Dave was meeting him halfway as best as he could.

“The suit’s too tight, it’ll agitate the wounds. We don’t have any gauze left. And it’s kind of… conspicuous.”

Dave just raised an eyebrow. The air around them was tense.

Their relationship had turned into… something, over the course of their activity as Philanthropy. It was no longer the abrasive, bristling need to keep each other at arm’s length that it had been in the beginning, but though they had become something like tentative friends, there was also this tension that sprung up sometimes – usually after missions.

For the most part, they worked together like a well-oiled machine. They knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, knew how to balance them out when it came to prepping for missions and keep each other on track for the duration of them.

But after, when Dave stumbled into the van or a safehouse in various states of exhaustion, and when Hal helped him out of the suit and fussed over every new bruise and scratch, there was also something else. Something almost tender, hidden beneath a pretence of professionalism and habitual defensiveness on both parts, something they never spoke of or acknowledged at all.

It lay hidden in the way that their eyes met when they were reunited, the way Hal made sure Dave ate and slept. The way Dave let Hal have the extra blanket because he got cold to the point of uncontrollable shivers when he was winding down from the stress of a mission. And with Hal keeping watch even after a mission, Dave slept like a stone.

By now, it was a working system. Hal barely slept as it was. But especially after missions, though the stress left his body in ways that he could physically feel, he could never sleep. He just rested, letting the shivers pass through him, wrapped in a blanket while Dave lay still as a corpse in the bed – if there was one. When he woke up, Hal would hand him whatever food they had and some water, check on his injuries, and only then would he finally drift off to an exhausted sleep.

But now was not the time after a mission. It was barely a time before one at all. Just them, sitting in a barely-functional kitchen, discussing final details before Dave became Snake again to take the ramshackle van and find Raiden – or the place where Mei Ling had said he would be.

“I’ll set up. Just – be careful.”

Dave gave a dry snort and tied his bandana on to hold back his hair. It was getting long, but there had been no time to even think about cutting it. “The fuck do you think I’ve been doing out there?”

“Oh, you know what I mean!”

This, too, was a relatively recent development – for a long while, after a response like that, Hal had just kind of folded in on himself, turned red in the cheeks and if he’d responded, he’d done it with a stutter. But even he could only tend to Dave’s wounds for so long, see the man in all states of undress, broken, battered and bruised, and witness him turn from Snake to Dave when the suit came off and the mission was over.

Slowly, Hal had realised that Solid Snake, too, was human – and far from the war machine super soldier he was always made out to be. Sure, he was incredibly skilled in all sorts of combat, but he was also, as mundane as that was, just a man. Just like Hal was more than just a lanky guy hunched over a computer, with nerdy glasses and an affinity for going red in the face.

When Hal looked back up from his spot at the table with his laptop balanced on his knees and his glasses pushed up on his nose, Solid Snake was looking back at him. He’d left the suit after all – opting instead for a flannel shirt that passed for a normal choice of clothing, though Hal could see the lines of the tactical vest under it. Not that a passer-by was likely to notice.

“Is the vest not too tight on the ribcage?”

“I kept it loose,” Snake replied curtly. Hal pressed his lips together with a nod. He’d made it as a prototype for the actual suit once, but the material was genuine and it was better than nothing. Especially now.

Snake closed up his boots. A knife hidden in one, a gun in the other. The one pair of jeans he owned bunched on top.

“Okay. You ready? I’m gonna get going.”

It was just Raiden. And they were miles away from anywhere where an actual threat would likely be.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Shouldn’t be too much of a walk once you get there, but there’s nowhere to park the van down the line without it being easily spotted, so you’ll have to leave it at the fork in the road. If anything’s fishy, let me know. I’ll try to – I don’t know. Do anything I can.”

“Thanks. I won’t be long.”

Hal gritted his teeth and nodded. “Okay. I’ve got your vitals pulled up and a satellite I can use to keep an eye out. I’ll be on the Codec if I see anything strange.”

Snake nodded back. “Alright.”

The trailer park looked deserted, save for some stray cats and dogs that were scouring the area for scraps of food. But the day was cold and foggy, and Snake suspected that most of the inhabitants of the place were staying inside where it was at least semi-warm.

When he found the rundown trailer that supposedly housed Raiden, it looked like all the others – broken and abandoned. He knocked on the door all the same. Nothing. His leg hurt like hell, and it had barely been a five-minute walk.

Mei Ling would have given Raiden a heads-up, so the complete lack of reaction sent a prickle up Snake’s spine. He tapped his ear. “Otacon? Anything?”

“No, from what I can tell, all is quiet. Why? Something up?”

“Not yet,” Snake banged on the door again. Nothing. “He’s not opening up.”

“Mei Ling was pretty precise though, there should be – ”

The door burst open, and the stench of old vomit and alcohol hit Snake’s nose. He grit his teeth. “Nevermind. Got him.”

And he looked horrible, staring at Snake out of bloodshot eyes. He was hunched over and so thin that, compared to Snake, he appeared downright skeletal, despite the wiry muscle still spanning his limbs. His shirt was so tight that it showed every last line of his maltreated body, and dirty, as if he’d thrown up on himself.

“Okay,” Hal said in Snake’s ear, “I’ll be on standby.”

“Thanks.”

With effort, Raiden focused his eyes. “Snake?”

“Raiden, let me in.”

He did not like standing out in the open, the small but real possibility of a trap still hovering in the back of his mind. The Patriots had kept tabs on Raiden’s vitals – who was to say there wasn’t one of their agents here, keeping a closer eye? Unlikely, but the chances were never zero.

Somewhat sluggishly, Raiden moved to the side and Snake slipped into what frankly was a mess of empty cans and bottles surrounding a bare mattress, disguised from the outside as an old white trailer in a foggy trailer park. For a second, he felt transported back to his cabin in Alaska, and a kind of defeated resignation set in. Whatever it was that had Raiden in this state, it was unlikely that he’d snap out of it fast enough to do what they needed him for.

“Mei Ling told you we were coming, didn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Raiden managed, as if every single word he spoke was a near insurmountable effort for him. Snake kicked an empty can aside, took a deep breath, and ignored the nagging voice in the back of his head that told him that Raiden was not up to the task. He had not been up to any task either, and Hal had still dragged him out of there for Philanthropy’s sake.

But they’d had weeks of time. Not a very limited number of days.

“Listen. You’re fucked up beyond belief. I don’t care why, but you gotta snap out of it. We need you. I tried getting Olga’s kid from the Patriots, but the mission went bust. I’m on my feet, but I can’t go back in on another one, and we don’t have time. They know we’re onto them now. We gotta act fast, and you’re the only other option we’ve got.”

Raiden laughed joylessly. “I can’t.”

“You can. We can’t make you. But if you don’t do it, she’ll die.”

Raiden shook his head, slowly, like he was moving through water. Dry-heaved. “I can’t.”

Snake huffed and grabbed Raiden by the back of his head. He didn’t even wince, though Snake’s grip had to hurt – merely retched again, drooling as Snake dragged him by the hair and over to the sink. It was tiny and crusted with dirt, but the faucet worked well enough for Snake to turn it on and wrench Raiden’s head down under the stream of icy water.

Raiden sputtered and spat, throwing up an unhealthy looking sludge of greenish brown. Snake pulled him back before he could breathe any water. Raiden coughed. “Fuck!”

“Need another?”

“No – let go of me, I – ”

He convulsed in Snake’s grip, and another surge of vomit landed on top of the first one, clogging the sink. Snake forced him back under the faucet, then back up. Raiden hacked out more coughs, but he looked more awake now. His eyes were clearer, though still rimmed with red. “Fuck, alright! Stop it!”

Snake turned the water off and let go. Raiden fell forwards but caught himself on the edge of the sink, shivering and panting. “Fucking shit.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Snake said drily. “You got a glass anywhere?”

Raiden gestured to the lopsided cabinet above his head. “Solo cups.”

Snake dug one out of the cabinet and filled it with water before he shoved it into Raiden’s hand. “Drink.”

Raiden did as he was told before he hunched back over, blindly tossing the cup into the mess behind him. It landed somewhere on the little path that led to the mattress in the back.

Snake gripped his hair again and bent his head back. “Right. You awake now? You with me?”

Raiden just stared at him. His pupils were large, ringed with the dulled blue of his eyes, and his cheeks were flushing with red. He still looked bad, but at least he no longer resembled a walking corpse. His breath came heavy. A trembling hand landed on Snake’s outstretched arm. “Yeah.”

His voice was rough, croaking the word out. Snake let go of him, but Raiden remained upright now. He looked sick, but alert.

“So,” Snake said, unwilling to waste any more time on this than he had to. “The kid. Sunny. Otacon and I tried to get her out. We thought it’d be best not to involve you because the Patriots might still track you, but as it stands, we don’t have another choice. It’s not gonna be pretty, especially with how you’ve fucked yourself over, but we’ve got some stuff that can probably keep you going for long enough.”

“Stuff?” Raiden echoed, raspy-voiced, and coughed. But he did not puke again.

Snake’s eyes hardened. “Meds. Drugs. Whatever you wanna call it. Some amphetamines, painkillers, the works. Half your blood’s gotta be alcohol at this point, so we’d have to tide you over to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay. Like I said – not gonna be pretty. But you’re otherwise in better physical shape than me. It’s the best shot we’ve got.”

“I’m a shit last resort, Snake,” Raiden said. His voice was laced through with… something. Something that reminded Snake of the tension between him and Hal, after missions, when the world outside was silent and dark. It made him feel on edge, made the hairs on his arms stand up.

“Makes two of us. You’re in a sorry state, but it’s you or no-one.”

A jolt went through Raiden, his eyes zeroing in on Snake’s face. The look in them made a feeling crawl up Snake’s spine like static electricity. Like imminent danger. His chest felt constricted, and the wound in his torso pulsed with it. His leg was on fire.

“Fuck, I’ll do it,” Raiden said. “I’ll do anything if it means you’ll do what it takes to turn my goddamn brain off and make me not fucking think.”

Snake opened his mouth to reply something – but before he had even formed a thought, let alone a full sentence, Raiden was throwing himself bodily at him and smothering Snake’s lips with his own. He tasted of alcohol, vomit and bile.

His mouth was hot and uncoordinated, less actually kissing Snake and more sliding them together in a fever-clumsy mess of panting breaths and saliva. Graceless arms enveloped Snake’s body, too thin and angular, all paper skin spanning wiry muscle and sharp, jutting bones.

“Snake?” Hal’s voice in his ear, static-y and a little worried, “Your vitals are jumping all over the place, what’s – ”

“It’s nothing,” Snake ground out against Raiden’s sloppy yet unyielding lips. He felt them pull into a grin, too wide and sharp-toothed. Maniacal, almost. He clung insistently, undeterred by Snake’s attempts to push him away.

“No, it’s not,” he rasped hoarsely when Snake dug a hand back in his hair to pull him away. “It’s too close to something you want, isn’t it? You want to punch me, Snake, don’t you? You want to break me, get me to stop fucking spinning out of control and bring me back down. But I’m too far gone already, I’m lower than you’ll ever sink – but you need me. You need me, you can’t do this job on your own.”

He wrenched himself free. There were teeth scraping Snake’s jaw, catching sharply on the stubble. Raiden’s breath, thick and hot, sickly-sour against his skin. “Beat me into a fucking pulp if you want to, melt all my fucking thoughts into a puddle of blood, carve your name into my skin. Or fuck my damn brains out cause you want to – you want to, don’t you Snake – teach me a lesson, fucking rip me apart – ”

Snake was so tense, he was certain that he could feel his muscle strands starting to tear, the wounds on him coming undone again, skin splitting open.

Hal was still talking in his ear. “It doesn’t look like nothing, come on, tell me, what’s going on?”

“I’ve got it handled,” Snake gritted out between grinding teeth.

He managed to push Raiden away just enough to grant himself some breathing room, though that did not stop Raiden from winding his hands over his shoulders, drag his fingertips down Snake’s neck and then as far upwards as he could reach, toying with the tips of his hair. His mouth no longer latched onto Snake’s skin now, but he was still close enough for Snake to feel his breath, coming in hot, feverish puffs.

“Is that Otacon you’re talking to?” Raiden asked, his voice sultry, laced with something explosive – something sharper than anger and more dangerous than fear.

Snake’s skin felt too tight on him. His blood was rushing in his ears.

“Snake – ” Hal tried again on the Codec.

Snake growled under his breath. “The frequency’s 141.12, Raiden. Join the call and for fuck’s sake, get a grip!”

“So he’s in?” Hal asked, his voice shot with white noise and hopeful in Snake’s ear. Snake had to be grinding his teeth into dust. “I don’t think he should be in at all,” he said while Raiden tapped at his ear. “He’s too fucking unstable.”

But as he was saying it, Raiden’s eyes suddenly turned on him, razor sharp. “You don’t have an alternative.”

“Unstable?” Hal asked with an audible frown, but before Snake could respond, Raiden had tapped into their call. His voice echoed when it now also reached Snake over the Codec. The tiniest delay. “Hello, Otacon.”

“Raiden!” Hal startled, sounding apprehensive and failing to cover it up, clearly thrown off by the half of the conversation he had heard. “So you’ll help us?”

Raiden’s grin was all teeth. “On one condition.”

“Raiden.” A warning. Snake’s hand tightened where it had fisted itself into the collar of Raiden’s shirt when he’d pushed him away.

Raiden’s breath came heavy. His fingers, long, white and cold, curled into the waistband of Snake's jeans and yanked him forward. His gaze was intense and never leaving Snake’s eyes.

“Condition?” Hal asked, voice too high and sounding unsure.

“I need you to tell Snake here to either beat me into a bloody fucking pulp or get over himself and fuck my brains out.”

For a second or two, it was silent, and Snake was damn close to actually punching Raiden in the face, though he suspected that that was the very reason Raiden was being so brazen in the first place. Then, Hal’s voice broke through, shriller than ever: “What?!”

That shark-toothed grin. Pupils blown wide, alcohol on his breath. “You heard me.”

“Fucking god damn it, Raiden!” Snake roared in spite of himself. There was a furious heat boiling right underneath his skin, and he was certain that the rage inside of him had well and truly made him go temporarily blind. “Whatever it is that’s got you this fucked up, I’m not going to be a tool in the self-destruction you’re trying to numb it with!”

Before he knew, he had Raiden shoved with his back against the door, the hand holding his collar trembling with anger. Raiden’s eyes flashed. “Come on Snake,” he said. He sounded almost pleading now. “Punch me.”

Snake’s voice dropped to a dangerous growl. “No. We got no time for this shit. The kid’s in danger, so get your shit together and tell me whether you’re in or out.”

Raiden stared at him, challenging. His cheeks were flushed. “You want it,” he whispered, voice hoarse but steady in his throat. “You want to wreck me so bad.”

It was true, but though Raiden had definitely succeeded in getting a rise out of him, Snake was not about to let himself go any further. Unless Raiden told him that he would not do the mission, he couldn’t risk compromising him any more than he already was.

Raiden’s fingers were still hooked into the waistband of his jeans, pulling him closer, jutting his own hips forward to grind against Snake’s crotch. “You need me,” he whispered, “Just fuck me up and I’m in.”

Snake’s hand shot up to his shoulder and forced him down, and Raiden crashed to his knees with so much momentum that it had to hurt. A can crunched painfully under him, but he did not seem to care. His hands, lithe and nimble, worked open the button on Snake’s jeans.

“Make it hurt,” he rasped, sounding delirious as he yanked them down, followed by Snake’s boxers, “Fucking use me until I can’t fucking think.”

His fingers were icy cold and uncomfortable on the sensitive skin, but the shock of it was quickly offset by the hot drag of Raiden’s tongue, lapping at Snake’s soft dick with a feverish frenzy. Snake hissed, his nails pushing into Raiden’s shoulder with such force that they had to be leaving crescents through the thin shirt spanning his skin.

“S-Snake?” Hal’s voice cut through the raging fury in Snake’s mind like a hot knife through butter. He felt as if someone had suddenly let all the air out of him. “Hal.”

The word was a plea, forced out between grinding teeth and brows furrowed in near-agony, and Hal made a choked-up sound in his throat. “Fuck. A-Are you – ?”

“Don’t leave,” Snake gritted out. The sound of Hal’s voice in his ear felt almost physically painful. “I can’t – I need you.”

Hal made a sound that sounded like a whimper. “But I can’t – not while you’re – I-I couldn’t – ”

“Then don’t,” Snake said, begged with Raiden sunk to his knees before him, working him to hardness with his hands and lips. “Just don’t – don’t go. Stay with me.”

“Why?” Hal’s voice was so fragile and thin.

Raiden took his dick in his mouth, shoved himself down on it until it hit the back of his throat, and Snake shivered and fisted his hand in the dull, white-blonde hair with a strangled moan.

“Oh fuck – Hal, I – ”

At his feet, Raiden moaned around him, hands gripping at Snake’s thigh, sharp nails digging into the skin. Snake hissed, tightened his grip in Raiden’s hair and shoved him further, until he gagged and his face lay flush against Snake’s crotch. He panted, his eyes swimming. Snake stared down at him, his stomach feeling like an ever-tightening knot.

“Hal,” he tried again, his voice breaking, barely aware that he’d slipped away from the codename somehow. “I – fuck, I’m sorry – I don’t want to make you do this, I just – ”

He choked on his words when Raiden swallowed, and Snake felt the muscles of his throat working around him, constricting and moving, coaxing him deeper down. Raiden’s eyes were glassy and losing focus, and Snake pulled him off himself to force him to breathe.

“Fuck me,” Raiden rasped, throat shredded. “Fuck me, please.”

“D– Snake, I – ” Hal’s voice was too high. Snake felt nauseous. “Raiden, I don’t – ”

Raiden stared up at him with bleary eyes. “Please.”

“You said you need me,” Hal’s voice sounded breathless and on the verge of breaking apart. “Why?”

Under him, Raiden licked another stripe up his dick, panting against the skin. Snake felt his composure unravelling under him. “Fuck, Hal, ‘cause I wish it was you.”

It was all coming undone. The mission had been a failure resulting in the kid possibly being already dead, Raiden was a mess. And Snake was here, standing in the middle of the wreckage, with bullet wounds riddling his body and confessing to the man he’d disappointed that he wished it was him, dragging a greedy tongue up his dick.

Wished it was Hal, who had to witness this on the Codec, and not whatever was left of Raiden, broken and poisoned with booze, trying to hurt himself on anything and anyone he could get his hands on.

For a heartbeat or two, it was silent. Then Hal breathed a whimper, just as Raiden went back to stuff his throat full of Snake’s dick.

“You do?”

Hal’s voice was still too high, but no longer verging on panic, and Snake closed his eyes against it all. His hand had found it’s way back into Raiden’s hair, clinging loosely, holding him feebly in place while he fucked almost instinctually into his mouth. “I’m sorry, I – hah, I – this isn’t how I meant to tell you – I didn’t mean to, fuck, to tell you at all – ”

“Are you thinking of me?”

Snake almost choked on his gasp. “What?”

Raiden gagged under him, and Snake let him go. Hal’s voice quivered, but there was something lacing through it, something like audacious resolve. “Right now. Are you thinking of me?”

“Hard not to while you’re talking to me,” Snake managed, panting. Raiden mouthed at his dick, one hand down his pants and rapidly stroking his own.

“Are you gonna fuck him, pretend it’s me?”

Though not a man of many words at the best of times, usually, there was something deliberate to Snake’s silence. Right now though, he found himself rendered speechless by Hal’s bold words. He swallowed, blinking incredulously. The gap in their conversation stretched on.

“I – ” Hal started, sounding like he was getting panicked.

“Yes,” Snake blurted before he could think of anything else to say – just to say something, anything to stop Hal from spiralling on him.

Once again, for a few dreadful seconds, there was no response. Then –

“Do it.” Hal’s voice was still higher than it had previously been, and he was panting as if he’d suddenly run out of breath. “Fuck, Dave, do it, let me hear you, come on.”

Like tar, the words dripped into Snake’s cloudy mind.

Then he reached down and hauled Raiden upwards by the collar, pulling a yelp from his abused throat. “Snake – ”

“Get over here,” Snake growled, suddenly emboldened by the situation rather than suffocating in it. He pulled his pants up just enough so he could take two steps over and damn near throw Raiden onto the mattress, kneeling down at the edge of it between Raiden’s sprawling legs. Wild-eyed, Raiden tried to clamber up onto his elbows, but Snake bent on over him and, with one broad hand on his lean chest, kept him in place. “Down.”

Raiden stilled immediately. In his ear, Snake heard Hal’s breath hitch.

“Put your fingers in your mouth.”

Raiden obliged hastily, shoving the slender digits into his mouth as far as they would go. Snake pulled his pants down just enough for Raiden to free one leg, leaving the rest of the fabric bunched around his remaining ankle. He shivered under Snake’s hand, a cool touch on his too-hot body, milky-white skin spanning his thigh.

With a slow, almost hesitant deliberation, Snake wrapped his free hand around his own dick. “Get yourself ready. Let me know when you are. I don’t have lube, so unless you do, I can’t use any. I’ll fuck you when you tell me to.”

A whine left Raiden’s lips, red and swollen where they stretched around his fingers. A shaky whimper crackled in Snake’s ear. “Fucking hell, Dave – ”

The sound made Snake’s blood run fire-hot. His grip on himself tightened. “God, you sound – you sound so – ”

The words were getting stuck in his throat. He could hear Hal’s breathing, heavy enough now that the Codec picked it up. “Yeah,” Hal responded, strung out and shaky. Like he, too, was trying to not think too hard about what the hell they were doing right now.

Raiden moaned, and Snake watched him push one pale finger inside himself, hasty and reckless, too impatient to care about doing it right. Snake felt a wave of heat hit him at the sight, hazy thoughts of Hal swimming in his mind. He knew Hal’s body, they’d seen each other naked plenty of times – hell, they’d seen each other in the morning, groggy and waking up with the inevitable hard-on, and had long since left any awkward feelings about it behind.

But thinking of him now, cooped up in their safe house with nothing but satellite data and Snake’s vitals to set his eyes on, hearing him and Raiden pant in his ear –

Snake groaned low in his throat.

Raiden added another finger, fucking himself open too fast, too hard.

Was Hal touching himself? Was he sitting in the wobbly chair at that rickety kitchen table, his laptop in front of him as the only source of light? With one leg on the table maybe, spreading himself open for better access, open-mouthed and panting into Snake’s ear?

“S-Snake,” Raiden’s trembling voice tore him out of his thoughts. “Shit – come on and fuck me, I can take it.”

Snake stared at him, flushed on the mattress, overheated and drunk on residual alcohol and lust. “Raiden, you’re barely – ”

“Fucking do it,” Raiden interrupted him, shoving his fingers deeper into himself as if to underline the words, “I need it, I want it to hurt!”

Every vein in Snake’s body was on fire. His calf burned with the wounds, the bandage on his torso had shifted under the vest that lay on top of it, and his jeans were digging into his thighs. Hal gasped softly in his ear, and Snake felt his mind snap.

“If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’re fucking getting.”

There was a stifled moan crackling in his ear, a choking voice. “Fuck – ”

Raiden arched up on the mattress, pulling his fingers free and gripping onto the edges of it, legs spreading open like he’d been made for this. “Fuck, please – ”

Snake pulled him down by the thighs, until he lay close enough to touch, close enough that, if he just lifted his hips, Snake would be able to push his dick into him.

Everything about it felt wrong, from the way it all went on too fast, the way he could hear Hal’s laboured breathing in his ear – the way his dick throbbed with it, anticipating the fever heat of Raiden’s body around him. Snake groaned. “Fuck.”

“Dave,” Hal’s voice, strained, in his ear. “You’re doing so good.”

Snake was certain that he had to be combusting from the inside out. “Fuck, Hal – are you – ”

“Yeah,” Hal breathed, “Can’t you hear it?”

“No,” Snake managed, gripping Raiden’s thighs so hard, his knuckles were turning white. Raiden brought one hand up to cover his, petting it like a thank you for the loveless touch. “Do you like this?”

Hal’s voice rained down on him, soothing the agonising flames. “I thought about it – listening, while you fucked someone else, I – fuck, I never thought I could have you – ”

He could almost see the flush on Hal’s cheeks as he spoke, cherry red and spreading down to his neck. Raiden whimpered underneath him, clawing at him, trying to make him move.

“Do it,” Hal’s soft voice in his ear, gasping for him. “I’m here. Let me hear how you – god, how you fuck him – I want you – want you to feel so good – ”

Snake blinked, staring at Raiden beneath him, writhing, his dick hard and leaking in his grip. “How do you know I haven’t – ”

“Your vitals,” Hal was straight up moaning now, and the realisation that Hal knew he had barely even touched Raiden from his vitals alone sent a wave of prickling pleasure all the way up Snake’s spine, flooding his brain.

With a groan deep in his throat, he moved forward, grabbed Raiden by the hips and pulled him down until his hole met Snake’s dick. Raiden keened under him, a high-pitched, needy sound.

“Please,” he sobbed out, voice still rough from the way he had swallowed Snake’s dick, “Please!”

Snake pushed into him, and the heat was so sudden and all encompassing, he had to stay his movements to keep from cumming then and there. In his ear, he heard Hal’s strangled gasp.

“Dave – ”

“Fuck – Hal, he’s so tight, you have no idea – ”

Raiden moaned under him, boneless with lust, the tendons in his thighs visible in sharp lines under his milk-white skin as he let his legs fall even further apart. Snake pulled back and slammed himself back in.

Raiden’s tongue lolled out of his mouth, his eyes were half closed and rolled back in their sockets. “Oh fuck yes – hurts so good – ”

Hal gave a breathy gasp in Snake’s ear. “I wish I could feel you like that.”

The words were too punched out, too breathless. Snake shoved himself deeper into Raiden’s tight heat with a groan. “Are you thinking of me, how I’m fucking him? Imagining how good it’d be if you could be here, doing the same thing to me?”

Hal just gave another moan, sounding so choked as if he could barely still coordinate his own breathing. Raiden arched under Snake’s merciless grip. “I’d let you both have me,” he slurred, split open as he was on Snake’s dick. Snake had almost forgotten that Raiden was still in their call. “You’d feel so good – both of you, in me – I’d be so tight for you, squeeze you together so good – ”

Hal gave a shuddering gasp in Snake’s ear, unravelling at the seams, his thoughts streaming unfiltered from his mouth. “Fuck, Dave, he sounds like he’s barely managing with just you – if he took both of us we’d tear him in half – ”

Raiden keened out a sob, palming himself with brutal, graceless strokes. His slender form arched in one lovely curve upwards, lithe, strong limbs tangling under Snake like a dying fly in a web. “You’d split me open so good, oh god I want it, I want you to use me so bad – ”

He was almost dangerously feverish, slurring his words, drool running down to his jaw and chin. Snake stared at him as he kept on pounding ruthlessly, his nerves on fire. It only got worse when Hal moaned in his ear. The faintest noise of slick movement carried with it, the telltale noises of skin on skin.

“Fuck – fuck, Dave – Dave – ”

Snake groaned. “Hal – ”

Raiden was scratching down his own chest, sharp nails leaving red lines across the paper white skin. It seemed to be of no concern to him that Snake and Hal were losing themselves in their focus on each other.

On the contrary, the more he turned into nothing but a hole for Snake to use while he moaned the name of another, the more frantic turned his touches upon his own skin.

Snake’s vision was blurry, his still mission-sore muscles screaming as he kept on driving himself into Raiden’s body, chasing the friction, the heat. Raiden just lay under him, utterly ravaged, letting himself be shoved up and down like a ragdoll on Snake’s aching dick. Fat droplets of precum poured from the head of his own cock as he rubbed it, his hand looked almost cramped with how tight he gripped. His breath was rasping through the dry line of his throat. Tears were rolling down from the corners of his eyes.

Snake’s breathing was ragged, Hal’s matching noises ringing in his ear. Beads of sweat rolled down his back, words falling from his lips with no more restraint. “Hal – fuck, Hal, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum for you – gonna fill him up with it – god I wish you’d do the same to me, I wish you were here – ”

“Dave,” Hal sounded wrecked, “Tell me when, I need to– oh god – ”

Raiden keened under Snake’s bruising grip on his hip. “Fill me up, fill me up for both of you, fuck Snake – Snake – !”

His face was a blur in front of Snake’s eyes. Hal was whimpering in his ear. “Please – Dave, please – ”

“Cum for me,” he rasped out, feeling himself unravelling at the edge. “Cum for me Hal, say my name, that’s it, come on, come on – ”

Hal sobbed, his voice breaking. “Dave!”

A downright primal sound ripped from Snake’s throat as he buried himself as far as he could inside Raiden, spilling himself in his pulsing heat. Somewhere at the edge of his conscious, he realised that Raiden, too, was cumming over his own hand.

There was quiet, thick as a blanket, for a little while.

Raiden looked about ready to pass out, and Snake was uncomfortably aware of the lust-filled haze clearing from his head. On the Codec, Hal was utterly silent.

Finally, having unceremoniously pulled his pants back up, Snake cleared his throat with a grunt. “Right. Raiden, you’re in. Get your shit together and meet me out front. Five minutes, or I’m dragging you out.”

“By the hair,” Raiden murmured listlessly, groaning as he tried to sit up. “Fuck, my head.”

“Otacon’s got painkillers. Come on.”

He stepped out the door before Raiden could answer. The cool air was a relief on his sweaty skin.

“Dave?” Hal’s voice asked meekly in his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Are we – I mean – ”

“We’ll talk when I get back,” Snake said gruffly, trying to make his voice sound warmer. Soft. He was not sure he succeeded. “Let me deal with Raiden first. Finish the mission.”

A second passed. Then, “Okay.”

The Codec went quiet. Snake’s wounds screamed.

It took little time for Raiden to come stumbling out of the trailer, holding only the skull suit and a bottle of honey coloured liquid in his arms. Snake plucked the whiskey from him without a word and smashed the bottle against the trailer’s walls.

If he wanted to complain, Raiden held his tongue. He looked ashen and bloodless. Rings lay under his eyes. His lids drooped.

Snake looped Raiden’s arm over his shoulders and walked him over to the van. His calf felt worse with every new step, but he gritted his teeth and did not make a sound.

By the time they got to the safehouse, Raiden was asleep. Snake left him slumped against the passenger door for a minute while he slipped inside and told Hal to prepare the bed. There was a dingy old couch in this place, if not much else, and they’d figure out arrangements later down the line.

Right now, they had to get Raiden up and running, just enough that he’d be able to deal with the worst of the withdrawals and manage to get Sunny out. Snake knew better than most that it was definitely possible – Alaska had not been his first venture into alcoholism after all. But it was hard, and painful in every way possible. Still.

Raiden was the best chance they had. Even broken beyond belief as he was.

They woke him up relatively gently, with Hal crawling into the van to shake him back to life, and Snake by the door, ready to catch him when he all but fell out. They carried him inside more than he walked himself. Hal handed him water and a pill, and Raiden downed both without even a word.

By the time they’d manoeuvred him onto the bed, he was already drifting back to sleep.

They left the door open a crack, just to be safe – Hal had procured a bucket from somewhere to leave by the bed, but Raiden was far from sober, and if he vomited while he was out cold, he might asphyxiate in his sleep.

And then there they were, wrapped in awkward silence, failing to meet each other’s eyes. Solid Snake had been left with Raiden in the bedroom, and now it was just them. Hal and Dave.

The laptop was glowing softly, charging on the table next to an empty glass. A chair stood by it, pushed back as if Hal had gotten up in a rush.

Now he stood there, between the cracked bedroom door, the couch and an empty, half-broken cabinet, staring at the dirty rug beneath his feet. Dave reached for him, but when his hand entered Hal’s vision, he winced. Stunned, Dave retracted his hand. It had been a while since he’d made Hal jump. “Sorry.”

“No! No, I’m – sorry, I wasn’t – it’s not you, I was just thinking. Didn’t expect it is all.”

“Mhm,” Dave just managed, feeling clumsy and stupid. He was bad at this, but with Hal, it had always worked out thus far. And they were… he had to, he had to try.

“Hal, I – I’m sorry. The mission – or the – whatever this was, it – it got way out of hand. I shouldn’t have even let it get that far, and I should have – I mean, I shouldn’t have dragged you into it. I – it just all went wrong. I’m sorry.”

“It was different,” Hal said, his tone unreadable, head hung low so he was facing the floor. “That’s for sure.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Dave could think to say again. “I – could you please look at me? Or just, lift your head? I’m, uh. Having a bit of a difficult time with this conversation as it is, but – ”

Hal looked up, and the expression on him made Dave fall silent. He looked – scared. Stressed. Something verging on panic.

“Dave.” That voice. A tad too loud, much too high. “Just – did you mean it? Tell me.”

Dave blinked. “Did I mean – what?”

“Did you wish it was me?”

The words came out tangled together, all pushed out at once in a rush. Hal looked like he was about to throw up. Or faint. Or both.

The big, clumsy feeling in Dave’s chest coiled around his heart. But he had to do this. Because this was Hal. “I did. I know it was shit timing, and – the whole situation was crap overall. But I did. I meant it.”

The words felt unwieldy in his throat, jagged, angular things that he had to wrench out one by one. Hal gave a breath that seemed tentatively relieved. But there was still apprehension in his eyes. “So did I.”

“What, exactly?”

Hal flushed red from the neck to the ears. “That I – I th-thought about it. About you. When I – sexually, I mean.”

Dave couldn’t keep the smile down that crept onto his face then. He’d set Dave’s nerves on fire with a few words alone just hours prior, and now he was stumbling his way through them like he was still learning to speak.

Suddenly, everything was aligning back with reality. This was Hal. There was nothing to be afraid of. Not with him.

“Hal, I – I know I keep saying it, but I’m sorry. About everything that happened today. I’m not good at – at this, but you know this, you know me, I – shit. I’m trying to say, I – you’re the most important person in my life. The only one, really. But that’s – I don’t think that’s bad. And I want you to keep being that. If you want to. But I’d also – I mean, we could – do more. Be more. As friends, or – oh, for fuck’s sake, Hal, can I just kiss you?”

Hal stared at him for a second, brain catching up. Then his mouth fell open, then his eyes went wide. An almost disbelieving smile spread over his face. “Yes. God, Dave, yes, please.”

It was a somewhat tentative thing, both of them suddenly hyperaware of their bodies – arms catching, hands tangling. But then Hal fell against Dave’s chest with a sudden ease, and Dave caught him by the chin –

And then their lips met.

Gently. Sweetly. A touch the likes of which neither of them had known for a long while.

Hal dug a hesitant hand into Dave’s hair, and Dave pulled him in closer by the waist. They knew each other by feel, eyes dropped closed.

They parted slowly, heads knocking together, holding on all the while.

“Think this’ll change much?” Dave rumbled low between them. Hal gave a short, quiet laugh. “Don’t know. We’ve done well so far. If whatever happened today couldn’t change it, I’d say we stand some kind of a chance.”

“Optimist.”

“Realist.”

Dave chuckled. It was a rare sound. “Alright. If you say so.”