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The last thing Snake expected was to be woken from his drunken stupor by a good majority of his dogs completely losing their minds at someone knocking on his door. He hauled himself to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck, checked to make sure he was wearing pants, then opened the door.
The other last thing Snake expected was to find Otacon standing there, looking anxious and clutching a laptop bag. An obviously rented sedan was parked on Snake’s lawn.
“How did you get my address?” Snake said gruffly before Otacon could say anything.
“Um… remember Mei Ling?”
Snake grunted.
“I met her right after, y’know, I got picked up.” He was clearly skirting around the subject of Shadow Moses. “We stayed in touch… she got your address from Colonel Campbell for me.” He looked down. “Although if she hadn’t done that, I would have just broken into the DoD’s servers, since I wouldn’t be surprised if they had it, too. Just in case.”
Snake raised his eyebrows at him. “Why go through all that effort?”
Otacon opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Can I come in?” he said at length, “there’s kind of a lot I need to say.”
Snake hesitated for a moment, then opened the door the rest of the way, allowing Otacon to step inside and be swarmed by the dogs in the house. Otacon laughed, kind of nervously, almost tripping over one of them. “I knew you had dogs, Snake, and I saw some outside, but- how many do you have, exactly?”
“Fifty-five,” Snake said, leading him to the kitchen.
“…sorry, I thought you said ‘fifty-five.’”
“I did. I have fifty-five dogs.”
Otacon blinked at him. “How on earth did you get fifty-five dogs?”
“I had fifty, and then Ellen had puppies.”
“Oh,” Otacon said, then fell silent. He sat at the table and scratched one of Snake’s dogs behind the ears.
The dogs like him, Snake thought, pulling out a bottle of cheap bourbon, that’s a good sign… I guess. “Drink?”
“N-No thank you.”
“Suit yourself.”
He sat across from Otacon, taking a swig directly from the bottle. Otacon watched him, uncertainty written all over his face.
“Why’d you come here?” Snake said seriously, putting the bottle down.
“Well, I have… a… proposal for you, Snake,” Otacon said, pulling out his laptop and opening it. “Just hear me out for a minute, alright?”
He took a few minutes to explain his concept for an anti-Metal Gear organization, called Philanthropy, and he already had everything set up, really, with funding primarily from Nastasha’s book for now, and Mei Ling was in on the whole thing, too. All they really needed was Snake.
“…but we can’t really do anything without you,” Otacon finished. “You’re the only one who can-“
“No.”
“Wh… what?”
“I said no,” Snake said, looking at him very intently. “I’m retired. I don’t want back into that kind of life.”
“B-But-“
“No,” Snake said again, “all I want now is a quiet life with my dogs, and no one else to bother me. I’m through, Otacon. I’m finished. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but I’m not joining Philanthropy.”
“But I- but we need you. The world needs you.”
“The world can go fuck itself.”
Otacon recoiled a little bit at Snake’s harsh tone of voice, then after a brief pause snapped his laptop closed. “Well,” he said, his voice clipped, “I guess that’s that, then.”
“No anti-Metal Gear organization, huh?” Snake said, “just going to go back to a normal, quiet life yourself?”
“No,” Otacon said flatly, standing up. “If you won’t join, that’s fine. I’ll find someone else. And if I can’t find a saboteur, I’ll just use my own skills - I’m sure I can figure something out. This is a cause I believe in, Snake. This is what I choose to fight for.” He put his laptop back in his bag and headed for the front door. “Thanks for hearing me out. Sorry I wasted your time.”
Snake watched him leave. His words were echoing in his head: This is a cause I believe in, Snake. This is what I choose to fight for.
…but at least I always fought for what I believed in.
“Wait,” Snake called as Otacon opened the door.
Otacon stopped. “What?” His voice was dry.
“I… answered too quickly. I need to think about this.”
Otacon paused, then turned around. “The offer’s always open, then. If you do decide to…”
Snake shook his head. “I just need to sleep on it. I’ll have decided in the morning… there aren’t any hotels in this area, so I’m sure you’ve been sleeping in your car lately. You’re welcome to my couch.”
“Oh,” Otacon said, blinking, “okay. Thanks. I’ll, uh, go grab my suitcase. And, er… not to impose or anything, but do you mind if I use your shower, too?”
“Make yourself at home,” Snake said with a shrug.
An hour later, Otacon was sleeping soundly on the couch with a borrowed blanket and pillow. One slender arm trailed down over the side of the couch, resting on one of Snake’s dogs, who was sleeping on the floor right there. Otacon’s hair was still slightly damp from the shower, sticking to his pale cheeks and temples, one stand of it fluttering with every breath through his barely parted, pink lips. He looked somehow vulnerable without his glasses, probably because the tired dark circles under his eyes were a little more noticeable, and he kind of needed a shave, too, because while for most men, scruffiness made them look more masculine, but for Otacon, it just made him look unkempt and helpless and in need of someone to take care of him.
He’s pretty cute, Snake thought from where he was still sitting in the other chair in the room, drinking and watching Otacon sleep, mulling over the Philanthropy offer. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the idea of going out in the field again that was putting him off… if Snake was being honest with himself, Shadow Moses was kind of a relief in some strange way. Yes, he wanted a quiet life, but even if he wanted it he wasn’t sure how much he could really stand it.
The revelation that he was a clone cleared that up a bit. He was made, not born, and hard-wired to thrive on the battlefield, and, by extension, waste away anywhere else. God knew he drank too much already. It was the best - and sometimes only - way to alleviate the restlessness of just existing. He was barely surviving like this, not truly living, and it would kill him sooner rather than later.
So no, that wasn’t exactly what was giving him pause. Maybe it was just what he needed. The real hesitation honestly seemed to come more from what joining Philanthropy would mean - leaving behind all fifty-five huskies he’d grown so attached to and rooming with Otacon while they traveled the world.
Rooming with Otacon… Snake hadn’t shared a house with anyone outside of an army bunker since his last set of foster parents fifteen years ago. It’d be one hell of an adjustment to make. For both of them, probably - Otacon had seen a little of how Snake lived already, in his small cabin kept clean only by his lack of personal possessions, with so many dogs and too much Old Crow. Belatedly, Snake realized that the whole place probably stunk of cigarettes and said dogs, too, and God only knew what else. Gun oil? Blood? He was used to it, but...
Snake wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle living with Otacon, and he wasn’t sure Otacon would be able to handle living with him.
And… if he stepped back onto the battlefield now, he’d probably never get another chance at a normal civilian life ever again. Was it really worth taking the risk?
Was it better to throw away everything on the chance that it might turn out alright, or to suffer until his ignominious death because he was stubborn enough to chase after what he wanted instead of what he needed?
…
The next morning, Snake was woken up by barking again, although this time it was because Otacon had found some old dog toy Snake had picked up somewhere a long time ago and was playing with ten dogs at once. He was laughing - a genuine, pleasant sound - and got barreled over when Snake slunk into the room and some of the dogs ran up to him.
“Morning, Snake,” Otacon said from the floor, looking up at him upside-down, with his glasses askew. His hair stuck up oddly from having fallen asleep on a couch with it still wet.
“Having fun?” Snake said.
“Ah, yeah. Your dogs have a lot of energy. How do you even manage with fifty-five of them?”
“I don’t have much else to do.”
Otacon sat up, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger. “So, um, have you… thought about…?”
Snake was silent, one hand absent-mindedly scratching one of the huskies on the scruff of her neck. “I named all of them, you know,” he said at length.
“Huh?”
“All my dogs. A lot of them I named after people I’ve met.” He tilted his head at the one he was petting. “This is Diane. The tan one next to you is Roy.”
Otacon looked at Roy. “Oh,” he said. He clearly wasn’t sure where Snake was going with this.
“The one I’ve had the longest - her name is just ‘Girl’ because by the time I actually thought to name her, she wouldn’t respond to anything else. She got caught in one of my traps one day, and it didn’t seem right to just let her go, so I nursed her back to health and… I got attached.” He looked around the room. “I told you last night Ellen had puppies over the spring, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“I named one of them after you. Another two are named after Meryl and Mei Ling - I just call her Mei, though. The last two are named Hideo and Richard. Just names I saw on the news.”
Otacon blinked. He waited for Snake to continue.
“It’s a shame to just leave them, isn’t it?” Snake said at last.
“So…” Otacon said, breaking eye contact, “that’s a ‘no’ after all, I guess.”
“No. I’m going with you. I’ll join Philanthropy. I’ll just… miss my dogs.”