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There were busy days ahead, busy weeks; hours of time filled with conversations and covert operations, nights of silent observation juxtaposed with gunfire and violence. Snake knew all too well that these things were a part of his life, his very being, and they would never stop until he was cold in a shallow grave. If he got a grave at all.
But for now there was simply quiet.
The moon, high and full in the sky, a pale and soft white against the dark grey of space. Stars broke through the darkness where the moonlight faded to black. There was peaceful silence and only the occasional cry of a nocturnal bird in the distance or the soft breaking of waves to cut through it. Snake gazed out to where the dark sea met the horizon. Smoke curled up into the air from his cigar, he flicked ash to the ground and took a drag. It tasted bad, stale, an old cigar kept for emergencies for far too long.
Beside him, Miller chewed the end of his sunglasses absentmindedly. He stared out at the ocean even as Snake watched him. The silent camaraderie lay over them, gentle and warm like a blanket when the wind turns cold.
For all his chatter and need to fill silence, Miller was good at being quiet when it mattered. There were secrets behind his eyes but they remained purposefully uncovered for now. Snake had his own secrets, ugly truths that sat in the cavern of his chest where his heart once was. Miller didn’t pry. So, he didn’t ask when Miller went quiet and dodged his gaze. A truce, of sorts. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
There were times Snake wanted to carve himself open, show every disgusting inch of cartilage, muscle, sinew and bone to Kaz. He felt the scratching of memories at his ribs and vocal cords. He wondered if Kaz felt the same.
Miller sighed quietly and put his aviators back on. “This makes me miss home.”
Snake stayed silent but turned his attention to his partner.
“There’s a lighthouse, Kannonzaki lighthouse, it was rebuilt not long before I was born… the sound of ships coming in and the water meeting the pier was always comforting.” There was a soft melancholy in his voice that struck Snake as familiar. “I used to look out at the Pacific Ocean and wonder what it was like all the way over on the other side: what was it like in America? Did they have the same views? The same sounds?” He sighed again and his lips curved in a rueful smile. “Pretty stupid, huh.”
“Not at all. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.”
“Mm…”
They fell silent again. Kaz’s knee touched his and stayed there. It had been a few weeks since any physical contact had been swiftly stopped between them.
“I’ve never been to Japan,” he offered, feeling eager to hear more about Kaz’s life there.
Kaz’s face lit up, obvious even with the aviators covering his expressive eyes. “You should! It’s a beautiful country, I think you’d like it. Lots of dark corners to hide in, things to do at all hours of the night if you can’t sleep, and the food…” he sighed wistfully and a smile made his sharp cheekbones more prominent.
“No frogs though,” Snake quipped, smiling to himself.m as he stubbed out the cigar in the sand.
“Huh?”
He shook his head, “old joke. When I was in Tselinoyarsk there were frogs, one of the things I had to eat plenty of to survive. Para-Medic teased me about it. She was a big fan of all things Japanese.”
Kaz gazed at him, face slack, and he realised he’d not mentioned her before. How much had he really kept hidden from this man? Things as inconsequential as little jokes and faded conversations? Obviously so.
Kaz hummed and adjusted his collar. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”
Snake barked a laugh. “She’d eat you for breakfast, Kaz. Shades and all.”
Miller grinned and laughed with him, and Snake was struck by the almost normalcy of the moment. They were just two men, two friends, laughing on the beach together, sharing stories and enjoying the time they had instead of fighting for survival in a world that didn’t want them.
As the laughter died down he bumped their shoulders together. Touch was important to him, and he knew Miller was the same, even if Snake himself had rejected most touches in the last ten years. Since Eva, since the Patriots, since- well, since the mess that had come from The Boss’s death at his hands, mission or no mission.
Kaz’s smile softened as he leaned into the touch. “This is nice, it’s- it’s good. Just the two of us out here.”
“It’s peaceful.”
“Yeah. Peaceful. Think it’ll last?”
He raised an eyebrow. “The peace? Or us?”
Kaz hesitated. He scratched his chin, the rasp of day-old stubble reaching Snake’s ears. He liked the sound. “Both, I guess.”
“You want the truth?” He asked, not sure if it was a welcome question or not.
“Hit me.” There was a guarded need on Kaz’s face that made Snake’s chest tighten.
“It’s… unlikely. But I want it to. You’ve got a vision, something I lack. You’ve got drive and desire, for the most part I don’t. We work well together.”
“Yeah, we do, don’t we?”
Another silence, gentle and affirming in its simplicity. Their shoulders stayed connected, an anchor to reality Snake wanted to grasp in both hands. Too often these days he felt as if he was drowning. He didn’t know what the future held, never had, but the uncertainty was so much harsher in its intensity now that it frightened him. That sensation of drowning only stopped when he was in the field or in a dreamless sleep. The latter was not a state he was in often.
“Snake…” Kaz ventured, his voice low and soft where it brushed Snake’s ear. “Are you-?” He paused, shook his head. “Nevermind.”
He turned properly, looked at Kaz with his good eye, gave the man his full attention. “What? You can ask my anything, you know.”
“I know… it’s just- you’re my superior as well as my partner. I’m not sure what lines I should cross.”
He offered a rueful smile. “I didn’t realise we had any.”
Another laugh, this one bright even in its low and almost husky tone. “I guess so. But everyone has a line, a border you can’t go over, I don’t really know what yours is.”
Snake considered it for a moment. He didn’t know, either. Not until Kaz had tried to cross it at least.
“Don’t lie to me, that’s all. If it’s important just don’t keep it from me.”
It was an impossible ask, really. But he had to say it. And if Miller crossed that line, he supposed they’d see what happened.
Kaz fiddled with the ascot around his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s pretty straightforward.”
The waves broke against the shore, the water reflecting moonlight, countless creatures living beneath with no care as to the troubles on the surface. Predator and prey lived side by side, the brutality of their interactions nullified by their practicality. Snake longed for that simplicity: no politics, no budgets, no allies or enemies based on fragile times…
“Hey,” he said, jabbing Kaz in the side lightly, “how about a little wager.”
Kaz was immediately intrigued. His eyebrow rose, a smile curving his lips in an almost sultry smile. “Oh yeah? What’re you thinking?”
Snake jerked his head to the unmarried stretch of sand in front of them. “Wrestle me; if you pin me I’ll buy you three drinks.”
Kaz pretended to consider the offer for a moment. He stroked his chin, that rasping of stubble coming again. “Throw in one of your good cigars and you’ve got a deal. If you pin me I’ll buy.”
“You’ll buy and I get your ascot for a day.”
“Deal.”
Snake stood and rolled his shoulders, felt the muscles relax and loosen. Anticipation rose in his veins as Kaz stood too.
“Rules?” Miller asked, body mirroring Snake’s.
“No cheap shots, no punches, no blood.”
“Alright.”
“A win is a ten second pin.”
Kaz sighed. “A full ten seconds? You won’t make it easy on me?”
“Do you want me to go easy on you?” He took a step forward, entering Kaz’s personal space. Kaz didn’t step away, only shook his head and grinned as he took off his ascot and the button up shirt he wore. His aviators joined the fabric in a heap on the sand.
“Ten seconds. Take me down, Kaz, let me see what you’ve got.”
They parted, leaving a few feet of sand between them. Snake ducked down, squaring his stance and raising his hands. Kaz followed suit and kept grinning as he stared forward resolutely.
Their bodies met in a clash; hands grabbing, feet slipping on damp sand, air rushing from their lungs at the impact. Snake’s arm wrapped around Miller’s waist and tugged, dragged him to the ground as he yelped. Miller writhed in his grip and slipped free, leaping to his feet with a dexterity Snake had nearly lost.
Kaz lunged at him, on the offensive, taking hold of Snake’s arm and twisting his body round, swiping the back of Snake’s leg to drag him down even as Snake turned to break the hold.
They fell down together in a heap. Wet sand cling to their clothes, dug into their exposed skin, and Snake felt himself grinning as Kaz loomed over him. He bucked his hips, felt Kaz’s surprised grunt as their bodies met in a mockery of an act the man knew so well. He threw Kaz off and rolled, clambered to sit on his hips and pin him with an arm to his neck.
“Thought you said no dirty tricks,” Kaz breathed, his words hot on Snake’s skin.
“I said no cheap shots, nothing about dirty tricks.”
A light began to shine in Kaz’s eyes. “Oh, then I can do this?”
He rolled his own hips up, an arm coming to tug at Snake’s hair and bend him back. A shocked groan burst from Snake’s mouth as his back arched. Tension coiled in his stomach as the heat of Kaz’s body soaked into him. His grip loosened and Miller rolled them over once more. Snake stared up in shock as Kaz wedged a knee between his thighs and pinned one of his arms to the sand by his wrist. Their chests pressed together and Snake could almost taste the salt-sweat on Kaz’s skin. The breath from their lungs mingled in the air. Snake didn’t even register the whispered countdown as he stared up at Kaz’s bright eyes.
“…five, six…”
He blinked, took a shallow breath, wrapped his legs around Kaz’s hips and used his strength to roll them one last time. He landed on Kaz’s chest and gripped the man’s arm with both hands, held it against him and tugged, bringing Kaz’s shoulder off the ground.
“One, two, three,” he started the count. Kaz stared up at him, panting. “Four, five, six…” The flush on Kaz’s cheeks stood out in the moonlight. “Seven, eight, nine…” Snake shifted slightly and resolutely ignored the tightness in his pants.
“Ten.”
They stayed still, Snake atop his second in command, his partner; their breaths were ragged, Snake’s skin hot and a trickle of sweat working its way down his back. Kaz had stopped grinning, his lips parted in an ‘o’ as he lay pliant and still on the sand.
“Guess that means you win,” Kaz said after a moment.
Snake stared down at his prize, a rare hunger in his belly. “Yeah, guess it does.”
“Are you, uh, gonna let me go?”
No was his first thought. But he let Kaz’s arm go and stood up, offering his hand to help Miller to his feet.
Kaz gripped his hand and let himself be pulled up. They stood face to face, close enough that Snake could feel warm breath on his lips, and that hunger rose higher in his stomach. It prickled under his skin as he took in the moonlight reflecting in Kaz’s eyes.
It was a silly, romantic notion that came to him; kissing in the moonlight, soft and slow, no rush to do anything but touch and taste. So different from the warm glow of a fire indoors. He realised in a rush that he wanted it - the slow exploration of another body, the steady beat of another heart near his own, the option to give or receive whatever affection was on offer. He realised he wanted it from this man who had hidden a grenade behind his back as easily as he hid innermost thoughts behind his sunglasses.
Snake didn’t think he could have it. He didn’t deserve it and he didn’t know how to take it. They were men of battle, of pain and dark dreams; there was no space in their lives for softness. Or that was what he told himself.
Kaz’s hand slipped from his, their fingers trailing over one another. He walked over to the abandoned shirt and plucked his ascot from the tangle, handing out to Snake with deceptively gentle smile.
“Your prize.”
Snake took it gently and tucked it in his pocket, keeping his hand there as they wandered back to the place where beach met grass. He resisted the urge to lift the fabric to his face and inhale the scent it held as Kaz opened the Jeep’s heavy door.
“You coming?” Kaz called to him. He nodded, quickly opening the passenger door and climbing inside. It was a short ride back to their camp. Snake found himself watching the moon as they drove and wondered when they’d next have the chance to do this again.