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It had been about 5 months since Raiden had come to live with Hal, Dave and Sunny aboard the Nomad.
If he was being honest, it was a big change from the travelling lifestyle he had become so accustomed to in the past years. The last time he had actually lived with anyone for an extended period of time was living with Rose when they were still married.
Rose.
She had tried to reach out to him after the mission had finished, but it pained him too much to even think about trying to build a relationship with her again. She had lied to him - for years. Sculpted herself into the perfect person for him, studied his psyche profile to invade his mind, to deceive him.
He had tried; he really had. When he first found out he tried to do the marriage thing again, tried to go back to what they once were - clinging onto any hope that the Rose he had once loved still resembled this new woman he felt obligated to love. But, he couldn't do it.
He couldn't wake up to hazel eyes when he once gazed into deep blue ones, not card his hands through short dark hair once light and long - it didn't feel right.
Raiden had never had experience with romantic relationships. Not to mention any friend or familial connections up to the day they met had been... less than stellar. So, he didn't know the shouting, the lies, the shoving, everything else wasn't supposed to happen in a healthy relationship.
That's why when he came aboard the Nomad, he became fascinated by Otacon and Snake's relationship.
One of the first things that stuck out to him was the ways they displayed affection to each other. The gentle touches, fluttering kisses to the cheek, simple actions like brewing a cup of coffee for the other were backed with so much love for their other half. It felt genuine - like each move was dedicated to the sole mission of making the other feel the tenderness they put behind the act. Affection with Rose had never felt like that.
Knowing she was a spy now put it more into context for him, but even back then the actions of affection between them always felt... hollow. Close hugs would enclose the miles of space between them, food and drink was always passed for the need of sustenance, moments of warmth were few and far between. Rose had told him that she did truly love him when they were together, but recalling that time he couldn't find the evidence to support her claim. Every kiss was forced, arms wrapped around each other were cold - hell, even these moments could break out into fierce arguments in mere minutes.
He couldn’t even think of doing those things anymore. His cyborg body would provide even less comfort than his loveless arms - not that he would feel anything from it anyways between the synthetic skin stretched over his metallic insides and the nanomachines that made every emotion he felt feel like a distant memory.
Besides, who willingly touches a monster like him.
There was another thing that surprised him about Otacon and Snake's displays of affection; they always seemed to know when the other wanted to be left alone or showered in attentiveness.
Rose always gave him affection like she had a quota to meet, even when he was putting out with his whole body he didn't really want it. He was never really sure how to respond in those situations, simply staying still and quiet as she whispered sweet words that never reached her heart.
It’s not to say Rose was solely responsible for the lovelessness in their relationship. Raiden had always struggled with showing the love he held for others inside, everything he did feeling like it fell short of his true feelings. When they got back together this had only gotten worse. All the things he went through broke him, trapping him in his own head. Rather than showing his true emotions he showed none at all. It was easier to keep it all inside than burden everyone else with his struggles, those battles were to be fought by him alone - whether that be through isolating himself or the numbness of drink.
But again, he didn’t know that’s not how it was supposed to be. He just assumed romance felt like that.
Watching Snake and Otacon interact formed ugly, unwanted hints of jealousy in his thoughts. They were so effortlessly perfect for each other. Why couldn’t he have had that with Rose? He had loved her. According to her, she had loved him too. Could they not have had a ‘perfect’ relationship too? Was that not enough?
This brought about the conclusion that it was not enough. There were obviously a number of factors contributing to the perfect relationship, and he was determined to figure out what they were.
Currently he had affection as a leading requirement but there were numerous things he had noticed.
-
For one, honesty was something Snake and Otacon seemed to have in abundance. No matter what they were always honest to each other, ranging from the small things - ‘I was the one who left the milk out’ to the big things- identities, family, feelings. It seemed like their souls were separated by a pane of clear glass, full visibility to the other at all times.
Maybe that’s where he and Rose had failed. They both closed themselves off from each other, secrets lay like landmines below their feet as if any movement would set off a cascade of explosions to rip the floor of plastic stability on which they stood from beneath them.
They seemed to lie about everything, even down to the meekest ‘I love you’ was a lie between two people who withheld their true identities from each other. There was no doubt they had never had honesty within their relationship - Rose wasn’t even the real person he fell in love with, everything she did, the things she said were all carefully crafted lies by the Patriots to keep control over him.
Remembering this made him feel almost angry at himself for not noticing beforehand, but even more it made him angry with Rose. He had only withheld things from her as either they pained him too much to even think about by himself in the first place or he had forgotten them when Solidus fucked with his memory. She did it willingly. She looked into his eyes and fed him lies then turned around and shunned him for never opening up to her, like she ‘opened up’ to him. But, was it really her opening up if none of the things she told him were true?
The worst lie she ever told him wasn’t anything about herself, nor was it the “I love you”’s she sang to him every night.
It was worse than that, she had said it just before she cut off while Raiden was aboard Arsenal.
“Jack, I’m pregnant"
So, yeah. Maybe honesty was an important part of the ‘perfect’ relationship…
-
The third requirement came from a specific interaction he watched one day. He was sitting on the sofa infront of the TV with Sunny in his lap, braiding her hair (He honestly had no clue how she was comfortable sitting against his metal legs but she wasn’t complaining) when he looked over and saw Snake and Otacon huddled around the latter’s computer.
They were going over something to do with the next Philanthropy mission, schematics, faces and names filled the screen. This was an overall normal scene on the Nomad.
What made this particular time stand out to Raiden was what happened after:
Otacon was flipping through different tabs on the monitor when he landed on some kind of messaging platform. As soon as it popped up on the screen, Snake immediately turned away from him while he read his messages, deciding instead to skim the file he had been holding in his hand. He continued this even after Otacon had closed the messages and brought up some kind of floor plan until the man gave him a small nudge on the arm and they resumed like nothing had happened.
Privacy, the next requirement.
People in love share things with each other - it’s a natural part of a relationship. Privacy is what needs to be given to your other half.
Rose never gave him privacy. She wanted to know everything he did, everything he thought, everywhere he went all at once. He distinctly remembers the nights spent holding his bedroom door as she tore at the handle screaming to be let in. He remembers pleading with her as she shoved him and barged in anyways despite the numerous times he begged her to let him have his room to himself. The time she spent chastising him for not telling her where he was at all times. Forcing him to talk about why he slept in a different room, why he couldn’t sleep properly at night. She had said they weren’t to keep anything from eachother but it seemed to him that only meant he couldn’t keep anything from her.
He thought about the interaction with Snake and Otacon, replacing each of them with Rose and him. She would never have looked away, she would have sat and read what he was saying and probably grilled him later that night to get him to show her the rest of his conversations. To see two people respect eachother so much so they trust the other to keep things to themselves and tell them when something is importantly was almost unheard of to him. He had assumed full transparency was a requirement for the perfect relationship.
His train of thought was interrupted when a small voice stuttered infront of him.
“R-Raiden?”
He snapped back into reality staring down at Sunny, her face turned slightly towards him with his hands in her hair. It was supposed to be in two small plaits but while he was zoned out he has managed to make it three and a half lopsided plaits at the back of her head.
“Are you okay?” The little girls face grew a worried expression.
Raiden smiled down at her, “I’m fine Sunny, just got a bit distracted is all.”
The worried face only stayed for a fleeting second before Sunny’s warm grin was back again. She turned her head back and he started to undo the plaits, seperating the hair for the next attempt - sparing a fleeting final glance over to the couple.
-
Affection.
Honesty.
Privacy.
Next one? Conflict resolution.
Otacon and Snake seemed to never fight. Like ever. The most Raiden had ever heard was a minute long fight (fully whispered because Sunny was in the room) which ended with the two of them going to different rooms but not even two hours later they had somehow found the time to make up.
That was probably one of the biggest surprises to Raiden. Every fight with Rose involved shouting, insults, shoves and door slamming finished off with a couple days of ignoring each other until it became necessary to speak again - however strained it was. These periods of not speaking seemed to consume chunks and of their relationship. They devoted more time to avoiding eachother than spending it together.
He had thought that fighting was normal in a romantic relationship (usually the love interests in all the action movies he’d watched fought with the main character) but seeing how little they argued maybe couples weren’t supposed to fight? The idea that his exposure to these movies and the relationships in them caused the fights between him and Rose crossed his mind.
Was it his fault?
-
Family. The strongest unit of society, the expected outcome of marriage. The question - is family required for the perfect relationship?
Hal, Dave (they said he could call them that when they weren’t working, but it felt strange) and Sunny were an sickeningly sweet family. They did all the typical family stuff; ate dinner together, watched TV together, hell Hal and David tucked Sunny into bed every night making sure she got to sleep alright. For having a child suddenly dropped into their lives (courtesy of Raiden himself) they handled it extremely well.
In a way, Raiden had become part of that family too. He was in a lot of the many pictures that decorated the Nomads metallic grey walls, not to forget the fact that he was legally Snakes adopted nephew (a fact which had come as a very large shock to the both of them.) and he was fairly certain that Sunny viewed him like an older brother.
He viewed her as a sister in turn and henceforth, loved her to bits. From the moment he first held her in his arms after releasing her from the hold of the Patriots to living with her now he felt close to her. He felt protective of her, as if he needed to save her from a similar childhood as his - seeing her so happy and open recently made him proud that she could live a normal life (well, as normal as it could be with her family connections.)
When he was younger, he only ever had the other boys in his unit and his adoptive ‘father’ so he never had the typically family. He knew that Solidus had killed his parents, but still he didn’t remember them at all so they were strictly biological relations - Rose had parents, but no doubt they were acting too. To be fair, neither Otacon or Snake had good relations with their family so maybe it only applied to the ‘offspring’ of a marriage.
Rose had told him she was pregnant during the mission in Arsenal, moments before she cut off. He was left all alone, stuck with the idea that he had brought a child into this forsaken world only to burden it with the mistakes he’d made. It had clawed away at him for the rest of the missions, through every near death experience he knew in the back of his mind that he was going to be a father.
It gave him a strange drive to keep going. He hadn’t known if he wanted a child before. It felt unfair, like the child would be disadvantaged from his own shitty childhood and the work he did. But, when he found out he felt ready to step up. He couldn’t change what had already been done but he was ready to accept that part of his life - despite being unsure of the outcome.
Then she ‘miscarried’.
He held her in his arms as she sobbed fake tears over the child that never existed. She cried, knowing that she lied about being pregnant then proceeded to lie again to get out of it.
He cried real tears. He mourned over that child. It might not have been real to her but it was to him.
It was a chance at family.
-
Raiden leaned against one of the ground supports of the Nomad, a cigarette held loosely in his hands as he released a white cloud of wispy smoke. A few years ago he never thought he would’ve taken up smoking, though he supposes he would never have thought he’d become an alcoholic either. He had sobered up, an accomplishment he was fairly proud of despite the side effects not showing with his cyborg body.
It was about the principle. In the past he drunk out of desperation, a way out of the thoughts that plagued him and out of the way of Rose. But it was such an awful time, most of his memories of it consisting of the porcelain inside of a toilet bowl or the feel of the cold linoleum floor against his face. He could still drink, it would break down inside his body but it was the choice that he chose not to drink anymore which separated him from the lowest point in his life.
He heard the steps behind him, obviously not trying to be subtle as to not alarm him. It was Snake. He came up beside Raiden, resting against the support with him.
“You mind?”
Raiden looked over with a small nod, pulling the pack of cigarettes from his coat and offering one to the man. He knew Snake had his own.
They sat in silence for a while, the faint whistling of the wind passing by them, knitting together the smoke they blew out and carrying it away.
Raiden and Snake were not dissimilar. They both had things they kept inside and they weren’t easy sharers. The silence between them was not uncomfortable, it didn’t have to be filled by idle chatter. Still, Raiden shifted from side to side- unsettled.
Snake huffed. “Right kid, what’s wrong.”
“What?”, Raiden turned round to face him.
“You’re shifting ‘round like the floors on fire over there. Out with it.”
Snake might be stoic but he’s not stupid. Damn it.
“I-” he started but his throat caught, was it rude to ask about other peoples relationships? To late, he’s already been sussed out.
“I’ve noticed some things about your relationship with Otacon” Snake tilted his head further forward’ “and I was wondering how you two have such a perfect relationshi-“
Snake bent over cackling and suddenly Raiden felt like that stupid kid on Arsenal again. If his blood was still red, his face would be a deep rose with the sheer embarrassment he felt at that moment.
“Kid-“ Snake forced out between laughs, “You think me and Hal have a ‘perfect relationship’?”
Raiden tried to explain his reasons, the love, the honesty, the privacy, his list of factors but Snake only let out a light chuckle.
“Me and Hal do not have the perfect relationship, I would be concerned if we did because it doesn’t exist. The things you said there are the factors in a healthy relationship but that don’t mean it’s perfect.”
“We fight sometimes, we fuck up whatever - that’s bound to happen at some point but it’s about whether we can take accountability and work on it afterwards. Me and Hal have a strong relationship and I’m happy about that but just because something doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean it never happens at all. You get me?”
They went back to silence after that, the unsaid ‘This is about Rose, isn’t it’ hanging like a ton weight in the air between them.
Raiden though back to all of the interactions he had seen. Each moment of accountability was preceded by someone messing up. Each resolution had to have a conflict to resolve in the first place. What he was seeing was the moments that kept the relationship a fair and good one, for that to happen there had to be bad moments too so it could grow and develop into something stronger.
The thought brought a small smirk to his face.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime, Jack”