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“Do you know who that is?” He held a photo of two men standing together, arms around each other's shoulders, snow billowing past their faces. It was a selfie, taken atop a bridge at nightfall, the background a large cityscape illuminated with blues and yellows, fireworks spattering about the sky. The bottom of the photo had a date scribbled onto it with a sharpie, ‘New Years Day, 2010’.
“Uh,” He looked closely at the two. One had dark brown hair that was cut into a mullet, an orange beanie matting it down, and a dark puffer wrapped around his body. His gaze seemed to be fixed on the other man’s face–He was roughly the former’s height, glasses, with black hair, light brown at the crown of his head. Much skinnier, his cheeks pinkened with a wide, genuine smile on his face. His arm stretched forward– he must’ve been the one holding the camera. The latter looked to be a happier contrast to the man that stood in front of him holding the photograph. “That one is you, so that one must be–”
“You, Dave. Four months ago.”
Right, okay.
“And who exactly are you?” He turned back, his eyes widened in a sort of confusion that reminisced a lost child more than it did his usual demeanor. He scanned over the strange man’s face, taking in the details that he could. Hal wasn’t any different than the man in the picture, only his hair was a little less dark.
“I’m Hal. Hal Emmerich.” He spoke slow, enunciating every syllable as if it would help Snake remember anything. He paused for a second, wincing with his own words. “Otacon.”
“Hal.” Snake nodded his head with the name, mouthing it, trying to remember the feel of it rolling off of his tongue. “Where are we?” He looked around. Otacon sighed, the third time Snake had asked that question that night.
“We’re in a Motel off of I-695, just outside of Baltimore.”
“And how do you know me?” His voice held an upset tone that was unfamiliar. Of course, they’d routinely bicker and butt heads on matters, but never did Snake sound so untrusting of Otacon.
“We’ve been friends for three years, we met on Shadow Moses Island.” Otacon looked off to the side. Not often was it that he got to share the story of how they met, or anything about themselves, for that matter. Talking about it, he’d get to relive it all again. “You know, in–”
“Alaska. Yeah.” Otacon held a solemn smile on his face.
“And you found me in a lab. We worked together after that, but went our separate ways after Shadow Moses.”
Snake listened intently, eyes darting around as he wracked his mind for anything that sounded familiar. It felt like everything that Hal had said to him sat right at the edge of his mind, at the tip of his tongue, but everything faded back into the twilight as soon as anything rang close to a memory.
“How did we meet after?”
“Uh, I went to your cabin,” Snake looked at him with one eyebrow quirked upwards, as if he were the weirdest guy he’d ever known; though, at this point, he’s the only guy Snake knows right now. “And I asked you if you wanted to save the world with me. It took you a bit, but you said yes.”
“That’s really cocky of me. Even more of you, Hal.” The side of his mouth pulled into a smirk.
“I know, it was so cocky, but I don’t regret it a bit. You had that sort of spark to you, one that won’t let someone else who needs help go without it. Even if it damn near kills you.”
“I sound like I’m stuck up.”
“Sure, Snake.” Otacon rolled his eyes.
“Okay, whatever, keep going.”
“It’s more important that we get these diagnostics down. I need to diagnose whether or not this is transient global amnesia or something worse.” He stood, grabbing his laptop from the small dining room table before sitting down on the floor beside Snake.
“Bear with me for these questions, alright?”
“Okay.”
“What is your name?”
Snake paused for a moment, “Dave. I know my name.”
“Okay. Do you know anything about yourself?
“I’m an active military soldier.”
“Sure. And what is my name?”
He furrowed his brows, opening his mouth before closing it again and looking at Otacon with a defeated guise.
“Hal.” He sighed.
“Okay. Right. You’ve told me that before. Where are we, Hal?”
Otacon groaned and put his head in his hands, that hot feeling in his nose that always stings him right before tears begin to spill. He wanted to throw his laptop across the room and give up. No amount of calls to Mei Ling or searches on medical forums would bring back Snake’s memory instantly, even if they did offer some helpful information. He’d been counting the hours since Snake came completely out of his own head, hoping that the number would stop before the twenty-four hour mark.
With the way that Dave couldn’t so much as recall who Hal was, though, it didn’t seem like that’d be the case.
What if it ended here? Then what would Otacon do?
No man in the world was more capable than Solid Snake himself. No man in his right mind would willingly give up the peaceful life he oh-so wanted, that he’d worked for and that he’d sacrificed time and time before for already, just because they could. No, not just because he could, because he wanted to. He took on a job so much bigger than himself, shattering the image that he created for the sake of the world, for Philanthropy, for Hal. He took the label of a terrorist, of a traitor and a killing machine, to help the world, expecting no thanks back.
Otacon hated it when Snake would talk about himself as if he’d be stuck in the past, how often he’d say, so that you can live a better life, or don’t forget me when I’m gone, like Otacon could even see himself without Snake beside him.
Without one, there wasn’t the other. What would he do with no Snake?
And say he could teach Snake who he was, re-teach everything that he knew about Dave, every memory shared over success or failure or alcohol, every quip said while taking a walk in the rain or fun fact over a meal they both hated. He’d never be able to shape him back into the super-soldier he’d worked himself to become. Otacon didn’t know CQC, even if Snake tried to teach him countless times. He didn’t know sneaking tactics or how to aim a gun for a clean shot every time.
Philanthropy would be a dream if it weren’t for Snake.
“Do you remember anything about me?”
“I can’t say that I do.” He typed something into an empty word document on his laptop.
“Do you remember anything about your past?”
Snake sat in contemplation for a bit, elbows on his knees, hands on either side of his face. He squinted his eyes and grimaced, eyes moving as he searched for his own memory.
“I remember being in foster care. And joining the Army when I turned eighteen.”
“What is the last memory of Foxhound that you have?”
“I was trying to get to Gray Fox–Outer Heaven.”
Otacon shuffled through his mental calendar. Snake's very first field mission– he was roughly twenty-seven when he was in Zanzibar, so some point before then. If he remembered correctly, the infiltration of Outer Heaven was one of the first true missions Snake had been on, so at the very latest, his last memory is from his early twenties. Over ten years of nothing.
That leaves out every memory Snake would have from Zanzibar, of Shadow Moses, of Otacon. That leaves him with all the memories he says that he regrets, that he wishes he didn’t have to live through. The memories of being tossed around in foster care, of being forced into the military believing he hadn’t anything else to do with his life, of seeing Gray Fox die. At the very least, he doesn’t remember what Gray Fox turned into.
“Is there anything after that?”
“I know that there is.” He pushed, shoving the heels of his palms into his eyes. Snake sounded so utterly defeated, so spent that it tore at Otacon’s heart. That sinking feeling, all ice and fear, when there's nothing to do but watch as others struggle.
“Just keep trying, Dave. There’s got to be– you’re in there, somewhere.” Otacon placed his hands on either side of Dave’s crown, sinking his fingers through thick dark locks.
“It’s stuck on the tip of my tongue. It’s like my mind’s been rearranged, or emptied. I can feel where the memories were, but they just aren’t.” His voice was breaking. Snake wrapped his hands around Otacon’s wrist, the pallid skin turning an even harsher white, yellow around the edges. “I can’t place where anything is. I try to grasp at a memory and it phases through my touch, and I just can’t.”
He could feel Dave’s heart through his fingertips, still digging into the bones of his arm, rapid and wild. There weren’t many times where he’d seen Dave panic, not even staring death in the face did his voice so much as falter. He tightened his grip and pried Otacon’s hands away from his head, fingers wrapped so tight that they’d leave purple where they once lay.
Otacon put his hands up and backed away. Snake looked at his own hands and back at Hal with an apologetic expression.
“I don’t know why I– I can’t help it.”
“You’re frustrated and confused, Snake.” Hal ran his hand through his own hair. “We’ll fix this, alright?”
“Yeah, alright.”
“You’ve just got to gain your memories back– you’ll have to relearn a lot. But the more you do, the easier it’ll be for the rest to make sense.” He pushed his glasses up with one swift finger.
“Okay.” Dave took a breath, rubbing his eyes. “So, tell me again, how did we meet?”