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Hal doesn't always get David.
Maybe it's not so surprising, he was never a people person, but a computer person because computers aren't strangely passive-aggressive and don't give you cryptic answers and short words punctuated with drags of cigarettes-
Okay, yeah, maybe he's thinking about Snake again.
And that's a problem in itself, how every thought he has always finds a way to come back to him but his brain has no pause button and it has no brakes to slam on when they're forced together to conserve warmth and David still manages to somehow be warm and they're definitely not cuddling but Hal's twisted and convoluted mind wishes they were.
It's three in the morning and Hal forces himself to pretend to be interested in this infomercial about this revolutionary vegetable chopping device with four impressive speeds and switchable blades, priced at a perfectly reasonable $49.99 but a value of $99.99!
Otacon's brain is stuck between wondering why a knife just wasn't enough for some people and wondering why he didn't create this bullshit product instead of creating a killing machine.
"Do you think it works?"
"Huh?" Is not what Hal thinks, but apparently it's what his tongue decides to produce. His mouth and his head aren't always perfectly synchronized, but if Snake ever notices, he doesn't say anything.
"The, uh, 'Slice-A-Tron 5000,'" Snake grunts, and it sounds so goddamn ridiculous coming out of his mouth and that company should totally fire their advertisement team because he's laughing out loud before he can clamp his hand over his mouth.
"God, no. Its mechanical capabilities don't support any of its claims. It won't last a month with the way the model one they're using is already making those weird buzzing sounds."
Hal wonders if he'll ever truly understand David. He's sitting there, seemingly lost in thought. Maybe about the overpriced product on the screen or maybe about the meaning of life. Dave's complex like that, going from talking about the mission at hand to contemplating humanity.
"Good point," Snake says, voice almost overpowered by the howling of the wind outside. Their latest mission brought them to the middle of butt-fuck nowhere in Colorado, trying to find some hideout where, supposedly, Metal Gear blueprints are being stored.
Extreme weather doesn't bother Dave, it was trained out of him. Maybe if Hal had over four percent body fat, he'd be warmer but his body doesn't work that way, he'd always continued to wear sweaters no matter how warm it was.
The thin walls of the house are protesting against the weather conditions and he doesn't blame them one bit. It's a partial lie because yes, he is cold, but he is much too warm on the inside because they're so close that Otacon can feel his shoulders rising and falling every few seconds with his breathing and it brings him a strange sort of peace despite the situation.
Hal has no earthly idea what he's supposed to say to that, so he doesn't say anything, but his eyes are drawn to the gentle slope of Dave's nose and the sharp jut of his jawline and maybe he looks a bit blue from the glow of the TV but he's so painfully beautiful to Hal that he can't tear his goddamn eyes away even when he's sure Snake knows by this point-
"What?" And it's so predictable, Hal knew this was gonna happen and he knew he wasn't gonna have a suitable response and after how terrible his love life has been thus far he swore off feelings but damn, he didn't even realize it until he was in too deep.
It was unavoidable, falling in love with Snake, even if the timing was laughably bad and there were more differences between them than grains of sand or stars or more sappy bullshit Hal had no idea he was even capable of thinking of, let alone feeling.
It doesn't come as a surprise when Hal's rational thoughts are suddenly replaced with white noise and the sound of himself internally screaming, his brain cells probably running into each other in their hysteria-induced stupor.
"U-uh, nothing,"
God-fucking-damn it, Hal. You had one job.
Dave just raises a thick eyebrow, looking terribly unimpressed with Otacon's attempt of a lie. Of course he knew, he always knew. He didn't always press to know what was really wrong or what he really meant, but the fact still stood.
It felt like Snake was staring into his soul, and while one, he knew that wasn't possible, and two, his soul was probably too uninteresting for one to look at for too long, it was still incredibly unnerving.
"Alright,"
Hal bit the inside of his cheek, knowing full well that David wasn't satisfied with that answer, he was still giving him a sideways glance and to anyone else it would've gone unnoticed but he just knows Dave so well by now, maybe not to the fullest extent that someone could know a person but certainly better than anyone else.
Hal had always thought about things too much, running the 'what-ifs' and the 'why's' into metaphorical walls and letting them run on metaphorical treadmills for all of eternity.
And he tries, he really does try to focus on the Television, even though now the same lady is screaming about what is clearly the best rug ever and wow, a lady is calling in to clarify that it is, in fact, the best rug ever, but Hal just thinks she wants to hear her own voice on TV.
"That's a nice rug," Otacon tries, but Snake just looks at him blankly.
"It looks like dog vomit."
Hal sighs, exasperated. This was a man who'd killed dozens of people, and he's seriously comparing a rug to dog puke?
(He's totally right, though.)
"What are you really thinking about, Hal?"
And that's a dangerous question, because Hal's mouth could easily say that he's thinking about how he'd listen to Dave recite the entirety of Shakespeare's Macbeth just to listen to his voice and the hints of emotion peeking through, just to listen to the chuckles under his breath when the characters would do something particularly stupid.
He could tell him about how much he used to hate the smell of cigarettes but now he can't bring himself to because they just smell like him.
Hell, he could even tell him how he worries himself goddamn sick every time Snake has to leave for a mission and how his heart skips a beat every time the Codec cuts out for a millisecond.
"You," Hal says, and it's not half a second before he forces his brain to let him keep talking. "And me. And life, and stuff." He finishes, lamely, his traitorous heart pounding in his ribcage.
Snake just smiles at him, lopsided and soft but in a way that makes Hal wonder if that sort of smile was reserved for him.
Dave wasn't like him, he didn't smile when he was uneasy or when he was so angry that's all he could do, or when he was upset and smiling was all he could do. He smiled in moments that were worth it to him, when he was able to let himself be vulnerable and human and those times made Otacon feel like he won the fucking jackpot.
"You think too much," Is all he says, but the arm resting on the back of the sofa makes its way to around Hal's shoulder and pulls him just a little bit closer and it could just be for the warmth, but for right now he's done thinking and he's okay with feeling.
Hal wakes up an hour later with Dave's hair ghosting his cheek and a head leaning against his and it's nobody's business but his own if he drifts off almost instantly, soaking in the warmth of the human next to him and he doesn't care if it's cold, he'd be cold for the rest of his life if it meant spending every four in the morning like this.