Work Text:
David grumbled, looking at himself in the mirror and turning to get every angle of the outfit. “I’ll do the dress up stuff, fine, but is the wig really necessary?” He fiddled with the red strands of hair sticking in his face before Hal moved across the room to slap his hand.
“I put a lot of time and hair spray in that. If you don’t want to wear it I can’t force you, but it looks better if you do.”
“Looks better? Hal I look like an idiot.”
“Hey! Rude.”
David let out a long sigh, “I don’t mean… the people who do this…” he gestured vaguely “stuff… look like idiots… it’s just that I look like an idiot.”
“You’ll look cool to everyone there. Scooch over you’re hogging the mirror.” Hal shoved him out of the way with his hip and leaned in, fixing the giant foam screw he had clipped onto his head and running his fingers through his freshly dyed gray hair, toying with his old circle frame glasses that he dug up just for this costume—the lenses were badly scratched and they were all but useless, but he insisted on keeping them because they were the ones he met David in.
“You don’t have to wear a wig.”
“Would you rather grow your mullet out and dye your hair red?”
David bit his tongue and crossed his arms. Hal had explained it to him multiple times, even made him sit down and watch the anime, but he still didn’t really understand what or who he was dressed as. The outfit was just something he had in the closet, black suit and gray shirt, save for the tie and the metal collar pins, both in the shape of a cross, which Hal made custom. Hal, though, poured a lot of effort into putting patches and stitches on an old white coat he found, and cutting and sewing together three different sweaters, just so he could be accurate to the character. Accuracy was very important at these events, apparently. David was not looking forward to being surrounded by swooning nerds all day. Except the one standing next to him and putting makeup on his face.
“Gay.”
“What?”
“You’re doing your makeup, that’s gay.”
Hal paused as he drew another mock stitch over his cheek, glaring at him in the mirror, “David we’ve been together for five years.”
“Case in point.”
Hal rolled his eyes and kept working. The nerd had been talking about this convention for months, and now that it was finally here he looked like he could just explode. All morning, he’d been bouncing around the hotel room getting ready—it was rare he had any energy at all, and even rarer when it was non-caffeinated.
“I wish you would’ve shaved your beard. Spirit doesn’t have one.”
“You’re not taking that from me. Don’t you like it when I keep it like this, anyways?”
“I do. A lot.” Hal turned and scratched his beard, and pulled his face to his own, giving David a quick peck. “How do I look?” He stood back and held his arms out, waiting a verdict.
Adorable, but that wasn’t the word Hal was looking for probably. He was beaming and they hadn’t even left the hotel room. David looked him over a few times—so much effort went into this one costume for this one day, and you could tell.
“Adorable.” He couldn’t come up with anything else to say, it was written all over him.
Hal rolled his eyes again, “The cosplay, David, how does the cosplay look?”
“I dunno. Good. I dunno what it’s supposed to look like.”
“You watched Soul Eater with me multiple times. How do you not know?”
David shrugged. “It’s hard to focus when you’re sitting next to me explaining every scene. I’d rather watch you than the cartoon, anyways.” Hal hated it when he called them cartoons, and David knew that, but he loved antagonizing him about it.
“David for the millionth time they are not cartoons. Don’t go around saying that today.”
He threw his hands up, “Your day, your rules. Lead the way, uh. Frankenstein right?”
“They just call him Stein.” Hal grabbed his hand and led him out of the room and down into the lobby, where plenty of other dressed up nerds were gathered, characters that David didn’t recognize eating hotel breakfast and gushing over each other’s costumes. On any other day Hal might’ve stopped to chat, but he had his blinders on now and dragged David out the front door. There’d be plenty of time for that once they got to the con, anyways.
Outside, a flood of people filled the sidewalks, many of them dressed up, like David and Hal were—it was a sea of neon wigs and plastic weapons, and they hadn’t even gotten to the con yet. Hal squeezed David’s hand a bit tighter; he always did in big crowds like this. In any other scenario David would probably be embarrassed about the costume he was wearing—he’d worn his fair share of disguises, sure, but this was ridiculous. He felt absolutely ridiculous. If any of their colleagues saw him right now he’d never hear the end of it.
“Oh, we’re meeting up with Mei Ling, by the way. She wanted to say hi—she’s there too.”
Christ, of course Mei Ling’s there. He tried not to let the terror he felt show on his face, “Super. Always happy to see her.”
It was a short walk to the con, and once they got in Hal lit up like a kid in a candy store. There were tons of people dressed in all manners of clothing, Hal pointing out different ones and explaining which anime they were from. Everyone’s overlapping voices were like a dull thunder filling up the entire building and it was barely 10 am and a funk was already starting to work up in the building, and if Hal noticed he didn’t seem to mind.
“That one is from Sailor Moon. You watched a few episodes with me. Those two are Utena and Himemiya. Ah, that was the one where they sword fought for the girl, and those two ended up together in the end. You remember?”
David nodded slowly. Hal had a weird thing for lesbian anime stuff that he didn’t really get, but promised to keep it between the two of them anyways. All the lesbians David had met in the military were deadly serious badasses, he forgot girly ones existed too until Hal made him sit down and watch…what did he call it? Yeeri? Yaari?
“You two look so good! I love Soul Eater,” a pair of women in lacy dresses and carrying swords stopped to admire their costumes.
“Thanks! I sewed all of this myself. I told him he should’ve shaved the beard.”
“It looks good anyways,” one of the women winked at David and looked him up and down, very obviously. “What’re you two doing later?”
David didn't care to entertain any amount of flirting, not these days, “We’re married,” he grabbed Hal by the waist and pulled him close, the otaku’s face turning bright red, as did the woman’s.
“Oh! My bad, haha.” A look of shock and maybe disgust grew on the woman's face. It was a reaction he got semi frequently--he didn't give a shit anymore, he could beat whoever wanted to step to him or Hal anyways.
“You two make a cute couple!” Her friend interjected and started shoving her forwards, “It was nice chatting, hah, take care.”
Hal craned his neck, not bothering to move from out of David’s grip, “Married? Have you been telling people we’re married this whole time?”
“New strategy I've deployed. Only if they try to hit on me. It’s more serious, scares them off.”
“And that happens a lot doesn’t it.”
“Just means you bagged a dime.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on Hal’s cheek, being careful not to smudge the fake scar. Hal knows he’d put a ring on it if he could, they had talked about it plenty, but legally he was dead, and who would they invite to the ceremony anyways? Except Mei Ling and maybe Raiden. David wasn’t sure if he was allowed to invite Meryl.
“We’re going to the vendors first. I want to see what they have here. Sometimes they have out of print manga and old Gundam figures.” Hal led David through the crowd, following a stream of people heading towards the same area. The wall of double doors revealed a lofty space with dozens of booths set up, various crafts and artwork on display. The otaku bee lined to the first manga stand he could find and perused the shelves while David looked out at the crowd to do some people watching. Most people hunched over with posture that was about as bad as Hal’s, must be a lot of computer science techy people. A handful of them were nearly as ripped as David—sort of surprising but it made him feel better that he wasn’t the only one—the rest were either eerily thin or overweight. David pictured each one sitting at their computers all day, the thin ones not getting up to eat, and the overweight ones jamming junk food into their maws and typing with Cheeto dust fingers on their keyboards, something Hal did from time to time that made David cringe. This was probably the most socialization many of them got in a long while—everyone shuffled awkwardly and smiled half heartedly as if they forgot how to speak to one another. David wasn’t much better anyways.
“Uh, hi.” A lonely otaku waved a hand in front of David, snapping him out of his trance.
“Hey.”
“I like your costume. Spirit. It’s cool. I like Soul Eater a lot. As you can probably tell. Heh.” He pointed at his own outfit as if it was obvious. He had long pink hair and a dress on and was carrying a black sword with him. David actually couldn’t really tell if it was a guy or a girl, now that he got a good look at the kid.
“Ah. I dunno anything about that. Not into any of this, I’m here with my boyfriend,” David jabbed a thumb in Hal’s direction, who was nose deep in a shelf and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
The kid’s eyes lit up, “Boyfriend? That’s so cool…it’s like the ship but in real life…oh em gee.”
“Ship? What ship?”
“Ship. Relationship. Um.” They paused and cocked their head. “So basically. Uh. If two characters have chemistry, like, uh, romantically. You know.”
David nodded along.
“So if the characters have chemistry and the relationship isn’t cannon. Then it’s a ship.”
“Cannon?” What, were they on the USS Missouri or something?
“Like. Heh. Um.” Otakus tended to use a lot of interjections, David had noticed, “if they don’t end up together in the series. If it’s not part of the, like.” They waved their hands, “real story. Then it’s a ship. Does that make sense? I ship Stein and Spirit together even though they don’t end up together in the series.”
David was entirely out of his element here but didn’t want to startle the kid with a snarky comment. “Interesting…”
“Yeah. I’ve written a lot of fanfictions. About them. So it’s cool that you two are dating. Heh.”
The otaku was swooning a bit too hard and David really wanted to find an out, and just in the nick of time his own otaku poked him on the shoulder, bag of books and figures bumping into David's back with the motion. “Hey.” He turned to the younger otaku, “Oh! Crona! That’s so cool! You look just like him!”
“They were saying they ship us together.”
Hal’s cheeks flushed. “Ah. Nerd talk.”
“I already got an explanation, don’t worry about it. I ship us too, I guess.” The younger otaku had a huge grin plastered on their face as the pair gazed at each other, David holding it for longer than he would have without an audience.
“Can I take a picture with you guys? Please?” Hal having photos on his own camera was one thing, but some random kid? They were way too eager, though, and David saw a bit of Hal in the kid, so he couldn’t help it. He exchanged a look with Hal and shrugged.
“Sure.”
They got a random passer by to take a photo of the three of them, awkwardly standing and trying not to touch in the pose. If that photo ever made rounds online someone would most definitely recognize Solid Snake. The thought made him nauseous; he could almost see the headlines: LEGENDARY SOLID SNAKE—FULL TIME SOLDIER, PART TIME COSPLAYER. Either way, they said their goodbyes.
“Hal, what’s a fanfiction.”
“Oh, God. Another time. We have to find Mei Ling anyways, she just texted me.” Hal started off again back towards the main lobby, David in tow, mind still swimming with the new vocabulary.
From across the way, among the sea of people, somehow Hal managed to find Mei Ling, despite the costume she wore which made her unrecognizable to David. He led the way through the crowd, the pair weaving around groups and being careful not step on anyone’s dresses or coats. “Mei Ling!” Hal half shouted and waved his arm.
She had on a skimpy yellow top with matching shorts, a red sweater thrown over her shoulders, and looked nothing like her usual, modest self—it was a jarring sight to David. She turned and greeted the pair with that warm smile she always had on whenever she saw them. “Hal! How have you been? Your costume looks great! Snake—” She turned, getting a good look at him. David could see the shock wash over her. This was the part he’d been really dreading. Mei Ling pursed her lips and moved a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. “Ah, you look—so good. Just like Spirit.”
“Let it out, Mei Ling, I know.”
She allowed herself a giggle and turned to Hal, “I can’t believe you got him to wear that.” She turned back to David, “You must really love him.”
More than anybody knew, even though it was evident, especially today. “Never doubt it.”
“Stein and Spirit. Hal, are you going to experiment on him later?”
The pair exchanged a look, “Uh. Probably.” Hal grinned at David who snickered back at him. He’d have to take the wig off before they did any of that—it wouldn’t survive.
Mei ling knitted her brow, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” David waved her off, “Who’re you?”
“Faye Valentine! Has Hal made you watch Cowboy Bebop?”
David turned to Hal, deferring to him. He couldn’t keep track of any of the shows anymore, not that he had really tried anyways.
“Not yet. Faye Valetine is a lot more like you than Mei Ling, personality wise, anyways.”
“How?”
“She smokes a lot of cigarettes.” Mei Ling chimed in.
“Speaking of,” David said to Hal, “can we step out for one? I’ll be quick.” They had already been there for hours and the lack of nicotine in his blood stream was getting to him.
“Nuh uh, the lip-syncing competition is about to start. Put a pouch in and deal with it.”
“Lip-syncing—?” Before he could whine about it Hal grabbed his hand again and led him through the crowd to one of the many rooms of the center, Mei Ling following close behind this one set up with a stage and rows of chairs. They sat in the back, near the exit, David, Hal, Mei Ling in that order, David taking the opportunity to slip a nicotine pouch or two into his lip. The lights dimmed and the first handful of people went on and did their silly little dances mock sang their silly little songs. It wasn’t clear what the point of any of this was, David kind of felt like he was just watching people make a fool of themselves. Though, it was entertaining, watching weirdoes do weirdo things like this, endearing too. It crossed his mind that these were the people he was protecting in the world, and he hoped they could continue to do this dumb stuff ad infinitum.
“Okay, give it up for our next contestant, uh. Isn’t this guy a terrorist? Like in real life? Anyways. Uh. Give it up. I guess. For Solid Snake.” David knitted his brows. He had…fans? Who dressed up like him? He exchanged a baffled glance with Hal and Mei Ling as the fake snake walked on stage and posed in the middle, kneeling on one knee dramatically. To the guy’s credit, it looked just like his sneaking suit, though he could tell, even with how far he was from the stage, that the cloth was cheap and had no tactical value at all—it looked like it would rip as soon as he snagged it on an air vent. Amid the cheers of the crowd he could hear someone shout “SNAKE DID NOTHING WRONG.”
After an awkward pause, the speakers blared a god-awful song that he had never heard before,
YOU BETTER WORK.
The Fake Snake stood, the way a stripper might, slowly and sticking his ass out, running his hands up his legs as he rose.
Work it girl
Do your thing on the runway
Work
The crowd erupted in cheers as the fake snake strutted around on the stage, moving his arms around in right angles, up, down, left, right, framing his face. David had seen Madonna do this in the Vogue music video—background music, past hookup he couldn’t remember. He shifted in his seat and glanced over at Hal, who was nearly crying from how hard he was laughing, shoving Mei Ling who was dying just as bad, struggling to keep her eyes open.
Work (turn to the left)
Work (turn to the right)
Work (sashay, shantae)
Fake snake did as the singer said, turning left, right, popping his hip out and running a hand over each ass cheek as he turned, finally turning away from the crowd and placing his hands on his hips, bringing attention to the not-corset that David had on his real life uniform too.
I see your picture everywhere
A million-dollar derrière
And when you walked in to the room
You had everybody's eyes on you
Supermodel
He turned around to show off his well-defined ass, the suit not leaving much up for imagination. Did David actually walk around like that on his missions? He was mortified. He leaned down to Hal, “Is it really that revealing?”
Hal doubled over with laughter, tears flowing down his face and smudging the fake stitches on his face. That was as much of an answer as David was going to get. Fake Snake ripped the top half of the sneaking suit open to reveal a cropped tank top underneath, the words “PROBLEMATIC BISEXUAL” plastered on the front. The crowd went nuts. How the fuck did they know about that? He crouched down and hopped on the balls of his feet, doing more poses like earlier in the routine, before standing back up.
I have one thing to say. YOU BETTER WORK.
In the grand finale, Fake Snake did a huge backflip, landing in a split, the crowd erupting in a roar, standing ovations and wolf whistles as he took a bow and exited. David wasn’t sure if even he could do that, and he was pretty damn agile. He planted a hand over his face to hide the blush that had crept onto his cheeks. There were so many layers to what he had just witnessed he didn’t even know how to process it. Mostly the fact that he had fans. He turned back to Hal and Mei Ling who were folded and laugh-crying on each other’s shoulders. “How bout that?” The emcee walked back out on stage. “Quite a performance, that will be hard to top. Well. So is Snake, probably. One more round of applause for our favorite problematic bisexual left wing terrorist.”
“We need to get out of here.” David whispered harshly, trying to be subtle to not blow his cover.
“I can’t! I can’t! Snake you never told me you were so cunty.” Mei Ling choked out through her tears.
“Hal c’mon.”
“I didn’t know you were so in touch with the gay community, Dave.”
“Guys,”
“Okay, we can leave,” Hal stood, face still wet with tears and eyeliner stitches smudged to oblivion, shooing David out of his way so they could all shuffle down the aisle and out of the room. “I should get that tank top for you,” Hal said as soon as they were back out into the main lobby. He was never going to live any of this down. The wig, the photos, whatever that was. It was over for David, this was it for him. All the bullets, broken bones, nearly drowning. This was what was going to finally do him in—death from embarrassment. By now his face was as red as the wig.
“Aside from…everything else. That was a great performance. You know, maybe you should be more like him, Snake! Lao Tzu said ‘Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.’”
“I don’t care.”
“Then why are you so embarrassed? It wasn’t even you!” Hal rubbed his back as they walked. David didn’t know what to say so he just kept his mouth shut.
Once they made it out of the center, they had to part ways with Mei Ling. “I had fun today. Happy I got to see you two. Hal—I have more intel to send you but I didn’t want to bother you today. I'll fax it over once I get home. Snake?” Mei Ling giggled walking backwards as she talked, “Let me know if you decide to get into vogueing anytime soon. Maybe we could come back next year and give that other Snake some competition.”
“Ha ha.” David fished his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, Hal grabbing the lighter and holding the flame up for him. He took a long drag and held the smoke in, “See ya soon, Mei Ling.”
“Bye, Mei Ling, gotta go experiment on my partner now, you know.” Hal nudged David in the ribs, and God he hoped he meant that.