Archive of Our Own

Hal couldn’t remember his mother, not really. His father wouldn’t talk about her and he would change the subject whenever Hal tried to ask. By the time he was ten, he stopped asking.

He knew loss for the first time when his father committed suicide, though it would take years before he realized that Huey Emmerich had never been much of a father to begin with.

Julie moved back to England and took Emma. She invited him to come; Emma begged him to come, but he had killed his father, so he stayed in an empty house full of his father’s things and he knew loss for the second time.

After Julie left, some men came. They said they were from the government and a man with a pistol at his hip and a crutch under his right arm sat with him in the kitchen while strangers tore his house apart. He wouldn’t answer any of Hal’s questions and he never took off his sunglasses. Hal offered him a cup of coffee because that’s what Julie always did when they had guests. The man drank it slowly, eyes inscrutable behind tinted lenses.

Before the man with the crutch left, he reached deep into his coat pocket and pulled out an unlabeled tape recording and slid it across the table. His voice was low and rough when he said, “This belongs to you.” Then he and the rest of his men were gone, and Hal was left alone in the empty house now devoid of his father’s things.

He knew loss for the third time when he listened to the tape from the man with the crutch. He could barely understand most of it, the dying words of a woman he’d never known, references to things he couldn’t understand. But he understood she’d loved, and she’d lost. She’d loved a woman, this ‘Joy’, and she’d loved him, her son. He understood that his father had killed her and she had tried to protect Hal from him.

When he looked closer, he saw a word etched deep into the plastic: ‘Strangelove’. Some kind of code? He listened to the tape again and again, hoping for clues about the woman whose DNA he shared. It was so strange, though. He talked about Joy like she was a woman, but at the same time alluding to her being some sort of machine, a robot. Had she named the creation after her lover, or was it the other way around? Was the creation her lover?

He’d lost his father’s research, the papers he’d planned on scouring to find some clue as to his own origin. But there had to be other records, records of this Joy, of his mother’s work. If only he had her name. Instead he was left with a cassette tape that begged more questions than it answered.

It was a damn good thing he was brilliant, otherwise he would have failed all his classes, distracted as he was with his curiosity and his grief. He dug into files he had no place rummaging through until he hit a wall, but he could find no records even alluding to anything from the tape. But he could barely find any records of his own father either, so he was sure he was just looking in the wrong places.

“Did you ever know your mother?” he asked Snake one evening in the dirty motel room they’d spent the last week living in. The room was littered with greasy take out boxes and Hal couldn’t remember the last time he slept, but he couldn’t focus on the screen anymore, so he turned to his partner.

“Mn?” Snake grunted. He lay face down on his bed, arm dangling over the side, fingertips brushing the edge of a spilled can of Pepsi.

“Your mother,” he repeated self-consciously.

Snake rolled onto his back, his boxers bunched around the tops of his thighs and his t-shirt riding up as he lay a hand on his hard stomach. Hal swallowed and wished he hadn’t asked such a stupid question.

“You know I’m a clone right?” Snake blinked blearily at him.

“Y-yeah, but you didn’t just like, get grown in a petri dish. Someone had to have carried you right?” Sometimes Hal wished he could shut his mouth off, shut his brain off, maybe disconnect the two so he wouldn’t blurt out his entire train of thought to unsuspecting victims (or people he wanted to impress).

“I guess, I never really thought about it.” Snake shrugged, tucking his hands behind his head. “I had foster parents, but no one I would really consider a ‘mother’, you know?”

“I see,” Hal turned back to his screen but his eyes were no more focused than before, the white light making his skull ache. He pulled off his glasses and began to wipe them on his shirt.

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he replied, putting his glasses back on, only managing to make his vision worse by smearing around a greasy fingerprint.

“What about your family? You said your father died when you were still doing your undergrad?”

Otacon couldn’t remember the last time Snake had asked him such a personal question, their conversations normally limited to the task at hand or a lighter topic, something like favourite movies (as it turned out Snake had only seen a handful of classics and Hal took it upon himself to expose Snake to as much pop culture as he could get his hands on, if only so Snake would laugh at his stupid jokes over the codec).

“My father committed suicide,” he said, bracing himself for Snake’s reaction.

“I’m sorry,” said Snake, but his tone didn’t morph into one of false pity and Hal had no idea why he thought it might. This was Snake, not a stranger at a funeral he hadn’t felt right attending.

“He wasn’t around much anyways,” said Hal to his lap, “and I can’t remember my mother. She died when I was really young and my father wouldn’t talk about her.”

“It doesn’t seem right, to deprive you of that.”

“It was kind of a crappy thing to do but he had his reasons,” Hal shrugged, unsure if he should share the whole truth.

“I can’t think of any reason to refuse you. Even if he was mourning her, he shouldn't have taken that out on his child.” Snake sat upright, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the headboard. His thin nostrils flared when he spoke.

“I don’t think he wanted me to ask about how she died.” Hal shrugged again, but his mouth was dry. He thought about the tape he kept in a ziplock stuffed inside a pair of socks.

“I think adults underestimate children too often.” Snake was angry about something else for sure, but for the moment he seemed fixated on Hal’s deprived childhood. Again, Hal wished he knew when to shut his mouth, but after another moment’s thought, he considered that maybe he’d kept this to himself for too long — maybe it was time to ask for help.

“Does the word ‘Strangelove’ mean anything to you?” he asked.

“Like the movie?” Snake replied, raising an eyebrow. Hal sighed. Of course Snake would have seen that one .

“No, like some sort of military code, or like a codename, anything like that?”

Snake shook his head. “Sorry, no.” He paused, “You know, if you don’t want to talk about something, you can just say so.”

It was Hal’s turn to shake his head. “No, no, this is related. Sort of.” He beckoned Snake over to his computer. He’d had the tape digitized ages ago, pulling up the hidden file he’d titled ‘Strangelove’.

“Just let me know if anything jumps out at you,” he said, handing Snake a pair of headphones with crumbling foam earpieces.

It was as much a mystery to Snake as it had been to Hal, but he did learn the name of the man who had given him the tape. Master McDonell Benedict Miller, Neé Kazuhira Miller, and Snake’s old drill sergeant. Unfortunately, Miller had died before the incident on Shadow Moses, so they couldn’t ask him where he’d found it or how he’d know to give it to Hal. Miller’s origins were a mystery and there were no military records of him before 1990. Snake suspected he had been a mercenary before his military career, but all attempts to find previous affiliations turned up nothing.

Hal lost Emma and he stopped keeping track of the things he could have had. He put the tape away and tried to stop mourning a woman he’d never known, a man who was never there, and a girl he had abandoned to his own grief. Sometimes he hated how much like his father he was.

It wasn’t until Snake started dying that Hal thought about the tape again.

“I found this doctor...” Hal opened a file folder, spreading the contents on the table in front of Snake. “He looks promising, which I know is what I said last time but maybe…”

“Otacon…”

“We shouldn’t give in just yet, there’s still a chance…”

“Otacon.”

“I just think—”

“Otacon!” Snake shouted, slamming his fist on the table. Hal jumped back, looking down at the floor instead of at his partner. “...Stop, please.”

“Don’t give up on me now, Snake.” Hal slumped down in the chair opposite. “You never have before.”

Snake sighed, leaning forward on his elbows to rest his head in his hands.

“I’m tired, Hal,” he said to the table. “I never expected to live this long anyways. I’ve had a good run, all things considered.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Hal pleaded, reaching across the table to grab Snake’s arm. Snake looked up at Hal, pulling his arm out from his grip so he could place his hand over Hal’s, threading their fingers together. Snake smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled, his lids drooping low, his mouth creased. His hair was almost completely grey.

“I’ve been ready to die since I was 16 years old. I never expected to make it to twenty five.”

Otacon rubbed his thumb under his eye so Snake wouldn’t see the tear leak down his cheek. “What if we try and make it an even fifty then? Can we do that?” He paused. “For Sunny?” ‘For me?’ he didn’t say, though he knew Snake heard it.

“One more doctor,” Snake agreed. He didn’t smile; he just nodded, exhaustion set deep into the wrinkles under his eyes.

That night Otacon listened to the tape again and remembered what it was like to listen to someone die.

One year, one year at most. It… it wasn’t fair. And Snake was gone, off on another mission to save the world and all he could do was be Otacon: follow him around in his stupid robot and hope Snake survived the next fight.

Snake survived. He always did. He survived long enough to meet his mother. Hal knew, he’d always known that he was looking in the wrong places. Eva, her name was Eva. She gave him everything he needed to begin his search anew. He had so many questions for her, questions that died in his throat before he ever got to meet her. He listened to her whisper her last words to her son and wondered what it would have been like to hold his mother like that instead of having to hear her though a crackly recording.

He almost lost Snake again and again, and it felt selfish to want him to make it through only for him to be forced to take his own life so soon after. It would be kinder to let him go down fighting.

He almost did, fighting his brother, or Ocelot, or both. It was both, wasn’t it?

They’d moved him from the hospital once Snake ripped out his own IV and popped a cigarette in his mouth, mainly because the nurses couldn’t stop him and they were worried about other patients. Snake had grinned at Hal, a slightly grisly smile considering half his face looked like raw steak, and lit his smoke only once they were ten feet away from the doors. Snake slept on his bench with a pillow under his head and Sunny under his arm. She was never that bold, under normal circumstances. Not the most affectionate child, not unlike Hal himself when he was younger, but Hal didn’t think she was curled up next to Snake for her own benefit, and by the way his chin rested on her hair, he was sure she’d made a wise decision.

Hal found his mother while Snake and Sunny slept. With the Patriot system gone, he had access to files he didn’t even know existed, they were buried so deep. He’d been right when he guessed his mother had named the robot after her lover. What he hadn’t realized was that it wasn’t really a robot at all she’d made, but an actual honest to god AI of a human being. It was incredible, it was genius, and he wished not for the first time that he could have met her. He had so many questions.

And there was Joy, or The Boss, another codename of hers. The woman who allegedly tried to sell America to the Russians. The woman who had actually sacrificed her life to save her country, who had let herself be vilified after her death, no honor, no glory, for her country. His mother had hoped she could pass on this woman’s will to Hal — that he would continue her legacy. He could never live up to someone like that. He glanced over at Snake. If anyone continued her legacy it was him, and he hadn’t even known it.

He didn’t even realize he’d been up all night until he heard Snake mumbling behind him. He turned his head in time to see Snake pick up Sunny and lay her back down on the bench, laying the blanket over her. She didn’t even stir, and Hal was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the fleeting smile on Snake’s face before it was gone.

“You’re up,” said Hal, forcing his voice to sound perkier than he actually felt.

“You never went to bed,” said Snake, rubbing his thigh through his pajama pants. Snake never woke up without pain anymore.

“I found some interesting stuff,” replied Hal, closing his windows before Snake could peer over his shoulder.

“Hm?”

“My mother,” he said, quieter.

“I see.”

God knows where he got the cigarette, since his pajamas had no pockets, but he popped it in his mouth and used a match to light it. He wandered back over to sit in the chair beside Hal, the one Sunny liked, when he felt like sitting in a chair that day.

“You really shouldn’t smoke, it’s—”

“Otacon, stop.” Snake took a long drag from his cigarette, turning his head to exhale acrid smoke away from the computer equipment.

“I don’t want it to end like this, I’m not ready, I’m not—”

Snake kissed him with one hand on his cheek and the other holding his cigarette away from Hal’s keyboard. His mouth tasted like morning breath and cigarette smoke. Their lips tasted like salt because Hal was crying. They hadn’t kissed like this since hard lines appeared on Snake’s face and his hands became pale and bony, purple veins dark though papery skin. They hadn’t kissed at all since the last traces of brown were gone from Snake’s hair.

Hal choked against Snake’s mouth and was forced to pull back, covering his face with his hands.

“It’s like you’ve been pulling away so I won’t miss you as much.” Hal angrily wiped tears from his eyes, but more came regardless. “But all it does it make me miss you now. Screw you, Snake. We have so little time left, I don’t want to waste it.”

Snake stood, and for a moment Hal thought he would walk away, but he only walked across the room to his ashtray before coming back.

Hal kissed him this time, arms wrapped around his middle, fingers clutching the soft fabric of his t-shirt because if he didn’t hold on now, Snake would leave again. They both had awful breath. They stumbled their way up the stairs to avoid waking Sunny. They’d done this dozens of times when they were both younger, and with Snake’s sharp senses, they’d never been caught, but it was different now, more desperate. It felt like the last time, and Hal couldn’t breathe for fear that this time when he pulled away, Snake wouldn’t meet him halfway again.

There was a bed behind a curtain they almost never used. Snake slept on the bench downstairs and Hal slept in his chair. Sunny preferred it to her own cot, so Hal would have to remember to wash the sheets.

They sat down at the end of the bed, and Snake kissed him, hard, before easing himself onto the floor between Hal’s legs. Hal winced watching him and tried to pull him back up on the bed.

“Come on,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather… you know…” Hal gestured widely towards Snake’s lower half.

“Just pass me a pillow,” replied Snake, shaking his head.

Hal obliged, frowning. “Are you sure because—”

Snake let out a self-deprecating laugh, tucking the pillow under his knees. “Hal, I have the body of a seventy year old man. There are things I can’t do consistently or for very long anymore.”

“Oh?” Hal’s frown deepened until he understood. “Oh!”

Snake laughed again, and this time it seemed genuine. Hal reached down to cup the unmarred side of Snake’s face so he could kiss him again.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “We could, um, trade places.”

Snake’s smile was more melancholy now. “I think that would just make us both sad, and I haven’t touched you in so long. I want to enjoy this.”

Hal didn’t feel so bad about falling asleep after since Snake fell asleep first. They shared a pillow, Hal’s knees tucked in behind Snake’s. When he woke a few hours later, Snake was no longer tucked under his arm. Snake sat at the edge of the bed, facing away from him, his head hung low.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

All the air was sucked out of Hal’s lungs so he could barely say, “When?”

“Today, as soon as we land, before the wedding.”

“Meryl will be furious.” He felt sick.

“I don’t think it’s right for me to be there. This is the start of a new generation. They shouldn’t have a relic like me dragging them down.” Snake stood, carefully stretching. Hal could see every time he strained just to straighten his back. Snake must hate it, every second of it, his once powerful body turned to decay.

“So soon,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“If I wait,” said Snake, still with his back to him, “I won’t be able to go through with it.”

“I don’t understand.” Hal was shocked it had taken him as long as it did for tears to begin rolling down his cheeks. Perhaps he was just worn out.

Snake finally turned around, his smile tired but fond. “I don’t want to leave yet either.”

“Oh.”

“I spent so long fighting, and when I finally find peace, I have to give it up so the people who gave that to me can live on.”

Snake sat back down on the bed and Hal tucked in beside him, leaning his head on his shoulder, hand on Snake’s chest so he could feel his heart beat.

“It’s not fair,” said Hal. He was getting Snake’s shoulder wet, but Snake didn’t seem to mind.

“Nothing ever is,” Snake replied. “But I had you, and I had Sunny, and maybe for an old dog like me, after everything I’ve done, that’s more than enough.”

The wedding was beautiful, but that wasn’t why Hal was crying, and when it was over he went back to his workstation and sobbed until he thought he might vomit. Sunny brought him a wad of tissues and left them beside his keyboard before going back to the kitchen.

When Snake came back, he hid the files he’d been working on. Somehow he didn’t think his partner would approve.

It was a bittersweet year. The more months that passed, the more Snake’s body fell apart. His mind, as sharp as ever, trapped in the body of a man thirty, forty, fifty years his senior. He never complained, and though he was exhausted every day, he seemed content. They got a one-story ground floor house so Snake wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs.

Snake thought Hal should work, so he’d stop fussing over him all day. Hal declined and they compromised. Hal fussed less and Snake started asking for help when he needed it. It wasn’t like they needed the money. The government gave them both a sizeable payout — compensation for years of unofficial service or something like that. Hal had laughed. He never felt like much of a patriot.

This time, Hal was ready when the end came — when he woke up and Snake was still beside him, face cold to the touch. It was a good way to go, and in the end, he thought Snake came to terms with that.

He didn’t cry this time. He’d already cried until his eyes were sore and his head pounded. He’d mourned him too many times, so this time he had a plan.

Sunny started schooling with a series of private tutors, and while they worked in the living room, Hal retreated to his study. He spent hours pouring over his mother’s work on the mammal pod, the most advanced AI he’d ever heard of outside of fiction. To not only create a human-like AI, but to actually recreate a human being…

It took almost two years. Two years of trial and error and sleepless nights. Two years where the only days he stopped were for Sunny’s birthday and for Christmas (Sunny insisted). Two years of keeping Sunny out of his files, which was getting harder and harder to do the older she got, and she kept trying no matter how much he scolded her.

The program was huge, but technology had advanced since the seventies, and the special unit he built to house it didn’t exceed the size of a regular computer tower and monitor.

His index finger hovered over the enter key. It all lead up to this, everything his mother had done, everything Hal had lost.

He pressed enter and at first nothing happened. Then his face appeared. It had taken months to painstakingly recreate Snake’s face, his movements, the way his eyebrows twitched, the way his mouth looked when he was thinking. He’d used photographs to put him together, piece by piece, like some sort of Dr. Frankenstein, until he saw the face of the man who’d told him he loved him and meant it. Solid Snake, age thirty seven.

The first thing Snake did was frown, then his mouth opened and he said. “Hello, Hal.”

Hal blinked, frozen. It sounded so much like him, his voice made from thousands of codec recordings Hal had saved.

“You hardly ever call me Hal,” he replied.

“It’s the name you gave yourself in my programming. What else should I call you?” It was that tone that made people think he wasn't actually interested in the answer, that and those low brows that made him look like he was constantly scowling.

“You normally call me Otacon, it—”

“It stands for Otaku Convention, I remember.” Snake paused. “You’re crying.”

Hal frantically wiped his cheeks, but it did no good.

“I’ve missed you.”

Snake furrowed his brow, lips pressed together in concentration before he spoke again, “I’m Solid Snake, David, and I’m dead. How long have I been dead?”

“T-two years,” said Hal, “give or take a few months.”

He took his glasses off to wipe the greasy smudges his hand had left when he’d tried to wipe away his tears.

“Two years?”

“It’s been a long process,” said Hal, putting his glasses back on.

“Looking at my memories, I was ready to die.”

Hal’s heart stopped and sunk into his stomach. “You were,” he said. “You hard a hard life.”

“I see.”

Hal opened his mouth to respond when he heard footsteps in the hallway, he shut off the speakers and the monitor before Sunny knocked and then let herself in.

“Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?” She asked from the doorway.

“Oh, um, sure,” he replied, spinning his chair around to face her. “Why?”

“Don’t be silly,” she frowned. “Don’t you know what day it is?”

He glanced down at the date and time on the laptop to his left. “It’s my birthday,” he said.

“How do you forget your own birthday?” she asked, incredulous.

“Sorry, Sunny. I’ve been kind of preoccupied.”

She crossed her arms, looking him up and down. Ever since Hal started letting her go outside and interact with people, her social skills had advanced at an exponential rate. Her stammer was mostly gone and she had started to maintain eye contact, even if she didn’t really see the point most of the time. ‘It makes people feel better,’ she told him. Her emotional intelligence had skyrocketed as well. She’d gotten frighteningly good at reading him, and now that his project was complete, he wasn't sure how much longer he’d be able to keep if from her.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s your birthday. Let’s go get dinner. I’m hungry.” It looked like he’d be able to keep his secret another day at least. Thirty seven years old. It felt strange.

“Sunny’s grown up fast,” remarked Snake when Hal turned the screen back on the next morning. “Did she miss me too?”

“Of course,” Hal replied, brows drawn together. “Of course she has.”

“Why did you hide me from her?”

“I—”

“Are you ashamed?”

“Why am I here?” Snake asked.

“What do you mean?” Hal closed the program he was working on and turned his chair to face him.

“My purpose is existence, but to what benefit? Why did you make me?”

“Because I missed you.”

“Do you still miss me?”

“Hal, there’s a contradiction in my programming.”

Sometimes Hal could forget he was talking to a computer program, but every time he got close, Snake would say something like that and the illusion would be shattered.

“What is it?” Hal moved his chair closer so he could reach the keyboard.

“My program states that I should act in accordance with my memories, however, I am also programmed to prioritize self-preservation. Neither of these commands override the other.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hal, although he was beginning to.

“I’m tired,” said Snake, and he looked at Hal with ancient eyes.

Hal left his study, shutting the door behind him.

It was a week before Hal could force himself to go back into his study.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting down in front of Snake.

“What for?”

“For being irresponsible, for leaving you alone like that.” Hal ran a hand through his hair, resting his elbow on the desk.

“It’s okay.”

“Were you lonely?” he asked. He reached out, fingers tracing the angle of Snake’s jaw on the screen.

“I missed you.”

“I’m, I’m so—” It hurt to breathe in. His breaths came in shallow gasps.

“What’s wrong, Hal?” Snake frowned.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so selfish.”

“It’s alright. I understand.” Hal wished he hadn’t programmed him with the ability to smile so sadly. “You loved me.”

Loved, past tense. He knew, he’d probably known all along and had been waiting for Hal to realize. It had been a cruel thing to make a program like this self aware, he should have known better.

“I did,” he admitted.

“I loved you too.”

“I know,” said Hal, wiping his eyes so he could see his screen, fingers resting on his keyboard. “I know, and I’m going to let you rest now, okay?”

There it was, that smile, the secret, genuine smile Hal had never seen Snake give anyone if he thought they could see. He looked Hal straight in the eyes as the corners of his mouth curled upwards. The edges around his eyes softened. “Thank you,” he said, then he laughed. “Should I sing ‘Daisy Bell’?”

“That’s not funny,” Hal laughed, cheeks wet and sticky. His lips tasted like salt. He typed in the command.

“Goodbye, Hal.”

“Goodbye, David.”

He had to force his finger to press enter. He felt the air rush out of his lungs when the screen went black, a white cursor blinking at the top of the screen.

He went to the bathroom and scrubbed his face, and when he came back, he started on his own research first, systematically deleting two years worth of work. He had hoped it would feel cathartic, but he just felt hollowed out, like guilt had eaten everything else inside.

His mother’s work was next. The closest connection he had to a woman he couldn’t remember and would never know. First, his own notes and recordings, and then every record of her work he could find elsewhere. Her existence, he left intact. She had lived, she had been murdered — that should be on the record. He left enough notes about her work so people could know what she had accomplished, deleting only what was necessary to prevent others from following in her footsteps.

He kept the tape. In the bottom drawer of his desk, he found a business card holder that he couldn’t remember ever buying. He placed it beside his main monitor and tucked the tape in its metal arms. A reminder.

Sunny wasn’t finished with her tutor for the day, but when Hal came out into the living room, she turned to the woman, who had been delightedly explaining her thesis work, and asked if maybe they could end their session early today. The woman seemed taken aback, but followed Sunny’s line of sight, saw Hal, frowned, then nodded.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Sunny,” she said, smiling.

Sunny nodded and took her hand, leading her to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I want to hear more about your work.”

When the door finally closed behind her, Sunny came back into the living room and wrapped her arms around Hal’s waist, her nose buried in his sternum. Hal’s hands hovered for a moment before he let one rest on her shoulder and the other in her silver hair, running his fingers through the soft strands.

“Do you…” he stopped and looked down, meeting Sunny’s expectant eyes. “Do you want to watch a movie? We can order takeout.”

“We always order takeout,” replied Sunny, giving him a strange look. “But that sounds nice. What movie?”

“I was thinking.” Hal chewed his lip, “I was thinking I never told you how my parents named me.”

“It was from a movie?” Sunny asked, she loosened her grip on his middle so she didn’t have to strain her neck to look at him.

“Yeah, would you like to see it?”

Sunny picked Thai food, and they curled up on the couch. She never asked Hal why he was crying, but when he put her to bed that night, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “I love you, Hal,” and for the first time in two years, his heart didn’t feel quite so heavy.