Snake was there when he woke again, staring at him with unreadable eyes and a blank expression. Hal tensed his muscles sharply to stop himself from jerking away, lying stiff and uncertain in the bed, balanced on a needle-point with no hint which way he was about to tip. He opened his mouth slowly to speak, but the soldier beat him to it.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.

Hal smiled, all pins and glinting knives. “Are you?”

The soldier’s eyes sharpened abruptly, pulling his considerable focus to one target. It was uncomfortably like being held at gunpoint. “No,” he said flatly. “Not for what I said. But for threatening you…” he paused, and nodded slightly. “That was unjustifiable.”

Hal shrugged. “I deserved it.”

Snake stiffened, leant forward slightly. “No, you didn’t,” he said deliberately. “You’re my partner, and my friend. I don’t have the right to threaten you. Never.”

“Not even after I kill your dogs?” He met Snake’s eyes with an almost-even stare, baiting him, waiting for the strike.

“Not even after you almost cripple yourself,” said Snake calmly, refusing to rise.

“I killed her, Snake.” A whisper, almost surprised at its own statement.

“No, you didn’t.” Snake’s voice was flat and steady, strong and cold as arctic glaciers.

“I might as well have; I let her go in there.”

“Hal, I’ve killed dozens of men. Don’t beat yourself up over this; you’ve suffered more than enough. Learn a lesson, and move on.”

“But- she was yours. You loved her, and I killed her.” The engineer’s voice broke, breath coming in thin gasps a sheer curtain away from sobs.

“Then I’d say we’re about even.”

Hal froze as if struck, heart wrenching suddenly in his chest, eyes wide. He had expected a lashing, but Wolf was a topic they hadn’t broached even in their deepest talks- which admittedly had been pretty shallow. For a moment, the whole world stopped as if flash-frozen.

“Fuck,” hissed Snake quietly, breaking the ice as if with a hammer. His cold demeanour dropped away suddenly to reveal strained exhaustion. “I can’t do this now, Hal. Look, I’m sorry, you’re sorry, we’re sorry, and if that’s not enough we can figure it out later, but if we keep going we’re just going to tear each other to pieces.” His voice was low and guttural, having reached that stage of exhaustion where fine vocal control was a waste of essential energy. He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Hal’s heart wrenched further as he watched the soldier, usually straight back hunched, bright eyes dulled. “Sna- Dave.” At this, the soldier looked up, eyes red, expression more unguarded than Hal had ever seen. He saw surprise there, tempered by the dull tinge of exhaustion, but also fear and uncertainty and concern. And, below these, in the very lines of his face and depths of his eyes, the tender care he had never seen without the dogs present. At least, not while he had been entirely lucid. Hal’s heart pumped hard in his chest, a hammer ringing out against its anvil, leg aching in time with each beat. “Go to sleep. You’re exhausted.”

“Every time I go to sleep, you do something stupid,” said the soldier with a slight drawl. The fear and uncertainty faded away, leaving concern and under it like spring grass under snow, that warm caring.

“Once is not every time,” replied Hal softly. Snake was so exhausted he didn’t know what he was doing anymore. That was it. It meant nothing. It was little more than a fever dream. But the engineer soaked up that warmth while it lasted, basking in Snake’s soft interest, in the drowsy gentleness of his voice. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

“Promise me.” Snake mustered some of his former seriousness, tone hard, but it was lost with the slur in his voice.

“Promise.”

“Right th’n.” Snake pulled himself up out of his chair with a surprising amount of coordination considering he was losing vowels. He didn’t even stumble as he turned, and walked out of the room in a straight, albeit very slow, line. Hal heard him pad a few steps across the main room, and then a minute later a series of rusty creaks as he lay down in his bed.

Mind spinning with uncertainty, with death and loss, and old loves and new ones, the engineer closed his eyes and waited for either sleep or sense to appear. The former arrived first.

----------------------------------------------------------

Snake shook him awake, warm hand on his shoulder, fingers brushing against his bare skin under the loose t-shirt he was wearing. Hal jerked sharply, nearly hitting his head on the bed-frame. “Gn?” he said, looking up blearily.

Snake was looking better, considerably so. He had shaved and combed his hair- although probably only with his fingers- and his face was much more alert than it had been the night before. He was holding a thick mug in one hand. Hal turned onto his back and pulled himself up, arms steady under him. “What is it?” he asked, more comprehensibly.

“Breakfast,” said the soldier. “About time you started eating again.”

Breakfast turned out, unsurprisingly, to be chicken soup. Hal wrinkled his nose, but began drinking. “You look better,” he said between sips.

“Sleep helps,” said Snake with gruff sarcasm, before visibly relaxing, and smiling vaguely with a slight tinge of guilt. “Guess I should take my own advice,” he said, and picked up a supposedly matching mug from the bedside table. In reality they were several shades apart and not remotely the same shape, but they had nevertheless been advertised as a matching set. Not, thought the engineer, unlike himself and the soldier.

Hal finished his soup, swallowing the group of chicken pellets at the bottom in one fell swoop, and dropped the mug down hard on the bedside table. His hair fell in his face at the jerky movement and he raised a hand to pull through it. It came away greasy, and he grimaced.

“What?” said Snake, putting down his own mug and noticing the expression.

“My hair is disgusting.”

“You go for days without washing it regularly,” the soldier pointed out lightly, eyes shining again.

“By choice. This is under duress.”

“I’m not sure I’d call unconsciousness duress. But you’re right, it does look disgusting.”

“Thanks,” said Hal dryly. “What’re the chances of being able to wash it?”

“Not bad. Personal hygiene is good for you. What’re the chances of you having another pair of sweat pants?”

“I have two,” said the engineer defensively.

“Yeah, you’re wearing one, and the other’s out in the trash.” Snake thumbed over his shoulder, indicating the catch-all trash bins outside the house, emptied twice a week.

Hal shrugged apologetically. “Then, not good.”

Snake sighed. “Fine.” He stood, pushing the chair out behind him; it creaked where it hadn’t before, most likely due to its unexpected encounter with the wall. Hal blinked, surprised with the suddenness of his choice, when instead of leaving he bent over the engineer The soldier threw the blankets off again and picked his partner up with the same ease as the last time, Hal keeping his eyes open now. His head hardly spun, room staying almost completely still.

The kitchen was a mess, even short-sighted as he was he could see the blurred form of dirty pots, pans, plates and glasses covering all available surfaces like hurricane refuse. It was an indication of the time Snake had been spending watching him; the soldier usually cleaned up after himself meticulously. The bathroom was cleaner, being more difficult to dirty noticeably in a handful of days. Snake put him down on the toilet and left immediately without waiting for the reproving glance.

By the time he had returned Hal had finished, was sitting waiting for him. He had pulled up the loose hem of his pants to stare at the thick white bandage wrapped around his leg. To his relief, there was no sign of blood seeping through, gauze pristine and evenly-wrapped.

Snake brought with him a transparent plastic box about the size of two shoe-boxes set next to each other. Hal could see medical supplies sitting inside, rolls of bandages, plastic packets of swabs and pads and gloves, scissors and tweezers and forceps all thrown together in an unorganized mix. On top of these Snake had piled two sets of clothing, loose t-shirts, a pair of sweatpants and one of jeans. He set the box down on the chipped counter next to the sink and turned to Hal.

Hal turned to the old shower stall, and wished for the first time in their months in the cabin for a bath. “What if I just sit on the bottom? I promise not to try to walk.”

“Hal, I wouldn’t have let you sit on the bottom of that shower before the people living here used it for god-knows-what disgusting taxidermy preparations. Start stripping.” He made a shooing motion, and turned to the shower, turned on the water and began fiddling with the finicky taps. Hal stripped slowly while the soldier’s back was turned, dropping his shirt and pants in a gloomy puddle by the toilet. He had been embarrassed to discover a few days ago that he wasn’t wearing any underwear, and he was no less embarrassed now.

“What about the bandage?” he asked, and regretted it immediately as Snake turned around to look at him, fought to keep from jumping self-consciously.

“Leave it on. I’ll change it after.” He finished his adjustments to the water temperature and stepped away to pull off his own clothes without apparent concern.

Hal had seen the soldier without his shirt on plenty of times, the first at Shadow Moses in the stinking cell he had shared with the dead DARPA chief, and on any number of subsequent occasions during the soldier’s frequent training. He was built, not in the impractical and almost obscene way of steroid-pumping body builders whose muscles had muscles and looked at all times almost ready to burst apart, but in the intense dangerous sleekness of a predator, all cording and sinew and scars. He had, technically, seen Snake without pants before, wearing a towel or boxers or on one memorable occasion a plastic bag. But he had never actually seen the soldier naked before. In one way, it was much less revealing than the expression on his face the night before had been. But in another very real and immediate way, it was immeasurably more revealing. He kept his eyes firmly planted on the wall. But there was no way to avoid the fact that he had peripheral vision without closing his eyes or turning completely away. So he tried to keep from blushing, and desperately tried to keep from noticing the extent of the soldier’s strengths.

It was an intense relief when Snake padded to stand next to him and pull him up to his feet and he had to spend all his attention on keeping from either slipping or letting his foot touch the ground. Snake wrapped a strong arm around his waist and gave him a slight boost over the lip of the shower stall, following him in and dragging the curtain shut.

The shower itself was almost big enough to fit a bath, being nearly four feet by four feet. On one side a shelf projected from the white tiles, holding their various assortment of soaps and shampoos. There were currently no fewer than three bars of soap in various stages of decay, and Snake snatched up one with his free hand and passed it to Hal, who was absolutely not thinking about the fact that if he took half a step back Snake would be right there. He began soaping his collarbone absently.

Snake, behind him, pulled his bottle of shampoo off the shelf and squeezed a dollop out onto Hal’s hair, began working it in with one hand without warning. Hal froze, heart skipping, before continuing to rub at his neck. Snake used some odd brand of shampoo- which he bought in bulk quantities- with very nearly no scent. His soap was of the same brand, and consequently the shower smelled of little other than humidity, and a slight hint of metal from the water.

Snake finished lathering his hair, and with his palm flat against Hal’s skull applied a light amount of pressure. The engineer obligingly ducked forward into the hot stream of water, eyes closed as rivers of shampoo coursed over his face.

“How’s your leg,” asked Snake over the sound of the water when Hal pulled his head out again.

“Okay,” answered the engineer nervously, raising his voice slightly. “Stung at first, but it’s fine now.”

Snake made no reply, but began to comb the residue of the shampoo out of his hair instead. His other hand was warm against Hal’s stomach, fingers splayed out for the maximum amount of support, Hal’s side resting against his wrist and forearm. His skin was rough like untreated leather, stiff and lined at the palm, uneven and calloused at the finger tips. Snake’s skin couldn’t have been much warmer than the shower water, but it seemed almost to sear against his skin, like the metal top of a wood-burning stove. For all the weight the soldier was supporting, Hal was beginning to tremble with the effort of standing on one leg. He finished soaping himself, eyes closed and blushing furiously, and returned the soap blindly to its shelf. Snake ducked the engineer’s head into the water again, deft hand combing through his soaked hair. As soon as the pressure disappeared Hal pulled his head out with a sigh, heart beating quick as a rabbit’s, head beginning to sway slightly.

“Move up,” said Snake in his ear from behind, and before he had a chance to guess what the soldier meant, he had wrapped both arms around Hal’s waist and stepped forward to lift him a step closer to the shower, back to chest, skin to skin. Hal gasped through his teeth, heart skipping painfully against his ribs pumping more searing adrenaline through his veins. Snake withdrew slightly, though, leaving only one hand behind as before for security, and Hal half-turned to see him washing his own hair one-handed. His eyes were closed, hair white with foam and piled up on top of his head, and Hal caught his breath at the vulnerability. His second thought was that he could turn and wash the soldier’s hair for him, which he quashed not quite soon enough, heat pouring through him in the wake of adrenaline, even hotter than the shower water. But Snake finished quickly, dousing his hair under the showerhead in a quick shake, and reached past the engineer to turn the water off. They were left standing dripping in the steaming shower, water draining noisily at their feet.

Snake switched hands on Hal’s waist, and yanked the curtain open with his outside hand, letting a slightly cooler breath of air in. Hal, hot and sweating, welcomed it. Then a towel was wrapped around him, and Snake half-lifted him out to sit on the toilet again. Hal watched in a slight daze as the soldier moved around the bathroom purposefully, towelling himself quickly and pulling on a pair of boxers before returning to drop his towel on Hal’s head. He dried the engineer’s hair in rough, sharp movements, and then dried off his chest and calves. He padded gently around the soaked bandage as Hal sat there dully, head oddly thick, body cooling rapidly as metal moved from the stove to cold water and leaving him feeling a bit detached. This done, Snake shoved the clothes off the bucket of first-aid supplies and moved it to sit next to Hal’s left leg, kneeling there himself.

Hal, interested despite the rushing in his head and his sprinting heart, watched as Snake cut the old bandage off with a pair of scissors, pulling it open like a scroll. The inside was stained with two long lines, black in the centre fading to red and then pink at the edges. The sides of the wounds pulled away slightly with the bandages, torn strips of skin opening to reveal spongy red flesh held together by clear stitches.

The world greyed abruptly and began to spin like a top, wind rushing in Hal’s ears. He hardly noticed the strong hands grabbing his head and forcing it between his knees, right up against the damp towel wrapped over them.

After a minute, slowly, haltingly, the world stopped spinning and colour seeped back in gradually. His head was filled with the smell of wet cloth.

Cold, shaking with each heartbeat, Hal pulled away from the hand holding his head down and looked up. Snake was kneeling next to him, two warm fingers pressed firm against the side of his throat, eyes bright with concern. “Feel sick,” he murmured, swaying slightly. He felt like his intestines had slithered up to wrap themselves slick around his stomach, tightening and loosening around it without warning. The world was going in and out of focus with a rhythm not unlike a ship’s on rough seas.

“The water was too hot; with the drugs and the dehydration-” he cut off at the blank look in Hal’s eyes, “you overheated. You’ll be fine.”

There was a sudden tightness around his calf, and he looked down dizzily to see Snake’s hands wrapping a white bandage around his leg with quick precision. He finished almost instantly, reached up to steady Hal. Instead, the engineer tipped himself over, let his partner catch him, landed sprawling over Snake. The soldier’s bare chest was warm against his cold back, arms smooth and warm around Hal’s chest. He dropped his head back against Snake’s shoulder, thoughts slow and lazy, head spinning in wide swooping circles.

“Hal? Are you okay? Hal?”

“Fine,” mumbled the engineer, eyes closed. “’S nice here. Warm. Like home.”

----------------------------------------------------------

He was in bed with a light headache and no memory of how he got there. Like a hangover, only with more memory loss and less headache. And a curious weakness in his limbs, which was just odd.

“Hal?”

Snake was there, as usual. No book on his lap this time. Wearing a different shirt than the one he had been last time Hal saw him. Wait- rewind- the last time he saw him there hadn’t been a shirt, because… Hal flushed violently, looking away. Surely, he hadn’t actually tipped himself into Snake’s lap and fallen asleep there. Surely.

“Hal? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he answered thinly, turned back to face Snake. And blinked at what he saw there. The same worry, the same concern. And, in his sharp eyes, brighter than before, the same tenderness.

Snake nodded in an unconvinced manner, reaching out to pick a glass up off the bedside table. Hal, used to the drill, pulled himself up on slightly shaking arms and took it. It was heavier than it had been the past few times. Raising it to his lips, the bottom swollen against it, he found that the mug contained only cold water, so cold it made his teeth ache. He drank all of it though, suddenly unbearably thirsty, and gave himself a brain freeze. He winced as he handed it back to the soldier, sucking on his freezing teeth. Despite the cold, he felt better already, shaking slowing. Snake nodded again, more satisfied.

“Better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

There was a slight, awkward pause.

“Dave-”

“Hal-”

They both paused again, more awkwardly.

“You first,” cut in Snake, before the engineer could do the same.

The problem was, he hadn’t really known what he was going to say. Had been planning to let the moment carry him. But now the moment was extremely awkward, and he was flushing and remembering Snake’s arm on his naked skin and Snake’s chest against his back, and his- he derailed the train of thought forcefully, flushing even darker now.

“I- my leg,” he said, grasping at recent thoughts. “It’ll be okay?”

Snake blinked, apparently thrown by the complete non sequitur. But his job basically pivoted around adapting to unexpected situations, and he pulled together immediately, nodding.

“I set the break again after you decided to go walking on it. The bones should knit together fine. Tomorrow I’ll run out to town and get the prep for a cast, and maybe some crutches.”

“Tomorrow? What time is it?”

Snake glanced at his watch. “Almost four.”

“Four? I slept all day!”

“You’ve been doing that a lot recently. Don’t worry, you’re probably over the worst of it. You can have pasta and meat sauce for dinner, that’ll bring you up to shape. Well, somewhat,” he added, more truthfully.

“Can I have my computer?”

“You should sleep.” The soldier sighed at the look the engineer gave him. “You can have it after dinner. If you’re good.”

“Ha ha.” But Hal smiled all the same. Considering the circumstances, it was a remarkably normal conversation.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Hal slept until dinner, as instructed, which was indeed pasta with meat sauce, which he ate all on his own. It was a pathetic achievement, and he wasn’t really proud of it, but it was also a sign he was getting back to normal. If he ignored the fact that he couldn’t walk. And the fact that he couldn’t stop searching Snake’s face for traces of interest. And the fact that when he caught them, his heart twisted in his chest. There was no more love in the soldier’s expression than he would have given his dogs; perhaps even less. Had the long years without love driven him to the point that he would sit up and beg for any scrap of care? That was even more pathetic than taking pride in being able to feed himself. And yet, he soaked up Snake’s interest like a sponge, basking in the light of his warm glances. Warm, at least, for the soldier.

Snake, as promised, brought him his laptop after dinner, and he eagerly started it up and logged on through his mazes of firewalls and accounts. But, once there browsing on the internet, he found he had nothing to do, and surfed listlessly through his regular sites. Hal went through the motions without the heart, downloading his usual episodes and chapters without any interest, skimming through his vast networks of links without finding any that caught his attention. When Snake came in at nine to tell him to go to sleep, he found the engineer lying on his bed in the dark, laptop closed at his feet, staring at the ceiling.

“Hal?” he asked softly, voice pitched low to not wake him if he was sleeping.

The engineer looked over. Snake was standing silhouetted in the hallway, tall and dark. And, Hal thought in a confused muddle, handsome. He sighed. “I’m awake.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did the internet spontaneously combust?”

“No. You would have heard the consecutive screams of hundreds of millions of fangirls.”

“And you, of course.”

“Of course,” said Hal dully.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Snake walked in, not bothering to turn on the light.

“Yeah. Just tired. All this sleeping is sucking away my will to live.” It wasn’t actually true, but it sounded good.

“Right,” said Snake, sounding sceptical. He leant over the engineer, face in shadow, and pressed a warm callused hand to his forehead. Hal shook slightly, holding his breath to keep from gasping. “Well, no fever. Bathroom?”

“Yeah,” said Hal briefly, glad for the dark as he blushed lightly, irritated with himself for doing so.

Hal was at least now used to the picking up and carrying, and Snake’s loitering in the door to the bathroom, a constant watchful presence in case the urge came upon him to drown himself in the toilet. He was being ridiculous and crotchety, and he knew it, but he was frustrated with the feelings which had grown up out of nowhere like weeds between the concrete slabs of his mind, taking over his thoughts. Hal finished gratefully and was carried back to his room, to the darkness and his single bed. Snake lingered after replacing his laptop on his desk and flipping his blanket over him as though he were a complete invalid, not sitting in his chair but not making for the door either.

“Hal,” he said slowly, in the tone of one saying a word just for something to say. Hal waited for him to continue, presence a bright burning reminder of the uncertain feelings in his heart, each breath of the soldier’s causing his lungs to constrict painfully.

Finally, cruelly, he said, “Yes?” unable to stand the strangling tension any longer. Snake started, silhouette shifting slightly. For an instant, it seemed that the soldier would leave, that the moment would be lost to dark waters. But after a visible fluctuation, Snake leaned into the room and his momentum carried him the rest of the way, flicking the light on as he passed. He slipped down into the chair in a smooth rocking movement, back straight. His eyes were dark; Hal couldn’t read his thoughts there.

“Tell me what happened,” he said after a minute, voice low and rumbling.

Hal felt as though the floor had suddenly fallen out from under him, dropping him into a gaping pit. Of all the possible questions or statements he had been considering, he had not given thought to this one. Snake might as well have clubbed him in the stomach; his gut twisted hard and cold inside him and he shifted. He had been surprised, before, that the soldier hadn’t asked him, had trusted his answer, had believed that the dogs had led him into the woods and not vice-versa. But that had been days ago, and he had forgotten about it; he was no longer prepared to shoulder Snake’s contempt or possibly even hate. “W-what happened?” he asked, buying time, hoping the frost in his stomach would melt.

“With the woods. With your leg. With Sue.”

Hal’s leg was throbbing gently, and a flicker of stronger pain shot through him as he pulled himself up into a sitting position. A wince passed over his face, come and gone quick as the wind over the plains. He took a deep breath and began in a voice like shadow, thin and dark and insubstantial.

He told Snake about going for the run, about the dogs bounding on ahead with all their joy and grace and life. About the wind rustling his jacket, his hair, the grass of the hill. About the blue and gold of the pond, and the dogs chasing around the side after the paddling ducks. About his failure to call them back meaningfully. About their interest in the woods. About Mary and Sue, careening off into the woods after some bird. About the snapping crack. About Mary, running back for him. And about Sue, lying there struggling weakly on the moulding leaves.

“So you just ran in after them,” interrupted the soldier at one point. Hal gave him a surprised look.

“Well? What else was I supposed to do?”

The soldier was completely silent for the rest of the story, such as it was, until Hal trailed off. He glossed over his own experience with the trap as much as possible, reducing it to a few quick, short, adjective-less sentences. When he had finished they sat there in silence, the engineer staring at the foot of his bed, the soldier staring through him.

“You took the trap off her,” pointed out Snake, at last, breaking the silence.

“I- what? Oh, yeah. That was after I- after- I wasn’t really too with it.” He looked down at his hands, folded palm-up in front of him.

“Why?” One single word, a penny dropped in a still fountain.

Hal looked up, eyes wide, to meet Snake’s. They were shadowed under his dark brows, man leaning forward intently.

“I…” Hal looked back down at his hands, as if searching for the answer there, or for traces left by the trap he had pulled off, for trenches running across his fingers. “I… because… I mean, I knew her leg must have been broken, and there was so much blood, she couldn’t have…” His raised his eyes to look at the soldier, gathered his thoughts with a deep breath. “She was just in so much pain and I… I couldn’t stand that.” His voice broke, throat beginning to tighten. He remembered now asking the soldier if he had left her alive, memory hanging around his neck like a brick with all the others, slowly pulling him down into the cold, cold water of his guilt.

Snake gave a loud sigh, which brought Hal’s attention back to focus on him. He could see sorrow in the man’s eyes, deep and sharp as diamond shards. But there was brightness too; exasperation, and something more. Something that looked horribly close to love- which couldn’t be right because, after all, he had killed the man’s dog. Hal’s heart tightened further, and he made to look away. Snake’s hand dropped on his shoulder, warm and firm and heavy. Hal turned back slowly, as if pulled by a magnet.

“Did you even consider taking the trap off your own leg?”

“Yes,” said Hal quietly. At Snake’s probing look, though, he added quietly, “after I took it off Sue.”

“Only you, Hal, would risk your life for dogs you don’t even care about.”

“I care about them!”

“Because I do.”

“No! Not entirely,” the engineer added, more truthfully. “Maybe at first. But they’re just so… I don’t know. Happy. Carefree. Loving.” He paused, tongue brushing over his swollen lip. “Why is it so hard for people to love? It’s all we really want.” All he had ever really wanted, right down in his heart of hearts, under the onion-layers of engineering and mecha and hacking and gaming and anime.

“Is it?” Genuine gruff curiosity.

“I think so.” Three simple words. People said ‘I love you’ was hard, and true enough this wasn’t but the words cut his heart straight down the middle and pulled it open to reveal the soft juicy core, and offered them up to be ground down to pulp.

“If that were true, the world would probably be a better place. More people like you.”

“And none like you?” asked Hal seriously, mind tingling with the shock of acceptance, at having his heart handed back to him whole in careful hands rather than scornfully crushed.

Snake paused. His fingers, still resting on the engineer’s shoulder, twitched slightly, the tips brushing against the side of Hal’s neck. He was silent for almost a minute. “I think,” replied the soldier quietly at last, voice low and husky, “that if you were there, I might just follow.”

Hal took in a quick breath, eyes wide, blood hot under his skin. “Dave,” he said slowly, to keep the sudden silence from crushing him. He wondered how much the soldier’s words had cost him, whether they had dug as deep as his own. Wondered if they might not have dug deeper. Openness had never earned him anything other than scars, but it still came easily to him. However much Hal knew about the soldier- or didn’t know- he knew at least that the same was not true for him.

“Well?” asked Snake tensely, eyes sharp as a hawk’s watching over his own heart, armour stripped away by his own hand.

Hal smiled and reached out a hand to rest against Snake’s cheek, a bridge across the untravelled gap between them. He was aware with a kind of vague foresight that he would end up with an aching leg and a throbbing lip and a spinning head. He was equally aware that he didn’t care.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked, almost thoughtfully, wrapping gentle hands around Snake’s heart and handing it back.

Snake’s eyes brightened like sunrise, and caution dropped away from his face like a discarded cloak. He pulled the engineer forward, and smiled.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Hal did, as a matter of fact, end up with an aching leg, and a throbbing lip, and a spinning head. But it was worth it, was more than worth it, was not even on the same scale as feeling Snake’s hands running over him as if memorizing every inch of skin while conscientiously angling him to the side to take most of his weight off his left leg. It was certainly nowhere near the feel of the soldier’s mouth on his, tasting him with tongue and teeth, testing his reception before pushing for deep complete possession. It didn’t even deserve comparison with Snake’s hand, rough and fierce and competent, stroking his thighs, his cock, his balls, until he came long and hard against the soldier’s slick stomach, gasping his name. He had forgotten it entirely by the time they were lying together in his bed, warm and sticky and exhausted in a content kind of way, Snake holding him in a loose grip and forcing him to shift around until he was lying with his leg in a position which the soldier approved of.

When Snake had finished rearranging him, they lay there in the quiet, comfortable silence, air full of the smell of sweat and sex, of Snake’s musky smoke and pine, and a hint of almost scentless shampoo. They lay there unmoving, until Hal was almost certain Snake must have fallen asleep. But when he shifted the soldier did as well, moving to allow him to change position more easily. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a neuron sparked. He turned over to face the soldier, and his heart clenched in his chest.

Snake was watching him from under dark brows, eyes fierce and bright. His skin was just slightly tinged with sweat, hair twisted over his forehead and neck in thin possessive tendrils. His expression was one of almost indecent pride, but under it was a steadier, stronger love. Hal swallowed thickly, thoughts scattering, and he tried his best to pull some together.

“The dogs. I mean, the pack. Are they okay?”

There was a moment of silence as Snake processed the fact that he wanted to have a conversation about dogs now. But he answered, pride disappearing to be replaced by calm sincerity. “They’re okay. They’ll probably be happier, actually, when they know you’re okay.”

Hal shifted, confused. “What? Why would that matter?”

Snake gave him an amused smile. “You’re part of their pack, Hal. They’ll worry about you, and protect you, and fight for you.” He paused. “They love you. You knew that already.”

“I guess I did.” He paused, as if considering a plunge. “And you?”

“They love me too,” replied the soldier easily, purposefully misunderstanding.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Snake grinned, teeth gleaming slightly. His green eyes shone. “Wasn’t it?”

Hal shifted against him, tried to elbow him in the stomach. “Dave!”

The soldier rolled over to lie on top of him in one smooth movement, supporting his weight on his elbows and knees. Hal shivered under him as he knelt down to breathe harshly into the engineer’s ear, eyes shining fiercely. “I’d follow you,” he hissed. “Even into the woods. Good enough?”

Hal nodded slightly, heart hot and tight. “Yes,” he said. And kissed him.

Chapter 1 Back to MGS fanfic