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Sometimes sleep just wouldn’t come to Snake.
It was a familiar experience, one of the innumerable unpleasant side effects of his profession. After staring at the ceiling for forty minutes or so, he’d given up and tried to keep himself busy.
He dissembled his considerable collection of guns; cleaned and oiled each one. He examined his equipment and made note of things to restock for his med-kit. He had just started cataloguing his ammunition when it occurred to him that Otacon hadn’t been in their shared bedroom and had never gone to bed.
Snake glanced at the clock and wondered if he’d fallen asleep watching Princess Tutu again.
Otacon had been living with him for several months at that point. Snake wasn’t clear on the specific times or dates- he’d never had a reason to keep track of them before. He had come back to Snake’s isolated little cabin with him after Shadow Moses. Otacon had nervously explained that he was terrified to go anywhere with the military at that point, didn’t trust that they’d so much as bother to keep him alive, intel liability that he was. He’d whispered something about not trusting himself to be alone, something about getting crushed by the weight of the decisions he’d made.
Snake could sympathize with that, at least, even if he pretended not to hear for the other man’s sake.
So he’d let Otacon follow him home, feigning an air of begrudging acceptance, for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate, even to himself. Curiosity, maybe. Hesitation at the idea of going straight back to his empty, isolated life, maybe. Maybe he’d connected a little too well with the idea of not trusting himself to be alone.
Then Otacon had just sort of…stayed.
He’d asked if he should leave and if Snake wanted him to go. Hell, he’d asked almost daily in a guarded, hopeful way that made Snake’s stomach seize up with something like pity. Every time Snake waved him away, came up with some flimsy excuse about having help around the house and with the dogs. Neither of them ever brought up that the engineer couldn’t even chop wood.
Eventually, with the vague idea of Philanthropy germinating between them, Snake had responded to one of the regular questionings with a firm statement that as long as Otacon wanted to stay, then he was staying, and that was that. Otacon had just adjusted his glasses and smiled sheepishly. The house was small, and they had to share the bedroom, but Snake had to admit that having the company was refreshing.
Even if that company frequently went on incomprehensible, lengthy monologues about Cowboy Bebop, or rootkits.
Snake went down the stairs, trying to keep quiet in case Otacon had fallen asleep on the couch. He found him bent over his laptop at the kitchen table instead, dimly lit by the oven light.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep or something?” Snake said.
Otacon blinked at him and pushed his glasses up. “Says the guy pacing around and cleaning guns at three in the morning.”
Snake frowned and crossed his arms.
Otacon turned back to his screen. “What’s with you anyway? You’re never up at this hour.”
Snake quirked an eyebrow at him. “You do this often?”
Otacon shrugged. “Programming takes a lot of time.”
“It doesn’t take that much time to get your ass shot because you were too sleep-deprived to hear someone come up behind you,” Snake said.
Otacon didn’t look up from the screen. “You’re the super-soldier here; I don’t do the crawl-around-get-shot thing. Also, you didn’t answer my question.”
For a moment, the only sound in the room was Otacon’s furious typing.
Snake shrugged, frowning at the laptop. “Can’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
Snake threw his hands up in the air. “Fucked if I know.”
“Well,” Otacon said, “Idunno then…have you tried anything?”
“I don’t have any tranquilizers.”
Otacon made a face and looked up from his computer. “I meant like, trying the sort of things normal people do when they have insomnia.”
Snake wasn’t clear on whether or not he should feel insulted. He lit a cigarette in the stretch of silence that followed.
“Well. What sort of things do normal people do?” Snake asked.
Otacon blinked. “Oh, well, uh…”
“You have no idea, do you?”
“I usually just work on something until I can’t stay awake anymore,” Otacon admitted.
Snake narrowed his eyes, but refrained from commenting on what a piss-poor, maladjusted habit that was. He wasn’t exactly the model of healthy personal behavior, after all. He blew out a puff of smoke and made a mental note to start dragging Otacon to bed with him more often.
He also made a mental addendum to not feel so goddamn weird about how that thought had come out.
“Well,” Snake said, rubbing his neck, “I don’t particularly feel up to…infiltrating anything, or killing anyone just now. Really don’t have any other work I do.”
Otacon rolled his eyes. “Well then, try reading, or watching something. Something boring, I guess.”
Snake snorted. “Maybe I can try watching that robot cartoon you showed me again.”
Otacon punched the enter key with more force than was strictly necessary. “Firstly, Neon Genesis Evangelion is not boring, it’s nuanced. Secondly, bite me.”
Snake laughed, if only at the idea that Otacon, of all the underweight nerds in the world, was mouthing off to him. It had taken days just to get the man to stop cowering every time Snake so much as turned around a little too fast. Now he was scolding Snake for leaving dishes out and cajoling him into watching brightly colored cartoon shows.
“Well, that’s an idea, anyway,” Otacon said, ignoring Snake’s laughter.
“Biting you?”
They both froze for a half-second, trying to look casual through their simultaneous fluster at Snake’s choice of words. Snake cursed himself silently.
Otacon cleared his throat. “Um, I mean, maybe if you watch something actually boring, it’ll help.”
Snake put his cigarette out on the kitchen sink. “Like what?”
Otacon tapped his cheek thoughtfully and broke into a grin. “I know just the show. C’mon.”
Otacon made a few clicking motions, closed his laptop and tucked it under his arm. He grabbed Snake’s wrist and pulled him along, up the stairs and towards the bedroom.
Snake stared, wide-eyed but not offering any resistance as Otacon led him along like he was a disobedient puppy.
He hadn’t quite adjusted to the easy familiarity they had slipped into. Just being clapped on the shoulder was enough to send a shiver up Snake’s spine and gave him the uneasy feeling that he was doing something wrong, or at least something completely alien to him.
Snake kept telling himself it was discomfort he was experiencing in response to Otacon’s friendly affection. Unfamiliarity. That he’d just been living alone too long and had forgotten how to interact.
Meaningful introspection was another thing that was fairly alien to Snake.
Otacon led Snake into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed. He opened the laptop and made a few quick motions before setting the computer on the foot of the bed.
Otacon gestured to the other side of the bed. “Well, sit down.”
Snake nodded to nothing in particular and flexed his hands to try and dispel his newfound awkwardness. After a moment, Otacon having cocked his head at him curiously, Snake climbed onto the bed and sat down beside him.
Otacon leaned over and hit the laptop, starting the upbeat music of the anime’s opening.
Of course it was an anime. It was always anime with him.
“What is this?”
“Does it matter?” Otacon said, “We’re just using it as a soporific.”
The title screen came up.
Snake cocked an eyebrow and leaned back. “’Daily Lives of High School Boys?’”
“He’s finally learning to read.”
Snake shoved Otacon gently, stifling a chuckle.
At the very least, Otacon hadn’t been exaggerating about the soporific qualities of the show. After several episodes, nothing in particular had actually happened. The characters went to school. Left school. Talked to each other.
“Well, I think I’m warming up to that robot cartoon, anyway,” Snake said with a yawn, “’least things blow up or bleed on occasion in that one.”
“Evangelion,” Otacon grumbled.
“Whatever.”
The characters continued to do nothing on screen.
“Otacon?”
“Hm?”
“Was that boy wearing a skirt?”
“Obviously.”
“Why?”
Otacon yawned and adjusted his glasses. “Honestly Snake, I didn’t expect you to be so small-minded.”
“Okay, let me rephrase. Why do you, specifically, own a show about teenage boys wearing skirts?”
Otacon flushed and looked indignant. “It was highly rated and I was curious to see what the fuss was about.”
“If you say so. I’m not judging.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be trying to sleep, Snake?” Otacon said, exasperated.
Snake smirked to himself and turned back to the laptop. He wasn’t feeling much other than bored and vaguely amused.
The show dragged on.
After another whole episode had passed, Snake felt something thump against his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin, instinctively reaching out for the gun he kept under the pillow.
Otacon had fallen asleep and slumped over onto Snake in the process, leaning heavily on him. He must have been pretty out of it to have stayed asleep through Snake’s jolting.
Shit. Snake had no idea what to do with himself. Should he wake him up? Shake him off and pretend it hadn’t happened? Sit there and deal with his new reality?
Snake tried to remind himself that he had, not that long ago, taken out a Hind single-handedly. Sleeping roommates shouldn’t have rattled his nerves so easily. Yet here he was, trying to keep his heart rate down as Otacon breathed lightly against his neck.
Snake was not even a little willing to get introspective over that just yet. Besides, his back was getting stiff and he’d have to move eventually.
If he woke him up, the dumb nerd would probably just go right back to working on his laptop, and shaking him off might do the same. Otacon was going to have to learn how to go the fuck to sleep if he was going to be of any use to Snake in the future- now seemed like as good a time as any to get him started learning that particular skill set.
With a defeated sigh, Snake wrapped an arm around Otacon’s shoulders. He shifted incrementally until he was lying on his back, with Otacon lying on his side and pressed up against Snake’s.
Snake didn’t handle feeling self-consciousness very well. It was lucky that the only person to see him like that was asleep, because he was momentarily overwhelmed with the desire to flip something over, or punch someone.
Otacon shifted quietly, snapping Snake out of his aimlessly aggressive reverie. He nuzzled his face into the crook of Snake’s neck and draped an arm around his waist. Snake shuddered at the contact and tried to slow his heart rate down again through willpower and measured breathing.
This is stupid, he thought. Nonetheless, he didn’t make any move to disengage himself from the situation. Instead, he caught himself absentmindedly carding through Otacon’s hair.
That was another thing he wasn’t going to think about, either. He wasn’t going to think about any of the weird, stupid bullshit going through his head, potentially for the rest of forever.
Or, realistically, until Otacon coaxed some answers out of him in the morning, because asking questions was something he always did. Especially questions Snake didn’t particularly want to answer.
Eventually Snake’s breathing returned to normal. With his free arm, he pulled a blanket up around the both of them. Otacon was snoring quietly against him, sounding for all the world like a purring cat.
After a few minutes of staring at the darkness of the ceiling, listening to the laptop hum itself into sleep mode, and trying to ignore the fact that there was another entire human being sleeping against him, Snake felt a dull sense of wonder that he was actually drifting off to sleep himself. Something about Otacon’s rhythmic breathing and steady heartbeat, maybe.
He decided that just for now, he could let himself get away with this and just sleep.