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After Afghanistan, everything just kind of shifts.
It’s not about the painstaking efforts it now takes Kaz to function just like any person easily would, but it's not about the way he can barely stand looking at himself in the mirror either. Not about soldiers avoiding him, just so that they won’t give him a pitying look on accident. It’s not even about the Boss coming back. It's baffling, really – nothing should be more important than the Boss, than standing in the same room he does and breathing the same air, living for him, dying for him, whatever, you name it. Kaz just has this feeling that something significant has changed. He just doesn’t know what it is, and it disturbs him deeply. Or maybe this thing, no matter what it is, has been there before, and he just hasn't noticed. Or he came back not only broken, but also paranoid. He barely sees anything these days anyway, so his mind might be playing tricks on him.
Ocelot, though…
Ocelot acts as if everything’s in order, as if not a single thing has changed, not even lately, but over the course of the last seven years. He’s always been so infatuated with the Boss that it bordered on being pathetic, really, even by Ocelot’s standards, and now that the man’s actually back, he doesn’t even seem to care that much. It's more than suspicious, to be honest – or at least Kaz tells himself it is, that he cares, that Ocelot still annoys him to no end, and he forces his own blood to boil. He just really wants to feel something, and if anger is the only emotion left he’s capable of, then so be it, it’s a good one, raw and purifying; you can’t strip someone of their rage. On the other hand, if it’s just an act of his to piss Kaz off, to show that he’s the mature one, more professional, then Kaz wonders if it’s even worth getting mad at him. It’s getting a bit tiring, pretending to hate one another so much.
He's not so young anymore to believe things are always the way they all should be, or at least he’s not coked up enough to care that they aren’t – it's not Costa Rica anymore after all, nor it will ever be. There are no more white lines on the freeway for him to take. It seems they’re still there for Ocelot though, maybe that’s why he acts the same as ever: he’s not present enough to actually notice anything’s wrong. Kaz has always questioned this whole drug resistance training of his. A normal person wouldn't act sober the way Ocelot does, he's pretty much sure there’s some substance abuse going on. But then again, Ocelot doesn't seem to have ever been normal – maybe what he does is standard for him.
And when he imagines him sitting at his desk in the interrogation room, legs and arms crossed, an arrogant smile on his lips, and then thinks back to how his own interrogation looked, what he endured – how his body is not even a pastime now – he doesn’t know how to feel about the man anymore. He should feel sick of him, and yet he doesn’t. He feels ashamed of his own self instead.
And if Ocelot's behaviour is a part of that infuriating act, then it’s disturbing how good at pretending he is. He supposes that's a good spy to you, but Kaz's still sort of bothered by it. Is there even anything that’s fully Ocelot, that’s fully his personality, looks, beliefs, morals? It’s one thing to be influenced by others, but different to become a blank slate – and for whom, Big Boss? Kaz wishes he could just stop questioning his intentions for once; for the first time in his life he just wants to trust him, as simple as it is. They’ve been working together for nearly a decade, making important decisions, but there never was any mutual trust involved in it, was there? It’s so superficial, this agree to disagree every time they hold a meeting. Ocelot’s always been trying too hard to distance himself from Kaz, like he’s been trying to prove he can get the job done alone, and prove it to himself, because who else would care? Their Boss, who wasn’t even there? Somewhere in the back of his mind Kaz regrets not working this issue out by sleeping with him, that method has always worked, but he supposes it’s one Afghanistan too late to do that now.
Or maybe there really is some grander scheme that everyone but him is involved in, and that he’s not being paranoid at all. And if there is one, for some reason Kaz knows that the Boss isn’t a part of it either.
He knows he’s not, from the very first moment he feels the sensation of a hand on his cheek. It’s the first touch meant to reassure and not to violate him in what seems like ages, but, fairly speaking, it does a great job at both, and Kaz is somehow more terrified than when chained up and blinded in that basement. He knows he’s not, when Kaz makes a vow, his words sounding like an empty threat, trying his best not to appear weak in front of the legendary Boss, and, granted the honour of seeing him up close, he notices the blue of his eye is the wrong shade, his nose crooked a bit differently. He knows he’s not, because the Boss actually lets him invade his personal space to come into all of these conclusions, not to mention does so without a fight, something that Kaz refuses to believe he would ever do – as if a coma could teach someone how to be attentive enough to realize that’s what Kaz’s been wishing for, ever since he met him. And it feels so, so wrong.
Obviously, you can’t expect someone to wake up from a coma, find themselves in a completely new environment and be exactly the same, nor can you expect yourself to actually remember how somebody used to act nine years ago, but Snake has changed in unexpected ways. It’s undeniable that he still commands respect, but he does it differently. He doesn’t radiate immediate camaraderie anymore, he’s too damn silent for that. Sure, he’s never been particularly talkative, but these were new heights he was reaching. And he’s more considerate than Kaz remembers him. There’s something unsettling about it, seeing him nod with a barely-there smile at a newly recruited soldier – as if he doesn’t get a kick from being in a position of power anymore.
The Boss can’t be involved in the plan – no matter what it actually is – because he’s not the actual Boss, doesn’t feel like it's him. But then again, after Afghanistan he himself doesn't feel like he's Kaz either. He spends a lot of time thinking whether it’s worth continuing, this revenge of his, since this boss is not his Boss. Sometimes he wonders if he’d been rescued at all, the Boss might be nothing more than his desperate mind’s hallucination, and he’s imagining Snake the way he always wanted him to be, just a little softer around the edges, finally seeing him in a different light. He could still be rotting away in that cell for all he's worth.
Except Ocelot comes knocking at his door sometimes to remind him that this is, in fact, very much real. It’s terribly ironic to realise that the only person grounding him in reality is actually Ocelot. He’s so calm and collected these days, so unlike he remembers him in the 70s. Maybe he should just start taking some of whatever he does, so he’ll sit as unfazed as Ocelot does when Boss makes a mistake in his judgement and screws up the mission momentarily (something that, again, Snake wouldn’t do), and he will stop tearing his hair out. That certainly would solve a couple of his problems.
This Snake, suspiciously now called Venom, as if for whatever reason he needed a new codename, claims that he needs Kaz, needs him as his XO. He doesn’t need to say it, really, but he does. Venom wants to reassure him, and it gives him a sense of unease. He's never questioned his own role on the base, and suddenly he feels the need to prove himself not expendable like any other man is.
Well, even when they fundamentally disagree, the Boss apparently still wants him on the base, expendable or not. Obviously, not in the way he always imagined himself being wanted, that seemed impossible enough in the good old MSF days. Now it doesn’t even cross his mind as often, maybe he’s grown more mature (except that’s a blatant lie), or he supposes he’s slept with enough people in his prime to last him for a lifetime. Well, there’s still no boss anyway, he doesn’t have to fill the void with anybody else, not with Ocelot, and especially not with him, whoever that poor imitation of the the Boss is. He might be Venom, with the way he poisons his memories of the real Boss, but he refuses to call him Snake, he’s not him, never was, never will, no matter how hard he tries.
But then Ocelot knocks at his door once again and invites himself in, not waiting for any sort of reply. And he just stands there, staring at him, or more like past him – as if even now he’s trying to be one step ahead of him somehow, to assess the situation and adopt the right personality. Or maybe he’s just not fully there, high on whatever new thing he's trying to be resistant to. “Kaz,” Ocelot says his name, pausing and saying nothing else, and it has Kaz rolling his eyes. “Relax. It’s just me.”
Kaz just scoffs in answer. “Obviously it’s you, you’re so impudent. The hell you’re here for?” He watches Ocelot lean against the wall and begin to tap some pattern onto it with his hand. He can’t stop staring at the gloved hand. The red colour of it looks brazen against the dirty metal frame, but then again, everything about Ocelot and the way he carries himself seems brazen. His attempt to exude casual masculinity in the way he dresses just ends up being perverse. Maybe that’s the point too – what associations can a man specialised in torture evoke anyway? And yet, there’s nothing sadistic about his looks. He’s just a caricature of a dangerous man, with his cowboy boots and shiny gloves of leather. The lack of any real answer from him annoys Kaz, and he lets it show. “Well?”
“Kaz, you’re off hours, no need to act like this all the damn time,” Ocelot looks at him with a cold gaze, regaining his focus. “It’s enough when you’re disrupting the missions,” he lets his hand fall to his side, and his eyebrow quirks up. And this one look is enough for Kaz to become absolutely pissed. And now that he thinks about it, it becomes really weird to him that they didn’t, not even once, try to fuck their frustrations out. He’s obviously thought about it before, nearly acted on it, having an inkling of a feeling that Ocelot would have been a very willing participant. He must’ve been, right? It’s not like Snake ever gave him the attention that he was clearly so desperate for, he knows from experience he never gave it to anyone. And Miller’s? His would be undivided, maybe not for all day, he’s a busy man, but he could afford a night, even if only one, so that Ocelot could finally find out what it’s like to feel special, for the first time in his life. But he’s not entirely sure if his train of thought is welcome at the moment, so he says instead, “Is this what you’re here to tell me? What a poor taunt, but what else can I expect,” he says, but gets no answer. “Disrupting how, exactly?”
“You’re just so…” he gestures with his hands, “…tense. For the lack of a better word.”
“Tense,” he nods, not buying into it. “Yeah. Try running a military base instead of playing a provincial de Sade,” he mutters. This man is making him feel so tired. Why can’t anyone cut him some slack? And yet, he continues talking back to him like he’s used to, the way he always did for these past seven years. Maybe it’s eight now, he’s lost count. He feels like he’s reaching a hundred lately, so it might be a lifetime. Maybe they’re childhood friends, or maybe he’s got so old in a span of few months that he's lying in his grave already.
“Are you suggesting I hang around here doing nothing?” Ocelot isn’t amused either, frowning.
“I’m suggesting you keep your hobbies to yourself,” Kaz shifts. God, he could use a drink... “You make me sick, you know? Keep your sadistic tendencies to yourself. It’s not the Middle Ages anymore, no need to run someone over by a wheel to give the men on the base some entertainment.”
“What the hell are you talking about,” Ocelot looks at him, no emotion on his face. “Are painkillers making you delirious, or something?”
“Says the guy who walks with a white line under his nose,” Kaz lets out a choked laugh as Ocelot actually glances at the cracked mirror on the wall, not wanting to look into it, but having a reflex to check his reflection anyway. “I said you’re disgusting. Your methods are disgusting. I can’t even look at you anymore. Do you know what it’s like? To have it done to you?” He wants to stay collected, but his voice gets shakier with each word. The wound is still too fresh, it seems.
“Kaz,” Ocelot moves to sit beside him with a sigh, ignoring the insults Kaz spats at him. “Kaz,” he repeats, putting his hand on his shoulder, as if they’re friends. His voice is… strangely soft. Like he’s trying to comfort him.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You should be. How can you enjoy that?”
“I don’t,” he says, except that’s a blatant lie and they both know it. “I’m not like… them. My methods are… more humane. I don’t pluck anyone’s nails out,” but he would, if he knew it would work, he’s shot an eye out and look where it got him. “I don’t.”
His hand glides lower, and Kaz gets it within seconds. It’s not an attempt to comfort him, it’s an attempt to start what he’s come here for, and what Kaz has been thinking of, frustrations having reached their breaking point. Kaz already knows how they’re going to end up in a few minutes, and for a moment is relieved, if not amazed, that Ocelot would want him. And so – he doesn’t stop him, and even though he's not fully into it, he still allows himself the vulnerability of taking his glasses off. It doesn’t even hurt his eyes all that much, as long as he doesn’t look at the cursed red glove that’s reaching his for palm and getting back up to his shoulder. He shrugs off his heavy coat, Ocelot helps him do so and Kaz’s hand goes for his back, staring into his eyes. It’s hard to read him, whether he would consider going for a kiss too much or just enough, if it would reveal the kind of affection they certainly don’t hold for one another, ‘cause as far as Kaz’s concerned, he just likes kissing, nothing more than that. Always running his mouth somewhere – that was his thing. So, he goes for it, and while Ocelot responds positively, it’s a little bit too calculated if you’d asked Miller – not particularly bad, but too careful, lacking any passion, any emotion that he would’ve liked to wring out of him. Like he’s just letting it happen, and it’s really calm, and not in the way Kaz ever imagined it happening, furious and heated and hard against office the wall.
But it escalates too quickly, full of uncoordinated movements and teeth scraping all the wrong places, giving way to more annoyance than anything. Or maybe it’s entirely Kaz’s fault, he can’t get used to intimacy anymore, and he’s had this kind of encounter with Ocelot played out so many times in his head that now the real thing doesn’t quite come up to his expectations. And when Ocelot’s hand, still in that red glove, opens his belt and slides into his pants, he knows he should sigh. And yet, he can’t help but wince a little. He’d tell Ocelot he hates him, if it wasn’t such a cliché, but then again, maybe it would spur Ocelot on, so he mutters some light-hearted insult, just to act like he always imagined he would in his scenarios.
But it doesn’t work at all. “You’re just like me, when I was younger,” Ocelot muses, looking away for a moment, obviously thinking about something else. He doesn’t stop moving his hand though, but his movement gets careless, and the leathery feeling becomes unbearable.
“Shut up,” Kaz glares at him. The last thing he needs is to be thought immature, his pride won't take that much. “Do you have to think about yourself even now?” Are you doing it because you want me, or to pat yourself on the back for giving me sympathy, is the question that he wants to ask, but Ocelot isn’t even looking at him, so he’s not sacrificing his dignity. He probably thinks about Snake while he strokes him, this fucker. Yeah, they should’ve done this at least five years ago, when he still had both of hands, when he still could’ve slammed him hard against the wall, grab him by the collar, maybe crush his jaw. Now it just feels pathetic, so clinical, even getting your damn self off feels more exciting. Ocelot does it like it’s a chore he doesn’t really want to do. Kaz sure feels like he’s just a mess that somebody made but nobody wants to clean up. He should feel heat pooling in his stomach, but it’s something else, threatening to go up, bile.
The one thing he was infamous for, he can’t even bring himself to enjoy now. Especially with Ocelot, and the way he’s thought about it before. But he can’t bring himself to tell him to stop either – it would be too unlike him, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be Kaz, who used to say he would try anything with anyone. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, but he smells something acidic when he does, so he stops. Maybe it's because he feels like throwing up more and more, or maybe it’s the rot in him, unclean, broken, body decaying while still alive. Maybe he still reeks of that cell. But you don’t exactly ask a guy if you disgust him, not when he’s got a hand on your dick, that’s not the code of conduct in these situations.
“Kaz,” Ocelot calls out to him, going from touching his chest to shaking his shoulder a little. He really must be getting quite out of the loop if even he has noticed. Kaz shakes his head, pants out a shaky breath. Again, he puts his own hand on Ocelot’s back, leaning closer, then sliding it into his hair. He has to return to playing out some more of the pieces of fantasy that he busied himself with making over the years, where he pulls at his hair and sinks his teeth hard and makes Ocelot act more like a lover than a doctor examining a patient with mechanical movements. Scratch that – a doctor would be way better at this, his hands more precise, knowing where to touch, where to pull. He knew a good doctor like that alright, their medic way back in Costa Rica. Kaz can’t for the life of him remember what his name was, but just the memory of his healing hands and practised mouth makes the whole experience slightly better. It doesn’t stop him from feeling slightly nauseous though. Ocelot is an attractive man, or so Kaz used to think, and yet he finds himself thinking about everyone else that comes to mind but him. He should’ve just thrown him out of his room as soon as he arrived, but then again, Kaz is still as selfish as ever, and he just wants to come, he hasn’t in ages, especially after he thought he would go celibate these days. But then again, after Ocelot, he might as well do, since it’s useless, not like it used to feel. It’s not even Ocelot’s fault; maybe it’s going to always feel like this from now on – empty, just reminding him of what he once was. Kaz’s always been a whore, and now he’s an ungrateful one on top of that.
Ocelot tilts his head a little to the side, as Kaz pulls his hair, and it’s awkward – he doesn’t know what to do, how to treat him, but neither does Kaz, he hasn’t the slightest clue how to move his own body– turns out being intimate with anyone became quite a hassle. Had it been a couple months ago, he’d just straddle him, show him how it’s done, but now he just sort of stays still, not really knowing how to move and take what he wants or make it good for both of them. If he was in a better mood, or if it was the fantasy that he has crafted so carefully in his head, he’d instruct Ocelot, tell him what he likes, maybe they’d both enjoy that, and he’d like being told what to do, ordered around, always loyal, never to the right cause – but this is not his imagination. And yet, he’s feeling a little more turned on by the fantasy of how them together could’ve been than the way they actually are, so Kaz whispers, breath against Ocelot’s neck, “How do you want this? Inside?”
Except Ocelot’s movement falters for a second, and then: “…next time,” which has Kaz giving him an open-mouthed kiss on his back, silently thanking him that they’re getting over with it, so that Ocelot can return to getting so high that he won’t remember a single thing from this evening, thoughts clouded by a headache and bubbling nausea. He doesn’t think much of the dreadful promise of whatever the hell Ocelot considers a next time, hopefully nothing, just saying that to be polite.
But when Ocelot doesn’t even want the favour returned he doesn’t feel like thanking anyone. Kaz feels more useless than ever – apparently even down on his knees is not a good look on him anymore. And when Ocelot leaves, the same way that he’s invited himself, wordlessly, Kaz feels more emotionally drained and frustrated than ever in his life, and imagines Ocelot taking him in the interrogation room, up against the wall, his chest resembling an ashtray for his cigarettes. At first it feels good, but then the cigarette burn becomes a cut, and the cut becomes a blackout, and suddenly he's back in that disgusting cell, and he comes up with a row of other pleasantries that Ocelot could leave on him until he makes himself puke. For one sweet moment he feels pure, for the first time in ages.
Kaz is coming to terms (well, sort of, it’s a difficult process) with the fact that this boss is not the Snake he used to know. Maybe the Boss actually died in the explosion back then, and they made someone take his place. Or maybe it was Kaz who pulled out the pin and the grenade went off, and that was the end of it all. Maybe he was alone from that moment on, but his mind tried to convince him otherwise and made him go through purgatory while he was still alive. Except he wasn’t catholic, not religious at all to believe that — his father was and look where it got him.
The real Boss betrayed him, and he can’t even get truly mad at him. He could get mad at this cheap copy of his, but not the Boss, no. The other Snake is easier to blame for everything that’s gone wrong in the last couple of years, he’s so available, so open, capable of compassion, of everything that the real Snake was not, and he has the audacity to claim to be him, when there’s not a single thing similar about him. Did they seriously think he’d forget how Snake looked over the years? This failure of a new commander makes him livid, and there are times he imagines strangling him. Could he really be able to strangle him with one hand? He’d have to grab him real good, feel his pulse point stuttering, gasping for breath, closing his eye, face flushing, contorting in– except that’s not how you kill your commander, is it Kaz?
And so, he considers getting a prosthesis for real, regardless of everything that he’s said before. He’ll still remember the pain alright, the metal will tear at his skin and pull at his muscle, and he’ll never forget why he’s aching in the first place. Or maybe the rumours they spread on the base are right, and it’s not just that he’s some prideful idiot, but a common masochist that enjoys the suffering, nothing more. Maybe he’s degenerate enough to sexualize everything, his own pain included. Maybe the true pleasure was always found not in using but being used. He should ask Ocelot later, the true expert in the field, although they both silently agreed that it’s better when they limit their affections to threatening to kill one another for now, so he supposes he’ll just practise strangling with one hand on him.
Boss comes to visit him too, just like Ocelot does, but it’s different. Boss has an expression that is all soft but tired, his usual post-mission scruffiness, and there it is, another grave mistake that gives away there’s a bad actor underneath that mask, because Snake wouldn’t look at him like that, guard completely down. Sure, there’s a part of Kaz that always wanted to be granted some of that softness, not just teeth and fists and bruises, but then again, he's not going to pretend he would have minded the brutality. When he makes the seat in Kaz’s room creak under his weight, leaned over a glass of whisky, Kaz experiences a moment of clarity. He looks at him, glass in his own hand to make it less awkward, and wonders: who did it to Venom? There’s no way someone would willingly carve out an eye and a heart and everything else that they’ve ever had in exchange for the ones of Boss. Sure, many would kill to become him, the legend, but this isn’t about killing. And while men can gladly go and die for whatever idea they find noble enough in their heads, this isn’t about dying either, because no man is this loyal – this is about living completely stripped of one’s identity and dignity, something that is much more difficult than dying (…that’s why Kaz wonders why the hell he’s still alive anyway). Kaz listens to Venom, his warm rasp, and absorbs every word, since there’s not many of them to begin with, but that’s okay. This is how Kaz likes it better these days – a subtle seduction, finesse, not just a quick fuck because he’s willing.
And as the days go by, Kaz realises he doesn’t hold a grudge against the phantom anymore. Sure, he is either too careful or completely presumptuous, never finding the balance between these two, and so unlike Snake. There’s no Boss, but there’s Venom, who’s silent, yet knows when to speak and not raise his fist. Maybe that’s what Kaz actually wanted all along – Snake would just remind him of his failure, the burden that he had to carry on his shoulders for all these years. With Venom it’s not exactly a fresh start, but it’s different enough. He completely ignores the fact that Venom used to be somebody else. If it was so easy to mould him into a different person, then Kaz too will shape him the way he wants him to be. And so, he will get his revenge differently. All he’s been doing for years was for Snake’s sake, so it’s high time it’s the other way round. Snake will do what he says, and do it gladly, without hesitation, like the soldier he is. He doesn’t even care that’s probably the grander scheme Ocelot doesn’t want to let him on, to divert his attention somewhere else, be it a petty revenge, but he finds that he doesn’t fucking care anymore. He’s pushing forty, he’s a tired and bitter man, his patience is running out. All that Snake had was his doing anyway, or so he tells himself. He gave him all he could, and now he’ll take it all back.