Chapter Text
The growling was loud enough to wake the dead. Unfortunately for him, Solid Snake was yet to be in that number. Grumbling, he stumbled out of bed like a newborn cub. There was a time when he rose early, when traces of habits he’d learned in basic crept their way into his routine, but not anymore. Pressing the ironed sheets stiff with shaving cream was a thing of the distant past. The bedding needed a change two weeks ago, but the pounding of his head was too vexatious to think about it now. The only clarity that being awake brought to him was the source of the growling; it had not emanated from the mouth of a dog, but from his own pining stomach.
A subordinate casualty of Shadow Moses was Snake’s appetite; a result of the nanomachines actively suppressing his metabolism. It had taken nearly four weeks for the effects to wear off, and they had done so that morning quite decisively. It was nothing like normal hunger. What Snake felt was a dizzying and utterly pervasive famishment to which he had no safe comparison. The once-familiar sensation was now alien to his body. An invasive species.
Speaking of.
“Shit!”
From the kitchen came a clatterbash followed by a scurrying of paws. Snake snapped awake. A gun was in his hands before whatever it was that hit the floor had stopped rolling.
“Suka! Didn’t Dave train you not to jump up on the counter? I swear, the wolfdogs back on Shadow Moses were better behaved than you.”
Snake let go of his coiled muscles. At ease, soldier. It’s just Meryl. He took a breath and stepped into the heart of the cabin. The potbelly fireplace was freshly fed and roaring, filling the frigid air with a warmth that didn’t quite reach the core. Empty bottles, dirty clothes, dog hair and dust sprawled across every surface. Before he brought her home, Snake wondered if Meryl would give the place a woman's touch. Well, there was certainly no shortage of evidence that she lived there. She cleaned up after herself even less than he did.
“You know that’s my gun you’re holding.” Meryl pointed at Snake’s hand.
“Sorry.” Snake suddenly became very aware of the Desert Eagle weighing him down. “It must’ve been the closest when I heard that racket just now.” He handed it to Meryl, who slid it into the holster on her belt.
"That was Suka. She got on the counter again. Looked like she was eating something."
"Probably out of boredom. I haven't taken her for a run in a while."
A good boyfriend would have thanked her for starting the fire, or asked her how she slept, or simply wished her a good morning. Snake pondered all of the above as she looked at him expectantly. She was leaning against the counter, with her back to the window. Casual. Relaxed. Far too trusting for someone so recently acquainted with the business end of a PSG1. The boyfriend material Snake was made of must have stopped short at the ankles, because he suddenly had cold feet.
“What’s for breakfast?” Snake asked innocently.
Meryl raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“I’m starving.”
“Dave, this had better be some kind of April Fools' joke. I don’t do that housewife shit and you know it.”
“Uh, yeah. Got you.” Snake slapped a hand on her shoulder. “April Fools.”
If Meryl noticed his smile wasn’t real, she didn’t bother to point it out. “Can’t believe it's been a month already. You got any plans?”
“Plans?”
“You know, a celebration.”
“What is there to celebrate? We came close to an all-out nuclear war.”
Meryl let out a raucous, snorting guffaw. “Our one-month anniversary, duh!”
Snake stopped rifling through the mess on the countertop. Her laugh used to be something fleeting and quirky and beautiful. Now it only made him wish he had never heard it in the first place. Through overexposure, he had become numb to its allure. His shiny new toy had lost its lustre; the catnip had well and truly worn off. Above all, his desire to protect that laugh was no longer a pleasant pining, but a burden on the back of a beast.
“One-month anniversary?” Snake frowned a little more than usual. “Is that something people do now?”
Meryl scoffed. “You’re so old.”
Snake grunted and shuffled to the other end of the kitchen.
The pantry was as esurient as he was. Nearly every shelf was bare, save for the cleaning supplies, which sat ever-hopeful and untouched. By his count, he should have had some food left, but Snake hadn’t stocked up in a while, even before Shadow Moses, and now with Meryl around, they’d managed to run dangerously low. Still, it was odd. Normally he would have noticed the dwindling supply and organised a restock sooner.
“We’re almost out of liquor. Not much to eat, either,” Snake reported, and gently thumbed the pantry door shut.
Meryl plucked herself off the counter. “Do you really mean there’s nothing?”
“There’s enough for one meal each.” Snake unscrewed his first drink of the morning. “After that, yeah. Nothing.” He set the bottle on the counter, then looked back at Meryl. “Unless you’re hungry enough to eat dog food.” In his current state, Snake found himself earnestly considering the possibility.
“Ugh. I’m not that desperate.” Meryl gagged. “Well, what do we do?”
“I’ll go hunting. An adult caribou should last us a month and a half. More than enough time to organise a supply chopper.”
Meryl went quiet. "It's still calving season, isn't it?"
"I'll get a bull."
"What about a trip into town instead? We've been cooped up in here for a month. A change of scenery sounds like fun." She took his hand gently. "Maybe we could even go on a real date."
Snake groaned as he approached the fireplace. Above the mantle loomed a pair of mounted antlers, which presently served as a makeshift drying rack for the Sneaking Suit. It wasn't the first time he'd used it since Shadow Moses. As it turned out, tactical gear designed specifically to keep him insulated and inconspicuous was also excellent for hunting. Go figure.
“In case you forgot,” he began, "We're in the middle of a mountain range. The only way out is by airbus, and the only way to arrange that is to drive over to the lodge and hope someone's there." He stripped his clothes to the couch. "Besides, we’re supposed to be dead. We can’t just show up in town without arousing suspicion. Everyone there knows each other, and they know me.” He zipped up the bodysuit. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk just to go sightseeing.”
“God, no wonder you’re so lonely.” Meryl muttered into the faucet as she leaned over piles of dirty dishes.
Snake could ignore that little comment. Having a drill sergeant from hell gave him a special kind of resilience. It was the way she glugged loudly as she drank directly from the tap that filled him with irrational anger. Everything she did seemed to have that effect on him lately. Stoicism used to be second nature. Now staying level-headed felt Herculean.
“I’ll be back by 1500 hours.” Snake said. We both need time away from each other. “Can you hold down the fort while I’m gone?”
Meryl rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child, Dave.”
Fifteen years hung tacitly between them. Without a word, Snake took his bandanna and stepped out into the snow.
***
“You mutts ready for some exercise?”
The huskies clamored at Snake's side as he dragged the hunting sled out. It was a practical qamutiik of black spruce, elegant in its simplicity. Napooks perched on its runners like birds on the tusks of a mammoth. The bed sat long and low, so that heavy prey could easily slide on top. Hunting caribou with the racing sled would be a fool’s errand. It was a short, gracile thing, designed to be driven from behind, with brakes and a drag mat and all manner of specialised parts for precise control. Both sleds were constructed in the traditional way; without nails. There was a freedom in sleds bound by practiced knots that could not be replicated in a factory. The trees that fell to become them grew wild in Alaska once, born of the same world they were designed to traverse. Each one was a living organism. At any time the lashes could be undone, reformed and replaced, without need for much more than rope and good, sturdy wood.
Ordinarily, packing the sled was something Snake would begin hours before departure, to ensure a perfect balance and a secure load. Under the circumstances, he was willing to make compromises. The dogs, which he had called perhaps too prematurely, did not help the process run smoothly. Still, he managed to track down a Model 70 Classic, .270 ammo, ear muffs, a first aid kit, a hunting knife, a whetstone, spare rope, and a flask of whiskey. He dumped what he couldn't fit in his inventory into a waterproof bag, threw everything onto the sled and covered the whole thing with a tarpaulin, which he tied taut.
Then it came time to choose the dogs. White Fang, a wolfdog; half-wolf, half-husky, all attitude, made a fine lead dog. Though she was stubborn and aloof, her senses were sharp and she often found prey long before Snake did. She was the only wolfdog he owned, the result of a lone wolf passing through Twin Lakes and finding her mother, Venus, two years ago. The rest were all working line Alaskan huskies. None of them resembled the blue-eyed, symmetrical Kennel Club showdogs south of the Arctic Circle. They were slim patchwork animals with markings like rocks in the snow.
Behind White Fang, Snake placed his swing dogs, Togo and Balto. Both had served as confident leaders in the Iditarod, earning them their names. He trusted them to keep the rest of the pack in order. For his wheel dogs, he chose Buck and Spitz. This was ostensibly because they were an agile pair who could turn on a dime, but the real reason Snake kept them at the back was to keep an eye on them; their favourite activity was snapping at each other. The rest of the team comprised Taro and Jiro, whose stamina was unmatched, Nikita, who was highly obedient, and Suka, who, after that morning's counter incident, needed the exercise the most. As he attached each harness and tugline, the other dogs stared and whined.
“Don’t give me that look.” Snake chided. “You'll get your turn another time.” A nine-dog team was more than enough. The tethered dogs bayed and tugged at the gangline as Snake boarded the sled.
“Hike!” He barked, and they were off like a shot.
It took two agonising hours to reach their hunting spot. Springtime warmth meant snowmelt in the late morning, which made the terrain uneven and rocky. One of the napooks came loose seven times, though if he had tied it correctly the first time, and not rushed the next six, the journey might have been less Sisyphian. Snake made the final stop where the Mulchatna and Chilikadrotna proposed, about seven miles from the cabin. Between the fated rivers stretched a sparse woodland peppered with lichenous boulders and shrubbery unearthed by melting snow. The kind of thing caribou die for. Sure enough, Snake nearly stepped in spoor as he dismounted; tracks in the mud, and fresh dung. If he lay behind the treeline and waited, something was bound to show up eventually.
As soon as Snake tied their snubline (save for White Fang, who he allowed to free roam), the dogs dropped like fawns in the brush, lolling on their sides and panting. It was time for a break, and, for Snake, a moment’s indulgence in vice. He had packed the whiskey for the sedentary phase of the hunt, to comfort cold bones. He knew it wasn't true warmth, just vasodilation. Still, it was something to steel his nerves and steady his hands. But when he retrieved the flask, it was already empty. Damn. Must’ve finished it off while I stopped to lash the sled. He traded it for his Lucky Strikes, which he hadn’t yet sleepwalked through. With his teeth he pulled a cigarette from the box and lit up, shielding the flame from the wind.
Snake was halfway through his second cigarette when White Fang suddenly stood up. She raised her tail and nailed her eyes to the treeline on the other side of the clearing. Snake slowly drew his rifle from the sled and tracked her stare with the scope. Sure enough, out from the brush stepped an adult reindeer. This individual, Snake quickly realised, was female. Her antlers had shed recently, leaving raw pedicles like two ochre scabs. Snake had only lived in Alaska for five years, but he knew the local ecosystem well enough to recognise seasonal patterns. Females shed their antlers in spring, males in winter. This individual’s shed antlers were a clear indication of her sex. There was, however, a more conspicuous reason that Snake was able to make the distinction so quickly. She was pregnant.
Once upon a time, Snake told himself that he wouldn’t. The cow ambled further out into the open. It was a hard line he would never cross. She stepped atop the boulder in the middle of the clearing. His hands shook the scope. She began to feed. Taking two animals when they only needed one was greedy. His stomach growled. She perked her head up. His heart pounded through his ears. The dogs huffed and puffed down his neck. This is wrong. Her ear flicked. I should just wait for a bull. His finger coiled around the trigger. They’re just innocent animals. The growling grew louder.
So what? This is war.
BANG.
Even with ear protection, the sound of it was deafening. She took off bleeding. Snake cursed his trembling hands and gave chase. White Fang sprinted past him in hot pursuit. Four legs beat two. The cow catapaulted downhill at a tremendous speed. Though she was far ahead of him, the lack of trees let Snake lock his eyes to her all the way down. Even as his vision blurred, even as his breath grew ragged, even as the cold wind dried his throat. As she slowed, stumbling over unstable ground, bleeding more and more, the adrenalin surged to a dizzying high. At the bank of the river, White Fang caught up to her, tugged at her leg. She let out a low, strangled bleat and struggled aimlessly as she fell, wheezed and went quiet as the wolfdog crushed her windpipe.
It wasn’t until he had set the gun down to inspect the body that Snake thought to wipe away the saliva trickling down his chin. If this was a mission, it would have been a complete failure. It should have been cleaner; would have, if he'd remembered to bring the Pentazemin. But it wasn't, he hadn't, and she was dead. That was good enough. Besides, he wasn't hunting for trophies. He lit another cigarette and took a minute to catch his breath.
"Good girl," Snake petted White Fang like a drum as she sidled up to him. "Better hunter than I am, huh?"
She gave a snide "Wuff," in confirmation. It was true. She was. If she had thumbs, she'd probably be better at field dressing, too.
Snake snuffed his cigarette on a nearby rock before rolling the cow onto her back. He pulled out his hunting knife and got to work on gutting her. First he made an inscision in the hide from chest to anus, trying not to puncture the stomach or cut any hairs. With a bonesaw from the first aid kit he split the pelvis and sternum, pushing her legs down and cracking her ribs apart. Out from the body came a waft of rich iron stench. His stomach growled as he reached deep inside her chest cavity, sliced the diaphragm and severed the oesophagus, dipped to the elbows in blood. He pulled out the offal and set it aside. Then, in one firm tug, he pulled away the rest of the organs, letting them fall on the rocks.
Then came the fetal elephant in the room. Inamongst the pile of guts lay the caribou's womb. He could have left it there, let it gone to waste, but curiosity beckoned him to open it. The calf inside would be meltingly tender. Juicy and sweet, too. He licked his lips. With his blade he split the uterine lining and delivered the half-formed calf. He sliced it open and pulled its tiny organs out. Then he carried it over to its mother, feeling a twinge of guilt as he placed it inside her empty body. Staring into space, he licked his shaking hands until they stopped dripping.
When he came to, he whistled to White Fang. "Stay here. I'll go get the others."
Walking back up the hill took much longer than going down. When he finally reached the dogs, they serenaded him with yowling until he untied the snubline and drove them back down the hill to the river. There, he released their harnesses as he dragged his kill onto the qamutiik and tied her down. He lit another cigarette as he watched the dogs devour the last of her guts.
***
The journey home did not go smoothly. Just like the napooks, Snake hadn't secured the kill well; she came loose multiple times. Small hills that weren't an issue on the way up became true obstacles. The team had to move slowly, and backtrack frequently. By the time Snake arrived home, it was well past 1800. He released the dogs and strung up the cow in the shed, only retrieving her tenderloins for dinner. The rest of the processing could be done tomorrow. It was getting late, and he needed to get the calf, offal, and whatever tenderloin he didn't use into the freezer.
Compared to the brisk outdoors, the cabin felt warm and fuggy. Inside, Meryl was hunched over by the fireplace, poking a large log that had fallen over. Snake took a minute to watch her hungrily before putting everything but the tenderloins away, then resigned himself to the dishes, which needed to be done before he could start cooking. Naturally, Meryl hadn't touched them. As he filled up the sink, she snuck up behind him.
"So, our brave hero returns," Meryl said. "You kept me waiting so long I was starting to get worried."
"Running on an empty stomach wasn't ideal," Snake grumbled. "I let myself get sloppy. Starting the hunt that late in the morning wasn't optimal either. Snow was gone by the time I found tracks."
It took a moment for Meryl to notice the plate of raw meat on the counter. "Oh! Tenderloin! Is that for tonight?"
Snake racked the utensils and started washing the skillet. "Yeah. Didn't have much time to process much else."
Meryl clapped her hands together. "Oh, man. I can't wait! This is gonna be awesome."
There was a hint of a squeal as Meryl jogged back to the couch and flopped back down with her book. She sounded like a chew toy. A rat caught in the jaws of a terrier.
Snake didn't have much in the way of seasonings. Anything he could use was either used up or unavailable. Still, he tried to use what he could to make the experience as palatable as possible. He gave the tenderloin a coating of salt and seared it over the fire in bear fat; a previous, much more impressive hunt. The result was simple, but edible, and better than anything they'd eaten in a long time.
Meryl swung herself up off the couch. "Alright, maybe this is better than going into town. That looks really good."
"I'm still not calling it an anniversary, but think of this as the closest we'll get to a dinner date." Snake said, and served her a plate.
There wasn't anything else to serve besides meat, but that didn't matter. Both readily devoured slab after slab of tenderloin steak. It was plain, and a little overcooked, but to two starving souls whose best-tasting meal in recent memory came from the MRE 10, it might as well have been filet mignon. Meryl was full after her third steak, but Snake was a bottomless pit. He'd finished off nearly all of it without even blinking. He could have swallowed it whole. The only thing stopping him from inhaling the last remaining piece was the sudden, searing pain, followed by numbness in his jaw as a tooth fell out of his mouth and onto his plate.
"Did you just lose a tooth?" Meryl asked in disbelief.
Snake looked down. There was definitely a tooth on his plate. "Yeah. Looks like it."
"Shouldn't you be more concerned?"
"I've lost a lot of teeth. Most of my mouth is porcelain."
"Well, if you say so." Meryl pushed her plate out and sat back in her chair with a contented sigh. "That was fantastic. I could go to sleep right now."
Snake got up and gathered their plates. "We're just lucky the cortisol didn't ruin the meat. I missed the vitals on the first shot because I didn't take Pentazemin." He put them in the sink. "White Fang ended up finishing the job."
"That's unlike you. Not the kind of shooting I'd expect from the legendary Solid Snake."
"Like I said, I got sloppy." He started washing up.
"Did you keep any offal?"
"Yeah. It's in the freezer."
Meryl walked over to the freezer and took a peek inside the bag. "Oh! Liver! I haven't had this stuff since I was little." She went a little misty-eyed. "My dad used to go hunting when he was off-duty. He used to make this beautiful venison pâté that I'd dip my crackers in." She giggled a little. "I was a weird kid. Let's see, what else is in here… Heart, sweet meats…" She dug to the bottom of the bag. "Wait… What's this?"
Snake stayed silent, scrubbing the skillet.
"Dave. What on earth is that?"
"Caribou fetus."
Meryl snort-laughed. "No. Really. Tell me you're fucking with me."
"I'm not."
Meryl's smile faded. "You said you were gonna get a bull."
"Plans change. I didn't know if anything else would show up." Liar.
"What? They travel in herds, Dave! You don't really think I'm dumb enough to fall for that, do you?"
"It's not like I shot the mother and left her calf to starve. She was pregnant, not nursing."
"Oh, great. Pack it up, everybody. That totally makes this okay." Meryl buried her head in her hands. "A pregnant caribou. I can't believe you."
"What, are you vegetarian now? Wrong place to start getting picky."
Meryl stomped off to the couch and screamed into the cushions. Two of the dogs followed closely behind and nosed her back nervously. Once she was done, Snake silently sat beside her, arms folded. Finally she rolled onto her back.
“It's not that you killed an animal, Dave. I've seen you kill people.” Meryl groused, rubbing her brow. “I just… When we left Shadow Moses, you told me about how caribou are a symbol of life. You gave me hope that we'd start something new together.” Her eyes glistened like the Northern Lights. “But now you’re so cold." She sat up. "Killing a pregnant caribou? It's like the universe is trying to tell me you've given up on our future—on us.” He let her fists land upon his chest. “What happened to the Snake who looked forward to stuff instead of sitting around all day getting shitfaced?!”
Snake didn’t respond for a long time. Perhaps he was finding the right words. Something considerate and philosophical, something that betrayed him as more than just a tool designed to hurt people. Something to prove he had a heart.
Instead, he broke eye contact. “I don't know,” he muttered, “What happened to the girl who actually did chores every once in a while?”
Meryl's jaw fell agape. “What the fuck is your problem? All week you've been a complete asshole. This can't be what you're really like.”
“I did warn you. I'm nothing like the legends.” He placed a scarred hand on her shoulder. “Honeymoon's over. Loving me has an expiration date, and you just reached its sell-by. That’s all there is to it.”
“Snake… You were so easy to fall in love with.” Meryl reached up and held her hand against his. “You still mean the world to me. But I can't keep playing this game.” She shoved his hand off her shoulder. “What you're doing is cruel.” She snarled. “If you don't want me around you anymore, why the hell can't you just tell me that?”
“Meryl…”
“I’m going to bed. You should go take a bath; you reek of reindeer guts.”
Snake reserved one final nitpick as Meryl slammed the door to his room.
Well, it was fun while it lasted. Snake thought bitterly. Better to rip off the band-aid now. It’ll hurt less than a bullet. Snake clenched his fists to the image of her laying there in the aftermath of the Wolf attack. Gunshots. Blood in the snow. Mindlessly he trudged back into the kitchen and finished off the rest of the whiskey as if it were only tap water. He filled a pot of water and set it to boil as the alcoholic warmth wobbled through his legs and calmed his cacophonous head. The suit clung wet and sticky to his skin. It didn’t play nice with his senses.
As soon as Snake stepped into the creaky wooden tub, the hot water highlighted his skin in a dry, peeling rash he hadn't let himself pay attention to before.
"Frostbite, maybe?" Snake muttered. It was possible. The nanomachines must have taken his ability to withstand the cold with them when they walked out the proverbial door. But he could feel the stinging, like millions of thirsty mosquitoes, all over his body. And like millions of mosquito bites, it itched. It itched and it only itched worse the longer he thought about how much it itched. Scratching would only make it worse, but for all of his military discipline, Snake could no longer resist the animal instinct. He let his nails seek refuge in a particularly angry area, only to come away wet with blood.
***
Meryl bolted upright as she heard a crash coming from somewhere in the cabin. It sounded like one of the dogs, but something about it felt off. She got up, slid on her belt and tiptoed barrel-first out of the bedroom. The airless cabin was dark and silent. The fire had cooled to embers. She felt the hairs on her neck pinprick, and with a sick feeling in her gut, realised she could hear breathing behind her.
She whipped around, ready to fire until, at the last possible millisecond, she recognised him.
"Snake!" Meryl let out a sigh of relief. "It's just you. I guess that's the first time you managed to sneak up on me, huh? Guess you're capable after all." She holstered her weapon.
No response. Snake's silhouette was still in the dark.
“Listen, about what I said," she spoke, "Let's not go to bed angry, okay?”
Still no response.
“Oh, great. The silent treatment.” Meryl rolled her eyes. “What's the matter, are you out of dumb little quips?”
“Get out.” Snake ordered. He didn't sound right.
“...Snake?”
“I said get out, Meryl. Now.”
“Can’t this wait until tomorrow? You’re gonna send me out into the Alaskan wilderness at night without even giving me a chance to pack?”
“Take the dogs,” Snake rasped. “Use the racing sled. I don’t care. Just—” He buckled over, letting out a hiss of agony. “—Just get out.”
“Snake? Is this another April Fools’ prank?” Meryl approached him and laid her hand gently on his back, then gasped. It felt as if she had caressed the matted dregs of a clogged drain. Before she could withdraw her hand, Snake lashed out, bellowing like a rutting beast.
“GO!”
The sting raked up her arm. A drop of blood hit the floor. For the first time since Psycho Mantis, Snake had raised his hand against her.
“Snake…” Meryl stepped back.
From the splintering floorboards, Snake—or rather, something that used to be Snake—rose as if pulled by the hackles. Snarling, it crept across the carpet and perched like a grotesque atop the couch. In the dark, everything in the room was swallowed up by the shadow it cast. All except Meryl. She met its hungry eyes—the very same arctic blue she had once gazed into with nothing but adoration—as she reached for her belt with shaking, rookie hands.
It braced.
Lunged.
Then whimpered as she blew a hole in its chest.