It was awkward, that first month. Him, sore, jilted, misogynistically bitter and yet sad, too, clenched with anger over how life hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. He'd marched the dogs out, one by one, sold them to people who didn't ask why, and every single one bore the marks of his personality; it was oddly tragic, thought Otacon, to see those sleek powerful things, so well-trained, so alert, sold off to the highest bidder. It reminded him of Wolf, and Snake kept reminding him of Wolf, from everything to the way he moved to the way he sometimes watched Otacon, smiling as if he was something amazing, and then looking away immediately upon catching Otacon's eye.
He thought that Wolf could easily have been like him if she'd been prouder. If she wasn't staring out from a broken face under a red-stained shroud right now.
Hurting for conversation, for anything, for some connection, he asked Snake a stupid question. Yoko Kanno's music had been playing on the screen, and Snake's eyes had lifted in the first bit of genuine interest he hadn't tried to hide, and so Otacon had asked;
"What kind of things did you like?"
"What?"
"When you were on your own," Otacon carried on. "What did you do? Other than the dogs?"
Snake looked away, watched the credits scroll up the screen.
"Movies," he answered. "The more cliché, the better." He carried on, not missing a beat. "Ridley Scott ruined his own film with the new ending. I don't consider it - "
He sought for the word.
"Canon," suggested Otacon. "Even though the creator did the first ending under duress?"
"That's not the point," he said. "I liked it better. She didn't have her time limit. And he was there for her. Didn't fit anything that happened before, but..."
He shook his head. "It was too dark where they were, so they went into a different kind of movie."
Otacon smiled a little.
"When you think about it like that, it's a better ending," he agreed.