Author's Note: Well, well, well... I've never really written anything as "close" to the real world as this. Metal Gear is certainly a risky universe to tamper with...but I wanted to try writing something about Vamp. Naomi is just there if only as a catalyst to be able to talk about the bastard because I am so unfairly fascinated with his character, not to mention the man upon whom he was based (in appearance and maybe movements only). I don't really endorse pairings... Funny thing about Vamp is he could probably be paired with anyone/anything due to his sexuality. But I'm going to be a good girl and not take advantage of that. It's not always going to be about sex, right? Though it healthily complicates thingsssss...why the hell am I typing so much here?
...I wish I could be working on The Reign Game like I'm supposed to...
Edit: Done some stealth editing... It's been too long, actually.
How did I stumble onto this awkward subject of interest? Perhaps I'm far more bored than I thought, I must be. Or perhaps my interest has been genuinely piqued...
Vamp rests over there. And here I watch, even though I have... better things to do.
He's stretched out on the cot like a posed corpse, sans the dusky coat so his torso is bare, legs crossed, one hand clutched over his knife and the other tucked flat under his head. He doesn't snore, but nor does he breathe. He just sleeps. Powered down. The man's probably restless so there are no dreams to comfort him. I'd find it a shame if that were true. Dreams are about the only thing that make sleep worthwhile, whether nightmares or paradise.
It'd be so easy to mistake him for a slumbering cat or something.
Something dangerous.
You'd think a man like that wouldn't need rest, not after everything he's seen, suffered and dealt. Actually? Actually, you'd think he wasn't a man at all, with those icy gray eyes napping inside that once bullet filled skull— How many of them had I extracted since...? I couldn't remember. But it was one bullet too many, I knew that much; it'd been one too many bullets covered in nano-infused brain matter, struggling to reconstruct itself around the shattered slugs. It didn't matter that he'd survived them. A natural man... wouldn't have... shouldn't have...
You'd think he can run like a perfect machine forever, never needing food, never needing sleep, never needing a single thing but the thrill, of action, as his power source. You'd think he'd never have to close those eyes.
Mm.
From here I strain to see the tiny vessels pulsing through his eyelids. They sparsely spread like cobwebs over his temples, down his faintly sunken cheeks; they thread his neck, trickle through the slight, windswept wilderness of hair on his chest to other areas uncharted. Well... not so uncharted— What can I say? I'm a doctor. Unfortunately, I can't always leave a stone unturned, even if it's the body of a cold-blooded killer.
Oh Vamp... There's nothing natural about him. Not anymore, or not that I ever knew. And then, while I'm sitting here studying this cluster of self-replicating flesh— all for the sake of a grander future for our beloved 'vampire' and Liquid's surmounting army—
I can't help but wonder.
Who was Vamp? Just who or what had he been before? What was his real name? When and where had he been born? Why these questions plague the back of my mind, I really don't know. All I know is the man's a beast now. A zealous beast fed the bare essentials of life through a ceaseless tube of pseudo-existence.
I help to keep it that way. Though I'm not so sure if it's against my will or not. I can say it's all for the better of science, or that Liquid would kill me if I didn't comply but I...
I-
I fail to realize that I'd gotten up from my seat and stand over him now. I fail to realize I'm looking down. My eyes just see Vamp lying there, still as death. He has such nice, long black hair. It's like mine but just a shade blacker, a little less fine. I wonder if all Romanians have hair as beautiful as his. And with the nanomachines, he doesn't even have to take much care of it. Nanomachines, nanomachines, nanomachines. They'll take care of everything, won't they…?
Hmph.
I'm tempted to reach for the syringe in my pocket.
It's nothing special.
Just a little cocktail of peptides, antibiotics, some angiogenesis inhibitors. Nothing major.
Vamp, you were born out of war, weren't you? Just like I was. Just like so many of us were. Orphans. We all suffered the same way. But you took a different road coping with that pain. And this is what you turned into, isn't that right?
My hand's trembling.
Is... Is it moving?
His skin's so translucent. It's as if he were a ball of muscle dipped in a frail membrane that someone mistook for protection from any and everything with cruel intentions. You could cut it and it'd still bleed so, so easily. Just like any human's skin. That's how it appears. Yet it'd heal just as fast and leave little to no trace that he'd ever been hurt at all. Your great 'immortality' in such gossamer form, eh, Vamp?
How can he bleed like a man when he's not really a man anymore? I wonder if he ever allowed me to peel back that skin and that muscle, snap that sickly mesh of veins, drill into those bones, scoop out their marrow and look inside, what would he have me find? Would I find some frightened boy of a man sitting in an empty chapel, praying for his family to come back or instead some roiling black thing curled up in the darkness, made of thorny vines grown too deep to safely sever? That not even a doctor like me could cut through without killing him in the worst way? Assuming he didn't want to die a painful death...
I feel like I read a book. Each page I've read so far, there are too few words but I still want to know the end. And I keep turning and turning, and maybe there are a few more words each time. Maybe one more sentence than usual. But there's still so much I want to know and so little I'm shown at a time.
Vamp, who were you before war stepped in? Who... would you have been if none of this had ever happened to you? Or me, for that matter...
What are you doing? Huh, you think touching him might yield the truth? Bare his past for all to see? It's not that easy. It's never that easy.
Naomi, stop it. Get back.
I feel his shoulder pressed to the palm of my hand. His skin's cool and clammy. The muscle doesn't yield; it doesn't feel me at all. The veins just continue pumping unimpeded. He doesn't feel a thing, does he? Those... He doesn't feel a thing anymore.
My eyes mist over.
"Doctor..."
I clench my teeth but I'm not scared. He can't hurt me. Just like I can't hurt him.
Vamp's arm slowly snakes up mine, his fingers clamp over my bicep in a way I thought were a stony spider come to life.
"So... You've decided?"
I can hear the taste and texture of a honeycomb in his voice, his accent. Crisp, perhaps a little rough and thick against the tongue, but at the same time smooth with a natural but chemical sweetness. An unruly pleasure to the ear. Damn him. Damn you, Vamp. I won't succumb. I know your kind. I know you, or I know what little I've read or experienced firsthand. This is what you do when you're not fighting. You find other means with which to please yourself...
He rises suddenly, as the militant corpse revivified. He holds my arm close, my hand falling on his thigh— admittedly one couldn't miss sensing the taut flesh through the khaki fabric that kept it bound— and my chin pressed to his slightly pointed ear. Vamp is nothing but hardness personified. And I feel its constant cold want to suck me in.
"Make Fortune proud, yes, Queen...?"
Fortune. Did he mean fate? Destiny? No, he meant a person... a woman, from his Dead Cell days. How could I forget Liquid's reports about Big Shell?
A sharp gasp escapes me. His crystal gray eyes cut across my face as if his knives themselves. His lips, just full enough to hide the cosmetic fangs, draw into a careful smile. You're a strange man, Vamp. What promoted this attraction, if there really was any? It couldn't have been anything legitimate. I was never interested in monsters. And from the dossier on his last 'queen,' she was a strong, albeit troubled, fable of a woman- whose body, if I remember correctly, is currently held at Area 51, likely next in line to become a new cyborg killer. And I'm not; I'm not strong. Maybe looks were his only interest. Who, other than Vamp himself, would know for sure?
"You're tense, Doctor. Please, allow me to do something about that..."
"No, thank you."
"I spy with my little eye... A stressful knot building just between your neck and left shoulder. There's no need to keep your arm so stiff. I will not hurt you, Doctor..."
I want to shudder so badly but it'd be a blatant show of weakness. Vamp probably sees it all too well that I want to or that I have without even moving. Another detail I'd forgotten. Those eyes can read human locomotion like a book— children's book, maybe? With all the large, obvious print and simple illustrations to further instruct the obvious, that's how easy it is for him to see, a genius and a children's book— predicting another's moves before they're made. Or something to that effect. To think, all the careful movements in which I conducted myself were no hidden thing at all to him. And to think, any other time in which I might've acted and reacted naturally... he would know how or why in their most basic forms. Given secrets without a word.
"Vamp, this isn't the time. I have work to do."
"I never called you to me. You came of your own volition... Or am I wrong?"
"No, I-"
"Then there's something you want from me, hmm?"
"I-I'm sorry. I was only-"
I exhale and force my arm to relax in Vamp's grip, because he obviously isn't going to let go anytime soon. I'm trapped, to say the least. I only hope he gets tired and releases me. But do I really see myself wanting that just yet? This is closeness to a man I'd otherwise avoid at too many costs. Curiosity seems to kill so much more than cats if they're not careful. But sometimes, just sometimes, it may be worth it to risk it.
If I found reconciliation with my brother's killer then... why not find an acquaintance in a terrorist?
"Can I ask you a question, Vamp?"
His other hand, which for all this time had still been settled on the sheath at his groin, flutters up and clasps my chin. He flicks my face away, along with the rest of my body— could I be as light as a coin to him?— and he lies back onto the cot, settling into the position he had when he was sleeping, with the same smug expression although leagues more mindful now than before.
"No, thank you."
"But you haven't even heard what-"
"For your business or pleasure?"
"What?"
"Do you need to know? Or do you... want to know?"
I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out.
He's right. No, I don't need to know. I want to know, that's all. Hmm, why let curiosity kill me now? Why... why justify my place here amongst terrorists by getting to know them? Although, truth be told, in this line of work of science and war and blood and betrayal, I don't have much, if anything, anymore to lose because I hadn't much in the first place. With nothing to anchor me steady in this life, what more is there to do than float adrift in this treacherous sea, waiting for the salt air to rust me into a pleasant shell of my former, already corroded self?
I hate thinking in any amount of poetry. Funny that life demanded it at times, even when I didn't care to read it.
I'm not going to lie. "I want to know."
"There's nothing you don't know already. Why not leave it at that?"
"Are you scared?"
His lips part and he bites his tongue. I'm glad he doesn't let it slither out any further than it can. But, his tongue should've been the least of my worries at that moment.
As I turn back to sit at my desk, Vamp's already on his feet with an arm around my neck. His cold arm isn't forceful; it just strictly impedes my retreat. And he draws me closer than I've ever been against his body. His hips are thrust forward a bit, chest drawn out in a subdued breath against my shoulder blades.
"Doctor, you should know well enough that there is nothing to fear in this world. Least of all some recounts of the past. Whatever past I've had, however, is no longer mine to recount. So why not keep it at that, hmm?"
"So... this is all you are? You're just Vamp? Never been anything else? Never wanted to be anything else?"
He doesn't have a smell. Unless cold counts... Then, he smells cold.
"It's all I choose to be and all I welcome as fact. No more, no less."
I laugh inside. Of course. What man with any form of awful past would want to cling to what twisted him so terribly? Although, remembrance has various ways of revealing itself, normal ones with a tweak or downright unconventional behavior. Exempli gratia, his taste for blood... I should be accepting this with all the same emphasis as Vamp. But I'm not satisfied. I leave a bookmark here and hope to find more out later.
I slide out from under his arm and take a seat at my desk, pushing the petri dishes, microscope, pens and papers to one side. I can't concentrate on my work now so I decide to just sit and stare at my desktop for a few minutes. It's what I could hardly call a break but around here, I was under lock, key and more than just one pair of eyes.
"I suggest you make your decision soon, preferably before Liquid fully initiates his plans. Time's of the essence and one can only be so... patient."
The infirmary is my office, my room, and I could even go so far as to say my prison. Not that I could've asked for anything more. And not that I wanted anything more. I don't see a point, not here, not now.
Vamp's at the other end, doing things that makes him Vamp, exemplar freak. I swear he's trying to tempt me. Unfortunately for him, I'm more confused than swayed. What does he hope to accomplish by urging me to 'make my decision'? What do I even need to decide? No doubt it's something that would only benefit him. I guess I'm lucky he respects me enough to let me choose on my own than take what he wants by force. Or maybe he just finds this to be a fun little waiting game and there's no respect at all. Either way, very lucky for me...
He's doing push-ups. His body doesn't glisten from sweat, meaning he exerts little if any energy at all. There's only the faint, unnatural sheen to his skin that the nanomachines have maintained since the day he first subjected himself to becoming an entire colony. The man's not as geared up as before; his knives and boots lie on the cot closest to my desk. I'm guessing it's a favorite compared to the other cots, but not too smart to leave his things near someone who has the slightest desire to escape.
Maybe Vamp trusts me. Or maybe he knows that he could kill me six ways from Sunday before I even attempted to use his own knives against him. That I won't doubt. Who's the soldier here, anyways?
"Vamp, can I ask you a question?"
"Business or pleasure?"
"Business."
How easy it is to lie. And he's not close enough to tell.
"Go on."
It's a little distracting to see Vamp still doing push-ups, his grunts soft and effortless with each pump of his arms. He gets low enough to touch his chest to the linoleum floor, all the while balancing on the toes of just one foot. They're done in steady rather than rapid succession, most likely to keep from pulling a muscle that would probably heal up within the hour, anyways. But I suppose for the sake of keeping good time, slow and steady wins the race.
"What's your real name?"
"That is pleasure, Doctor. Pleasure I'd be happy to give without such meaningless words."
"You're not scared, are you?"
Vamp stops abruptly. He lays flat on the white tiles with his hands underneath his head, his gray eyes looking simply and sleepily annoyed. That physique seems to fit into this violent world so seamlessly yet begs in secret for some higher purpose. You just don't show it. Isn't that right, Vamp? You're not the only one that can read body language. I'm no good like you are, but I think it's safe to make that assumption.
"Are you scared of the past?"
"The past is nothing to fear. But it is no longer mine to remember."
You say that, Vamp, but I wonder... Do you really believe that?
Screams and sobs echo down the hall. I think that's where the holding cells are. They sound like women but the noises... It's as if they're torn straight out of beasts.
Vamp comes in while I'm resting on his favorite cot. His lips, that blade, his whole body is streaked with blood. I bite my lip and turn my head away. If I don't see it, it won't bother me. If I don't see it... But the image is already burned into the backs of my eyes. He looks darkly content, having just returned from his element. His movements are still graceful if a little sluggish as though he's slightly inebriated. All this I remember in the split second I saw him enter the infirmary.
There's a clatter.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Pleasure?"
"Pleasure."
"No, thank you."
I look in his direction. He's bent over the countertop of the lower medicine cabinets, a bloody cloth in hand.
"Tell me about where you lived in Romania. It was war-torn, alright I know that, but I mean beyond that."
"Doctor, are you teasing me?"
"What?"
I'm afraid to shower while everyone's around so I wait for times like this to bathe in peace. Showering is really the only time I feel truly alone here. I can think, I can laze, I can even sing though carrying a tune had never been my forte. I remember the lullabies Frank used to hum to me when I was just a girl. Times like this, I miss them, the small things in life that made the world go round, that made my world go round.
I dress quickly after getting out so I'm not caught unawares. I drape a towel on my head and pad out of the bathroom quietly, high heels in hand. I don't hear anything other than the whir of unseen fans, and for that I'm grateful. I'm still alone.
I look at my desk. Papers. Cultures. Scalpels, swabs and tongs.
Not even one foot goes ahead of me when an elbow juts out of nowhere. Shocked, I drop my heels, and then already realizing my company, I bend down to pick them up as if I only dropped them out of clumsiness than surprise.
"How go your studies, Doctor?"
"I've managed to isolate the entry point of toxicity that causes first and second generation integrity to degrade after a certain point. I'm working on a malleable formula to completely negate the impure, potentially dangerous chemicals and liquid metals excreted by individual colonies to improve their effectiveness. Once I've developed a sound solution... you can take and do with it as you see fit."
"Good."
I'm alone again.
It's gotten busy. And Vamp's twice as restless now as when I first joined the 'team'.
Might it be that there are more women on site? Maybe he can smell the estrogen waft off them like bitches in heat. And, animal that he is, he starts feeling the desire to rut accordingly. A man like this would certainly make a nice case study surrounding chemical relationships between hormones and nanotechnology.
It's just the two of us.
The apprehension on my tongue is thick as syrup, threatening to choke me every time I try to swallow it down. I pore over the tray of glass vials positioned to my left and the white curtain cutting us off from the rest of the infirmary. His hand holds strong to my hip as I catch my breath and wonder what I'm doing here, wonder what I'm about to do.
I'm about to seal his fate.
"Vamp, can I ask you a question?"
"Do you plan your timing... or are these really just whims, Doctor?"
"What's your real name?"
Vamp's fingertips train up and down my side, issuing a shudder from depths best left unplumbed. Sadness, disgust, a strange sense of doom. Most of all, pity. Pity for the both of us. Shall we walk hand in hand to hell, Vamp? The bells are ringing and the gates are open...
I take the first vial, pop the blue rubber top and stick a needle inside. Steadily I extract the clear liquid into the syringe. It's merely an antibiotic solution to wax clean an introductory path for the new nanomachines. The bloodstream at entry would need to be as pure as possible for the new colony to be fully accepted into and circulated throughout the body. Another vial, another syringe, two to three of them in fact, is the almighty gray goo itself. And lastly, a vial and syringe of sedatives. He'll need it during transitioning as the new nanomachines attack and assimilate the old. For a time, they'll be liquid fire in his veins and whatever isn't successfully processed into useful bases will turn to sediment, which he'll have a hell of a time secreting or excreting in the hours to come.
I'll have the displeasure of watching over him in the meantime.
A grueling process, I'd have to say, depending on the doctor and patient's constitutions. But then... Vamp has always been a strong one so far as I've witnessed...
As ever the aggressor, my 'patient' takes a daring grope of my thigh, either urging me to get this procedure over and done with or... something else he might have in mind. I shrug and sigh tiredly. Really, what am I doing? Can I stop now? I...
I finally face the man as he lies there on the examination table, tilted at but a weak angle towards the ceiling. He grins, flashing his sharp little fangs. In any other situation, would I enjoy being alone with a well built, half-naked man strapped to a table? I can't help but laugh at the thought because, well, pondering the vagaries of my own sexuality had never been a great, big pastime for me. So why start now?
I tie the yellow rubber tubing around his bicep and watch all too eager veins rise to the surface of his translucent skin. I wipe the inside of his elbow down with alcoholic wipes. All the while he watches me and I sort of watch him out of the corner of my eye.
"I'm not asking for much." I pick up the first syringe.
"Your decision?"
"Why should something as simple as you telling me your name have to ride on that?"
"Because I won't tell you any other way."
"You know, only women are supposed to play hard to get."
Vamp circles his arm around my waist— the one I just prepped, too, ruined— and tugs me over him like a blanket, nearly causing me to drop the syringe on the floor. I chuckle in exasperation as I struggle to get to my feet.
And I feel a spank. "For god's sake, Vamp..."
His arm falls away like a sated leech. And as I move to get back upright, our eyes meet. They pierce, they question, they menace. They wander this way and that. His face gets a little too close, his soft hair and warm breath assaulting my cheeks. It's like watching through wire mesh a wolf size me up as its prey. It's enough to incite a thousand invisible fingers to pinch me all over. I almost don't know what to do.
"Naomi..."
The way Vamp's body delicately undulates beneath me warns me that... I shouldn't have looked down.
I jump and teeter on my heels, working hard to regain my professional composure. The way he toys with me is maddening, if not downright disruptive. But I have to get on with my work. Neither rain, sleet, snow or bulge shall stop me. Sin calls and I have an important engagement to keep. If only Vamp answered my question, I'd tolerate all the trouble a little more.
To say yes... would it mean I didn't care about myself or my body? I have nothing to lose, but I should at least demonstrate some degree of self-respect, shouldn't I? I owe Frank that much. And when Vamp tells me his name...
"Alright, Vamp."
"Da, Regina mea?"
"I'll agree to your little game. But when the time comes, I'll need favors back from you..."
The man chuckles in only the most perverse manner he can while grinning like a shark. I should understand what I'm getting myself into. There hasn't been any going back since Shadow Moses, so this shouldn't feel any different.
Before I attempt to wipe his arm down again, Vamp grabs my hand, splays it open and presses a finger to his lips. The gleam in his ice-like eyes is a bit much to bear, given how unpredictable he is or chooses to be in a 'normal' setting such as this. But before I know it...
"Ouch! V-Vamp, what the hell-"
"A little something for me to remember you by on those lonely nights, Queen... My name is Decebal."
"Decibel?"
"Decebal." He looks deathly serious as he corrects me.
And thus with a drop of blood, Vamp, you become a little less the man-beast you strut about with pride. You're a little less the terrorist seeking revenge against the Patriots. Still all of the freak you were, are, and will be, however. All sins intact and indestructible once these needles prick your veins. Our ties cemented once my bitter days of toil spread throughout your body like so. Don't hate me. When you can't fight anymore, don't hate me, Vamp. Yes, I know what I'm doing, though I'm baffled by everything else. Maybe one day we can repent.
Prick and shoot. Prick and shoot. Prick... and... shoot.
Or maybe we'll find new life somewhere. Unfettered by terrible destinies, unsullied by war. Now, wouldn't that just be a dream?
He's writhing.