The rain drummed down on the surface of the speedboat like noise on a television screen, and if it hadn't had been for the makeshift bandanna he'd made, his hair would be flat against his eyes by now. His glasses had already misted to impenetrability. He'd ditched them completely, because he didn't have time to take his hand off the choke every ten seconds to wipe away the fog, and they lay on the deck behind him, clattering as the thrum and vibration of the motor rattled through them.
This was a disaster. This was a complete disaster. This was the first complete disaster he'd faced for two years. Of course, they hadn't succeeded every mission, but everything had always righted itself in the end; one failed sabotage leading to a nastier, messier gun-battle later down the line with the same result; one red herring leading to a rush for the real thing later on when it surfaced, finally. But it had never happened like this.
Here he was. Being buffeted by the storm, an origami boat, feeble and paper-thin, at the mercy of the rest of the world. Somehow he'd escaped the suction caused by the sinking ship. Somehow he'd ended up on the sea and that was even worse.
All he had to do was move forward. Eyes ahead. Hands steady. He couldn't see well without his glasses, but even Snake wouldn't be able to see further than about a foot ahead in this weather. As the winds died down little by little, his hand released the choke inch by inch until finally he remained there in the pouring rain, stationary in the sea. Blind, with only the lights on the buildings in the distance as guides.
He wasn't sure why he stood up then, but he did. The boat rocked alarmingly as he pulled himself shakily to his feet, but once he stood he found it easier to remain balanced.
"Snake," he said, quietly, most of the sound of his voice lost into the rain. "That didn't go too well."
Snake was silent. Like all comatose people are. Olga was flattened against him and the position was almost compromising, but there wasn't enough room in the boat otherwise. Olga's breaths were deeper and healthier, and it sounded like soon she would be snoring like a normal person, sleeping off the tranquillisers. Snake's chest, even free of the restraining belts and suspenders and that corset thing which Otacon had never quite worked out the purpose of, barely moved at all. His skin was dead and pale, and the raindrops clung to his face and beard waxily, like plastic dew on fake flowers. His lips were blue.
Otacon swallowed the lump in his throat. He had nothing to complain about. There was nothing constricting his breathing.
"I did my best," he told Snake, flatly. "I tried to push as much water from your lungs as I could. I even gave you mouth-to-mouth, like some kind of...some kind of bad yaoi doujinishi, I'll tell you what that means later. You won't like it, though. I'm warning you."
He felt something warm and wet running down his cheeks. It was the rain.
"And," he continued, his voice taking on a slightly sticky quality, "I breathed in as hard as I could, the way you taught me how to a while ago, remember? Your lungs breathed out, automatically, because of the way your ribs were pressing on them, and you breathed back into my mouth. It was my fault for messing it up and not pulling away quickly enough. I know. You don't have to tell me. And when you did," he told him, "when you did, it tasted like tar."
His boots skidded along the deck and he finally knelt down beside him.
"You know you're killing yourself," he said. "You don't need me to tell you. I did try one once, when you weren't looking - I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I nearly coughed up my own intestines. I had a sore throat for days. I don't know how you manage. It was horrible."
He nearly laughed then. "We're both damaged people, aren't we? And that's why we have to stick together like this. I can't let you die, Snake," he said, "because you're my best friend in the world. It's not that I don't know what I'd do without you," he admitted. "That's stupid. The problem is that I do know what I'd do without you. And...well, I'd live on. But you wouldn't be there and that would make it," he swallowed, "a whole, whole lot worse. And didn't you promise me you'd live?"
Unsteadily, he laid a hand on Snake's chest, feeling the slow heartbeat, calculating the subtle rise and fall of his ribs.
"Remember when we met again, after the incident?" he asked. "Remember how I didn't recognise you for a second without that bandanna and with your hair grown out a bit and put up differently? And then you spoke to me and I remembered. I remembered everything. And you teased me about picking up an accent in England and I teased you about..." his memory failed him, "about something, I don't really remember."
Well, that was a useless thread of thought. If this were an anime he'd be drowning his sorrows in something sappy like Fushigi Yuugi instead. It wasn't like he wasn't being sappy already. Not for the first time, he wondered what he was doing here. Him, and him...
He sought around for the answer, and found it, smiling slightly in response, leaning in towards Snake's face conspiritorially, enjoying the closeness despite everything.
"You know what else?" he told him, his voice dropping to a whisper. "This isn't my boat. I stole it. I just sat in it and started it working, and this guy...he ran out of the houses and started waving his arms around and yelling at me. So I..." he smirked, "I got back out of the boat, before he called the police. And I went up to him. And he asked me to apologise. And I hit him in the face. I wonder if he's regained consciousness yet..."
He turned his head to look over his shoulder. "You're a bad influence, you know that?"
He wasn't sure how long he stared there, poring over his features, looking for a twitch or a jolt or something like that, just something to make him look less than comatose, and not in so much danger, not like this, not a casualty of a failed mission, and finding nothing.
Eventually he stood up. "We need to get you back to land. You and Olga. You don't mind that I brought her along, do you? I mean, I know she's an enemy, but she's a pregnant enemy. I don't think the baby's done anything wrong yet." He sighed. "You'd tell me off for being sentimental. But I think you understand. You usually do."
The choke rattled in his hands, and the rain beat down mercilessly, like static.