A/N: This really isn't my style of writing (third person present tense) but, let's look at this as an experiment. On my different levels actually. This is a lot darker than I'm used to writing as well. It's an extreme "what if" scenario that I had swimming around in my head for a while for Otacon. I know that IF Snake is to die in MGS4, Otacon would probably have a very 'let's win this one for Snake' kind of attitude about it. And no, I don't hate Otacon...I actually like him a lot and it broke my heart to write this, but I think it explores something in him that people may not be thinking about right now. So, enjoy and please let me know what you think.
The Opposition
He can't believe the way he looks at a bottle of Diazepam now. Or how many he's counted out in the palm of his hand. It's more than the suggested dosage and more than what can be considered safe. He funnels his hand and listens to them individually drop back into the bottle. He knows he doesn't want that. At least that what he thinks. Those pills don't know what Hal's stomach looks like. He's never taken them but he threatens himself with a handful of them whenever he feels he's running out of options, which has been happening more and more often.
He isn't proud of his current state as it is reflected back to him in the bathroom mirror. His face lacks the fullness to properly hold his glasses in place anymore and his skin lacks the color to make himself recognizable. It's his body's fault. If it had an appetite, he'd eat. But it hasn't had the desire to accept any kind of nourishment without force for the past three weeks. They have become two separate entities, his body and him. Opposing sides that refuse to pull together enough to make any task easier. His body wins in the mornings when it binds itself to the bed until late afternoon or when it settles itself into the depressed familiarity of the couch for the remainder of the day. He knows Snake made everything agree and work in a nature almost as perfect as the two of them did. But now, Snake and the balance he brought was gone. And there is never a day where it doesn't feel that way. There is no comfort in knowing that he was right at his side to watch his eyes close that final time or in knowing that they didn't close in the chaos of the battlefield. There's nothing but himself now and he now knows he doesn't do too well on his own.
The only other voice Hal hears is Mei Ling's and it comes over the answering machine. She gave up calling him on Codec when she realized it made it too easy for him to ignore her. Her voice pleads with him to return one of the many calls she knows he's let the machine answer. Her desperation only pronounces her Chinese descent and some of her words fight under her thick accent. She finally sighs into the receiver and Hal knows she's given up more or less in the same way he has if only until her next call.
He swears the small, rectangular box is staring at him almost as hard as he's staring at it. He blames his fascination with the box on a lack of sleep, food, and sanity. It's a red and white rock in the wood ocean of the table. When he holds it, he determines that it shares the anatomy of its past owner: A hard exterior that protects potentially hazardous contents. He's waited nine years to not mind what he considered Snake's worst habit and now, he actually misses it. He takes one of the cigarettes out of the box. A few months prior, to the semi-satisfaction of Hal, Snake switched to the shorts and he's reminded of this holding it in its uniformed brown filter and stubbed white body. He tests it out between his own lips but laughs it out back into his hand. He can't stop himself from laughing and his body is thrown into a fit at the ability to do more than sulk. There's nothing left in him to cry even tears of joy but he sacrifices the remaining liquids for the fleeting moment. The motions remain constant but soon, the feeling begins to become misplaced somewhere between all the laughter. The tears are coming from a bad place now and his body shudders cruelly into the transformation back into a sobbing mess.
The answering machine comes on. He hadn't even noticed it ring.
"Hal, it's Mei Ling. Please pick up. I can't work without knowing you're okay."
She's so sweet and now, so troubled. She sighs heavily into the receiver but then rattles off something about a plane going from Los Angeles to New York but he can't quite figure out why that concerns him. He's more intrigued by the setting sun and the dusk lights outside of his window. It tells him that one more day has passed and that he's made it though it.
He doesn't suffer from lack of sleep so much as he suffers from lack of a normal sleep pattern. He's an insomniac for four nights and almost narcoleptic for two days after. And then, it restarts. He doesn't enjoy his time awake but he takes it over his time sleeping. It's never peaceful and is riddled with nightmares and things he would have never even considered nightmares until now. But being awake gives him too much time to think. Too much time to regret. Too much time to slip into those dark corners.
His mind spins as it sinks into a pillow. He's survived another day, but then again, he's always the survivor. Everyone leaves. Everyone leaves him. His father, his mother, his sister, his lover, his best friend...they all left him. He's not as strong as they think he is. Why didn't he tell them that? Why did he let them assume he'd be okay without them? He's afraid of his life now. It's so much bigger than he remembers it being. So much lonelier than he remembers it being. His panic overwhelms him but it remains silent. The stillness of the room swallows him and applies a crushing weight on his chest. He feels his lungs stop moving, expanding. He's not even sure if they're there anymore. He hopes for the air on the other side of his door to do more. It doesn't. He beats his chest to jump start anything left in him that'll receive oxygen but only hears his body's rejection of it. He's suddenly on the floor. Everything is happening so fast. The spinning room and his pounding heart feel like they are in competition of some sort. Everything hurts to move. It burns. It cripples him. He wants to cry out but that requires breathing. His fingers rake across the hardwood as his body writhes under the pain. He knows he's going to die. He wants to. He fights for one thing before he lets it take him. His feels his lungs will rip apart and his heart will explode but he screams it.
"SNAAAKE!"
The air hurricanes back into his lungs and his desperate gasps are no longer in vain. His fingers are locked in a grip on the mattress. Everything is covered in sweat but nothing hurts or burns or cripples him. He lays back and listens to himself inhale and exhale a calmness back into lungs and body in the dark.
He doesn't enjoy his time awake but he takes it over his time sleeping.
Hal covers his palm with the little blue pills again. He knows he's losing the only battle he usually wins against his body. He funnels his hand and listens to all of them fall individually back into the bottle.
Almost all of them.
Alone, it's almost innocent and harmless. It slides around in the crease of his palm and in a swift motion, makes its way down his throat. He realizes that maybe the pills can go down the same way they go into the bottle: one by one. His body easily accepts pill number two and for a brief moment, the split entities are working together again. They are...agreeing. He wants pill number three to only make things better.
"Hal!" It's a lot clearer than the answering machine. "What are you doing?!"
A hand rips the bottle out of his grasp.
"How many of these have you taken?" She franticly shakes his pale frame for an answer. Nothing processes for him—weather what he might have done with the pills actually happened or why the voice on his answering machine is now standing in his bathroom. "Tell me!"
"Two." His voice is scratchy and amounts to nothing more than a wisp. But it's all Mei Ling needs to hear before her arms wrap and lock around his mid section.
"You're going to be okay." He knows she's reminding herself aloud more than she's assuring him. But their ideas of 'okay' aren't the same now anyway.
The plate hits the table with a resounding clank. The glass of water goes down a little gentler. Mei Ling takes her place across from Hal and begins studying him for the first time. She can't see any part of him, if there are any, that still wants to live and that frightens her.
"You have to eat and drink something."
"I'm not hungry."
"It's half a sandwich. You either eat that or I strap you down and do it intravenously (IV). It's your choice."
She wipes away a part of her overgrown bangs from her eyes. They are dark and intense and long gone is the naiveness they held all those years ago at Shadow Moses when he met her. They now watch him with great concern bite for bite, sip for slow, agonizing sip. When he finishes, she feels relieved enough to soften her features.
"What are you trying to do to yourself?"
"I'm fine." There's no point in lying. She's watched him gag the contents of his stomach, or lack there of, into the toilet to bring two undissolved blue pills back up. He says it out of habit and it comes out before he knows it.
"You're not fine. The front door was unlocked, you don't look like you've eaten anything for a month, and my worst fear almost was a reality today. You could have died. And maybe you've stopped caring but I haven't." She leans in closer to him, commanding his gaze. Her pink lips are pressed together tightly in a failed attempt to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. "I miss Snake too. It's unfair and it hurts that he's gone. But he wouldn't want to see you like this. I don't want to see you like this.
"I want you to come back to LA with me. Just until you're better."
"I'm staying here."
"Listen to me. Staying here is doing more damage than good and you being in New York makes it really hard for me to keep in eye on you. My apartment's a little small but I'll make the room for you."
"What if I get in your way?"
She shakes her head. "Never. Don't even think like that." His hair tumbles over his face in his attempt to hide it. Mei Ling intuitively reaches over and brushes it back with her hand. He can't hide how good it feels to have some sort of contact with another person. "How'd it get like this, Hal?"
"I don't know."
"You've gotta talk to me. Something's seriously wrong, here."
"I'm not crazy, Mei Ling." As he says it, he's unsure of it himself.
"I know you're not crazy. You're grieving and that's healthy but you tried to seriously harm yourself and that means that your way of grieving is unhealthy."
"You make it sound so easy to deal with."
"No. That's just a textbook explanation for someone who's never been where you are right now. What you're going through is very real and I understand that but I need you to understand that you can't continue to do...this." She gestures to his current state rather than him.
"I just...I can't handle this."
"Can't handle what?"
"Being alone," he says. It's the first time he's said it outside of his own head. Mei Ling conveys a warm understanding with her eyes and he continues, "I don't want to go back to being the way I was nine years ago. I didn't like that person. Snake was one of the only people who ever bothered to try and get me...and now he's gone."
"I know you feel a little lost but you don't have to be alone, Hal. It may not be much but now you have one crazy Chinese girl that just flew clear across the United States because you wouldn't pick up your phone." He returns her smile. "We'll deal with this like every other thing we've ever tackled together over the years. We'll work at it and work at it until we get through it, okay?"
He feels a warm rush of hope over him as he nods in agreement.
"So, how long is the flight from New York to LA?"
She laughs. "Well, it felt like 900 hours on the way over but I'm sure it's a lot closer to nine. Does this mean I have a new roommate?"
"Yeah. I guess it does."
"This is the right thing to do, Hal." He's more sure of this decision than he's been of any of the ones he's been making lately.
As he packs, he doesn't wish to take too much of anything with him—belongings or recent experiences wise. He doesn't look at anything for more than he needs to. He's going to have enough trouble getting the place out of his mind. He certainly won't miss any of it. He knows he'll return to New York soon, just not to that apartment or the feelings he's leaving behind in it.
Mei Ling takes her lean off the wall when Hal appears before her again. He's fit the next few months of his life neatly into a suitcase and a small carry-on.
"You look better already. I'm going downstairs to get us a cab."
Alone, he takes one more look around until his eyes land back on the cigarettes. Having them in his hands immediately makes the corners of his eyes sting again but a smile tug at the corners of his lips as well. He has no use for them in Los Angeles, but they find their way into his pocket anyway. He still hates them, but he's strangely attached to them. They remind him of the one thing he won't ever need to forget or leave behind.