The two men and teenagers were back on board the whaling ship within the next few hours and their steeds took a well deserved rest in the makeshift stable. A fall from a bridge would have exhausted in the most resilient stallion. The group made their way back up to the middeck and settled into a corner of the room where the men clearly ate. Now dried off and with a decent meal to warm them, Zack noticed the man seemed to be struggling with the blend of memories swirling inside of his head still. He saw Ocelot reach into his shirt pocket and took out a jasper on the end of a silver chain.
"Let's get some of those thoughts straightened out for you. What do you remember, Venom?" the man asked, subtly spinning the stone on the end of the chain so that the lights overhead caught it in just a certain way. "Do you remember the attack on Mother Base?"
The man looked at the stone and Zack noticed the subtle shift in his expression as he listened to Ocelot's voice. He knew what the man was doing and so did Tretij; they'd seen Ocelot use hypnotherapy on Kaz before. They made sure to keep their eyes on Venom, avoiding the spinning stone.
"I remember..." the man began, clearly in mild pain as he reached up to the metal with his right hand. "I remember..Paz and..Chico.. The explosion."
"That's a good start." Ocelot stopped the stone still and began to spin it in the opposite direction. "Where is everyone on the helicopter? Who do you see?"
"Kaz.. He's angry and yelling about them playing us.." The man blinked, but it was clear he wasn't actually seeing anything in front of him. It amazed Zack how efficient Ocelot was at this. "You're there, too.. Holding Nymph but.. You jumped."
Zack gave Ocelot a sidelong look who shook his head slightly at him, as if telling him not to ask right now. The teenager had no idea that the man had literally jumped out of a helicopter to prevent him from being hurt. Now that he thought about it though, he seemed to vaguely recall the smell of salt water that night and Ocelot's strong arms around him. That was the first time he had ever been held by the gunslinger...
"Where are you, Venom?" Ocelot asked, furrowing his brows as the stone spun a little faster. This was the question that clearly he was worried about and Zack guessed it had something to do with the fact the man had been turned into his father's phantom. "What happened to you during the explosion?"
"I can't..." The man closed his eye, clearly in too much pain to keep going and Ocelot stopped the stone, putting it on the table. The man snapped out of it but he seemed to still be hurting. Ocelot looked upset as he pocketed the jasper and looked at the man.
"Venom, listen to me carefully. You're not Big Boss: The memories you have of his were implanted in your mind while you were in a coma," he told the man who looked at him. "You're the one that jumped in the way of the bomb when it exploded to save his life. The two of you had a mutual admiration for each other and you were willing to give up your life for him, but you survived."
"Why was I given them if they're not mine to have?" the man asked, clearly getting tired and Ocelot sighed through his nose, shaking his head.
"Because the man we trusted with our lives has now ruined all of them," Ocelot stated as he stood up from his chair. Zack quickly lifted and lowered his brows in reaction to the man's words but stayed silent otherwise. "But having those memories isn't necessarily a negative thing. Use them to your advantage: Use his knowledge of combat to better yourself."
"You're going to need it when we get to Afghanistan," Zack noted, finally feeling like he could speak to the man as Ocelot walked off out of the room. "Kaz will have been captured for almost three weeks by the time we get there. He won't have much left in him when we reach his location, I don't imagine. If he's still alive - and I'm praying he is - then you'll need to take everyone out to get to him."
"In order to do that, you must be in better shape than what you are right now," Tretij continued, standing up as well. "We will start training you tomorrow after you have rested. I believe I am going to retire for the night as well. Good night, Nymph. Venom."
"Good night, Mantis," the boy replied, watching the boy leave as Venom nodded to him. He could tell his adopted brother was exhausted from exerting his powers twice in one day. His train of thought changed when Ocelot returned a moment afterwards with a vile of white liquid and a syringe in his hand. "What's that?"
"Muscle stimulator," the man replied, uncapping the needle and drawing the medicine out of the vile slowly.
"Fancy term for steroids basically." Zack smirked at the look the man gave him. He knew Ocelot was against the drug so these obviously acted differently, but he enjoyed giving him grief about it.
"You keep that up and I may inject you with them." Zack snorted at the gunslinger as he put the vile down and checked the syringe, tapping the needle and ejecting the air out. "These will affect the rate of growth, not how big the muscles get. More like adrenaline without the shitty side effects."
Zack understood, basically it was giving the man more energy when he did work out and a foundation to get back his build over a short period of time rather than forcing it to get bigger. He watched as Ocelot grabbed the man's arm and injected him, frowning when Venom winced and turned his head away as he closed his eyes. He was exhausted from having to run from a psychopathic tiki torch after just waking up from a coma. When the injection was done, Zack stood up and walked around the table to gently help the Vicente up to his feet, placing the man's bad arm over his shoulders as Ocelot threw the needle away. He pocketed the vile and put the man's other arm around his own shoulders, helping Zack lead their exhausted team mate to the room they had been given to rest in. They carefully helped the man sit down on the cot that he would be using and Zack reached out, gently stroking the man's face with the back of his fingers so Vicente looked up at him in question. The boy smiled as Ocelot turned and left the room to give them a moment.
"I always thought you were some kind of hero when I was little," the boy said, resting his hand on the man's shoulder now. "You took such good care of me and all of our soldiers. Now it's time for me to return the favor, Venom. I promise, I'll help you come out from under all that they did to you."
The man seemed to be thinking back and after a moment, he smiled faintly. The man reached up with his good hand and held the boy's chin for a moment before pulling him down into an embrace. "I always knew you were special Zack."
The boy wondered if it was Vicente's memories he was speaking from or if at some point his father had actually thought of him as more than an inconvenience. Maybe he'd never really know which one it was, but for now, he was thankful that the man at least remembered him from some point of view. He held the man for a moment before pulling back and watched as he lay down on the cot so he covered him up to the bottom of his chest. He pet the man's hair until he closed his eyes and then turned to leave, checking on Tretij on the way out. He looked around for Ocelot until he found him on the deck, leaning against the railing as he stared off into the distance with an expression that told the teenager he was extremely distressed. The blonde walked over and gently slid his hand along the man's shoulders to get his attention as he stepped up beside him.
"You're taking this very hard, Ocelot," the boy noted, frowning at his lover. "Talk to me while we have the chance to be alone like this. What's bothering you the most? What they did to Venom, or my idiot father's lies?"
"Both," the man replied, looking back over the water as his hair and scarf moved in the wind coming off of the salty water. "Venom shouldn't be having to go through since he wasn't able to give consent. Boss has never made such a horrendous error before... I've known him since I was a teenager, he was my godfather."
"He's still a human and the condition we're born with makes us prone to idiocy." His more so than anyone else's, Zack wanted to say. But he could see Ocelot's distress so he decided to keep the comment to himself.
The older male ran his gloved hands down his face, resting his elbows on the rail of the ship. "The three of us would have followed him to the end of the earth if he had just told us the truth. I sacrificed a lot for his vision - my mother's vision - throughout my early adult life. I thought that he..."
Zack knew now that the broken trust was what was hurting the man the most and while he couldn't say he knew exactly what that felt like, he guessed it was similar to the ache and deep pitted betrayal he felt when Kazuhira walked out on them all that time ago. The teenager sighed softly so the man didn't hear him over the wind and waves before he moved between the man and the rail, placing his head up under the gunslinger's chin like a cat would when showing affection. Immediately the two of them were embracing and he could feel the man slightly trembling in his arms as he tried to keep himself together. Zack pulled away just enough to look up at the man and reached up to cup his face in his hands, feeling Ocelot's grip on him tighten.
"Stay with me, Ocelot," the boy whispered, trying to bring the man back from the trauma he knew that he had suffered years ago. He'd been told that the gunslinger had mild PTSD, but he would never say what from. "Tell me about that night of the explosion. Did you really jump out of that helicopter to save me?"
The gunslinger let out a small laugh as he looked at the boy's heterochromia eyes and kept holding him. He wasn't relaxing much but he was at least stable enough to answer his question and nodded. "I knew enough about Cipher to know that they always had a backup plan incase something went wrong. I knew there had to be a second bomb so I grabbed you and jumped."
"I bet Kaz was mad." Zack smiled a little, petting the man's defined cheekbones with his thumbs to continue trying to keep him calm. "I remember the smell of the salt water that night but that's all. You don't like the water but you jumped to save me... Ocelot..."
"You were the only thing that mattered to me at that point. I felt bad for Paz and Chico, but I wasn't sure that we would be able to help them. I knew that I could prevent you from getting hurt, so I took a chance."
"I put my trust in you because I'm sure even back then I knew you wouldn't do anything to endanger me or my life. I remember when I first saw you on the firing range. I thought you were so cool with your revolvers and western apparel. Your hair was short back then."
The man closed his eyes tightly, shaking his head and Zack had to laugh. "I only cringe when I'm awake."
Zack reached up and ran his fingers into the man's ashen blonde hair so he leaned into the affection, reaching up with one hand to grab the boy's wrist and kiss his pulse point. Zack smiled lovingly as the man opened his gunmetal grey eyes to look at him again.
"It suits you much better this length. Not so much of a soldier look; more untamed wild west. More you and the aesthetic is pleasing as well."
"Glad you approve, my dear. At least someone sees me as my own person and not as my mother." The man cringed and closed his eyes as if he was having flashbacks.
Zack could see the man starting to recede back into the thoughts he had just managed to pull him out of so he returned his hands to his face, shushing him gently as he began leaning in closer. "Don't go where I can't protect you. He's not going to hurt you anymore, Ocelot. I'll do everything I can to make sure that never happens."
The man let out a breath as he pressed a kiss to the boy's mouth, closing his eyes as he felt himself begin to relax a little. The boy's words echoed in his mind and a sensation like a tingle from mint ran over his body as he felt himself calming down. It took him a second to realize what had happened and he ended the kiss, looking at the boy's heterochromia eyes with a small smirk.
"Did you just use a trigger on me?" he purred, making the boy smile with a slight smugness as he grabbed the ends of his scarf. "You sly little bastard; I taught you too much."
"Come with me and I'll show you just how much I've learned," the teen purred back and let go of the man's scarf in favor of gently grabbing his gloved hand, leading him back down below deck where they were away from prying eyes.
Ocelot knew they ran the risk of everything caving out from under them if they continued to walk this path they were on. Eventually he would have to face the man that he had once thought of as a father figure after he lost his mentor. But with Vicente back in their life, Zack in his arms and Tretij at their side, he allowed himself to hope that when that day came, he would be able to face it without any further emotional damage.