Work Text:
Prague, Czech Republic, 2006
Twelve apostles paraded past the windows of the Orloj; the first held a key, the second an axe. Below them were two sets of moving wooden figures: greed paired with vanity, lust paired with death. Ocelot watched as Death pulled on a string, the sound of the bell announcing his arrival, while the sinners shook their heads, pleading to be spared.
The onlookers gathered at the square clapped and cheered enthusiastically as the clock struck eight, signalling the end of the show. Clinging onto his father’s chest, a young boy was crying, spooked by the uncanny-looking statues. Ocelot walked past the old town Hall and took a left turn into the second cobble stone alleyway he came across, following EVA’s ever precise instructions.
A few metres ahead, a small crowd was gathered, some with drinks in hand, others smoking and chatting idly amongst each other. A woman in a camel-coloured leather coat, tall like a runway model and with an elegance imbued by years of training, easily stood out from the rest.
She spotted Ocelot almost immediately; her eyes unguarded, unprepared as they met his. For a fleeting moment, there was surprise in them, and a hint of sadness she quickly stashed away. She cast her thin cigarette- it had been menthol since her 50s- to the ground and said something in a language Ocelot didn't speak to the poor sod trying to chat her up; had he known what he was being measured against, he wouldn't have dared speak a single word to that woman.
“Adam!” EVA approached him with quick steps and open arms.
Ocelot caught her in a firm embrace, pressing a soft kiss to her hair, which smelled of citrus flowers and gasoline. Some things never changed; Ocelot smiled at the memory of Tatyana waltzing around Groznyj Grad like she was invincible- and for a while, she must have felt like it, riding on her motorcycle and making out with Snake in abandoned jungle outposts, as she played Volgin for a fool. He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in as her hands-clad in leather-gently stroked his back. Oh, he'd missed her- he hadn't even realised how much he missed her. His dear friend, whose true name he never spoke, the only person he'd left in the world.
EVA pulled back reluctantly after a while, her eyes warm like a night in Saigon, the three of them sipping cocktails at the rooftop bar of the Caravelle- freshly reunited as allies and riding the high of having yet again cheated death. She cupped his face with care.
“Your hair is longer” she noted. It was probably the only kind comment she could have made; Ocelot was almost a decade younger but he looked gaunt, weary, and aged beyond his years. He knew she could tell, and he knew it bothered her.
“Yours is shorter” Ocelot smiled.“It suits you”
“Oh, Adam”, she breathed out quietly, her thumb stroking his cheek, her gaze traveling across his face, as though mapping the new lines etched on his skin. “You are freezing. Let's go inside, I've booked us a table in a quiet corner”.
The building was deceptively narrow on the outside; upon entering, they descended a flight of stairs into a labyrinthine underground structure that looked like an old wine cellar. The space was built on multiple levels, brick steps and arched doorways connecting different areas. It seemed to be a popular haunt for locals and tourists alike; Ocelot was certain he heard French at least once, and several tables were conversing in English. EVA led them through the space to a smaller room with a low ceiling and an old piano occupying one corner.
Their table was set up against the wall, underneath a seemingly antique painting of a field of sunflowers. Somehow, the waitress was quick to notice them, despite the unique morphology of the establishment. She was a young woman with blond hair and a sparkle in her eye that reminded Ocelot of his present company, many years ago.
“Пиво, пожалуйста”, he tried in Russian and the girl seemed to understand.
EVA smiled at him approvingly and ordered something that sounded like wine in Czech.
“You are pretty fluent already, huh?” Ocelot said, once the waitress left.
“Not at all” EVA gestured dismissively. “Not everyone has your affinity for languages”
“True” Ocelot replied. “But latin-based languages are a walk in the park once you speak one of them. Out of the two of us, you are the only one who can actually swoh pudong…ah?”
Eva chuckled. “天啊, was that 普通话? 我不是教过你吗?”
“Well, you definitely tried. See? I can understand a bit. I just wasn't the best student”
“Your head was somewhere else back then”, EVA teased.
“Same place yours was, dear. Figuratively- and literally, on a good day”.
“How dare you” she gave him a soft kick under the table. “I'm a lady, you know”.
“Never once did I claim otherwise”
Their banter was always well-natured, coming from a place of closeness and familiarity. Any enmity between them had been exhausted in Tselinoyarsk; they worked well together, complemented each other- two sides of a mirror. Sometimes Ocelot looked at her and saw his own shortcomings reflected; other times, he saw her break free of his expectations, shatter his predictions, and walk her own path. It was something he respected, but never envied.
He also never held a grudge; not even when EVA chose to bear the “sons” of Big Boss, severing ties with him over a choice he couldn’t ever forgive. Ocelot would rather cut off his own arm than lose John- -and ironically, in a roundabout way he’d done just that. He had no ideology he was willing to commit to, no aspirations of his own, no past or future outside of him. His every breath was in service to him. Looking at EVA, at how far she’d gotten, listening to her talk about her new life in Prague, he couldn’t help but feel relief. A little selfishness looked good on her; it was what she deserved.
“Na zdraví” EVA raised her glass of red wine.
Ocelot carefully tapped it with his pint of beer. “To your new home”
“To my old friend”
Her gaze lingered on the arm he’d raised, just long enough for him to notice.
“Eli’s”, he confirmed.
EVA nodded solemnly. “That poor child. He never could let go of his hate”
Ocelot took a sip from his beer; it was as good as he’d thought it’d be.
“No, he couldn’t. But ultimately, it worked to our advantage”
“To our advantage…” Eva echoed, her eyes hardening. “That’s my son, Ocelot”
But he wasn’t Snake-and given a second chance, she would sacrifice the child she’d betrayed him for all over again if it brought them an inch closer to freeing him from the clutches of the Patriots. As for Ocelot, he had known Eli since he was a boy. He’d trained him, armed him, helped shape him into the man he became. Even after all the lives he’d lived and taken, he wasn’t numb enough to feel nothing when he knowingly fed the boy into the fire. It was all worth it, for him.
“If it’s any consolation,” Ocelot told EVA, “he wasn’t alone these last few years. He truly carved out a place for himself in FOXHOUND.”
He was rewarded with a faint smile. “And he had you”
“That rarely bodes well for people, you know-”
“Why are you here then?”
She posed the question even before Ocelot had finished speaking, blue eyes- clear like the skies of Tselinoyarsk- fixed onto his. Ocelot took in a deep breath, readying himself for the plunge. This would hurt, but there were no two ways to go about it.
“No beating around the bush, huh?”
“I know you, Adam. You wouldn’t fly halfway around the world just to have a drink with me”
Oh, but he would. In a perfect world, he would.
“Can we talk here?” he asked.
“It’s as secure as it gets. Their technology doesn’t do well with basement rooms and crowds”
“Good to know” Ocelot noted. He took a swig from his beer which was running low fast. “I wanted to-”. No, he had to. “Ther is something I need to-” he tried again, but this time too, his words died the moment they left his mouth. He frowned, angry at his own faintheartedness.
“Oh my” EVA said quietly, sympathetically. “This isn’t like you, honey. I am not gonna like this, am I?”
She extended a hand towards him over the table. He took it, squeezing gently.
“I… have a plan” he said. “A decoy, to manipulate the AIs. To divert their attention away from what we’re doing”. He exhaled, choosing his next words carefully. “Remember the phantom?”
EVA’s fingers twitched in his grasp.
“No”, she said flatly. “Adam, no. That was not-you can’t do that to another poor soul”
“No other poor soul will be involved”
“What are you-”
Ocelot tried for a smile. “Only this wicked one here”
He watched the confusion and anger slowly melt away from her face, giving place to something else. Oh, no. He hadn’t seen that look on her since 1999.
“You’ll do that…” she paused, her gaze uncertain, jittery. “...you’ll do that to yourself?”
Ocelot nodded in affirmation. “Liquid- Eli’s little stunt was very successful at holding their attention. So I’ll play his part; let him walk among the living a little longer”
“No” EVA pulled her hand away, shaking her head in defiance. “I won’t let you”.
“EVA…Tanya…you know we don’t have much choice. We are running out of time” Ocelot reminded her. “This is bigger than me, or you. Bigger than him, even. We are tearing down the foundations of society as we know it. Do you think those things will go down with a whimper? No. They’ll fight back to the very end- it’s in their nature, their programming”
“It’s in our nature too!” EVA shot back.
“Yes” Ocelot agreed, “and I’m counting on that”
A group of friends from two tables back had spotted the piano in the corner; one of them taking his place on it as if on cue, to play an awfully cheerful folk song, likely from the time before the velvet divorce with Slovakia. EVA glanced over her shoulder, distracted. She placed her elbows on the temple, cradling her head, her eyes wide open, fixed onto the wooden surface.
After a long silence, she lifted her head. “Is it hypnosis?”
“Yes” Ocelot confirmed. “A combination of self-hypnosis and drugs. Nothing new to me”
“So you’ll still be you”
For a while, maybe. He couldn’t promise her that, so instead he said: “It’s impossible to turn one person completely into another- even with my skillset”
But EVA, who knew him longer than any human alive, spoke his language well. There was no use trying to dress up the truth with her. She stiffened, clenched her fist under the table, and said firmly: “I can’t lose you, Adam”
Ocelot leaned in. “Yes you can. I know, because I am the same. You can, for the only man you’ve ever loved”
It was the one thing she couldn’t deny. A reminder of their ultimate goal, the arduous path they’d walked together all this while. And yet-
And yet, EVA’s eyes glistened dangerously, her voice breaking as she replied “No. Not the only one”
A heartbreaker until the bitter end, that woman.
Ocelot watched her curl into herself, shoulders shagging like all the fight had left her body. She covered her face with the palms of her hands and sobbed quietly, discreetly, to the merry tune of the piano. This was a new flavour of pain for him; it tasted like guilt, and it burned just right. Felt like he was attending his own funeral; there was a twisted sense of gratification in being mourned, missed. Being loved.
Back in Groznyj Grad, Tatyana was an easy crier; one for theatrics, she’d use her tears to slither out of difficult situations, or in her vain efforts to garner sympathy from a cruel man like Volgin. This wasn’t anything like that; this wasn’t for the world to see.
Ocelot rose from his chair and crouched beside her, wrapping his arms around her shaking shoulders, resting his chin atop her head.
“Shhh. No tears, little troublemaker”
Her fingers latched onto his shirt, pulling him closer. Just like ‘99, when Adam's tears dried out forever. She drew him down to her level, brushed the stray strands escaping his long braid behind his ear, breathed in, then out. Steadied herself.
“You're a terrible person, making me cry like that” she said, full of love and void of accusation.
“But you knew that already, didn't you?” Ocelot replied, leaning into her touch.
“When is your flight back?”
“Tomorrow morning”
EVA sighed. “Stay with me tonight, will you?”
“I've already booked-”
“I don't give a shit, Adam”.
Ocelot smiled, nodding. “Alright”.
—
On the few occasions he’d had to share a room with EVA for the sake of a mission, Ocelot would picture the crowds of faceless men who would kill to be in his place. He’d smile complacently to himself, pitying the poor bastards. Even the ones who did make it in the end were just bugs caught in her beautifully laced web. It was one area in which Ocelot couldn’t compete with her- though there were plenty of men: officers, bureaucrats, diplomats who secretly wouldn’t have minded the company of the young Major.
EVA had seen through him from the start-and to be fair, his fascination with Snake had been blatantly obvious to anyone with even passable observation skills. Once Ocelot was no longer her enemy, she took him on as a challenge, at least at first. The image of her in a nightgown, sitting cross-legged on the bed of a Parisian apartment, smoking by the open window, was a distant memory now; it still came to him sometimes-on dark winter nights, amongst concrete walls- always drenched in sunlight, set to the sound of shopkeepers opening for the day and the scent of freshly-baked bread.
“So how does this work for you?” she’d asked him. “You are not even curious?”
Ocelot had scoffed. “Curious? I’ve had plenty of women. Like you, I’m a professional first-and not above a little fooling around when it makes the job easier”
“I’ll bet it makes the job easier” she’d smiled, catlike and inviting, resting her elbows on her knees as the gown’s low neckline fell open a little further. “But is it all performance for you, then? You don’t find any pleasure in it at all?”
Ocelot spun his revolver once, thoughtfully. “There’s pleasure in a job well done.”
“Oh boy” she chuckled. “What about me then? Don’t you find me beautiful?”
He rolled his eyes at the question, “Of course I do. That’s objective- denying it would be like saying the sky is not blue”
“But you don’t think of me like that?”
“No, not that way. You’ve been to Russia, right? You’ve seen the way the Volga glistens with the first light of day. Or Idaho, where you’re originally from- golden plains, as the eye can see; the open road stretching before you, vast and full of promise…”
“Poetic,” EVA commented, amused. “But you’ve lost me, Major. What does this have to do with anything?”
“To me,” he replied, “you’re beautiful like that.”
That was the first time he’d seen a crack in her mask: a smile that was toothy and awkward, a far cry from the practiced ones that stretched her lips just so and never quite reached her eyes.
“Damn” she’d said. “That’s gotta be the nicest thing a man’s ever told me.”
–
They'd gone to bed hours ago, but EVA was still wide awake. Ocelot knew by the cadence of her breathing, pressed as she was against his back, one arm draped across his chest. He held her bare hand in his, skin warm against skin.
“Hey, Adam”, she half-whispered. “Remember that time in Belgrade? When Zero set us up in that grimy little apartment for two whole months?”
Ocelot hummed in acknowledgement. “I still have nightmares about that place”.
“How bourgeois of you” she huffed a small laugh into his hair.
“The walls leaked when it rained” he reminded her.
“Huh. Now that you mention it, I do remember the strategically placed buckets in the kitchen” EVA mused. “Funny how small things like that just go away. I almost remember that place fondly”
Ocelot snorted. “You are alone in that, sweetheart”.
A brief silence followed.
“Liar”
Some of his fondest memories were from that time.
Ocelot lifted her hand to his lips. Held it there a while.
“I have a confession to make” EVA spoke again.“Remember that burek the old lady next door brought us? I told you I gave it to our contact when he came by, but in truth,I ate the whole thing by myself. I felt awful when you came back the next day and told me that the woman who raised you used to make borek just like that”.
“You know that was bullshit, right?” Ocelot said quietly. “I don’t even remember the people who raised me. I only said it because I knew you’d feel guilty”
EVA bumped her forehead on the back of his head, not too gently.
‘Hey!” he protested.
“Of course I knew it was bullshit” she replied. “I still felt bad”.
“Because unlike me, you are not a terrible person”.
She didn’t answer, but her hold tightened, her cheek pressing against his shoulder.
“I don't think I can do this, Adam” she said, her words small, nearly swallowed by the dark. “I don't think I can say goodbye”.
So Adam spared her that pain.
He didn't sleep a wink that night, not even when EVA finally drifted off, her breathing settling into something soft and even. He listened to the night traffic through the thin glass of the window, his mind blissfully blank. There were no Patriots, no David, no FOXDIE, not even John. He was not Revolver Ocelot or Shalashaska, and he was not Liquid yet. For the few hours before dawn, he was just Adam.
When he slipped from the bed, careful not to wake her, he considered leaving a note. A few parting words- maybe something hopeful like “we’ll meet again”. With John, a small gesture like that always helped dull the pain. But he wasn't feeling it this time. What words could ever suffice for her? His mirror image. The only person who truly knew him. His family.
On the kitchen table was a bowl of fruits; a red apple rested on top, its colour dulled by the blue light of early morning filtering through the curtains.
Ocelot placed it beside her on the bed. He looked at her one last time, then walked out and closed the door behind him.