Standard Deviation

Standard Deviation

by K.A. Rose

'We are men, with names.'


It began with a kiss. A hard, slow kiss, running over tongue and teeth. Tasting. Breath rushing over skin. Wetted lips. The taste was sour, the scent musky. The heat, almost unbearable.

Snake's rough fingers pressed into the flesh of his back, groping at shoulder blades and ribs. His lips left Ocelot's mouth, tongue lingering, beard scratching at his chin as he dipped lower and nibbled at his jaw, then the lines of his neck. Ocelot shuddered; his smooth skin flushed and tingled, back arching with a sudden jolt of electricity.

Lying at an angle beneath Ocelot, Naked Snake's hand drifted from the younger man's back to his chest, teasing a pert nipple between thumb and forefinger. A sharp almost-pain coursed through Ocelot. His breath came out in a gasp. His arms quaked.

Amused, Snake-- Big Boss-- John-- murmured something that Ocelot didn't manage to catch. Some little joke, probably. Before he knew what was happening, Snake had moved Ocelot onto his back and hovered over him, his raw and rough-hewn features perfect as the day Ocelot had first seen him, both eyes whole and open.

Snake held his calloused palm to Ocelot's chest and with the other lifted the boy's lean, shuddering leg.

He didn't enter him yet, though. He merely pulled them closer together, hip to hip, so that his thick, dark cock nudged its shaft against Ocelot's balls. Ocelot shivered again from the contact, his gloved hands knotting at the sheets beneath him.

"Who'd've thought. You actually have hair down there."

Another shudder rippled through Ocelot, his face burning with a combination of arousal and embarrassment. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Big Boss laughed. He readjusted himself, bracing his hand near Ocelot's head as he leaned forward to catch the younger man in another kiss. Ocelot's lower body squirmed, muscles tensing as Snake's cock rubbed against his. They ground their hips together, little bursts of pleasure rocking through Ocelot as the heat built between them.

His hands left the bedsheets reached up to touch Snake's shoulders. He traced the thick muscles rippling beneath his tanned skin, squeezed flesh so hot it seemed to burn straight through Ocelot's gloves. The hot brand of Snake's tongue probed deep into his mouth, stroking firmly, his heavy taste invading Ocelot's senses once more. Teeth nibbled at his lips. Dark, damp hair brushed the younger man's forehead. He growled possessively, and Ocelot could only arch his body against him, moaning pitifully into his mouth.

The hand gripping Ocelot's flank squeezed harder at the supple flesh and moved his hips, the contact between them breaking for a moment as Big Boss settled down a little lower on his knees. With his other hand he took hold of his fat, purpling cock and positioned it between Ocelot's soft buttcheeks; Ocelot drew a sharp breath, feeling the head press against his entrance.

"What's the matter?" Snake teased, his voice echoing as blood pounded in Ocelot's ears. "You don't want it?"

Ocelot's heart fluttered almost painfully, sweat beading on his forehead. His chest rose and sank with heavy breaths, his clouded mind unable to think of the words that communicated the desire, the need...

Thankfully, Naked Snake didn't need to hear him say it. That rare smirk of his flitted across his face, and he leaned in, guiding his cock with his hand. Ocelot gasped desperately for the air as Snake pushed into him, filling him; he tilted his hips, legs spreading wider and wrapping around Snake's waist; the tight ring of muscle convulsed and shivered, squeezing around the hot invading flesh. And finally the first, tiny word escaped Ocelot's wet and bruised lips: "Yes."

Yes, he wanted this. He'd wanted this his whole life. This man, John, inside him, pushing into him, deeper, spreading him open. His rough fingers found Ocelot's cock and stroked it slowly in time with his thrusts, tongue and hot breath running over the younger man's mouth. Ocelot's hands ran over whatever piece of his body that he could reach: biceps, shoulders, his damp and tangled hair, his hard, dark nipples.

Snake's hand squeezed tighter around Ocelot's member and the wave of pleasure reached a fever pitch, the heat in his lower body boiling over before Ocelot could get a hold of himself. His hips convulsed, back and legs arching upward as he gasped, wordless, and he came messily into Snake's hand, squirting shamefully all over his lower stomach.

He heard Big Boss chuckling above him. "Like a pressure hose."

Ocelot shuddered, his feverish skin starting to sting as arousal quickly gave way to numb exhaustion and humiliation. He felt his cheeks burning, looking anywhere but Snake's face so he wouldn't see that grin again.

But Snake didn't seem intent on slowing down for his sake. He continued his steady thrusts, his hand squeezing along Ocelot's oversensitive cock until he could be sure he'd got every last drop out of him. Then he braced both hands to either side of Ocelot's head and pushed into him in earnest. Ocelot threw his head back and moaned, half in pain, his sore body cringing instinctively from this new rough contact.

Ocelot clenched his jaw, fearing above all else right then of seeming weak. He dug his fingers into Big Boss's shoulders and kissed him ferociously, going from his lips to his neck and collar bone, biting at hot, salty skin. In his frenzy, Ocelot felt another sensation growing in his lower regions, as Naked Snake's cock rubbed against that sweet spot inside of him. Strong, raw pleasure started to grip him, and his body began to respond.

Snake was amused again, looking down at Ocelot's flushed, shuddering body. His eyes, whole and healthy, were clear and bright. He grinned.

"It's good to be young."


+++++


Revolver Ocelot opened his eyes.

Well, that was different.

He sat up stiffly in his narrow bunk, the heavy tapping of the rain outside his cabin coming back to him as he blinked a few times in the darkness. The only light was the milky porthole set into the starboard wall, admitting a faint glow from the lights up on deck.

Back to normal. Ocelot shifted and tried to stand, but as he moved he became aware of an uncomfortable knot of heat pressing against his leg.

"Shit."

Who would have thought this old junk still worked? He growled in the back of his throat and settled back down on the rigid bed, ignoring complaints from stiff joints. It was always the worst when he just woke up; he preferred not to sleep at all, if he could help it. Unfortunately for him, Sergei Gurlukovich was a stupid man, but smart enough to speculate about a guest who never slept.

Clearing his dry and stuck throat, Ocelot unfastened his trousers and pulled out the throbbing, ugly little thing to get this over with.

It was tough going. In times past (long past), Ocelot would have used the same hand he'd used to fire a gun, and that hand was gone now. At his hip, Liquid's arm twitched; Ocelot rolled onto his side and pinned it beneath him so it wouldn't trouble him for at least the next few minutes.

Hard to believe, but some things still lay outside Ocelot's ability to control. It was this and the weather: two things so complex, so volatile, even the Patriots couldn't control it. And since he had no real affection for the weather, particularly when it worked against him, that left his unconscious mind-- the one thing he couldn't inhibit and bring into line with his plan.

It might be the only free thing left about him. Not that he was ever free, but it had felt that way once. And even if he acted according to his own will, he wouldn't exactly be free again in his lifetime. That was the trade-off. Big picture, cowboy: can you see it?

Ocelot closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. It was difficult to do it without images, but going back to his dream was unwise. This old man's hand had nothing to do with that child's fantasies.

But after a fruitless few minutes Ocelot became aware that the only thing reaching him was the pattering of the rain. He opened his eyes again.

His cabin door had opened, and leaning against the door frame was a tall, lanky silhouette. He recognized the figure from his little reception dinner in Sergei's cabin earlier: Gurlukovich's butch dyke of a daughter, Olga.

Ocelot sat up, tucking his piece back into his pants-- and then, for good measure, he withdrew his other piece, the revolver, from his shoulder holster.

"Oh, please," Olga said lightly. "I just wanted to watch."

"Your little faggot ass won't be watching anything," Ocelot told her. "Go back to your room like a good girl."

Instead, Olga took a step into the cabin. Her boots left a trail of rainwater behind her, as she rested her back against the door frame, wiry arms folded beneath her breasts. Her nipples showed through her thin tank top, a fact she seemed to be proud of.

Ocelot snorted. "Are you Sergei's daughter, or his son?"

"Both, since he only got one shot. A claymore ripped his nuts off when I was three."

"You tell that story to everyone?"

Olga tilted her head, evaluating him calmly. Her short blonde hair, wet from the rain, was plastered against her forehead. Her eyes were large and intense, though he only saw a glimmer of them in the dark.

"It's not so simple as you made it out to be at dinner," she said. Her breath frosted in the air in front of her. "The tanker idea. You're planning something against Father."

The corner of Ocelot's eye twitched, but that was all. The rest of his expression didn't even flicker.

So this bitch thought she'd figured him out, had she? Not likely. Unless she was a Patriot agent, and they were wising to the real meaning behind his movements. That, too, was unlikely. His silent network of contacts would have given him the heads up long ago if that were the case.

Always room for error, though. There was always room for error.

"And your first instinct was to come here and tell me," said Ocelot flatly. "A cunning idea."

Olga scoffed, unfolding her arms and kicking off from the doorway. "I don't care what you do to my father," she announced. She went to the chair by the desk next to his bunk and sat down on it backwards, her long legs in their oversized camo pants to either side of the chair's back. Her thighs spread grotesquely, she leaned forward, her breasts hanging in their sodden tank-top. "If he's enough of a fool to be tricked by one of his own friends, he deserves every square inch of it."

A bull dyke with daddy issues. Who could have imagined.

"And you want in," Ocelot translated. "Original."

"Fuck you. Do you want my help or not?"

Ocelot was at once relieved and exasperated. He'd worried over nothing. Ocelot could size this cunt up in an instant: she was brighter than your average sack of human waste, but only barely, and not by enough.

He returned the revolver to its holster. Whatever her exact angle, it wasn't even worth it to dispatch her now.

"I'm sure Sergei's eager to hear just how loyal to him his own blood is."

Olga's expression seemed to twitch. He had her now. "Fuck you. You can't smokescreen that easily. I know about you," she said keenly, her eyes glittering in the dark. "More than Father does. I know you."

No, she didn't. The most she knew was that he was a decrepit old faggot she had found trying to jerk one off for old time's sake in the dark of his cabin. She had no idea who he was-- except on the one level where that was exactly what he was.

"We met before," Olga continued seriously. "I was five then. You probably don't remember. It was a concert in Moscow. You blew up the theater," she added, "but before that was the ballet recital. You and Father sat in the balcony with my mother. You held me in your lap."

Ocelot didn't remember it at all, nor did he particularly care to, for as trite as it sounded. He thought he remembered the demolition job, though.

"Your point?" he demanded.

"Am I too big for your lap now, old man?"

Revolted, Ocelot scoffed, waving his good arm. "Get out," he snarled at her in disgust.

Olga stood, but she made no move toward the door. "Like you know one hole from the other," she accused. "What difference does it make?"

"I'm not some fucking cocksucker," Ocelot snapped.

"That makes two of us."

He started to stand, but she reached the edge of the bed before him, leaning over so that her pert breasts hung in his face. He hissed his disgust and planted a hand between them, forcing her back so that he could get to his feet. He'd throw her out of here personally if need be.

As he straightened up, she threw herself at him again. Well, throwing wasn't really the right word. But she wrapped her toned arms around his shoulders and leaned close to him. She was gargantuan for a woman, only a few inches shorter than he was. Her arms didn't even seem female: they felt like a boy's, as did her lips when she crushed her mouth against his.


+++++


EVA looked up from her work. She had been cleaning her pistol or something. She was far along now: six months or so. The twins made her belly look huge.

"He's sort of passive, actually."

Ocelot flinched visibly. He spun around on his heel. "I never--"

"Please. Everyone's noticed. As the only one who's ever succeeded, I thought you might appreciate the insight."

In those days he was still quick to anger. Everything was so much bigger than them, so hard to get a handle on, especially lately. Ocelot's face contorted. "I don't recall asking for it," he spat.

EVA merely shrugged. "You're not the only one to get it switched around," she continued mildly. "You look at that body of his and you think he's going to sweep you off your feet and make love to you upside-down in a tree like Tarzan."

Ocelot flushed an even deeper shade of red. How dare this whore try to read him like this? "Shut up," he ordered.

"He bottomed," EVA finished flatly, fixing him with a cold stare. "How does that word strike you?"


+++++


Olga pulled the wet tank top over her head, her hardened, pale nipples coming into view at the same moment as the tuffs of hair beneath her armpits. She threw the shirt into a corner, then took a small white pill from a slim case tucked in her boot and placed it on her tongue. Straddling Ocelot's waist, she bent down, her tongue meeting Ocelot's open mouth as they allowed themselves a rough and wet kiss. He kept his eyes half-lidded. When the tiny pill grazed the back of Ocelot's tongue, he swallowed instinctively.

After a little more passionless kissing, Ocelot felt his body starting to warm despite the cold. Judging the drug must be working, Ocelot sat up and pulled Olga down onto her back on the bunk. She didn't resist, even smirking in amusement as Ocelot climbed over her, the uncertain heat between his legs pressing against her thigh.

"Good stuff, right?" she asked, with a grin.

Ocelot barely heard her, his ears filled by his own quickening pulse. He felt his erection in earnest now, and with the bitch on her back like this, her breasts pooled against her ribs, she really did look no different from a boy. Ocelot pulled his duster off, but kept his shirt and gloves how they were.

He returned his hands to his fly, angling down low enough that she couldn't get a good view of him. So many of these bull dykes had a grabass fascination with cock, but she could go spy on another of her father's friends if old man dick was so interesting for her. He pulled her pants down off her hips only as far as he needed --no underwear, of course-- and found her wet little girl-hole with his fingers.

"Sergei's gone and raised a fucking whore," he growled.

"Shut up. I'm no slut."

"I could fit my whole hand inside this cunt of yours. And it stinks like shit."

She looked up at him, her eyes bright and sharp. "I hear faggots can't stand the smell anyway," she remarked.

He sneered, withdrawing his fingers and backhanding her across the cheek. Liquid's hand. Let it do what it wanted. Olga's body jerked, and while she was stunned Ocelot pushed himself down on top of her. He shoved his cock into her slimy worm-hole and thrust as hard as he pleased, grinding against the near wall since that was the only one that had any damn point. As she recovered, Olga's mouth split into a grin again; she hooked her knees around his legs and grabbed bunches of his shirt with her fingers, grunting and moaning animalistically as they fought and shook against each other.

Ocelot's right hand kneaded at one of her breasts, squeezing the nipple between his fingers. Olga tossed her head, the well-defined lines of muscle in her neck tensing as she swallowed and shuddered. He could have bitten some of that flesh, but he wasn't that desperate. There wasn't a single part of her he cared about enough to want to taste.

He had no reason to be doing this. She had no reason either. Just some goddamn whim, a small way the bitch had found to do something off the grid. A little fuck-you to Papa, as if Sergei Gurlukovich would hesitate to offer Ocelot his slut of a daughter if he showed the slightest interest in her. Maybe Papa had nothing to do with it, then-- maybe she just got off being fucked by shriveled old queers.

The drug continued to work through Ocelot's body, bringing out the details of things in crystal clarity: he saw the scars rippling across Olga's skin, the texture of the rough blanket beneath her, the beads of sweat at her temples. He could feel the sweat prickling his own brow, the dampness seeping into the roots of his hair-- the hot, scratchy feeling of feverish skin beneath his fatigues. The veins in Liquid's wrist pulsed differently than the veins in his own, and the arm seemed to twitch frenetically as he came closer to his peak.

The hand convulsed. It grabbed Olga at the hip and dug its fingers into the flesh. He growled and forced the hand onto the mattress instead, balling a fistful of blanket into his grip. Olga wrapped her arms around his shoulders again, oblivious.

She pressed their mouths into another hot, artless kiss. He met it without thinking.

Why was he doing this? Just for the blind hell of it? Or maybe she was really more like him than he'd given her credit for: tired of the tracks, and wanting to go off them, just for ten minutes. Just to prove it could still be done. In a world like this, in a life like his where he hadn't had a free move to make in over thirty years--

"Come inside me," she whispered near his ear, but in the chemical fugue he heard the voice as his own. "Shalashaska. I want you."

His climax ripped through him. He felt his knees and elbows buckle and his spine jelly. A wordless gasp escaped his throat. Beneath him, Olga twitched and hung tighter to his body, holding him in, squeezing that small, weary bit of life out of him, before she allowed him to collapse against her shoulder.

"...Heh."


+++++


Big Boss looked from the lighter flame to Ocelot's face, his one useful eyebrow quirking in bemusement. Then, obligingly, he leaned forward and let the flame meet the end of his cigar. The brown paper darkened and then grew to a coal red.

Ocelot flipped the lighter closed and returned it to his pocket.

"Didn't think you smoked," Big Boss observed, taking a steady puff. He spoke in Russian, not yet aware that Ocelot's native language was English.

"I don't," Ocelot answered, unable to help a small smile.

"A warm welcome, huh. And how long did you practice that one?"

"These are serious talks we've been brought here for," he reminded him. "Zero--"

"Whip it out again; that was fancy."

His ears went pink. "What?"

"The lighter."

Feeling foolish, like a cat getting his tail pinned, Ocelot pulled out the lighter again. At Big Boss's prodding, he flipped open the top and ignited it, then spun it in the air, allowing it to come down snapped shut in the palm of his hand.

"Nice," said Big Boss, his eye tracking the arc of the lighter as it came down. "It's a thirties Zippo, right? That's pre-war brass."

"Yes, it is."

"It's pretty nice for someone who doesn't smoke," he observed mildly, tapping the ash from the end of his cigar. "Unless you're trying to impress somebody."

Ocelot felt his whole face flush. He steeled himself, determined to live through this meeting with his dignity intact for once. "Would you like it?" he offered nonchalantly.

Big Boss laughed, a little bit of smoke leaving his nostrils. "If I took it, Zero couldn't make you light my cigars for me the rest of the weekend."

All at once, the blood seemed to drain from Ocelot's face. He stuttered, "D-did you want me to...?"

"Jesus, if it's such a hassle..."

"No, it-- It's not."

Big Boss scratched his cheek below the eyepatch. He seemed to be studying him intently, that clear blue eye of his darting over Ocelot's face like he was reading a page from a book.

He was a quick and precise thinker, as Ocelot knew from experience. But like Zero had pointed out in their briefing yesterday, he wasn't the deepest reader of people.

Any other man might've gotten the hint. Big Boss-- John-- just shrugged, oblivious, even though Ocelot was sure his pounding heart could have been heard clear across the room.

"Whatever you like," he gruffed, which meant nothing at all.


+++++


Ocelot fought back from the edge of sleep at the last moment. He twisted, his cheek pressed against the rough blanket beneath him.

Olga was seated cross-legged at the edge of the bunk, still shirtless. She was stretching her arms, folding one over the other, flexing the tight muscles of her back.

"When I get to be your age, I guess nothing will surprise me," Olga remarked, not looking around. "How about you, Shalashaska? Anything in this world you couldn't predict?"

People, he thought.

"Music," he said. "It's nothing but fucking noise anymore."

"You sound like an old man."

"Isn't that the point?"

"How old are you, Shalashaska? I don't think even Father knows."

63 goddamn years old.

"A hundred and seven," he said.

"Fine; be that way," said Olga.


+++++


You're 28 years old, for god's sake, he told himself, as he sank into the mattress. Drunk and stripped to the waist and alone in his Carlsbad hotel room.

The twins were two weeks old. Big Boss-- John-- had just learned about them not 24 hours ago. And now he was gone. Leaving the country. Leaving the Patriots. Everything Zero and all of them had worked for. Ocelot had last seen him tearing through the equipment of Dr. Clark's lab, yelling at the top of his lungs, his voice booming through the entire cabin.

Big Boss had looked directly at him when he said the words 'power-hungry' and 'nuts.' He'd used the word 'abomination.' Then he'd tossed his cigar in Ocelot's face, thrown Zero against a wall, and then left, knocking aside whatever dared to get in his path.

Ocelot buried his face into the sheets. The skin didn't burn anymore, but his cheeks had been wet with tears since he started touching the vodka, upon returning to the hotel. He wished the mattress would just swallow him up and bury him. 28 years old! Broken over an eight-year-old crush! A stupid, pointless fixation, that would never be returned, would never be acted upon, that only made him seem flighty and ridiculous in the eyes of everyone else onboard the project...

Even in the midst of the blow-up, even with cigar ash burning his face, Ocelot hadn't been able to stop admiring the man. Simply being in his presence overruled his senses. EVA boasted about being the only one among them to actually fuck the son of a bitch, and now that she was mother to his test-tube children she might as well have been his wife, for how Zero and the organization worshipped her. Only Ocelot could see her for the whore she was. Giving her body over to the seeds of a man she had slept with once! He was the one who'd been devoted, who'd done his best to be at the man's beck and call; he was the one who'd always..!

Broad, ripped shoulders. Smirking one-eyed face, damp tousled hair hanging in his face...

Ocelot's body quivered. His right hand left the empty bottle in his grasp and let it roll across the bed onto the floor, as his fingers went to the fly of his pants and unzipped. He buried his face against his left arm as he tugged vigorously at his half-hard dick, as much a slave to teenage instincts as he was back in the jungle.

The thousandth goddamn time he'd beaten himself off like this, frustrated and dejected and sick of his own cowardice, dreaming of that golden body that would never touch him. He was weak. A woman. A crying little lovesick bitch in heat for the last eight fucking years.

The weight of his chest on top of him, twisting his arm behind his back. Heavy male scent invading his nose. A dominant scent...

Why had John left? Had the Patriots gone astray somewhere? Whom should he listen to, this man Zero, or Snake, the only guy still alive who had known the Boss well enough to call himself her son-- something not even Ocelot could make claim to?

The way his eyelashes looked against his cheek as he bent his head forward to accept a light for his cigar...

Ocelot's body jerked forward on the bed, cock thrusting into his hand as his seed spilled out of him, sticky ejaculate ribboning out onto his fingers and the bedsheets beneath him. He muffled a loud moan against his shoulder.

As his strength left him in the wake of his orgasm, the moan turned into a sob once again. Eight goddamn years. He wasn't young anymore. He didn't have an excuse.

He could only take stock of the situation and decide what was right. And stick to it from here on. What was his obsession really worth? Was it worth giving up what he knew?

The phone rang. When it didn't stop, he reached up and answered it.

"Adam?"

It was EVA.


+++++


Sergei called him on his cell phone two weeks later. His cell phone. The absolute moron.

"Comrade, I have great news!" Sergei Gurlukovich enthused over the line. A line which was no doubt tapped by at least five U.S. agencies and a dozen foreign ones. Was the man insane?

"Can it wait, my dear friend?" Ocelot asked as tidily as possible. He flexed his good arm as Naomi withdrew the needle from a vein. That was the thing about getting older: you kept needing doctors. At least he'd saved the best on the planet from an untimely prison sentence. "Perhaps I could call you back another time?"

"No, this is too important!"

If it was about the tanker, Ocelot was putting a hit out on this man in the next fifteen minutes. What did he do to deserve friends this stupid?

"Blood pressure," Naomi reminded softly, beside him. Ocelot ignored her.

"What, then, my dear comrade?" he said to Sergei on the phone.

"My daughter, Olga," Sergei said, with considerable pride. "She is pregnant with her first child!"

Although Naomi's biostat monitors indicated no such temperature drop, Ocelot felt his blood run cold.

That bitch. That bitch. That was her angle the whole time. These slavering whores and those hungry little holes of theirs, always dying to swallow up some hapless man's seed so they can grow their fucking crotchdroppings--! Did she have any idea what the fuck she had just done?

Ocelot cleared his throat. "Congratulations, my old friend. You must be--"

"I know it was you, you old dog," Sergei said slyly, just the words that shouldn't ever have been said where the Patriots might listen. "Old age never stopped the snake in your trousers, eh? You son of a bitch, if I was another man I'd kill you. Well done, you old bastard."

Ocelot's good hand gripped the edge of Naomi's medical table tightly. He swallowed and said calmly, "I don't think I follow you, comrade."

"Eh? Come on, Shalashaska, you know what I mean."

"Comrade, I love you to the depths of my heart just as I love our Mother Russia, but I would never touch that daughter of yours in a million years."

There was a long pause on the other end. Finally, Sergei Gurlukovich spoke, though not without some apparent difficulty. "You aren't playing me here, comrade?"

"If you're looking for the father, you might want to see if there's a turkey baster missing from the mess hall."

"You're disgusting, old friend. You know that, right?"

"Your daughter is a dog, my friend. You'd have to pay a man to fuck her. You know I only say it because I love you and I have to be honest with you."

There was another hurt pause. "If it was you, you'd say, of course?" Sergei clarified stiffly.

"If it was me, I'd say," Ocelot confirmed, without batting an eye.

Sergei took another silent moment to take this in and accept it. "Of course, comrade," he said at last. "I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you."

"Not at all, old friend. And let me again offer my congratulations. You must be proud. Grandchildren, and all that."

"Thank you. Yes, thank you, we are very proud. Till then, of course?"

"Till then."

He waited for the signal to clear. After a while, Ocelot realized he was still staring at the wall, the phone pressed to his ear as the End Signal tone continued to whine. Noticing that Naomi was watching him with a troubled look on her face, he quickly recovered himself and snapped the phone shut. Or just snapped it. One of the two.

Naomi pressed her lips into a tight line. She said anxiously, "Does this change anything?"

Fuck. Nothing. Everything. It depended on what the Patriots decided to buy out of all that.

This was what he got for jumping the tracks-- even for ten minutes. For wondering about the little unaccountable anomalies. There were some things you just couldn't plan for. Weather. Births and deaths. Well, deaths could be arranged.

As could the circumstances of one's birth, as he knew all too well.

Ocelot settled back in his chair, all the tension dissipating from him at once. "I think the Gurlukovich Mercenaries will soon be seeing a change in infrastructure."

"Under Olga? She seems too much of a loose cannon."

"Not for much longer."

Let the Patriots believe what they wanted. Olga's hand was forced in the same way regardless. As for his own, if he believed he had no stake in the child, then he didn't.

Simple.


+++++


They spoke for hours on the phone. Ocelot sat on the edge of the hotel bed and listened to EVA's voice like it was the only sane thing left that he knew.

He didn't think he'd ever understood her as he had then. With the world falling down around them, they'd finally found an odd sort of fellowship, something to cling to.

They talked about everything. At first it was about what to do in the next few days. Then it was what to do in the proceeding months, and then they were talking years, decades. It was too big to know the full scope of it immediately, but the shape of it would be known to them in time. And they, alone, were in the perfect position to break it. They had to. They shared in the blame just as much as anyone.

He reached into the bedside drawer and found a pack of cigars. He kept buying them lately, just to have on hand in case Snake ran out.

Big Boss was going to be in charge of his own cigars from now on, it looked like. Ocelot took one of these from the pack and bit off the end, then found the lighter that had so impressed, or at least amused, Snake a few years earlier. He listened as EVA laid out the remaining details, adding to them when appropriate.

"Here's to John," EVA said at last.

"Here's to John," Ocelot echoed. He stuck the cigar between his lips and flicked the igniter.


+++++


He found her in a heap on the deck of the ship. He pulled her upright and unstuck the half a dozen tranquilizer darts embedded along her arms and shoulders. Then he pushed the adrenaline needle into her neck.

She awoke with a start, bucking against him in his arms. Olga twisted her head to see her assailant, but Ocelot pressed a knife to her throat.

"Clever enough to pull one over me, but not enough to avoid getting overtaken by a waterlogged snake?" he growled in her ear.

She grinned roguishly. "You must have a dozen children by now. What's one more?"

"You fucked some sailor; one of your dad's men. I never went near your cunt. Are we clear, little girl?"

Olga still smirked. "Whatever you say, old man."

His bad hand, Liquid's hand, knotted its fingers in her hair and pulled. She winced, swallowing her exposed throat, every line visible in her neck.

He should have ended it there. She understood her vulnerability. Possibly, she saw a glimpse of the walls surrounding them, outside the walls she knew. Or the walls outside of that. It was like being the tiniest figure inside a Matryoshka doll, with no idea how far out the dolls really went. Ocelot was forced to accept that there might be an invisible hand guiding him as well.

But it had to be his own will that had him say what he said next, because only he could utter something so foolish.

"If it's a boy," he told her quietly, "name him John."

"Aha," Olga said, grinning at the night sky. They had had rain on and off for weeks, but it was clear now. "One of the men you fucked, huh?"

He moved the knife away from her neck, but struck her between the shoulderblades with the handle instead.

She staggered forward, laughing, doubled over from the pain.

"I get it," she said, hands braced on her knees. "The man you didn't fuck, am I right?"

Ocelot returned the knife to its sheath. He didn't dignify Olga's question with an answer, which seemed to be all the confirmation she needed. She grinned like a maniac, eyes bright and sharp like the night in the guest cabin.

"Get off the ship," Ocelot told her. "It's going to go under in ten minutes."

"No surprises for Shalashaska," Olga chuckled. "Thanks for the fuck, old man. You'll be sorry if it turns out to be a girl."


+++++


A tiny, stubby hand waved at his face, groping at his lips and chin. Finally, it knotted its fingers in his moustache.

"Ah-- David. David, no. Let go, now. David, that isn't nice--"

Dr. Clark smiled from the other side of the nursery. "I think he doesn't like your choice of facial hair."

"Everyone's a critic," Ocelot grumbled, passing the infant back to Dr. Clark's assistant. The boy took a few of his whiskers with him. "Jesus; strong grip on that little sucker."

"Good genes," Dr. Clark reminded. She held the other twin in her arms. At this stage, they looked identical. Only a look under a microscope could tell them apart. "Someday John will turn around and be proud of him. Well, hopefully he'll have reason to be proud of both of them."

Little David gurgled, drooling onto the nurse's sleeve. It was fantastically hard to imagine this fat little thing doing anything to make anyone proud, but, well, that was farsight for you. You could never totally account for the future. You could just plan around it and hope people met your expectations. They usually did, but...

"What's the other one called?" Ocelot asked, looking back over at the good doctor.

Dr. Clark held the fair-haired child in her arms like her own. "Well. We were going to name him John, but in light of what's happened that feels a bit..."

"Uh-huh."

"EVA suggested Adam before we discharged her."

"Not Adam," Ocelot said at once.

"If it was up to me I'd name him after Clint Eastwood," Dr. Clark volunteered, shifting the cooing child into a more comfortable position. "Or Bogie."

"Who?"

"Humphrey Bogart. You know, Casablanca, Maltese Falcon? ...God, you're as bad as Snake." She sighed. "I guess it doesn't really matter. What's in a name, anyway?"

"Call him Humphrey, then."

"Not Humphrey! That's such a dorky name. He'd never live it down. Oh, let's just call him John anyway."

"Not John."

"Well, what would you suggest, then?"

Ocelot hesitated. This wasn't in the plan: he shouldn't get too involved with these children, for as much as he'd be making use of them later. To go so far as to name the little snotball in Dr. Clark's arms, wasn't that... taking ownership, in some sense?

EVA. Once again, she was able to read him whether Ocelot wanted her to or not.

"...Adam, then," he said at last.

"Adam. All these Biblical names," Dr. Clark said with distaste, looking down at the child. "If it was my choice, I'd name him Patric. Or Cameron."

"Adam, already. For god's sake, woman."

"Fine. Don't forget it."


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end
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