Chapter Text
“At a certain. No, by a certain point.. the mountain had no top. Yeah. No obtainable peak. What should’ve stayed obvious in the 80's; when the lesson and understanding took root did not maintain its grasp. Or ideology. Because once a second opportunity was within my grasp…I seized it with everything left kicking or screaming.”
Dutifully, the recorder chugs along. Registering only heavy breaths and deep, grounding pauses.
“I already saw what mind-clouding, poison breathing revenge led to. But the chance..the ability to eliminate another endless source point of pain made me forget-er-willfully ignore what damage it would do, and. Ah. Fuck it.”
A hand not his own, encased in red leather pushes the ‘stop’ button. There’s no need to move, he felt him coming. Even though he was unusually quiet in his approach.
“Poetic.” Only slightly mocking. “That for David’s conscience, or to clear your own?”
“Won’t do either of us much good, but it felt pointless to just..not say anything. Unless you burn it after.”
He couldn’t promise what Ocelot would do with anything he owned after the fact. Registering movement, grunting when there’s sudden weight in his lap. Frowning when it feels considerably less than it should.
Shuffles to accommodate. He’s left the prosthetics off and has only his bare fingertips to trace with. Long strands beneath them, pulled free of the braid. Scratchy mustache still the same as he recalled.
Skin more weathered, like his own..
“Would be rude to burn it, I think.” Lips chapped when he kisses him. Dry.
“The chapstick you stole from me give up already?” Kaz mocks.
“Oh, I haven’t been using it. After all, there will be so little of you left.”
Kaz swallows the morbid statement beneath his own lips, tugging at Ocelot’s bottom one with his teeth until he caves.
~~
They’d discussed options. In hollow-voiced, matter-of-fact terms that felt blasé for the subject matter. Both resolute and almost detached from the inevitable.
The gun was the first suggestion. Ruled out soon after for the mess. Knife was needlessly painful and did not accommodate a clean scene.
Strangling seemed a viable option, but..extensive.
Finally, Ocelot suggested drugs. Simple. Painless if science and morgue stories were to be believed. Practical.
Ocelot would be left with the rest after. But Kaz made some crack about how it was the least he could do, all things considered.
~~
Time made for a sluggish pull in the rapidly heating room. Flakes of snow bat against the closed window, barricaded from the swelting climb in the room. Kaz gropes for his face, hands. Runs shaking fingers down his back, tears rivulets of blood into his spine. Groans when the welts formulate beneath the tips and leave trailing, slick warmth against the flesh. Arches and groans and hopes Ocelot hears the sound in his head for weeks on end.
Knows he would, knows he wouldn’t forget even if he went back to the familiar rhythms. Old trigger phrases and disconnected facts.
“Wouldn’t want to.” Ocelot hisses, choked off against his neck, reading his mind with no effort on his part. Responding to how loud he’s being in kind. He’d always relished making him shatter to broken pieces. Picking him back up and putting him back together after.
“Better not, old fuck.” Largely sobbed from the increasing push of hips too old to be moving that fast, that strong. Feels an ache in his pelvis and loops the strong, full leg about his narrow hips, encourages more despite the rattling in his chest. Laughs when he gets a breathless huff in return.
Take what time they have, switch positions, and move with all the hurry of molasses down a slope. Kaz bites (what he hopes are) patterns into his neck, chest, arms. Leaves lips so swollen he can feel them against his own, skin so slick he needs Ocelot’s help clinging to him. Blankets long discarded to who knew and who cared where. Pants in the aftermath and latches to him, refuses to let him shift.
Deep, still.
~~
“I’m going to haunt you, you know.” Resolute against the nerves. Stating it like a guarantee he can’t actually promise.
“I hope for as much.” Tiny glass cracks to the voice you’d have to strain to hear. Were you not intimately familiar with his various ways of speaking.
Needle hovers between them. Ocelot keeps stroking the fine hairs against his neck, hesitating in a way wholly unlike him.
Kaz’s heart rate picks up violently. Panic making his head swim. Old words and wounds pass by in a sharp flash. Thinks of things he should say. Moments that shouldn’t be left hanging. Wonders if he’ll find his mother. Boss.
Thinks about leaving David adrift. What a horrendous disservice and further betrayal is coming forth. Every mistake, every broken body left in his wake.
“I’ll handle it.” Jolts because he hadn’t registered Ocelot moving. Inhales on a frightened sob when the plunger stabs with deceptive gentleness into his neck. Near where his jack hammering heart threatens to burst.
I’m not ready. Adam, stop! I’m not!
But what good is it? That ending was penned decades past. Sealed with the withdraw of the syringe and Ocelot’s slowly stroking fingertips.
So slow. So warm. Even as that warmth starts a steady fade.
“You better…” turns his head in what he believes is the right direction. Confirmed quickly by the bump of Ocelot’s nose at his cheek.
“I won’t.” Knowing, of course, exactly what he was to say. “Save me a spot. Keep a fire burning.”
~~
Kaz remembers nothing after that.
It takes a long time to understand that he’s present again, but not physically so.
First thing he sees is his home, still standing but with a tiny shrine. Snowfall outside to signal it is still winter, and a pair of Ocelot’s gloves before his own photograph.
Sight. Real, true sight, Eyes that perceive objects, visuals. Kaz reaches out for the gloves. Assuming he’ll phase right through them. Shocked when instead, he feels images take root. A place.
A focal point to follow.
Only a blink, and there’s Ocelot in the flesh. Talking to people unseen to Kaz. Impossible not to notice how he stiffens. Coat off, it puts his shoulders more on display. Allows the play of muscles to have prevalence beneath the waistcoat and dress shirt.
“I understand.” Voice clipped, professional. Strange. “Yes Boss. I’ll call you back shortly.” The phone serves as explanation to why Kaz saw only him.
Kaz floats in front of him before he’s the chance to turn around. Winks because he can’t think of anything else to do.
“Strange.” Ocelot says, “I almost didn’t want to count on that.”
“Did it take long?”
“It’s been a month. I cremated you the same night.”
It’s a little odd, how peaceful Kaz feels. Ocelot appears to be thinking the same, studying his shimmering form somewhat dubiously.
“Did you like your shrine?” as if at loss for something to say. Odd, for him.
“Was that really the best photo you had of me on hand?”
Reaches out, is met with static air and little to grasp. Kaz vaguely wonders if he’ll start manifesting better with practice. Or if they’ll be stuck in the limbo of him being just that short end of present-but untouchable.
Shoves the uncomfortable, lingering dread of that aside for the moment. Watches the little twitch of mustache when his lips pull into a smirk. “It’s a favourite of mine, you know. And the first one I ever got of you.”
Kaz makes to swallow, but little happens. There’s nothing to swallow. “Old’s the word for it. Where’d it come from?”
“Some beach or another, before you joined Cipher.” Fond sparkle of old mischief in the light grey he could recall even long after sight was negligible at best. Little strange to see them again so clearly. “I stole it. Very treasured possession.”
“Freak.” As if he’d have not done the same.
Leans forward in the strange hyperspace of heaviness created between them. Full, flesh and body mingled with static human and flickering presence. Low voiced with walls that have ears. “The speedo made for a very compelling argument.”
~~
Ocelot’s long-running, utterly convoluted scheme to bring down the Patriot’s is at times incomprehensible to Kaz. He’d hardly understood the nitty gritty of it in life, and in death and pouring over laid out plans with Ocelot until who knew what hour, it makes less sense than it had even then.
“Don’t rankle over it so much.” Ocelot sighs, “It’s no blow to your intelligence. I am altering as I go, after all.”
The only straight thing about Ocelot was his schemes, end of the day. Kaz hovers around him and focuses his presence. Still trying to get used to securing himself more firmly. He wouldn’t quite refer to it as “developing” but lacked any better alternative way of describing it.
“You and I are no saints.” Earns a snort from Ocelot because yes fine-that’s the understatement of the century, “But Zero..”
“Operated on a different level. He had different visions. Once that does not situate with human will, or authority. Could never make him understand that. Human will can’t be replicated by anything but humans. No AI, no matter how intelligent or self-sufficient, is going to officially, effectively recreate the functions of a human brain. It can assume a mockup of it, and fashion a mirror image, but it’ll never have the necessary mechanisms. Zero never realized that. Or chose to ignore it.”
The frown is deep, penetrating. In the harsh, sterile lights he looks so much older Kaz shifts to hover more closely to his side, staring at the long lines and paper-thin cheeks. Wishes he could touch.
Tries, and gets a tiny little shiver.
Sensation, however brief and thin. But something.
Encouraged, he keeps going. “They’re always just machines, end of the day. A machine can be as intelligent as a human but will never have emotion.”
“No.” Voice slightly hoarse, catching Kaz off guard, “No they never will.”
~~
“Who taught him that?” Kaz accuses. “I do not sound like that.” Petty because the voice is familiar enough to be creepy.
Ocelot bats him away slightly from where Kaz keeps messing up his handwriting by jolting the pen. “Who do you think, smart-ass?”
“Fascinating.” Stealing the pen entirely. “I bet Liquid just loved listening to you for hours on end. ‘Oh, come off it, Ocelot!’ Mimicking Liquid’s infuriating accent best as he could recall. ‘I remember what the crotchety old git sounded like just fine without your senseless, painstakingly detailed lessons assaulting my ears’!
Another pen was fished from the desk amidst Kaz’s attempted recreation, Ocelot eyeing him wearily.
“And I thought I had a headache before.”
“Master Mind Games has a headache?” Kaz would gasp if he breathed still. “Losing your touch old bugger!”
Long suffering, familiar stare meets him, flicking the pen at his forehead. Kaz dodges even though it would probably phase straight through him. Smirks when it clatters to the floor.
“Ocelot!” Aforementioned Liquid poking his head through the sliding door, “If you’re going to continue to argue with yourself close the goddamned door.”
“Isn’t he cold?” Kaz muses, when Ocelot waves him off, uses the button on his desk to close the door anew.
“I’m sure his chronic anger keeps the blood pumping. Sound familiar?”
Ocelot gets ice-cold fingertips down the back of his neck for the comment. Draws in a sharp breath and refuses to turn around. “Careful, nobody else can see me after all.”
They’d determined that fairly quickly. Kaz hadn’t made a full round of the facilities yet, but aside of Mantis getting a tiny bit jittery near him, nobody else has registered his presence. Though Kaz phased out entirely when Ocelot toured the basement and there was an all-to-familiar hunched over little form before an array of computer equipment.
“Is that a fucking Emmerich.” Kaz hissed, only re-manifesting again back in Ocelot’s office-after some gentle coaxing in the form of ‘If you’re going to have a hissy fit at least leave, it drops the temperature in here’.
“They are nothing alike.” Ocelot decreed, “Believe me.”
“Ah yes, and REX down there is definitely a unique personal decision with no nuclear genetic predisposition.” Kaz hissed, jabbing his nose with a subzero-esque finger.
“And recovering Peace Walker from Lake Nicaragua was an excellent deterrent, wasn’t it?” Ocelot rebounded, effortlessly, Kaz flickering out of existence once more.
“Besides!" Ocelot calls out into the empty space, “This one only really cares about computers and anime.”
Kaz reappears seated on his desk, single leg swinging back and forth menacingly. “I beg your pardon.” All disbelieving hiss and low rumbled growl.
Non-committal shrug, ‘see for yourself’.
(Several hours and many episodes of some show or another later, he’s convinced that there’s some compelling arguments to be made for the merits of the genre. Ocelot has no real comment to that, claiming he got too fidgety watching it)
He’d always been bad at trying to sit still and watch something for more than an hour or two. So that’s nothing to argue about.
~~
When he’s not required to be on base, Kaz makes him sleep in his home. He can manifest the strongest-and for the longest periods of time there, and the fires hearth is more comforting than those hideous metal and cement walls.
“Your shower’s definitely an improvement.” Ocelot groans deeply into the pounding steam, head molded to light blue tiles. Kaz hovers cross-legged in the air in front of him, poised and triumphant.
“Anything has to be over that steel prison.” Flicks water droplets at him. Delighted by the fact he can. As physically present as he possibly can be. Knows Ocelot doesn’t regret what he’s doing-and doesn’t care for that.
Doesn’t stop him from unfurling, shifting himself around the water to get closer, stands nose-to-nose with him and dares him to try. When Ocelot pushes his own hand up, the static air becomes heavier. Not quite touching, but enough that it’s a distinctive presence against Kaz’s own chest.
“Can you feel that?”
“Not exactly.” Tries to imagine how to word it, stumbles over the phrases in his head. “But you’re there, it’s like..a heaviness.”
“Good enough, then.” No sense over complicating the naturally complicated. Shifts himself around to test the theory anyway. Ocelot can register far more than he and responds with an attractive shake when Kaz works his own hand across his shoulders, down his arm. Tracing across his stomach, hip.
“Not so cold, with the water.” Voice cracking strangely. Hearing him so unbidden makes Kaz bolder, tracing down further until he can grip him properly. Triumphant in the low, shaky rumble he gets in return.
“That?”
“I feel that.” Knew he did, but the confirmation pleases him. Intensifies his ego and makes him stroke slow, shimmering fingers down the shaft, along the veins.
“Yeah? Tell me.”
“Warm, not super heavy. Looser than my own hand. Not soft or coarse, no real texture at all but it’s nice.” Pleased with how breathless he sounded, how desperate. Kaz’s own body can’t react-not the way it used to, but there’s pinpricks of sensation that run through what exists of his form. Little jolts of pleasure that give him a good feeling without a concrete physical one.
Bizarre, but not un-enjoyable. Strokes more slowly, methodically. Accepts the hand that tries to grip his head but can’t really manage. Leans up to give him more weight but there’s little to achieve.
“S’alright.” Kaz laughs, all too pleased with the fluttering of closing eyes and rapidly picking up heart rate. “Just leave it to me.” Shimmers slightly beneath the flow of water, lets the steam give him more concrete form. Takes in the way Ocelot leans fully back against the tiles, eyes tightly closed, mouth open and panting shallowly. Briefly, amazingly, at a loss for words.
Centering himself, his presence, Kaz grips him tighter, firmer. Strokes higher, then lower, leans all the way in and tries to lick at him but only gets a slightly puzzled grumble in return. Undeterred, switches to lean his chin into his ear, knowing that even without a breath, his voice carries pleasant weight.
“You never let anyone take care of you. Took forever to get you down far enough to lean back and let me take over. I tied you up once, even drugged you. You remember it?”
“Course.” Huffed laughter, “Almost impossible to drug me effectively-and you knew that.”
“I did.” Relaxes and tightens his fist, squeezes to get that delightful shiver from him. “I’m sure you were just humouring me, but eventually..”
“Was a remarkable effort, enough to give me pause.”
Kaz took real pride in being good at giving pleasure. Even in their most chaotic, violent encounters, the pleasant pulse to his ego when Ocelot came, or fell asleep, or both, was a victory worth relishing.
It’s no different now, despite the circumstances, the aggressive passage of time. If anything, it’s a tiny bit faster. Even the legendary stamina no match for Kaz’s single-focused deliverance of pleasure. Of expert fingers and low, growling encouragement.
“Open your eyes.” When he knows he’s right there. Victorious in the immediate response, the scrabbling fingertips slick against wet tiles, and full-bodied shudder that brings warmth to his closed hand. Would be sticky if he could register that type of texture but is instead only warm and slick.
Wants to kiss him, settles on his victory and the present, static heat.
~~
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*Click*
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*Click*
“Mr. Woods, I can’t possibly run away with you! It would be so unacceptable to the Gregorian Ladies Committee!”
*Smash*
The TV screen flickers harmlessly for a moment, before it makes a pathetic, electronic whine and dies. The chucked remote aimed with frightening accuracy, Ocelot’s glare menacing in the dark.
Kaz flickers out of existence, snickering.
Fine, he can let the old man sleep.
For now.