in the quiet loop. (solid snake x reader)

10 - don't die on me.

The mission was clear, but the leads were few.

The Patriots had buried everything under layers of encrypted firewalls and dead-end trails, scattered across the fractured remnants of Arsenal Gear's data core. Otacon worked relentlessly, fingers flying across keys on his laptop. Raiden scanned every thread of military intel he could access, reaching out to old channels.

And Snake... Snake sat by the corner near the window, the city lights glimmering like stars, trying to breathe through smog. He lit a cigarette, but he didn't smoke it. He leaned back, one arm bracing against the rusted rail of the window, the other holding the cigarette limply between his fingers.

Somewhere out there, you were alive. He had to believe that, but your absence gnawed at him, carving a space that his pragmatism couldn't fill.

He remembered the little things first. The way you always hummed "Fly Me To The Moon" when you worked. Off-key, sometimes slow and dreamy, sometimes swinging your hips like you were dancing alone in a space you only understood. You claimed it calmed you down. Snake had once teased you about it, and you told him the moon was the only place untouched by war.

Then there were the mornings you shared with Otacon. You'd barge in the room blasting K-pop through your comm unit just to get on Otacon's nerves. Otacon would groan and dramatically threaten to defect to another timeline where only Japanese pop existed, while you playfully swore you'd convert him by the end of the week.

Snake would smirk quietly every time. It was annoying, but in a way that softened the hard edges of their world.

Then his memory wandered further, unbidden to that one incident – the changing room. He had opened the door without knocking. He didn't expect to see you halfway into a shirt, your bare back to him, skin warm and golden under fluorescent light, hair a mess from just waking up.

You turned sharply, surprised, but not ashamed. Snake, on the other hand, stood frozen.

"Snake," you said flatly. "You're still staring."

He backed out so quickly that he tripped on the doorframe, muttering a string of apologies that felt pitiful even as he said them. He locked himself in the bathroom a full hour after that, trying to convince himself he hadn't seen the curve of your spine or the glimpse of skin above your waistband. That he definitely hadn't like it.

But it didn't stop there.

Over time, you made him feel things. He noticed your laugh before your words. The curve of your lips when you teased him. The subtle way you'd bump his shoulder when walking past, just to make him acknowledge you. How you never treated him like a weapon.

And sometimes, during the long nights patrolling together, when it was just the two of you under the stars, speaking in whispers, he'd catch himself staring. Letting his mind wander, wondering what it would be like to touch your face, how you'd look undressed. But not just naked – vulnerable.

He never acted on it. Not just because of the mission, or the chaos that surrounded them, but because he didn't think he deserved you. Not with blood on his hands, not with death trailing his footsteps like a shadow.

But now, with you missing, it hurt worse in places he thought had gone numb. Snake exhaled slowly, and the cigarette burned out against the window.

"Snake," Otacon called softly from the cabin, breaking the silence. "I found something."

Snake rose and walked back inside without a word. Otacon hunched over the terminal, eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. Lines of corrupted data flickered on the screen with an avalanche of junk code, misdirects, and dead ends. But something in the patterns caught Otacon's attention.