in the quiet loop. (solid snake x reader)

16 - the distance between us.

"But for what?" Snake asked.

Otacon only looked down. "I don't even know."

They stood there in silence, watching the data scroll by with endless lines of code, spliced memories, manufactured traumas. A manufactured mind. Snake stood nearby, arms crossed tightly over this chest, the weight of the recent revelations still sinking in.

"She never said anything," he muttered. "But I saw it. Every night, when I was near her. The shaking. The cold sweat. Sometimes she'd whisper things in her sleep. Names. Places. Commands."

Otacon frowned, attention pulled toward the scanner again. "That's... strange. Those aren't exactly bedtime stories."

Snake stepped closer. "Here's what I don't get. Why did it only happen when I was nearby? Especially at night? When we were on the same floor, or in the same room—her episodes got worse."

Otacon narrowed his eyes, tapping a few keys to bring up Snake's biometric and nanomachine data. "Let me cross-reference something. Maybe the proximity triggered something."

He ran a quick synchronization scan using the data they had from your nanomachine frequency readings and Snake's own nanomachines. Several warning pings flashed across the screen.

Otacon's eyes widened. "Oh god..."

"What?" Snake asked, his voice sharp.

Otacon turned to him. "Snake... I think your FOXDIE might be the trigger."

Snake stared at him, not moving. "You're saying FOXDIE caused her nightmares?"

Otacon nodded grimly. "Not directly. But think about what FOXDIE is... it's a retrovirus engineered to target specific DNA sequences. It mutates inside your body. The virus has to constantly scan for certain gene markers in people around you."

Snake tensed. "And?"

"And the Patriots' nanomachines inside her must have been programmed to detect FOXDIE's signal. When they sensed it, her nanomachines likely activated the memory loops. Maybe as a failsafe. Maybe as some kind of psychological warfare experiment."

"Or conditioning," Snake added, eyes dark.

"Exactly. FOXDIE was never just a weapon. It was a key. A trigger. Every time she was near you, especially when your vitals were at rest, like at night... her nanomachines must've interpreted your FOXDIE signature as a cue. It responded by flooding her neural pathways with those implanted memories."

Snake's fists clenched. "So I was the reason she kept suffering."

Otacon's expression softened. "You didn't know, and she probably didn't either."

Snake stood still for a long while, his shadow cast across the console bathed in the glow of diagnostic scans and nanomachines schematics. "Why her?"

Otacon didn't answer right away. He adjusted his glasses and stared at the data. "The patriots might've known who she was to you."

Snake looked up, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

"I mean it," Otacon continued. "We don't know how deep their surveillance went, but they watched everything. They must've known the moment you cared for someone."

Snake exhaled slowly, almost like it hurt. He shifted his weight and sat heavily on the bench near the diagnostics table, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees. His hands rubbed together slowly.

"She always looked at me like I was something more than what I was," he muttered. "Even when I was pushing her away. Even when I stopped answering. She still stayed. Always came back."