Random meeting between Snake and Foxhound that didn't really happen, but perhaps Snake will dream it or something. Set before he gets in the fight with Sicarus. 2284 words. !

The Wastes were just as nondescript as usual—rocks, sand, snow, and wind. Now it had even begun throwing a little bit of rain into the mixture, freezing and sleeting stuff that made you wish you were dead rather than feel its damp chill biting its way to your bones. Snake was out here scoping the area. Inferni had grown large over the past few weeks—with every passing day it seemed as though there were more underfed vagrants wanting to hop aboard for a permanent home and reliable food. The fact that they were at war didn’t matter to them, it didn’t seem. Snake didn’t understand that, just as he didn’t understand pacifists. War was not something to be talked about lightly, to be thrown around like a clown juggling. It was a serious topic, especially for the trained soldier. His life had been based around strife and warfare—not being very serious about it around him was like blaspheming in the presence of a staunch Roman Catholic.

It was drizzling now, making things unbearable. The snow that had accumulated on the sharp rocks was turning into slush that made his feet numb, despite the fact that he pressed on. He felt the need to get out of Inferni, though he couldn’t go too far. The wind had died down now, though the misting of the frigid water persisted. Snake frowned, his hands in the pockets of his ragged pants as he continued along. He might have been thinking, but he thought of nothing. He was just then passing into an area of cliffs and rocky overhangs when he heard something that was like a bolt from the blue. A voice that he knew perhaps better than his own, and one that he had never wanted to hear again.

“Brother!” it called, arrogance radiating from the tone. Snake’s bandanna-wearing head snapped up and he saw there, in the flesh, his twin brother standing on a ledge maybe ten feet above him.

Snake had taken after his father in looks—that was where he had gotten his sandy-gold fur color with his cream underbelly, though the darker saddle along his back was a small influence of his mother’s. Foxhound, on the other hand, resembled Nikita. He was very dark-furred, nearly resembling an agouti-patterned wolf. There was a black saddle along his back, and gold highlights woven amongst his sides and face. He looked so familiar, and yet so drastically different. How old they seemed now! They were both just about full grown, and Foxhound had not seemed to have slacked off. He was powerful now, just as strong as Snake had grown in Inferni. But perhaps the one thing that shocked him about his brother the most (besides his presence in general) was what covered his left eye. It was a black eye patch, fastened around his head with a thin cord. The dark coyote smirked as he noticed his brother’s gaze fall upon him—his olive eyes, identical to Snake’s and to their parents, glittered with a mad light. With one fluid movement Snake’s twin slid down from his vantage point, taking one step towards the Hydra. Snake took one step back, dropping down into a defensive position. Bad memories were biting at his heels, horrors and screams lurking in his eyes and ears. He couldn’t for the life of him believe that this was happening.

“Do you like it?” the dark-furred coyote sneered, pointing rudely at the black piece of fabric that covered an eye that was no longer there. “You should; it’s partly your damn fault that it happened. I was tailing you and dear old Mom with Patriot and the rest of them when we caught up with Gray. I gave him what he deserved as a traitor, but not before he got my eye.” Foxhound’s expression suddenly twisted, going from a dark mirth to a horrid mask of hatred. “Coward!” he suddenly snapped, his green eyes mad. The fur along Snake’s spine prickled with fear and memory—he knew Foxhound’s wild mood swings. They were a reason why he had voided himself of these things. They were frightening, unorthodox, and irrational. He never knew when his twin was going to snap. It looked as though he had a little further to go. “How dare you steal away from him. He who trained you? Let you live, keep your pathetic life? And for what—so you can come over here and try to pretend none of it ever happened?” Foxhound’s expression darkened even more, wicked teeth flashing in his snarl, “It’s too bad that Mommy isn’t with you anymore, though. I would have loved to deal with you both at once.”

Though he didn’t notice it and wouldn’t remember it, the corner of Snake’s lip twitched, revealing his teeth. A rare emotional response from him, but the thought of Foxhound harming his mother was something that made him strangely angry. “You will not find her,” he said in a grave tone, watching his brother for that break that would soon come. “She is safe now, Foxhound. And she—she is with our father.”

That seemed to stump the brown-furred coyote. He paused, his face losing its rage for a moment as he tried to pick up the pieces and put them together. For him, it was more like mashing them together until they fit. “What are you talking about?” he finally said in exasperation, his anger returning full-force. “With Father? I just left him, and he is in New Haven and she is not there!” Snake knew how much it would enrage Foxhound to know that he knew something and he didn’t.

“Our real father, Foxhound. Have you deluded yourself into thinking that Patriot is your father? No, I met our real one. His name is Laurel, and he is a coyote like us,” he said calmly. He looks just like me, he thought blithely, odd in this situation but he didn’t think on it. He was focusing on his brother, watching his reactions. They were not good. “Liar. Liar!” he hissed, spat, raged. “I know my own father, and he sent me here! I am going to force you back home, or I will bring you back in pieces!”

Foxhound darted forward, so much more quickly than Snake remembered. He had been practicing. But Snake watched, waiting like the viper, observing the movements of his muscles. But he couldn’t think fast enough—Foxhound crashed into him and they both crashed into the slush-covered stones. Luckily Snake did not fall onto a particularly pointy one, or else he would have died right then and there. But his head cracked against one and he saw stars for a moment. When he focused once more, he had to act fast to save his life. Foxhound’s claws had fastened like vices around his shoulders, but that did not stop him from using his arms. Snake reached upwards suddenly, grabbing at the thick fur of where Foxhound’s neck met his shoulders. He tried to wrestle control from him, but they were very evenly matched. Neither could move their arms from the death grip as the other would have a moment of opportunity, and Foxhound’s jaws snapped in vain right before Snake’s nose. Finally he decided to take a very risky action. Snake could feel the bones, muscles, ligaments shifting beneath his clenched fists as Foxhound’s body started to shift. He immediately threw his brother to the side, rolling over onto all fours and beginning to shift himself.

This was where Snake usually had the advantage. He could focus much easier and shift forms much faster than Foxhound. In under a minute and a half he was in Secui form, tail lashing and teeth bared. But Foxhound had gotten a head start, and he was ready for him. The dark twin rushed forward just as he had the first time, and again Snake could not anticipate or dodge his assault. Foxhound’s savage jaws clamped on Snake’s shoulder, sundering the flesh beneath the thick fur. The coyote grunted in pain, but did not cry out—he was already ignoring it. He took his opposite paw and placed it on Foxhound’s shoulder, leaning back and whipping his body violently from side-to-side. Foxhound was thrown off, his teeth separating from his brother’s shoulder with a spattering of blood. Snake used the momentum to flip them, now pinning Foxhound on his back. Using the moment that the one-eyed coyote was stunned, his teeth scythed out and slashed deep into the darker twin’s chest. And yet the thick pelt of his form protected him from simply bleeding out and dying there, but it was not a wound that he would forget.

But it made him angrier.

With a howl that seemed to come from the pits of hell itself, Foxhound coiled his hind legs and used them to kick out at Snake, launching the sandy-gold coyote several feet away. He hit the ground heavily, sliding several inches before coming to a halt. He was tired, breathing heavily, though he struggled to his feet in time to catch the next rush. Foxhound reared up on his hind legs, so Snake did the same. Their forelegs locked around one another’s shoulders and they dueled with teeth, fangs flashing and scoring one another on the face, neck, anything open. Snake’s bandanna was brushed off by one of the slashes; it fluttered to the ground, torn and damp with the misty rain and the slushy snow underfoot.

In the end, the faceoff was put into Foxhound’s favor. The Boss from New Haven overpowered Snake, pushing him to the rocky ground once more. Snake was exhausted, stunned, and ready for it to end. He did not fear death—he preferred it to going back to New Haven. Perhaps there was peace in death. Perhaps there was no war there. Perhaps he could be there and finally be at home without the threat of violence calling his name once more. He had nearly consigned himself to oblivion when Foxhound finally caught his breath and, with a gurgling laugh, struck.

But there was a flash of intervention, surging through Snake’s body and giving him that one last bit of energy. He lashed out with one of his hind legs, slashing at the thinner fur on Foxhound’s underbelly. His fangs stopped inches away from Snake’s neck, widening in a yowl of pain. He fell backwards from his brother, dropping to the ground and writhing for a moment as the pain tore through his system. Foxhound had never learned to deal with it as Snake had. The blond coyote stood and stepped back, watching with cold green eyes.

It was not a mortal blow to Foxhound, though he knew that one would soon follow if he continued. He put himself back together, trying to ignore the fiery pain from his chest and his stomach as he faced his brother. “This isn’t over. I’m a Boss back home, Snake. They won’t let this stand. I’ll come next time with more of them.”

Snake’s face was impassive, looking strangely open without the bandanna obscuring his eyes. It was marred with blood and open wounds, though, which made his eyes burn. He didn’t reply for a moment and then said with a growl of a voice, “Do what you must, Foxhound. I’ll be ready.”

The one-eyed twin was about to make his escape, moving as swiftly as he could with how he was wounded for several feet. Then he turned around to Snake, his one eye blazing with hatred. “Don’t you think you can ever escape this, Snake. Creatures like us, we don’t live normal lives. We’re weapons—killing and destroying is the only thing we’re good for. There is no creation or joy for us.” Oddly enough, the anger and violence in his tone was beginning to fade, replaced with a bitterness and anguish that even mirrored Snake’s on the subject. These were two living weapons who sometimes yearned for life that was normal. “No matter how long you live with them, no matter how much you fool yourself into believing you are like them, you are not. We’re broken gears in this machine, Snake—all we do is fuck everything up. And this—it can’t change.”

Then Foxhound left, leaving a trail of dark blood in the snow as he went. Snake sat, breathing heavily before pausing to lick at his wounds as best as he could. He was bruised and beaten, and he knew that he would have to recover. He still had a pack to protect, duties to perform. Foxhound and his intervention would not change anything.

And yet it had stirred up so many evil memories from where Snake had been locking them away. Was it true? Was he really nothing but a negative influence in this world—something that sewed destruction and pain rather than anything else? These thoughts caught in the mind of the troubled youth as he drug himself, beaten and bloody, back to his den where he gave himself as much first aid as he thought was necessary. Then he locked himself in the automobile that he lived in and tried to fall asleep. It was hard—nearly impossible. Thoughts were whirling in his head like planets around a sun, none seeming to line up or make sense.

He wanted sleep. He wanted sleep like death. Quiet, solitary—peace. Was it peace that his soul craved so? Laughable that a weapon should yearn for such a thing. His last thought before he drifted to sleep was that if he ever achieved peace, he would no longer have meaning. Only when he had achieved peace would he die.