The first thing you notice is the blood.

Not because of the colour. Everything in the jungle eventually becomes the same colour anyway. Mud. Sweat. Rotting leaves. Bruises yellowing at the edges. Dried blood dark enough to almost disappear against skin. But Snake is walking strangely. One shoulder hangs lower than the other. His breathing sounds careful. Deliberate.

Like every inhale has to be negotiated with his ribs first.

It is the posture of somebody holding themselves together manually.

You look up from the half-cleaned combat knife sitting across your knees. The whetstone stills immediately.

Snake pauses in the doorway without speaking.

For a second neither of you says anything at all.

The rain outside drums steadily against the metal roofing overhead. Somewhere deeper in the jungle something screeches — distant and animal and ugly enough to sound almost human. The entire room smells like damp fabric, gun oil, sweat, and old medical supplies.

Snake leans one hand against the wall.

That is what finally gives him away.

He never leans against things unless he absolutely has to.

“You’re limping,” you say quietly.

Snake shrugs once like even the movement physically hurts him.

“Barely.”

Which means bad.

You stare at him for another few seconds before setting the knife aside carefully on the table beside you.

“You got shot again.”

“It grazed me.”

“You say that every time.”

Snake says nothing.

There is mud caked thick around the legs of his uniform. One sleeve has been half torn open near the shoulder seam. The bandages beneath are already soaked through dark. You can tell just from looking at him that he has not slept properly in at least two days.

Probably longer.

Snake had always carried exhaustion strangely. Other soldiers slumped beneath it. Became slower. Softer around the edges. But exhaustion sharpened him instead. Hollowed him out into something quieter and more dangerous.

Like an animal surviving winter.

You hate noticing things like that.

Especially because Snake never seems to notice the way you look at him.

Or maybe he does.

Maybe he just pretends not to.

“Sit down,” you say eventually.

Snake gives you a look that hovers somewhere between annoyance and reluctant obedience.

“You giving orders now?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

Then, somehow, miraculously, Snake actually listens.

He lowers himself onto the edge of the cot with visible restraint, jaw tightening immediately afterwards like the movement pulled at something deep beneath the bandages. You move automatically toward the medical kit sitting open nearby.

This routine has happened enough times now that neither of you really needs to speak through it anymore.

Scissors.

Alcohol.

Fresh gauze.

Hands steady despite everything.

Snake watches you quietly while you work.

The silence between you has never felt uncomfortable. Not really. If anything it has become its own form of communication over time. Entire conversations happening in unfinished gestures and tired eye contact and the way Snake instinctively shifts closer whenever you reach for him.

The first time you stitched him up he could barely look at you.

Now he sits completely still.

Trusting.

That might honestly be worse.

“You missed one,” you murmur.

Snake blinks slowly. “What?”

You tap lightly against a smaller cut hidden near his collarbone. Snake glances downward like he genuinely had not noticed it existed.

“…Huh.”

You exhale sharply through your nose.

“That’s not normal.”

“What part?”

“The part where you stop registering damage like a human being.”

Snake actually laughs quietly at that.

It catches you off guard enough that you look up immediately.

The sound is rough. Brief. Exhausted.

But real.

For a moment he looks younger when he does it.

Not younger physically. There is too much fatigue carved permanently into him now for that. But younger in the sense that you can almost see the version of him that existed before all of this. Before military doctrine and survival instinct hollowed him out into something built entirely around endurance.

It vanishes quickly.

Everything soft about Snake vanishes quickly.

You press fresh gauze carefully against the worst of the bleeding.

Snake sucks in a breath through his teeth but otherwise stays motionless.

“You should rest,” you say.

“Can’t.”

“You physically can.”

“Not what I meant.”

You know.

That is the problem.

Snake always says things like that in the flattest tone imaginable, but you understand every hidden meaning underneath anyway.