Your skin was slicked with sweat and paled, your chest heaved as your mind screamed about the most recent night terror you'd just endured that left you writhing and tangled in your sheets. With a shaky breath you pried the damp sweats from your form as you swung your legs over the side of the small bed you and your other child soldier peers had been given. You didn't trust any of your peers to comfort you despite how terrified your were, you were the youngest and they all knew that and treated you like a toddler

Instead, your mind crept to the figure who'd kicked open the cell door and shot the chains off your ankle before leading you to Pequod. You'd been terrified and the way he'd coaxed you out of the cell was by slipping the small headphones over your ears and hitting play on his Walkman as a song began to swell over the sounds of gun shots and yelling. When you'd been safe on Mother Base, he'd ruffled your hair and told murmured an attempt at comfort as he stated that you'd been very brave before sending you off with your peers. Snake didn't seem particularly approachable from a visual standpoint, tall and gruff with huge scars and a chunk of shrapnel in his head. And yet that was who you thought of now that you needed some kind of paternal comfort.

Your shoes squeaked quietly as you began wandering the cold halls of the base in an attempt to find him which you were soon successful with. With the limited light of the buzzing lights, all dimmed to save power and turning off with a click when you left their censors, you huffed quietly and fumbled with the knob for a few seconds before pushing open the door, he seemed to still be asleep and you couldn't figure out if it was alright to wake him. Instead standing by his head as you waited for him to notice you which he eventually did as he jolted upright and stared at you for a few moments before speaking. Caution evident in his tone, clearly as startled as you were before he eventually spoke while noting your tear streaked face "Hey, kid."