.... Well goddamnit, now I'm desperate for more.

I'm dead serious. This story is almost like the Adult FanFic section's "Nucleus Incident". That's how epic this is; I'm not even slightly exaggerating.

It's a damn good thing I'm patient.

Sorry I got you guys addicted :P Here's the continuation story.

Title: Always Another Dawn
Chapter One: Soldiers Without Uniforms
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, hints of others if you squint (though most could be taken as friendships)
Summary: What to do when it's all over.
Author's Notes: Sequel to 'Stolen Kisses'. Big shocker, it is named after a film (chapter title also a film).



“See?” I swept my arm towards the closed door of the resupply. There was a severed arm there in the hall that would not disappear. “I think we are being written off.”

“We need an engineer.”

“He can’t fix this.” I shook my head.

“Well, then what do you think we need?”

I led him back up to my bedroom, stopping him with a look before he could comment. “Grab my bedsheet. Then we’ll go find that engineer.”

“I thought you said—“

“Let’s go!” I took one end, and he took the other, following me down the stairs and towards the spot where our usual Engineer tended to set up camp.

“Don’t shoot!” I shouted, before we were in view.

The Engineer was attempting to fix his sentry, one of the pyros standing guard by his dispenser.

“Darn spies an’ your darn disguises...” The Engineer looked between my Sniper and I with a disgruntled expression. “What do you need?”

“We need to be able to speak to everyone. The whole battlefield. Can you do that?”

“Well—Now...” He stopped, pushing his hardhat back and scratching his head. “We haven’t had any commands comin’ through for a good spell, have we?”

The pyro shook his—her?—it’s?—head, then regarded me. “Urr rhh grnrh lrhvh srn?”

“Oh... it’s... you?”

It nodded, with a little affirmative noise.

“We are most definitely going to leave soon.” I assured him. “But we need to be able to stop this.”

“Well, won’t be a thing to rig up a sort of bullhorn, maybe a speaker system right quick, but it’ll be localized, I’m not about to go tromping about all over the goldurn place.”

“No, that would be for the best.” I agreed.

“What’s with the sheet, if you fellas don’t mind me asking?”

“We’ll explain in a moment.” I promised.

“We?” My Sniper elbowed me. “I don’t exactly know, now, do I?”

“In a moment.”

The speakers went up quickly, sentry ignored for the moment, and the Engineer handed me an ersatz microphone.

“Here,” I jerked my head towards the spot where the Engineer’s site overlooked the battleground. “Hang onto the sheet.”

My Sniper did, as I tossed the other end over, where it caught the slight breeze and waved over everything, an enormous white flag. He looked back at the half-finished sentry gun behind us and hit the button on the stolen Cloak and Dagger.

“Pardon...” I tapped the microphone. “Gentlemen! Cease and desist!”

I heard the faint howl of a soldier down below, and the words ‘hippie quitter talk’.

“The respawn has stopped working!”

The gunfire below stopped.

The Engineer, who had just finished repairing his sentry, stopped as well. “What?”

“I repeat; the respawn has stopped working! There has been no word from our respective employers! If they have not decided that this war is over, it is in the best interests of those of us surviving to do so for ourselves. The respawn has stopped working. If you are alive, please meet in the middle of the area for a brief headcount and a summit between the two sides. Do not continue fighting, the respawn has stopped working.”

The four of us shuffled down warily, still carrying the sheet and praying for the best. Slowly but surely, a group amassed.

One BLU medic was already there, though it seemed he had merely been there since the announcement. He was sitting on the ground, staring blankly ahead, leaning against a fallen heavy.

From my own side, aside from myself, the Pyro, the Engineer, and the Medic, we had a Scout, a Soldier, and Stone and the nameless Spy. From the RED side, my own Sniper, a RED Medic—with surviving Heavy—RED Scout, a Demoman. Eight and five.

“Looks like we won.” Soldier said.

“No one is the victor here.” I said bitterly. “Look at us all. Whatever happened, none of us has won.”

“I have a little information.” Spy took a deep breath, a steeling drag on his cigarette. “You gentlemen are perhaps aware of what it is that RED and BLU—rather, Redmond and Blutarch Mann—have wanted to gain control of?”

“Gravel pit.” Soldier offered.

“Beyond that. Something both men were denied, long, long ago. In a twist of fate which might have been amusing, under other circumstances, or with greater distance... I was recently able to discover that our Announcer—the woman who has been giving orders to both sides of this war—has a relationship of sorts with a certain CEO.”

“Redmond Mann?” The Demoman guessed.

“Blutarch Mann?”Soldier was not to be outdone, apparently. He still considered himself the winner in all this, I think, just because there were three more survivors in blue than in red.

“Saxton Hale.” Spy said.

“Australian.” Stone added.

“CEO of Mann Company.” Spy finished. “She has been keeping both Mann men preoccupied with this little war, and Saxton Hale now owns them both. There is no more RED. There is no more BLU. Everything belongs to one man, to one company, in one place. We are no longer necessary. We have been left to kill each other. Forgotten. And the land is worth nothing, he merely owns it because he can.”

“There... there’s no more respawn?” The RED scout looked shaky. “I... I think I’m gonna be sick, man.”

“Go be sick somewhere else, then.” I took a hasty step back from him, just in case.

“I’m serious, here. This is... this is serious. Nobody’s coming back this time, and... and none of the bodies are going away, why aren’t they going away?”

“Stupid boy. You have so much bravado about killing men when it is all just a game with no consequences, and now of course you cannot handle reality.”

“Hey, shut up. You’re the one who came running out here with a giant white flag and yelling at us to stop.”

“Yes. But I am not turning green, like a weak little—“

“Hey, I’m not weak. I’m way more not-weak than you!” More posturing. Yawn... Then again, what else can one expect from these children? “If you were from where I was from—“

“Stupid boy!” I raised my hand to slap him, pulling back only when my Sniper stepped between the scout and myself. I stalked off a few steps.

“Yeah, you better—“

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you might consider shutting your face.” My Sniper warned, voice low.

“But— Hey!—I—Yeah, well, nice job stepping in for your girlfriend.”

“My ‘girlfriend’, as you put it, was about to kick your whiny little ankle-biting arse all across this battlefield, if I hadn’t stepped in. Listen, kiddo... you like movies, right?”

“Yeah, guess so. Everyone does.”

“You seen ‘Casablanca’?”

“Uh, part of it, when it was the Sunday afternoon movie once. It was kind of boring, all everyone did was talk.”

“Yeah.” Soldier nodded. “They had a perfectly good movie for killing Nazis in, and they went and made it about the love between a man and a woman! And that’s just sick. Wait... Well, it’s not sick like the love between a man and anything that’s not a woman, but when I see a movie, I expect there to be Nazi-killing!”

“Do you remember anything about the movie aside from the fact that you didn’t have the attention span to sit down and watch it?”

“No.”

“... Well this has gone off the rails.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“If you were from where I was from,” I addressed the RED Scout, my composure regained. “You would have spent your formative years under a hostile occupying force. I was six years old when I underwent my first mission as a spy. And that innocent six-year-old face would not have spared my life had I been caught.”

“Tsch. Like I ever get caught. I woulda done just fine.”

“Really? You think so? Imagine, you are a small child, and suddenly, the streets outside your home are filled with soldiers. The laws have changed—law being a concept you are barely able to grasp as it is—punishments are suddenly much harsher. You are suddenly much poorer. There is no food. If you are lucky, you live in a town that is not bombed, but probably, you are not lucky. Your parents disappear for days on end and they cannot tell your neighbors why, because anyone could be a collaborationist. There is a curfew. If you are old enough to be in school, during the four years that this lasts, you are practically indoctrinated into a cult of personality. You may be expected to speak a new language, and to learn it quickly. Some of your friends disappear and are never seen again, but you probably do not understand why. This is the sole blessing in your life. One day, your mother does not return.”

His lower lip wobbled. “My ma?”

“That is right. Imagine that, petit. Imagine that she goes out, and she cannot tell you where or why, and she never comes home. Your father as well. Many of the people you have always relied upon.”

“Whatever.” He wrapped his arms around himself and turned away. “You’re making that stuff up.”

“He isn’t.” It was a very quiet whisper, from a very subdued RED Medic. The slightly younger one. Aware that he was being stared at, he coughed and looked at the ground. “I actually narrowly escaped arrest once, myself, twenty five-odd years ago. I wasn’t—I was never a national socialist. My family was always social democrat. Well, it’s different. Oh, none of you understand...”

“You nearly got arrested for being a social democrat?”

“No, for—It isn’t important why. Well, not that it was out of the question, even... No. Forget I even spoke. What are we going to do about... about all them?”

The Soldier looked down at the shovel in his hand, then at the mass of bodies—and of parts—scattered around us. “That’s gonna take forever.”

“Well, start digging, then.” The Medic snapped.

“Too many of ‘em to bury.” The Engineer shook his head.

“Rrh crhhd rlrhs...” The Pyro offered, hefting his flamethrower. “Rf rhh cn’ brhrh rm...”

“NO! Ah, no... you couldn’t—so many—No, it’s better to... The smoke, and—Please, don’t?” Even more than speaking of his youthful close call, this rattled the Medic.

“It’s more practical...”

“Please don’t... I can’t, the smoke... the smell. There are too many of them. I don’t mind digging, I’ll help dig. We’ll bury them.” He picked up a discarded shovel from the remains of a dead Soldier’s hand, the blood on the handle didn’t give him a moment’s pause.

The BLU Medic moved for the first time since I had seen him. He touched his hand to his lips, leaving a smear of blood which he licked away absently, looked around the group assembled as though he was only now seeing us. “The respawn is really... it’s really not going to work, ever again?”

“No. Doesn’t look like it is.” The Engineer said, apologetically.

“I see. Yes, thank you. I see. Ah... he will not be needing this?” He bent, picking up a uniform jacket that had once contained a RED Soldier, and now contained only a few little chunks of him. He stood for a moment, looking down at the corpse he had been leaning against. “Excuse me. I will rejoin you in a moment.”

We watched him walk around a corner, the bloodied jacket twisted in his hands. From off in the distance, there was the sound of gunfire.

“HEY! ARE YOU CRAZY?!” My Sniper shouted, waving the sheet again. “DIDN’T YOU HEAR? RESPAWN’S BEEN SHUT OFF! Aw, dammit, who missed the announcement? Did someone shoot your Medic?”

The Engineer’s mouth tightened. “How many times do I gotta tell... aw, boy...”

“What?”

“Sentry. Only one left standing, he...” He looked around the corner, then came back the few steps to rejoin the rest of us. “He walked right into it. Took one of y’all’s uniforms and just, walked right into it...”

The Heavy frowned, touching his own Medic’s shoulder. “Why would other Doktor do this?”

“... I don’t pretend to know.” He lied, his own gaze on the big, blue-clad corpse his fellow medic had been leant against. “War does funny things to a man. Sometimes things become too much to handle.”

“He was like you.” I offered. Almost everyone looked at me as though I were incredibly stupid for pointing out the obvious, but the Medic merely nodded.

“Yes. Yes, I think so. I’m sorry, are you... the cage?”

“Yes. I am sorry, by the way... for what it’s worth. I wouldn’t have noticed, if I wasn’t... well... I just needed you to be angry enough to attack me.”

He laughed humorlessly. “Well, you did that.”

Several of us got to work digging after that, but it was tiring work, and we still didn’t have enough graves for everyone.

“We’ll have to burn some and bury some.” The Engineer said solemnly. “Otherwise we’ll be out here all day and night, and the buzzards are already coming ‘round.”

“Should... should we sing or something?” The BLU Scout asked, toeing the dirt. “Like you do, at funerals?”

There was a brief and solemn pause before voices lifted in song.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” The Engineer surprised us with a rather pleasant baritone.

Which would have been all right, except...

“Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,” The Demoman warbled, scrumpy spilling out as he waved his arms in dubious time to the ‘music’.

“Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive!” Spy lowered Jean into one of the shallow graves we had managed to dig.

“When I was a young man I carried my pack, And I lived the free life of a rover, From the Murrays’ green basin--” Stone barely whispered the tune, but he was near enough to us that I heard him, and from the hand tightening in mine, I could freely assume my Sniper had as well.

“Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen, ich fahr dahin mein Strassen, in fremde Land dahin...”

“Uh, fellas?” The Scout cleared his throat. “How about if we all sang the same song?”

There was a brief conference of a few of the singers, and then a few clear, strong voices.

“Amazing grace, oh Danny Boy, in fremde Land dahin, and the band played Waltzing Matilda, Allons enfants de la Patrie,”

“Well...” My Sniper swallowed oddly, his head twitching to the side. “I mean, Amazing Grace is common signature, innit?”

“That doesn’t make it okay.” I shook my head.

“No. No, I’m sort of...” Stone searched for the words.

“Disgusted?” Spy snorted. “Outraged? Offended?”

“Yeah, those, a bit.” He nodded.

After that, the funeral continued in mostly silent solemnity.

The RED Medic had been right. Burning them was a bad idea. We pretended not to notice him vomiting off to the side, and I think most of us envied the Pyro for having a mask to keep the foul, oily smoke out. After that, we covered the rest of the bodies we couldn’t bury with a thin layer of dirt—not enough to do good, but enough to feel as though we’d done a duty—and called it a job done.

My Sniper settled his arm around me and looked at everyone. “So. Who wants to get out of here? Some of us have had a plan going, but... ah... well, actually, a few of those people are...”

“Dead.” The RED Scout hugged himself. “They’re dead. Dead, dead, dead. Man...”

“Most everyone’s been teleported in recently.” Stone said. “You’ve been here from the start, or thereabouts. You got a van?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s two.”

“And twelve of us.” The Engineer scratched his head again. Well, if you can put five in each van, and I take one more in the pickup...”

“Bit cramped. Four and four and four’d be better, if there’s anyone doesn’t mind the bed of your truck.”

“I don’t mind.”The Demoman shook his head.

Soldier nodded. “A real man doesn’t need cushy, girly comforts like a seatbelt. Or a seat. Or a roof. Hell, you sissies in your vans, a real man could walk! But... the back of a truck’ll be fine.”

They regarded each other warily for a moment, and the Demoman extended his bottle. “Friends again? Not much point in fighting now, is there?”

“... Hell. Why not?”

“I will ride in one of the vans.” Spy sniffed, casting a disparaging look on the now-heavily-drinking pair.

“Right.” Our Engineer nodded. “Pyro, how ‘bout you ride up front with me? Now, I guess you boys each take one spy, one scout, then one of you gets the doc and one of you gets—“

“Nyet.” The Heavy shook his head, meaty hand settling once more on his medic’s shoulder. “Doktor stays with me.”

I lifted a questioning eyebrow. The Medic shook his head, slightly bewildered.

“Guess both scouts can ride with us.” My Sniper sighed. “They’ll be in the back, anyway, won’t be too troublesome.”

“Aw, no. I’ll take a scout, you can keep both spies.” Stone whined. Well, I doubt he would have admitted it was a whine, but the emotion behind it was very... very whiney.

“I’m hurt. And after I brought back all the answers.”

“Yeah, great timing with that.”

The Scouts, however, were already deep in conversation with one another, and apparently had fast become friends.

“Looks like you’re stuck with him, mate.” My Sniper chuckled. “Get in the back and keep your bloody cleats off my bed, kiddos.”


---tbc---

Title: Always Another Dawn
Chapter Two: Journey Out Of Darkness
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, hints of others if you squint (though most could be taken as friendships)
Summary: What to do when it's all over.
Author's Notes: Sequel to 'Stolen Kisses'. Big shocker, it is named after a film (chapter title also a film).





We caravanned to the nearest rest stop, gassed up the vehicles, and bought some food, water, and maps.

“There’s a bus station,” The Engineer pointed it out on the better of the maps. “Once we all get there, everyone can split off and go their separate ways, get home. Y’all have ideas as to where you’re headed?”

“I have a cousin,” The Medic nodded. “He’s lived for the last twenty years in a small town not too far from Bern. The last we spoke, he mentioned... the town’s doctor is retiring. People will have to go all the way into the city. Which is not so terrible, but I could take over the practice, if I moved there. And after all, we have the back pay, it will not be difficult to fly there, buy a house, establish myself. My cousin is well-respected, if he vouches for me... It could be a new life. And Swiss German is not too different from Swabian.”

There was a moment in which he noted all the blank stares he was now receiving.

“It is a regional dialect. Ugh, dummkopfs...”

“Should be nice there.” The Heavy nodded. “I have not thought about where to go. No family to go back to...”

“Well... you could always—I mean, while you think it over, you could... visit Switzerland. While you are thinking.”

“I like that.” He clapped the other man on the back.

I raised my eyebrow at the Medic again, addressing him in a low whisper. “You’re sure?”

“I was sure, he is not!” He whispered back. “I mean... I thought I was sure... wasn’t I?”

I shrugged. “Either you were wrong, or it is still better than nothing, or you’ve just signed yourself up for hell.”

“I know.” He pushed his glasses up his nosebridge. “Such is ever the way.”

“Well, from the bus station, won’t be too hard to get home.” The Demoman smiled cheerily for a moment. “Ah, mum’ll throw a fit over me being out of work. Still got one job, but I’ll have to look for summat else, or hear about how my dad held down twenty-six jobs in his prime, and me still with a working eyeball.”

“I just can’t believe the war is over...” Soldier shook his head, looking rather pathetic.

“I know!” Demo grabbed Soldier’s arm. “I know what we’ll do wi’ you, lad! Now, first, you come and stay at the house while we get everything together... we got to get everything together... An’, we’ll get weapons! An’ we’ll get bombs! An’ you, you’re goin’ to Vietnam. That’s the new thing! That’s the new war!”

“Yeah.” Soldier nodded. “Yeah, that just oughta... It’ll be just like Korea, right?”

“... I donnae see why not. They’re both... in Asia!”

“Yeah! And you’re coming with me, buddy. You and me, we’re gonna bomb the hell out of the whole continent!”

“Ye’re only goin’ to war with Vietnam, though.”

“It’s called a preemptive strike!”

“... I am just drunk enough to be inclined to agree with you. Now promise you’re not taking advantage of a poor drunken man and foisting bad ideas off on me...”

“I promise. This is the best idea I have ever had, and you’re the one who had it!”

“All right!” He roared, sloshing more moonshine all over the maps, despite the Engineer’s hasty attempts to save them.

“How ‘bout you boys?”

The Scouts, sitting next to each other, were practically vibrating with excitement. Or possibly with Bonk!... I swear they dropped half their back pay and carried out every can the little rest stop had.

“Guess what!” The BLU Scout exploded. “Donny and me—“

“Yeah, me and Vinny—“

‘Donny and Vinny?’, my Sniper mouthed. I snickered.

“Our moms live, like, right next door! We’re neighbors!”

“Yeah, we’re gonna go home and we can take the same bus, we’re gonna see our moms,”

“They’re gonna bake us so many cookies!”

“We were in a real live war, girls are gonna be so all over us, too!”

“And we got so many stories for the guys—“

“—brothers are gonna be so jealous!”

The Engineer glanced over at me—well, I think. He still hadn’t taken off his goggles. “You got a plan?”

“... I was thinking, somewhere south of Paris...”

“North of Vichy.” My Sniper shrugged, and this time, his arm settled not around my shoulders, but around my waist.

The others stared, not all at once, but a slow slide of attention towards us. My Sniper gave off an air of nonchalance, but I could see—and in several cases, feel—the tensed muscles, and I saw his eyes behind his glasses, hard and nervous and waiting.

“All right.” The Engineer nodded. “Bet it’s real pretty out there.”

“You said you weren’t queer!” The RED Scout—Donny—protested.

“Yeah, an’ guess what?” My Sniper smirked at him.

“... You lied?”

“And my boyfriend could still kick your bloody ankle-biting arse. I’d welcome anyone who’s got a problem to take it up with me, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if anyone who took it up with me wound up with a chronic case of a knife in the back. I’m just saying...”

I leaned against him. “That was... I’m not sure if ‘romantic’ is the word, cher... but, I am not sure that it isn’t.”

“I aim to please.”

“Yes, well, you do that very well, too.”

“Uh...” Stone coughed. “Anyway, that’s them, which I’d like to point out, is different from us. So there’s no confusion. I’m thinking I’ll end up... aw, dunno. Somewhere. Head back to Australia.”

“Hm.” Spy nodded. “You know, it is one of the only two continents I have never visited... I always thought I might someday. Just so I could say I had had the complete experience, you know. I’m sure Antarctica is unnecessary...”

“One place on earth big enough to hold the both of us and not drive one or the other to homicide.” Stone snorted.

“I take it you’re not offering to play tour guide, then?”

“Are you kidding? I’d shove you headlong into the first thing we come across that might kill you. If you touch the radio in the van again, you won’t make it to the airport, neither.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Spy grinned.

“Idiot.” I rolled my eyes.

“Well, I figure it won’t be too long a trip from the bus depot back home to Bee Cave.” The Engineer interrupted. “Pyro?”

“... drnno. Rhh... Rhh hrvn grh nrwhrrh rh ghr.”

“Well, you just ride with me, then, son, ‘cause if there’s one thing always needs doing in Texas, it’s a controlled burn.”

“Yrh mrn fuhrr?” He sounded almost hopeful. I guess it’s fun again, or whatever. Ugh.

“Yup. What they do is, they go out and light up a big area of brush, then keep an eye on it ‘til it’s all burned out. Gotta go in every so often and clear a nice area that way so you don’t have wildfires spreading all over the place come summer. Not that it stops ‘em... but I guess it cuts it down some. Could be a nice steady job for someone with your talents.”

We couldn’t see his face, but I think we all got the feeling the Pyro was smiling.



---/-/---



The nearest bus depot was still too far from the gas station. Instead of driving all night, someone in the caravan pulled off the road, and before I knew it, the ‘wagons’ were circled, and we were all sitting, or standing, around a campfire with our rest stop foodstuffs.

There was a strange sort of camaraderie, considering how so many of us had only recently been trying to kill each other. The Demo and Soldier were still drinking together, reminiscing and planning a whole new field of rampaging destruction. The two scouts were running around with a baseball. The Engineer was having what appeared to be a pleasant conversation with the Medic and Heavy.

Stone was sprawled out in the dirt by the fire, next to the Pyro, the pair of them watching it burn. Spy, leaning against the other van, was watching Stone.

“You could sit.” My Sniper pointed out.

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, here,” He snorted, taking off his vest and laying it on the ground. “Ya big pooftah.”

“Well... yes.” I rolled my eyes, taking the offered seat at his side. I did refuse a sip of his coffee, also bought at the little last-chance gas station and market, and by now long-cold. It seemed fairly terrible.

“Temperature’s gonna drop,” The Engineer said, raising his voice. “Or already started to. We might want to think about putting out that fire and piling into the vans.”

Piling... into? Dear, we were going to be stuffed like sardines. Locking the scouts out in the cold was probably going to be frowned upon, too. Ah well, I suppose I can last one night sleeping next to my Sniper and still behaving myself.

The Pyro made a disappointed sound as he helped put the fire out.

“Now, sleeping in the bed of the truck isn’t going to do much good against potential exposure, so I suggest you fellas bunk in with the guys in the campers.” The Engineer continued. “Me, I don’t mind sleeping in the front seat... I got a good heavy jacket I can sleep under. Pyro?”

“Rrhl brkrh. Srhtsh wrr.”

“Well... whatever you want, then.”

Soldier tottered after us when we returned to our van, the Demoman following Stone.

“How’s this going to work out?” The BLU Scout looked between us all, then at the not-overly-substantial space.

“Well. I got one bed in the back, and I plan on sleeping in it.” My Sniper crossed his arms.

“Oh... oh man. Vinny,” The RED Scout turned to his friend, looking visibly shaken. “We sat on that bed earlier.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t think that means we get to call it now.”

“I will be sleeping in the front seat, while you ladies argue. Wake me up when you need to drive the thing.” Soldier grunted, waving us off dismissively and trying several times to open the front door of the van. Eventually he succeeded, and we could hear him snoring almost immediately.

“No.” The RED Scout shook his head. “Do you know what they used that bed for? Because I’ve seen them do it.”

“Tsch. You saw them? Dude, that’s so gay.”

“Shut up!”

They scuffled briefly.

“I vote we leave them outside.” I said.

“If they freeze to death, Truckie’s gonna blame us.”

“Fine. Boys!” I snapped, gaining their attention—such as it was. “I am sure that the sheets have been changed since the... incident you mentioned.”

“Ah...” My Sniper scratched the back of his neck.

“Dude! Seriously?”

“Maybe they have been! I don’t own another set. Can’t remember if they made it in laundry day...”

“Had I but known. I would have brought some.”

“Yeah. I don’t see me owning silk sheets.” He rolled his eyes.

“You’ll get used to them.” I said confidently, climbing into the back of the van and, after toeing my shoes off and lining them up carefully, into his bed.

He got in after me with a sigh, kicking his own boots off and letting them land wherever. He tossed his vest and hat onto the one seat in the camper section and stole his pillow back from me.

“You boys can go ahead and find some floor space.” He offered, his arm slipping around me.

I rested my head against his shoulder. “You can try, anyway.”

They grumbled a little, but scouts are small, and they managed to curl into the available space.

---tbc---

Here's another chapter, I THINK there are five for this story/sequel. Then there's actually another;

Title: Always Another Dawn
Chapter Three: Stronger Since The War
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, hints of others if you squint (though most could be taken as friendships)
Summary: What to do when it's all over.
Author's Notes: Sequel to 'Stolen Kisses'. Big shocker, it is named after a film (chapter title also a film).




“Shh,” I kissed my Sniper’s cheek and pointed him towards the two sleeping scouts. “Look.”

“Hm? Wuzzat?” He blinked, turning his head. “Are they... cuddling?”

“They don’t have a blanket. It must have gotten cold enough. I wish I had a camera... they will deny this moment until they are both blue in the face. Photographic evidence would be a nice thing to have for the next time I hear muttered imprecations about my sex life.”

“Aw, let ‘em sleep.” He rolled onto his side and tugged me close. “I think we’re really getting out this time...”

“Yes.”

“Can’t believe we are, and I’m actually running off to France with you.”

I smiled. “I’m glad you are.”

“I don’t speak the language. Closest thing is I think I’ve managed to pick up a few swears.”

“That’s all right. You don’t need to go out anywhere. I’ll keep you tied up in my bedroom all day.”

“As if you could keep me tied up.”

“I bet I could. I bet I’d do a better job of it than you would...”

“I happen to be very good at knotwork.” His face was right next to mine. I bumped my nose into his.

“I happen to be very good at getting out of things.”

“We might have to settle this bet one of these days.” He grinned.

“Cher, I look forward to it...”

There was a loud yawn from the floor. “Are you cockfags done being gay yet?”

I sat up. “I’m sorry, snugglebunny, would you like to repeat that question? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of how adorable you were being, with your arms around your little friend there.”

“Shut up! It’s cold! You guys got a blanket, and we slept on the floor.”

There was a rap on the door to the camper.

“Well... probably time to roll out, hey.” My Sniper stretched, his back popping. He grabbed his things, pulled his boots on, and met the Engineer outside to go over the day’s travel itinerary.

The itinerary which consisted of ‘drive along the highway until you hit the bus depot’, as far as I know. There’s not much else out here.

I slid out after him, climbing into the passenger’s seat as my Sniper unceremoniously dumped Soldier out onto the ground.

“What? WHAT? Where’s the fire?! Are we under attack?”

“Getting ready to leave.”

“... Right. I’ll just go—the truck... Yeah.” He shook his head and wandered off. I think he really is lost now that the war is over. I think he really did want us to be under attack just then.

“You lucky bastard.” Stone growled, striding up to my Sniper.

“What’s the matter?”

“You had the scouts. I had that bloody Demo and a Heavy. I had to sleep in the front, because they both snore, and then that bloody spy winds up in front with me because he can’t sleep with them snoring either, and the Medic’s complaining about how he spent last night, even though he at least got a bed, and I swear, I am going to kill that spy, did I mention him? Because I’m gonna kill him.”

“Bon chance.” I snorted. “It will be long overdue.”

“This morning, he used my mug. The mug which is mine. He—What do you mean, long overdue? As much trouble as he was when we were trying to work out an escape plan before, I don’t think it would’ve done much good.”

“He told me once you had been hired to kill him.” I shrugged.

“Really? Huh. I guess I just assumed it was the RED Spy. I mean, at the time it wasn’t anybody. I mean, at the time, we weren’t... I never thought I’d wind up on the same bloody side as someone I was supposed to kill. Well. I may finally make good on that.”

There was another small fire before we moved out, that people breakfasted over. I saw Spy drinking tea out of Stone’s coffee mug. Watched from across the little circle as they exchanged words. Harsh words.

The scouts were zipping around again, burning off as much energy as they could before we would all be stuck in the van for hours on end, and I watched them for a moment before the sounds of a real fight broke out.

The Engineer and the Heavy broke the fight up, though I noticed that Spy was the only one who seemed to suffer any bruises. Stone didn’t seem to have been hit at all.

“Maybe we should trade someone around.” My Sniper sighed.

“I’ll talk to him. Idiot.” I stalked over, grabbing my fellow spy’s arm. “What is the matter with you?”

“With me? I didn’t start the fight.” He dabbed at his split lip and failed to cover his odd little smile with a convincingly injured look.

I dragged him around the other side of the van, checked out of the corner of my eye to see that Stone had moved away.

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“Maybe I provoked him.”

“Are you trying to get him to kill you?”

His smile dropped, his eyes growing sad and faraway. “Maybe. Maybe... I don’t even know. It is something. You know, he makes it clear enough that I will never have what you have, there is no point even in my trying, but at least he—“

“Don’t.” I snarled. “Don’t you dare say ‘at least he notices me’, that is juvenile and stupid, and—“

“No. At least in a fistfight, he touches me.”

“... That is a little sick, isn’t it?”

He touched his split lip again. “It is. I know. It’s about as far from a kiss as you can get, but I would still rather have that then have nothing at all. Besides... the odds are that someone will kill me. Maybe it is more than just a little sick, but he’s my first choice.”

“This is the most idiotic thing I have ever been party to. If you do this, this stupid, stupid thing again, I will... I will put a stop to it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

I left him, wound up cloaking to sneak up on the conversation between Stone and my own Sniper, just cigarettes and grievances and long stares into the distance.

“I got no idea what his problem is. I don’t know how you put up with being in a relationship with one. I mean, yours is the less annoying of the two, to be fair, but...”

I stayed very still and hoped he wouldn’t do that pseudo-psychic thing of his where he knows I’m there. I wanted to hear what his answer might be.

He shrugged, flicking his cigarette to the ground. “Dunno. He’s cute, when he’s not being a bloody suave superspy. Under the mask.”

“Didn’t even know there was an under the mask.” Stone chuckled.

“Well... I guess I got history with my Spy, just a little. Or, hell, maybe you should try it with that idiot, it might shut him up, make him easier to handle.”

Stone’s expression flattened. “I don’t—“

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t do men. Gotcha.”

“No. I don’t... with anybody. Don’t see how you do. I mean... The fewer people I can have any kind of attachment to, the better it is for me, right? It’s not just a question of would I with another bloke, it’s that I don’t, with anyone. Used to being alone, at any rate, it’s not exactly a hardship to get by on my own. But the last one night stand I had...”

“Yeah?”

“Gorgeous girl. Tourist-type. Met her... ah, dunno where. It wasn’t even a one-night stand, it wasn’t even a half an hour. Think she liked the accent. Think she was shy about being touched. She wasn’t shy about—well, she wasn’t shy about some other things. We wound up fooling around in her hotel room, and after I left I was thinking about her eyes for a week. I blew a shot—dammit, you know which shot it was, too? That was when I was supposed to take out that bloody spy, and here I am thinking about some girl who took me back to her hotel room and blew me and kicked me out, and her eyes are just the bluest eyes you ever seen...”

“Oh, yeah.” My Sniper nodded, tone casual. “Sure, nothing’s distracting like a pretty pair of blue eyes, gotcha.”

“Anyway, after that, I figured best thing to do would be cut out the one night stands as well.”

“Sounds practical, but awful.”

“I do all right.”

I decloaked, startling Stone, who ought to have been able to see me just barely, had he cared to pay the attention. My own Sniper just chuckled.

“That was a private conversation.” Stone glared at me.

“I only just arrived.” I lied, placating.

My Sniper snorted. “Course ya did, darlin’. You sort your friend out?”

“He’s hardly a friend. Still... try not to let him provoke you.” I said to Stone. “He does it on purpose.”

“Yeah, by this point I figured it had to be.”

“He does it on purpose so you’ll rough him up.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, Stone’s jaw working. “He likes being beaten up?”

“He likes having you beat him up. No, not... He likes you. And he is stupid. And he is used to taking risks, and he is resigned to the fact that the retirement plan for spies is not a good one, and he is resigned to the fact that you will never take an interest in him, and probably when you fought after my little adventure with imprisonment, you pushed him up against a wall or something and he decided he liked it, I don’t even know. But he’ll keep pushing you until you do kill him... unless you learn to ignore him. It shouldn’t be much longer, anyway. You can get away from him at the bus depot, or at an airport.”

“He... Sorry, what?”

“It shouldn’t be that surprising. I mean, look at me.”

“Yeah, but—That isn’t—I don’t--!”

“But, he is, like me a little. That is how I blackmailed him. He fell for you when you were supposed to be killing him.”

“How’d he even know? Was I that bad?”

“Or he was that good. Hard to imagine with the way he is acting now, I know. Anyway, it no longer matters that I was not replaced back at the base, and hopefully if you know why he is doing all this, you... I don’t know. At least you know.”

He shook his head. “I don’t do this sort of thing.”

“Yes. He knows. It seems to have made him crazy. But he knows.”

“You could. I don’t mean it has to be with him!” My Sniper held his hands up. “I just mean, you could retire. We all have enough, don’t we? You could meet a girl, if that’s what you want.”

“Wouldn’t know what to do with myself without the job, mate.” Stone shrugged. “You have fun being retired, but me... I don’t know, I couldn’t.”

“Well, try not to make a mess out of his brains. Whatever is left of them...” I sighed.

Stone regarded me curiously for a moment. “Hey... you said the other spy’s like you that way. Is that what you meant before, talking to the RED Medic?”

I shook my head. “I am not at liberty to say.”

“So yes. Him and our Medic both, reckon. Don’t bother lying, I knew about ours.”

“You knew?” I... may have gaped a bit. “I hadn’t even known about our Medic.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t always on your team, I worked with him before. Shoulda recognized that was him... Back on the old team we were part of, everyone knew about him and the Heavy. I mean, no one ever said anything, but we all knew. I shoulda seen it. If I knew it was him, we could’ve stopped him, I would’ve known what he was up to...”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean... even if you had recognized him, even if you had realized what he planned to do... it would have been wrong to stop him.”

“He bloody killed himself! I coulda—“

“It would have been cruel. In his mind, he was already a dead man. He did not lie to us and walk away... the words, ‘I will rejoin you in a moment’, those words were not for us.”

“Come on,” My Sniper took my elbow gently. “Looks like everyone’s getting ready to go.”

“Better get back, then.” Stone nodded. His gait as he headed back to his own van was odd, stilted. As though he was not sure he wanted to get there very soon.

My Sniper leaned me up against the side of the van and kissed me, long and deep.

“What was that for?” I blinked, dazed. “Not that I didn’t appreciate it...”

“That was for being you, probably. Just ‘cause I wanted to, doesn’t have to be for anything. And maybe ‘cause... ‘Cause I wouldn’t want you doing something stupid if I didn’t make it.”

“Then I suppose I shall have to promise not to do anything stupid.” I smiled, drawing him back into another kiss. “You are so strange...”

“How am I strange?”

“You make your life showing no emotion, you do not say much, and yet somehow, I think, your heart is on your lips...”

A brief little kiss. “Well. Guess it’s not a bad place for it to be.”

“No. I find your lips a very fine place to be indeed.”

“Ga-ay.” One of the Scouts ran past, the other on his heels.

“We’re ready to go, already!”

“Yeah, yeah, get in the van.” My Sniper sighed, releasing me and heading for the driver’s side door.


---tbc---

I should be sleeping but...

Didn't sleep at all... Couldn't stop reading.

I need MOAR
Like, now, srsly.

I love this fic. Hnnnggg. I hope it doesn't break my heart and something tragic happens.

Another long, well-written Spy/Sniper fic that is updated, like, amazingly quickly?

Fuck. Yes.

Because I have no patience, I've been trying to search for the livejournal this came from so I can finish reading it. Hnnggrrf.

http://community.livejournal.com/tf2_slash/19116.html

boo, it says access denied :(

you must have a LJ account and join the tf2_slash community :3

Title: Always Another Dawn
Chapter Four: That Certain Something
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, hints of others if you squint (though most could be taken as friendships/unrequited loves...)
Summary: What to do when it's all over.
Author's Notes: Sequel to 'Stolen Kisses'. Big shocker, it is named after a film (chapter title also a film). Cookies to anyone who catches my slightly sneaky song reference.


The minute we had pulled into the bus depot parking lot, I saw the other spy striding towards our van, and by the time I was on my feet and closing the door behind me, he was jabbing a finger in my chest.

“YOU! You TOLD! Don’t even—I can tell, he looks at me like he’s sorry for me and I would rather be dead than have him pity me, but of course, no, you think you know what’s best for everyone, well this is not best! Because we are not you, and you are an idiot!”

The others were gathered around staring now. Well, it was hard to tell with the Pyro, he could have been looking at anything. It’s possible the Engineer wasn’t looking at us, either, but not likely. I suppose it’s hard to tell with Soldier as well... But most of the group was definitely staring now.

“Stop making a scene.” I batted his hand away. “You are only embarrassing yourself.”

“Oh no, my friend, I cannot possibly embarrass myself any further than you have already—already shamed me!”

The few dead-eyed travelers in the depot were also staring now, gathering around to watch the two nearly-identical men in masks and incongruous three piece suits shout at each other. A short boy with a raincoat slung over his duffel bag whispered to a plump, redheaded girl whose luggage tag said ‘Kathy’.

“Just try to calm yourself. We are conspicuous enough, don’t you think?”

“His hatred I would have endured, but his pity I will not stand.”

“Well, after today, you never have to see him again.”

“Why, you—“

“Stop it.” Stone yanked back on the other Spy’s jacket. “I would’ve been happier not knowing, but he figured it was for your own bloody stupid good when he told me. You don’t want pity? Fine. No more pity. Go buy your bus ticket and get.”

Spy blinked, swallowed, looked around for the first time at the small crowd that had been staring. Then, he drew himself up, smoothed his jacket, produced a cigarette, and shot a look of withering contempt at everyone in the immediate vicinity. The contemptuous look faltered only once, when his eyes passed over Stone.

There was a moment, a frisson, and I prepared for another fistfight to break out between them. I wouldn’t intervene if it did, I had done my part.

“You bastard.” Stone whispered.

“What?”

“You know what. You—you know what. I can’t believe you.”

“Are you going to haul off and hit me again?”

“I would, but I’m afraid you’d enjoy it.”

“No. Not this time.” Spy shrugged. “This time I deserve it.”

Stone just shook his head and walked away.

Spy crumpled, watching him go, whispered a soft, sad “It was good for you, too.”



---/-/---



The ride from the bus depot to the airport was a tense one. It was just one bus, and there was only one airport, and those of us who were flying out of the desert tout-suite were all on it together, which meant that at one end of the bus there was the other spy, curled in on himself and brooding, and at the other end there was Stone, shoulders tight, eyes straight ahead.

I did my best to ignore them, to ignore the two scouts bouncing in their seat, to ignore the loud laughter of the Heavy across the aisle.

I thought about one thing and one thing only, the man wedged in next to me. On the floor, under the seat in front of us, was a duffel bag holding almost everything that had been in his camper. I no longer owned anything that was not on my person.

The landscape whizzed past us out through the window. I leaned my head against his shoulder and pretended to sleep, so that it wouldn’t look too strange to the few people on the bus who were not in our party. The short boy and plump girl from the station, who sat behind us and whispered, and I imagine it was the balaclava that gave it away when I overheard her suggest that I was most definitely a spy, but her boyfriend merely laughed about it. What he thought I was, I couldn’t say, but apparently he finds the idea of a masked man on a bus not too far outside the ordinary.

I listened to them for a while, for lack of anything better to do while feigning sleep, the heartbreaking raw confessions of young love, and I thought about saying something, anything, to my Sniper. I did not, of course, and we would have all the time in the world later.



---/-/---



At the airport, we parted ways with the Scouts, who found a domestic flight leaving in not too much time. For international flights, it looked like the rest of us would be there a little while.

Stone and the other Spy were still keeping their distance from each other, and from the rest of us. At one point, my Sniper went to buy... whatever one buys in an airport. Newspapers and chewing gum, I don’t know. I turned to the Heavy.

“So. Why are you going to Switzerland?”

He shrugged, the movement slow, as though he had only half decided to do so. “Doktor doesn’t mind. He is good friend. Everyone says, ‘Heavy Weapons Guy, he is big, and his English is not so good, and he is probably very stupid’. Okay. I am not so good at English. I am not so good at playing chess—“

“Ach, don’t listen to him. He will, what is the term, fleece you.”

“For a Russian, am not so good at chess.” Another shrug, a sly grin. “But, doesn’t make me stupid. And Doktor, he is very smart man, but he does not treat me like I am complete idiot.”

The Medic blushed. I suspected he had at first, and merely been the only one to realize the mistake, if only because most medics I had known shared a tendency towards intellectual superiority complexes. Then again, with this one, it was possible he had had a little crush from the start. Strange, yes. Incomprehensible, but of course. Possible? Possibly.

“I never really expected you to be that smart.” I admitted.

“No one does.” He laughed. “This is old news to me. Besides, you are spy. Spies are snooty.”

The Medic chuckled a little at this. I suppose it was only fair, I’d been thinking the same thing about him only a moment ago.

“I never really expected the Pyro to be that smart, either.” I said. “I don’t know if he is, but for a freakish, fire-happy mutant, I will say he proved himself to be rather perceptive.”

“Tell me, before you got to know any of us, who did you expect might be ‘that smart’?” The Medic challenged.

“Well...” This was fair. My opinion of my fellow spies was not necessarily very high when it came to matters of intelligence, either. “Medics, anyway. I mean, you must be, to... become a medic. The Engineer, despite his accent and his ridiculous mannerisms. Simpletons don’t build teleporters. I suppose aside from those two classes... no one. Then my Sniper turned out to be. Well, he turned out to be a lot of things. He turned out to be mine. So... I suppose after that maybe I tried a little more to... to not write everyone off. A little.”

“Then maybe he is good for you.” The Heavy snorted.

“Oh, I imagine so.”

“Is funny... back home, this would not be allowed. But, still, I think, if he is good for you, then he is good for you. Is not so different from a woman who is good for you.”

“No. But vive le difference.” I smirked. “You know, I believe it is allowed in Switzerland. Not that I am suggesting anything, of course...”

“Of course.” The Medic said tightly.

“Hm. Will keep this in mind.” The Heavy nodded.

The Medic looked startled at this. I just smiled.

The other spy wandered past, ticket clutched in his hand, wearing a haunted look, and I grabbed his arm and yanked him down into the chair at the end of the row of seats.

“Where are you flying into?”

He looked down at the ticket. “Italy.”

“Not Aus—“

“No. And that’s your fault. I like Italy. It is nice this time of year. And... and I don’t know anyone there. It will be nice, to not know anyone. I doubt I will settle down there, but it’s a start. It’s a place to be.”

Stone joined the group again, though he took the farthest possible seat from the spy, and cast quick, furtive, mistrustful looks in his direction.

After a moment, the other spy reached up, pulling off his balaclava. Aside from having the same general face shape, beneath the masks we are not quite the same. I have a small mole that he does not, he has a very close Caesar haircut and what looked like a dueling scar. I caught Stone staring at him with the balaclava off, but he did not seem to notice.

My Sniper returned, with a small armload of newspapers and candy bars, a cup of coffee, and a pack of cigarettes. He did a quick double take, then sat next to me.

“I like you better.” He said. “You’re the cute one.”

“Thank you.” I picked up Le Monde. “Thank you.”

“Figured you’d want an excuse not to make conversation. Goodness knows I did... See no one’s killed anyone yet.” He tossed candy bars at the rest of the group, then picked up his own paper. “Scouts catch their plane to Boston?”

“They did. I’m surprised they didn’t fly there under their own power...”

“Not strange they’d be excited. Probably never flown before. Not if they took the train out when they joined up.”

“Yes. I suppose so... I hadn’t really thought about, you know, not flying. I mean, not having ever flown. It’s sort of... par for the course, with the job.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “The jet-setting international superspy.”

“Oh, quiet, you. You must have flown before.”

“Well, yeah. Take too long to go by boat, mark could be long gone by the time you get there. Some jobs air fare was more than the actual paycheck...”

Conversation tapered off, a comfortable silence falling between us, providing a small cushion from the uncomfortable silence that stretched out thin between Stone and the other spy.

Eventually, the flight for Italy left. Some hours after that, so did the flight to Switzerland. We were at the airport most of the night, but finally we boarded our plane.
---tbc---

Here's the end of Always Another Dawn, but there is more C:

Title: Always Another Dawn
Chapter Five: They're A Weird Mob
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, hints of others if you squint (though most could be taken as friendships/unrequited loves...)
Summary: What to do when it's all over.
Author's Notes: Sequel to 'Stolen Kisses'. Big shocker, it is named after a film (chapter title also a film).





---Six Months After The Fact---



“The mail came.” I set the mail and the food down on the kitchen table, before joining him in the living room, where he made room for me on the little sofa without opening his eyes.

“Anything interesting?”

“A few things. You got a letter... well, most of it is to both of us, actually.”

“Read ‘em to me?”

I sighed. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“Yup.”

“All right. ‘Hey, Chuckleheads’—Oh, I’m sure you can guess who this one is from—‘Guess you took a minute out of being super gay in France and everything to write a letter so I thought I’d return the favor’—charming, isn’t he?”

“Well, what do you expect?”

“I know. ‘Me and Vinny are going into the minor leagues’—Minor leagues? What does this mean?—'and probably none of your snooty fancy French newspapers talk about that kind of thing in the sports section. What kind of sports do they play over there? Not baseball, I guess. Anyway, me and Vinny are fighting a little ‘cause we both want the same nickname’—Is it just me, or does that sound stupid?”

“Course it sounds stupid. He write anything else?”

“Oh,” I scanned the letter. “Their mothers are all right—even Vinny’s, who was apparently heartbroken for a little while over the death of the RED Spy. Well, one of them. You know. One of his brothers is getting married to a lovely girl and he’s the best man even though he’s the youngest. He seems quite proud of that. He says it’s okay, and I quote ‘I guess and all’, if we keep up a correspondence, because, and again, I quote ‘we were in a freaking war together and that’s something’.”

He chuckled softly. “Cute. What else?”

“One from Switzerland. ‘I see you took the trouble of tracking me down. Things are going well, though I sometimes fear I was not cut out to be a village doctor (Mischa says I am being silly and am an excellent doctor, but Mischa is biased just a little). I don’t care for children. I mean, of course I care for children, as per my job, but I don’t like them and they don’t like me. I’m not overly fond of treating illnesses. The saving grace of this job is that there will always be stupid young men,’”

“Yeah, guess that’s the truth.”

“Mm. ‘And they break a leg, or an arm, in a foolish attempt to impress some girl, and then they are brought to me. It would be the simplest matter to heal them, in mere moments, with no effort, with no pain. This, I do not do. Stupidity should be painful. How will they learn not to do foolish things if their wounds just mysteriously heal? So I am slow and... careful in setting broken bones. I am happy to report that I get few repeat customers!’—So, he’s about as sadistic as you remember?”

“Sounds right.”

“One more letter.” I waved it. “This one’s just addressed to you, not to me.”

“Let’s hear it.” He waved me on.

“Stone, I think. ‘Sounds like you settled in nicely. I’m doing all right out here. Work’s steady. Still the black sheep of the family, but it’s a small price to pay, isn’t it? And I did think a little about what you said. Come to an arrangement with someone, actually. Understands my work, and doesn’t expect much, but there’s a casual physical availability which it turns out is better than nothing, and I haven’t been distracted by it. Anyway, I’m posting this from the Mercure Grosvenor, which is a bit weird, because if anything I’m usually in a motor inn’—A motor inn?” I made a face.

“’S practical.”

“Right. I really need to break you of the habit of seeing living in a van as a reasonable way of life.”

“Well, your silk sheets are a start. Wonder who he’s shacking up with that would be staying in a place like the Mercure Grosvenor.”

“I don’t know it.”

“It’s old and it’s fancy.” He shrugged. “You’d probably love it. So go on, what else?”

“He just says ‘I reckon I’m actually pretty happy with things like they are. With you retired, and everyone else, well, dead, there’s not a whole lot of competition for jobs, and I’ve been picking and choosing more now, since I can afford to, but sometimes I take them just to keep busy. Good luck on fixing up that cottage, I don’t envy you the DIY weekends. I do envy you the reliable indoor plumbing, the Mercure Grosvenor’s the first hot shower I’ve had all week. But the repainting and handiwork I do not wish for in the least. Say hello to your spook.’—Oh, that’s nice.”

“Apparently I’m to say ‘hello’ to you.” He actually sat up at that, eyes finally opening, mouth crooking into a rather wicked smile. “Hello.”

“Knowing Stone, I somehow doubt this is what he meant...” I said wryly, but I had no real complaint when he slid into my lap and began nibbling at my ear. “Well, hello, yourself. You know, I haven’t really put away the things I picked up today...”

“Is any of it going to spoil?”

I thought over the market trip. Bread, a few vegetables... no milk, no meat. “No.”

“Then leave it.” He pulled my shirt off, kissing my throat, my chest. “You smell... really nice, actually... You taste really nice, actually. I’m willing to bet I’d find you really nice, actually, to a few other senses... given half a chance...”

“I’ll give you a whole chance.” I ran my fingers through his hair, mussing it, using it to angle him into a real kiss. “I’ll give you more than a whole chance. How many chances do you want?”

“Well... Think I could get it right on the first one, but I wouldn’t say no to a few... extra... dozen-odd... hundred...”

I melted a little under his continued ministrations, the way his tongue traced over the pulse points of my throat, the way his teeth slid across my skin and his hands covered my torso in firm, sweeping strokes. The way he settled down, grinding against me in ways that were just too teasingly short of enough.

“I believe...” I gasped. “That I was introducing you to the concept of civilization via silk sheets...”

“I believe you were.”

“We should move over there. To bed.”

“Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you.”

He littered the whole trip up the stairs with our clothes, which I would have to remind him to pick up later, because I certainly wasn’t doing it.

Well, it could wait...

We fell into bed, his hands resuming their familiar remapping of my skin, his mouth moving against mine in kisses rife with reckless abandon, and soft sounds he might in sober moments deny making.

This time I was content enough to lie back and let him. The upper hand could always be mine later, we no longer had to live in fear of not having a ‘next time’.

I murmured, soft encouragements I could not keep track of myself, as he thrust into me with a maddening slow regularity, and I pulled every little dirty trick I knew to make him speed up.

When he came first, he pulled out, still slowly, moving down the bed and swallowing me to the root, two fingers sliding into me, working me with more speed this time, and then everything was liquid heat and a slight fuzzy grayness, and he probably thought I was out of it enough not to catch him wiping everything up on the silk sheets that I spent good money on.

Well... I was aware of it. It didn’t occur to me to really be that upset.

I lit a cigarette and padded over to the bedroom window, all too used to the familiar sensation of having my ass ogled as I did so.

Out in front of the house there was a field of lavender. I had never brought any into the house—it was something I vaguely remembered my mother doing once, back before she no longer had the luxury, back when she worried about keeping a nice house instead of worrying about keeping all our lives. I never bothered—we were men, after all, and I somehow doubted he would really appreciate it if I ever cared to do such a thing—but I was glad we had it, out there.

“I should probably start on dinner. I bought zucchini and asparagus. I was going to make soup.”

He sat up. “Yeah?”

“I thought I might. Ah... you know the neighbors?”

“Do I know the neighbours? You mean the people who live nearly five kilometers away and don’t speak any English, those neighbours? No, can’t say I know ‘em well.”

“Their barn cat is pregnant.”

“You’ve already signed us up for two, haven’t you?”

“You’re the one who decided we would name them Pierre and Alice.” I shrugged.

“Fine.” He shook his head, smiling. “You’re the man making dinner.”

Early on, he had tried to point out that he could cook, but ‘I can cook, too, you know’ turned out to be crazy bushman for ‘I am capable of holding meat over fire’, which is not quite the same thing. Also, I am not entirely certain that ‘octopus salad’ is actually a food. So I cook. I do all right with it—I’d spent exactly one month of deep cover work in a small restaurant once, though it was an American restaurant and therefore the standards were not immense, but I can read a cookbook, I can make a few things well, and he constantly reminds me that he’s not a fussy man, even if I am.

And life is comfortable.

And he doesn’t know that I wrote to his mother, and that the soup recipe comes from her.

And... she does not know that I am a man.

But still. We have the house, we have a routine... life is more than comfortable, I think.

Life is good.



---FIN---

Title: The Road You Didn't Take
Chapter One: Where Or When
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: NC 17
Pairing: Sniper/Spy-- no, not that one...
Summary: An arrangement is made.
Author's Notes: Sort of a side-quel to the Epilogue of 'Always Another Dawn'.


At first, I wasn’t sure I’d seen him at all. After all, out in the real world again it wasn’t exactly unusual, seeing a man in a blue suit blending into a crowd of people, and most of those were probably businessmen, not spies.
So like I had at least a hundred times before, I waved the feeling off and went on with my day. I had a job to do, and that meant scouting out the best spot for tomorrow, and planning an exit route that would get me away from the scene of the crime.
Then I stopped to buy a coffee, and saw him for real.
He wasn’t wearing the blue suit, which caught me off guard, and I guess meant the man before was someone else. He was wearing a yellow shirt, which was... well, not unusual, by Italian standards, apparently. Me, I looked like an obvious tourist—I had one outfit that looked like what everyone else was wearing, and that was for tomorrow, for blending into the crowds afters. He looked like he had been born precisely to exist in that moment, outside that café, in that really ridiculously yellow shirt.
In the short spaces of time that I had seen his face, it had burned itself into my memory. Saw him sometimes when I didn’t mean to, dreamed him once or twice in place of the usual sorts of faces I’d dreamed about in the past. Thought about him when I didn’t want to.
He didn’t betray too much when he saw me, and maybe anyone who didn’t know him would think he was cool as anything, the bloody spy, but I shook him.
I pulled out the empty chair at his table, putting on a friendly smile despite the venom in my voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What do you mean what am I doing here?” He hissed back, hiding it under a sociable little laugh. “I live here! Well, for the winter, I do. I expect by April I’ll be in Paris—it’s a cliché, I know, but I’ve always loved it. I should ask what you’re doing here.”
“... So you’re not following me?” I blinked.
“No! You’re... not following me?”
“No. I’m here for my job.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I work, temps du temps. Little things. Just to keep my means in line with my lifestyle. Though you, I imagine, work for work’s sake.”
“Yeah. Didn’t know I’d run into you...”
“Obviously.” He snorted. “So... your job. I hope it has nothing to do with me this time?”
“If it did, I wouldn’t be surprised to see you, would I?”
“Of course.” He smiled into his mug. “Well... it’s—funny, us meeting like this. I wondered... if I wanted it to happen, or if I wanted for us to never meet again. Which would be better.”
“Yeah? What’d you come up with?”
“Ah.” He nodded once, slowly, like whatever he was about to say was some kind of deep wisdom, though it was probably as much smoke and mirrors as everything else his lot ever did. “Well, when I thought about it, very carefully, I realized the best thing would of course be for us to never cross paths. And yet... that was not really what I wanted, either, so...”
“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I want.” I shrugged, flagging down a waitress. Well, trying to.
He succeeded where I failed, and after a brief conference, made my order for me.
“I could’ve gotten by.”
“Really? Because my Italian is flawless. How is yours?”
“... I’m sure she would’ve understood ‘coffee’. All they sell’s coffee, she’d have understood ‘coffee’.”
He laughed. “How did this even happen? I don’t mean us meeting, that is some strange twist of fate, I won’t question it. I mean... why do I love you? I shouldn’t even like you! Un coup de Coeur, one supposes.”
“Fine. Don’t like me.”
“I can’t help it. The heart wants what it wants... You are everything I am not. And we only met because you were hired to—well, you remember.”
“We’d have met after that. And I didn’t really meet you, exactly.”
“Fair enough.” He looked at me. Just looked at me ‘til I could hardly stand it.
“What?”
“Nothing. I think I missed you. I mean, I did, I just...”
“Yeah, well. I should go.”
“Your coffee hasn’t gotten here yet.”
“Then you should go. One of us needs to, just not be here. I can’t deal with you right now.”
“If I go...” He searched his pockets, brought out a small pad of paper and a pencil and jotted something down. “Will you be able to deal with me later? I would like to talk to you.”
“Yeah, and a lot more besides.”
“I promise I won’t ask you for anything you could not give. I promise you I only want... I only want to see you before you’re gone. It’s been a while since everything was so ugly between us, and I’m sorry for that, I was an idiot. I can admit that. It doesn’t have to be for long. But I’d like it to be. You know?”
I let him press the paper into my hand. It was an address.
He tossed some money down on the table and disappeared.

---/-/---

He looked surprised to see me, when he answered the door, and I was pretty surprised to have knocked on it in the first place.
It was a nice little unit he was staying in, with a view on a picturesque little street. It would have been a normal place, except for the giant vault in his living room.
“Sometimes I handle... delicate materials.” He explained with a smile. “Can I get you something? Wine, or... anything?”
I shrugged. On the one hand, my knowledge of wine extended about as far as ‘well that’s an all right sort of cab sav’, and ‘all right’ kind of covered everything from drinkable to excellent. I imagine if something was really piss poor, I’d notice, but beyond that...
On the other hand, I didn’t think I wanted to deal with him if I didn’t have some kind of drink in my hand.
“Sure. Sounds... sounds nice.”
We sat at opposite ends of his sofa.
“All right. So talk.” I shrugged. “You wanted to see me.”
“Yes. I... Well, you must not hate me anymore. You came, after all.”
“Yeah. Reckon.”
He sighed. “If there was a switch, and I could turn it off, don’t you think I would? I don’t mean to make you nervous, you know.”
“Well, I am a bit creeped out by the fact that you let me bash your face in, and you did it ‘cause you were onto me.”
“Onto?”
“You know. I mean, sexually.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Yes, that was... Well, the whole thing was a disaster, wasn’t it? I didn’t really know what else to do with you. I suppose we were always tinged with violence and the threat of death, considering how I first became aware of you. It wasn’t supposed to go that far. It wasn’t supposed to go. And then... I blame them, I suppose. I didn’t have to really think about it, until I found out... It gave me hope at first, and then... then there was no hope at all.”
He drained his wine glass with a deprecating little chuckle.
“Yeah, well, that’s not your fault.” I offered, shifting uncomfortably.
“There were times when I thought it would be okay... that it wouldn’t ever be an issue, even with the two of us working together. It’s not like some of the more teamwork-oriented classes, we were both essentially the lone wolves. You were always happy to avoid me, and I was able to avoid you in turn.”
“And that changed when you found out about the other spy and his sniper?”
“... No.” He stared down into his glass like he was willing it to be full again. “Before that. I found you one time. Before the respawn. It didn’t matter in the end, I mean, I was killed as well and then we both came back and there was no real harm done, except... except I found you, and... it bothered me. Even knowing it was impermanent, it bothered me. I... I had to wonder if I wasn’t just attracted to you. If I had feelings for you.”
“Oh.”
“Can I make you an offer?”
“Whoa, you said—“ I got to my feet.
“An offer. Not a request.”
“... I’m listening.”
“Anything.”
“What now?”
“You heard me. I offer you anything. Anything you want, and nothing you don’t. There are no strings. No expectations. But if you ever want, if you ever need, anything from me, of any nature... well, I am here. And I understand, everything about you. Your work, your... some of your personal habits. The kinds of things that you like, and things that bother you. And even the parts of you that I should hate, I think perhaps I like. And none of it bothers me. And you know about me. And, well, just—if there was anything, I—You know?”
I shook my head. “Wouldn’t work.”
“What’s to make work? Like I said, I am asking for nothing. Merely... mentioning that I am here. And when I am not here,” He shrugged. “Still. Mentioning that if you ever ask something of me, I will always see what I can do. I don’t only mean things of a sexual nature. I just mean, I’m here.”
“Don’t know what else you mean, aside from ‘things of a sexual nature’. And when it comes to that, well... I mean... I’m celibate.”
“Really?” He tsked.
“You think it’s funny?”
“I think it is a damn waste. You are a handsome man. Doubtless I am not the only person who... who falls for you. If you told me you were heterosexual, I would accept this, I’ve assumed it to be the case. Though, I could be a convincing woman if you ever—“
“I know.” I cut him off. “And I don’t want you to be. And celibate ain’t the same as asexual, I... I just can’t afford the distraction.”
This time it was less of a tsk, and more of a full-blown snort. “So a quick fling you think is distracting, and then you expect you will just work, with no problems, with a lifetime’s worth of sexual frustration building up inside you?”
“Not a lifetime! Couple years. Not like I can’t—I mean, not like I don’t—I mean, it’s none of your damn bloody business, is it?”
“If you were not celibate, would you like men?”
“No!” I lied.
He smiled. “I see. You know where I am. You know what I am,”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Jacques. Didn’t they tell you when they sent you to kill me?”
“Figured it was false. No one knew much about you, thought someone made it up ‘cause it sounded French.”
“No, it’s my name.” His smile was warm now, not trying for seductive, not trying for anything. Just warm and real. “Jackie, to my friends. Well, if I had friends. When I had friends, that was what I was called. No one uses it anymore... But I suppose it doesn’t matter. It’s sort of a childish nickname, isn’t it?”
“Naw. ‘S all right. Um... Ben.” I held my hand out, feeling awkward.
He took it, looking almost shy. I mean, if I didn’t know any better.
“Like the photographer?”
“Far as I know, mate. My parents liked it, that’s all I can tell you.” He still hadn’t let go of my hand, and I wasn’t rushing to make him.
“So. Now you know my name as well. You know what I’m like. You know that I don’t care about all the morally ambiguous parts of your life, and I never will. You know where I am through the rest of the winter, and where I plan to be come spring, and I can always let you know if I move around to anyplace else. And I will not ask you for anything. But I am good in bed. And if you need to blow off some steam with someone you don’t have to worry about, or think about...”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all right, too. I just wanted to offer. In case you were not... entirely opposed to the idea.” He finally realized we were still sort of attached to each other and let his hand slip from mine.
“Why? Why me? Why—why would you be happy to give me anything I wanted and never take anything for yourself? You’re supposed to be a self-serving, smug little bastard, not a—Not whatever this is.”
“I am a self-serving, smug little bastard. But for you, would I debase myself? Utterly. And it is not a question of my taking nothing for myself. It is a question of my being happy with whatever it is I get.”
“Suppose I don’t feel like giving you anything?”
“I’m not getting anything from you now.” He shrugged. “So it really makes no difference. I’m not losing anything, by making the offer. Even if I am not gaining anything, either.”
I looked at him for a moment, really looked, and really thought about what he was offering, and what it meant. Sure, he was good looking... a little distinguished, a little roguish. A little weird seeing him with no mask on. The idea of being touched by someone else never really stopped being attractive, and the idea of no strings was absolutely a pre-requisite. Not having to lie about myself would be a plus.
“You mean to tell me if I just wanted a blowjob and then I walked out, that’d be fine by you?”
He nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Except it wouldn’t, is the thing.”
He laughed. “Ah, mon petit chou, you have some things to learn, I think... I would enjoy every second of it, if that was what you asked of me. I would cherish every drawn-out moment that I was allowed to kneel at your altar. I would worship you, completely. I would consider it a privilege to spend the entire afternoon on my knees before you.”
“I don’t think it’d take all afternoon.” I sat back down, hopefully before he could see my knees shake. And if he kept up this kind of talk, with his voice low and smoky and silky like that, it’d take no time at all.
Hell, the few years I’ve gone without, probably wouldn’t take long anyway.
“I could take an afternoon. If you had the time to spare, I think I could get in a couple of good performances. Of course, if you were only interested in a single quickie, that is doable, but...” He shrugged one shoulder. “I would very much like to take my time with you. It would please me to do so.”
“Okay.” I breathed. I wasn’t exactly going back out in public like this... “Yeah. Please. Okay.”
For a moment he looked at me, that weird sort of shyness, a hesitation that he never followed up with whatever it was he was thinking about saying before he knelt on the floor in front of me and undid my fly.
I didn’t give him much of a chance to prove his talent in the area. A few teasing passes up the underside of my cock, and then over the head, and his hands on me, and I was lost.
“It’s, uh...” I looked away. Had to. There he was, on the floor, and me just having come all across his face, and he looks at me like he’s the one having the time of his life and I can hardly even think about what it is I’ve been doing, but I know I want him, want this again, and I know if I’d noticed he wanted me and been smart enough to give in, I could’ve saved us both a lot of trouble... “It has been a couple years since I...”
“No, no, I’m flattered.” He practically purred. I looked back over to see him rising to his feet, and he wasn’t lying when he said he’d enjoy it too.
“Siddown.” I jerked my head towards the seat to my left. “Look, I can’t... what you did, I’m not—I don’t... I don’t feel right doing nothing for ya... I just, it took a lot to get to this point, and I—“
“I told you, I have no expectations. No demands.”
I cupped my hand over the hard-on tenting his trousers. “Don’t say anything, just... this is as much as I can really give right now, and I want to, but I do not want you talking about it, or thinking about it too much, or anything. I just... Is that okay?”
He nodded, biting his lip, head falling back.
I rubbed him through the fabric for a while first, before pulling him out and handling him proper. I wouldn’t say I’d ever thought much about what other men were like, not for any lack of natural inclination so much as a strong sense of self-preservation even before I reckoned I’d go without companionship. If I had thought about it much, maybe this is the kind of thing I’d have thought about. It’d be the kind of thing I’d think about in future, alone with myself. This whole visit would be playing out in my head the next long, lonely night, or morning. The blowjob, yeah, obviously, but also the length of him, the hardness, the way he fits in my hand. The little moans he tries to swallow, the flush, the sweat, a million other details.
I pull myself together and leave after he comes, before he can come up with anything else to say, before we have to look at each other.

---tbc---

Title: The Road You Didn't Take
Chapter Two: I Wish I Knew
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: NC 17
Pairing: Sniper/Spy-- no, not that one...
Summary: An arrangement is made.
Author's Notes: Sort of a side-quel to the Epilogue of 'Always Another Dawn'.




“Thought you’d be in Paris.” I nodded to him from two stools down at the bar.

“It’s not April.” He shrugged, lifting his drink. “Besides, I told you once I’d never been here. How did your job go?”

“In Italy?”

He nodded.

“It went off without a hitch.”

“Ah, excellent.”

It had. Thoughts of him had plagued me pretty well every day since... well, even since before we did all we did, but they didn’t get in the way of the job. Since that afternoon, the thoughts of him had actually limited themselves to times when I could do something about them, or if they didn’t, they were more a pleasant distraction than a disastrous one. The plane ride home I’d kept thinking about the way he’d looked at me, just that.

He stood, passing close by me on his way to the exit, and he paused long enough to whisper in my ear. “If you wanted to fuck me, I’d let you.”

There was a napkin in my pocket with an address and a room number, and I hadn’t even noticed when he put it there.



---/-/---



“You came.” He smiled brilliantly. “Excellent! I didn’t order room service, so the knock on the door meant someone was here to fuck me one way or the other, and I’d rather not have to fight for my life.”

“You can’t—you can’t say that kind of thing. I mean, you can say it now.” I checked the lock. “But down in the bar? Back there, you can’t—You just can’t say that kind of thing, yeah? It’s not, strictly speaking... well, legal. Could be a hassle.”

“No one heard me but you. It is not legal? For two adults in their right minds to do something that harms neither?”

“I didn’t make the law, you know.”

“But, strictly speaking, is it legal, to put a bullet into a man’s medulla oblongata at a high velocity?”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it! I said you can’t talk about it in public!” I ran a hand through my hair. “Course my job’s not legal, but when I’m at home, I don’t mention nothing about it in airport bars! That’s why no one who doesn’t want someone killed knows what I do! Well, and my parents... less said about that, the better. Anyway, would I be here if I wasn’t going to... to do... whatever?”

“Whatever?” He smirked, hand sliding up my chest. “That is vague.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“So what else is new?” He laughed. “I’d be happy to give you the same treatment as last time, if you are not sure you want something different.”

“Do you... is there anything you want?”

“I want everything.” He shrugged, turning away. “I enjoy it all. I like you. I don’t have to ask you for anything, because as long as what you want is me, I am happy.”

“If there’s one thing... I know I might say no, but I might say yes. I mean, if I can say yes, I will, I want to... I want things to be kind of even between us. If there’s one thing you want to ask for, what would it be?”

“One thing?”

“Yeah.”

“... I want to kiss you. Just once. No, I knew... I knew it was silly to ask. We’ll just do, like last time, like I promised, no strings, and—“

I put a hand out, grabbing his shoulder. “You could. Once. Just a kiss, right? Not a big deal?”

“It is to me.” He smiled sadly.

“How long you think you’ll be in Adelaide?”

“Haven’t made plans. I suppose I could be here ‘til the end of March. Why?”

“Because I haven’t really made arrangements like this with anyone else. And I might come by and see you a couple more times before you go, if you’re not leaving soon.” I shrugged. “So are you going to kiss me, or what?”

He leaned in, eyes fluttering closed, his lips brushing my cheek, where I still had the scar from the RED Spy that respawn never erased.

“Thought you were gonna kiss me...”

“I am,” He murmured, following the scar, one hand at the back of my head, one clutching my shirt. Eventually, he finished with that and his lips landed on mine, just barely, and after a moment, I kissed back.

I should’ve done this first. I should’ve done this long ago...

When we did break, I kissed the older scar on his cheek, the one he’d had a few years ago, when he hadn’t worn the balaclava every waking and sleeping minute, when I’d been hired to take him out, when I’d first seen his face. I felt him freeze up, then shudder softly in my arms.

“You don’t have to...”

“Shut up.” I sighed, kissing his cheek again. Running my fingers through his hair—too short to get much purchase, not at all like a girl, but soft anyhow, and nice. Touching his face, his shoulder, the small of his back.

“You don’t...”

“Want to.” I kissed his lips again. Probably more surprised than he was it was true. “I want to...”

We undressed this time, we hadn’t before, and wound up on his hotel bed, not even between the sheets and all over each other. He flipped me onto my back, slithering down to the foot of the bed, slippery and nearly boneless, and this time he did manage to draw it out, his hands and his mouth playing at bringing me to the edge and then back down so many times I was about ready to beg.

“If you don’t make me come,” I growled, “I’ll shove you off and do it myself.”

His eyes darkened, his breath sped up. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“By all means...” His tongue flicked across the tip of my cock again, before he released his grip around the base and leaned back from me just a little.

“What the hell are you--?”

He moved to kneel by the bed, grabbed my hips and dragged me over, in roughly the same position as we had been the first time, except I could lay back if I wanted to. I sat up anyway, just enough to be able to see him.

“Bring yourself off.” He whispered, and his breath hit me, hit the evaporating spit he’d left all over me and drove me crazy. “And then come on me.”

“Bloody hell...”

“You liked it, before. Didn’t you? I saw the way you looked at me, just for a second, before you had to stop looking... Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I think maybe you want this.”

I nodded. Didn’t really have anything else to say. It sounded as good as anything, sounded better than a lot of things, a fair sight better than I would have wanted to admit, but there he was on the floor between my knees, his head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth opened, hand fisting slowly over his own cock, and finishing myself off wasn’t exactly hard work.

What did land in his mouth he swallowed, with this moan like it was a favour to him and not to me, and what didn’t land in his mouth his fingers dragged through, and some he licked up and some he used, along with his own spit, as he jacked himself off and there was another little sound when he came that might’ve undid me if I wasn’t already undone, and then he slumped forward, resting his head and one arm on the edge of the bed with a satisfied little smile and I realized I was really in this thing.

Yeah, it was casual. We weren’t gonna be moving in together any time soon, or even settling down in the same city, and maybe most of the time we’d be on opposite sides of the world, but that didn’t mean it was something less. I’d ease my way into giving him as much as I could. I’d see him when I could. I’d try and do right by him. And eventually he’s gonna stop being the guy who’d do anything for me and start being the guy with a few demands of his own, but I’m guessing he’s spent enough time reading people that maybe he’ll figure out when I’m ready to go there before he does.

Still. It was a thing, between us, that wasn’t complicated, but wasn’t exactly no-strings, because I was pretty sure now that I wasn’t going anywhere else, and I was going to miss him when he was in another hemisphere, and I would break his heart if I called the bloody thing off. Worst of it is I’d hate to. I actually want him to be happy, and I don’t think lethargy and bliss is the whole of the reason why, though I won’t say it isn’t a part of it.

That night I slept in his hotel, stead of heading back out to where I was temporarily living, just north of the city limits.

The night after, I slept in his hotel as well.

When he left for Paris, I went home to find a thick layer of dust on most of my things and new life forms in my refrigerator.



---/-/---



“To what do I owe the pleasure, mon ami?”

I balanced the phone between my cheek and my shoulder while I checked over my itinerary. “Take it you’re still in Paris, since you answered your phone.”

“Yes...”

“Feel like traveling?” I asked, aiming for light. Casual. “I gotta be in Spain in two weeks for a banker.”

“Your client or...?”

“Or. Don’t know much about the client. As long as the money’s good, I figure secrecy’s par for the course. Thought if you felt a touch of wanderlust we might meet up. Barcelona. I’ll be there a couple days getting the hang of routines, taking care of preliminaries. Wouldn’t mind a little...”

“Assignation?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I am perfectly mobile. Always. I’m glad you called, I was lonely. I contemplated putting out a hit on someone just so I could see you.”

“Liar.”

“Yes, a little. But... I miss you. Sometimes. I would love to see Barcelona. I haven’t been to Spain since Majorca, and that... well, it turned out to be a profitable venture in the long run, but it has been a long time... Bien sur, I will find you there in two weeks.”

I hung up the phone feeling pretty good about things. And maybe when it's time to lay low after the Barcelona job, I'll spent a couple nights in Paris. Who knows? After all, no one would ever look for me there...


---FIN---

Title: Fit To Be Tied
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: NC 17
Pairing: Sniper/Spy (the first pair again)
Summary: Gentlemen, behold... PORN!
Author's Notes: So... some time ago, I alluded to bondage timestamp porn, and to the fellas making a bit of a bet on the subject, that bet being largely an excuse to tie each other up and ravish each other. Here is that porn (and a little bit of domestic fluff, but it's mostly porn), set a bit before the Epilogue of 'Always Another Dawn'.



“So... were there stakes for this bet?” He asked, dangling the hank of rope over my head.

“Hm... if I get free before you finish... whatever it is you feel like doing with me, then I have my own wicked little way with you.”

“Sounds more than fair. That it? I mean, I oughta get something if you lose.”

“Well, if I lose, then I am still tied up at your mercy, so I say you win.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Those are good stakes. Get naked and prepare to be tied.”

I stripped and knelt on the bed. “How do you want me?”

He looked me over for a long moment. “Oh, how don’t I want you? Arms behind your back.”

I complied, and he wrapped the rope a few times around my forearms, binding them together before winding the rope around the whole of my upper body. I flexed, feeling the restriction I was under. I could only move so far, and while in the past such a situation was merely a chance to test my skill—or suffer some unpleasant consequence—I found I was actually enjoying the sensation. I had never liked being penned in, by anything. But I had also never been someplace truly safe... and that might have a lot to do with it.

He piled up our pillows, gently pushing me down so that my chest rested on them, so that I wasn’t completely flat on my face with my ass in the air.

Well, my ass was still in the air...

His hands were all over me. I could turn my head a ways to try and look at him, but he was behind me, something my whole body was trained to find unacceptably dangerous, not titillating, but here I was, enjoying being momentarily helpless while he touched me. While he kissed the back of my neck and began opening me up.

He’d chosen the position well... if he wanted to, he could lean forward, pin my arms even further with his weight, make it that much harder for me to work my way free. The tension created by my muscles straining uselessly against the ropes was still good in a way it shouldn’t have been, hearing him murmur every next step to me was even better.

“Now you can’t see, but I’m ready now and I think you’re ready for me...” The words whispered into my skin between kisses down my back, skipping where the ropes covered me, travelling down. His teeth sinking gently into one cheek, his tongue laving away the sting. “Tell me you’re ready for me...”

“Oui...”

“Tell me you want it?”

“Mais oui... desperately... I want it... you...”

“That’s right,” His hand slid down my thigh, up again, slow. “Love it, don’t you?”

I nodded, and he slid into me with a quiet groan. “When do you want it?”

“Always!” I moved back as best I could with no way to gain much leverage.

“You love me?”

“Oui... je t’adore... baise-moi?”

He thrust into me harder now, curving his body over mine to kiss the back of my shoulder, though he didn’t pin me, as I’d thought he might, half-hoped he might. His weight on top of me, adding to the ropes around my arms, keeping me from moving while he fucked me? He really is everything I shouldn’t want and do...

He went hard and fast—and I never minded when he did—and when he came with a soft shout, it reminded me that I hadn’t really been trying to escape. I glanced at the clock. It still wasn’t a very long time, especially considering the... distractions, but if I had been trying to get free, I would have. After all, most of the time, the people tying me up have been intent on keeping me from getting loose and not at all worried about my personal safety or comfort. Usually they don’t love me, or expect me to make them breakfast in the morning.

“Looks like I win.” He grinned at me.

“I let you win.” I slipped out of the ropes while he was lying back and looking self-satisfied.

“Guess you did.” He raised his eyebrows.

“And I didn’t finish.”

“Well... since you so very clearly let me win...” He regarded the ropes, and my own raging erection. “I suppose you could still collect your winnings...”

“Oh, I think so.” I smiled. “Pay attention to what time it is once I have you where I want you. You can at least try to beat my time.”

“It’s three-twelve now. I’ll go from there.”

I bound his wrists together and tied them to one of the bedposts, straddling his chest and gripping the headboard with one hand. With the other I stroked his cheek. “And do you want this?”

“Aw yeah... c’mere, you know I do...”

I guided myself to his mouth, watching him swallow me greedily. I stroked his face gently as he went down on me. I felt surprisingly tender, for someone who had a man tied to his bed giving him sex...

I came, and came down, and noticed he was still struggling with the ropes after my post-orgasmic high had worn off. I grabbed my knife from the bedside table.

“Don’t you dare.” He shook his head. “I can get out of this myself.”

“Cher, you don’t have to prove anything...”

“Yes I do!”

“Well... all right.” I watched the clock for a while. “Are you free?”

“... Almost?”

“Only almost? Then you haven’t beaten my time.”

“Dammit.”

I laughed. “Do you want my help now?”

“No! I’m getting it.”

I watched him now, thrashing around a bit while his hands tried to find the knots. Eventually, he worked the loose one free, and everything else followed with just a little work. I kissed his wrists, right at the pulse, and massaged them gently.

“I think I win.”

“Yeah. Reckon you do.” He sighed.

“It took me a while, though. I bet that wasn’t the best you could do.”

“Well... probably went a little easy on you.” He admitted. “I mean, didn’t want to, uh... to hurt you, or...”

“And I only had to free my arms. I’m sure we could make a similar wager some other time... if you really tie me up, you might beat me honestly.”

“You liked this, didn’t you?”

“I like everything you do to me.” I stroked his chest, kissed his wrist again. “But yes. I had fun.”

“Might go ahead and play this game some other time, then.” He gathered me up in his arms, settling back against the pillows that had been scattered when I freed myself. He yawned, and I followed suit. “It was kind of fun, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Wanna take a nap with me before I have to do anything?”

“What do you have to do today?”

He shrugged a little under me and kissed my forehead. “Barn door’s off its hinges, an’ I still don’t know what we’re gonna do with the thing. Might make for a nice garage, actually. Rather keep your car there than... cows.”

“D’accord. The kitchen is lovely, by the way.”

“Yeah, well, an’ you said you didn’t want a fixer-upper.”

“No, I said I did not want to ‘fix up’. I am perfectly happy to watch you do manual labor. I only wish it was summer. I could watch you sweat more. You would have to take your shirt off...”

“Well, sure we can find something for me to do come summer. For now... I am gonna make you help with the painting. Don’t argue, you picked the colours, you get to help put ‘em up on the walls.”

“If I help you paint, I am going to wind up with paint all over me.” I predicted.

“Yup.”

“You are horrible.”

“Yup.”

“Will you pretend that my contributions to the painting are as rugged and manly as your attempt at repairing masonry?”

“The fireplace is fixed, isn’t it? It’s not an attempt at repairing masonry if the masonry gets fixed! Yeah. It’ll be very masculine painting. I’ll be suitably impressed. You can fuck me afterwards. I’ll tell you how much watching you do manual labour gets me hot.”

“Don’t tease me.” I elbowed him.

“Not teasing, ‘s a promise. I will...” He nuzzled my neck. “An’ you’ll be on top... because you’ll have impressed me with all your manliness. Love you. You’ll probably have to paint shirtless. You know, so you don’t get paint all over your shirt. Your shirts are too nice.”

“I could wear one of your shirts.”

“Naw. You’ll paint with your shirt off. It’ll impress me faster.”

“D’ac.” I leaned back against him. “That sounds fine.”


---FIN---

Title: The Game
Author: GlasgowSmiles
Rating: NC 17
Pairing: Sniper/Spy (the first pair again)
Summary: Gentlemen, behold... MORE PORN!
Author's Notes: A direct sequel to the timestamp bondage porn of the night before, both in timeline and in theme.

EXTRA NOTE: So, now that I've churned out two times the bondage games, I've got a couple things I'm working on and I was hoping to gauge interest, because otherwise I don't know what to focus on/post- I've been rewriting the whole series from Sniper's POV, but of course the beginning is mostly the same events (some scenes different, though). I've also been completely EVIL and hit the reset button, sending everyone back. Or, of course, you could just prompt me to write more porn. I've never successfully been able to write something that didn't focus mainly on Sniper/Spy, but under most circumstances I'd give it a shot (though I can't write either of them with anyone else...). Anyway, help a gal out with some direction? Otherwise, just enjoy your porn!





I got back to the house after a brief little walk through the field out back, and found a note on the kitchen table.

‘Meet me in the garage’, it read. And then, ‘Don’t ask why, just come out here.’ Beneath that was ‘The garage is where you’ll find me, a blanket, and the lube’.

This was more than enough reason for me. Clearly, he’d thought of everything. I made my way to the barn-cum-garage post-haste.

The blanket was very much in evidence, spread out a few feet from the car. The lubricant was set out on it, as was a dishtowel—really? One of my dishtowels? We have one in the bathroom for this very purpose... And my balaclava. Not in evidence? The reason for the last item. Also, my Sniper.

I coughed gently, and he stepped out of the shadows behind the car, the hank of soft rope in hand. “Put on the mask?”

“Why, exactly?” I complied before he answered. He was wearing his old uniform as well.

“Because. You... are a BLU spy,” He grinned. “And I... have captured you. Or am about to, at any rate.”

“Cute.” I undressed. “Arms behind my back again?”

“Above your head.” He gestured to another rope, slung over one of the exposed beams of the barn-cum-garage’s ceiling, this one with a hook dangling from the end.

Two hooks, one tied to each end, the one dangling above the blanket, the other on the ground just a little ways off. Interesting... I knelt under the hanging hook and obligingly stretched my arms up. I’d have to hurry to get my hands free before the blood drained down... anything else he did would be easy to get out of after.

He bound my wrists together, then affixed the rope around them to the hook. There was one more hank of the softer rope set out on the blanket, but first he went back behind the car to a small workbench. He came back with a not-too-long length of pipe with a rope run through it.

“Can you spread your legs about this far?” He started tying one end of the rope to one knee. I managed to do so while retaining my balance, and he tied the other knee, the pipe keeping me spread like that.

He moved around behind me after that, one hand on the rope overhead keeping me steady while the other angled my lower leg inward.

“What now?”

“I want to see how close you can get your ankles...”

“This close.” I lied, adjusting. I put on a show of struggling to get them within tying-up range of each other, keeping a gap there as he wound the rope around my ankles and tied the knot off. I could slip out of that without the aid of my hands.

“Okay, time starts now.” He walked back around to face me. “So. I’ve caught you—“

“How did you get me naked, pray tell?” I teased. “I don’t imagine the enemy spy was so compliant while you were tying him up, in this fantasy of yours.”

“Well, I imagine I cut your clothes off after the fact.”

“Ah. I see.” I started turning the rope around my wrists, looking for the knot. “Very nice.”

“We’re in the RED base, obviously,” He gestured to our surroundings.

“Why is my Citroen parked in the RED base?”

“Don’t spoil it. You don’t even own the Citroen yet, we’re in the RED base, and I have you bound, naked, and completely at my mercy. Where anyone could just walk by.”

I shivered. “That would be humiliating.”

“Would be, sure, but I don’t think anyone’ll be by for a while... might have some fun with you.”

My breath may have sped up at that. He may have noticed. It would explain the little chuckle, the one he gets sometimes when he knows how much I want him.

He unzipped his fly slowly. I found the knot for the rope around my wrists, but didn’t start on it quite yet. Not yet...

His hand stroked my face through the balaclava, he brought his slowly hardening cock towards my lips, and I shifted, wiggled my fingers to bring more blood up towards my hands.

He could have fucked my mouth harder, but even though the roll of his hips was slow, there was strength enough behind it that it wasn’t a complete break from the game, and his hand gripped the base of my skull with a certain surety.

I picked at the knot, listened to half-voiced encouragement and the odd breathy obscenity, did distracting things with my tongue... I had already worked one foot halfway loose from the rope around my ankles and my hands were nearly free as well. The bar between my knees was a nice touch—I would need my hands free for that, and by that time of course, he would notice, but now everything else I had taken care of without pulling his attention away from my lips and tongue and throat.

His arm was between one of my own and the side of my head, and so with that hand I continued holding onto the rope and the hook, and I let the other drop down quietly to start freeing my left knee. The moment I got the knot undone, he came.

“Time?” I stretched a little, undoing the last knot.

“Damn... ten minutes.”

“I am good.” I grinned. “Now... I imagine that, if you had tied me up, cut my clothes off, and had your way with me, you would by this time be somewhat distracted. Lethargic. And you would have a blade nearby.”

“That sounds about right.”

I stood, mimed picking up a dropped knife, and got behind him. “And then I might get the drop on you.”

“You might. I probably got a bit cocky back there. Let my guard down.”

“On your knees...” I eased him down, one hand on his shoulder. Bent to retrieve the rope. I tied his wrists in front of him, stretched the end of the rope across the barn-garage to anchor around one leg of the workbench on the wall, the distance forcing him to balance on his elbows.

I walked back around him, with more leisure than it is easy to manage at my state of arousal, but watching him squirm was worth it. His trousers were already undone, it was just a matter of pulling them down far enough.

I reached forward, slipping my fingers into his mouth, my other hand uncapping the lubricant, and once I withdrew my fingers, I coated them in that before I stretched him for me.

“So...” I leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “If we are in the RED base... does this mean at any moment your own compatriots could happen on us? On you? Like this?”

“Reckon so...”

“And then they would know that I own you.” I breathed. Slid into him and spent a moment just still. “Like no one else ever has, or ever will, I own you...”

“Yeah...” He pushed back, tensed, testing my resolve. “Yeah you do...”

“And to show you how... thoroughly... I own you... I am going to make you come again...”

“Promises, promises.” He grunted, the smirk clear in his voice, and just under that a soft tremor.

I angled every thrust carefully, ran my hands over his thighs, up under his shirt, down between his legs... I watched his progress with the ropes hoping for a distraction, tried to think about the knots and the process as clinically as possible. When that didn’t work I tried to imagine not the exciting fiction of dangerous public sex, but the horrifyingly embarrassing reality of the time one of the RED scouts walked in on us.

Then he tightened around me and moaned low and I couldn’t think of anything unsexy enough to keep me from going over the edge for long. I redoubled my efforts and finally he trembled under me, then stilled, breathing ragged, and I let go.

“You’re still tied up.” I pointed out.

“Nrgh.”

I kissed the back of his neck and grabbed the dishtowel, wiping us both off. “Are we back home now?”

“Yeah. We’re home. How long’s it—Bloody damn! That’s a whole five minutes more and counting...”

“Just let me untie you.” I sighed.

“... fine. Get it next time.”

“Mm-hm. If you get much more inventive, you might keep me occupied longer... I liked what you came up with.” I undid the rope, leaving it tied to the workbench for the time being.

He rolled onto his back, tugging me down to lie against him.

“You don’t want to go inside to do this? We have a bed, you know. Or even a sofa.”

“You got to be kidding me. I just went twice, I’m not walking anywhere.”

“Oh. Right.” I smiled, settling down against him. “I am that good, aren’t I?”

“Fantastic.” He gave me a quick peck on the temple. “Might not walk anywhere ever.”

I sighed and pulled my mask off before I found a better angle at which to use him as a pillow. “Well, if that’s what you decide. I’ll be sure to come by often for conjugal visits, and to bring you food, but I think you’ll get bored stuck here for the rest of your life.”

“Right. Well, I’m gonna go ten minutes at least without walking anywhere.”

“Sounds good.”



---FIN---

This is the Defiant Ones, except in Sniper's perspective.

Title: The Long Walk
Chapter One: Into The Night
Author: Glasgow Smiles
Rating: Eventual R-ness
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, eventually
Summary: Hey, remember the Defiant Ones? Here it is from the Sniper's POV. Some of the dialogue is, of course, recycled, but it starts a little earlier, and fills in different gaps.
Author's Notes: Having been assured at least one person would read it, I decided to go ahead and post, since I'm kind of writing it anyway. Why not share?




I made my approach cautiously. If he was on this side of the big fence, then he probably wasn’t playing by team rules anymore, but I wasn’t about to go strolling up to a BLU spy without any kind of care.

“Oi!” I waved, gun trained on him.

He turned, startled, ruining that smug thing they all like to do for a moment, though he picked it back up again right quick.

“Hello. I take it you are not out here for your health?”

“Middle of the desert, middle of the night?” I laughed, lowering my rifle just a tad. “Naw, mate, I’m not out here for my health. You?”

“Not that it is any of your business, but... I am getting out. Of all this. I assume you are doing the same?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. It wasn’t worth it anymore. It all felt like some kind of game somehow, and a sick one at that. “Where’s your supplies?”

“S-supplies?”

“You are pathetic. And I thought spies liked to think they were the brainy ones.”

“I suppose I did not think... The last base I was stationed at was not far from the town. A couple of miles, not too bad a walk... Do you think this one is different?”

“No. Got no reason to think it’s different, got no reason to think it’s the same.” I shrugged. “But I think it’s bloody stupid to walk out into the desert, when you don’t know where the nearest town is, empty handed.”

“I know... Well, that is—“

“Get over here,” I jerked my head towards the train tracks that lay between where I’d made my way out, and where he’d made his. “Take us there eventually.”

“Of course... the trains come, don’t they? I didn’t even think... Well. Of course I would have remembered in a moment if you hadn’t come along.”

“All right, get walking.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Spy, start walking. We’re both heading in the same direction, and I for one am certainly not presenting my back to you.”

He snorted. “I have no reason to kill you outside of that madhouse.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve dealt with you lot enough that I’m not taking the chance.”

“So I’m supposed to just let you follow me with a gun?”

“Well... reckon if you don’t get too far ahead of me, I won’t be able to shoot you with it.”

“Then as much as it grates on me to say so, you’d better stay close.”

And with that, he set off, and I followed.

Travelling at night was the best plan for a lot of reasons. First, because it’s easier work to sneak off of the base under cover of darkness, and the same goes for walking away across the desert from it. Second, because it’d be thirstier work to travel in the day, best to sleep then. Third, moving through the night at least warms you up a little.

If the nearest town wasn’t a little two, three-mile hike after all, we’d need to find shelter for the hottest part of the day. We’d need to find clean water. Might need to find food. Shelter could be the trickiest, desert’s flat and I don’t know what has or hasn’t been built up around here, but eventually there would be something we could eat, and there would be water. Always is, you just have to know how to spot it.

We were still following the tracks when the sun came up, and there wasn’t a thing in sight that would’ve been useful. Barely a thing in sight even that wasn’t.

Worst thing, though, was I was starting to think the bloody BLU Spy had kind of a nice arse. Hard to tell, exactly, in the suit—and who wears a bloody three-piece suit in a war zone, or a desert, let alone both? But every so often there’d be a glimpse that hinted at an underlying niceness, and that’s just the last thing I needed.

Get a grip on yourself, you spent half your life now not doing this, don’t do this now...

Eventually, with the sun getting higher, and the Spy getting slower, I went ahead and overtook him for the lead. He probably wasn’t going to try anything, the war was behind us and besides, if it was a real trek—days long, maybe—he wasn’t going to make it on his own, and stabbing me in the back for my canteen would’ve been an incredibly short-sighted move.

Speaking of, guess he didn’t have any water of his own.

“Oi.” I turned to him.

“What?” He bristled, on the defensive.

“Here.” I tossed my canteen to him.

“I don’t need—“

“Yeah, you do. Unless you escaped for the purpose of dying out in the desert, you very much need. You carry it for a while. Take it back from you later.”

He nodded, wiping the mouth of the canteen with a hanky before taking a drink. We set off again, with him falling into step behind me.



---/-/---



“Look up there,” I pointed out a building not too far off from the tracks, a weird little structure on stilts. “C’mon.”

I took the stairs at a good clip, the thought of shelter for the worst of the day enough to give me a second wind, and I pushed the door in, the lock giving way. The Spy followed me up, one hand on the railing, climbing at a creep.

“Wonder why it’s abandoned.” I turned over a couple of crates, to make sure we had no unwelcome company. There was a lizard that I sent skittering off into the corner, but nothing dangerous.

It was a good place. Four walls and a roof was a lot more than I expected us to find, as temporary shelter goes, and I’d spotted a pipe going up one of the legs supporting the place that looked like it promised water. Even if it wasn’t still running, it meant there was a water main out here, or a well, or something. Crates’d provide decent seating, a good surface for... I don’t know. Still had a pack of cards in my vest pocket, but while we’re here I think we need sleep more than we need to get to know each other over a quick poker game.

Besides, never play against spies. That’s like a rule or something, or it should be.

“It’s like... like half of one of our... locations.” He struggled. I’ll admit it’s weird to have to refer to them. It’s weird even thinking about the world we just got out of. “Like it was never finished.”

It would have been our side, if they’d ever made it into one of those places. You could tell from... well, just from everything. Made of wood, not concrete, and in a few places you could see peeling red paint, though no logo had been put up yet, and no opposing fort erected.

“Guess they figured they had enough.” I shrugged. “Or it was too close to the one we just broke out of.”

It was possible. From up here, if I looked back out one of the windows, I could see it in the distance, the outline of the forts we’d bolted from. Probably by design you shouldn’t see one from the other, even if most of them were out in the desert—I think the same desert. Well, plenty of desert to go around, isn’t there? And to get from one to the other, they usually teleport us, might not all be the Badlands, could be some in Death Valley, or other places. For all I know, they aren’t all in the states.

“What if we are more than a week from civilization?” The Spy interrupted my thoughts, such as they were. “Your van was blown up. No driving, no going back to it for supplies, just...”

He didn’t have to remind me. We were both counting on my ability to survive with next to nothing, for as long as we had to, and it wasn’t exactly a weight a man forgot about just because no one mentioned it in the last five minutes. Besides...

“Then I break my record.” I glared at him. “Your demo blew my van, so don’t you go complaining to me about that.”

“Well, I didn’t tell him to do it. I wasn’t anywhere near him when it happened. I was in your—I mean... Well, I was doing my job. Like you were doing yours.”

In our base. Not that he had to say it, I knew it was his job. He snuck in and made off with our intel, and I picked off his teammates, and sometimes he stabbed me in the back if I couldn’t hear him in time. And now here we are together, and maybe it’s a mistake, but if I’m stuck with him either way, I’ll take living over dying.

“Look, we’re... we’re in this right now. Two of us.” I said. “Best thing for it’s to... just... Any animosity between us is gonna have to be part of a different life.”

“You have nothing to fear from me.” He spread his hands. “I need you to survive. I am highly motivated not to kill you.”

“Well that’s fine, but it’s not what I mean. I mean... you got to trust me as well.” And it shouldn’t have mattered, except it did. It really did. I wanted him to.

He found the floorboards real interesting for a long moment. “I am... not in the habit of trusting anyone.”

“You need me to survive.” I reminded him.

“Need does not mean trust.”

Should’ve known, I should have known he’d be more trouble than he’s worth, as if I could’ve ever thought that backstabbing little bastard was worth any kind of trouble, but dammit, I’m going to need him, too, before all this is over. Because I believe in planning for the worst case scenarios, and I get the feeling that planning won’t exactly go for naught.

“I know what I’m doing and you don’t.” I pointed out.

“That doesn’t change—“ He started.

“If I tell you ya need to do something,” I could feel the headache coming on, though I feared it was as much the start of dehydration as it was my being fed up with the bloody Spy.

“Of course,” He went all submissive all of a sudden, like a dog showing it’s belly. “You are the expert. And it is survival. In that respect, yes.”

Still holding out on the real trust, then. If he was a dog, he’d probably bite you the minute you reached out.

“All right.” I could let it go, or pretend to. For now, at least. “And I need you to trust me to... I’m not going to off you, right?”

Bloody hell, think if he was a dog, he’d be a bluey. Too cunning to be a dumb breed, and, well... then there’s all the blue. Right down to his eyes, not that his employers had anything to do with that. Not that I even noticed, outside of just that I notice things. Not that I’d think about his eyes. Not that I think he’s capable of the kind of loyalty and drive I’d expect out of a heeler, and I don’t really even know why I’m thinking about this...

“It would make your life considerably easier.” He said, with a half-shrug, the world’s worst devil’s advocate. “You would have twice the water. I would not... slow you down, or—“

“No.” I stopped him right there, didn’t like the weird look he was getting or the tone of his voice, like he’d been waiting for the blow to come. “If they see we’re gone and think they’ll follow, you’re the only one watching my back. You need me more than I need you, but I still... you could be useful. And take that bloody thing off.”

I motioned to his ski mask. He looked at me like I was ready to shoot him, but eventually he took it off.

Oh. Bloody. Hell.

He didn’t have to be gorgeous. I mean, it’s enough trouble just trying to not even think that way, it’s enough trouble having to be something you’re not all damn day every day, and it’s bad enough when there aren’t even women around you could pretend you think are more attractive than a nice-looking bloke, but this isn’t even fair.

I did my level best to keep on ignoring him. Even without the mask on, he’s still a spy. He’s still the ruthless bastard who knifed you right between the shoulder blades five times in the last week, and made fun of your van, which his team’s demoman blew sky-high. Sure, he’s got actually a quite nice face and hair that’s unexpectedly also quite nice, and that little mark up high on his cheek that’s something between a freckle and a mole and probably shouldn’t be as attractive as all get out, but that doesn’t change who he is, he’s a spy, he’s your ex-enemy, he’s always trying to kill you and half the time succeeding, and you are not going to find him attractive.

... Why don’t I ever listen to myself?

I turned my back to him, which made it easier to not stare at him, and tossed my vest and shirt on one of the crates. There’s one thing you can thank the dry desert air for, once you strip down, the sweat running down your back evaporates nice and quick.

Of course, when I turned back to face him, he had done the same, and I had to face the fact that he had a really nice body, too.

Really nice. Lean and pale... slender, but not skinny. Not weak. No, if he were weak, he wouldn’t have killed me so many times in the past, would he have? Sure, he does it in a sneaky way, but still, you can’t do all that and be weak.

And I really should not be admiring the fact that he’s strong enough to kill me. I mean, I could take him in a fair fight, no problem, but that’s the thing with spies, innit? They don’t get into fair fights. No, he has the kind of body that slides into tight spaces, hides in narrow shadows. Kind of body that could get someone like me in trouble, and for the sake of argument, let’s say I just mean the stabbing.

“Sleep.” I told him. “Best time to do it, and who knows when we’ll have a set-up this nice... could be a long trek. I’ll give you three hours, then wake ya.”

He bedded down without any verbal complaints, and I made one more check of our surroundings. Still no nasty crawly things. Still no nasty people out the window coming after us with guns blazing.

I found the sink, just past a half-wall that partitioned the space. It worked, and I let it run until the water stopped being brown. When it was clear, I drank, out of my own cupped hands, ‘til I couldn’t drink any more without wanting to chuck it all back up again.

Probably was dehydrated, just a little, before. Despite what I’d told him, I wasn’t looking after myself. No, handed the canteen over and pretended I didn’t need it for most the day. And the worst of it is, I know it’s stupid. I know exactly how stupid I’m being, how stupid all my arguments are. I should be taking drinks of water on a rigid schedule, really, to make sure I don’t under-water myself, and if I run out I find more. I shouldn’t be putting it off while I make sure he’s drinking. I’m the one who needs to stay sharp.

I tell myself I’m the one with the experience here, and I know that’s rubbish, because a fat lot of good experience will do me when I can’t see straight, when I start getting tired or dizzy. And that’s if I’m lucky, of course.

Still, you know, I make the argument. He’s never done this before and I need to make sure he’s all right, forgetting for the moment that even if we’re not enemies right this second, we’re certainly not friends.

The best thing for him would be if I took care of myself, I know that’s true. I still gave him more of the water last night. I’ll still go without later if it’s down between one or the other of us getting to drink.

No. We’ll just, I’ll find more water, when this runs out. If I start getting the headaches, a bit of dizziness, then I’ll try harder to find more water. Watch him for signs, too. I’ve been making sure he drinks, but who knows with him.

He should be fine.

If he faints, I’ll know he’s gone too far.

No, neither of us is going to get there. Can’t afford to. Because after that, there’s the tingling, spasms, dimness, and then I won’t be able to do anything.

I drink again, once I feel like I can. Just in case. Not being thirsty anymore doesn’t mean you’re hydrated again, it just means you’ve had a fair amount of water.

I wind up watching him sleep for a while, even though I’d intended not to. I can’t believe he even has hair... I know, I know—the fact that he’s got a watch that makes him bleeding invisible I don’t question, the disguise kit that his friends can see through and his enemies can’t I don’t question, the fact that he has hair that shouldn’t even fit under his bloody mask, that I find weird. But it’s thick and dark and it looks soft. Looks like you could grab a handful of it to pull him in close and...

No. No, we agreed, self, not thinking like this. Not ever. Because blokes who think like this end up like Baxter, on a feeding tube in a piss-poor hospital because even his parents were uneasy enough with what he was that they didn’t move him to one in the city, and they could’ve afforded it, and it coulda been me because I thought about it, yeah, I thought about taking him up on it when he offered, but then I didn’t, and he went off with someone, bloody hell, with someone who wasn’t, and by now they’ve probably pulled the plug on him, not like you or anyone else ever visited, but...

Dammit.



---/-/---



I watched him sleep for around-about the three hours I’d promised him, maybe a touch more. He never really relaxes. Occupational hazard, reckon. He never looks comfortable.

Probably not used to sleeping on the floor.

When his three hours were well up, I got to my feet and headed over to wake him. Could’ve, and probably should’ve, just kicked him gently, but instead I crouched down just for a second and touched his shoulder. I didn’t stay within arms’ reach of him, the way he slept like a watch-spring, figure someone shakes him awake and he goes for his knife. His line of work and mine aren’t too different, even outside of the war. Either way, there are lots of people want you dead, and if they’re smart, they come after you when you’re sleeping. Especially for a spy.

“Awake yet?”

“Yes. Er... Thank you.”

“Here,” I held out a hand, which he stared at as though he’d previously been unaware hands existed. “What?”

“Nothing, I just...” His cheeks went red. It was a cute look on him. Which, bloody damn me to hell, I did not just think. “I did not expect the help.”

“Wake me when the sun comes up.” I told him, tossing my vest down and rolling my shirt into a tight ball that might support the back of my neck just a little. I pointed him towards the canteen on the crate-table. “Drink the rest of the water, found a spot where we can fill it up before we go.”

“Really?”

“Just the other side of that wall there,” I jerked a thumb back towards the partition. “Sink. Checked it, still runs, it’s good.”

“D’ac.” He said, which wasn’t English, but sounded pretty much like assent.

“Pack of cards on the crate there, you need to go a few rounds of solitaire to stay awake on your own.”

He nodded, and I tipped my hat over my eyes to keep out the sunlight that made its way into our temporary hideout. I heard him shuffle the deck as I drifted off to sleep. Wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but it sure as hell wasn’t the worst I’d ever put up with, and I didn’t have to lie awake too long.



---/-/---



I woke to his foot tapping against mine, and I was on my feet in one swift move that he didn’t seem like he expected.

“Evening.” He sounded almost apologetic, gesturing towards the darkening window. “No one has come after us. If anyone has set out to find us, they were incredibly stupid about it. No one has come by along the tracks, much less towards the... the this place.”

“Go on and get dressed.” I said, satisfied. “Temperature’ll drop soon enough.”

“Soon enough.” He sneered a little, shaking his head. “It cannot be soon enough for my tastes.”

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t built for this. Wonder what got to him so bad he felt like heading out into the desert was his best option. I mean, me, I get. Because I’ve done this before, spent loads of time living on my wits in worse deserts than this one. And I know we’re fed up with the same bloody pointless some-kind-of war, but he had to factor in risks and rewards, and maybe it’s worse over on the BLU side, or maybe he knows something I don’t, to make this kind of thing worth it for someone who is clearly out of his element.

I threw on my shirt and vest, caught him out of the corner of my eye trying to get all the dust out of his precious suit. He didn’t put the mask back on, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, because I like his face, but that’s more a problem than anything, isn’t it?


---tbc---

Title: The Long Walk
Chapter Two: It Just Won't Quit
Author: Glasgow Smiles
Rating: Eventual R-ness
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, eventually
Summary: Hey, remember this? Here it is from the Sniper's POV. Some of the dialogue is, of course, recycled, but it starts a little earlier, and fills in different gaps.
Author's Notes: Having been assured at least one person would read it, I decided to go ahead and post, since I'm kind of writing it anyway. Why not share?



Spy’s fussy about everything. He got over the suit thing, I think. Accepted the damage was done, anyway, but he wasn’t happy about the conditions under which dinner was had, and he wasn’t happy about pissing out of doors, which under the circumstances, seemed like the silliest thing to make a fuss about.

Still, the one thing he never complained about was the walking, and for that I have to give him some respect, because those fancy shoes weren’t made for comfort so much as they were probably made for the express purpose of being a flash bastard.

Fussy or not, he bears up well under the really necessary pressure.

He’s gonna burn to a crisp long before we get to anyplace decent, poor mug. He hasn’t fussed about that, either.

We came on a long, jagged rock formation, at a good angle to crawl under for shade, about the time I worried we’d be walking all through the worst of the afternoon. Any smaller and we wouldn’t both be under it, and I poked back into the deepest part of the shadows, right where the rocks came out of the ground, to make sure there was nothing else under there with us.

I sat next to his stretched-out legs in the cramped space and watched him sleep some more. He was worse than yesterday about it, but it’s not like there was much I could do to make it better. We were where we were. I scanned the horizon every so often, but time and time again my eyes went back to him.

If we get out of this... does that make us friends? Dunno, hard to say. Spent a long time as each other’s worst enemy—leastaways, he was mine—and even before the war, even before anything, I was never really good with socializing. Still, like to think maybe we’d get to civilization and... I don’t know, have a beer together. Something.

Obviously not the other thing, the thing I’m not even thinking about, because I’m not. Because it’s not all right, and I’m just not. Because even if I was, who says he is, and anyway, it’s just, I’m not.

Break my mother’s heart, for one. And Dad’s got enough of a problem with my job, last thing he needs is a bloody pooftah for a son, yeah? And if anyone caught you at anything, there’d be a whole world of hassle.

And none of that is even important, because I’m not, and if I was, it wouldn’t be for him, because I ought to hate him, and maybe that’s all behind us, but that doesn’t mean...

Bloody hell, I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.

After a couple hours of him trying to toss and turn and not having the room, I woke him, my hand on his knee, and I yanked away like I was burned when I had the impulse to slide up higher.

We switched places, an awkward maneuver that sparked too many more little thoughts I don’t need.

“Wake me—“

“Nightfall.” He interrupted with a nod. “There is still a moon tonight.”

“Yeah. Hope it doesn’t wane too far ‘fore we get to where we’re going.” I snorted. That’d be too great, yeah? Getting lost out here for so long we lose the bloody moon? Last thing I need.

Second to the last thing I need.

“No.” He flashed a tired smile. “I do not much look forward to running through the desert a l’aveuglette.”

This gave me pause just a little. Figure from context he means blind or something like that. He meant something else, it’d be completely random. “Nah. Probably not.”

The conditions we’d been awake under had been exhausting enough, and the conditions I was going to have to sleep in familiar enough, that I didn’t take too long to drop off. I might not have more than a couple hours, I might not have even that much, and I was going to have to take all I could out of what I could get.



---/-/---



We walked a long spell before I found us water, and I had the feeling he wasn’t going to like it when I did. There wasn’t much at ground level, I’d have to dig for it, but the fact that there was life meant there was water to dig for.

I came back to him feeling pretty bloody triumphant. “Canteen.”

“You found water?”

“Anything living out here’s got to know where there’s water.” I shrugged. “Plants we’ve been coming across so far’ve been too dry to still be getting any, or they go too deep to dig.”

“So we have water.”

“Ah!” I stopped him—physically—from following me. Felt the heat of his chest through his shirt. It was still chilly out, dawn only just breaking, soft pink-gold light just starting to highlight him, the world still mostly dark. “Can’t see the tracks from out there, but I can see you. I’d feel a bit better knowing we’re not going to go wandering off blind, hey?”

He nodded. I took my hand off his chest and tried to forget about how warm he was or think about what his skin woulda felt like. Instead I took a pull off what we had left from the building. Should’ve been gone by now... if I’d been drinking enough, it would’ve been. Dammit, got to be more careful.

I poured the last swallow-and-a-half’s worth out over his head, grinning when he sputtered slightly.

“Charming.” He regained his cool, one eyebrow twitching upwards under his mask, his arms crossed firmly in front of his chest.

“Be nice later. Sun coming up.”

I pulled my hankie out to use as a filter before I remembered that I’d used it cleaning the hawk we’d eaten. I shoved it back into my pocket. Not going to cut it. “Don’t suppose you’ve got one?”

“Will you be putting dead things in it?” He cocked his head to one side, and I swear he was this close to a pout.

“Ah... no. Was more focused on the water, actually. No dead things this time ‘round.” I admitted. And rabbit would’ve been better than hawk. Would’ve felt better about killing one, too. All they ever do is make more of themselves anyway. Sure, the meat’s lean enough you could stuff yourself on it and still starve, but hawks can’t be much better.

Well... the hawk was a beaut of a shot, though... in terms of being impressive, a clear winner. In terms of dinner, the rabbit would’ve been preferable.

After a moment of deliberation—and what was left to deliberate?—he gave up his hankie, which I doubted had ever been used for anything, up until this venture, and even I only saw him wiping at the mouth of the canteen the once.

“Cheers. Be right back.”

I dug with my hands through the sand, used the kukri blade when I hit harder-packed dirt, and finally got water. I filtered the mud out with his hankie, and it wasn’t a perfect system, but it was a reasonable measure to take. Made our water at least a little cleaner. I thought about the sun, and his skin, and the fact that even keeping his face tilted down, even staying out of it during the worst of the day, he’d seemed awful pink.

Wasn’t zinc oxide, but at least a layer of mud would keep sun off. Not the worst thing in the world, besides, and there’s a fair amount of it here now.

I walked back to him, and he sputtered a little bit more, which is just endlessly amusing. He seemed a little sore on the point of the soiled bit of silk—think it was silk-- I had over the back of my neck.

I handed off the canteen so I could grab his hankie to return it. “Yeah. Figured you’d rather get this dirty than drink sand, mate.”

He pocketed it with a little glare, which quickly turned to further confusion.

“Purely practical.” I smeared the mud on his face. Oh yes. His outrage is priceless. This is a lot more fun than trying to kill each other... Well, except for the parts where the desert might kill us both, but we’ve got an okay shot at this. And he’s pretty cute with—

No. Not cute. Just... I mean, it’s funny, it isn’t cute.

“How is this practical?” He stamped one foot, effect kind of ruined by the sand.

“Sun’ll be up, remember? Might not find any kind of a shelter. It may not be much, but it’ll keep your skin from peeling off. Unless you want to become a French fry...”

“They’re not really French.” He pouted. Covered in mud and pouting. Yeah, it is kind of... no, not cute, we agreed it’s not cute, self, don’t go back on that, it just isn’t.

“You’re welcome.”

“I am not thanking you for attacking me with mud!”

I didn’t give him the response he wanted, obviously.

“I’m not.” He repeated petulantly.

“Isn’t the worst thing I’ve attacked you with.” I shrugged. Initially I meant taking shots at him from across the battlefield when I could, or swinging at him with the kukri when I heard him trying to sneak up on me, but I gathered from his look of disgust that his mind went somewhere a little less lethal.

“You don’t even get to speak right now.” He shuddered. “I feel defiled. Don’t! It’s... less defiled than that, but still. The principle—The—“

I snorted. “I’m not apologizing for keeping your face from coming off in great red sheets. I’ll say sorry about the hankie if you really want, but like I said, it’s that or drink silt.”

“No, that’s... that’s an acceptable sacrifice.”

“I mean, I’d apologize if it was from a lady-friend or something.” Why even bloody go there? Because men don’t keep silk hankies that didn’t come from girls? Maybe they do in France. Or because you’re hoping he’ll say no, no lady-friend, no one, stop right there...

“No... no. I...” He paused, long enough for me to hope against hope. “It’s easier not to have—No.”

“Right. Well then.” Easier. Yeah, I understood easier. “Any luck and there’ll be a station out here somewhere...”

“I don’t think there’s much call for a train station in the middle of the desert.”

“Huh?” Not sure where that came from, except the tracks did have to go somewhere. “Hm. Yeah, reckon.” It was noncommittal. Meaningless. But it was better than saying something that meant something completely stupid.

---tbc---

Title: The Long Walk
Chapter Three: Rest Your Head For Just Five Minutes
Author: Glasgow Smiles
Rating: Eventual R-ness
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, eventually
Summary: Hey, remember this? Here it is from the Sniper's POV. Some of the dialogue is, of course, recycled, but it starts a little earlier, and fills in different gaps.
Author's Notes: Having been assured at least one person would read it, I decided to go ahead and post, since I'm kind of writing it anyway. Why not share?

Chapter One
Chapter Two


Every so often now I’d ‘see’ snow for just a second, and it got harder to take the next step. I felt exhausted, not just from walking, but like I could sleep forever, but when we did stop, I couldn’t fall asleep, not at all. I faked it so he wouldn’t worry, but my mind was going in increasingly irritable circles the whole time.

He generously gave the silent allowance that anyone could have an off day when I blew an easy shot at a rabbit, but I knew better. Muscle weakness, or just a twitch, but the toll was there. Now we had no food and no water—I watched him drink the last of it before night fell.

Dammit. I let us both down. We’d die out here after all. Yeah, it’s better than going back there, at least it’s on my own terms, but that doesn’t make it all all right. There was a throbbing, all across my forehead, temple to temple.

The BLU Spy was holding up. He had one arm curled around his midsection, but his steps didn’t falter much, and his spirits were up. There was dried mud flaking from his big gallic beak of a nose, and I still never thought anyone looked better.

“You’re... you’re a bit o’ all right, you know that?” I told him. Ought to tell him, just once before... before whatever happens. Dying of dehydration is only a good way to go if you’ve got the painkillers to make it bearable, when you’re out in the wild where you don’t have much choice, it’s not pretty. Do we just trudge on, stoic, accepting? Go in for some sort of murder suicide? If we did, would we be done, or would we wake up in the resupply rooms? I never thought about how it worked. Is the respawn only on during battles? Does it work when you’re on-site? Is it tied to the weapons somehow? Everyone brought their own in as far as I know, but they were looked over, and it’s possible... it’s possible...

He smiled blandly at me, missing the meaning completely. “Oh. Um... thank you.”

“Forget it.” I didn’t explain. “I just figured... if we are going to die out here, and we might... and I’m sorry for it...”

“No. You’ll find water again.”

“Nothing came out last night.” I choked the words out like they were bitter. He deserved to know, he wasn’t the sort of man who needed protecting from the truth, he deserved to hear it. “No birds, no bloody fucking rabbits, haven’t even seen a lizard in yonks. And now we’re out of water and I don’t know if I’ll be able to shoot straight if something does... if something does...”

I might have been breaking down. It almost felt like I was crying, except there were no tears. Of course there wouldn’t be. Even if I was crying there wouldn’t be. And I doubt I would make the shot, I missed the last one I had, and I wasn’t exactly going to get better the longer I went without water, and—

The stinging slowly faded, and I looked at him, glaring at me, his hand upraised. “You’ll do whatever it is you have to do. It hasn’t been a week yet, has it?”

Feisty. Nice. Dammit, not nice! I don’t—I can’t—Still. It was a welcome change from compliance and confusion on his part. My hand wandered up to my cheek. “Huh. Didn’t think that’d happen...”

“You should have.” He snarled. There’s the man who used to stab me in the back on a regular basis! Which, wow, really shouldn’t be that attractive. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Dehydrated.”

“We haven’t been out of water that long, have we?” He seemed to take stock of himself.

I looked down at the ground.

“... Have we?” He sounded concerned. “I suppose it takes less time in the desert, but it seemed like we only just... Sniper?”

He sounds like he suspects. Might as well come out with it. “Been giving you most of it.”

“Idiot.” He didn’t hit me again, but he might as well have, the amount of venom he put in that one word. “What made you think that was a sound strategy? If one of us is going to get dehydrated, did it occur to you that it should be the one who doesn’t need to locate our next source of water, or shoot down our food?”

“Just... didn’t want you getting...” I tried for an explanation, but it all felt too weak. “You’re not used to it, and—“

“And you thought you’d protect me?” He bristled. He is just... just magnificent angry. I mean, I know I’m not thinking clearly, but yeah. Yeah. “Well, that’s just fabulous! Too bad you didn’t also teach me how to be a self-sufficient crazy bushman while you were giving me all of our water, then maybe I could get out of here!”

I went from admiring the whole spitfire thing he had going on to pissed the hell off in about no time flat—also, I’m aware, an effect of the dehydration. Besides, I’d rather storm off in a snit than let him think I was being soft on him ‘cause I like him at all. Even if it’s maybe gotten to be the truth. And who is he, anyway? I mean, who does he think he is? I try to do something, something nice, and... and...

And there’s a house, there’s a house down there, there’s a little bloody house in a little bloody dustbowl and we’re going to be all right, we’re, we’re...

“I told you!” I whooped. “What did I tell you?”

“You told me we were going to die in the desert because you are an idiot.” He fired back.

“Before all that. About finding a station.” Well, not exactly a station. Which he didn’t understand anyway. “Well, a house.”

“There’s a house?” He ran up to me, teetering for a moment beside me on the precipice before we both went sailing down the little hill. We were laughing, and at some point in the whole proceeding, we might have hugged.

I had spotted a pump out back by the well. “You’re probably the smooth talker here. You go see who’s home—and if no one is, well... Dunno, not much room to take the moral high ground, and if it’s locked up, you probably got all the experience getting ‘round that. I’ll go get the pump going, get some water.”

“D’ac.” He nodded, and by this time if someone told me it meant anything other than ‘okay’, I’d have to figure they were lying to me. He was grinning broadly. “I’ll carry out reconnaissance on the inside.”

Out back of the house there was a clothesline, the pump, the little well, a wooden bench that might have been painted green years ago, though it was almost uniformly the colour of anything sufficiently sun-bleached now. The house had been, and still was in places, pink.

The pump wouldn’t work, and after a while, I gave up on it. The well still had water, and I lowered the bucket in. It was cool, and sweet, and after drinking a fair amount, I dumped a bucketful over myself. Took my shirt off and poured some more over my head before drinking deep again. If there was anything better in the world than this... Belatedly, I remembered I had a canteen to fill.

“The house is abandoned.”

I turned at the announcement. He was staring at me. Right, the pump. I was supposed to be working the pump. Or maybe I just look like a complete idiot. “Pump’s broke. Abandoned?”

“Apparently this godforsaken place is unlivable. Still, it’s a house. No electricity, no plumbing, but...”

“Beautiful.” I couldn’t have been happier. Couldn’t have been. Honest-to-goodness house, water, not-dying. Could not have been happier, not at all. “C’mere.”

He approached me with some caution, and I yanked the hankie out of his vest pocket. His jacket he’d dropped, maybe in the house, but the vest he was still wearing... I wet the hankie and cleaned the flaking mud away. He was still pretty pink underneath.

“Huh. Guess you still got pretty burned out there.”

“Yes, probably. Most of it came off.”

I stuffed the hankie back in his vest pocket. “There a tub?”

“Yes. A bathtub and a washtub. Which did you want?”

“Bring the washtub out.” I poured another half-a-bucketful of water over myself before filling it again.

He came back with the tub I’d asked him for, and I gave him the canteen. Watching him drink was something that had to be added to the list of too-dangerous occupations, and I busied myself with filling the washtub with water and definitely not thinking about the bob of his adam’s apple and the trickle of water down the side of his throat. A couple of trips between the well and the bath, and we’d filled the bathtub as well, and got a washtub full of water on reserve.

“Drink.” I pointed to the canteen in his hand.

“I just did.”

“More.” I shook my head. “I’m serious. You’ll stop being thirsty before you’re hydrated. You’ll probably want to sick it all up before you’re well hydrated.”

“I feel all right...”

“Humour me.” I took another drink, from my own cupped hands and the washtub, and found towels in the linen closet, took them out to the clothesline and beat them ‘til they were usable. There might not have been functioning indoor plumbing, but there was a toilet, which we availed ourselves of separately.

“Go on,” I jerked my head towards the tub. “Strip down, get in. You’ll feel better.”

He nodded and did so, and I did my level best not to look at him. To not look at him without looking like I was trying not to look at him, which was the real trick. I washed our clothes out as best I could while he washed away the grit and sweat, and after I hung our things up outside, he toweled off and I washed up.

We raided the pantry and came up with not much, and instead of setting up in the sad little kitchen, I hopped onto the bed in the main room—seemed to be bedroom and living room both—and got to work opening the cans that were left. I patted the space beside me.

“Is this... awkward at all?”

“Is it?” I kept my expression neutral, but there was a moment of cold fear where I thought maybe he knew.

“No. No, of course not. I just meant... What is it?”

I followed his gaze to the now-open cans of what we’d hoped was food, and I sniffed at the contents of both. “One soup. One beans. Smells decent. Not old enough to’ve gone bad, reckon.”

He nodded, sitting beside me on the bed and taking the soup, alternating between sips of that and sips of water.

“I cannot believe how hungry I’ve been...” He moaned softly. “I actually find this tinned American garbage... kind of good.”

I chuckled, draining most of the liquid out of the can of beans onto the floor by the bed. If no one was coming back to the place, there wasn’t much reason not to, after all. “Glad to hear it. Nice to have water again, too.”

“Mm...” Another moan that sounded just a little too sexual. “That is not hot, or full of dirt, or smelling like eggs and metal.”

“Yeah.” It was harder to eat beans out of a can with no utensils—they’re not an easy food to drink—but they were good. They were food, which was enough for me, really.

Sometimes the Spy’s elbow brushed past my own, and if he particularly noticed, he’d mumble a ‘pardon’, or he’d be too caught up in having a little comfort to care and I’d enjoy the accidental touch more than I should’ve let myself.

We could sleep in a real bed. Just an hour ago I thought I’d never live to see a real bed again, and now not only are we sleeping in one, we’re sleeping in the same one.

Which is great except for where it’s sheer hell, and there’s a drop of water on his shoulder that I want to lick from his skin, but the mattress is comfortable enough and big enough we’re not pressed up against each other.

“It all seems too convenient.” He sighed. Which is what I had been thinking, but I was thinking it about the fact that I had a bed with him in it, and I doubt he was thinking the same thing about me.

“You want half?” I offered him the beans. It was better than prying at what convenience exactly he meant, when half of all I could think about was his bare white legs next to mine down the mattress.

He said something in French, what I couldn’t tell you. A longer, more complicated version of ‘okay’, if his actions were anything to go by.

“You’re really going to pick apart the first bit of good luck we’ve come across?” I said after a moment. It was vague enough I wouldn’t dig myself into any holes assuming.

“I am, if it seems like...” He swirled the can experimentally, sniffed at it.

“Like it’s too convenient, yeah.”

“Like we are being set up for something.”

“Wish they’d abandoned a car or something.” I sighed. Of course, anyone who lived in a two-room shack probably only had one car, which they probably needed in their exodus, but it’d have been nice to drive out of here.

“Or a spoon.” He tipped the can back, swallowing audibly and pulling a face.

“A spoon?” I laughed. “The fact that we’ve found water, shelter, food, that’s too convenient, but a spoon’d be just about right?”

“What can I say?” He spread his arms—well, started to, except I was in the way on one side. He could say he was a picky, snooty Frenchman who needed to get his priorities in order, but...

“You can get a couple hours’ sleep.”

He stared me down, setting the mostly-empty can to the side. “And have you been parceling that out unfairly as well?”

“Nah, I—“ Had I? Not that I was aware of... not really. Okay, so I did always give him the first shift, and that was bound to be longer, since it was the only one we really timed, and I just woke up when it got dark regardless... but it’s not like I told him to sleep for four hours when I knew I’d only get two or anything. “Well, night falls when it falls, but I try and keep shifts pretty even.”

“You have a way of... ah... announcing your color, it’s...”

“Announcing my colour?” I thought about the shirt and suit out on the clothesline for a moment. “Think it’s pretty well announced. Or would be...”

“The... the cards on the table? I am saying you have been bad at lying. Sorry, idioms have been... I think I am tired.”

“You oughta be exhausted.” And, well, might as well say it. “I let you sleep a little longer. Not that much. It’s not even the same as the water, I’m used to not sleeping.”

“Wake me in time.” He said, giving me a reproachful look as he settled down to sleep. “I do not need your protection. I do not need your protection much in the same way that I do not need additional holes in my head.”

Guess he is having an off day with idioms. “... Close enough.” I told him.

“Shut up.” He picked up the can of beans from its place on the mattress and looked for a nightstand that wasn’t there.

I took the can and dropped it on the floor by the bed. “Go ahead and sleep.”

“Can I tell you something first?” He yawned. That adorable bastard...

“Sure thing.”

It was in French when he did, with another yawn, and I didn’t pick much out of it, except it wasn’t swearing, it wasn’t ‘okay’, and it might have had something to do with me.

“Uh... don’t speak French, sporto.”

“Oui, d’ac. I know. I wanted to tell you, but I did not want you to know.”

Dark secret? Something completely silly? Absolutely no way of telling with him. He covered himself with the sheet, rolling onto his side to face the wall with the window.

“Sleep.” I ruffled his hair. Froze for a moment, waiting for the unavoidable repercussions, but they didn’t come. Guess he was close enough to dropping off completely, might be it didn’t even register.

His hair was soft.

I placed the rifle down on the bed between us, instead of leaning up against the wall, and tried to keep an eye on the front of the house, just out the window, but my eyes kept straying. Sometimes the blanket would slip, and that bare shoulder would start looking good to me again, even dry. Sometimes it was the back of his neck. Sometimes it was just the line of his body, even covered, or the sunlight through the window in his dark hair. When the sun moved to hit his face, he pulled the sheet up over his head, where it stayed until the light moved.

I was loathe to, but I woke him earlier than usual, as per his wishes.

“I’m gonna catch some sleep. Anyone comes down that hill after us, you think you can use this baby?” I patted the rifle stock.

He nodded. “It is not my strong suit, but I can get a shot off with it if I need to.”

“Good.”

He lifted it, turning it in his hands, inspecting the barrel, peering through the scope. “Ah, she is a fine piece of weaponry... I am better with a revolver, but I’ll manage. The last time I used a rifle...”

“Yeah?”

“I was young. Twelve, maybe? I lived with my uncle. He enjoyed hunting. I was not so good at it then. It was an old gun, and it was two thirds my height at least.” He chuckled. “This, this is lovely, though...”

“Yeah. Well, it’s been with me a while. Does the job right. Handles well.”

“I can’t believe I took off without my gun.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“If anyone shows up while I’m asleep, use mine.” I tipped my hat over my eyes.

“I will, thank you.”


---tbc---

Title: The Long Walk
Chapter Four: I Think We're Alone Now
Author: Glasgow Smiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy
Summary: Hey, remember this? Here it is from the Sniper's POV. Some of the dialogue is, of course, recycled, but it starts a little earlier, and fills in different gaps.
Author's Notes: Having been assured at least one person would read it, I decided to go ahead and post, since I'm kind of writing it anyway. Why not share?



We left the house at nightfall.

“Careful,” I said, stopping him by the front door. “I hear out in the desert there are tarantulas.”

“Can we forget about that?”

“You can try, mate, but I doubt I’ll let ya.” I laughed. “Because I guarantee you they are not dangerous. I’d say he was more afraid of you than you were of him, but I don’t think he had the chance to be. And you must’ve been well afraid of him to shoot him!”

“I hate you.” He sighed.

I let up on him after that, and we walked on. He tugged at my arm as we crested a small rise, and I looked down at the scattering of lights below.

“There is a town ahead. We might reach it tomorrow. Or tomorrow night.”

“We could actually get out of this.” For a moment, I was just full with the very idea. Freedom. Everything would be worth it, we’d be home free, we’d be out. It was the kind of happiness that starts to hurt your chest from being too big for you. And then I realized that, with all the good parts of freedom, there was the bad as well. He’d be free, too, wouldn’t need me. Might never see him again. “Where do you think you’ll go to, after this?”

“I just assumed I would... I don’t know.” He blinked. “I suppose I always imagined myself back in Paris. You know... everyone assumes I am from there?”

“You aren’t?”

“A bit south of there. Not so far south as Vichy, we were above the demarcation line... You know what, it isn’t important. I would rather go back to Paris, it’s easier to get lost in a crowd.”

“And to meet pretty tourist girls looking for romance?” I joked weakly. He’d grin wolfishly and agree, and it’d be worse than every bloody knife in the back combined, and I’d laugh and pretend to think of girls myself...

“I suppose so.” He just shrugged. “You?”

“Don’t even know.” I sighed. “Can’t really... I can’t really go back home. Even if I wasn’t worried about being tracked down, it’s not really something I could do... Dad won’t want to see me. He thinks I’m some kind of nut. I mean, it’s a job and they pay me for it, I don’t see how it’s any different from Nasho. That’s where I found out I was good at this. Compulsory service. Said I had a gift. Well, of course that didn’t set well with the oldies. Mum just ignores it mostly, but Dad... What about you? Do your folks know what it is you do?”

“It depends on your cosmology.” He looked away. “As to whether they would be proud or disappointed... I am following the family profession. But... my cause is not so noble.”

“Oh. Uh...” Wasn’t sure what to say to that. “So your folks are spies?”

“Were.” He clarified, and I felt an uncomfortable stab of sympathy. “Yes. I mentioned we lived above the demarcation line. They did what they did for freedom. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. I do what I do for money. And there are no heroes, and no villains, and I do not pretend to affect the fate of the free world very greatly.”

“Well.” Now I really didn’t know what to say. He looked broken for a moment, and a part of me wanted to throw my arms around him and hang on and never let go, but that’s not exactly the kind of thing he’d appreciate, even if we were close, which I’m not even sure about anymore. “That’s... that’s something.”

What kind of idiot am I? ‘That’s something’? He just told me his parents are dead, intimated pretty well that they were killed by the bloody Nazis for being spies, and that he’s afraid he’s a disappointment to their memory, and all you can say is ‘that’s something’?

“Yes. It’s a lot. I don’t think about it all that much.” He shrugged a little. “So you will not be going back to Australia?”

“Doubt it. Not for a while. If I did, it’d have to be someplace else, where they don’t know me. Not as if I miss the Burra so much anyway, just copper mines and sheep. Could just avoid the whole south. Yeah, that’d be right...”

“Or, we could... we could both go somewhere that no one would expect. For a little while, until we know if we are in the clear.”

I wasn’t sure I understood him. Maybe I was filling in the blanks with wishful thinking, but it sounded like maybe, just maybe... “What, you and me? Together?”

“Of course not. But... we could travel like this a ways, just... watch each other’s backs until we are safe.”

Yes, I wanted to say. And then, there could always be a reason why we’d never be safe. It could be like this, forever, except instead of being lost in the desert, we’d go to South America, or bum around Europe, or someplace in Asia even. We’d take odd jobs where people needed our skills. We’d...

‘Sounds great’, I decided, would be the best way to say it. A clear assent, but nothing too... emotional, or...

I didn’t get around to saying it, because instead, white hot pain shot up my leg, and then a somewhat duller pain pounded through the rest of me, and I was a lot shorter all of a sudden. Oh, and my foot was in a hole, seemingly a ways off from where it ought to be.

“Are you all right?” The Spy crouched down beside me. He sounded concerned, but I couldn’t see his face, between the night shadows and the way pain fuzzed out all the details from my vision.

I grabbed onto my ankle, trying to compress it back into whatever state an ankle should naturally be in. “If I find... the bloody fucking rabbit who lives in this bloody hole, I will bloody shoot it bloody twice. I will bloody shoot his bloody kneecaps and I will bloody watch him bloody suffer.”

“Let me see.” He sighed.

“I’ll be right, just...” I tried shoving him off. “I might need a hand up but I can walk fine.”

Another exasperated sigh from him, and then he was on his knees, slapping my hands away and removing my boot with enough care that my ankle didn’t scream in agony.

“It isn’t broken.” He said.

“Oh, so you’re an expert now?”

“It isn’t broken.” There was a sudden stillness to him, a dignity that wasn’t the almost comical snootiness I was used to from spies, but something inborn and real and very, very dangerous. “However, if you would like it to be, I can arrange something.”

“Right.” I said. “Good to know, not broken.”

“Put your arm around me.” He crouched again, off his knees now close beside me.

“You know, I always thought you’d be more suave about this kind of thing.” I joked. “Got to say I’m not feeling it.”

He froze and I cursed myself. Should’ve bloody known better, you don’t even joke about it, now he knows you’re, he knows you’re a little that way, you shouldn’t even have joked about it because now he suspects it if he doesn’t know, and he’ll know that last bit’s a lie, he knows, he knows, he knows...

“Put your arm around me or walk all the way into town on that ankle without my help, and don’t expect me to wait up for you if you choose to do it that way.” He bit the words out.

“Touchy.” I said. Petty, maybe, but I had to regain my hold on dignity where I could, and he hasn’t just left me so maybe it was a fluke and he didn’t read anything into it and I can still play the whole thing off.

His response wasn’t in English, and it sounded like it wasn’t very nice.

“I’ll just guess that wasn’t complimentary.” I said, letting him bear the better part of my weight as he got me on my feet.

I tried to handle walking as best I could, but it was going to be a long trek into town, and he was strong. He was solid and strong, even more than I’d guessed at before, and his arm was under mine and around my back, and aside from the little bit of bantering, he took my weight without complaint.

Good thing we’re coming up on a town now, because I’m almost literally dead weight to him now. He couldn’t depend on me for anything. Maybe if he set me down, I could shoot, but I’d have to be lucky, because there’d be no moving for a better shot. Can’t move on my own to get food or water. Can’t make a run for it if that was what needed doing.

Still, we’re coming up on the town. And ‘til we get there, he’s got me.

It took us all night and half the day to get there, across the deserted motorway, past the run down little truck stop and milk bar. There was a motel on the very edge of town, one of the cheapest sort, with a sign that had been new twenty years ago, and the palette of salmon and mint that every cheap hotel down every American motorway seemed to have.

“We can stay there.” He pointed.

“We don’t have money.” I reminded him.

“You are with me.” He smiled. “We do not need it. Come on.”

We hobbled across another street to get to it. There were two cars parked outside, and one truck, and he left me leaning against the big neon sign while he waltzed into the manager’s office.

He disappeared about ten paces from the open door, and I saw it flutter slightly on its hinges. I tried to look nonchalant, and—more difficult—unarmed, in case anyone came by, but no one did. For all I knew or could tell, the cars in the lot had been there since time immemorial. Well, since forty-five for one and fifty-two for the other, at any rate.

I glanced across the way at the milk bar by the petrol station. There were a few more trucks there, some being weighed, others gassed up, but none of those seemed intent on stopping here, they moved on without a glance towards the motel.

“There is a vacant room on the ground floor.” The Spy uncloaked beside me, and I tried not to fall over. “We can stay there for a little while, plan our next move. Our next moves. When we plan on separating.” He definitely blushed at that, this time I saw it. Sounded almost disappointed. Didn’t he? “There will be a shower. Beds. Running water.”

I threw my arm across his shoulders and started hobbling after him. “Nice.”

“If someone comes to rent it at this hour—and in this place!—It isn’t likely, but we can leave through the window if that happens.”

“Right, right, good thinking.” I said. No point bursting his bubble pointing out I might not be able to bail out of a window with my ankle like it was. Probably wouldn’t be interrupted. He took no time at all in picking the lock, actually quite impressive to watch, and then we were in.

There was a big fan stuck in the window—the window itself was on a wide dusty alleyway, but that was no matter at all—a little television set with a bent and much-repaired antenna, two beds, a dresser. A door that presumably guarded the bathroom.

I let go of him and fell onto the bed closest to the door, repositioning myself carefully, lifting my ankle into place. Maybe these places weren’t, strictly speaking, clean, but it was cleaner than the old abandoned house, and the bed was comfier. “Couldn’t ask for better.”

“Well... I suppose compared to the past few days...” He sat on the very edge of the other bed, like he was barely touching it. The past few days... the living conditions may not have been great, but the company...

And maybe he did feel the same.

And you’d be parting ways soon enough if you’re wrong, so be a man about it.

“C’mere.” I reached out to him.

“That hasn’t benefitted me in the past.”

“Just get over here. It has so, you’re just too prissy to admit it.” I thought about the mud, and then about the moment between us, when I’d wiped his face, when I’d been that close to him, and maybe...

He sat down beside me. “All right. I’m here.”

“Well? Get comfy.”

He took his jacket off and tossed it over onto the other bed. He even loosened his tie, which he’d always put back on when getting dressed, despite being the two of us alone out in the middle of the desert. Then he turned, his legs stretching out alongside mine, and leaned back against the pillow.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about things I never thought I’d have to think about.” I told him. Or more accurately, things I’d planned on never thinking about.

“I know how this goes.”

“I’d like us to stick together. For a while, anyway.” For forever. What happened to being a man about things, anyway? Not even sure what that means anymore, not in this situation. Whatever this situation is. “We’ve managed not to kill each other this long. And, well, now I guess I need you. More than you need me. That isn’t why, though.”

“Tomorrow I will steal us a car.” He promised. “And some food—real food. I haven’t had to steal food since I was five, maybe six... it seems so... Well, still, I will get us a car, you can’t walk so much if you want to avoid, ah... you know, your ankle, messing yourself up. And I will make sure we have something to eat. And clothes, I will, I will find us something different to wear. We can get out of here.”

“Where are we getting to?” I asked. Wondered what would happen if I reached over right then and touched him, his face, his hair... if I looked at him the way I really wanted to and didn’t try to hide it. Even without those things, in that moment it wasn’t so hard to imagine we were lovers.

“I don’t know.” He admitted. “We drive. We switch cars, and we keep driving. And then we find a place where we can get lost, and get by. And that is where we will stop. I have no idea what this place is, there were no maps in the office, there have been no signs that give any useful information...”

I slipped a hand around the back of his head and kissed him. It only lasted a moment before I reminded myself to stop pretending, and we weren’t, and he wasn’t, except he never stopped me so maybe he was, and his mouth was... it was nice. Different, thinner-lipped, but soft anyway, and nice, just nice...

He stared at me afterwards, like I’d gone mad.

“Sorry.” Right. Here goes. This is where it’s all over. “You can belt me one if I was wrong there.”

“Wrong?” He still looked at me like something about me wasn’t adding up—possibly the number of heads I had. It was that kind of completely blank look.

“About... bloody hell, I don’t know. I just thought it might—I thought maybe you—“ I should get out of here... temporarily crippled or not, I should go, I should... ah, I could tear my hair out, what was I thinking? I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be in bed with him. I should...

He grabbed hold of me before I could go anywhere. “You were not wrong.”

Suddenly we were kissing again, or he was kissing me. And he was good at it. With the effort put in? He was bloody good at it.

I stroked his face as he pulled away, the soft skin of his cheek turning to about three days’ worth of raspy sandpaper stubble lower down, and his eyes closed for just a second and he shivered just a little and I felt on top of the world, in spite of everything.

“What did you say to me that night in the house?”

“I said...” Another little shudder, and he moved into my hand. “I said that I have a weakness for you. And I was afraid you would see.”

“I didn’t.” I coulda laughed. “Just took a lucky guess, really. And I wanted to kiss you.”

His hand landed on my knee and didn’t stop there. “Very lucky indeed.”

“Mm...” I kissed him, along his jaw and then his neck, the strong, masculine lines of him. I could taste the dirt and sweat and it wasn’t a matter of not caring so much as it was a matter of that being an immense turn-on.

His hand had made it all the way to my lap, and I was aching for him, he couldn’t touch me enough. I couldn’t touch him enough. I untucked his shirt, worked my hand up under, popping a couple buttons on the way, and his skin was soft as it had looked, back when he’d been shirtless before, the hard, flat belly, and I remembered the look of all that pale skin as I worked at feeling him up.

We got each other naked, with a little struggling, and I got him straddling my lap, his cock jutting out between our bodies. The kisses grew messier, needier. His ass ground down against my hard-on, except for when he was bucking up, his own rubbing against my stomach, and I looked at my hands on his hips, making him look even paler, and I never thought of myself as all that tan, comparatively, I mean, I spent my fair share of time out-of-doors and all but so did plenty of folks, but next to him it’s a clear difference.

Everything about him’s different from me.

But it isn’t that different.

I flip us over, lie down on top of him, and his nails rake down my back as we thrust against each other, and then he’s grabbing at my ass and I’m coming, and he’s biting down on my shoulder as he does the same, and we’re just a wreck together, but nothing’s ever been so right.

Nothing in my life has ever been so right.

I dozed a little afterwards, on and off, but mostly I was awake. Mostly I was watching him sleep. Like I hadn’t done that enough the past couple days. But I had that tacit permission now. We hadn’t just had sex in a desperate last-chance kind of way, he’d told me he had a weakness for me, whatever that means exactly, for whatever that’s worth, it’s something.

His head was turned towards my shoulder, not resting on me, but inching nearer, and he looked more relaxed—maybe not really relaxed, but he didn’t look like he’d kill me if I moved next to him.

And it hadn’t just been sex. We’d kissed, that had to mean something as well. Not that I’d turn my nose up at sex, mind, but it’s nice to think there’s more to it than that. More to us. And I’d liked the kissing. Liked it when he pulled away like pulling away was the last thing he wanted and his teeth were slow letting go of my lip and the thick line of spit snapped and gobbed on his chin and then he was crashing back into me and...

And we could do this again when he wakes up. Then a quick wash, then we’d want to hit the road, but another go wouldn’t be amiss first...

“THE TWO OF YOU COMPLETE FAILURES ARE SURROUNDED.”



---tbc---

Title: The Long Walk
Chapter Five: It's All Coming Back To Me Now
Author: Glasgow Smiles
Rating: R
Pairing: Sniper/Spy
Summary: Hey, remember this? Here it is from the Sniper's POV. Some of the dialogue is, of course, recycled, but it starts a little earlier, and fills in different gaps.
Author's Notes: Having been assured at least one person would read it, I decided to go ahead and post, since I'm kind of writing it anyway. Why not share?




“Do it, and you get your van.” The Announcer said, and she sounded happier than she usually did, and she sounded angrier than she usually did, all at once. “We won’t even dock your pay. If you refuse, I will of course have to have you killed.”

Well, she can bloody well have me killed, then. My own fault. What was I thinking, trying to play her, she’s been playing two whole armies, hasn’t she? And me, I thought I was some kind of cool negotiator and she wouldn’t have chased us if we weren’t somehow personally important? Of course she chased us, we’re her bloody toys and we run away and now she wants to punish us, well she can go ahead, because I’m not playing her sick game, not anymore, not ever again.

The Spy’s hand locked around my wrist and I turned to him. The message he tried to telegraph to me looked like just about the opposite of what I wanted to tell him. In an instant I knew what he thought he was doing, but in another instant it was done. There was nothing I could do.

“Excellent work, Mr. Sniper.” The Announcer said, dusting her hands off like she’d done the deed herself, and he... and he...

He fell, kukri sliding out wetly, and I dropped it to catch him, and I was holding my weight and his, my ankle should’ve been screaming at me but it wasn’t. I didn’t feel it at all, didn’t feel my knees when they hit the ground.

The guard milled around us, dragging me onto a truck, leaving him, leaving him... they were just going to leave him. She must have been telling the truth about the respawn, they wouldn’t leave him if he wasn’t going to disappear, not when they could just as easily drag him onto the truck, just as easily let me drag him onto the truck, but they left him, they left him... they left him...



---/-/--



“Bloody...” I rubbed my head. “What happened?”

“You were in a car accident. Your van was totaled.” It was the same voice that gave the announcements in battle. I couldn’t see where it was coming from. I was in a white room, not the infirmary, not anywhere on the base. Had we moved? Were we fighting somewhere else?

“I don’t... I don’t remember.”

“There was a problem, up the train tracks. Supplies stopped coming. You were sent into town in your van. RED generously did not want our brave boys to starve.”

“Right. Course.”

“There was an accident. Your van was totaled.”

“Yeah, you said...” I scratched at my arm, suddenly uneasy, skin crawling.

“It has been replaced, and you have been repaired. Emergency supplies have been delivered via the teleport system.”

“Wait... why not just—“

“It makes the food taste funny.”

I was not sure I liked the idea of teleport making our food taste funny, being as I actually put my body through the things. But what can you do?

“You will be delivered in a similar manner. As for your memories, they should return eventually. I wouldn’t worry about it. A note was sent to your team with the supplies. They will be expecting you shortly.”

Well, that’s that. I sat around in the white room a while longer, and then there was a red light and a tingling feeling, and I was back in the resupply room. I found the rest of the team in the mess hall.

“Nice drivin’.” A scout snorted.

“Shut up.” I left the mess hall, headed out to my van. It was... really eerily similar to the one I used to have. A few things were different—no really personal things, and I was sorry to have lost the few I kept in the old van, but aside from that... All the furnishings, all the books, all the same.

I flopped down on the bed and went out like a bloody light.

I dreamed about the BLU Spy. Not the normal dreams, either. I was used to dreaming about him, nightmares mostly, or everyday kind of dreams where we fought but sometimes I won. It wasn’t even one of the really surreal ones where he turned into some kind of half-man Lovecraftian horror.

I dreamed about kissing him.

I liked dreaming about kissing him. It felt real in a way it really shouldn’t have, ‘cause I never let myself kiss another bloke, not even when I was young and stupid and it was just about the only thing I wanted, and I definitely never kissed any spies.

I dreamed about pinning him down to the world’s ugliest bedspread and kissing him hard, sloppy, wet, and I woke up before I had the chance to dream about doing much more than that, and I tried—I always try—to think about girls afterward, when I woke up, when I took myself in hand.

Never really worked, the idea of training myself out of it, but I still tried every time. At least I could always start out thinking about girls, even if it was never the thought I ended on. But this time all I could think about was him.

I’m a dead man.

Watch. Tomorrow’s big push I’ll be set up there and he’ll sneak up behind me, and it won’t make a lick of difference in my favour if I hear him coming, he’ll get right behind me and instead of saving myself, I’ll be getting bloody hard from his breath down the back of my neck in the split second before he cuts into my spinal cord.

I’m so abso-bloody-lutely fucked you wouldn’t believe it. I better hear him coming a mile off tomorrow, because if he gets in close, I’m a goner. All the people in the world—even all the people in this bloody war—that I could’ve had a sex dream about, and it’s him!

And I liked it.



---/-/---



Work was work, at least. Work I could handle. When I wasn’t working, I was thinking about him, and the daydreams were just that, idle thoughts of kissing him up against the wall of the old fort, or of him dropping to his knees in front of me in my van, but I stopped myself there, and it was only a harmless little daydream, after all.

The memories of the dream were different, in the dream-setting of some place I’d never been, with a man I’ve never been friendly with, seemingly realer than anything’s ever been.

But I didn’t think about any of that working. No, once I was on the clock it was just me, the rifle, and the next target.

I got a couple of shots off from a too-exposed walkway before I made my way to the little nest I usually favoured. Of course I’d have to give that up, too, after two kills at best, but ‘til that happens, it’s one of the best spots to be. More protected, and close enough to the base that access isn’t so easy.

BLU Spy finds a way, most times, but he has to work hard to do it, I’m sure. Not like some places, where even the bloody Soldiers could find you. It’s still protected here, just in a limited way.

I was watching, waiting for the BLU Medic to come into view, could see he was on their Heavy and just needed a good shot at him. Any second now they’d turn, they’d have to. One of ours’d get ‘round behind them and they’d have to turn to keep him shielded, and he’d never know what hit him...

There was a sudden sound behind me, and I set the rifle aside quickly, grabbing for my sidearm and looking out for the intruder.

He was just standing there, just staring at me, and suddenly I knew why. It hadn’t just been a dream, and everything in that white room was a lie, and I remembered it in flashes, the escape, and unless I was crazy, that dream was more than just a dream.

“... cher?”

I nodded. Maybe this was a dream right now, or... Dammit, if the BLU Sniper’s in position to have an eye on the nest, we can’t be seen not killing each other. I grabbed him, dragging him out of sight.

Once we were hidden, once no one else was coming, not from either side, I let myself really feel him. He was here, pressed up against me, I still had an arm around him. This was real.

“I remember,” He whispered it, shaky, and I was shaky too, pulling his mask away.

“Can’t believe it’s you... I can’t believe you even—I can’t believe I—“ I touched his face. Remembered seeing it the first time. Was I really so focused on his hair? What did we talk about? Were we out in the desert long?

“What happened?” His hand covered mine, his eyes closed for a moment.

Only wish I knew, I wish I knew, he was outside the fence and I approached him and we broke into a house and how he looked at me, I...

“They told me the trains weren’t running.” It was the only explanation I had to offer. “They told me I went to resupply and there was an accident. They put me in a new van, same as the old one,” But the BLU Demo blew my old van up, there was never any accident, it wasn’t an accident, and I was probably crushing him now, but I couldn’t let go. “Had me drive back with some ammo, canned food, stuff for th’infirmary... They told me I was in an accident and I’d probably remember making the trip if I gave it time. They told me I was on a supply run because the trains got shut down.”

“They lied to me as well.” He nodded, his hands stroked up my sides. I had found him in the desert, he didn’t have a canteen, and I made him walk ahead of me...

“They made me forget about you.” I said.

“Yes.” He was so pathetic and he didn’t have anything, and I was stupid over him like I’ve never been stupid before, I...

“Hey. Did I give you my water?”

“Yes.” He paused in his exploration of my neck to give me a hard look. “If that house had not been there, you would have doomed us both.”

“Oh.” Remembered bathing, remembered trying not to peek at him and lying together. Remembered the tarantula incident. I kissed him, soft and brief. “Well, that’s all right, then. Long as that house was there. You... you were afraid of a little spider.”

“It was as big as my hand and venomous.” He pulled back a little, indignant. “I am not afraid of little spiders, just deadly poison.”

“As if it was even deadly poisonous.” I laughed.

“I remember you...” His eyes flickered over me, hooded, dark. “Naked, and... and wet, and I couldn’t stop looking and I thought you would see... and then the hotel, I remember...”

“Yeah. The hotel.” The dream, and it had all been real. “That was pretty good.”

I was touching him again, his face, couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop... He was absolutely gorgeous, squared chin and sharp cheekbones, and tenderness and lust replacing murderous intent in blue, blue eyes... funny I always thought they were cold—well, usually were, when he was busy killing me—but you couldn’t make that mistake now. His mouth, I had... I had really liked his mouth. I had really liked all of him.

I kept checking the potential entries on the nest, but somehow we weren’t interrupted, and he was here and real and in my arms, and I couldn’t not kiss him any more than I could get up, walk to the window, hop out and fly.

His mouth opened under mine, hot, wet, slick, he pulled me into it and kissed me back and we were both lied to, and I’d bet money it was her, the Announcer, lying to him as well, I remembered her, remembered being caught, remembered...

“You bastard.” I gasped, pulling back.

“What?”

“You bloody bastard... you made me kill you.” His body, blood on my hands and his eyes rolling back white and they pulled me off him...

“Desole...” He snuggled into me like a cat, and when that didn’t work, kissed my neck.

“Hey, now, don’t think you can just be sexy and French and I’ll forget all about this,”

“Cher,” He pouted at me. “Would you ask the sun not to shine? The earth not to turn? The tides to ignore the gentle siren call of the moon? Some things a man cannot help.”

Fancy talk or not, I was sore about it. “You made me kill you.”

“Oui. Desole.” He kissed me again, up my jaw to my cheek, fleeting little brushes of his lips against my skin, and he really did sound sorry. “Really... really I am. It was the only solution.”

Only solution? Like hell! “We could’ve... I could’ve...” Nothing came. He might’ve had a point. Still rankled. “Okay, so maybe you’re right. Still, you... D’you have any idea how I felt?”

“What do you want me to do to make it up to you? Would you feel better if I killed you?” His eyebrow shot up, the corner of his mouth.

“Never have in the past.” I laughed. He did the same.

“Well. Would you feel better if it was just un petit mort?”

That one I’d heard before. Not that I needed to be familiar with the term, the way he was latching onto my neck and reaching for my fly.

“No...” I stopped him, and it might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Felt like it at the time, anyway. “I mean, yeah, but no. Get out of here without being seen. Tonight... tonight, meet me. Not here, my—my van. There’s a bed. It’s... well, it’s... something, you know?”

He took his mask back from me, slipped it on. “Ah yes. I suppose it wouldn’t be very professional to do it now. Besides, I suppose anyone could stumble upon us here. That would be difficult to explain.”

Ugh, worse than difficult. Disastrous no matter who found us, but there’s bad and then there’s worse... Didn’t even bear thinking about now. We both had to get back to work.

Work.

“Does it bother you?” I asked.

“Does what bother me?” He touched my cheek briefly, one little crack in his newly-restored sense of professionalism.

“Well, I am killing your teammates. I mean, that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I have to get back to doing.”

“Does it bother you that when I leave this place, it will be to do the same, to your side? No. We have our jobs to do. It isn’t as though anyone stays dead, is it? Besides, even if they did...” He gave a little shudder and an expression of distaste. “I would not mourn the loss so much.”

“Yeah?” I wondered who on his side was such a problem. After all, I’ve got to shoot at the BLUs anyway, don’t I?

“You will do your job.” He instructed, all serious now. “I will do mine. All it is is work. It does not affect us.”

“Well, except we have to keep it a secret.” I said. No, our jobs didn’t change what I’m pretty sure I’ve been feeling about him, but if anyone knew I was making time with someone on the BLU side...

“Oh, and if we were not supposed to be enemies, you would be proud to tell everyone about us?” A wry smirk. Point to him. “I think not somehow. You could not brag to your friends, you could not take me home to meet your mother, you could not express any affection for me in public... Could you?”

Dammit. Of course I couldn’t. Mum’d be polite to him if I did take him home, of course, but Dad’d bring out the shotgun. Maybe call the police, but I think the shotgun’s more likely. I mean, I could never take him home. And even if we weren’t at war, what was I going to do? Bring him round to the pub some time and put my arm around him and say ‘Yeah, fellas, this one’s mine?’, I mean how stupid could I get?

Hard to tell, once he puts the walls up, if he even wishes it could be different. I do—at least a little. I’m not talking about registering for china or anything, but I mean I couldn’t tell anyone, and...

“No, I... I guess not.” I sighed. “Didn’t think that much about it. You being a man was sort of secondary to the problem of you being paid to put knives in my back.”

“If we ever do get out of this war...” He reached towards me, stopped, looked away. Far away... “You could come with me, you know. It is not... it is not ordinary, but... it is not prohibited. For two men... we could live together, if we make it that far and still decide we like each other. There are places where we could go, where we wouldn’t even be bothered. I mean, you can’t be indecent out in the street, but that’s true anywhere, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t seem like we are getting out of this war.” I said. The black clouds had officially descended. Wasn’t a single person on the face of God’s green earth I could tell about the man I... yeah, loved, that’s maybe true. I’m not the kind of man was ever gonna shout it from the rooftops, but the few people I do call ‘friend’ can’t know, my parents can’t know... And even if there was a world where we could be together, we’re not in it, because we tried getting out once and look what that got us.

“Humor me?” This time he did reach out, taking my hand in his.

“Not prohibited, huh?” I squeezed him gently, tried to smile.

“Homosexuality hasn’t been illegal since the revolutionary war. Well, except for... you know. For a while, when I was very young.” I remembered him talking, about where he grew up. About his parents. “But that wasn’t us, that was... Anyway, that wasn’t us.”

“Think buggery’s still on the law books where I come from.” I snorted. Imagined the farce we’d have to live if he came back with me after the war we probably weren’t ever getting out of.

“That settles it, then, doesn’t it? You will just have to come with me.”

“As long as I’m humouring you, sure.” I tried to picture it, though my idea of France mostly came out of movies and such. Couldn’t picture me in Paris, not for any longer than a fortnight at most. No, Paris’d be bigger and glitzier and busier than Adelaide, and even that was enough to make me start itching for the middle of nowhere after a couple days.

We talked a little more while I tried to imagine living in France. What was there, aside from Paris? The Riviera, which is probably just as bad, and the kind of places where they grow wine grapes, and maybe that’d be okay. I mean, it’s a whole country, and there had to be more to it than that, but I really didn’t know what to picture.

Anyway, the conversation didn’t go on much longer before he had to disappear, kissed me and cloaked and left, and I did actually get that shot off on the Medic I’d been looking for earlier.

And tonight... Well, tonight would happen.



---/-/---



The second I opened the door, he was through it, kissing me, and I slammed the door shut and locked it, and I was naked before we hit the bed.

He sucked me off, like it was nothing, and maybe he’s done this before, after all, it’s not illegal in France, but I don’t want to think about him doing anything like this with anyone else, don’t want to think about his mouth on anyone else, don’t want to think about those little sounds getting made for anyone else...

“I’ve never...” I started. Embarrassed, even though it’s a stupid thing to be embarrassed about, isn’t it? Not having given blowjobs shouldn’t injure a man’s pride.

“Oh. Well... you don’t need to...”

He was so hard, though, thick and deep pink and hot in my hand when I reached for him and even if he said ‘you don’t need to’, I did.

“Talk me through it.”

“I’ve never given lessons before.” He let out a strangled laugh, throaty and intimate, and when I kissed him...

I licked the head of his cock. Tasted a little bit like licking any of him, and a little bit like the inside of his mouth just now, where I could taste myself, and a little bit else, and he moaned and jerked.

“Go slow,” He murmured, his hand on the back of my head. “That’s it, very gradually...”

I licked him again, and again, started stroking him at the same time, and by the time I was actually sucking him, the only instructions I was getting were in French. So, I must have been doing something right.

Swallowing, as it turns out, is the kind of thing takes some practice, but how about that practice...

And after that he stayed in my bed, and I stroked his arm, his face, his body, just little touches, and if I went just a little soppy the way I looked at him, he didn’t say so.

Still, I couldn’t look at him for the next bit. There’s a degree to which I’m willing to be undone in front of him, and this ain’t it, not yet.

“Probably would follow you to France.” I admitted, eyes glued to the corner. Anyway, it seemed to make him happy.
---FIN---

there are no words for how much I loved this

God, does anybody know if this author is writing anymore? It would be amazing if they came here!

This must have been like the most amazing piece of fanfiction I have ever read. Seriously.

I snuck onto the LJ group and saved the rest of this, if anyone wants me to post it. It's basically the rest of everything from Sniper's POV, all the way to the very end, and then a fic called 'Reset'.
And there's a couple involving Stone and the other spy. Hot cloaked blowjob action too.
I highly recommend it.

>>55

If you could post the rest, or even just link us to that LJ page, I would be most grateful.

I think you have to be a member, but here's the link to all of them.
http://community.livejournal.com/tf2_slash/2010/07/
You just move forward to get the rest of them.

But here's an uploaded file of all of them.
http://www.mediafire.com/?di2dhbx0zp1aqim

Oh yeah, if you're wondering why there's random highlighter throughout some of them, I like to highlight the porny/semi-porny bits so I know what to skip to when I'm not in the mood to read the whole thing.

HOT DIGGITY THESE RULE.

Uhm...in which order do I have to read this?
The Defiant ones
Stolen Kisses (almost finished it)
and then there are over 9000 other Fanfics from that guy..

>>59

It goes like this:
Spy POV ones-
The Defiant Ones
Stolen Kisses
Always Another Dawn
Reset (This comes after AAD, but I read Sniper's fics first)

Sniper's POV ones-
The Long Walk (It's The Defiant Ones from Sniper's POV)
Crash (Stolen Kisses)
Journey Out of Darkness (Always Another Dawn)

Fit to be Tied & The Game & I Want You Now
(these three are just one-shot bondage porn that takes place after it's all over. First 2 are Spy POV, last is Sniper's)

The Road you Didn't Take (sort of a sidequel to Always Another Dawn, with the other Spy and other Sniper)

Faint Blue Shadow (characters from The Road You Didn't Take, sort of a sequel to it, I guess)
Watch (sequel to Faint Blue Shadow)

Thanks mate!
Do you know if there'll be more?

Not a clue. They're over on LJ. That's where I found the rest of these. If they're posted anywhere, it'll probably be there first. I don't think there will be any more in this sequence, but more one-shots are entirely possible.

Well.. The last update was in July 2010 if you look @ LJ and it was Stolen Kisses 5 so I guess he uploads his stuff somewhere else, or he deleted it, or its because I have no clue how LJ works.
I just finished Always Another Dawn..nice stuff
Hope I can find other long fics after this that are worth reading. There probably are some as I just found TF2chan some days ago. :)

Shameless love bump for a fantastic piece of fiction.

Yeah, I'm an ass.

Well hey, the bump brought me a fic I had not read and enjoyed. Not really an ass.

... hubba-whu?

Wow. Uh.

So this was me on LJ, back when I spent any time on LJ. I have a different name here because I wanted to use my Steam name for ease-of-finding-me, and there was already a GlasgowSmiles on Steam.

And then I wound up not posting my old LJ stuff because I was like 'if anybody remembers me from there, then they'll remember I had an unfinished WIP from when I spent some time away from the fandom and they'll hate me!' and...

So I am really... Like, it's weird seeing this here, but I'm really touched that someone liked it enough to repost it here way back whenever... And that people still like it.

(When I first saw this, I was like 'Hey, my OTP! Hey... didn't I use that title a couple years ago or something? Back before I had the guts to be a chan person? Oh... Oh...' And then people said nice things and I was like 'You guys!' and I got seriously ferklempt)

So yeah. Outing my old LJ self. (I guess it's still my current LJ self... I just haven't used LJ in a long time...)

Anyway, I just rambled a really long time for not actually contributing anything, so I'll just go... corner...

AnnetheCatDetective! I just emailed someone thinking it was you, but it wasn't...

Anyways, can I please contact you about an interview I'd like to conduct? This is probably not the place to do this, but I don't know where else to find you, so I'll ask you here-

Please email me if you're interested. I will respond with details.

And since I'm in this thread, I might as well say that this is my most favorite Sniper/Spy fic of all time. Simple as that.

>>67

Emailed you! Interview sounds fun... (both my e-mail accounts have been hacked recently, so I'm just hoping I salvaged my main one, but the subject line will have 'Cat Detective' in it.

And I'm touched, thanks! I feel all warm and fuzzy now/really glad my old fic held up against the test of time.

HOLY CRAP ANNE THIS FIC WAS YOURS!?!?!

This is what got me into the pairing! Wow, mind = blown!!

>>64 here!

I thought the style seemed vaguely familiar, and you (Anne) immediately came to mind after I finished the darn thing. Glad to see that my hunch was right, and that the bump received love rather than hate. Fantastic work, seriously. Just great.

I liked this quite a lot and am very glad this got bumped.

...After having read the most recent replies to that:

Woah!!! Anne, that was you???

As >>69 said: Mind. Blown.

Holy shit Anne are you serious my god. I loved and adored this fic ok? ADORED! I hope you don't mind me posting this but then you went and came out that it was yours so, yeah. This fic was what made me fall in love with SniperxSpy so thank you for that!
I totally remember which fic you never finished....eternal cliff hanger!

Aw... I'm touched...

I'm going to have to go back to that unfinished fic now that I went and outed myself...

Excuse me whilst I spaz incoherently.

Since there is little to say that has not already been said, I'm glad to finally know the author of one of my favorite sniperxspy fic series in tf2fanfic. Now I can smother you with bouquets of adoration at your door every day.

Welp. That took up about 4 hours of my life. And what a beautiful 4 hours it was.

Anne, did you ever finish Buried Secrets? I'd love to read the rest of it if you did.
The Defiant Ones is one of my favourite pieces of fanfic ever.
You've made a hardcore Sniper/Spy fan out of me.

>>76

I haven't finished it yet, but lately I've been wanting to go back to it, because tentacles. I wish I could remember exactly where it was going, but I do remember the basic outline. Anyway, my plan is to get it finished somewhere in the near future.

Thank you so much!

(Captcha says 'oreofro', which sounds like a magical chocolate wafer hairstyle with creme filling)

This is why I'm still digging through the old afanfic posts. Some are not my thing, some are okay, and some are this brilliance that makes me all sorts of happy every time I read it. Just the level of world building, and the outside storyline of the companies shutting down Respawn, and how every character is nuanced even if they never get a name. It's the little things that make this so close to perfection.