Archive of Our Own ^beta

Once, as a kid, Mundy had very nearly lost his eye.

It was an accident, of course. A stupid one. Completely his fault.

He’d been about eleven, just learning how to climb trees—or teaching himself, rather. There was something about being so high up in the air that you'd be a pile of guts on the ground if you ever happened to fall, so high that people on the ground looked like bugs in the grass, colorful and small. Fascinating at a distance, though perhaps bigger, scarier, and more dangerous up close. Etcetera. 

His hands got rough from scraping against bark all day, and the dirt beneath his fingernails was nearly permanent. But the high wind was so cool and fresh in the heat, and what little fear of heights he once instinctually had was disappearing every day. There was a lot that Mundy was afraid of. But being so high up was no longer one of them.

There were some real tall trees in the park a ways from his house, and he stood on benches to get at the ones he couldn’t quite reach. Mundy eventually learned that if he put food and books in a rucksack, he could carry it on his back and up the tree, and spend a good few hours up there by himself and the birds in the branches too thin for him to sit on. The magpies and the kookaburras and the other ones. Singing songs only he could hear. 

Sometimes he looked through the big holes in the few trees that had them, looking for owls. He never did find any, though.

This pastime wasn’t a thrill so much as it was an escape. Genuine peace and tranquility. Nobody could reach him up in the trees, nor would they bother to, and he was free to be where nobody could see him through the branches and leaves.

Mundy could see everything around him, though. He borrowed his dad’s sunnies, the one with fancy frames and colored glass, so the sun didn’t trouble him. And falling was never really a thought on his mind.

Until one day, when he did fall.

There was a bird in the branches above his head, one that he didn’t know. It was a frighteningly big bastard, with yellow eyes and shiny feathers, and it was staring straight at Mundy.

He took off his sunnies to get a better look, putting them in his pocket. He was afraid, but not enough to leave it alone. He reached up and tried to touch it, not realizing that the branch he was stepping on was too fragile, and it broke. It fell, and Mundy with it.

All his fears immediately came rushing back at once, his brain a pure mass of panic and adrenaline as he slammed into branches, leaves cutting his mouth, sticks slicing against his skin. His shirt was dragged up to his neck, and his belly burst into agony as the rough bark of the tree shredded against his flesh.

For so long, he tried to grapple desperately for a branch. Something. Anything.

Something sharp, probably a branch, scraped against the surface of his eye. In the moment, he barely noticed.

In the end, he didn’t actually fall that far. He managed to get a grip barely even halfway to the ground. Luckily, there were too many big branches in the way.

His face was bleeding from somewhere; his blood was dripping into his gaping mouth, onto his tongue before he shut his mouth in disgust. He almost threw then and there up from vertigo, his entire body sore.

Breathing heavily and almost blind, he started climbing clumsily back down the rest of the way, and only realized he dropped his rucksack when he found it on the grass. The book he was reading had closed, his page lost. His food was already crawling with ants.

His dad’s sunnies were cracked and broken, when he pulled them out of his pocket. This was probably the worst thing of all. His dad was going to be so upset. Mundy wasn’t even supposed to touch them, let alone wear them.

He looked up (though it was painful to do), but the big bird with the yellow eyes was no longer in the tree. His eye exploded with sudden agony, and he slapped a hand to it with a guttural cry. It was wet, for some reason. He peered at his hand, expecting tears, but his hand was thickly smeared with his blood.

An odd thing, to look at so much blood. He almost didn't think it belonged to him.

He began walking home (what else could he do?), limping, clutching his stomach in one hand and his eye in the other. He examined his stomach and saw that it was all scratched up from the tree, angry red lines reaching from his neck to his belly button. The longer he walked, the more it felt like bees stinging his stomach, cats clawing his chest.

And his eye. He was clenching his throbbing eye shut, finding his way with the other one. He was bleeding so much that his shirt was not only in tatters, but blood-stained, too. At one point, he began to cry, but stifled it whenever he passed a house on the road, terrified of anyone looking outside and seeing him. Besides, the tears only made it hurt worse.

His mum was scared half to death, of course, and his dad too, when Mundy came home all bloodied and pathetic-like. Probably looked like he’d got in another fight with a boy. His dad wasn't mad about the sunnies after all. He was more worried about Mundy’s eye, and all the blood. There was just so much of it.

It was so bad, they brought him to the hospital. His eye was cleaned with salt water and saline, which set his eye on fire, and he had to wear a bandage around his head for a few weeks. It turns out his cornea was cut, and he had to cover it so it didn't become septic. It was severe enough that the doctor hesitated for a moment before assuring Mundy’s harried parents that no, he wouldn't lose his vision in that eye.

Meanwhile, he was in the worst pain of his young life. Between the blood and the pus and the tears, his eye was a constant cycle of fluid that only fed his pain like gas to a fire. It often hurt so much that he wept, and whenever he made tears, it hurt twice as much as before.

He was forced to learn how to navigate life with only one eye, which was a bit harder than he’d ever thought. It was a bit different than simply closing one eye and walking around. His mind quickly forgot how to perceive depth and perception, and those first days Mundy walked around like a drunk man, bumping into things like furniture and doors that he'd thought were farther away.

School, something he had already felt anxious about before, became his nightmare; the other kids stared at him constantly—at the bandages around his eye, at the way he fumbled around like a moron. Reading and writing was also a challenge.

At school, there wasn’t a single minute that he wasn’t keenly aware of eyes, watching him, from every wall and corner. Mundy often lost focus, forgot lessons, and was so anxious that he gave himself stomach aches. His only real solace was when he was at home, with his mum and dad. His vision, for some reason, became almost normal at home. Though he was no longer allowed outside by himself. The tall trees at the park became a distant blissful memory.

Eventually, he did get better. But not without being marked. His eye ended up recovering completely, but the scar was there, somewhere. Mundy never did get over his strange and absurd fear of people’s eyes, looking at him. Watching him.

Maybe that’s why he spends the next decade of his life in the desert, alone, where he does the watching. Across the horizon, through the scope of his rifle, that is. If he’s ever lonely, he goes to a crowded bar at night, and finds a corner where he can listen to the rabble of the old diggers and the rowdy ockers and not be noticed by anyone at all.

In the desert, he doesn’t ever speak (for there was no one around to talk to), except often to himself and maybe the birds that try to nest on his camper roof.

Sometimes during the night, he can hear owls. He never does see any, though.

Yes, he’s not good with people. But the thing is, you don’t need to be in order to put a bullet into their brains from a distance. This philosophy serves him well when he eventually graduates from shooting dingoes and water buffalo to human beings.

From true blue to just BLU, he somehow finds himself in America. He's never been. It's just to another desert, but still.

The plane ride was quite the thrill. What a bloody fantastic marvel, flying machines. (Unlike the small, rickety, duct-tape covered planes he'd ride in the backwaters of Asian and Middle Eastern backwaters. He's done with those places now, though.)

Now, he's a salaried gun as opposed to a hired one (full dental was all they needed to convince him). He doesn’t know what he was thinking, joining a band of hired mercenaries, as if he worked even remotely well with people. Maybe silent nights at the bar alone surrounded by people he didn’t know just wasn’t enough anymore.

Sniper quickly regrets his life decisions when he takes a stray bullet to the eye in the first hour of his first day, and all the pain of those weeks when he was eleven comes rushing swiftly back.

He ducks for cover immediately, clutching his weeping eye with one hand while fumbling for his issued SMG with the other (he’s not used to carrying anything other than a big knife and his rifle). Before realizing he forgot it in his locker (idiot).

Dust and blood in his eyes and lungs disorientate him as he flees from the fight, into one of the buildings that flank the main path. He doesn’t know who shot him, but they were sure to be nearby, smelling for his blood.

There seemed to be a whole other team of them—mercenaries, wearing red instead of blue. Seeing them from behind a gate at the beginning of the first day, their big guns choking with bullets and rockets and fire and grenades, was more than a little intimidating. There was an entire war going on in these gravel pits, and only the snakes and lizards knew it.

He can’t say he’s ever really died a single time in his entire life, per se, but since the moment that gate opened, he's gained almost a dozen deaths to his name, several clean marks on a bloodied scoreboard, and he has yet to actually kill anyone, Christ’s sake. There was no way in hell he was going to make it more than a week out here.

Inside, he sits down against a wall as he clutches his eye, panting heavily in the rays of sunlight that filter from the window above his head. He’s alone (though not unusual for a sniper) but he has no idea where his team is, nor, actually, where the objective is to begin with.

Weren’t they supposed to be pushing a cart or something?

A familiar weight is missing from his back. He realizes with increasing dread, his glove growing wet with his own blood, that he must have dropped his rifle outside when he was shot, and left it behind somewhere. He has somewhat of a clue where, but he can't go outside with his eye like this.

His head pounding with pain, he closes his remaining eye, listening to the very faint sounds of battle in the distance. There was a doctor with them, he knew. A German bloke, with a barreled medicine gun and an arsenal of saws. Probably isn't even a real doctor, the look of him. Where is he, anyhow?

Where is anybody?

He was a dead man sitting, it seemed. Sniper has his kukri, and could take down practically any animal with it, but not when the animals had guns bigger than he was.

“Fuck me dead,” Sniper groans. "Fan-bloody-tastic."

A laugh, followed immediately by a loud belch, comes from the doorway. Sniper has his kukri in his hand before he even registers it, his other hand clutching his bleeding eye uselessly.

The man who laughed (some Euro bloke wearing blue; Sniper forgot his name) puts his hands up. Though it’s a bit redundant, as each of the man’s hands were still clearly holding two big weapons. The man grins cheekily at this, and takes a step closer.

“Oi, don’t come any closer or I’ll cut yer head off, you snake!” Sniper shouts, brandishing his knife at the one-eyed man, his teammate. Or at least, it looked like his teammate. It had only taken a single backstab from who he had believed to be his comrade for Sniper to permanently develop an acute spy paranoia.

(He hadn’t realized what it was that spies actually did, at first. Now he doesn't trust anyone anymore.)

“It’s me, mate!” the one-eyed man insists. “See, look!”

The man launches a grenade out of the doorway with one of his guns. They both idle for a moment, listening to the following explosion. 

The man smiles widely with expectation, but Sniper just stares skeptically back, having literally no idea what that was supposed to prove. The one-eyed man (though, Sniper supposes, they were both one-eyed at this point) doesn’t seem to notice, and walks up to Sniper where he sat.

“This piece 'a wood yours?” the man asks, holding out Sniper’s rifle by its strap. “I found it out in the grass, just lyin’ there. Thought ye were a dead man, if I’m bein’ true.”

“Yeah... she's mine,” Sniper replies hesitantly, a little less suspicious as the man hands him his gun. A spy wouldn’t just give him a weapon, right?

In the next moment, his eye flares up with pain from the movement, and he hisses loudly, dropping his gun again. It clatters loudly against the wood floor, poor thing. A haze of colors explodes behind his eyelid as he clutches his eye with both hands, stemming the new blood shakily. He groans, long and low. He doesn’t even care that his teammate is staring at him.

"Let me have a look at that, lad," the man says softly, and kneels down next to Sniper. A pair of large, calloused hands pull Sniper's trembling hands away from his eye as he gasps, but he doesn't resist. He can't see anything but blood, and light.

A rustle. His teammate starts cleaning his eye with a wet cloth that drips with chemical-smelling liquid (where did he get that from?). Sniper pounds a fist against the floor, moaning and clenching his teeth so hard that they nearly crack.

(Luckily, he has full dental.)

"Shhh, ye lil' baby. Guts an' glory," the man croons, and his warm breath blows against Sniper's face, smelling sharply of rum. Somehow, it isn't unpleasant.

"This won't be... permanent, will it?" he demands with sudden panic, thinking of the man's eye-patch. "I mean, yer eye..."

"I lost me eye when I was a boy. Long story. Here, drink this."

A bottle of something is pushed into his hands, and Sniper sneers half-heartedly. From the man's breath and the way he very slightly slurred his words, Sniper can tell that the other man is a little drunk.

"I don't drink on the job, mate," he says pejoratively, thinking of all the sorry sacks of men he'd ever met who did. There were more than a few crazed gunmen who frequented the bar at home. "I'm a professional."

"Och awa' an' dinnae talk pish."

"W-what?"

"Shut it an' drink this. It’s health from the kit outside."

Reluctantly, Sniper drinks from the bottle. He gags, expecting alcohol, but swallows instead what tastes like thick, lukewarm water.

A minute passes. His pain, amazingly, begins to noticeably draw away. Sniper takes another healthy mouthful, then another, until he can feel his eye knitting itself together, a heavy buzzing in his socket.

He peers up at his teammate through two fully-healed eyes that were grossly crusted with blood, drops of the mysterious miracle liquid leaking from his mouth.

What the actual bloody hell.

The man stares back, his large jaw squared, though his eye is humorous and knowing.

“What are ye doin’ so far away from the fight, ye big numpty? The bloody REDs haven't even taken second yet, and here ye are already gettin’ crippled at last,” the man scorns him, leaning closer, and Sniper’s breath leaves his body when the man just... grabs Sniper's chin in one hand, and starts cleaning his face with the other.

Blimey. Someone's getting awfully familiar.

A few seconds pass, and for some reason, though... Sniper's not doing anything about it. Maybe it's because he's suddenly lost the ability to coherently think straight. Maybe it's the fact that the man’s face is only several inches from his own. Maybe it was their knees, slightly knocking together. Maybe it was the bastard literally holding his face.

His face pink (though perhaps it was just the blood), Sniper slowly pushes the man’s hands away. Sitting back on his haunches, his teammate looks soberly at him with one brown eye, inclining his head. Sniper glances down nervously at the man's lips to avoid his eye. However, he quickly realizes where exactly it is that he's staring, and looks back up at the man's gaze, trapped.

A silent conversation passes between them.

Of course, Sniper would have to be an idiot not to know that the other man is clearly interested in him. But he’d probably rather lose both eyes than vocally acknowledge something like that.

“W-well, what are you doin’ out here, then?” he accuses, roughly poking a finger at the man’s chest to save face. His heart and his mind start a race in his body to see which one will explode first.

“Mate, I was lookin’ for you!” the man grins, startling Sniper. “I knew ye’d get lost. Like a lil’ sheep barra, waggin’ 'is tail an’ lookin’ for 'is mummy. These pits are big an' treacherous, after all."

“Fairly sure I’m bigger than you, mate,” he snarks. He picks his way to his feet, brushing the dust off himself and slinging his rifle over his shoulder, feeling almost fully recovered (his bum hurt more than his eye at this point). The one-eyed man stands up as well.

Sniper smirks when it becomes clear that he is indeed a bit taller. The other man tsks, looking Sniper up and down with a lazy grin, crossing his muscled arms and rolling his broad shoulders. Sniper grows a little wary under the attention, conscious of his, well, willowy stature.

“Aye then, Skinny Malinky Longlegs," the man says amusedly. "Pretty certain a breeze could blow right through ye and your twig arms. I’d even bet me other eye that I can carry ye soakin' wet. You an' your wee gun.”

Before Sniper can muster a reply, a woman’s voice sounds from somewhere on the battlefield, interrupting them.

"Attention! The bomb is nearing a checkpoint!"

“Let’s have at ‘em, boyo,” the man beckons, already almost out the doorway. “C’mon! The lads are waitin’ for us. Lord knows they cannae even push a boulder down a hill without me,” he mutters.

Sniper runs to walk next to the man, and together the two of them hurry swiftly to the fight in the distance.

“Thanks again. For yer help, erm...” he begins awkwardly, but falls short. “Sorry, what was yer name, again?”

Sniper did get a brief introduction with the rest of his team yesterday, but not, admittedly, with the broad, one-eyed man man snoring rather unprofessionally on the base's couch.

The medical professional, the pyrotechnician, the heavy weapons expert, etcetera. None of them used their real names, apparently. Perhaps knowing each other’s real identities isn't allowed. Sniper hopes the other man understood.

“I’m the Demoman,” the one-eyed man replies, staring ahead as he hefts his weapons, expertly reloading them with pill-shaped grenades and balls with spikes. “But ye can call me Demo. An’ don’t mention it.”

Suddenly, Demo looks at Sniper, his deep brown eye flashing gold in the sun above their heads.

“Keep a weather eye out for me and I’ll keep a manky eye on you,” he simply says with a sober tone, and then looks forward towards the battle. Sniper squints in the sunlight, unsure how to reply.

The next day, Sniper brings a pair of sunnies to the fight.

“So what you’re sayin’ is, ya live in a frickin’ truck and not the base,” the Scout deadpans with disbelief, popping his bright pink gum obnoxiously. The bugger was currently trying to upend a clod of dirt with his shoe, spraying sand everywhere.

“It’s a camper van. An' yes, I ‘spose ya could say that,” Sniper mumbles, avoiding the man’s judgmental stare.

It had been stressful, the first few weeks, not only working but living with people. People he didn't even know. Eight other blokes, most of them excessively loud, and all with big personalities and obviously good friends with each other

And all of them tended to... stare at Sniper, the outsider; in the meeting rooms, in the mess hall, in passing (obviously fellows who didn't give a rat's arse about social rules, such as staring is rude).

Probably just out of curiosity, because he was the newest bloke and never said much. Or, because they all secretly loathed him and never said it to his face. Either way, Sniper spends exactly one night in his barren, too-big room on base before he flees to his cramped but familiar camper. It's just simply a bit much for him.

(He misses bumping shoulders with Demo in the halls, though. The friendly, touchy-feely bloke who looked out for Sniper in his first ever battle, who was even a mite good-looking when he wasn't covered in dirt and blood or pissed off his arse. They never met eyes, but Sniper knew that Demo stared at him, too.)

He doesn’t know why the Scout decided to come out of the base and bother him after-hours. He’d simply been minding his own business on his porch. Alone. By himself. Bothering nobody. But apparently that just wasn’t enough for some people.

“What is it with ya? D’ya not like us or somethin’?” Scout goes on, now fiddling with his baseball bat, as if he’d drop dead if he stood still for even a second. “It’s been like weeks, but ya barely talk to us. If ya don’t like us, you should say somethin’, pally. Engie said you’re probably just 'afraid of people', but you’re like a seven-foot guy who has a buncha big knives, so I ain’t exactly think that’s true. I mean, Heavy doesn’t say shit most of the time but even he still acts like he knows us. What's your deal, anyway?”

“Do ya always talk this much?” Sniper grits his teeth, wishing he had his hat so he could pull it over his head. He would just go inside, but Scout is his colleague. He doesn’t want to be rude. He does have standards—even concerning twitchy hooligans.

“Yeah. What about it?” Scout shoots back with a crazy grin, gum all over his teeth, clearly pleased that Sniper was growing irritated. What a mongrel. He doesn’t deign the other man with a reply.

Of course, leaving Scout with silence to fill was never a good idea, he'd soon learn.

“So! Me an’ some of the other guys are goin’ to the grocery store. Ya know, to get groceries or whatever—” Scout remarks after a peaceful two seconds had came and went without any noise.

“I’ll pass,” Sniper interrupts. Scout snorts.

“I wasn’t askin’ ya, chucklehead,” he says amusedly. “Cyclops told me to tell ya to go. No idea why. Maybe he’s banned from the liquor section again. One time, he was drunk as hell and tried to make a molotov because he said the beer tasted like petrol. Like, what even is petrol? Ain't that like a sea bird or somethin'? I asked him, and then he upchucked all over my running cleats, 'cause apparently he ended up just drinkin’ the bottle afterwards. The checkout lady even called the cops on us, I think."

“So, what yer sayin’ is, is that ya can’t just go an’ get alcohol for ‘im?” Sniper remarks wryly. Scout flushes indignantly, his hotshot veneer gone in an instant.

“Look, pal. Those dumbasses keep thinkin’ I’m under twenty-one for some stupid reason. I’d give ‘em ID if I had some, but I failed the readin’ part of my driver’s test. Dunno how. Plus the chick who was testing me was weirdly hot, and I crashed the DMV's ugly-ass car into a mailbox because I was distracted. So yeah. Also they told me I didn't have to pay for the damage if I never came back. That lady 'had a boyfriend' anyway, even though I never saw 'im, so it was a win-win.”

Holey dooley, there wasn’t a single person that he worked with who wasn’t either insane, a serial killer, or just a moron. That’s what he gets for being a sook and caving in to loneliness.

Ignoring Scout's prattling, Sniper starts thinking about Demoman (he does that sometimes, maybe more). The man wasn't exactly insane, or a serial killer, or even a moron. Besides being a one-eyed black Scottish bloke, he's almost the most normal, out of all of them.

And though Demo wasn't very professional, he damn well was a profession, and he could be pure pleasant to be around. Sure, he was loud and eccentric and rarely sober, but he always treated Sniper like they were best mates for some reason. He didn’t care that Sniper didn’t care much for words, or being around people, or alcohol. And he was always... touching Sniper.

Sniper, personally, is a big advocate for personal space. Hates being touched, really. His mum used to get mad at him for stiffening up like a board whenever she hugged him. He never even ever shook hands with the oldies at church.

With Demo, though. He doesn’t mind so much. He even looks forward to those occasional moments.

Like that time Demo slung a heavy arm around Sniper's shoulders while jabbering with Soldier, even though Sniper just happened to be standing there.

Or when Demo deliriously grabbed him by the back of his neck and pulled their foreheads together while Sniper was pulling shrapnel out of the wounded man's face.

Or when they got drunk together that one night, and Sniper talked so much that his voice was actually hoarse the next day. And Demo didn’t even say a single word for once. He just listened, half-asleep against Sniper’s shoulder.

Sniper, as usual, didn't bring it up in the slightest.

However, he still said something he probably shouldn't have.

“If I can’t use yer real name, tell me somethin’ close to it.”

Sniper can feel Demo hesitate.

“...Tav. An’ you?”

“Call me Mick,” he replied. It was close enough to Mundy, he supposed. The diggers and ockers at the bar had called him that.

“Mick,” Tav sighed, half-asleep, and his low, rough voice sent the desert chill running.

God... Sniper was such a sook.

Who was he? Scout, prince of the virgins?

And he never says a single word. Even though he wants to. Even though he knows what he wants. He just doesn’t know how to say it. Like trying to speak a sentence in a language you don’t know. Except he knows every word of this language. He’s just too much of a wuss to speak it. There's a lot that he's afraid of, and there are no tall trees in the desert for him to climb, but somehow he’s still falling just the same.

“Hey, Earth to Snipes! Are ya comin’ with us to the freakin’ store or not?” 

“Yeah, sure,” is all he says, heart pounding, and watches Scout spit his gum as disgustingly as possible before he runs off. Then he picks himself up and goes to find Demo. He thinks the man might be calling his mum at this hour, like he usually does once every other week.

When he hears a distinct Scottish brogue echoing down the halls, he chuckles to himself. Being in America had softened his own accent, but he always went back to normal whenever he spoke to his own parents. Demo in particular could be incomprehensible sometimes. However, Sniper can usually understand him. As it turns out, Scots and Aussies share a lot of expressions.

“Ony mair o' yer lip an ah’ll skelp yer dowp!” an older woman’s muffled voice shouts. “Pure gie'in' me the boak!” 

Nevermind.

"Aye, ah'm a fuckin' buftie! So?" Demo yells loudly into the phone, his back facing Sniper. “An e’s proper braw, too! No that ye’d care, blind auld biddy.”

As usual, Sniper can’t tell if Demo is rowing with his mum or if they’re just having a friendly shout with each other. He’d be fed to dingoes if he ever raised his voice at his mum like that. He himself would do the job.

“Ah’ve got tae go, maw. Love ye,” Demo says hushedly, now eyeing Sniper with a strange wariness, and hangs the phone back up on the wall. He shrugs and gives Sniper a distracted look as if to say, mums.

“Yer not fightin’ with ‘er again, are ya?” Sniper asks with concern. Demo shakes his head.

“Nah, I just have ta shout ‘cause she’s old an’ losin’ her hearin’.”

Demo hesitates as the two stand in silence for a moment, fiddling with the grenades on his chest.

“Ye didn’t... hear what I was sayin’, did ye.”

“Didn’t understand a single word, mate,” Sniper assures him, trying to assuage his friend's unease. “Why? Were ya gossipin’ about me or somethin’?"

Sniper is joking, of course, but Demo isn't exactly laughing.

“Of the sort,” is all that Demo says with an oddly subdued tone, increasing Sniper’s curiosity tenfold. But judging from the man’s expression, he didn't exactly want to discuss it.

Luckily, not talking about things is Sniper’s forte. Along with putting glory holes in the skulls of ugly no-hopers, and knitting sweaters.

Glacing at him, Demo still looked a bit forlorn, though. Maybe the shout with his mum wasn't friendly, after all.

Feeling brave, Sniper reaches out for Demo, patting his shoulder stiffly and giving the corner of his bomb suit a little shake. Even smiles a little. It’s a nervous and awkward action, but Demo half-grins at him, and leans in to bump their foreheads together. His hand lingers on the back of Sniper’s neck for a moment, heavy and warm. Sniper looks sideways at the wall, his neck tingling.

Looks like Demo was fixed, then.

They begin to make their way towards the base’s garage. Sniper always appreciates how his and Demo’s walking speeds were nearly the same. No having to walk quicker to compensate, no having to slow down and waste time. Just a proper, steady gait, unlike most of the team always running and hurrying about.

“Scout told me that ya told him to tell me to come with you bogans outta base. An’ he didn’t make it seem like I had much of a choice,” Sniper remarks. Demo grins cheekily.

“Well... somebody’s got ta get ye outta yer weasel cave,” Demo affirms. “It’s just a lil’ trip to the grocery. S'not like we’re goin’ anywhere proper with gobs of people. I know that’s not exactly yer cuppa tea.”

“Isn’t it?” Sniper murmurs suddenly, a challenge in voice.

So Demo was finally bringing it up, then. Sniper's... problem.

“Aye,” Demo replies starkly, peering sideways at Sniper. “It isn’t. I know how ye get, like when someone comes knockin’ at the door and ye scarper off like a cat goin’ ta hide under the bed."

Demo pauses thoughtfully, thinking.

"Or that look in your eye, like you're seein' somethin' frightening, but it's just a stranger talkin' to ye an' the like. Or... or when the room’s fulla people, and ye start walkin’ all stiff and funny-like.”

Demo slows down to parody Sniper’s stiff, uneven walk, bowing his head with a heavy frown on his face and moving like there was something up his bum. Sniper flushes with embarrassment, and resists the urge to start walking as such.

There was something about too many people near him, watching him, that sometimes made him almost forget how to walk, how to stand. His dad used to take the mickey out of him for it, when he saw how oddly Mundy walked at school, or anywhere other than home that had other people around. Deep down, Sniper knows his dad was just frustrated with him. Like there was something wrong with his son that he didn’t know how to fix, or address.

“I don’t try to... it just happens,” Sniper mutters defensively. Luckily, his hat and sunnies do a good job at hiding his expression. When he slows down to a stop, Demo stops with him.

“I’m not scoldin' ye, lad,” Demo sighs heavily. “I just worry about ye, okay, an' what you're so bloody scared of all the time. Nobody out there can hurt us, ye know. An’ if they did, I’d be there, all barmy and thirsty for blood, with a slew of bombs an' a freshly sharpened blade.”

“I ‘preciate that, Tav. I really do,” Sniper laughs despairingly. “It’s just, well, I...”

How do you talk about something that you've never quite put into words before?

“...got a thing with eyes, I ‘spose.”

Demo quicks his brow, but doesn’t say anything, simply waiting. He knew well by now that Sniper sometimes needed a moment to get the words going. It was heartening, if not a bit demeaning. But he can't possibly blame anyone but himself.

Sniper gestures helplessly with his hands, opening his mouth with no sound. Speech doesn't come easily to him in normal circumstances. And this sort of thing was paticularly difficult to explain. Sniper ended up stuttering and fumbling his sentences a lot, but luckily Demo was patient with him.

“I just... hate when people stare at me. I don’t know why. When people look at me, it’s like they want to do somethin’ terrible to me, or somethin’. Like how a mongrel dog will bite ya if ya look ‘im dead in the eyes for too long. I can't even bloody go outside without dreadin' who'll be lookin' at me from where I can't see, from the houses or the shops or the cars."

Sniper takes a shaky breath, a little lightheaded.

"And... if I’m talkin’, an' some other bloke is lookin’ at me, I’ll start messin’ up my words an’ sentences. Or I’ll start shakin’ an’ I can no longer focus. Ya even brought it up yerself, how I can't even walk right sometimes. I know it’s bloody irrational. But... I don’t know. There's just somethin' wrong with me, Tav. But I just don't know."

“Aw, love,” Demo croons when Sniper starts to tremble. At his voice, Sniper almost falls apart.

When Demo pulls him into an embrace without wasting a moment, Sniper doesn’t say anything, doesn't pull away. He just shudders and sighs, burying his face into the other man’s neck, figuring he had permission. Demo was holding him so tightly. He wants to stay like this all day, inhaling the warm smell of rum and gunpowder, and Demo.

The man hums, running a rough hand through Sniper’s hair and resting it under the man’s hat. He begins to flex his fingers, scratching Sniper’s scalp gently with his nails. Sniper's skin prickles everywhere the man touches him. When he leans forward, Demo leans back, supporting him.

“Well, ye seem ta get by pretty nicely when it’s just me an’ the other lads," he remarks softly over Sniper’s shoulder. "Ye didn’t at first, but now you're okay. Ye don't say it, but I ken that you're happy, at least a lil' bit."

“That’s ‘cause I know all of ya,” Sniper murmurs, his face crushed against Demo’s body, which radiated a faint, lovely heat. “I’m not so bloody anxious, when it’s just us.”

God... he was such a wuss.

He's a grown man with a kill count, an arsenal of used rifles and bloodstained knives, and several homemade necklaces lined with crocodile teeth. Yet talking about himself almost brings him to tears, and he melts into a puddle when someone's arms are around him.

Luckily, Demo doesn't seem to care that Sniper isn't hugging him back (he can't muster the energy for his arms to raise). The two of them just stand there for a long minute—maybe two, maybe five—simply touching each other. Only this time, Sniper had something to say. It wasn’t easy, but everything has to start somewhere.

“Think ye’d be up ta a lil’ trip outside? We could, dunno, go get some nosh. Food, the like,” Demo says to Sniper when they finally withdraw, both of them warm and reluctant to let each other go. “If ye even eat, that is. Feckin’ scarecrow.”

Sniper adjusts his sunnies, straightens his hat, clears his throat. Straight-backed, professional; almost himself again. Crocodile teeth. Bloodstained knives.

“I’m starvin’,” he relents with a small smile. His mood is loads better than a few minutes ago, strangely. He almost doesn’t mind the thought, going outside and mingling with people. This time, he won’t be out there in the wilderness by himself. No longer quite a loner fending for himself among packs of wild dogs.

Demo grins widely at him—his eye is very brown. Sniper always enjoys studying it, the fine, hardy color. The man' eyelashes are pleasantly long as well, though you can't tell in low light.

Demo doesn't seem to mind the attention, as usual. Just grins cheekily. They begin walking again in silence, though there was plenty of things that were still being said.

“What took y’all so long?” Engineer asks from the driver's seat of his truck, looking back at Sniper and Demo suspiciously. Meanwhile, Scout was ‘reading’ a magazine with his feet on the dashboard while Pyro sat in the middle, hugging a unicorn plush and staring out of the windows. Engineer raises an eyebrow at Scout with all the scorn of a mother for exactly one second before Scout sheepishly puts his feet on the ground.

“Sorry, Truckie. Got a lil’ sidetracked,” Sniper explains from the narrow backseat of the car (of which didn't have enough room for his head or his legs), rubbing his neck sheepishly. Next to him, Demo nods while looking interestedly at his fingernails, a funny little smile on his face.

Pursing his lips, Engineer shoots the two of them a look. A long, drawn-out, pointed look that could have been either full of hidden meanings or completely meaningless. It’s a little bit menacing due to Engineer not wearing his goggles, revealing his piercing blue eyes.

Sniper swallows nervously under the man’s gaze. The bastard was always thinking, that big brain of his. No doubt he knew something he wasn’t saying.

“Can we freakin’ go, already!?” Scout whines, and Pyro pokes him in the neck until Scout squawks some more. With an exasperated huff, Engineer starts the engine.

“Lord only knows,” he says, shaking his head, and they were off.

It’s one of those nights. No clouds, and in the desert, that meant that heaven itself would soon be descending into the sky.

Radio bloke said a nice 40-50 degrees with a light airflow and slight windchill. In other words, Sniper doesn’t know what the weather will be like. So he brings a couple blankets with him as he settles on the roof of his camper van. He leaves his hat and sunnies behind.

The sun was bleeding out below the horizon, deep red to a deathly purple. All the stars, every single one, would be coming out tonight, it seemed. The constellations looked a bit different in America, but a night sky full of stars is a gorgeous sight where ever you go.

The ground appeared quite far away, being several feet below him, but Sniper doesn’t mind the height. In fact, he even likes it. He feels safer up high, where everything is in his sight and he was seldom in someone else's.

Except, this time, for one person in paticular.

“Evenin’, boyo,” Demo greets, a crate of beers under his arm, peering up at Sniper with a bemused expression on his face. “...We’re not sittin’ up there, are we?”

“Star-gazing’s always best the higher up ya are,” Sniper remarks back, then smirks. “Why? Afraid of heights? Not so high an' mighty of ya, I must say.”

“Aye. When I’m sober,” Demo replies dolefully, a touch offended. “Hmm... nah. When I’m blootered, too.”

From the ground, Demo hands Sniper the crate, who struggles with the unexpectedly heavy load for a brief moment, glass bottles rattling against each other.

“Why’d ya bring so many?” he exclaims. There was enough for the whole team, practically.

“There’s a bunch of different ones in there, Mick. Ye can try ‘em all if ye’d like. Wasn’t sure what ye liked,” Demo shrugs, face neutral. Sniper raises an eyebrow at that, but smiles at his best mate. He can tell the man isn’t feeling as brash and confident as usual.

“...no scrumpy?” he asks curiously, noticing the lack of it. Demo shrugs again, speaking hurridly.

“Figured I’d bring somethin’ a lil’ more fancy. 'Sides, I’m not tryin’ ta get drunk-drunk, ye know.”

Demo did know that Sniper hated the taste of scrumpy (gutter water, more like, though his own homemade moonshine isn't much better). Sniper wonders if that has anything to do with anything.

The other man climbs up the ladder until he reaches the roof, never not eyeing the ground with great consternation.

“I never thought I’d ever hear ya say that,” Sniper chuckles. “Imagine that. Demo, not tryin’ to get drunk. Ya must be a spy or somethin’.”

“Ye talk too much,” Demo says, still watching the ground apprehensively. He shuffles daringly close to Sniper until they’re sitting plumb next to each other (he doesn't really mind), legs hanging over the campers edge. Wordlessly, Sniper gives the man a blanket. He then pops open a random bottle, tasting lager, and Demo chooses a bitters. Together, they drink in companionable silence, staring up at the faintly speckled sky.

“...when I was a lil’ ankle-biter, I used to actually think I was from outer space,” Sniper blurts randomly after the two watched the sky for a while (he couldn't concentrate on the sunset though), growing increasingly nervous. He wasn’t used to talking about himself as much as he did around Demo, though he tried. More and more. “Like... like Superman or somethin’. Like I was put in a rocket as a baby an’ blasted onto Earth until my parents found me an’ raised me up.”

“Why?” Demo asks, clearly bemused by something so ridiculous. Sniper shifts, hugging his blanket tighter to himself. The desert was growing colder. The sun was almost gone.

“Yeah... I was a right lil’ weirdo, growin’ up. All the kids at school were bigger an’ stronger than me, so I climbed trees an’ threw rocks at them so they’d leave me alone. My parents, too; I used to think they were completely unrelated to me. Like I wasn’t even a dinkum Aussie at all. I used to be obsessed with space, an' aliens, for that reason.”

Sniper takes a swallow of his drink, staring up at the sky, the stars getting clearer every minute. A part of him still believes, maybe, that something else is out there. Nothing could truly be alone in such a vast universe. Even if the other was just a faint dot in someone else’s lonely horizon.

“‘Course," Sniper chuckles, "now I know that’s just a load of pish. Even if I was adopted, my parents probably would’ve said somethin’ by now. I was just a pure lonely kid, is all.”

“Aye, I’ll drink ta that,” Demo mutters ruefully, taking a long swig. “I actually was adopted, mind ye.”

“Yeah?” Sniper says quickly, intrigued; Demo never really did talk about himself much.

“Yeah,” Demo breathes back, eye full of stars. “I didn’t even know, really, until I blew ‘em up by accident an' got booted ta the orphanage. My real parents came ta pick me up, but that was years later. It was tradition, they told me. I couldn’t be fully accepted into the clan until my gifts for demolition manifested.”

“Crikey,” Sniper mumbles. Demo hums and sighs somberly. “That sounds like it was hell, mate.”

And then Sniper falls short, because he doesn’t know what else to say or do to comfort the man, except also chew bitterly on the irreversibility of bad childhood memories. Demo pats him on the shoulder with a wry smile.

“All in the past,” he says simply. “It was rough waters, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a bit o’ sunshine here an’ there. I love me mum, I swear it, both the two I ever had. An' I really do love this job. Mixin’ chemicals, takin’ heads, makin' dandies explode. We’re all just big bags of chemicals, ye know. Waitin’ for our time ta ignite, or for someone ta come an' make us alight."

They both fall silent again as they drink, pondering each other's words. Sniper violently shivers under his blanket, not used to the chill of the evening desert of New Mexico. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hide it; he knew that Demo would probably do something embarrassing in order to help him.

On cue, a strong arm makes its brazen way around Sniper’s shoulders as Demo pulls his blanket around the both of them. They’re flush against each other now. And somehow, Demo’s chin is now resting atop the crown of Sniper’s lowered head.

It really is incredible, how warm you become when someone is resting their body against yours, and how quickly it happens. Sniper will never get used to it. He hopes he never does.

Liquid courage in his limbs, Sniper tentatively brings his own arm around Demo’s broad middle, feeling the taunt muscles, the soft flesh. Demo glances at him, laughing softly. No doubt his face was making some stupid expression at that moment.

Sniper feels a sudden, faint urge to pass out, but he doesn't. He doesn't. He can't. Not now. Not when he's this bloody happy.

The desert is quiet as usual, with only a low murmur of something somewhere out of sight to indicate a hint of life existing somewhere out here—for there is life, even alone in the middle of of desert. Even if they two were the only ones who realized.

As a kid, he used to fantasize a lot about that; a completely empty Earth where no one existed in the world except himself. No one around who could see him, like when he climbed to the top of the highest trees when he was young. He could walk around anywhere he wanted in the world, and no one could stop him with merely a glance.

Of course, now that he's older, he's glad the world isn't empty, now. Just a pure lonely kid who was no longer quite so young or alone, and the better for it.

When Tavish eventually takes Mundy’s face in his large, warm hands and starts kissing him like Mundy was the last drop of alcohol left in the bottle, well, he doesn't exactly protest. He's glad wishes don’t come true. Things usually work out, regardless. Wounds heal, and sometimes, the scar doesn't look half-bad on you.

Keep a weather eye out for me and I’ll keep a manky eye on you.

Both of their eyes turn towards the sky. Scars in one eye, stars in the other. Somehow, they’re still looking at each other.

FIN.