Chapter Text
It shouldn’t be so unusual. This kind of passing fancy for another man happens all the time in the army, or so he’s heard.
Working for Reliable Excavation Demolition isn’t too unlike being in the army. Better arrangement for sure, if you ask Sniper. Him and eight blokes sit around and shoot the shit in the desert, until someone or other decides to send them off into no-man’s land where they shoot the shit out of some other cunts. By the end of it he’s done a good day’s work and, unlike the army, he goes back to a warm camper and a ridiculously big pile of dosh.
When it’s just you and a bunch of other men in the middle of nowhere, with a half-decent ration of grog and plenty of running around and sweating and – well, it’s not like Sniper’s never thought about it, even before this job.
He’s got no problem with it. He’s never cared too much whether a sheila wants a go at another sheila or a fella wants to take it up the arse – at the end of the day, everyone takes a bullet to the head the same way as the next, no matter who they're rooting.
In any case, he never gave the Doc and Heavy any shit after they got together, even while the two of them screwed like rabbits for the first few weeks of dating. One of the benefits of staying in his camper and not the team dorms was that he didn’t lose sleep over other people’s nighttime activities. It never impacted their performance on the battlefield (if anything, they were fiercer and more bloodthirsty than ever), and they seemed happy, therefore it's none of his concern.
He’d been supportive of Engie too, when the Texan confided his affection for their teams Soldier to him. Granted, he might’ve told him to get his tetanus and diphtheria shots updated first, but that was only because Soldier is a stark raving looney who’s almost as rabid as the raccoons he fosters. Still, Conagher hadn’t been swayed, and the two Yanks had started a tentative sort of courtship. The kind full of lingering gazes and shoulder pats that lasted a little too long, sappy type stuff that made Sniper roll his eyes and bite back a smile.
So, maybe he’s a queer too - so what? No dramas.
…
Then why’s he feel so off kilter every time he thinks about this fella? Why does he want to curl into a ball and hide away in his camper while also wanting to kiss him stupid? He pictures it for a split second and can already feel his face burning up.
Maybe it’s just the fact that he fancies anyone at all that’s taking him by surprise. He’s never really had, and hardly wanted, much in the way of romance. There’d never been any high school sweethearts when he was younger. His parents already worry enough about him while he’s working, it’s probably better he doesn’t put some poor sheila or bloke through the same thing.
He’s had sex, sure. A few one-night stands with a pretty miss here and there. He’s frequented some brothels in his time, been up and down King’s Cross. He thinks he might have got a blowie from some bloke in Perth, back in ’59, but he’d been so drunk he could hardly remember it. That was all transactional, though, no feelings, no strings attached.
Sniper is a solitary creature, and that’s the way he likes it. Marriage or partnership never fit into his idea of an ideal life. Long days on the road and long nights in the bush with nothing but a strong cuppa, a Remington 700 and himself for company – that’s how he lived for the decade before he joined RED and that’s about how he reckons he’d like to die if he ever manages to retire. Considering how he dies and is brought back near every day now, he doesn’t think too much on it anymore.
He doesn’t think much on anything except broad hands and the taste of cheap Cornish cider and that beautiful, manic laughter that rattles his chest like an explosion. Not to mention the actual explosions lighting up that brown eye, the scent of gunpowder and chemicals…
Bloody hell, he’s fucked. He hasn’t had a crush since primary school, and now here he is getting mushy over his good mate Demoman. The guy is Sniper’s complete opposite – broad-shouldered and easy on the eyes, a social butterfly who’s had a hundred jobs in all corners of the world and could probably get any girl or fella he liked. Well, Sniper didn’t even know if he liked fellas, which was part of the problem. Tav- Demo had never talked about any lady back in Scotland or anywhere, but that didn’t mean that there’d never been one. Didn’t mean there was a gent instead.
This’ll pass, Sniper tells himself. Give it a few weeks. He’ll keep his head down and focus on his work, and whatever lust or puppy-dog affection he feels for Tavish – Demo, the teams Demolitions Expert, for Christ’s sake – will fade away with neglect. Sniper is a master of killing inconvenient feelings. Blokes what bludgeon their wives to death with a golf trophy, they have feelings. Professionals have standards.
So, he works. Over the next month, he beats his own record for most consecutive head-shots per battle. He beats his own record for most kills with his kukri per battle. He sets a new team record for most cups of coffee ever drunk in a day, beating Engie’s twenty-eight. That’s the same day he sets a record for most enemies hit with Jarate and Demo laughs his arse off when Sniper tells him that.
He shoots big-headed wankers and gets shot, he stabs and gets stabbed by the BLU Spy more times than he can count. The sneaky bastard seems to have it out for him. He can’t go one match without getting a butterfly knife to the back, and it pisses him off enough that his teammates take notice.
He’s camped in a good spot in Dustbowl, a corner room in a shed just high enough to keep him out of the main hullabaloo, but close enough to take easy potshots at the mongrels trying to capture their point. He’s got a close eye to BLU’s Heavy-Medic duo, übered up and headed for Engie’s nest. The Medic is using his big friend as cover. But in three seconds, when the übercharge wears off… two, one-
Sniper draws a breath and takes the shot. It hits the Heavy in his left shoulder, missing his mark.
‘Ah, bugger.’
He fires off a few more shots quickly. With any luck, they’ll get nervy at the onslaught and slip up, leaving an opening for RED’s defence to push them back.
He’s so caught up in his scope that he hardly registers the sound of an explosion below his vantage point. Demo flies up past his window and grabs onto the sill as gravity pulls him down, scaring Sniper shitless.
‘Crikey!’
Sniper’s rifle clatters on the sill as the demolition’s expert hauls himself through the window, landing face first on the wooden floor. He reeks of blood and brimstone and the usual whiff of alcohol that follows him about like a hungry dog.
‘Mate, what the bloody hell are you doing?’
‘Spmmph!’ Demo yells into the floor.
‘Wot’s that?’
‘Spy!’
The Scot scrambles to his feet and fires off his sticky launcher, aiming towards the door of the room.
Three things happen very quickly.
First, Sniper yells ‘DON’T!’ all too late. The room barely has enough room to wave a rifle about. They’ll get caught in the bombs blast radius if it catches on the door.
Second, the single sticky bomb flies perfectly through the door and down the hallway, lands dead in midair and seems to yell ‘Putain de merde!’
Third, Sniper is bodily tackled to the ground as the bomb goes off and everything gets bright and hot.
Once the ringing in his ears stops, Sniper opens his eyes and takes stock of all his limbs. His face feels singed, like a bad sunburn, but nothing seems to be missing. His body is weighed down, protected from the blast where Demo is laying over the top of him.
Righto. Demo is laying over the top of him.
He’s on the ground and Demo is on him and hells fucking bells he wishes that bomb had killed him dead because he doesn’t have the mental fortitude for this.
Demo groans, bringing his head up from Snipers shoulder to face him. The back of his uniform is smouldering. He gives Sniper’s barbecued self a once over.
‘You alright, lad?’ His voice is rough and firm and Sniper is very glad his face is already burnt red.
‘Holy Dooley.’ He mutters. Demo flashes him a blinding grin.
‘Aye, you said it, Mick.’
Demo stumbles to his feet, hauling Sniper along with him.
‘Saw the spook headed up yer way and thought I’d get the jump on ‘im before he got it on you. Sorry for the trouble.’
‘Ah,’ The Aussie wills his embarrassment away best he can. ‘No trouble. I ‘preciate you lookin’ out.’
The two poke their heads into the burning hallway. Demo gives a low whistle as they spot what’s left of the BLU Spy splattered across the broken wooden walls of the shed.
‘Always did think this back-pokin’ snake had – what do yer people say? A face like a dropped pie.’
Sniper barks out a laugh.
‘You’re not wrong. Heh, face like a bucket of smashed crabs, that one.’
‘Ha! Kind o’ face that’d turn a funeral up a side street!’
The two of them keep at it (‘Like a boxer chewin’ a wasp!’ ‘Oh, that’s a good one – If I had a face like him, I’d shave me head and teach me arse to speak!’) until another explosion rattles the shed.
‘MAGGOTS!’ Soldier, their RED Soldier, has rocket-jumped his way through the same window Demo entered. He starts his roaring before the two of them can explain themselves.
‘WRAP UP THE TEA PARTY, LADIES! I wanna see your asses down there DEFENDING MY POINT! Or by GOD, I will have BOTH you HIPPIES dishonourably discharged and SHIPPED BACK TO THE COMMONWEALTH LIKE THE SORRY SACKS OF CRAP YOU ARE!’
Demo shrugs, half-heartedly saluting as he makes his way down the hall to the exit. Soldier is already preparing to jump out the window, still carrying on.
‘I will NOT have you turn MY BATTLEFIELD into a CAMPGROUND, BILBO BAGGINS! Either WAKE UP or GO HOME to your KANGAROO WIFE! HUTTAH!’
Like an obnoxious, angry bald eagle, Soldier takes to the skies. Sniper rocks back with the force of yet another explosion, grumbling. The crazy piker has him pissed off and not only because of the abuse, but because Sniper knows he’s right. He’s been about as useful as tits on a bull the entire match.
Taking up his rifle, Sniper puts all his focus into burying bullets in BLU foreheads and wills himself to forget about Demo’s laugh and the weight of his warm body holding him down.