...

UPDATE: It is now complete!

A drabble started (and now finished) revolving around a joke I once found on a Two Steps From Hell - Moving Shadows YouTube video way back when. It featured a picture with a couple snipers, and one of the people down below commented this joke that had me laughing for a good long while. I can't find it anywhere now, but whoever came up with it, kudos. It's stuck with me and kept me entertained for this long, so it's certainly rated as YouTube gold in my books, even if it's no longer there.

Warning. My "return joke" (isn't even that funny at all) is corny as effffff but idec. I'm not a comedian, just bear with me.

Anyway, a joke about snipers? Well who better to use it for than the MW2 hooligans? Fertilized by that statement, this thing was born. It's a year old, but it's feet are brand new. (I finished it a year later. Geezus. Procrastinator much?) Basically, if you've already read it - talking to you, you awesome reviewers - you aren't missing out on much. It just has a top on it now. Or, er, a bottom. Heh.

If this is your first time, turn back now. Nah, jk. Hope it gives you a laugh.

...

"Oh no," came Archer's British-lilted reply. "Haven't you heard, Ghost? Snipers are the best of all."

"Yeah, right!" Scarecrow jumped in. "The close-combat soldiers are the—"

"No no, listen," Archer cut him off. It was a playful little argument and the others were well into continuing it for some time, but Archer appeared to be very determined to keep the one-track mind of his comrades on his train of thought for a while longer. "Snipers are the best of all."

Ghost snorted. Alright, he'd bite. "And just why is that, mate?" he shot back.

The line fell silent with everyone listening for the sniper's reply. Archer grinned a mischievous grin to himself, then repositioned his ear piece in his ear and replied, "Snipers are the best of all soldiers because they get a lot of head…"

The line remained silent with everyone waiting for him to finish the train of thought (as it was their initial assumption that the statement was incomplete). In the shortest period of wait, however, Roach had just enough time to clamp his hands over a laugh bursting from his mouth before Archer finished, "…shots."

Ghost pointed and peeled over with laughter at his partner's growing red visage, as Roach tried to suppress his wild, uncontrollable mirth from the previously unseen [in-the-gutter] [perverted] [dirty] joke but failed miserably as it pushed against the restraint of his vocal cords in a shower of spit and snot across his gloves. Ghost couldn't decide whether the clever joke on Archer's part or Roach's particular reaction to it was funnier, as he took a look at the veins beginning to sprout from his partner's neck and listened to the similar guffaws over the comm. Both made him light-headed and unable to suck in a proper breath.

"Wow, Archer, just…" Toad's voice dissolved into his chuckles. "Wow."

"You nearly killed Roach with that joke there, mate," Ghost announced amongst his own sniggers. His comrade had controlled himself to the point where he could remove his hands from his mouth to wipe up the snot splattered over his nose and upper lip, but his grin was still huge and his shoulders were still shaking with his wheezing laughter. His laugh was hilarious. Second only to Meat's, perhaps, who's roaring chortles could make MacTavish cry with stomach pains and mirth. Ghost really enjoyed when either got tickled by a joke and just let loose.

Static and the dampened sound of a brief shuffle indicated someone activated their comm. again. Ghost and Roach listened up to what the speaker had to say to the team.

"Yeah," the voice, stifled and scratchy (it sounded a bit like Scarecrow, maybe, but they couldn't be for sure), said, "but it's a shame how the only head a sniper gets is dead meat."

At this, the implication caught Roach by surprise and startled the laugh out of him before he could think to catch it. Ghost just nearly exploded as he watched Roach's eyes pop wide, mouth a huge O as he belted his wheezy, contagious, hilarious laugh into the dirt. Over the comm., Ghost could hear Meat's roar of laughter making his speaker fuzz out with how loud it was. Sided by two of the best laughs he'd ever heard, coupled by the sniper jokes just getting better, Ghost lost his footing and fell to the ground, belly aching and lungs heaving.

"Scarecrow!" Archer managed to holler through the link, though it was all he managed to get out through his mirth.

"What!" Scarecrow called back, voice hoarse. "It wasn't me! Shit."

"It was Chemo, Arch," someone muttered with a series of exhales.

"Traitor," Chemo muttered back, smile evident in his voice.

A burst of static that hadn't been there before helped return some sanity to the situation at hand. Mounting the static, the low and reprimanding voice of their captain came through loud and clear. "You lot," he said, "are going to be the death of this mission. Radio – and vocal – silence is key, and that's the least you all have been since we arrived." But the chuckle in his voice wasn't hidden as well as he clearly hoped. Roach's crimson and spittle-covered face looked permanently plastered with the splitting grin he was wearing as he lay curled in the dirt beside Ghost. He bit on his finger, hoping to keep from dealing with any more laughs with his aching stomach, but the moment he detected the chortle in the captain's voice, he had to shake his head and cover his face with his hands.

Ghost laughed at him (despite the fact that he was surprised he could still laugh at all). "You look disgusting, mate," he pointed out, beaming at how much of a wreck he was.

"Thanks, man," he replied, sarcasm light. Roach scrubbed at his face, beginning to streak of color from the mingling heat of humor and the biting cold, and then beamed at Ghost. "You know what?"

Ghost raised a brow to prompt him (pointless because of the balaclava, but the meaning translated through his demeanor regardless). Roach seemed to change his mind anyway, as he shook his head briefly and twisted to face out from their post as he pressed his finger into his ear. "Hey, Captain," the sergeant addressed into his comm. "I want to change my field position."

The goof should have activated a private line if he really wanted MacTavish to consider, instead of addressing everyone involved in their recon. However, Ghost was a bit preoccupied by what he had said to really care. "Wait, what?" he interrupted, falling serious to his curiosity (and somewhat offended at the implication). "Why?"

"I really ought to consider my career." Roach grinned again. "I'd like to be a sniper."

Ghost, along with the rest of their team and the Captain himself, exploded into gut-wrenching laughter once again.

.

Needless to say, that mission went down in history as the shittiest - and funniest - of all.

:/\/\/

Feedback appreciated. Thank you.