The cargo ship exploded spectacularly, in a big greasy yellow ball that sent shadows fleeing and wind rushing. The thunder of it echoed around the harbor and to the pier where the two of them had been watching the sunset.
They eyed this new development with professional interest.
"Eh, I think we've seen better," said Sniper, waving his hat to scatter the ash that had fallen on their coats where they were slung over the railing.
"Absolutely," said Spy, shaking his head. "I imagine the Demos made better explosions in their sleep."
"Did you see what they ate? Explosive wasn't the half of it."
As it always seemed to go, Spy only belatedly noticed the chunk of rebar sticking out of him. Well, him, but more importantly his new silk shirt.
"How aggravating," Spy muttered, glaring down at the blood already staining the shirt. "This is always an unpleasant way to go. Pass me a cigarette?"
Sniper's hand twitched automatically toward the extra carton kept in Spy's coat, but froze halfway there. Slowly, he turned back, looked at the jagged piece of metal, and dragged his eyes up to meet Spy's in growing horror.
Spy blinked. "Oh."
They were retired.
There was no Respawn. There were no mediguns. This was the only life he was going to get.
And Spy felt the familiar surprise of the fever-heat of his own blood as it poured out of him.
Sniper ripped off his shirt - normally a sight Spy would take a moment to appreciate - and pressed it around the rebar, then hoisted Spy's arm over his shoulder. They started walking, with brisk care, back down the pier.
Spy reached down and pressed his free hand to the reddening cloth. "Do not let anyone take it out until we're at a hospital, it could be holding an artery shut."
Sniper nodded, silent as he always was when matters became serious. He insisted it was because 'standin' around gossiping like galahs ain't gonna fix the problem,' but Spy knew, with fondness, that his speech centers shut down entirely in times of extremity, in the bedroom and out of it.
And the reality of it all hit Spy again. It would be so very, very stupid to die from a freak accident after decades of extreme, absurd feats of espionage and violence.
Spy was able to walk under his own power for a while, but slowly everything started to tilt until he found himself walking with his head on Sniper's shoulder and a warm arm around his waist. Which seemed quite odd, because both of them were so very careful about public displays of affection -
Heat flashed through him in a sick wave, then inverted into cold, numbing cold in his fingers and toes, creeping ever inwards.
Sniper's hands were shaking where they held him, which sparked a puzzled neuron or two. But thinking about anything had become rather difficult, and he let the thought go without regret. His vision tunneled down, and the busy scuttling worries of conscious thought and outside noise hazed and quieted.
There was a faint flare of recognition…yes, he'd done this before. Many times? Many times. He was an expert at whatever this was.
Well that was all right, then. He could relax, and let that expertise take over.
Exhaustion pulled him down, and down, and down.
And for the umpteenth time, Spy died.
—-—
The wallpaper was an unpleasant shade of green. A sort of drab olive, he supposed, with a design that both bored the eye and made him dizzy. Hanging on the wall was an amateurish, maudlin watercolor of a kitten playing with a ball of string.
He was unwashed, cold, and the room smelled like antiseptic death.
The conclusion was obvious. He must, at long last, be in hell.
In the distance, a great and terrible pain was imperfectly held back by, doubtless, a variety of drugs. Spy was faintly queasy, annoyingly groggy, and utterly, awfully alone -
Then he turned his head, and saw Sniper dozing in a chair next to the bed.
Well, perhaps not quite hell.
Spy took a moment to just look at him, as he often did.
Sniper had his arms crossed, chin resting on his chest as he dozed. There was a bald patch at the crown of his head that had been growing for a while now. Spy still hadn't decided whether he should bring it up, lest Sniper retort back about Spy's own rapidly greying hairline.
Early retirement had agreed with Sniper, with both of them, really. Sniper had a bit of flesh on his bones for once, from Spy spoiling him rotten with the good food they now had the money and time for. Spy, meanwhile, had lost the nervous eye twitch that had been his constant companion since his twenties.
At the moment, Sniper looked like he'd been substituting coffee for sleep for a month, current doze aside. The lines on his face were deeper, and Spy could see his resemblance to his father, the years rolling out ahead of him.
Spy looked at his partner, and didn't bother hiding the affection in his face or voice.
"If that's what you look like, mon loup," he croaked, "I cannot imagine my own hideous state."
Sniper twitched awake, and looked around with sleepy, confused tension before he saw Spy. Then he smiled the breathtakingly earnest smile that he saved just for him, when they were alone. Spy was jealously possessive of that smile.
"Yeah, you probably need a bit more beauty sleep, darlin'. Might need to go back in the oven for a bit."
"On the contrary, being awake is remarkably refreshing. I intend to stick around a while yet."
Sniper slipped his hand in Spy's, and gave the gentlest of squeezes. "Glad to hear it."
Spy's memories of the last…while…were shadowed and fragmented. "Is this the first time I've woken? I- do not recall."
"You've been in and out," said Sniper. "Don't expect you'll remember those, but the nurse said it was to be expected. You're right on time to be proper conscious, though."
"Punctuality," Spy said smugly, "is the mark of a gentleman."
He paused, and dropped his voice. "During earlier 'in's, did I say…anything?" Anything incriminating, that was.
Sniper shook his head, meeting his eyes carefully. "Nah, mate, just swearing in a bunch of different languages. I think one or two weren't even real languages, either." He scratched at his beard in their secret signal for 'All Clear.'
Spy relaxed, infinitesimally.
Sniper continued. "Engie stopped by - er, the formerly-blue-variety of Engie, that is -"
"He has a normal human name, you know."
"Yeah, sorry, hard to break old habits. Anyway, he says he's scrubbed the building clean of listening devices and cameras. And I've paid off the staff myself."
"How generous of him." Spy relaxed a few more fractions.
"He said when you were peevish you were impossible to live with, and to consider it a gift to me."
"On the contrary, I was ever the soul of equanimity and kindness when we were colleagues. He is attempting to get a rise out of me, clearly."
"He said you might say that, and to remind you of the time he, quote, 'happened to bump into you while you were pacing a rut into the hallway floor, pining about a certain someone.' " Sniper cocked his head meaningfully.
Spy winced.
Behind the glasses, Sniper's grey eyes glinted with amusement. "You never mentioned that part of our, er, courtship. He told me all the interestin' little details."
Spy considered. "On second thought, the entire room has probably been altered to turn into a giant laser, pointed directly at this bed. You should start running now."
Sniper just gave him that infuriatingly fond look that stated in no uncertain terms where Spy could shove that idea.
"How long have I been here?" he asked, swallowing down the lump in his threat.
"Three days," said Sniper. "And per the nurse, will be in here another three more, so long as you stay still and don't aggravate anything but me."
"A luxurious suite -" he rolled his eyes at the amateurish watercolor "- and unlimited aggravation opportunities? This is practically a vacation."
"Right. Because the one we were already on wasn't enough for you."
"Variety is the spice of life."
"...Right," said Sniper. "I've got some juice and a cup of applesauce for you here, though I don't think they've ever even seen a spice."
Spy sent the pathetic offerings the evilest expression he could muster under the circumstances. "This is not adequate food for encouraging the recovery of health. Where is the tourin? The potage Parmentier? The crème Vichyssoise glacée?"
"Juice. And applesauce." Sniper thunked them down with finality on the fold-out table, and pushed it in front of Spy. "The sooner you heal, the sooner we can go home. And then I can try to make any of those you like and you can yell at me for doing it wrong."
Spy sighed, careful of his stitches, and picked up the juice. "That is…an acceptable bribe."
"Gotta tempt you with a lollipop, like a toddler getting a shot," said Sniper with a grin, and opened a magazine with the hand that wasn't holding Spy's. "Your bifocals are on the table if you get bored of glaring at the kitten painting."
"I don't need glasses," said Spy.
"Yes you do," said Sniper.
Their usual comfortable silence welled up around them.
Spy drank the terrible juice, and ate the bland applesauce, and spent the time waiting for the nausea to subside in tracing the familiar scars and calluses on that hand.
"I don't suppose," Sniper said, looking fixedly at the magazine, "you would be interested in quitting the smokes?"
Spy got through half a scoff before the wall of drugs cracked, and the pain washed through.
When the dizziness cleared, Sniper was at his side, face full of that tension again.
"Kick a man while he's down, eh?" said Spy, hating the weakness in his voice that made his joke-pitiful tone real.
Sniper quirked a warm, tired smile. "You always did like me ruthless."
"You wish to take away a bitter old man's only joy in this cruel, cold world?" Spy couldn't do the usual dramatic gestures under the circumstances, so he contented himself with an expression of overwrought, noble forbearance.
Sniper leaned in. "Dead cert you could find another hobby if you put your mind to it. How about collectin' novelty ties?"
"Novelty ties?!" Spy said, horrified. "I thought I was still alive, and yet you throw me into the Styx with two words."
"Just making up for lost time, darlin'. I couldn't annoy you while you were in the coma, after all."
He leaned closer.
"I have not brushed my teeth in eons. I can feel the grime coating my soul. I am disgusting and I forbid you to touch me," Spy said, turning his head away a few degrees, as he always did.
And as he always did, Sniper kissed him anyway.
"Delicious and handsome as ever," he said, the impudent scoundrel.
Pleased despite himself, Spy said, "Of course, I'd forgotten how low your standards are, you filthy bushman. You're probably dirtier than I."
"London to a brick," he said, unruffled. "I think the wallpaper in here was blue before my stench got to it. Haven't really gone and had a shower or anything since -" he cut himself off, looking away.
"Cher," Spy said, quietly. "Don't tell me you've been here the whole time."
Sniper shifted in his chair. "I did longer stakeouts, back in the day. Didn't have much of anywhere else to be, anyway."
And Spy remembered again how Sniper's hands had shook that day. Sniper, whose still, calm hands on his rifle had gotten them out of more trouble than he could count. Whose hand had been steady as a rock in Spy's when he'd confronted his father with the truth of himself, and of them.
"I am sorry," said Spy. "I didn't think, at the time. Even after all these years, my first reaction was a mild sort of annoyance that our nice evening would be interrupted and I'd have to walk all the way back from Respawn. I did not think to take it seriously, and it almost killed me."
"Believe me, so did I. Some part of me thought it was just like old times, and then my brain caught up." His mouth twisted, and Spy could see the muscles of his jaw clench. "For a half second there, I was thinking of shooting you in the head, to spare you the dyin'."
"You always were merciful like that," Spy said, and squeezed his hand. "I admit, I thought of doing the same. I never was good at handling the pain, which is why I always appreciated those friendly bullets of yours."
"Wouldn't have been a friendly one, this time, no matter how I meant it," Sniper said grimly. "It's been years. I thought, well, hoped we'd gotten over it all."
"We walked away from all that without physical scars, at least. Though I think I would prefer those to whatever we did end up with. I worry, now, about what other expectations we might still have."
Sniper squeezed back, wordless and worried.
Spy groped for the thoughts that had been churning in his mind in those frantic few minutes before he had passed out. "There is something so easy about death -" he began, and frowned at Sniper's expression. "No, not quite. I suppose, when one dies as often as we have, the border between life and death starts to look more like a line scratched casually in the dust than the final, immutable threshold of one's life."
Sniper nodded, rubbing a thumb over Spy's knuckles. "Real easy to trip and step over that line without noticing, ain't it. It's been on my mind too."
"So very easy," whispered Spy, and tried very hard not to think of Sniper being the one in the hospital bed.
"The sort-of immortality we had there for a bit ruined me a bit, I think," said Sniper, voice rasping. "Now that it's not there, I'm even more afraid of the real thing."
Spy nodded. "In those minutes there - when I was fading - I welcomed it as a familiar friend. But now, on the other side, I am utterly terrified. It is so near, all the time. All the time."
The thumb flicked back and forth over Spy's knuckles. Back and forth.
A tired neuron fired. "Ah. Hence…your request. About the cigarettes."
Sniper ducked his head, a tiny, rueful smile creeping on his face. "Ah, can't slip anything past the genius superspy, can I."
"Not even drained of blood and on a dozen interesting medications," scoffed Spy, with care this time.
The comfortable silence drifted down upon them again, and Spy already regretted that he would have to break it.
He took a breath. He had to ask. "How…close?"
Sniper took one too, and it caught. He went very still, fists clenched, and behind his glasses Spy could see the glitter of tears.
He found himself automatically reaching for his breast-pocket handkerchief and found, of course, nothing but the poor-quality cotton of the hospital gown.
"Sorry," Sniper said hoarsely, shoving his glasses up and brushing at his eyes. "Thought I'd gotten all that out of my system already."
He stood abruptly. "I should leave, you need to rest and heal -"
"Mon petit loup, come here," said Spy, opening his arms.
Sniper visibly wavered. "You just came out of major surgery - "
"Come. Here."
" - no damn reason for you to spend all your energy on managing my bloody emotions -"
"If you do not come here immediately I will give you a matching scar," Spy snapped.
Sniper's shoulders slumped, and he eased onto the cot and gingerly reached out. Spy pulled him into an embrace and held him with what little strength seemed to be available to him at the moment.
"Obviously," murmured Spy into Sniper's (greasy, disgusting, dear) hair, "I would like to cry myself and it would be unmanly to do it alone. I think a Soldier told us that once."
"Right," said Sniper, and choked out a laugh. "Fountain of wisdom, those blokes."
Spy, finally starting to feel properly warm and safe, allowed himself to relax back into the cushions (low-thread-count industrial cotton, trash).
"How were you plotting to give me the scar?" said Sniper, who was rubbing the back of Spy's neck in just the way he liked. "Didn't think they let the prisoners here have weapons."
"It would be simplicity itself," said Spy, glaring poisoned, blurry daggers over Sniper's shoulder at the nurse peering in at them until she left. "I merely filched a scalpel from one of the surgeons earlier, while I was in the coma."
Sniper nodded against his wet shoulder. "Makes sense, you regularly pickpocket me in your sleep." He sighed and kissed the side of Spy's neck. "Speaking of which…"
"Mmm," said Spy, exhaustion abruptly washing over him. "This being-injured-for-more-than-two-minutes business is very tedious."
"So I've heard," said Sniper, but Spy still heard the unspoken "Let's never do it again, eh?"
"I…might consider quitting smoking," he said, drowsily.
"Whatever you feel up to, possum."
Spy slipped back into the sleep that was not death, and felt Sniper's thumb brush the tears off his cheeks.
A/N:
I consider this a sequel to What's a Little Hug Between Enemies?, but of course it can be read as a standalone. If you have read that fic, you can see how these two have continued getting over their hangups in the years since the events of that story.
And while *they* of course know each other's names at this point, *I* sure don't. So they remain Sniper & Spy in the narration.
Explosion based vaguely off of the 1947 Texas City Disaster (though much smaller - that explosion threw a 2-ton anchor a mile and a half).
—-—
Intimité, Mortalité - French; "Intimacy, Mortality"
galah - Aussie; a chatty, brightly colored bird stereotyped as being dumb
London to a brick - Aussie; something very certain, a sure bet
mon [petit] loup - French; "my [little] wolf," a term of endearment (French is weird)
tourin/potage Parmentier/crème Vichyssoise glacée - French; various tasty, hearty soups
cher - French; "dear"
possum - Aussie; a very cute marsupial (distinct from the North American version). Used as a term of endearment.