A/N:
Quick note before we begin:
If you haven't read What's a Little Hug Between Enemies? welcome! You don't need to know anything going in. Hope ya enjoy :D
If you have read WaLHBE (wallaby...?), howdy! You can think of this as an AU of that fic, exploring what would've happened instead if there was one small change early on. So the first bit of this initial chapter might sound a bit familiar, before we get to The Difference. Since this is taking place in the same timeline as WaLHBE, some background events and character flourishes will also be the same. It can absolutely be read as a standalone, though, and is its own entirely separate story.
Also, they're women now. Don't worry - now they're just useless lesbians instead of being useless gays.
Spy avoided the creaky floorboards with the ease of long practice, and slithered around a corner.
With a touch, she adjusted the lay of her balaclava, neatened her cuffs, and straightened her tie. Being largely invisible to one's targets was no reason not to look one's best. Not that someone like the enemy Sniper (or anyone else on this benighted battlefield) was capable of appreciating her exquisite sartorial taste. It was the principle of the thing, really.
She ghosted up the stairs and slipped through a certain doorway - and sure enough, there was the RED Sniper. She was so very, very predictable.
She sized up the scenario in a glance: the Sniper standing at the window, hunched over her rifle like a feral dog at its dinner; the kukri balanced on the windowsill; the dreadful yellow jar within easy reach. As she watched, the Sniper muttered something incomprehensibly Australian, then hawked and spat out the window.
Spy curled her lip. Absolutely disgusting.
Due to her unfortunately long acquaintance with the RED Sniper, Spy knew that rather like the half-wild animals she emulated, she had an excellent sense of hearing; even as familiar with the creaky floorboards as she was, Spy would need to wait to drop her cloak and approach under the cover of the rifle firing.
While she waited, she weighed her options. The knife or the gun? Hm. Yes. The gun. She would creep up behind the Sniper and press the Ambassador to the back of her skull, knocking her ridiculous hat awry in the process, and allow herself to enjoy the split second of surprise and fear that would pour off of her before Spy pulled the trigger.
It was important to treat oneself occasionally in a job like this.
Finally the Sniper tensed, just slightly, and fired.
And as the echo of the shot reverberated around the room, as the Sniper made some kind of uncouth, self-satisfied little comment in her victim's general direction - Spy moved. The Ambassador's barrel gleamed in the midday sun, sleek and sure in her hand.
But she must have made some kind of noise, because in one movement the Sniper whipped around and knocked the gun out the window with the flat of her blade. Spy emitted a little cry of indignation and affront and sprang back. Some people had no respect for craftsmanship.
The awful jar was in the Sniper's other hand, and Spy spared a thought to preemptively grieve today's suit. If she moved with care, she might be able to avoid getting any in her mouth or in her eyes, but some days that was a tall order -
But as she flicked out her balisong, the jarate didn't move. Neither did the Sniper.
And then, even more puzzlingly, the Sniper turned the kukri and pointed it away and to the side. "I have a proposition for you, snake," she said, voice flat.
"A proposition," Spy repeated, made wary by this shift in behavior. They usually didn't waste time with chatter before getting down to business. "While it is of course understandable that you would find me attractive, bushwoman - everyone does - I do not take charity cases."
"You sure have tickets on yourself, don't you? Not that kind of proposition. Practi'cly the opposite, in fact." The Sniper held the jar rather like how an explorer might hold a flaming torch between themself and an overlarge tarantula.
"How mysterious," said Spy, without expression. "Do tell."
"You may've noticed there's been more Jarate happening at you lately."
"I may have," Spy allowed, watching the jar with her peripheral vision.
"And then there was last week, when I shot you in both kneecaps and left you there a little while before finishing you off."
Spy shrugged, easily concealing the hot rage that memory brought. "I vaguely recall an event along those lines." She had slowly, painfully dragged herself toward a nearby bottomless pit, legs utterly useless, before the final bullet had come. She hadn't expected it to come at all, really. A pitiful mercy.
"Or there was that day where I pinned your corpse a few times with my bow in some pretty funny positions -"
"Yes, yes," Spy snapped. "I get the idea, you have perverse, sadistic tastes in entertainment. This is not news."
The Sniper continued as if she hadn't heard.
"I'm sure this ain't a problem for you, being a wolf in woman's clothing and all, but normal human beings need, er. Platonic human touch. Once in a while."
"Normal human beings," Spy repeated, just to see the Sniper's mouth go into a thin line.
"Yeah, normal." She looked away for a moment, and turned back. "So. I propose a one-time exchange."
Spy stared.
"It should make the, er, perverse sadism less common. And it would be good for…" her voice dropped into a disgusted rasp, "...my mental health."
"You are asking for, what, a hug? From me?" Spy's flabber was thoroughly gasted.
"Not a hug!" The Sniper insisted. "An exchange of platonic human touch."
"I fail to see the difference."
"Difference being, one's a natural social need for just about any human being, and the other's a sappy thing you give your loved ones. I," she jerked a thumb to her chest, "am talkin' the first option."
Spy twirled her balisong, since rolling her eyes would be undignified. "Very well. But explain this, bushwoman: why would I condescend to do an enemy - much less an unhygienic, borderline feral one such as yourself - such a demeaning favor?"
"Wouldn't be a favor."
Spy gave her a long, incredulous look.
"Strewth, you weasel, it's the truth." The Sniper said, and counted reasons off on her fingers. "I'll be less twitchy with the jarate, less jumpy up in my perches, less inclined toward your kneecaps -"
Spy snorted.
"- What, it's to your advantage to not have a pissed-off Sniper on the other team."
Spy scoffed at this. "As if I need assistance keeping you in your place."
Undeterred, the Sniper continued. "You also get a bit of blackmail on me, o'course. You could probably spread a rumor that I'm a queer or some such if you wanted to. Or just a sappy, weepy sheila."
Spy rolled her eyes, dignity be damned. "I could do that any time I wanted. Rumors are child's play."
At that, she imagined she saw the Sniper's eyes behind those tinted glasses flick aside a moment, then back up. "Also, I'll pay you in backstabs."
"Now there you have my attention. How many are you offering?"
"Two."
"You value your life very highly, don't you. How droll."
"Three."
"Ten."
"Ten! Five."
"Seven."
"Fine. But no drawing out the business, just go in and out. I ain't twiddlin' my thumbs through torture."
Spy acceded to this easily with a wave of her hand. "And you'll be in an easily available perch? No hiding or…weird barbaric traps or maneuvering around the spirit of the agreement?"
"Australian's honor."
"Not worth the kangaroo hide it's printed on, then."
"All right, I swear on my rifle."
This was more acceptable. The Sniper loved the hideous thing.
Spy found herself pacing the room in a long semicircle around the Sniper as she thought, staring hard at the woman. There was undoubtedly a catch to all this, but Spy's curiosity was piqued now. The moment-to-moment experience of this execrable job was chaos itself, yes, but the broad strokes of the day-to-day and week-to-week were repetitive beyond endurance, death and life tangled meaninglessly. Spy was bored sick of the Gravel Wars, but this? This was an intriguing spark of novelty.
It occurred to her too that all this was the most she'd ever heard the Sniper say before, to her or anyone else. They had certainly never had an actual conversation over the years of their working relationship; their dialogues, such as they were, were composed almost entirely of obscenities, snarls, and pained grunts.
That didn't mean she did not know the Sniper, of course. She knew her as well as she knew most people, which is to say much more than they would have thought or liked her to know.
The Sniper drank her cheap coffee black but disliked the taste; she knitted; she rarely interacted directly with her team, though she often won the card games that required bluffing. She had strained, quiet conversations with her parents. She went on long, boring hikes. She occasionally forgot to do her laundry and wore the same shirt for a week. She was simple, and straightforward, and not particularly interesting outside of the challenge of fooling and fighting her.
All thoroughly tedious facts about a thoroughly tedious person. Spy had dismissed her years ago.
This conversation, though, was threatening to give the Sniper something approaching a personality. Fascinating.
Spy eyed her again.
The Sniper, for her part, seemed content to wait with characteristic patience for Spy's verdict, standing straight and still and expressionless. She could be very difficult to read, sometimes, behind those glasses. No doubt the source of all those poker wins.
"You would get thirty seconds," said Spy. "And I will be timing."
"Two minutes."
"One minute."
"All right."
Spy's pacing had brought her, slowly, inward. Finally, she stood a step away, and tried to pierce through those yellow glasses with her gaze.
"D'accord, bushwoman. But I will not be disarming myself. And I will not reciprocate."
"Fine by me," The Sniper said. She flipped the kukri in the air, caught it by its handle, and placed it on a crate with care. The jar, she set on the windowsill behind her. Spy was already planning how she might knock it safely outside if this nonsense went sideways. "Not a huge fan of your vicious little hands behind my back anyway."
Spy started her watch timer, spread her hands, and braced herself. "Very well. You may commence."
The Sniper hesitated. "Don't, er, take any liberties, all right? M'not a dyke."
Spy sniffed disdainfully. "While I am, you'll find you are entirely safe from my lecherous grasp. Honestly, it's offensive that you think I would be interested in a creature like yourself."
"Good." With exaggerated slowness, the Sniper closed the gap between them, and wrapped her arms around Spy.
They both initially leaned their heads in the same direction, almost bumping noses, before they sorted out the proper angles.
Slowly, the bushwoman relaxed. Spy did not.
Without the salt-copper tang of blood swamping everything, the Sniper smelled almost acceptable, even halfway hygienic. Leather, coffee, sweat, gun-grease, peppermint - Spy briefly considered whether the latter sourced from toothpaste or sweets, and decided on the latter - though, even more surprisingly, no scent of urine. She wondered if that was the result of the Sniper making some sort of special effort for today, the equivalent of a normal woman shaving or wearing lingerie.
Her arms were warm around Spy's stiff back, and her cheek rested against Spy's balaclava'd temple. Spy could see the jump of her pulse at her throat, and thought about how thin that skin was, how easy it would be to slice through to that artery.
It was all incredibly awkward, and Spy despised every second of it.
After an interminable time, the timer went off. True to her word, the Sniper released her and, hands raised placatingly, took two long steps backwards.
"Thanks for standing still, wanker," she said, and - was that a joke?
Spy stared.
"You understand, I will have to destroy this suit," she said, on autopilot.
"On this battlefield? I'm sure you'd get a lot of volunteers to help you with that. Even if you don't ask nicely." Another one! The Sniper turned around, hands still raised, and called over her shoulder. "Right, your turn."
Prior to today, Spy would have described the RED Sniper as taciturn. Dour, or grim, even. But right now, she was almost smiling, her face somehow transformed into something readable and human.
Spy stared at that face, and at that back. Those shoulders were far more relaxed than anyone about to be murdered had a right to be.
"What, did ya misplace your knife back there?" the Sniper teased, teased! "Thought the bloody thing was glued to your hand, mate."
Spy did stab her then.
Afterwards, she looked down at the body for a long minute, then nudged it with an elegant, italian-leather-clad foot. "It astonishes me to say it, bushwoman, but I do believe you were correct in your original supposition."
And, feeling unaccountably uneasy, she went about her business.
A/N:
That's right, The Difference is that...both of these two dorks are at least vaguely aware of the concept of consent this time. You'd be surprised how much that's going to change things.
ALSO! I am happy to report that this fic is fully written - we'll be at about 45,000 words by the end. I will be posting twice-weekly updates on Mondays and Thursdays. Hope ya enjoy!
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To have tickets on [one]self - Australian; to be conceited
D'accord - French; I agree
