Spy folded her arms, and tried to look peeved as Sniper strolled back around the corner.
"Let me just pin you down for a quick question," said Sniper, lips twitching.
"You're so very pleased about that pun and that shot, aren't you," snapped Spy, gesturing at the arrow pinning her to the wall by her rather fetching scarf. She continued, loftily, "Before you ask, I have been busy. I am not at your beck and call."
"Sure, sure," said Sniper, blandly. "Thanks for knowin' what my question was definitely going to be."
"And this arrow has been very rude to my new silk scarf," huffed Spy. "I'm going to have to die to get it back to its previous state, this is unsalvageable as it is."
"Like you don't saunter into my sights most days just before the last round ends just so you can respawn with your clothing in its original state. Don't think I haven't caught on, you fussy creature."
"What can I say?" Spy contrived to look noble and put-upon. "I suffer for fashion."
"Sure you do. I can tell you're suffering hugely right now." Sniper leaned closer, and a strand of blonde-brown hair drifted against Spy's lip. The comforting scent of coffee and leather and gun-grease filled her nose, and she found herself entirely unable to come up with a witty comeback.
Suffering, she thought grimly, was about right.
Sniper snapped the arrow shaft and eased the torn scarf off it with exaggerated care.
"There, hardly a hole at all. Can we kiss and make up?"
Spy didn't dare meet Sniper's eyes, so she looked away haughtily instead, expression carefully, firmly locked into a frown. "You are not forgiven, but you may request some platonic human touch."
"All I'm askin' for, mate."
Yes, thought Spy, as she fought not to cling like a lovelorn teenager, that was the problem.
-—-—-
Sniper must not have overdosed on caffeine this morning, because she'd been popping off BLU heads left and right. Indeed - as Spy crept in the room behind her, flicking out her balisong in an elegant twirl - she seemed in a cheery mood, whistling tunelessly to herself and tapping her foot along to the beat.
A good run of headshots, of course, couldn't be allowed to continue. BLU's Medic had been demanding results over the comms the whole trek to Sniper's current perch, down to making unsubtle hints that Spy would be much faster if she would let Medic give her new legs. Spy had rejoined, snidely, that if she was so poor an assassin they could put BLU's Sniper or Scout to the task instead.
They couldn't, of course, because Sniper kept shooting their heads off.
"Try whittling a sense of aim next time, sheep-shagger!" she crowed, and went back to whistling as she reloaded. She leaned into the scope again, all hawkish eagerness, and Spy -
Spy stood behind her, knife raised, and stared down at the feathery little wisps of hair at the nape of her neck.
Her brain, in a distant, clinical way, noted how one corner of Sniper's collar was half-flipped up. There, too, was a bit of hay caught in her braid; a seam on her vest had a thread loose. Was that a mustard stain on her sleeve?
Beyond the roaring in her ears, Spy was dimly aware of how damp her palms were in her gloves, how her muscles creaked with strain and stillness. But Sniper was oblivious as ever, attention fixed on whatever nonsense was happening on the other side of the battlefield.
And for an incandescent moment, Spy hated her. She hated that Sniper did not notice, did not turn and take the decision out of her hands, did not see what she was doing to Spy with her kindnesses, her steadiness, her dangerous friendship.
The heat faded as quickly as it had come, leaving only a tired, rueful resignation. Spy scoffed at herself. Oh yes, how dare Sniper be focused on her work, how dare she, what, be herself? What utter rot. Spy was despicable for even thinking it.
The balisong closed. Her hand felt like it didn't belong to her.
She reached over and knocked twice on the wall.
Sniper gave a little twitch of surprise, then relaxed. And Spy's greedy eyes gathered the sight of that little motion of ease, and jealously hugged it to herself.
She sank down onto the same crate Sniper was slouched on, easing back until her back was pressed against the other woman's long spine. She tilted her head back and leaned it against Sniper's shoulder.
Sniper hummed absently, reaching back to pat Spy's hip with a broad hand before returning her attention to her scope.
Spy stared up at the ceiling. This little break didn't mean anything; she would come back around again in a few minutes and do her job properly. This was just a bit of procrastination. Medic could make whatever passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive comments she wanted through the comms - one couldn't rush art or murder, much less the art of murder.
In fact, Spy could spend the meantime distracting Sniper somehow from her work, thus achieving the desired result without the messiness. She amused herself by listing all the ways, physical, mental, conversational, emotional, sexual - well, not that one - the bushwoman could be diverted and thrown off her game.
But she didn't enact any of them. She just sat, and leaned, and discarded even the idea of voicing some kind of quip about watching Sniper's back against enemy Spies. The silence was too kind.
So it was she who heard the quiet tap-tap of 'stylish' Swiss shoes in the hallway outside.
In a moment, she'd poked Sniper out of her scope-induced reverie, risen, and cloaked.
Sniper pulled her rifle out of the window, mouth thinned. "That better be a RED Spy," she called over her shoulder. "Because I've got a jar and a bullet for whoever walks through that door."
"Indeed, Sniper, it is I," called a disgustingly Parisian-accented voice from the hallway. "May I enter your…charming…perch?
On silent feet, Spy crossed to the other side of the room and crouched against the wall (not the corner, too obvious). She focused on calming her heartbeat and breath - aside from the enemy Pyro, the RED Spy was perhaps the one person she least wanted to be hiding from in close quarters. She wished she had time to climb up into the rafters.
Sniper seemed to consider this request, though she looked tense for somewhat different reasons than the RED Spy was hopefully expecting. Her gaze flicked around the room, then back to the door.
"All right, if you stay on that side of the room and keep your hands where I can see 'em. And if this is some weird trick, I will arrow you to a wall for the rest of the afternoon after I respawn." Sniper turned from the window and edged into the corner, rifle pointed away from the door but still readily usable.
The RED Spy sauntered through the doorway and into view. She was dressed in a new ridiculous outfit today - truly, the woman did not understand the concept of restraint when it came to her fripperies. "Certainly. I know you are a woman of few pleasantries and fewer words, so I will keep this brief. I have come to warn you about the BLU Spy."
Sniper snorted. "Coulda done that, what, five years ago? Or over the comms?"
The RED flapped a hand. "No, not about the stabbing. Death here is meaningless. I wish to warn you about something truly dangerous."
"All right."
Movements slow and non-threatening, the RED pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "As you may expect, I keep track of everyone as a matter of security."
"You can just say you're an eavesdropper and a creep, mate."
RED sent her a contemptuous look. "Information acquisition and pattern recognition is essential for the work of a spy, Sniper. I do not expect you to understand."
If Sniper had been talking to Spy, she definitely would have retorted with something deadpan and sarcastic - something along the lines of 'Maybe if you use small words and speak nice and slow for my poor uncivilized brain,' perhaps. But with the RED Spy, she just grunted.
"As I was saying, I take it upon myself to monitor the general behavior of our dear enemies on BLU. And while my drably-dressed counterpart over there is less predictable than the rest of her compatriots, I have nonetheless noticed a…change, recently. The river of her behavior and attention, you could say, diverting into a new course."
"So she get a new hobby or something? Thought you said you were keeping this quick."
"I hope I do not need to tell you that any change in a spy's movements is suspicious and concerning, but this one is even more so." The RED's eyes were hooded, the smoke from her cigarette wreathing her face. "I have reason to believe she is focusing her attention. On you."
Spy glared at her silently, and thought very quickly indeed. The question was: what did RED know? What had she seen?
She'd never come out and say exactly what, Spy knew with grim certainty, because it's what she would've done in her place. That was playbook when blackmailing someone inexperienced; imply everything, perhaps reveal one or two morsels, but never fully reveal what knowledge you did or did not hold over the other person. The guilty would damn themselves and fold, thus proving whatever thin hypotheses you held and giving you what you wanted in one stroke.
So: scratch that question. The important question therefore was, what did she want?
But Sniper rose to the occasion. She looked just the right amount of puzzled, and Spy could have kissed her for it. Someone of the RED Spy's caliber would still see the faint concern, of course, but what self-respecting sniper wouldn't be apprehensive at that enigmatic pronouncement?
"Er. Can't say I've noticed anything different about her behavior. No more or fewer deaths than usual."
Fewer, thought Spy, with a pang. Far fewer. Curse her cowardice, and her procrastinations.
"And, honestly," added Sniper, straight-faced, "Think I might know that BLU snake just a bit better than you do, mate. You spend most of your time stabbin' their Sniper, after all."
The RED flicked this away with a dismissive hand. "You two may scuffle occasionally, you may be…harvested by her knife a few times a day. This does not mean you are capable of understanding her mindset, or the depths of creative cruelty of which she is capable."
Spy frowned. Now this…this was not playbook blackmail, unless RED was playing a far odder game than she seemed.
Sniper rolled her eyes. "Look, mate, she's a slimy ratbag, dead cert, but still a human being. Not a stabby demon or robot or whatever you're trying to imply."
The RED's eyebrows raised. "What surprising generosity towards someone who regularly laughs at you as you bleed out! Goodwill to all mankind, from you?"
Sniper just shrugged. "Gotta be practical. Hatred is first-year stuff - ain't professional."
The other woman sighed, in faux magnanimity, and looked up as if struggling for patience. "Speaking of unprofessional - I suppose I am not making myself adequately clear. I forget that I am speaking to someone as unsubtle as a lump of clay."
Sniper just snorted, but Spy seethed. No, Sniper wasn't subtle, but that straightforwardness was part of her charm. It made her refreshing.
RED continued, scrutinizing Sniper's face with her cold eyes. "This 'focus' of hers. I believe it is…prurient. Lecherous. Lascivious."
Sniper's face went pale and still for a moment, then flashed with anger. A genuine reaction, that.
"Thanks for the warning," she said. A muscle in her jaw jumped.
"I would not advise being…alone with her."
Sniper huffed, and snapped, "Well unless you want to spend your day babysitting," she said, gesturing to the perch with sharp motions, "I don't see a way not to be. Alone is usually when Spies strike, if you haven't bloody heard."
RED almost sounded amused. "I assure you, I have absolutely no desire to do so. No, keep your vaunted independence, my dear foolish Sniper. And I would invite you to inflict your newfound fury on the guilty Spy, not the one acting as messenger."
Sniper just looked at her steadily.
RED's voice dropped. "I believe at the very least that she has been spending time watching you at your work, Sniper." She paused, theatrically. "She might well be watching…right now."
And to Spy, invisible and silent, the setup of this conversation finally, finally made sense - why the RED Spy was having this conversation during the workday, when Spy might be nearby and eavesdropping. This was a warning to Sniper, but also to Spy herself as a colleague and opponent. Her affront at the RED trying to intervene in her doings warred with a vague feeling of compliment and a lurking, growing dread.
Sniper glanced around the room again, and Spy prayed that RED would misinterpret that too. Then her eyes narrowed.
"Wait. I'm pretty sure both of you have much better things to do than watch me stare into a scope. If you two have gone troppo and want to have some kinda weird proxy war, can you bloody well do it without me in the middle?"
RED cocked her head, raising a cool eyebrow. "Truly, warning you is my sole agenda in this matter. Are you doubting my intel?"
Sniper sighed. "Nah mate, just - really? What makes you think any of this?
"Call it an intuition. I know how she thinks."
"And you think she thinks…hornily." There was a faint, incredulous humor in her tone.
"I believe," RED paused, looking at Sniper carefully, "I believe she sees you as a target in more ways than just a back to stab for the BLU cause. A target she knows the vulnerabilities of, that she might take advantage of. She is not a…kind individual," she said, and her voice held the faintest touch of real bitterness.
Sniper was unmoved. "Kind! You're telling me the person who, like you said, regularly laughs at me as I die isn't kind. Shockin'."
RED leaned forward. "You put a lot of stock in professionalism, I know, but you must remember that she is not a professional in the way you conceive of it. She does not have personal rules as you do - she does not 'play nice,' and she does not see people other than as things to be used. She keeps to the rules of engagement on this battlefield, but only as a self-imposed challenge. If you have something she wants, she will steal or…maneuver it from you whenever her vague inclination to do so is stronger than what little remains of her conscience."
Sniper rubbed her face, looking exasperated. "And you know this how, again? A feeling?"
"Because, fool, anyone who survives in espionage is trained to be thus, by the work itself if nothing else. All spies are inherently self-serving, and manipulation is second nature to us. It is -" she paused, and something almost real rippled over her face before disappearing back into the depths. "It is difficult, for a spy, not to steal, to take, to lie. It is our first instinct, the easiest path."
At that, Spy grudgingly felt a pang of fellow-feeling, and was unwillingly reminded that the RED Spy was technically her somethingth-cousin. The intelligence community was a small and somewhat incestuous one, after all.
Sniper frowned. "But you're a spy and you're not being selfish right now. You sound almost honest, even. Unless you want something more than what you're saying."
"Ah, but I am being selfish," said the RED, silkily, retracting back into smugness again. "Protecting the interests of the team as a whole leads us to win, and I do so like to win. A psycho-sexual campaign against a thoroughly unprepared, untrained member of the team," she gestured languidly at Sniper, "would play havok with our coordination and win rate."
"If you say so," said Sniper. "Pretty sure I can take care of myself, though."
RED suddenly looked tired, though perhaps only Spy could pick up on her tells. "Sniper. I have only been this up front with you in recognition of our years of working together, and because I know you would demand nothing less. Do with this information as you will - I have a thousand more pressing matters to attend to."
She turned to leave, but paused at the doorway. Her face was turned away. "I suppose I merely wished to remind you that you are not alone in this, no matter what your individualistic instincts may be. You have the full might of RED - such as it is - at your disposal if she starts acting…oddly."
"...All right," said Sniper.
"Consider yourself…warned," the RED Spy said, to both of them, and left.
They listened to her retreating steps, and watched her from the window as she left the building. Another odd courtesy, to stay visible like that.
Sniper took her seat by the window again, rifle in hand, and Spy scrutinized her movements with queasy intensity.
"Flash as a rat with a gold tooth, ain't she," Sniper said, and shook her head. "Don't think I'll ever understand her motives, but really! Lecherous, my arse." She spat out the window,
Spy exhaled silently, and a good half of her new tension left her with the breath. Still invisible, she crept over and sat, leaning against Sniper's leg. The invisibility - if she asked - was just in case this was an elaborate setup from the RED Spy to catch Spy out. In actuality, though, it was because she didn't want Sniper to see her face. Sniper knew her own tells too well at this point; the truth would out with one glance. The truth that the RED Spy was right.
"Be afraid, indeed." Sniper snorted, and curled her leg to wrap around Spy's torso. "And I thought you were melodramatic."
Spy patted that calf, feeling sick. She was so obviously a predatory lesbian that even that sorry excuse for a spy picked up on it. She saw, again, the pale anger that had flashed across Sniper's face, and some vital internal organ deep in her curled up and died.
"She does lay it on rather thick, doesn't she," Spy said, tone suborned and blackmailed into light amusement. "All those dramatic mid-sentence pauses."
"Amazin' how badly she misread the whole situation, really."
"As if I needed more proof of how I'm the superior agent," Spy said, and tutted.
She needed to stop this. She would come back in a few minutes, stab Sniper properly, and then distance herself, somehow, in a way that Sniper wouldn't pick up on. Slowly kill their friendship like a neglected rosebush.
"Yeah, sounds like you have her quaking in her pumps. You've been holding out on me, possum - the only depth of creative cruelty I've seen you reach was when you stole the last chocolate in the box."
"That was mine by right," Spy said. "You don't even like coconut."
"No - and I won't ask how you know that, you creep - but it was still my box! You left it empty on the shelf! You could've asked."
"Obviously, my vague inclination to eat a truffle was stronger than what little remained of my conscience." Repeating the phrase in jest unfortunately did not take the sting out of it.
"I'd turn dobber and cry about it to the REDs, but that wasn't odd behavior at all," said Sniper, slanting a grin down at her. "Steal my chokkies, steal the comfy camp chair, steal my -" she coughed, "- steal my #1 Sniper mug any day now -"
"Naturally," said Spy, and added with utter, awful honesty, "I wouldn't wish to act out of character."
It didn't matter if the RED Spy was watching over Sniper or not, whether this was some elaborate double-cross; Spy didn't seem to have the taste for such games anymore.
No, she had gotten the message loud and clear, and the RED was right. She had to end this friendship, had to stop. She had to stop, before she hurt herself more - and more importantly, before she hurt Sniper.
We had a bit of BLU Sniper, now for some RED Spy, eh? I had a lot of fun during the writing of this second scene in outlining and tracking all three characters' semi-hidden agendas + what they each think each of the others' semi-hidden agendas are. Unsurprisingly complicated to manage, but I'm overall pleased with the results!
Spy also puts on a Parisian accent because it's the prestige/generalized accent in France (think Midwest newscaster English if you're US, Received Pronunciation if you're British). But still, she's a regional snob. (Not that as an idiot American any of the French regional accents sound distinct to my ears.)
How does Sniper know about BLU Sniper's whittling hobby, you may ask? Spy, in one of her lengthy complaints about her team, probably mentioned it.
-—-
sheep-shagger - Aussie; semi-joking term for a New Zealander. Alternate domination line for this scene: "What, were you distracted by a handsome ram?"
gone troppo - Aussie; gone insane/off the deep end
flash as a rat with a gold tooth - Aussie; someone ostentatious, showy and a bit too flashily dressed; implied that despite fashionable dress there is also something a bit dodgy about them. In spite of a superficial elegance, they are not to be trusted. In spite of the gold tooth, they are still a rat.
dobber - Aussie; a tattle-tale
chokkies - Aussie; chocolates or more generally candy
-—-
bingus1man - oh dear, how terrrrrrribly dreadful ;P No, that makes me very glad to hear!
