In this perch, Sniper had pulled a crate up to sit next to a conveniently placed gap in the wall where a plank had become dislodged (probably blown up in some explosion or another over the years). The barrel of the rifle was propped almost invisibly in the gap, and her gauche '#1 Sniper' mug was within easy reach. To any normal person, it was a dim, shabby shack full of dust and old bloodstains, but in sniping terms it was a cozy bolt-hole.

Accordingly, Spy did her part to make it unlivable - because, as it turned out, Sniper was tremendous fun to bother. Perhaps more fun than she was to kill, even. She had draped herself over Sniper's back, arms loosely hooked around her waist and her chin propped on her shoulder.

"You're as bad as a cat," Sniper grumbled, without heat.

"Better than a - what have you called me? A snake, a viper, a weasel?"

"Those are all true too, but cats are even worse about respectin' your personal space than any snake I've ever met."

"Personal space! Privacy! How droll you are."

Sniper muttered something indecipherably Australian, then "I don't go around bothering you while you're trying to work."

Spy sneered. "You are welcome to try, bushwoman."

"Don't bloody tempt me."

Spy rolled her eyes at this. "I am quaking in terror at the thought." She leaned the side of her head against Sniper's, trying to angle her way into seeing through the rifle scope. "However do you see anything through this dreadful lens?"

"Well, normally," Sniper said, shoving her own head back against Spy in the opposite direction to regain control, "there ain't a nosy duffer hogging the sight -"

"- What do you do when the BLU Pyro shoots flares at you?"

"Cry, mostly, and grab the jarate -"

"- Good lord, talk about navigating between Scylla and Charybdis -"

"Nope, pretty damn sure burning to death is worse than a little piss -"

At this point, Spy was practically sitting on Sniper's shoulders, legs wrapped around the woman's torso to pin her upper arms to her side. She plucked the rifle from her grip; it was surprisingly heavy, and she wobbled a moment.

"Be gentle," Sniper snapped, grabbing Spy's legs to steady her.

"Hmm," said Spy, squinting through the scope.

Then she handed it back, disentangled herself, and resumed her previous position.

"Shoot that awful bucket off of BLU Soldier's head - it's been bothering me for ages. She wears it in her off-hours too, and even sleeps in it."

Sniper considered this. "Can I shoot her head off after?"

Spy was magnanimous in victory. "If you must."

There was a distant cry of "NOOOO, BUCKET!"

Spy smiled.

Sniper, happily, was amenable afterwards to shooting the bucket with the Sydney Sleeper as well, spraying it thoroughly with jarate-vialed bullets.

And all was well in the world.

"Does it have a name?" Spy asked, after a little while.

"What, the bucket?"

"No, imbecile, your gun."

"...'Rifle'?"

Spy sighed. "There really is no romance in your soul, is there."

Sniper didn't smile. But the long fine lines around her mouth deepened, just a hair. "Not a drop."

-—-—-

Sniper paused before the final, decapitating blow, and Spy arched an inquiring eyebrow. "Stop by after lunch?" she asked, and Spy amiably agreed.

The kukri came down.

-—-—-

It was oddly pleasant, this exchange of platonic human touch. The first few times had been awkward, yes, but these days Sniper's arms were halfway familiar companions. They were heavy, but in a somehow comforting way, a warm continuance tethering her to the earth under her feet and to her own body. She felt more fully…herself, somehow. Perhaps not more human - Spy's humanity had departed without a return ticket several decades ago - but still…

That was the meat of the entire arrangement, wasn't it, that 'but still' tempting her back again and again, more than she probably should. Not that Spy was at any risk of compromise over such a low-stakes arrangement.

Spy readjusted her hands behind Sniper's back, and traced a seam of her vest with a finger. This too, was familiar now. How strange.

Sniper was relaxed - as though Spy's hands weren't the source of countless of her deaths, as though even now Spy couldn't flick a knife out of her sleeve and into her back in half a second. Aside from the awkward bit on the upper back, she was remarkably blasé about the whole affair. What a peculiar woman.

Even now, as physically close as they stood, Sniper felt like a stranger. She had surprised Spy with the original proposition, it was true. Helvete, she had surprised Spy when she'd managed to articulate an entire sentence. Spy's overconfidence there had led her astray, and such a mistake was not to be tolerated.

Sniper could not be permitted to surprise her again. And to preemptively foil her, Spy needed more intel.

"Tell me, bushwoman," she began.

Sniper made a vague hum of inquiry. Spy could almost feel the way her previously spread attention gathered and focused on her, as if she were on the other end of her rifle. For a moment, she felt itchily transparent, uncomfortably seen.

But then some part of her own attention, the paranoid Spy's Spy that watched her back, abruptly cut in.

Rockets had been firing outside for a while now, but that last one was close -

Too close.

Spy reacted instinctively, shoving Sniper away, and felt the woman's hand on her chest doing the same to her.

They fell apart, and the rocket landed in a blast of white heat and black impact.

"SPY!" the RED Soldier screamed, and adrenaline yanked Spy into consciousness. "THAT SPY IS NOT ONE OF OURS!"

"Wait just a damn minute," snapped Sniper, sounding distant through the ringing in Spy's ears. "You fired randomly into my perch without knowing the enemy Spy was here?

"YES!"

"Why did you think that was a good idea?!"

"I HAVE BEEN TALKING WITH DEMO AND DEMO'S ALCOHOL!"

Sniper said something Australian. It sounded intriguingly obscene, and Spy made a woozy mental note to ask her about it later.

"WE HAVE A BRILLIANT NEW STRATEGY!" Her voice dropped to a level she probably thought was confidential, though could probably still be heard in the next county. "EXPLODE EVERYTHING, SORT OUT THE BITS LATER! JOAN OF ARTILLERY WOULD BE PROUD."

"You could've exploded me! Your bloody teammate!"

The deep silence that followed showed that Soldier had apparently not considered this minor possibility.

"Oh, piss off," said Sniper. Spy managed to turn her head in time to see her walk over to where the Soldier was balanced on the windowsill, grab her by the helmet, and shove her out the window.

There was a yelp. Sniper stuck her head out the window. "Fall now, sort it out later!"

There was a thud. "MEDIC! SNIPER ASSAULTED A SUPERIOR OFFICER!"

"YOU BLOODY WELL ASSAULTED ME FIRST, WHACKER!" Sniper yelled back.

There was a distant scream of German rage.

Spy snorted.

"Damn blowhard seppo," Sniper said, and walked over to crouch at Spy's side. She swiped irritably at the long cut on her forehead, and spat blood to the side.

Spy blinked up at her. "I can't seem to feel my arms," she said, conversationally.

"Yeah, you don't really have 'em anymore."

"Ah. A terminal case of blood loss due to traumatic amputation, then, unless you have a Medic in your back pocket."

" 'Fraid not, mate. Decappie?" Sniper absently plucked some jagged pieces of shrapnel out of her arm.

"No, thank you. Perhaps a cigarette?"

"Sure, though I'll have to get yours out." Her hand hovered over Spy's front. "Any cunning booby traps I should know about?"

Spy considered. "Not at the moment."

"If something bites my hand off, we're going to have words." She dipped her hand into Spy's more obvious inner suit pocket and rummaged around. "Holy dooley, you've a whole convenience store in here, ya squirrely fucker. Is that a…copy of everyone's fingerprints?"

"One likes to be prepared," said Spy stiffly, feeling somewhat naked.

One set of lockpicks, three knives, a "whatever the hell this buzzy egg thing is, you Spies have the weirdest gadgets," and a bag of Baci di Dama biscuits later, Sniper finally fished out the silver disguise-kit-cum-cigarette-case, lit a cigarette, and slipped it between Spy's lips.

Spy took a comforting drag. "My thanks." It was probably best not to try to explain the BLU Engineer's little vibrating creation. Or the sweets. Or the fingerprints.

"Er, that wasn't the cyanide one, was it? Though I s'pose it doesn't matter much, at the moment."

"I'm sure a Medic would tell you they're all poisonous," said Spy, and smirked. "Exsanguination and hypovolemic shock always makes me anxious, and the cigarettes help," she added, which was far more than she wanted to disclose, but exsanguination also tended to make her chatty.

Sniper was frowning down at her.

"I am aware that I am gorgeous, bushwoman, but staring is unforgivably rude."

Her hand flexed around the handle of the kukri. "You sure you don't want a decapi -"

"No. Won't be long now."

"I'll say, you're white as a sheet." Her face was unreadable, but that may have been the blood loss making things difficult. "I'd offer you a bullet instead, but getting the brains out of the nice carpet is always such a trial."

This was an odd thing to say, because Spy could've sworn she was lying on rickety old floorboards that had seen hundreds of corpses and explosions. Confusion was also a symptom of hypovolemic shock, wasn't it? Ah, no, that was a joke.

"Hilarious. About time you- cleaned something. Perhaps your van next?"

And she wasn't dying as fast as she hoped, because the pain was finally surfacing through the numbness. Spy was, unfortunately, terrible at dealing with pain. It didn't matter how many times she died, how many times she respawned with her memories of her last few minutes dulled and lightened; she handled pain like an amateur at her first torture session.

Sniper said something, distantly.

The pain swelled and cracked, shattering shrieking wrongnesses down her veins. The body did not understand the concept of Respawn; it knew it was dying, and it never wanted to go quietly.

"Bullet," she croaked through numb lips.

The shadowy figure above her moved, and a moment later there was cold metal at her temple.

"Damn stubborn c- "

The pain stopped.

And Spy opened her eyes to the blueish-white ceiling of Respawn.

-—-—-

The RED dot made little circles next to her foot.

"I am invisible," hissed Spy. "There is no possible way you know I am here."

The dot circled again, emphatically, then darted away. It darted back to her foot. It darted away.

"Fine," Spy said, and uncloaked to follow the dot. "I suppose some platonic human touch is a fair exchange for my continued bipedalism."

-—-—-

" 'Bout time," Sniper called over her shoulder. "Get lost out there?"

Spy readjusted her cuffs. "I was, unfortunately, slightly detained by a rather forceful argument from your Heavy." She walked over to a corner out of sight of the window.

Sniper turned and looked her up and down. "Couldn'ta been that forceful, you still seem to have all your blood."

"Russian literature do not, in fact, make good debaters, even if they do have fists the size of The Brothers Karamazov." Spy said, and sniffed. "I made a cutting counterargument, and won the debate."

"She's a stubborn one," Sniper said. She set her rifle to the side and sauntered over to join Spy in the corner. "Don't be surprised if she comes back with pointed new argumentation."

"I assure you, I am quite prepared to refute any volley with prejudice."

"Pretty sure you do everything with prejudice, you ornery bastard. Down to buttering your toast and ironing your collars."

Sniper spread her arms and stepped in, but paused with visible confusion at Spy's warning hand.

"Stop right there, you filthy barbarian." She tugged out a handkerchief and handed it to Sniper, who looked at it as though she'd never seen such a device before.

Spy folded her arms. "You have a blob of someone on your cheek."

"Shockin'."

"You are also disgusting in general, but we would require an industrial-strength hose to even start fixing that, so the handkerchief will have to do."

"Here?" Sniper said, wiping at her cheek. "You act like you don't regularly bathe in blood yourself. Those pristine white cuffs of yours don't last five minutes out there."

"To the left. It's the principle of the thing."

"Here? Damn odd thing to be principled about, considering."

"No, down a touch. There is a difference between getting mussed in the course of one's duties and deciding to be a mess. And you are a perpetual mess."

"Did I get it? And it's all dirt to me, ya fruit loop. Washes off in the shower or through Respawn just the same. Got to be practical out here."

Spy narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "Are you doing this on purpose? Give me that." She snatched the handkerchief back and scrubbed at Sniper's face.

"Who, me? I'm just a filthy barbarian. I wouldn't know cleanliness if it stabbed me in the back."

Spy showed her the bit of gore now on the handkerchief. "Behold. I think your skin is several shades lighter under the bit I rubbed at. Filthy. Barbarian."

Sniper squinted at it. "Huh. How long has that been there?"

Holding the soiled handkerchief at arm's length, Spy flicked it carelessly into a corner. "It's probably mine, all things considered."

"Then you should die tidier if you want me to stay clean." She rolled her shoulders. "Ain't got all day for jawin'. Am I acceptable now, mother?"

"Not even now. But you will have to do."

Sniper's light expression was tinged with bitterness. "Story of my life, mate." She opened her arms. "Mother may I?"

Spy frowned up at her. "Only if you cease that mother nonsense. I am hardly five years your elder, even if in maturity I practically lap you."

"Coulda fooled me with those eye wrinkles of yours. What're they called, crow's feet?" Sniper flicked her fingers at the corners of her own eyes in demonstration.

Spy couldn't quite arrest her horror before it showed on her face. "I do not."

Sniper grinned - a mischievous, lopsided thing. "Do too, they show up when you smile." Despite her protestations about needing to get on with her work, she was clearly relishing Spy's continued discomfiture.

"I," said Spy with finality, "shall simply never smile again."

"Aww, and never laugh again at our Heavy after you kill the Doc? That's pract'cally your favorite hobby."

"No, never again," Spy said, carefully shifting her tone into light sarcasm. "If it is the price I must pay for a few more years of youth, then so be it."

"Nothing wrong with crow's feet, you boofhead. Means you've lived long enough to acquire 'em, right? Like scars."

Spy did not start pacing, but she wanted to. How time caught up with one. "You do not understand, you utter gilipollas. In spycraft, if you are female or can convincingly appear so, your role is either as the innocent young ingenue - too dumb and beautiful to possibly be listening and poking around where she shouldn't - or a harmless old woman too old and ignorable to possibly be up to trouble. Crow's feet!" she moaned, with a theatrical swirl of her hand. "I may as well put on a shawl and start stooping now."

Sniper, eyebrows raised, seemed bemused. "Really, nothing in the middle? There's no market for middle-aged spies?"

Spy rolled a hand dismissively. "Well, usually we do not live long enough to get to middle age. And middle-aged male spies, of course, have no trouble getting more work. But if we ever get out of these contracts, I suppose I should start working on my poisons instead of knives. It is the way of things."

Sniper squinted at her appraisingly. "Nah, think you've got a few years left, mate. There's gotta be a niche for foxy older women somewhere."

"I assure you, there was no such position when I was last doing outside jobs," Spy didn't quite catch all of her heartfelt sigh, and straightened her cuffs. "Now if you are done destroying my career prospects, shall we get on with business?"

"Hm? Er, right," said Sniper with a start. "Whenever you're ready."

With Sniper's arms around her, Spy's disgruntlement was increased even further by the realization that her current frown was probably marring her face even further.

"She'll be right," said Sniper into her ear. "You're far too nasty and awful to let yourself be boxed up like that. Be a granny ingenue if you want to be."

The mental image that conjured made Spy give a bark of laughter, then frown in reaction to the smile, then try and fail for a neutral expression. Perhaps never smiling again was a bit too tall of an order.

I can give us a lil more montage, as a treat :)

Re: the BLU Engineer's little vibrating creation - IRL, the first cordless vibrators only turned up in the late 60s and were somewhat bulky; with a multi-disciplinary genius like the Engineer kicking her heels during the Gravel Wars, though, I just bet she had a side hobby inventing modern-looking, silicon sex toys.

Hypovolemic shock is the sciency name for when your organs start shutting down because you've lost so much blood that your heart can't pump enough around the body. I figure long practice in dying has spurred Spy to start poking around for semi-accurate medical terminology so she can feel smart labeling her symptoms as she goes out.

-—-—-

duffer - Aussie; this word appears to have a billion possible meanings, but I'm leaning towards the "silly/rude person/thief" definition here

helvete - Swedish/Norwegian; hell (you can tell there's a etymological relationship there lol)

whacker - Aussie; an idiot, someone with whom you have little patience

seppo - Aussie; an American (from the rhyming slang Yank Septic Tank - also implies they're full of shit)

decappie - Aussie that I made up; With how Australian English loves to shorten and informalize words, I have no doubt that Sniper would make "decappie" out of "decapitation."

Baci di Dama - Italian; tasty little hazelnut cookies. Translates to "Lady's Kisses" (couldn't help myself there)

fruit loop - Aussie; crazy person

boofhead - Aussie; idiot, dumbass

gilipollas - Spanish (Spain); dumb idiot, nincompoop

bingus1man - The very dumbest of lesbians! Absolute fools! My favorite kind XD