Spy woke to the smell of terrible coffee.

Everything that wasn't the smell of terrible coffee was instead the scent of leather and musk, peppermint and gun-grease, and sleep.

There was light on her face, which was offensive. She had voluminous, thick curtains for a reason, and that reason was to avoid every dawn she could.

But Sniper, it appeared, was one of those disgusting early birds. Sniper, who was puttering around the coffeemaker. Sniper, who was wearing yesterday's slacks low over her hips, a ragged old sleeveless undershirt and, by the looks of things, no bra.

The window was shoved open to let the early-morning cool in, and Spy half-imagined she could see goosebumps running up Sniper's arms. They were as lanky and lean as the rest of her, but the muscles there and on her shoulders and back were defined. Probably all that archery. They rippled as she stirred the mug and raised it to take a sip.

Spy supposed the dark circles on one shoulder were the exit wounds from la Chacal's brush with the Parisian constabulary; on the other were the pale, thin crossed lines of barbed wire scars, extending down onto the outside of her arm. Scars were terrible to acquire in spycraft (being just as identifiable as a tattoo), but Spy always had an appreciation for them. Each one was testament to a story, whether dramatic or pedestrian.

She looked at those muscles, and those scars, and allowed herself a few long seconds to think lascivious thoughts. She was an appreciator of beauty wherever she found it, after all, from highborn princesses to lowly swineherds and, apparently, Sniper.

It had always made the honeypots easier, that ability of hers - she could always find something to appreciate genuinely about her targets, and from there build the great false fabrication of her disguise's friendship, or attraction, or love (whatever that was, however convincingly Spy could fake it) for the target. They fell for it, every time - the best lies had a grain of truth, as she'd said to Sniper the night before.

Spy had always been puzzled by the occasional spy who (she supposed) acted their part too well and acquired a 'real' attachment to targets or to civilians; it felt unprofessional to allow oneself to do so, their odd claims of being unable to help it clashing with Spy's own experiences utterly. Sex was rewarding, as a source of touch and pleasure and an ephemeral connection to humanity, but it was all she had really required. It was all very convenient, in her line of work.

Oblivious to the gaze of her voyeur, Sniper took another sip from the mug, then reached up to grab a second one from the ledge. The movement exposed a sliver of skin, and a large scar clawing down and over her hip.

Spy watched too the flex of muscles in her lower back as she reached, and thought sinful things.

"Cream, two sugars," said Spy. "Though I expect you only have kangaroo milk or some such nonsense."

Sniper snorted at that and pointedly put three sugars in the second mug. Spy pouted.

But then, puzzlingly, the bushwoman picked up the mug and without turning took several careful strides, backwards,to the bed. Keeping her head facing away from Spy, she placed the mug on the little shelf that served as bedside table, then walked back to the coffee maker.

Spy watched this performance with amused incomprehension. "I did warn you falling asleep in the booth would leave you with a stiff neck, but even I did not anticipate full-body paralysis."

"You're not wearing your mask." Sniper's voice was rough and deep with sleep in an extremely appetizing way, and for a long moment the actual words she'd said didn't register.

The string litany of obscenity Spy then uttered, as she dove for the balaclava, would've made a polish grandmother blush.

"Didn't see a thing," said Sniper, all innocence. "Your virtue is preserved, O veiled princess."

"I do not believe you," Spy said, muffled by the pillow she'd childishly shoved over her head.

"Nilch. Zada."

"You are a liar," snapped Spy.

"All right, I looked before I realized what'd happened. But I wasn't wearing my glasses, so you were a pinkish blob." Sniper sighed. "I'm right sorry for accidentally seeing your blob."

Spy considered this. "You are still not wearing your glasses," she pointed out, cautiously.

"Yep, and I've already paid for it with a burned finger," she said mournfully. She raised the offended middle digit in Spy's direction, startling a laugh out of her. "Now could you put the bloody trashbag back on so I can turn around in my own home?"

Spy, realizing she was still twisting the balaclava in her hands, hastily complied. "Very well. I accept that my virtue, such as it is, is preserved."

"Bonzer," Sniper said. "Now where are my damn glasses?" She turned and began casting about for them, without success.

While she was still thus incapacitated, Spy allowed herself a look at the front too. No bra, indeed. Very nice.

A trifle regretfully, she plucked the lenses in question from the shelf behind the booth and slipped them into Sniper's callused palm. Who donned them, and seemed able to focus properly on her surroundings for the first time.

Sniper had interesting eyes, and it was a shame to see them disappear again behind the yellow tint. Spy could concoct more opportunities to see them. Maybe if she hid the glasses…? No, Sniper did seem quite blind without them. That might be cruel.

Sniper was looking at Spy, who suddenly realized she had been silent for a bit too long while she plotted.

"This coffee is dreadful," she said. "The floor sweepings of floor sweepings. Don't you get paid anything? Or are you like your Soldier, and just get room, board, and all the raccoons you can eat?"

"Not even room," said Sniper in mock sadness, waving to encompass the camper van. "Supplied this myself, didn't I."

"Then if I must, I will fund the acquisition of better coffee myself," said Spy grimly. "Some things in life should not be skimped on."

"Oi, ever think that I liked my crap coffee?"

"You don't."

"Well, no, but -"

"Exactly."

Sniper winced. "Let's just say…I go through a lot of coffee. Or, er, it goes through me. The good stuff would be wasted on me."

Spy eyed her. "Then I shall acquire better coffee for myself, and store it here. And if someone-who-is-not-me happens to drink some of it, I shall not be put out about it. D'accord?"

Sniper ducked her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "Dacker. I ain't promising cream, though. Goes off real quick out here."

Spy, with a theatrical flourish, put the back of a hand to her forehead. "If I must, I suppose I might soldier through."

This was all going surprisingly well; Spy wasn't even finding it necessary to work to make this not be awkward. Normal women had…sleepovers, right? Was that what they were called? Normal women who were enemies but also had a mutually beneficial arrangement around certain matters, accidentally falling asleep on top of each other in each other's camper vans? Sniper wasn't acting odd, so it must be normal.

"Hm," said Sniper, whose gaze seemed to be stuck on the hollow of Spy's throat, below where the balaclava ended.

"I beg your pardon?" Spy wondered if she had a loose thread or a piece of lint there. It wouldn't be the first time.

Sniper took a quick drink. "Woulda thought you had a special tie for sleeping in, is all."

"As far as you know, I do."

"Maybe three-piece pajamas."

"Not with me at the moment." Spy looked into the unpleasant depths of the coffee mug, and cleared her throat. She felt like an explanation was owed. A semi-honest one, even. But she kept her voice light and inconsequential, nonetheless. "My family - we are all spies. We have always been spies. Masks or disguises are de rigueur in this line of work."

She could see Sniper's eyebrows rise at this, but continued on as if this was not a huge, shocking disclosure. "In this era of photography, we wear light, breathable ones for sleeping, but even as a child with a child's mask I couldn't stand to have it on while I slept. So instead my parents trained me to don it quickly during the night if I should be interrupted." She gestured carelessly in the bed's direction. "Clearly that training has lapsed over the years."

There was another possibility, but she wasn't sure she wanted to consider that.

"Makes sense if you're a paranoid clan of frenchies, I s'pose." Sniper nodded as though this was perfectly normal behavior for the average family - and after all, hadn't Sniper lived in the backcountry for years? Maybe she didn't know what normal was any more than Spy did.

Then she cocked her head, and frowned at Spy in appraisal. "You're doing that thing again. The one where you say something all cheerful and sarcastic to make it seem like you don't care about it at all when you actually do. You did it the other day when you were talkin' about being a decrepit old fatal fem."

Spy struggled and failed to find a response that wouldn't confirm that (unfortunately true) hypothesis. She settled on a look of pitying scorn and a "Don't point, it's rude. And it's femme fatale."

Sniper twirled the blunt forefinger teasingly in her direction a second longer, then dropped it and, thankfully, the subject. "Clock in's in two hours, by the way."

"While that is plenty of time, I should return to BLU base to cleanse myself of the filth of this place," and before anyone thinks to notice my absence, she thought but did not say.

"Nah, mate, the dirt's ground in deep. You're never rid of me now," said Sniper, and gulped the last of her mug.

Spy pulled on her jacket and tie and set herself to rights (or as much as she could, under the circumstances - at some point she had decided she would not be truly set to rights until she was able to follow that scar with bare fingertips to its end, but today a shower would have to do).

They stood, awkward, by the door.

"Shall we?" said Spy, at the same time Sniper said "One for the road?"

They blinked at each other a moment.

"I can grab more of a shirt or a bra -" started Sniper.

"Don't bother," said Spy, crowing internally. "They would be just as filthy as anything else here. I will have to burn this suit anyway."

"Like you would subject your precious tailoring to anything Pyro-adjacent," Sniper retorted, and slipped into Spy's hold.

Sniper's hair brushed against the balaclava, and she was warm and braless and smelled like musk and sleep and coffee, and in the privacy of her chin on Sniper's shoulderSpy grinned hugely. It took every ounce of self control she had to not rip off her gloves and trace those back scars, but her sleeves just happened to ride up in a way that let her press a sliver of bare wrist to Sniper's shoulder.

And that would have to do.

-—-—-

Spy's hypothesis was proven thoroughly wrong. It did not get it out of their systems.

Instead, in addition to their workday breaks they now spent half their evenings reading next to each other, or playing chess, or arguing about things that didn't matter, or simply watching the sunset in silence.

The chess was particularly fun, because half the game was chess and the other half was Spy finding ways to cheat and Sniper finding ways to catch her at it.

Occasionally, Sniper would drag her out into the desert for 'fresh air and sunlight'; Spy would object, quite rightly, that they spent their workdays getting all the fresh air and sunlight they could ever want, often into parts of the body that were never designed for exposure to either. Sniper would go conveniently deaf to this cogent argument and start pointing out weird cacti and the tracks of venomous snakes. Spy hadn't known just how many venomous snakes were hanging around the place prior to that, and the knowledge was not at all comforting. She suspected, however, that Sniper might be making it all up, and thus spent quite a bit of effort attempting, unsuccessfully, to catch her in a snake fib.

Once, Spy brought along her sabre to try to beat some kind of civilized fighting style into the other woman. Sniper, however, had been too busy making fun of the 'scrawny little wire - you call that a sword?' and intentionally mispronouncing every french fencing term to pay adequate attention.

At some point, Spy hauled over a cushion for booth back-support, the promised coffee, and - on a whim - a record player. However, Sniper (suspiciously) only ever seemed to dig up records of either avante-garde jazz or the ridiculous 'soft-rock' that was popular nowadays, and Spy's elegant piano pieces and less elegant Europop somehow ended up on the bottom of the pile.

There was only one awkward moment, when they were sitting out on camp chairs in the shade of the camper and enjoying (Sniper) and grousing about (Spy) an excretable new album Sniper had gotten on that morning's supply train.

"With a name like Ambrosia," she said, trying and failing to find somewhere to prop her feet, "one really would expect something more befitting the gods."

"Maybe the gods aren't as stuffy as you," said Sniper, unruffled.

"Stuffy!" said Spy, already plotting revenge. "I will have you know -"

The sound of rapid sneakers on the dirt caught her ear, and she was invisible by the time the RED Scout hurtled around the corner. That was well enough, but then she only barely managed to extract herself from the chair before Scout threw herself into the 'empty' seat and started blabbering.

"Jeez, Snipes, why ya gotta park so far away? You're lucky I'm willing to come all this way for ya, you're welcome dude. ANYWAY, I just GOTTA tell ya about…

There was little risk. Spy had taken care to make the record player look appropriately beat up and Sniper-y, and she hadn't been so amateur as to leave anything incriminating around the place - not that Scout was apt to notice even the nose in front of her face. Half the time out on the field, Spy didn't even bother going invisible to get past the girl.

So she spent the while until Sniper could drive Scout off (quite some time - the child could talk) attempting to bore a hole into the back of Scout's head with a glare. One truly could tell the two Scouts were sisters. No, she did not envy the RED Spy in the least, not the very least.

Finally, Sniper put her foot down. "Look, mate, pick up a hint! I'm parked a full half mile from base, I'm napping in the shade -" she snorted, and jerked a thumb at the record player. "Hell, it's in the bloody song, even."

Scout looked blank. "Uhhh a buncha dumb-sounding guitar?"

Sniper reached over and lightly thwacked her with the album jacket. "World Leave Me Alone, which includes chatty little ankle-biters who're tryin' to get out of their chores."

"How did you know I - hey, I don't have any chores!" Scout squawked.

Sniper gave her a level look. "I'm busy. Now rack off, or I'll tell Soldier you've gone AWOL."

"Busy starin' directly at the sun and jerkin' off, more like…" Scout hauled herself out the chair with the saddest possible expression, and Spy was highly entertained by the sight of the hangdog look impacting Planet Sniper.

The woman sighed, and relented. "Lob in tomorrow after nosh-up and we'll play catch."

"Ya got it, Snipes!" Scout grinned hugely, pointed finger guns, and darted back toward the base.

As her footsteps faded into the distance again, Spy faded back into view with a snicker. "So you're the fun aunt. A soft touch, at that."

Sniper screwed up her face, resettling her hat in the lazy-afternoon-doze position it had previously occupied. She was a little red under her tan, to Spy's delight. "Oi, I seem to remember you rolling up uninvited too, sticky-beak."

Spy ignored this nonsense and slithered up behind the other woman, leaning down around the defensive hat brim to purr into her ear. "Do you insist she eats her vegetables too? Help her with her letters back home? Heartwarming." She trailed a gloved finger around the curve of Sniper's now beet-red ear. "Poor you."

Sniper reached over, planted a broad hand over Spy's face, and shoved her away despite her muffled affronted noises. "Nah, that's Heavy's job. I throw the ball where she asks me to so she can hit it with her weird round cricket bat. And I listen to her when she needs to talk herself through her emotions and all."

"Ugh, no, this is getting genuinely heartwarming now. Spare me!" Spy clutched melodramatically at her heart, and arranged her face into comic revulsion.

"Tell me about it. Not sure how it's devolved into this," Sniper mock-grumbled, and said in time with the song, " 'Let someone else be responsible.' "

Spy hummed in agreement, and collapsed gracefully back into her (her) chair. " 'And let the world leave me alone.' "

-—-—-

Spy carefully arranged the last tool on the camper's table, perfectly aligned with the gun parts and cleaning supplies covering the entirety of the surface, and looked at the order with satisfaction.

"Cease looming, bushwoman. I am entirely immune."

Sniper, who'd been looking over her shoulder with interest while loudly slurping coffee, put down the mug. Then she layered her hands on top of Spy's head and propped her chin on them.

"Better?" she asked, all innocence.

"Not in the least," said Spy, careful to keep her head still as she picked up a tiny brush and set to work.

"Sorry to hear it," Sniper said, not moving. "I can see why you don't roll up your shirtsleeves like that normally, you'd burn to a crisp in an instant out there."

"What do you take me for, some kind of peasant? Tans are for working women; I am an artiste of shadow and death."

"Yeah except for the bit where those arms practically glow in the dark."

"The brilliant sartorial innovation known as 'sleeves' are yet again the solution. You might consider unrolling yours sometime."

"Only during the depths of winter, mate, gotta let the arms breathe." Sniper's hand inched towards one of Spy's expensive custom jags, and she smoothly moved it out of her reach.

"Spoken like someone who's only ever seen a snowflake on the silver screen"

"Oi, I've had plenty of contracts in the USSR and the like."

"Indeed, your file says you neatly got frostbite in Tallinn in '58." Spy smeared bore cleaner on a brush.

"Yep," Sniper said cheerily, "ya creepy little shit. First time in northern Europe, nearly froze my norks off."

"That would certainly explain your lack of a chest."

"Nah mate, I cut 'em off like the - what're they called - the Amazons? So's I could make my arrows go wherever I want." Spy could hear the cheeky smile in her voice.

"Cheating, bushwoman? I should have known your archery skills were entirely too good to be fully natural. Also, touch that polishing cloth and lose a finger. I'm sure you're accustomed to using rags from a garage floor on your guns, but that's Sea Island cotton and three men died trying to keep me from acquiring it."

Sniper withdrew her wandering hand with a disappointed noise. "Oi, it's about how you use the tools, not how much money or blood you put into 'em. And if you want to talk unnatural, we can talk about how you pulled that entire suitcase of a cleaning kit and five guns out of those pockets of yours."

"A mere feat of organization, I assure you. A lesser woman might require, say, an entire vehicle to cart her things around."

"Ha! I am plenty organized, even if a certain fancy priss -" Sniper took another long swig of coffee, then choked. "Wait just a damn tick, are those…latex gloves over top of your normal gloves?"

"Like a hawk, the Sniper watches over the battlefield, missing nothing with her keen gaze -"

" - Wanker -"

"The second pair are essential. I wouldn't want to get my good gloves dirty." Spy continued rubbing at an intransigent bit of grime on the barrel.

"...Right. You could just take your normal gloves off, y'know. Then wash your hands after and put 'em on again."

"What a ridiculous notion." While it wasn't for her, Spy had to admit that Sniper's hands with a bit of dirt on them did look good, in a callused, rugged sort of way.

"Sure. I'm the ridiculous one here, Ms. Four-gloves." Sniper straightened, then wandered off into the shelves at the back of the camper. A minute later, she returned with her arms full, and sat across from Spy.

"Move your junk," she said.

"I have no junk -" Spy began with a glare.

"Then you won't mind if I do this," said Sniper with suspicious cheer, shoving Spy's perfectly ordered parts over until half the surface was clear. She dumped an assortment of wood, tools, and feathers on the clear side. "Ta, I need to catch up on my fletching."

Spy armed herself with the closed weapon to hand, and pointed it at the other woman.

"I will kill you for that, nenorocito."

"Guess I'll kill you back," said Sniper, phlegmatically.

"I will torture you slowly over the course of days. You will live in the purest of agonies, in realms of horror and pain previously unknown; you will live alone on my sufferance, and for your suffering." Spy wiggled her weapon meaningfully.

"All that, just with the brush? I'd thank you for the novelty at this point." Sniper raised an unfletched arrow shaft and tapped it on the brush in a dueler's invitation. "On guard."

"Allez. Given enough time, I do think I could give you a nasty rash with the bristles." Spy slid the brush against the shaft to redirect Sniper's ensuing thrust away, and riposted. "And if that doesn't work, I will slip laxatives into your coffee."

"Can't be worse than what coffee already does to me," Sniper said, grinning. Her parry was crude, yet effective.

Spy feinted, then attacked. "I will…reglue all your feathers on backwards. I will tie knots in your knitting. I will spread rumors that you shower regularly."

The brush was fouled around the arrow now, locked together. They both tugged, without success.

"I'd have to sneak a red sock into your white laundry somehow - no," Sniper said, eyeing Spy, "That's too obvious a vulnerability. Either your laundry security is high and it's a trap, or you don't actually care too much about your shirts being dyed pink."

Spy merely sent her an enigmatic smile.

"And since I don't believe even you could fake all that whining about losing a button -"

"Whining?!"

" - it's gotta be the first option. Instead, I'll put some bullet holes through the crates of cigs you must get in on every supply drop. Get 'em nice and stale for you."

"Now that would be devastating indeed, if my cigarette shipments weren't disguised as something else on the train."

With a final flick of her wrist, Spy disarmed Sniper, caught the arrow shaft as it flew, and tucked it into an inner pocket with a saucy little flourish. Honor thus satisfied, she turned back to re-ordering her parts and tools in the half of the table remaining to her.

Sniper pointed at her accusingly. "That there! That's what I'm saying! How did you fit a two-and-a-half-foot-long arrow shaft in your jacket like that?"

Spy sent her a pitying look with a moue. "A magician never reveals her secrets. And - point that glue in my direction, bushwoman, and you'll find it in your toothpaste tomorrow morning."

Sniper carefully put the pot of glue back down again and raised her empty hands placatingly. "Ah, damn, now that's a threat."

"And not one I take lightly. It'll take me entirely too much work to get the consistency right for the verisimilitude of the thing."

"I'll try to be scared of something easier to pull off next time."

"Your cooperation is appreciated."

Their legs tangled under the table, but Spy still sent the other woman an occasional tetchy look for disturbing her order. Forgiveness was not so easily bought, even if it was technically Sniper's table in the first place.

They're not really sure how this "hanging out" and "having a friend" thing works, so forgive them the half-joking threats!

I'm writing Spy as demiromantic in this fic - curious to see if that's coming through here? She doesn't have the proper terminology for it, of course.

Sniper's not bra-ing up due to not really needing it (I figure she's pretty flat-chested) but if she was inclined towards fashion considerations, the 70s were a big time for visible nips (at least for smaller cup sizes) to the point where such wonders as The Nipple Bra (I would include a link to the vintage ad if ffnet let me) were created and marketed.

I spent an inordinate amount of the writing of this fic listening to early 70s soft rock releases, so it's only fair I put a lil tribute in. World Leave Me Alone isn't a bad match for Sniper lyrically, either. Spy's disgust with this album (Ambrosia, 1975) is perhaps understandable - in the very first track (lyrics from a Kurt Vonnegut poem lol) they do pronounce 'France' with such commitment to a dorky accent that it no longer rhymes with 'dance' as it is clearly meant to. However, she has no idea what's to come, which is a full recitation of the poem Jabberwocky. The 70s were a wild time, man.

Oh, btw, this fic is also on AO3 (same title & author). Fanart gets included there as well since ffnet is no fun allowed.

-—-—-

lob in - Aussie; drop in to see someone

nosh-up - Aussie; dinner (usually)

sticky-beak - Aussie; a nosy person, as in 'sticking your beak (nose) where it doesn't belong'

norks - Aussie; breasts, tits, hootenbabooblers...

nenorocito - Romanian; motherfucker (non-literally)

'on guard' - Sniper clearly misheard the French 'en-garde' in the previous scene. En-garde is used in fencing to signal that the combatants should get in position to begin

allez - French; go (used in fencing to mark the start of a bout or assault)

bingus1man - Spy's a cold-blooded snake, I don't blame her at all for seeking warmth (both literally and figuratively speaking).

coolguy3 - Aw thank you so much! You don't know how much this means to me. Maybe this is counterproductive, but I do hope that your Bad Times come less and less often and your Good Times start turning up for free all on their own c: Hope you enjoy!