Work Text:
Scout could not sleep tonight.
Luckily for him, neither could Sniper. The difference was, though, that Sniper usually stayed up late. He was one of those guys who could fall asleep three hours before he had to get up, still wake up on time, and be fine for the day. Scout, on the other hand, typically fell asleep relatively early compared to Sniper -- around ten to eleven PM ish -- so he would be able to have enough energy to run around all day. On weekends, he did not stay up too much later than he did on weekdays, so he could manage to keep that routine. However, it was nearing one o’clock in the morning and there was no sign that Scout would be falling asleep anytime soon.
It was a Friday night, or technically a Saturday, as it was past midnight, so Scout did not have work in the morning, therefore no reason to need to wake up early. He was bored out of his mind with nothing to do, however, which was truly a travesty.
Not to mention that his gender dysphoria was hitting hard on this particular night. He had never presented as anything other than a man to his team, so they had no reason to think he was not one, but the idea still made Scout incredibly anxious. It was getting to the point where he felt sick and could barely stand to be alone at the moment.
What was Scout to do in such a predicament? Pay a surprise visit to Sniper, of course.
It was about a five minute walk from the base to where Sniper parked his camper, give or take a couple of minutes. Although it took Scout’s eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, he barely needed to see to be able to make the trip. He had gone this way so many times. This was not the first time he walked down to visit Sniper at night time, either. The two were best friends and spent a lot of their ceasefire time hanging out together. In fact, Scout and Demo were the only people on the team who had been inside Sniper’s van. Besides Sniper himself, of course.
As he got somewhat closer to the van, Scout noticed a silhouette on top of the vehicle. He neared it some more just as a very small light emitted from the silhouette. Scout blinked a couple of times to finally be able to make out the sight of Sniper sitting on the roof of his van and lighting a cigarette. His hat was laying on the metal surface next to him.
Scout stepped up pretty close to the van. Sniper’s back was towards him, so Scout had to make himself known somehow.
“Hey Snipes,” he greeted, prompting Sniper to turn around, his cigarette hanging from his mouth.
Sniper removed the cigarette from between his lips and held it between his fingers as he smiled slightly. Scout was the only one who Sniper allowed to call him Snipes. If anybody else said it, even Demo, it irritated him to no end, but Scout had bugged him with the nickname so frequently that Sniper stopped caring. In fact, it even started to grow on him, but only when it was his best buddy saying it. The nickname became a form of endearment. It was their thing; Scout was the only one who could call him Snipes. It made both of them happy.
“Hi. What’re ya doin’ here?” Sniper asked, still looking down at Scout. He took a drag of his cigarette after finishing his sentence.
“Can’t sleep. An’ I knew you’d be up, so.” Scout’s sentence did not need to be finished. The point got across.
As a response, Sniper nodded his head upwards and to the side in a way to signal to Scout to join him on the roof, which Scout did. He walked around to the back of the van and climbed up the ladder, and got himself settled sitting next to Sniper. He felt it was only fitting to take off his own hat as well, so he did just that and placed it down next to himself.
The pair sat in silence for several minutes, with Sniper slowly smoking his cigarette and Scout shifting how he was sitting every once in a while in order to get comfortable. The silence was not in any way awkward. They were comfortable enough around each other to be able to sit quietly without it feeling weird. Even so, they did not want to be silent forever, so Sniper was the one to finally start up a conversation.
“How come you couldn’t sleep?” He questioned, halfway expecting a simple shrug as a response.
Scout did shrug as he pulled his legs up to hug them, resting his chin on his knees, but he did also give a verbal reply.
“Dunno,” he lied. “Mostly ‘cuz of stress, I guess. I only had one can of Bonk in the middle of the day, so I know I ain’t too buzzed up on energy drinks to sleep.” The truth was, Scout did know why he couldn’t sleep. As mentioned before, it was because of his distressing and almost painful dysphoria. Nevertheless, he could not say that, as, of course, Sniper did not know that Scout was trans.
Sniper let out a hum and then blew out some cigarette smoke. The barely noticeable breeze blew that smoke to the left of Sniper, directly towards Scout, who started coughing.
“Sorry cobber,” Sniper muttered, only after chuckling at what happened. Scout made a playfully irritated ‘pft’ sound in response. He smiled afterwards, though. Sniper had a tendency to call many people by mate, despite not being close with the majority of those people, but his use of cobber signified that Scout was more like a best mate.
“That blows, though,” he continued. “Ya look stuffed, Jere.”
With their best friendship came occasionally calling each other by their first names. It was a rare occurrence for them as of now, but still to the point where it was not weird to refer to one another as Mundy or Jeremy.
“Stuffed?” Scout was somewhat confused by Sniper’s wording. He turned his head to look at Sniper before continuing. “Like full? I ain’t starvin’ but I’m also not stuffed, man.” At this, Sniper let out more of a laugh than before. He covered his mouth with the side of his hand as he chortled at what Scout said, which only confused him more.
“Nah, stuffed as in tired. Common term where I grew up. You look exhausted,” Sniper clarified. Scout’s face turned a light red with embarrassment as he leaned his chin on his knees again and hugged himself.
“Oh,” he mumbled. Scout hadn’t realized that he actually looked as fatigued as he felt. “Yeah, I dunno. I wish I could sleep, but I tried and nothin’ was working. I feel kind of frustrated, I guess, and my ribs hurt.” As if on cue, Scout sucked air in through his teeth as he curled up more, hugging himself tighter. He felt a sharp pain in his ribcage that passed after a couple of seconds. Now it was Sniper’s turn to be confused.
“Why’re your ribs hurting?” Scout hadn’t even really realized he said that until Sniper pointed it out. He had just been rambling a little bit. There was no going back on it now, though; he had to say something.
Sniper, on the other hand, knew the feeling of aching ribs all too well from binding over long work days. It was not the best idea, but what else was he supposed to do? Sniper, too, was feeling a lot of heavy dysphoria lately. He could relate to Scout’s situation, he just didn’t know it.
“Um—” Scout cut himself off. He had to decide whether he should make up an excuse or tell the truth. He began to sweat a little, anxiously trying to figure out what to do. “I’m- I’ve been runnin’ a lot, ya know? Takes a toll on ya.” He knew his lie was not convincing, and he looked in the opposite direction from where Sniper was after he finished that sentence. “They just do, I don’t know,” he mumbled afterwards.
It still wasn’t an idea in Sniper’s mind that Scout might feel that kind of pain for the same reason as he did. On the contrary, Scout feared that Sniper was becoming convinced that he was trans. He did not want Sniper to figure it out, he would much rather say it himself. So he figured he might as well do that.
“What do you—”
“Okay, look.” Scout cut his best friend off, and he felt apologetic for sounding aggressive, but he had something important to say, and the way he spoke certainly got Sniper’s attention.
Scout took a deep breath and looked forwards again, but still not towards Sniper.
“My... my ribs hurtin’ and my stress and.. and the fact that I can’t sleep, they’ve all gotta do with each other,” he began. Still, Sniper wasn’t catching on. “I’m, uh...” Scout hadn’t prepared a specific way to say this, so he was panicking, and even shaking slightly with anxiety. His stomach was in knots and he almost felt like he was going to throw up, but he sucked it up and spat it out. “...I’m trans, Snipes. And.. I’ve been so scared that the team don’t see me as a real guy. I know I’ve been nothin’ but a dude to them all, but it’s scary. And I hurt all the time, and I end up runnin’ and exercising all day in my binder because it’s either that or discomfort ‘n anguish, and I’d rather take the pain than that.” He took a break from speaking for a moment to sniffle and wipe some tears that he only fully noticed were falling now. “I can’t sleep ‘causeI feel so horrible. An’ I... I wish I had somebody who understands,” Scout concluded. He had no idea about the news that he was about to receive in return.
Wordlessly, Sniper stared at his friend for a moment. He was honestly surprised. His mouth was hanging open slightly, so he closed it and looked away to push his basically dead cigarette butt into the metal roof for now. Once that was done, he moved himself closer to Scout and hesitated for a short second before pulling him into a hug. It started with Sniper hugging him from the side, with both arms wrapped around Scout, but it did not take long for Scout to fully return the hug. He pressed his face into Sniper’s shoulder and began to sob.
“...Hey, it’s gonna be alright. I understand. I.. know how you’re feeling,” he began, but Scout took that the wrong way.
“No you don’t!” Scout cried, his head still buried in Sniper’s shirt. “You don’t get it. Nobody does! I’m alone in all of this!”
“Jeremy, listen!” Sniper asserted. He spoke in a soft tone of voice. “Please, listen to me. I know exactly how you feel. Here, look.” He gently moved Scout out of the hug, but only moved one arm away from him to pull the collar of his shirt towards his shoulder after unbuttoning the top button to be able to do so. In doing that, he revealed a dark grey strip of stretchy fabric. “Do you know what that is?” He asked, looking at Scout, who was wiping his tears and observing what was being shown to him.
“Uhm...” He stared at it for a few seconds. It looked like the strap of a binder, but Scout didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.
“It’s a binder.” Sniper ended up telling him anyway. “Do you know what that means?” He repeated his question format from before. His tone was very gentle.
“It... does it mean that—” He stopped himself to let all of this sink in for a couple of seconds. Sniper was wearing a binder. That meant that he was also trans. After several seconds of sort of processing that, Scout spoke up again. “Does that mean you’re.. trans too..?” He raised the question hesitantly, but Sniper nodded in response, keeping a slight smile.
“Yeah, it does. I honestly had no idea that you were, and I didn’t exactly plan on tellin’ anybody ‘round here about myself, but how can I pass up having a mate to share my experiences with?”
Immediately after Sniper finished speaking, Scout fell back into his arms. He was no longer crying, but he didn’t get to show or receive a lot of physical affection, so he took advantage of the fact that Sniper was feeling up to a hug right now. Sniper returned the hug and gave Scout a small pat on the back to go along with it.
“You ain’t gonna tell anyone, right?” Scout made sure, once again without looking up at Sniper. “About me, I mean. I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“Of course not, you know I wouldn’t do that to ya.” That was a promise that Sniper was going to keep, and Scout was thankful for it.
Despite most of his tears being gone, Scout wiped at his eyes before pulling away from the hug. It had lasted a solid couple of minutes or so before Scout moved. Even though the hug was over, he still sat right next to Sniper — close enough so that their knees were almost touching.
“...Hey, Snipes?”
“Yeah?”
Sniper glanced at Scout, only to see that Scout was staring out into the night sky, so he did the same.
“I love ya. Not in, like, a weird way, just... I don’t say it enough. You’re my best friend and ya mean the world to me, and I want you to know it.” Only a few seconds after saying that did Scout pass a glimpse at Sniper, who was now staring at him with surprise. They looked at each other for a few seconds before Scout said something again. “Even though you’re a dweeb and you smell like ass,” he teased, as he nudged Sniper in the arm with his elbow. Sniper went from looking dumbfounded right to laughing.
“Oy, watch it!” Sniper returned the act with a gentle push, just enough to barely tilt Scout to the side. “But.. for real. Thank you.” He gazed at the sky once more before he continued. “You mean a lot to me as well. I’m, um.. not so good at expressing affection but—”
“Me neither, trust me,” Scout interrupted. “Like, I’ve got no idea how ta put my feelings into words, right, so I probably love ya more than you even know, pally. Not— Again, not in an actual romantic love way.” His face appeared to be red to some degree, which could be assumed to be due to embarrassment.
“No, I know,” Scout’s best pal assured him with a light chuckle. “I was just gonna say that you’re my best mate as well, and I love ya a lot.” He looked from the sky towards Scout, and then pulled him into a side hug that looked more like almost a headlock. Sniper ruffled Scout’s hair with his other hand, and then gave him another light push after he let go. “Ya drongo. Or in American terms, you dumbass idiot.”
Despite insulting each other, the both of them had the biggest, stupidest smiles on their faces. They kept those smiles for a good few minutes before either of them said another word.
“I’m gettin’ drowsy. I wanna head to bed soon,” Sniper told his buddy as he picked up his hat and cigarette butt and began to make his way towards the ladder.
“Oh, alright. I’ll head back to the base then—”
“What’s the point in that?”
“...Whaddya mean?”
“Just stay the night here.”
The suggestion was worded like an order, but said as a friendly invitation, which Scout gleefully accepted. This would be his first time sleeping over at the van, and Sniper’s first time having anybody stay overnight in the camper, for that matter. Both of them were glad that Scout was the first person to stay the night there. It took barely any time at all for them both to fall asleep...
...and Scout slept great.