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Sniper was nothing if not a professional. He prided himself on being able to catch even the smallest of details to know when he’d caught his target, and he was just as easily acquainted with the bigger picture to boot. From his perch on a battlefield no one could escape his line of sight.
This professionalism extended to how he generally carried himself as well. If he were to be a true professional then he would have to distance himself from those around him, no?
Solitude meant more to him that he could easily explain. He’d learned to use the lack of company as an asset to his work. He’d honed his skills all by himself out on his parent’s farm and let the sounds of nature be the only thing to comfort him. The world felt easier to understand when he didn’t have to worry about another person fucking it up.
Though, the part he wouldn’t admit in all that was that he really did long for some companionship in life.
Sure, there were obviously going to be complications when it came to involving someone else in his life. He could assume that they might even get hurt at a few points. Still, when the nights got colder and the sky got darker he found it easier to slip into day dreams about what it would be like to have someone else.
Then he’d remind himself that he’d had chances before to let someone in, and he’d finish the job instead.
He was a sniper.
It was the one thing he could rely on in his life, and it felt better to put faith in that than another person. No matter how much he wanted to feel the comfort of someone’s face pressed against his chest at night it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t finish a job. Because the job was always going to have to come first.
If he even considered putting another living, breathing, human being before a job, then he was a failure.
This was his life line, after all. It was the one thing he knew that he was reliably good at. It was the thing that got him to see the world. It had taken him to so many places he never could have began to imagine he could see before.
He was good at this.
He could rely on this.
Why should he expect that he could rely on any person, ever?
Still, isolating himself from others could only do so much before the quiet gnawing part of him began to get louder. The part that told him that he wanted more than this solitude, the part in him that caused him to look at other people and long for human touch, and the part in him that made him want to lose his inhibitions.
The confinement of his job could only take him so far before he’d find himself awake for hours wanting to find another face next to him. Imaging what it would be like to feel another person’s breath at the nap of his neck, and what it would be like to be able to feel his lips against their collar bone.
There were many little things like that which built up a disconcerting center for him. He did need another person. That no matter how much he tried to hide himself away in his work and ignore the latent base impulses that he understood within him, there would still be that longing.
The quiet whispers about those around him and the parts he liked about them were there. In all their disconcerting nature they were there. He was just too afraid to give in and let them come out. No matter how mundane people may view them as, he was terrified of them.
He’d lived so much of his life keeping to himself and relying on distance. What would it even be like to reach out and find someone else out there who would be willing to accept him with open arms?
What would that even be like?
Well, that was where Scout came into the picture.
Really it was like the speedster of the RED team sort of crashed into him.
Those impulses just got too overwhelming with enough time, and Scout happened to be a warm body nearby. That was what he told himself after it happened, at least.
It was meant to be a one and done situation that didn’t need to be spoken about again and certainly wouldn’t lead the two to reach out to each other again.
That was it.
That was all.
There was nothing else there.
Then they both kept reaching back out.
Eventually it became easy to reach out toward one another. There didn’t need to be that point where they would ask about seeing the other. It was assumed and even a surprise when the other didn’t turn up in the middle of the night. They’re expectations changed for the other, and a new status quo was built around it.
They both had their reservations and concerns about it, for Sniper it was about the Administrator finding out and for Scout it was his struggle to swallow that he didn’t just like girls, but there was a time and a place to grabble with that.
That time and place was not in Sniper’s camper van, though. There were nights where that tone was already set from the outset, but that was not the case in this instance. Rather the tone was one of strange tension.
Sniper was tense.
There was this idea mulling around in his head. It had been since he first agreed to start seeing Scout at all. It was just one of those things that he’d wondered about for years, but there was no room to act on it in that time. Once he had a chance to, though, he was too afraid to scare off Scout by asking to do it.
He couldn’t tell if it was considered normal to even want to do it, so it stayed in the corner.
Now, however, there was a rapport built with Scout. There was a new companionship between them. He felt safer around him than he had around anyone in years. Yet, he still found himself caught off guard when he said it out loud.
“What do ya’ think about bitin?’”
He was expecting a regular opinion on it. Maybe a no or yes in that general direction so that he could set his expectations accordingly. Though, he was instead met with a surprising silence. If Scout was taking to time to consider his answer, that didn’t feel right.
He quickly began to turn inward as the silence seemed to drag itself on and on. The panic he already felt by asking the question at all began to bloom inside of him as he tried to figure out a way to play it off as a joke just so that he could get away from it. He loved silence, but not like this.
He wasn't expecting a simple, “Sure, ya, I don’t mind.”
“What?”
“Sure? What are ya’ deaf all of a sudden?”
“No, no, why are you sayin’ that?”
Scout sat up from his previous position of being stretched out next to Sniper in bed so that the two of them could make eye contact. “Why am I sayin’ sure?”
“It’s a yes or no question, Roo.”
“Naw, you can play your long games in your roost, but I’d prefer to stick to the point down here. So my answer to yur very obvious question is, sure.”
Sniper opened and closed his mouth in surprise at Scout’s quick bluntness with it, but really it was that he didn’t anticipate to get this far. He would have preferred a harsh “no” really. That way he wouldn’t have to try and figure any of the next steps out.
“So,” Scout started as he began to take his shirt off, “are you gonna do anything or keep starin’ at me like some fish out of freakin’ water. It’s weirdin’ me out, Snipes.”
“Jesus, Scout, slow down.”
His face grew hotter as Scout rolled his eyes and tossed his shirt aside. The mark he’d been left with after his scrap with the machines stared at him just as he stared at it, though he was doing it out of the need to not look Scout in the eye right then.
Instead of letting him look away, though, Scout reached his hand out and forced him to make eye contact. “If you don’t wanna you can say that. But ya wouldn’t have brought it up if you didn’t wanna, right?”
Sniper swallowed the lump in his throat that had been progressively growing as the time increasingly began to approach him.
“It’s fine, Snipes. Jeez I didn’t know you couldn’t be such a scary cat.”
That got his attention.
He took a deep breath before sitting forward. This allowed their faces to nearly touch one another as he grumbled, “Shut it.”
“Prove me wrong then. Stop bein’ a pussy and do it.”
Sniper watched Scout’s face closely as he said that. The word rolled of his tongue just as easy as any other, but it showed a new stage to what was going on right then.
There was a clear truth to what he was saying. He clearly did want Sniper to bite him, but there was a layer of fear in his eyes. The way they shifted around the room from time to time before returning to Sniper’s face showed some anxiety in him. Maybe that was just from anticipating, but if it was from some concern then it did make him feel better.
It was a new step for both of them, that could not be understated, and if Scout was just as worried about that as he was, then that made it an easier pill to swallow at least.
They were on even footing, even if that was hard to see.
With that realization, Sniper let himself lean in close to Scout’s neck. He didn’t immediately let himself go into it, though. He, instead, started to place kisses across Scout’s shoulders.
He traced over his partner’s collar bones and back up and down his shoulders before briefly stopping at the neck to let his teeth slide against his skin.
Scout seemed to open his mouth to ask something, but all that came out was a shaky sigh. His fist did ball up against the sheets. So quick to excitement that it would have been funny in any other situation, but Sniper didn’t let himself focus on it for long.
He continued to run his lips and teeth up the neck and back down the shoulder. He left light nibbles as he did so, but nothing deep enough to leave more than a slight discoloration to the skin.
Really, what he wanted to do then was display his appreciation. He wanted Scout to understand how much he meant to him then. Words could only do so much when it came to a goal like that. He could say as much as he wanted about what he felt, but then he would have to hope that he could do that. Not even mentioning if Scout would accept what he’d have to say.
Affection, on the other hand, was a means beyond sound to show what was inside. He could express the feelings swirling around within him and give them a new meaning in the physical manner that it deserved.
It was a way to display what could not easily be stated, and there was no way for Scout to not notice how delicate it all was. He was not something to be roughed around with. He deserved to be appreciated and shown care. He deserved someone who could give him that.
Sniper was willing to become that to provide him the love he deserved.
There were still points where rough housing was acceptable, though.
With his lips squarely above the mid point of Scout’s shoulder, Sniper let his canines skin down into his skin.
The tang of iron immediately swirled through his mouth until it was all that his tongue could taste. Scout let out a low grunt as he felt the pain shoot through him, before he let out a shaky laugh.
His hand reached up and nestled itself into Sniper’s hair as he said, “You’re like a freakin’ vampire, Snipes.”
He tugged as Sniper’s hair lightly, but not enough to pull him away. He let him continue to have his teeth sunk into his skin and, as he did, he felt his tongue run against the area. The sensation of it causing another jolt to run through his body.
Again his fingers pulled against Sniper’s hair, and there was reaction after that second time. With Sniper moving his head away from where his teeth marks were and instead began to start kissing his neck again.
Scout leaned into the sensation let him continue on his path. His own hand ran down from his hair across his back and under his shirt. His nails lightly digging into Sniper’s side ever other time he felt another rush of excitement from him.
There was enough for both of them, however.
As, with a light trickle of spit and blood falling down Scout’s chest, the two of them let themselves fall into the other, they didn’t need anything else. There was a level of contentment to found in just the brief jolts they let the other experience.
It was new for both of them.
Better to enable what that experience was going to be like than expect the same thing everytime.
They were both people with pieces that were once missing and were able to float to the top once more.
A new start for the both of them to enjoy, no matter how strange it may seem. It was their love, and that was what would always matter.