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“You got a favourite animal?” Sniper asked while moving his pawn forward.
“Oh, please. What are we, in kindergarten? Surely, you can do better than that.” Spy scoffed and slid his bishop across the board.
Sniper stared at his pieces, making a noise that indicated he was either annoyed at his opponent’s words or stumped by the game. Possibly both.
“…Do you?” he eventually asked, choosing to risk moving his knight a little further.
“Ugh.” Sniper didn’t see it, but he was pretty sure Spy had just rolled his eyes at him.
“Crows are intriguing, I suppose. Intelligent birds. I hear they can recognize human faces and even hold grudges.”
“Oh, so kinda like you,” Sniper quipped, unable to help himself as he gave a dry chuckle.
“Very funny.”
The small attic was almost silent, save for the light clacking of the chess pieces and the faint buzzing of the single, dim ceiling lamp above them. Stale dust and cigarette fumes clung to the derelict, wooden walls. The hour was late. So late in fact, that time had bled well past midnight. Whether it felt like it or not, they were already living in the shadow of tomorrow.
Neither mercenary could quite recall when or why this tradition started taking place. At some point, it seemed like a bad idea. And then it became an okay one. And then it shifted into one they could live with regardless of what it truly was. And now they found themselves here, playing chess on a weekly basis and asking questions until someone became sick of losing (usually Sniper), or they were so exhausted they couldn’t concentrate on the game or the conversation.
There were rules of course, as there would have to be considering the professional mentality the assassins prided themselves in. No fighting. No weapons. No recording devices. No lying. No asking for details on classified intel or people who aren’t present. And most importantly…
Whatever is said up there, stays up there.
No cameras either; albeit that wasn’t so much a rule as it was a paranoid precaution. Spy always checked, but they had never found any since day one. Everyone knew what happened the last time a RED and BLU merc was caught fraternizing after hours, and Spy and Sniper had no plans on letting their business be known to anyone – Administration or otherwise.
“Those two absolutely despise each other” is what any teammate on either side would say about the pair without missing a beat. This was certainly true in the beginning, but somewhere along the way their aggressive rivalry began to fade, and as the years went on it just wasn’t as thrilling anymore. Despite their immense differences and contrasting ways of life, the RED Sniper and BLU Spy quickly learned that they weren’t so different after all, and a mutual respect began to take shape.
They played things up for the cameras of course, and anyone else who just happened to glimpse their brief interactions on the battlefield. It was kind of fun in a way; to put on an act and pretend they were the fierce, bitter enemies who hated each other’s guts like back in the old days. Spy and Sniper were more than happy to play the part if it meant keeping their reality a secret. If it meant continuing to be who they really were in these small hours of the night.
If it meant being…dare they say it…friends?
“Hm. Not bad. You’re improving,” Spy commented behind a subtle grin as he laced his fingers together.
“Oi. We said no lyin’.” Sniper smirked at him as he placed his opponent’s knight off to the side.
“I mean it. You’re not nearly as reckless or thoughtless as you were when we first started. Do your teammates ever wonder how you’ve become so much better at chess overnight? Literally?”
“Nah…I don’t really play with ‘em,” the Australian replied as he waited for Spy’s next move. “Heavy and Medic are the only ones who like it, and they’re way too good for me to stand a chance.”
“I don’t know about that…” Spy hummed as he brought his queen out to play.
Sniper winced as he made a move he instantly regretted. “Shit.” He could do nothing but watch as his rook was immediately taken by the new arrival.
“Hm. Perhaps I spoke too soon.” Spy chuckled victoriously as he captured Sniper’s piece and put it on his side of the table. “Honestly…for someone who sits perfectly still for eight hours a day, you can be such an impatient player, sometimes.”
“Heh. Guess I gotta make up for it somehow.” Sniper smirked, leaning his jaw on his fist as he thought about his next move.
“It’s your turn by the way. To ask a question,” he quickly clarified.
“Ah, yes.” Spy thought about it as Sniper moved his bishop.
“If this war was over tomorrow, what would you do and where would you go?”
Sniper gave an impressed whistle, the chair creaking as he leaned back. “Hell, that’s a good one.”
“I thought so.”
“Well…guess I’d go back to ‘Straya for a while. Check in on my parents. Not for too long though. Wouldn’t want ‘em to think I’m movin’ back in.” He gave a sparse chuckle before taking a sip from his dark brown, decaf beverage.
“And after that?” Spy inquired further.
Sniper’s mouth twitched in thought. “After that…I have no bloody idea. I’ve never really thought that far ahead. This job’s gone on for so long, it feels like I’ll always be ‘ere. But I reckon it can’t go on forever, right?”
“Indeed,” Spy said as he made his move.
“What about you?” Sniper asked while taking his opponent’s pawn, who gave no reaction to it whatsoever.
“Hmm…I’d return to Paris and see what kinds of jobs I could get by on for a few years. Then, I would like to take my earnings and buy a villa in the countryside. Somewhere I can retire in peace and quiet and drown myself in wine.”
“That sounds nice.” Sniper nodded contemplatively. “For you. For some, but not for me. Retirement? Nah. I’ll be working ‘till I’m dead.”
“Ah, yes…your abnormal resistance to any kind of holiday or relaxation.” Spy made a chuckle that was barely audible as he moved his queen a little closer to safety.
The other man smirked. “What d’you think I’m doin’ right now?”
Minutes ticked on. Sniper eventually lost that game when his king got trapped by Spy’s queen and knight. They started another one.
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked this…how old are you?” Spy asked as they started returning the pieces to their starting positions.
“I’ll be thirty in September.”
“Don’t lie to me, bushman.”
“It’s true. Swear on me mum.” Sniper held a palm up like he was swearing on the bible in a court room.
Spy shook his head as he returned his king and queen to their rightful spots. “I refuse to believe you’re ten years younger than me.”
“Well, there goes my next question. Guess I’ll have to think of another one.” Sniper gave a dry, raspy chuckle before taking another sip of coffee.
Spy still didn’t seem quite convinced, but decided to let it go while gesturing for his opponent to begin. “You first.”
Sniper moved his pawn out in a flash of confidence. He had a good feeling about this game.
“Hey, I’ve got one…which teammate do you hate the most?”
Spy laughed while moving his first piece, the question surprising him. “Hm…I’m not sure. They can all be irritating in their own ways.”
As Sniper reflected on it, he realized that he didn’t truly hate any of his own teammates. Sure, he got along better with some more than others, but hate is a strong word. The BLU Spy, however? He could definitely imagine him hating someone. For the longest time he was probably on that list.
“If I had to choose…probably Soldier,” Spy eventually replied while leaning back in his chair. “Loud, stupid and incredibly obnoxious. I still haven’t forgiven him for blowing my head off with a shotgun that one time.”
“The hell did he do that for?” Sniper blinked, his gaze flickering up from the board to meet Spy’s own.
The other man rolled his eyes with a groan. “He thought I was the enemy Spy…and was obviously mistaken.”
Sniper couldn’t help the giddy laugh that shot out of him. Was it really that funny? Or was the late night starting to make him slightly delirious?
“I’m glad you find it so amusing,” Spy said with a flat stare, although he couldn’t help the small grin that slid across his mouth upon seeing the other man’s reaction.
“I bet you didn’t.” Sniper gave one last fleeting chuckle as he adjusted his slouch hat. “Ah. It’s my turn, right?”
“Yes.”
The ceiling lamp flickered a couple times, and the room was silent again as the chess pieces slowly worked their way across the black and white squares. Sniper hissed with excitement when he managed to take Spy’s queen away. He had this in the bag. If this was the last game of the night, it would feel so good to walk away as the victor. At least until next time when Spy inevitably kicked his ass again.
“Sniper?”
“Hm?”
“Are you attracted to men?”
It couldn’t have been a worse time to take a sip of his drink. Sniper almost spat coffee all over the chess board, and violently coughed for a small eternity before finally regaining both his breath and composure. When he did, he found himself oddly hesitant to answer the question, but not for the reason the other man might have suspected.
“Jesus Christ, mate…you tryin’ to kill me?” he gasped out, still fighting to breathe normally again as he placed his mug back down.
Spy was trying to hide his laughter and doing a very poor job of it. “Apologies…are you going to make it? Should I go find your Medic?”
“Piss off.” Sniper scoffed a laugh, sorely tempted to throw one of Spy’s captured pieces right at his smug, masked face.
“Uh…who’s turn it is?”
“Yours.”
Spy allowed a bit of silence as Sniper moved his next piece, but he wasn’t about to drop the question so easily.
“…So?”
“So, what?”
“Are you?”
“Oh, uh…” the Australian shook his head, blue eyes scanning up and down the board. “Nah.”
After that, Sniper could practically feel the other man’s eyes on his skin, searching and probing for the lie he thought was clearly there.
“I’m not!” he insisted, his voice peaking a bit louder than intended as he gave an innocent shrug. Sniper watched to see what Spy would do or say next, and the other man gave a look that so obviously conveyed he wasn’t convinced as he moved his knight.
“If you say so…”
“I ain’t lyin’…” The words came out in a growl as Sniper moved his queen, trying to play a bit more offensively.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re thinkin’ it clear as day.”
“Alright, fine. You’re attracted to women, and women only. Can we pick up the pace, please?” Spy asked, clearly dissatisfied with how fast the game was moving.
Sniper could have left it alone. He could have refused to say another word about the topic and the conversation would have quickly and inevitably gone in a different direction. It would have been easy. It would have been safe.
But just like the chess game, he didn’t feel like playing it safe right now.
“No, actually…”
“No, what? You want to play like snails until the sun comes up?” Spy frowned at him with a breathy laugh.
Sniper’s own laugh popped out, equally breathy but a lot more nervous. “No, I-I mean…about…the other thing,” he said, eyes flicking absolutely everywhere other than his opponent’s face.
“Oh…” Spy looked like he understood for the briefest of moments, until stark confusion washed over his features. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Sniper blew his lungs out with a full sigh, now abandoning the game to fidget with the queen he stole from Spy. “I don't think I'm into anyone, mate. Men, women, whoever…none of the above. All these feelings and urges people talk about, I've never really experienced that. Maybe I never will." He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. "Maybe I'm just not the type of bloke to be in a relationship."
If Spy was true to his word, none of what was said here would be repeated outside the attic walls. But Sniper suddenly realized that none of the rules they created could stop the BLU mercenary from judging him all he wanted.
Shit, had he made a mistake? Not even his parents knew his most buried secret. And yet here he was confiding in his supposed enemy of all people. Maybe he was getting delirious after all, and that’s the only way he would have allowed something so deeply personal to slip past his mouth.
“Hm…” Spy vocalized as he glanced at a corner of the ceiling, his expression lodged somewhere between surprised and curious. “I didn’t know that was something a person could experience…or…not experience, I suppose,” he added with a small chuckle which immediately put Sniper’s ruminating mind at ease.
“Heh. Me neither,” he offered while returning his attention to the board. “Guess I’m an anomaly.” Now that his brain wasn’t racing a million miles a minute, he felt like he could actually concentrate again.
“I’m sure you’re not the only one,” Spy commented as he made his move. “There’s three billion people in the world, after all.”
Was he actually trying to comfort him? It made Sniper feel a certain kind of way that defied words. All the ones he knew, at least.
“Yeah, well…I’ve yet to meet anyone else like that,” he replied, unable to mask his disappointment in that fact as he took his turn.
“To be fair, you do keep to yourself quite a bit. You’re not exactly a social butterfly,” Spy was quick to point out with a sly smirk.
“Yeah. Too right. I’m more of an anti-social moth.”
The joke earned a genuine chuckle from Spy’s lips, and when it faded the attic was silent again, although Sniper couldn’t deny how much lighter he felt.
“Your turn to ask,” Spy quietly reminded him after about a minute.
“Oh. Right.” Sniper wracked his brain, but embarrassingly, he couldn’t think of another question besides the one that Spy had already asked him.
“Uh…what about you? Are you, uh…if you don’t mind me—”
“I’m attracted to both,” Spy interrupted; smooth, confident and without missing a beat. Sniper wished he could have sounded half that assured about his own sexuality, or lack thereof.
“Both, huh?” He nodded slowly while watching Spy capture his pawn with a grimace. Suddenly the game didn’t seem to be looking so good for him. Had Spy asked him such a personal question to try and throw him off guard and ruin his performance?
“Yes. Although if I’m honest…I find myself gravitating more towards men. But I enjoy women, too. I’ll take whoever wants to share a bed with me.” Spy shot Sniper what almost seemed like a flirty wink which would have been absurd given what he just shared. Likely just teasing.
“Heh…” he smirked and didn’t really know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all while moving his next piece.
Things were quiet again until Spy piped up. “So…with your…lack of interest, shall we say…” he began, and the slow, careful manner in which his words fell out of his mouth prompted Sniper to stare. Where the hell was this going?
Spy then began to chuckle like HE was the nervous one, and it was such a boyish display that Sniper couldn’t help but smile back in amusement.
“Does that mean that you…you’ve never…” Spy cleared his throat while adjusting his tie. “Had intimate relations?” he finished with a grin that was trying so hard to be polite.
“Oh, god…” Sniper’s burning face plummeted into his hands. “You’re doin’ this on purpose, aren’t you? Bloody weasel…tryin’ to make me lose like that.” Muffled words came out under a veil of more nervous laughter.
Spy started laughing. “No, bushman. I would never stoop to such methods. In fact, I’m rather insulted that you even suggested it. However, I admit I may have gone too far. You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to,” he finished, his expression turning surprisingly sympathetic.
Sniper leaned back in his chair while sliding his hands down his face which he knew must have been about as red as his uniform right about now. “It…it’s fine…it’s just, uh…” he gave one more awkward chuckle before glancing at his coffee mug. He had totally forgotten about his drink which was definitely cold now.
“I just never thought we’d ever be talkin’ about this.” He paused to finish the rest of his cold coffee. It was surprisingly tolerable.
“But yeah, it…took me a while to figure myself out. Dated a few people after high school. Nothin’ ever worked out, obviously…but I’m not a virgin if that’s what ya mean,” Sniper explained, feeling a shade of warmth briefly pass over his face again.
“I see,” Spy said plainly as he made his turn. Sniper wasn’t sure what he expected, but his opponent was being surprisingly respectful about all this. Casual, even.
“Aren’t you wondering about me?” Spy asked with a deep smirk, tilting his head in some hollow attempt to appear charmingly innocent.
Sniper gave a loud snort, failing to suppress a laugh as he looked away. “Nope. That one’s easy…just like you, mate.”
The pair erupted into a bout of laughter at matching volumes. Spy couldn’t even pick up his next piece until regaining his composure, a fact that Sniper felt rather proud of.
“Ah…not bad, Mundy. Not bad.” The BLU mercenary gave one last fleeting chuckle as he straightened up again and moved his rook.
Afterwards, it seemed they had mutually and silently reached the conclusion of that being more than enough questions for one night. As time marched on, and the number of pieces on the board decreased considerably, Sniper was starting to feel himself fade with fatigue. At some point he couldn’t stop yawning, and while he knew the smart thing to do would be to quit while he was ahead, he really wanted to finish this game tonight.
“Checkmate,” Spy uttered with delight, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Wait…what?” Sniper gasped, his gaze rolling across the board over and over to try and understand what happened.
“Boden’s mate,” his opponent began to explain as he pointed at the pieces. “See my bishops? They’re blocking your king’s way out via intersecting diagonals. And with your knight there…he can’t go anywhere else. I win.”
Sniper wanted so badly for him to be wrong, and it would have been funny if he was. But as he continued to stare at the board, he couldn’t deny the truth of what he was looking at. He had completely forgotten about Spy’s other bishop, and paid the price for it.
“Shit…” he whispered, dropping his weight into the back of the chair with a defeated sigh. “I really thought I had that one.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was a good game, as always,” Spy said plainly as he leaned back, stamping his cigarette out in the ashtray. Sometimes, Sniper would have preferred it if he mocked him and threw the loss in his face. The mature and dignified way in which he accepted the win was always somehow more infuriating.
“Yeah…well…alright then.” Sniper forced himself to give a casual shrug even though he didn’t feel like it. Really, at the end of the day, it was just a game. And even if he had lost both of them tonight, he still saw the progress in himself that Spy was referring to.
For the last time this night, the pair began to silently return their pieces to their designated spots. Sniper frowned at his rather unfortunate king as he put him back in his home, sighing like a disappointed parent at the inanimate object.
“Better luck next time, mate.”
Spy gave a mild chuckle at that as he stood up from his chair, the legs scraping against the wood. As he made sure not to leave his cigarette case behind, Sniper fetched his empty coffee mug.
“Same time next week, then?” The Aussie asked with a roll of his shoulders. Night owl as he was, the bed in his camper sounded pretty inviting right about now.
“Of course.”
It seemed there was nothing else to say as the two made for the door, feeling the collective weight of the night and its exhaustive effects. Spy made it to the handle first, and pulled the door open with a creak before politely gesturing for Sniper to head out first.
“Thanks.” Sniper was just about to do so, until a gentle grasp suddenly took hold of his arm and prompted him to stop.
“One moment.”
“Eh?”
As he stared down at the slightly shorter man, a tender piece of silence floated in the air between them under the lamp’s warm glow. Spy’s look softened; his gaze drawn to one side of Sniper’s face with a look the other couldn’t decipher. Was it curiosity? Reminiscing? Fondness?
Somehow, it seemed like all three, and yet there was something else caught in his gaze altogether.
“I remember when I gave you this,” Spy finally said, briefly gesturing to the scar on his opponent’s cheek. The scar from his very own butterfly knife.
“Oh…yeah,” Sniper nodded casually as he briefly ran a finger over the mark. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”
Spy purred a chuckle. “Indeed. You’re not still mad about it, I hope?”
Sniper echoed it and gave his head a small shake. “Nah. We’re good.”
Silence consumed the air again, and Sniper began to wonder if Spy had one more question for him. The other man’s face was hard to read, as it often was, but tonight he was proving to be a particular enigma.
He then did something that Sniper couldn’t possibly have predicted. Spy lifted a gloved hand and moved to touch his face with it.
On instinct, the RED merc flinched and recoiled, but not too far. “What’re you…”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Spy insisted, his tone uncharacteristically sincere as he brought his face a little closer to Sniper’s own.
“No…I think you’re gonna do somethin’ even worse.” His chuckle came out a lot more nervous than he intended. Sniper was then made aware of his pounding heart, beating against a rib cage that felt far too fragile.
As Sniper allowed that hand to gently clasp around the side of his face, he hoped to everything that Spy wasn’t about to try and kiss him. Surely, he didn’t think of him in that way? Especially now that he knew the other man wasn’t even an option.
Then again, no one really gets a choice in the matter, do they?
“Dans une autre vie, peut-être aurais-tu pu être à moi.” Spy’s native language rolled off his tongue like a song while he gave a slow, bittersweet smile.
Sniper frowned in confusion. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Good.”
Sure enough, after holding his stare for what felt like a small eternity, Spy removed his hand and took a slow step back as though Sniper had verbally told him to do so. He tried not to dwell on the minuscule part of him that almost wanted something to happen.
As the BLU merc slid past him through the doorway, Sniper stood there for a moment longer; feeling oddly paralyzed. As his gaze shot to the floor, he reached up to slowly trace where Spy’s hand had been only moments ago, trying to erase the cold patch left behind when he took his fingers away.
Sniper dropped his hand, chuckling low at himself. With a creak on each step, he then followed the other man down the stairs where they would go their separate ways.