Work Text:
The enemy sniper must have been looking for a fight from the start. Usually Bleu finds RED Sniper content to keep his distance and shoot from afar rather than engage directly with close quarters combat. However, today Sniper had whirled around the moment Bleu had fizzled behind him in his nest, and the way Sniper swung his fist immediately felt like he'd been waiting for this very exact moment.
A blow to the face is never pleasant but the force behind it seems excessive. Bleu's teeth clacks, rattling his skull, and he instinctively lowers his knife for an underbelly stab. Sniper's furious punch had been too wide, leaving his side open.
Bleu's knife point catches the thick vest fabric but the rest of the movement goes awry, forearm getting caught in Sniper's grip. Sniper punches him again, but more than that—he grabs Bleu's head in a crushing hold, knees him in the face once more, and throws Bleu into a pile of crates with a snarl.
Despite being stunned, Bleu's mind continues to scramble for some explanation for this overdone attack. Sniper hadn't even disarmed him when there was an opportunity to do so. They've killed each other for years. The violence isn't new, but there are levels to it—over time they've gotten quite methodical and impersonal about the entire thing. There is no need to do something so brutish as throwing him around.
Blood drips from Bleu's nose and mouth, front teeth loose but not quite broken. He braces one hand over the splintered wood, gathering himself. In his other hand, he clenches his knife.
Across from him, Sniper draws out his kukri. From the way his knuckles stand out white around the handle, Sniper seems to want a butchering.
Bleu manages to block the first kukri slash at the cost of the larger blade shaving through his sleeve and forearm. A calculated angle shifts the kukri against Sniper's brute strength, and disarming Sniper should have worked, but Bleu hadn't counted on Sniper simply not caring whether or not Bleu pushes his knife into Sniper's palm.
Both their blades clatter to the ground, and Bleu is about to make some clever quip about everything, but Sniper starts roaring with his arm dripping blood and wastes no time wrapping his hands around Bleu's throat, shaking him with no conscious effort to actually choke him to death—wring his neck while screaming into his face, perhaps, but even for an assassin as uncouth as Sniper, that seems a bit… rude, as odd as it may seem.
Bleu attempts to pry Sniper's grip off to no avail. He's likely concussed, too injured to fight well, and Sniper is certainly being no fun at all.
As they say: well, fuck.
Bleu kicks him, aiming for the groin, but Sniper shifts his grip and slams Bleu's head into the wall before shoving him to the ground.
Again, unnecessary. Gravity would have taken care of the rest. Bleu's wobbly legs buckle, but the wall is helpful for stubbornly sitting up.
“Goodness," he says through nasally wheezes. He glances up at Sniper with a chagrin smile. "Bad day? Someone pissed in your piss?”
Sniper kneels down, grabbing his kukri. He cuts Bleu’s vocal cords with a flick so he must truly not be in the mood to chat, not even for their usual exchange of taunts. Bleu grabs his own throat to staunch the flow of blood, offended.
Sniper stares at him, breathing hard, looking in complete disarray.
Bleu can only manage to gurgle a very affronted noise of disapproval but he tacks a questioning grunt at the end to the effect of, what the fuck?
The fury in Sniper's posture and eyes are still there, but Bleu's annoyed expression must have finally reached him. Sniper's drawn shoulders droop slightly. He grimaces.
"…Bloody hell. Sorry," Sniper mutters. He rolls his eyes up, glaring at the ceiling. "Okay, I know. I'm being a bit of a cunt. Not your fault."
Bleu rolls his eyes as well, pointing to his bleeding head.
"Slamming your head might've been excessive, yeah," Sniper admits.
Bleu holds up three fingers for emphasis.
"Three times? Don't recall the number, but that sounds about right," Sniper says absently.
Bleu knows that faraway, bothered look. He hasn't seen it in a while, but Sniper has a distinct wretched air about him when it comes to sighing over Bleu's miserable RED counterpart. He'd thought any lovelorn issues on that matter had been solved a long time ago, and any advantage Bleu had gathered on that front had since been exhausted to the point of boring redundancy.
A new development might actually be interesting, come to think of it.
Bleu squeezes his throat, making a rasping noise, and gives up. He signs for RED Spy.
For longer than what's polite to a forcibly mute person bleeding out, Sniper remains silent, mulling over his answer.
“...I'll have him make it up to you. Ask him for three cigs or something,” Sniper says eventually, making another small cut at Bleu’s thigh—the artery, “for when you come back and go for your smoko.”
The way Sniper says it is certainly mysterious and vague. Bleu blinks sluggishly. He doesn’t plan on running into his RED counterpart today, but the enemy sniper sure sounds like he’s implying that he should. Sniper doesn’t usually speak so indirectly, but perhaps Rouge has been influencing him.
With a grunt, Sniper eases back to his feet, leaving Bleu sitting on the ground.
“Gonna let you bleed out slow. We’re at a bit of a disadvantage today. You’ll probably know why soon enough. So take your time dying.” Sniper shrugs, gathering his weapons. He tips his hat as he steps out of the room. “Catch ya later, Bleu.”
It takes a moment to find Rouge, and it happens quite by accident at one of their old break spots. Bleu catches the whiff of a freshly lit cigarette, and poor Rouge must be badly distracted. He doesn't hear Bleu approach him, right until the moment Bleu reaches out to grab his forearm in greeting.
“Rouge,” Bleu says, watching his expression carefully, "I have not seen you in a while."
Afterwards, he goes back to Sniper immediately.
“Ah, heartbreak doesn’t look so well on you,” Bleu says cheerfully while he shoots both Sniper's kneecaps from behind.
Sniper goes down, about to catch himself with the wall, but Bleu kicks him around so that Sniper lands prone on his stomach.
“Oh, fuck you. We really gotta do this?” Sniper groans, trying to squirm away.
Planting one foot over Sniper's shoulders to keep him still, Bleu pulls down his collar to expose the length of Sniper's neck, balisong spinning as he counts the vertebrae, and inserts the point of his knife down the cervical column of Sniper's spine.
Sniper lets out an indignant strangled noise of protest. His arms suddenly go limp.
Kill a man often enough, and you start to memorize every vital and non-vital part of him. Also, bleeding out by throat and artery cut had been a very unpleasant and long way to go. Bleu is not above admitting to requiring some form of petty revenge.
Now that Sniper is harmlessly paralyzed from the neck down, Bleu drags him by the collar to the wall and props him up. He kneels down, wiping his dirty knife on Sniper's shirt.
“So what on earth have you done to Rouge?” he asks, tapping him with the handle.
Sniper scowls. “You're blaming me?”
“Of the two of you? I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you stumble more often than he does,” Bleu says, patting Sniper’s head with the flat of his blade. “How unlike Rouge to have cold feet.”
Sniper's jaw tightens. Bleu thinks he might not get an answer without some more encouragement, but Sniper exhales through gritted teeth.
“…That’s not him.” He pauses, and reluctantly amends, “He’s not all there.”
“I could see that. Care to elaborate? Before you bleed out, preferably.”
Sniper heaves another sigh and thumps the back of his head against the wall.
"Fine."
After what seems like an unbelievable story of melodramatics, Bleu flips his balisong shut and stands.
“A break up is a break up, no matter the person. Or time," he concludes. “I shall see if I can talk some sense into him.”
Sniper bristles. He still has enough blood in him to blush and the way his body trembles suggests that he is trying his best to lunge after Bleu. “You really don’t have to.”
“It will be a nice chat,” Bleu assures with much more glee than warranted.
Sniper groans. He really must be desperate to not argue too much. He shakes his head, the only part of his body that his able to move, but Bleu can imagine him reaching over to tug him back by the shoulder. “Just don’t… rough him up too much. Not more than the usual.”
Bleu clicks his tongue. “You are in no position to bargain. But I do hate to see you be so down. Makes you dull.”
“Right," Sniper says, rolling his eyes. He jerks his chin up. "Okay, wanker, I’ve fessed up. Can you finish the job so I can get back to work?”
Ridiculous request, especially after throwing Bleu around earlier.
“Oh, no," Bleu says, apologetic as he leaves Sniper behind with an even slower death. He's given him nothing fatal to die from. He waves. "RED will have to be without their sniper for some time.”