scenes from a crime

===

With a shit-eating grin, Blue rasps, "C'mon, pet. You can go harder than that."

Mad thing to say when Sniper has the man pinned to the ground with a grip so crushing it's leaving welts over Blue's wrists. There are bite marks all over Blue's neck and chest, bruises in more places than he can count, and blood on both their cracked lips.

"Harder than this and I'm gonna have to call you sick in the head," Sniper growls, loosening his grip just to not give what Blue wants.

Blue doesn't strike him as conniving or particularly clever. They're both straight forward people, wearing their motives figuratively and then quite literally on their sleeve.

"Maybe," Blue says.

Sniper's brow raises at the vague answer. Blue doesn't strike him as a shy guy either, and rolling his hips up against Sniper's weight ain't a shy thing to do. Sniper lifts himself so Blue can't get any more friction.

"I got no time for games, you mongrel," he says, watching as Blue gives up trying to grind himself up. "Spit it out so I can give ya what you want, yeah?"

They're on a timer, squeezing out the last hour of daylight before Sniper has to sneak back for supper with the boys and pretend he ain't fooling around with the enemy, squarely in the middle of both their bases, under the god damn bridge.

Blue's teeth flash, limbs straining.

"Why're you so afraid of roughing me up?" he taunts, "Ain't no different from having a scuffle during work."

"Plenty different, mate," Sniper fires back, but his grip over Blue's hip tightens, nails digging in. It doesn't have the intended effect.

"Yeah, just like that," Blue mumbles, that slower drawl of his turning low enough that Sniper can't be blamed for leaning in to hear it better. He slaps the back of Sniper's hand before pushing his palm over it to encourage the painful hold, red marks already bright against his skin. "Want it hard enough that I'll see you on me later." He laughs, pushing up to bite the underside of Sniper's jaw. "…Just like work."

Just like work then.

---------------------------------

The next day, Sniper catches Blue flat-footed trying to cross his own base under the awnings. Sniper sights him down with his rifle, savoring the jolt Blue gives when he sees the red laser dot flit towards him.

There's nothing better than a beautiful clear sightline on the enemy. Easiest shot Sniper will make today. Even Blue seems preemptively pissed off, teeth flashing for a quick second before he turns his head like he's expecting the shot to come clean.

Sniper puts the crosshairs on Blue's forehead, and Blue taps the brim of his hat in acknowledgment.

Then the bastard grins and hikes his shirt up, stretching to the side to expose his bruised hip where the red marks from the evening before have turned deep splotchy purple overnight.

The red dot flits over it, quick. Distracted. Shocked and bloody damn aggrieved.

The shot goes off, splintering the crate next to Blue. Perfect miss for a perfect sightline.

+++++

This is the first time Sniper has caught Spy wanking off alone without the motive of wanting to be found. He walks into their shared safehouse, setting his pack down, and hears quiet moaning from the bedroom. Sniper tilts his head, making sure he's heard right, and finds himself more puzzled and skeptical than intrigued. It sounds like Spy. And just Spy, hopefully. Sniper doesn't think Spy would bring someone else into the RED safehouse and neither does he think Spy could possibly be with another teammate.

Therefore, if Sniper is going to continue assuming things, those are the sounds of someone definitely jerking off without expecting company. Because Spy, when he wants to be caught, is loud and shameless, as if leaving seductive hints and a trail of insinuating breadcrumbs isn't enough to get his offer across. There's usually a throaty embellishment to his moans that are very much pornographic and, to be frank, performative in a way that amuses Sniper just as much as it turns him on.

Hell, Sniper had never given the serious thought of Spy needing to masturbate like any other ordinary bloke, on account of the bastard being charming and sleazy enough to easily tempt any poor bastard off the street if he wanted to get off.

Poor bastard like Sniper, on occasion. But that's beside the point.

This time, the grunts are subdued, the panting more natural, like when they're fucking on a schedule with no time to be complicated or dramatic. Sniper approaches the door, footsteps silent. He's still skeptical, especially when the door is ajar. It feels like a trap, and Sniper mentally braces himself for Spy to start laughing at him the moment he peers inside.

Rather than being posed on the bed in some lewd manner, Spy is hunched on the ground, fingering himself with one hand and jerking off with the other. He doesn't see Sniper at all, head bent to the edge of the mattress, grinding his forehead into the duvet in what Sniper can only assume is frustrated horniness.

It's so typical that Spy would rather not get the bed dirty, though the lack of a towel on the ground suggests that… it'd been a spur of the moment decision. Along with the door not being all the way shut, it's like Spy couldn't wait to have a private moment. Only his trousers and jacket are off, thrown over the bed. The rest of his clothes are rumpled, his gun holster dangling loosely off one shoulder.

"Please, please," Spy mutters, voice cracking as he hits some spot that makes him gasp, "Sniper, please-ah..fuck, more—" and the rest of his babbling dissolves into soft murmurs in French, pleading and cursing.

Heat floods to Sniper's face. He's heard Spy beg before, beg for him, but it always seems deliberate with the goal of working Sniper up into a horny frenzy. Spy isn't the type to be needy like this, low and growling, fumbling his words inelegantly without that conniving spark in his eye.

Sniper stares. The movements of Spy's hands are slow. Indulgent. Gentle. Whatever Spy's imagination wants, it's the fantasy of Sniper being languid and patient even if he's begging. Captivating enough, but Sniper averts his gaze to the floor, almost feeling like he should bolt to the exit when this ought to be any faggot's wet dream to have a man on the floor, begging for his cock.

But... it's begging in a sincere, private way that makes Sniper think he really shouldn't have seen this. Spy has teased and flirted, and has had meaningless sex with him so many times that Sniper can tell the difference when Spy wants to play, wants to be performing for an audience, and when he doesn't—and what that says about Sniper's feelings on the matter really isn't something he wants to get into.

Fuck. And he's got an erection now because it's still bloody sexy and also terrible and wildly unnerving, and so Sniper taps the door as politely as he can because it's too late to turn back now and he'd be an idiot to just leave.

Spy whirls around. As best as he can on his knees, anyway. One hand clenches into the bedsheet as his shoulders draw up. His other hand, the one around his cock, almost goes for his gun, clumsily missing where the holster should have been, now dangling around his elbow.

Sniper also feels like a different kind of idiot for not turning away. Spy seems too shocked and mortified to say anything.

Sniper doesn't blink. He raises an eyebrow.

"Don't wanna be presumptuous, but… you thinking 'bout me?" he asks, nudging the door a little wider so that he can lean against the doorframe.

There. A truce. Leave the question open to be treated like a casual joke. They both know he could have very well rubbed it in Spy's face, be so smug and insufferable that he'll never catch Spy desperately wanking off to him again.

Spy sits back, panting slightly. He shuts his eyes for a moment, wiping away a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his bare hand.

"Very irritating that I like to these days," Spy mutters, though he is blushing practically through his mask. Chest flushed, still erect, to which he purses his lips while glancing down at it in disappointment then back up at Sniper. "…You're here early."

About two days early. Hence Spy's decision to have a little session for himself. But Sniper is still stuck on Spy's sideways confession, matter-of-course and utterly wry; I like to these days.

Sniper's ears ring, blood rushing and pumping madly to his head, chest, cock, just about bloody everywhere, but he shrugs. "Contract cancelled. Asset couldn't front the cash so I walked."

"That's a shame," Spy says, getting slowly to his feet.

Spy's legs are shaky, knees carpet-burned, dress shirt disheveled. He finally gives up having his gun holster on him, letting it slip from his arm to the floor.

"Well. I'm hoping maybe not," Sniper says, stepping in the room when Spy beckons him closer.

Spy looks him in the eye, unflinching. He doesn't do his over-the-top sex-crazed voice, doesn't moan deliriously for Sniper.

He simply leans into Sniper and says, "Please fuck me. You already heard me begging."

And Sniper doesn't have it in him to keep Spy begging, which is a real problem. He's got all the patience in the world for shooting folks through the head but when it comes to letting Spy whine and become frantically desperate, Sniper can't do it for too long.

He caves, immediately, and barrels Spy into the bed.

Spy lets out a laugh, watching Sniper fumble with his belt.

"You need to work on this," he says, taking pity, and helps Sniper take off the rest of his clothes.

----------

On the first real non-awkward morning they have together, Sniper wakes up to Blue's polite ruckus, clinking the kettle over the campfire and scuffing his boot against the pebbly ground. It's chilly. The first rays of sunlight are hitting against opening of Sniper's tent. It's barely dawn. Checking his watch for the actual time might make him depressed. Figures. Sniper sits up from his roll and peers blearily out his swag set up.

Rubbing the gunk from his eyes, he squints at Blue by the fire and grumbles, "Look at you with the coffee going already. Didn't peg you for an early riser."

Blue hitches his sunnies up to give him a long look in return. The weak horizon light hits the rim of his lens just right to show his tinted frown.

“Wasn't always a morning person,” says Blue, glancing to the side. “Started after I was stationed here.”

He jerks his head in the general direction of both their bases, some far off distance away where they can still see the smokestacks but no one can see them.

Thus far, Badlands has been the bane of Sniper’s entire RED career. He used to be a relatively early bird, just like Blue, until he was assigned a fucking base facing east where the morning guaranteed the sun in his eyes and a glare in his lens. Most of the REDs struggled in one way or another with the position of the sun during the first half of the day, and it's no fault of Blue's that he gladly takes every advantage of it.

“Haha. Fuck. Mr Sun-In-My-Eyes, you are,” Sniper says, still crouched and huddled in his tent. Unless there's a blessed cloud blocking the way, he’s usually forced concede the morning hours. He can hold his own fair enough shooting the other BLUs but Blue knows the trick of hiding in bright sunlight and cover his muzzle flashes.

Kind of like now. Staring at Blue against the early horizon reminds him of how the rays reflect off the cool-toned rooftops of the BLU base and into his scope. Smetimes, when Sniper tries to look for Blue before a match and clear his sightlines, he thinks he can see flashes of another laser flitting over the grounds. He'll focus on a spot with chilly glares of light beams mixing with the sun, and it's blinding.

There are only so many sniping spots to have when chasing after the right angles of sun. From morning to noon, Blue knows them all—in the same way that Sniper will have the sunlight on his side from noon to dusk.

With muted exasperation, Sniper realizes that he has set up his tent facing east anyway. It's habit now to try to look at Blue in the morning and expect the sun in his eyes.

Good, Sniper thinks. It should be hard to look at him.

He shouldn't be allowed to look too long anyway, through the scope or his own eyes.

A shadow falls over him as Blue's slim figure blocks the morning light. Sniper blinks, eyes adjusting, but he pats his pockets for his own pair of sunnies.

“Bugger off,” says Blue, offering out his hand while Sniper puts on the shades. “You're always a fuckin' pain in the arse at sunset. Who builds a base facing west?”

“Shoulda been south to north,” Sniper agrees with a wry laugh, noticing how Blue had set up his tent opposite of Sniper's—west facing. Habit again.