#s fics

Unhelpfully, he thought of a memory— one that must have been a million years, and a billion light years away.

“Hey, I'm here for a good time, not a long time," Jeremy said one day.

God, did Mick wish it was the former.

It was a good 9 years together— too long and too short— just them and the kids. Either Jeremy was the stupidest man alive or Mick was the luckiest man alive if he was forgiven after the stunt he pulled. Just… leaving like that. He had more than enough time to make up for it, though, after the reunion. Why didn't it feel like he did?

They had a wake, and a funeral for him, both set up by Mick, Spy, and Jeremy's family. Everyone showed up to both events, in black suits, all with varying degrees of grief. Tavish said his condolences, stone cold sober. Everyone else was mostly speechless. Even Soldier saluted solemnly.

Or maybe that was just what Jeremy was to him. A soldier. A mercenary, lost to battle.

He went back to their home after the service, tucked him and the kids all into one bed early, too exhausted for anything else.. In fact, he didn't do much of anything in the following days. Jeremy's ma (who revealed herself to be Donna not long after they met) and brothers handled the stuff that Mick figured should be in their possession, Spy (who has yet to reveal himself) handled the legality of it all, and everything else was taken care of before the funeral. Actually, Spy had a lot to do— forge documents, set a court date— all while the grief no doubt ate him inside out.

Mick mostly just took care of the home and the kids, made sure they ate well, kept the house clean. He wished he could help more than that, but it was far from his field of expertise. He wished he could help Spy with… the grief, all of this, but even that was something he didn't know how to do.

The team sent letters pretty often, maybe once or twice a month. Most of them just asked how he was doing, updated him on the happenings of their lives, all of that. He found out from those letters that Herbert had a second baboon child sometime in the past 9 years— from whom Mick did not want to know. Everyone else couldn't get normal jobs anymore, so they mostly spent their time either having nothing to do or finding something to do. He wanted to reply, truthfully, but every time he sat down and actually tried to write something, anything, he couldn't.

Speaking of the team, they all still tried to arrange the reunion tradition that Jeremy started that smissmas. But the spark was missing. Even if Ms. Pauling showed up that year, it still wasn't the same.

Home wasn't any different either. The usual cheer that filled the home all the day died down to… something he couldn't classify. All of them took it in different ways, but the common denominator seemed to be silence. He wished he could help them more, but it was always Jeremy that was better at this.

Always Jeremy.

After that day, everything in his life, in the lives of everyone who knew him, lost its fire. The reunions, the house, even the little things like breakfast. He had that sort of effect on everyone, a presence that made the entire room light up.

But at that moment, looking around the empty house, cleaned to the point of reflectiveness, the light was dim.

The light he'd maybe never see again.

He knew from even before they got together that Scout was the youngest of eight, and was very close to his ma, and adored his neighbors in Boston. That his dad left his family at a young age, and that because of that, he was much more sensitive to certain things he knew didn’t affect other people. And admittedly, Sniper may have forgotten that fact. Just… considered it, nodded his head, compartmentalized it somewhere in the back of his head, left it to simmer.

Until one day, out of nowhere, a bubble popped.

Sniper’s chores had been piling up, and he figured Scout could handle a day or two being alone, figured he could hang out with some other bloke. But apparently, everyone was busy on those particular days, and Scout was left alone with his thoughts, and Sniper made the stupid mistake of waving Scout off even after he speculated something was wrong. He wound up having a sort of breakdown in Sniper's van while he was doing maintenance on his rifle. 

Sniper panicked. He set down the gun, thought for the two seconds he had, and resorted to holding Scout through what he believed was the worst of it.

It was then he learned a few things about Scout in the clearly purposefully vague confessions that followed, choked out between hiccupped apologies. He let that sink in (for real that time), guided them both to sit at the little couch, and continued holding him even after the crying dissolved into sniffles.

And then he learned, from the way Scout melted into Sniper's arms, that Scout liked to be held.

When he found out about it, he started teasing Scout in a few ways. Little taps and boops here and there, and Sniper very much enjoyed the way he spluttered at it.

Then he took it a step further.

Sometimes, when they were alone, Sniper would plant lingering kisses to the tip of Scout's button nose, and Scout would shake his head, not unlike a dog soaked in water, and promptly flip Sniper off.

It was all in good fun, of course, just to be a bit annoying. But finding these little quirks were… interesting. If anything, it just made Scout look very much adorable (despite Scout's protests). They were endearing, to say the least.

And it was pretty funny.

Scout called his attention, and was a touch more jittery than normal. Sniper chalked it up to the runner just having an off-day, right up until battle started, and Scout kept spacing out, keot making clumsy mistakes. So it wasn't terribly surprising when he muttered he had something to say.

He asked with no small amount of stuttering if Sniper was free that weekend. The nervousness eased up a bit when he got confirmation, and went to ask if they could hang out then, if Sniper wanted, it was perfectly fine if—

Sniper agreed, quick to comfort, sensing some weird form of paranoia.

Scout stammered that it was really sappy, and he knew that wasn't the man's whole thing, but Sniper relented that he didn't care. Scout knew he meant it.

So they set a time— 5 pm that Saturday— then Scout whispered something Sniper couldn't make out before dashing away into the showers.

When the day came, Scout knocked on the camper about 5 minutes before the actual time, and his hand dropped from the door when it was opened. He gave Sniper a brief kiss before they both set off.

He was led far into the outskirts of the battlefield, passing some trees and a turn or three along the way, until finally they arrived, and Sniper's breath quickly took its leave. The place itself wasn't much— a little open patch of grass, surrounded by trees thrown in sharp relief by the dimming sunlight. But the area was filled with candles and baskets and a rose in a vase over a huge picnic blanket, and the autumn leaves setting in only helped.

He turned to Scout, who was practically as red as the picnic blanket, gaze fixed to the grass.

“How bloody long did it take you to set all this up?” Sniper asked, incredulous.

“Uh. Like, 5 days to get everything, then two to like, get the courage to actually ask you out here,” Scout admitted. Sniper hummed in reply, and looked back at the view. “So, we gonna…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry,” Sniper said, snapping out of his trance.

They sat themselves down, Scout having conveniently placed the candles only at the sides and center. He grabbed a basket and handed the other to Sniper, who took it curiously. He looked at the younger man, got a nod in reply, and opened it.

The food in the basket was mostly just sandwiches and stuff in tupperware, but it all still looked good, wasn't squished or crumpled or anything. Then he realized that the food didn't look like the food from the diners or stores in the towns nearby. In fact, he didn't recognize it at all.

He glanced up at Scout, and that nervousness was back with a vengeance, his hands fumbling with the sandwich’s wrapper.

“Hey, Scout,” Sniper called. Scout could've run a mile or three with how hard he flinched. “Where'd you get this?”

“I— I, uh, I made it,” Scout mumbled. “I, y'know, I know this is like, really sappy and shit, you don't gotta muddle through all this ‘cause'a me, we— we can go do somethin’ else, or—”

“Mate, really. I don't mind. Food is food,” Sniper shrugged.

Scout still looked hesitant, but continued unwrapping his sandwich nonetheless.

They ate in silence for a little while, Scout relaxing a little more every minute, and it wasn't until halfway through their food that a thought occurred to Sniper.

As he chewed his sandwich (which was surprisingly delicious), he took stock of the scenery again. At all the candles surrounding them, at the leaves falling to the grass, at the single rose in the middle of the blanket. He turned to Scout, the man who was nervous all up until this point. The man who “asked him out,” as he said. The man who was probably downplaying this whole “hangout”.

“Oi.”

Scout looked up, attention shifting to Sniper, head tilted slightly.

“Was this… s’pposed to be… a date?” the Sniper asked.

And all at once, Scout tensed up again.

He set his gaze somewhere off to the side, and mumbled a little “yeah,” and something like an apology before taking another bite. Sniper just chuckled and told him not to apologise. Scout did again anyway.

They spent the rest of the time eating and storytelling, particularly of a hunting trip Sniper went on as a kid (“You were FOURTEEN???” “My mum hated it too, mate”).

And as they were packing up and blowing out the candles, something else hit him. He… liked it. Maybe it was his time with Scout, or the job, but damn him, it was kind of nice. Not nice in the way that it was just good food and good company, either. Nice in the way that he really, truly enjoyed himself.

The sniper, on a date. With the scout. Enjoying himself.

Sniper never thought he'd see the day.

happy valentines.

A ceasefire was called for maintenance and Scout wanted to go out and do something. But they weren't allowed out of base, so Sniper suggested another place to spend their afternoon in. They sat under a tree, shading themselves from the 12 pm sun, and Scout promptly started talking about whatever came to mind.

Sniper didn't know when, but the usual topics of his brothers shifted to their surroundings. Sniper chimed in, Scout replied happily, and they faded into an animated conversation. Then that devolved into Sniper idly testing Scout's knowledge of flowers.

He was honestly surprised how much Scout knew about the subject.

He expected Scout to know maybe three or four of the flowers mentioned, but three or four was the amount he didn't know out of the fifteen or so Sniper brought up. He sure as hell didn't expect that Scout knew how to make a flower crown. Scout explained in a ramble that his Ma took up the hobby of gardening when they had the money upon seeing the confusion on Sniper's face.

But unexpected and unwelcome are two different adjectives.

It was little things like this that let a certain thought into the forefront of Sniper's mind. Just a concept, really. But the show of knowledge Sniper was treated to only left him curious about what else he didn't know about Scout.

He figured that it would be like the last couple of days since they started taking walks together, that they would fall into their usual rhythmic conversation. Figured that Scout would keep his usual cheerful persona, that he would just talk about another silly story of his brothers back in Boston.

But at that moment, Scout was just… silent.

Instead of whatever was fogging his mind, he lent his focus to the blue fading into orange and red, the clouds reflecting the world above. There was something so solemn in the way he just looked.

And the silence wasn’t unfamiliar to Sniper— it was just hard to come by those days. Especially from Scout. He didn’t know why.

Then, out of nowhere, Scout spoke.

“Y’know, I… I kinda missed this,” he said, so very quiet, gaze falling to the sand he was walking on.

“Er… walking?” Sniper tried, a little confused.

“Nah, the… yeah. No. Kinda. The— I, I don’t really know,” Scout shrugged, chuckling at nothing. “The whole… Spendin’ time with someone. The, someone, y’know, kinda just bein’ there for you.”

Sniper considered that. “Isn’t… You go to bars with Tavish, don’t you? Even before… us. And the, the poker nights with the team?”

“Well yeah, just… I meant this,” Scout explained, gesturing to both himself and Sniper. “This is different. I dunno.”

Sniper didn’t know how to respond to that, and just waited for Scout to elaborate. A second later, he did.

“...I dunno how to explain it. Just the… I just, I used to have something like this,” Scout blurted out, leaving Sniper reeling at the weird change in direction. “Like, the whole one-on-one thing. I used to, like…” He trailed off.

“Take your time,” Sniper said unhelpfully.

“It's different,” Scout repeated. “Like, with Demo and the others, it's like, it's just hanging out. Doing stuff together. But with us, it's…”

“It's actually… talking?” Sniper suggested.

“Yeah, that,” Scout agreed, lighting up. “I guess I just got used to it. Then I moved here, and... I never really got that close to anyone on the team, except for you. I guess you remind me of what I had back in Boston. But it's still different. Not a bad kinda different, it's just like… not the same, y'know?”

Sniper paused, and thought about it. He looked back at the sky, noted the sun dipping past the horizon, the red from earlier fading to a dark shade of blue.

Then his gaze moved to where Scout was staring at the ground, then up to his bandaged hand, the fingertips calloused and rough. He felt his own hand moving towards it, and after a beat of hesitation, the two intertwined.

“...Yeah, I reckon I do,” he said, because he sort of did.