#tf2 fics

Sniper’s distracted. She feels like it’s catching her more off-guard than it should; she’s not used to the feeling, but her bottle of Guinness is vanishing faster than it should and she can’t seem to keep her mind straight enough to figure out what exactly she’s doing at the company Smissmas party she, on any other occasion, would’ve left an hour ago.

She’s not a partygoer. She’s long known this about herself; she’s the type to show up for an hour, get lightly buzzed and destroy everyone in the room at darts, and then leave before her face gets punched any more than it has to. But she’s still here.

And the real problem is that she can’t take her eyes off of Miss Pauling. It’s that bloody dress—that and a steady helping of alcohol are doing a lot of fucking work to dismantle thirty-something years of focus-building and professionalism. It’s a dark purple velvet that clings to her, rippling fabric outlining every inch of her figure. Dark tights and a bun that’s a little looser than usual and the same scuffed kitten-heels she hasn’t taken off in two years.

Maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t get to see her all done-up very often. No disrespect, of course, Sniper’s a busy woman too who doesn’t do half as much work as Miss Pauling and she understands how hard it is to find the energy to put it all on, but… you know. Makes it special.

Sniper is, unfortunately, realizing the implications of some less-than-professional thoughts over the past few weeks.

And she’s so caught up in realizing implications, it takes her a little too long to realize that dress is coming right for her—way too long to make it believable when she turns away, coughs into her hand. (She crosses her legs real quick, just in case).

“Heyyy… Snipes.” She’s got a cocktail in her hand, one of the fancy-looking ones Spy possesses a talent for, and she sure bloody sounds like that’s not her first one. “Y’know, fight’s over, you don’t have to hide in the corner anymore. Heh.”

Miss Pauling one-hundred percent, bonafide, caught her staring like a teenage boy at the beach. For the sake of sanity she tries not to think about why Miss Pauling might suddenly want a lot to do with her after that. “Not a fan of parties,” is all she can think to mumble, lamely. Like a fucking professional. “Was probably gonna… finish this,” she gestures with the beer bottle in her hand, “and go.”

There’s a loud set of shouts across the room that drowns out whatever Miss Pauling was gonna say next. Something makes an obscenely loud smashing sound. Sniper doesn’t look over.

Miss Pauling snaps her head towards the sound, barks a laugh, and then tries again, leaning in conspiratorially: “If you leave, who’s gonna keep me company?”

Sniper can feel her mouth dry up over the course of the next three seconds. “Um… oh. Yeah, er… alright.”

“Is it okay if I hide in the corner with you?”

“... ‘Course,” she finally manages the breath to say, though it’s a bit of a fight. “No problems here.”

She smiles, pulls over a chair from the empty poker table, and plunks down next to her. Christ, there’s this perfect outline of her belly button and the place where her stomach kind of dips and curves in the dress and—anyway.

“You look nice,” she says, and then she turns her head and pretends to cough into her arm again just for the sake of it.

“I never get to dress up, so… y’know… figured I might as well. Smissmas and everything.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Funny story, actually, couple weeks ago I had to, like, poison this business executive’s wife—long story, ransom stuff, had to spend three hours cutting letters out of a magazine—you know how it is.” Sniper nods to this. “But she was exactly my size, and I’m not that good at shopping for clothes especially since it’s Smissmas and there’d be traffic and everything—”

“And you needed the dress more than she did.”

“Right, yeah, ‘cause when I found her body she was, like, super dead. But I feel like I cleaned off all the puke and everything pretty well, right?”

“Looks brand-new.” This is a fairly heavy exaggeration, but that’s alright. She runs her fingers through her hair and wonders if maybe she should’ve taken a shower before, or… something… but it’s probably fine. “Feel like I shoulda dressed up too.”

“I think you look good like this.” A brave hand pinches at her vest, knuckles grazing her tits. She wheezes. “You wouldn't fit in a fancy dress, anyway. It’d be like putting a tiara on a pitbull. No offense.”

She thinks Sniper looks good like this. “I know my strengths.”

Miss Pauling laughs, turns away for a bit to sip with her drink, fidgeting with her glass. She’s not… nervous, is she?

Sniper turns away too. Politely. But she only gets a couple seconds to sit before there’s a yank on her shirt sleeve, and of course she turns back. “Have you tried one of these yet?”

“Wot, Spy’s fancy cocktails?”

“Oh my god, it looks so dumb when he makes it,” she giggles, “but it’s so good, I swear.”

“... Not much of a sweet tooth.”

“Try it. Just try a little.”

“Um…” Well, the glass is already going straight for her face, and what the hell. “Alright, fine, you win.”

Miss Pauling brings it to Sniper’s mouth, pushes down her bottom lip with the rim and lingers there. Her eyeliner’s uneven—really uneven, actually, looks like she put it on in the dark on the way over. Sniper doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it until now… but you’d notice anything when you’re this close.

It’s just not bloody professional.

She tips it. Sniper sips. It tastes fruity, and waxy where Pauling’s lipstick stains the glass. Too sweet for Sniper, but that’s fine, not exactly the point, is it.

“It’s so good, right?”

And the moment before Sniper gets to respond to that the stem suddenly slips from Miss Pauling’s fingers; Sniper tries to catch it but all that does is turn it so that every ounce of liquid transfers from the basin directly onto her shirt, and then the whole thing shatters pathetically on the ground. “Bloody hell.”

“Oh—shit—sorry!” Miss Pauling claps two hands over her mouth as the entire room pauses to turn and look at them (of course, why wouldn’t they), and then she quickly lurches to her feet, looking just short of mortified. “Um—I’ll go find napkins, or… or something—”

Christ, it even smells way too sweet. “It’s fine.”

“No, just—gimme a sec and I’ll—”

“It’s a three minute walk to my van, I’ll change, it’s fine.” Dammit, they were having a moment. Maybe that’s why Miss Pauling looks so upset, or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Who fucking knows. She’s a professional. “Don’t—”

“At least lemme walk you there.”

“Yeah sure,” is what comes out before it even has the time to pass through her brain, and she’s suddenly thankful everyone’s attention has turned back to whatever the blokes are doing on the other side of the room. “I mean… if you want to. But really don’t worry about it, this—”

“It’s fine. I want to.”

If that doesn’t make her heart skip a beat. 

“Let’s, uh…” She looks around, then gestures to the back door by the kitchen, the one nobody ever takes because it doesn’t lead anywhere. “Go out there, though. I know my way around the cameras.”

“What, we need to hide our escape?”

“... You know how quick rumors start,” she says, blushing. “Don’t wanna… give anybody any ideas.”

“Right,” she says, like she believes it. She has a few ideas for why they’d be covering their tracks, but none of them have entered the conversation yet, and she won’t get her hopes up.

They end up waiting for the conversation in the rest of the room to get intense enough to avoid prying eyes, and then they slip out of the back door together onto the awkward sidewalk that runs behind the building. It’s cold outside, and bone-dry, and the landscape that stretches out in front of them is blue and purple from the light of the moon.

Great weather to huddle up together. Christ, Sniper doesn’t know when she got to be so much of a sook.

They take a strange, winding path through the dirt, around the building. Miss Pauling seems to know it intuitively—she has to wonder how often she skirts around the cameras here.

Miss Pauling’s shivering, and obviously trying to hide it. Sniper knows where good manners lie, so she takes off her nice patchy explorer jacket and tosses it around her shoulders before she has the time to argue.

Not so much good manners is the way she lets her hand linger on the back of her neck above the collar, under her hair—then dropping down to the square of her shoulders, then the dip in her back—the barest trace where the swell of her arse begins and then back to her own side, where her hand can rest politely and she can pretend nothing happened.

Of course it’s hard to ignore the way Miss Pauling only says “Thank you” once she’s through with the little gesture, like she’s saying that for more than the jacket. Bloody hell.

It’s a fairly quiet walk the rest of the way. Too cold to talk… maybe too nervous. All Sniper can think about on the way is the desert of laundry covering the floor of her van, cans and bottles and discarded TV dinners she never bothered to throw away. 

She’s not too used to having other people in her own space, not so keen on inviting people in normally, so it hasn’t mattered much before. She half-considers making Miss Pauling wait outside when they approach but she knows she won’t, she’s got manners—and she’s been thinking for a little while anyway about the kinds of things that closed doors invite, far away from prying eyes.

She feels like she’s not the only one with an ulterior motive, here.

She still turns back before she opens the door, mumbling apologetically: “It’s a bit of a mess in here. Sorry. Didn’t think I’d have company.”

Miss Pauling shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. Guarantee you I’ve seen worse.”

She’s just being nice, but good enough. Sniper swings open the door and steps in, and it sets in a little how much worse it all looks now that someone else’s eyes are on it.

Should’ve had her wait outside. Too late now. “Sorry. It’s bad.”

She just offers a sympathetic smile back that Sniper has to look away from, and follows: “Aw, it’s fine. Honestly, my room is so much worse. You’d be shocked.”

“I mean… you’re so busy,” she mumbles. “I dunno how you do it.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure either. But I’m figuring it out. That’s what I do, is figure things out. It could be worse! I’m not sure how, but it… definitely could.”

“Yeah, heh.” Great one. She loosely gestures to her bed, the only clear place to sit in the room, shrinking. “You can, er, sit down. Or stand… either way. We won’t be in here for long.”

She sits down. Fine enough. Sniper moves to the drawer beside her bed and picks a clean button-up out of it, nothing special. 

Miss Pauling doesn’t take her fucking eyes off her the whole time. Keeps staring as her hands move to unbutton her collar—Sniper pauses after that, nervously swaying, and that’s what seems to finally kick her back into reality—she puts a hand over her eyes, turning her head. “Oh, my god, sorry.”

“Er… it’s fine.” This comes out of Sniper’s mouth without her consent—what is she saying? “You can… I don’t care. Look if you want.”

Miss Pauling goes fucking scarlet at that, but here’s the important part, she takes her hands off her eyes and looks back at Sniper, hesitantly, but she does. Of her own free volition. Just because she wants to. For some reason.

… So be it. Perfectly normal. Two professionals in a room and one of them has three quarters of a fancy fruity cocktail on her shirt so she has to take it off and the other one is staring all hunched forward like she’s waiting for a show. Tale as old as time. Happens every day.

Sniper knows they’ve crossed into dangerous territory when she starts unbuttoning her shirt, watching Miss Pauling for her reaction. She’s not sure if she looks impressed, or turned on, or if that’s maybe a bit of horror on her face when she makes it far enough from her neck to expose some chest into her belly. Her whole upper body looks like a minefield, she’s accepted that by now. You could build a toddler out of her scar tissue. 

She finally pulls her shirt off, and she’d be insecure about the fact that she’d decided to go no-bra today if it didn’t look like Miss Pauling was thrilled to pieces with the state of things. And, you know, maybe she should’ve gotten a shirt to replace this one before she’d already taken the bloody thing off, but she knows why she didn’t.

Sniper knows exactly where Miss Pauling’s gaze rests when she says, “You’ve been through a lot.”

“Assassination’s… dangerous work,” she mumbles. Finding another shirt to put on is suddenly very far from her mind. “Been all over.”

“I guess it’s gotta be. Where do you even get scars that look like that?”

She knows she’s talking about the deep, gnarled line that crosses from her stomach downwards. The closest thing that’s ever actually come to killing her.

“… A bit anticlimactic, usually,” she says, sheepishly. “This big one, er… I ran into a barricade on my motorcycle. In…” Where was it, she was after a gold trader or something, had to put a pause on things for months and lost a shit ton of contract money… “Dubai.”

“Motorcycle?”

“I wasn’t a very good driver.”

Miss Pauling bursts out laughing at that one—wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a joke but, you know, she’ll take it. “Wait, c’mere.”

Of course Sniper comes over there. And she sits down next to Miss Pauling, suddenly feeling so sweaty despite the chill in the cabin, when she tugs at her wrist.

Miss Pauling looks her up and down—so close now, it’s dark in the cabin but blue moonlight streams through the blinds behind them and Sniper is shirtless sitting half an inch away from her boss and this is normal, it’s normal, friendly and professional.

She barely grazes a finger over the little bumps that cross Sniper’s collarbone, never breaking eye contact. “What are these from?”

“Nailgun,” Sniper says, instinctively, balling up her fists. “Mark fancied himself one of those, er, DIY home improvers. Caught me off guard.”

She smiles, and her hand moves a little lower to two tiny dots, right above her left tit. “Snake bite?”

“Quick stay in Brazil didn’t go my way, long story.”

“You’ll have to tell me sometime.”

Sniper jumps when she grazes across her nipple with an embarrassing little wheeze—Miss Pauling doesn’t even react, maybe she was expecting it, maybe she knows what she’s doing. She more firmly touches a long, jagged scar that crosses her side, curving into her back.

She doesn’t have to ask. “Croc. I was… 19.” For some reason, she’s talking through gritted teeth, and she can’t get herself to stop. “Too… too stupid to know when I saw a fight I wouldn’t win.”

“Mmm.”

She finally opens her eyes (doesn’t know how long they’ve been squinched shut), looking down, and she’s hard as fucking diamonds, bloody hell. It’s setting in at the edges of her mind, that great bloody dumbness as all the blood in her brain goes somewhere else. She should be embarrassed but she’s just hot, and her whole world’s shrinking down to that hand barely crossing her hips, tracing the lines of old injuries.

She can’t be the only one feeling like this. There’s something in the way Miss Pauling’s breath hitches when she follows a dark, gnarled line down to the border where Sniper’s pants start. The way her eyes wander.

Miss Pauling has got to know exactly what she’s doing when fingers finally breach her waistband. There’s a bit of surprise on her face, probably when she realizes that she’s not wearing anything under her cargo pants, but it settles quick enough into something like appreciation, excitement, lust, Sniper can’t think of the right word. But she stops where she is, barely hovering above Sniper’s cock—looks up, eyes wide, breathing so heavy Sniper feels it wisping across her arm. It’s a request. 

She’s all out of words—anything she tries to manage slides out on an incomprehensible stream of vowels, so instead she just thrills up into it, whining, and hopes that comes across well enough. And it absolutely seems to because all of a sudden there’s a hand wrapped around her shaft and she has to stifle an embarrassing groan, squinching her eyes shut tight.

Suddenly there’s another hand on her, roaming, greedily mashing at her tits and she’s being pushed back, back, back, against the corner of the nook, and she feels dizzy. She doesn’t know what to do, so she lets instinct take over and explores with her own hands anywhere she can reach; feeling down soft curves outlined in velvet, clutching at round thighs and the beautiful camber of her arse—whimpering as their faces mash together, devolving into desperate, starving kisses, and that hand on her cock is so much, so much.

She pulls Miss Pauling up onto her knees and rucks up that lovely skirt until it’s a band around her waist and then she slots her palm between her legs and squeezes, swallowing her moan, holding her up as her legs twitch apart, inviting more. She’s so fucking hard she can’t breathe. “Miss P.,” she manages. “Fuck.”

“Florence, for the love of god call me Florence,” just as breathless as she is. At some point she stopped touching her cock, she’s not sure when that happened, but she’s struggling with Sniper’s zipper and trying to pull down her tights with her other hand, still grinding into Sniper’s palm, gasping. Sniper lets herself be pushed against the corner, every centimeter of her space filled with her, blue wonder, and it’s intoxicating. 

She finally gives up on the zipper and focuses her attention on struggling to take off her own clothes, but Sniper grabs her wrist and stops her, as much as it hurts to slow down for a sec. “Don’t have a condom on me, love,” she wheezes.

“It’s fine, I’m on the pill,” desperately, “just pull out.”

“I’m not gonna take any chances.” She suddenly feels even more pathetic than usual, as Florence’s face sets in thought. “I’m sorry—”

She cuts off into a whimper when Florence wraps around her neck and kisses her again—moans a little deeper when she grinds her crotch against the tent in Sniper’s pants, panting.

Sniper’s hips cant up, as awkward as the angle is—Florence follows, humping her, moaning hopelessly into each other’s mouths. “Fuck,” Sniper says. “Keep doing that, fuck.”

“Marce, oh my god, Marce,” and Sniper’s not too sure where she got her name but that’s not the point right now, and the sound of it coming out of her mouth defies physics and finds a way to make her fucking harder. 

Every time they mash together they adjust a little, refine their angle, work it out. They settle into an awkward rhythm of thrusts soon enough, pushing together and pulling apart in tandem, grunting into each other’s shoulders, mattress squeaking with the effort. Sniper’s thighs are gonna be sore tomorrow.

She can feel it already—that upper limit being approached. Too fast, it’s been too fucking long since she shagged somebody and they’ve only been at it for a couple minutes. She barely twitches away but Florence’s arms tighten around her neck hard enough to choke her, so that’s not an option. When that doesn’t work she tries to think about something else—wind resistance, the spider in her sink, the way her gun clicks back together after she takes it apart. No dice, she can’t fucking focus—settles for just moaning: “I’m—fuck—I’m gonna—”

She doesn’t even make it through the sentence before that tension snaps and she whimpers uselessly into Florence’s neck, gasping as she swears she comes the hardest she has in her entire life, wadding right into her pants. It leaves her dumb for a long moment, eyes rolling up in her head as the aftershocks ripple through her.

It doesn’t take long for her to come down from it, though, mostly because Pauling’s still desperately humping against the softening mound in her pants, and the feeling of the rough fabric against her cock is so sharp and overwhelming she has to pull away. Well, shit. That’s embarrassing. “Fuck,” she winces through her teeth, “sorry, I’m sorry.”

Florence groans in frustration, something like tears forming in her eyes. “Marce, just a little longer, Marce, please.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Coming first, that’s just unprofessional. She can’t leave a bad impression the first time she finally worms her way into Miss Pauling’s pants.

She decides fast enough she’ll just have to make it up to her. “I have you, I have you,” she says, pushing her off and down and laying her across the bed, rubbing the soaking spot between her legs to keep her busy (these tights are ruined—maybe she could convince her to let her keep them), leaning over her and mashing their faces together as she teases her fingers under the line of her panties, slowly pulling them down her legs, exposing her to the air.

Watches her face as she gasps and whines, glasses askew, all that pretty makeup running down her face with sweat and tears. Fuck. “Beautiful, you’re so fucking gorgeous.”

“Fuck, fuck, Marce, please, Marce, please…”

She keeps careful track of every minute twitch in her expression as she presses a finger into her, nice and slow, thankful she thought to trim her nails this morning. She’s so bloody soft inside, quivering. Sniper can feel her brain dripping out of her ears. “That’s good, love, I have you.”

Florence is barely comprehensible anymore, balling the sheets in her fists, crying out as Sniper pushes in a second finger, scissoring them, stretching her out. It’s a good thing she parked far away—good thing they’re doing this in her van instead of a closet, or locked in a stall in the bathroom, like she used to imagine. 

She wonders if anyone but her’s ever seen Miss Pauling like this. Needy and desperate and keening. She’ll be honest, she loves the idea of being the only one.

Right now she’s all hers and she’d do a lot of bloody things to keep it that way.

“You wore this dress for me, didn’t you?” Sniper mumbles, low and gravelly, hunched over her and pressing in close to the shell of her ear, loving the way she thrills up into every touch. “Did your makeup all nice and pretty, was that for me too? Hoping I’d look at you and think about this?”

Adds another finger, sucking hickies into her neck—low enough they’ll be hidden under her collar, of course Sniper’s polite about it, but she knows she’ll know they’re there, she’ll feel them all day tomorrow. “Fuck, I—I love it when you—look at me,” Florence manages, breathless, eyebrows screwing together in concentration.

“I can’t take my eyes off you, love, you’re so bloody gorgeous.”

She finally starts massaging her clit with the pad of her thumb—Florence almost bends in half, clutching her vest, panting incomprehensibly into her neck.

“That’s good, you like that?” She leaves a cheeky little nip on the skin behind her ear, chuckling when she jumps in her arms, whimpering. “You know, you don’t need to play those games with me, just come down and ask anytime and I can give you this, ay? Premium service just for you, I know how much you could use a break.”

“Marce, oh, Marce…”

“You think too much, you ever need me to turn your brain off for you, love, just ask.” She speeds up, fucking her on her fingers—Sniper can feel her tightening around her knuckles, knows she’s getting so close, slows down just long enough to say: “You wanna come, love?”

“Please, please Marce, a little more, oh, Marce, Marce—!”

Sniper holds her still with an arm around that impeccable waist as she tips over the edge, rippling around her fingers and clawing at her back, desperately moaning her name into her neck and humping her hand through the orgasm, fucking perfect, all hers. The moment Florence has enough sense to properly manipulate her limbs again she grabs Sniper firmly by the face in order to shove her tongue as deep into her mouth as it goes, which catches her off guard, but certainly isn’t something she’s going to complain about.

She finally pulls her fingers out, dripping, and then Florence rolls her over with an unexpected amount of strength and collapses on top of her (still all tangled up in the tights ‘round her knees), pushing her down against the mattress as they make out, suck all the air out of each other’s lungs and moan into each other’s mouths. Sniper doesn’t know how much time passes, she’s a bit too distracted, but all the same it feels too soon when Florence finally pushes off of her and rolls onto her back, panting, pale skin perfectly framed in the moonlight under dark velvet. “Holy—oh my god, holy shit.”

And just like that, it’s over. Sniper pushes herself up against the side of the bunk, and she feels like she wipes a solid layer of sweat off of her forehead. “Yeah,” she wheezes. “Alright.”

“That was—good,” seems to take her a bit to land on the right word. “That was really good.”

Sniper makes a sound of affirmation with just enough effort to be heard, rolling off the bunk and beelining straight to the sink to wash Florence off of her hands before she does anything else. She’s feeling a bit insecure about herself all of a sudden; she hasn’t exactly done a great job with much of anything, tonight. And regret isn’t the right word—maybe fear, something a little less intense than fear, that they just did something they can’t undo.

She looks back and Florence is finally properly stripping off her tights and undies, and she can’t bring herself to stop looking. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”

“Mmm.” She’s not a talker. She takes the dishtowel off the handle of the oven and dries off her hands, then ambles back towards the bed—starts unzipping her pants—cringes when her fingers graze across the huge wet spot on the front, unpleasant in both sensation and memory. “Sorry about… earlier, it’s, er… been a minute.”

“What are you…” She trails off when Sniper turns to face her. “Oh.”

She’s not so sure why she suddenly feels insecure about undressing in front of her, after… well, after that. Something about how they might’ve gotten the order of operations a little mixed up, here.

“Don’t worry about it.” Lots of “don’t worry about it”s today. “You followed through, that’s all that matters. Could you unzip this for me?”

“Er—one sec.” She shimmies her pants down and slips on a pair of (mostly) clean shorts in one motion, then moves in front of the nook.

Florence turns around. She unzips the dress. “And, uh, the bra too.” It takes her an embarrassing moment to figure out the clasp, but she gets it fast enough. Florence pulls the dress off above her head, then the bra slides down her arms. Sniper politely averts her eyes like they didn’t just shag on her shitty two-inch mattress, and like she isn’t standing there half-naked herself.

Something, something, professionalism. She could use a cig.

“Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

“I think I left my change of clothes back at base.” Sniper looks back over at her and is a little struck with the surreality of the situation, her boss sitting arse-naked on her bed in a puddle of fancy clothes. “Could I, uh… borrow something?”

And well it would be perfectly easy for Sniper to just walk back to base and get it for her, but she gets the feeling Florence knows that too.

She picks out a white T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants with an elastic band—sniffs them just to make sure they belong in her clean pile, and then tosses them over to her, covering her mouth to hide a smile.

“Thanks.”

“Do you need anything else? I, er… food, or water, or… a smoke? Oh, I’ll put on some tea…”

“Tea sounds fucking great, thank you.”

She gets the cig into her mouth and hovering two inches from a lighter before realizing she should probably check she’s okay with it, shouldn’t she. Like a professional (christ, she should probably give that word a break). She says, dumbly, with it clutched between her back teeth: “Do you mind if I…”

She’s already dressed in Sniper’s clothes, laying on her side with her glasses hung from her neckline, watching Sniper intently. “Go ahead.”

Fuck. She opens the window above the kitchenette as she lights up and the cold air that blows in does nothing to sober her.

Sniper puts on a teapot. She feels like she’s thinking a lot but there’s so much on her plate it all just kind of muddles into a vague soup of dread, and she doesn’t know why. She’s an adult, they’re both adults. So what they crossed the line. So what she just fucked her boss. So what Miss Pauling is laying on her bed dressed up in her clothes waitin’ for a cuddle. So what?

“Er… Florence.” She leans against the counter, wondering when’s the right time to finally put on that shirt. “Can I still call you Florence?”

She shrugs. “‘Til I leave the van, sure.”

“I, uh.” Sniper probably should have come up with a plan before she opened her mouth. “I’m kind of… thinking…”

“This wasn’t anything, right?”

Oh, great, she feels the same way. “Nothing.”

“Just stress relief.”

“Between coworkers.”

“Between friends.” She rolls up onto her knees—fuck, you can see her nipples straight through the shirt. “Off the clock.”

“Right. No one’s business.”

“And since it’s no one’s business we’ll never tell anyone this happened, ever.”

“To my bloody grave.”

“Okay,” she says, folding her arms under her armpits. “Okay. Great. Glad we’re on the same page.”

The pot whistles. There’s only one mug in the cupboard—Sniper thinks about all the other ones soaking in the kitchen sink, brought in in the morning and left to rot. Fuck, she knew there was something she was supposed to bring back from base.

It’s fine. She’s not thirsty. She puts in a bag of lemon and ginger and leaves it to steep and… well, she’s not really sure what to do after that.

“Are you… sleeping in here?”

“If it’s okay with you—”

“Yeah,” she blurts. And it’s a good thing her brain kind of went ahead on her there, because that’s not a question she wants to consider. “Er, then do you want me on the couch, or…?”

“It’s cold in here, don’t you think?” Sniper must give her a blank look at that, since she follows: “We could huddle for warmth…”

“Oh.”

Her face splits into a grin and she bends over herself laughing, and Sniper remembers how not-sober she currently is. “Sorry, I’m being ridiculous. Just c’mere.”

Sniper’s not gonna turn down a request like that.

The mattress isn’t built to fit both of them, but maybe that’s sort of the point. Makes a great excuse to crowd right up against each other, tangling together.

Sniper has a vague thought about staying awake for the time being, savoring the surreality of the moment, but she falls asleep the second her head hits the pillow.

***

She wakes up alone. She really shouldn’t be surprised, but she’s a little hurt despite her best efforts.

When she sits up there’s a little pile of black fabric at the end of her bed, though. A cheeky little gift. It’s her tights and they’re every bit as ruined as Sniper figured they’d be. 

A mug full of stale lemon tea sits on the counter. Shit, she forgot about that—but when she picks it up to drain it there’s something underneath it, a torn-off piece of a drugstore receipt with a phone number scribbled on the corner. “Personal - Call me on a SECURE PHONE if you need me”, and a cheeky winky-face. 

And, well. Not many things that could be for.