Cyan's Note: Your Secret Santa has also submitted a drawing to go with their story. Please see the Secret Santa Art Gift thread. Author's Note: i am so sorry to whoever requested this, omfg, i feel REALLY bad because it's 99% not what you wanted, 0.9% embarrassment on my behalf and 0.1% stuff that you were probably looking for thanks to joly for encouraging me to write this and laughing when she read it. thanks to legs for some really great and hilarious ideas, i hope i did them justice. also thanks to liz for being understanding and agreeing to throw me into the sun once i finished note: corn chips are actually flammable. sniper is a Survivor and knows how to do Survival Things which include setting chips on fire. i am sorry note x2 combo: sniper's anecdote is a reference to http://youtu.be/pvFzyvCLG90 (0:38), and spy's is a reference to my life ----------------------------------------- Potato Chips, Chipped Cups and Chips Off The Old Block * (* And Other Chip Puns) It's already been twenty minutes since BLU Sniper got stuck in his nest. Picture the scene: wintertime in Dustbowl. Frighteningly cold - a surprising change, considering the blistering heat that is Dustbowl in summer. Lots of snow. BLU and RED are fighting. Picture that the two teams are still waging war over the first point, despite there being only four minutes to go. Sniper's in his little nest, ground-level, beside the side entrance to BLU's temporary base. He's got his sights on RED Soldier, but the soldier knows he's there. Picture Soldier sending a few rockets Sniper's way. Sniper ducks, uselessly: the rockets go way overhead, to the top of the cliff the nest is hugging. There is, if it hadn't been made clear enough, a lot of snow. The cliff is covered with snow. Also picture the cliff being covered in, under the snow, a lot of large, loose boulders. Picture these rockets upsetting the aforementioned snow and boulders. Picture the sniper nest then being buried in a small-scale avalanche, courtesy of RED. (BLU's a little flattered and a lot flustered. It's a magnificent gift.) If it weren't for the boulders, Sniper'd be out by now. The boulders are piled up at both entrances to the small building. They're not massive but they're certainly too big to push away, especially if you remember to picture the lots and lots of snow packed all around them. All he'd managed was a small opening at the top of one door, enough for light to get through. Sniper had tried calling for help when the round ended - the nest is right next to the side entrance, someone had to notice - but it was futile. He'd be stuck in here until someone noticed he wasn't around, it seemed. Sniper had, more or less, resigned to his fate. Nothing much happens for those long twenty minutes. After Sniper gave up trying to dig his way out, he sat down and took detailed interest in a wall. He's used to not doing much, so boredom isn't a big issue. Nevertheless, he hopes someone notices soon. Surely his team will be confused when they don't see him skulk into the mess in the middle of dinner and then skulk off with his hands full of food, like he always does. He pretends to forget that it's only 5 PM and dinner starts at 7. His evaluation of the wall is rudely interrupted by a crinkling noise, alarmingly close. Sniper almost jumps out of his skin, instinctively snatching at his kukri and snapping up to his feet, swinging around to see the cause of the noise. It's - and he gapes a little bit - a packet of chips. A packet of chips just appeared, and also happened to crinkle at him. Okay... "You bloody spook," Sniper says, sweeping his eyes around the room. The nest's a small place: Sniper could very easily stick his arm out and swing it around and he'd find the spy, if he wanted to. (He doesn't want to.) He backs into a corner, kukri at the ready. "You were here that whole time?" He hears the uncloak and the hair on the back of his neck's standing on end. Sniper has to go against his every instinct to keep still: he's not used to hesitating when a spy's around. RED Spy's now sitting by the packet of chips, casually leaning against the wall. He looks completely unconcerned by Sniper's kukri and, instead of commenting, opens the packet and takes out a chip. "Oui," Spy says. He offers the packet to sniper. Sniper's on edge, fingers tight around the kukri's handle. "What are you doing here?" Raising an eyebrow eloquently, Spy retracts his offer of chips and pops the one in his mouth. He has to chew before answering, which ruins the moment. "I was going to stab you," Spy said, at last. "But you had a razorback, so I thought to wait." He takes out another chip and offers that - at Sniper's stormy look, he shrugs and eats it. "Then the foolish Soldier blocked off the exits. I thought your team was going to save you, so I would wait more. It... ah, didn't happen?" Sniper ignores Spy's questioning tone. "So you decided to eat chips," he says flatly. "Oui," Spy says, unmoved. "I always have a pack on hand. They are delicious. Please put down your crude weapon, I am not going to bite unless you are another chip, in disguise. We're off-duty." Yes, they were, Sniper realised. Killing - as well as any weapon usage - outside of battle was against The Rules. Sniper hesitates a long moment but eventually leans down and puts the kukri on the ground, very deliberately. "If one of us is going to break The Rules," Sniper says, "it's not going to be me." "Oh, please." Spy snorts a laugh. "My team will not think to look here for me. Yours will look here for you. If you die, you respawn back in your base. You're safe and warm; I'm still here. S'il vous plaît, I hope you will forgive my desire to get out of this situation without dying for any reason." It makes sense, but Sniper'll never feel completely comfortable trusting a spy. "Fine," he says. "I'll - rubbish, I never thought I'd say this. When they come, I'll make sure they don't do anything to you, you two-faced mongrel. As long as you don't do anything to me or them." "I wouldn't dream of it, mate," Spy says, and then he eats another chip. That's the end of the conversation. As the day draws on the temperature goes down. Sniper remembers being told that igloos work because the air inside makes it into an insulator and keeps everything cosy and warm. He doesn't know why the same idea doesn't apply here: maybe snow doesn't completely cover the nest, or it doesn't apply to snow that hasn't been packed tight like an igloo's. It's getting really cold. Sniper doesn't know much about snow, but he knows more than a few survival techniques. It's around ten minutes later when Sniper says, "Here, give me that," and takes the pack of chips from Spy. "I can't believe you bring a packet of chips around, you're a bloody spook. Crinkly packets aren't something you should-- You know what, never mind. Where's your lighter?" Sniper takes that, too. "What are you doing, you filthy jar man?" Spy says as Sniper pours the chips onto the floor. "Excusez-moi, those are for consumption--" "They're good kindling," Sniper interrupts. "Chips are flammable and they'll keep on cindering for a while. We need some heat." Spy fails to keep his displeasure off his face. "Monsieur, we do not need to waste chips. This is normal wintertime in France; not all of us lived in the fiery wasteland that is Australia. I would rather be eating those." He firmly stays in his spot instead of moving closer to the fire. "Suit yourself," Sniper says. They stop talking again. Sniper still has Spy's lighter but he took too long and the time's passed: he can't give it back without awkwardly starting a new conversation. They sit there in silence for many long minutes, Spy now huddled up and Sniper with his hands to the little fire. Sniper keeps his eyes on the fire for as long as he can but, eventually, he can't help it. Sniper looks up at Spy. Spy's shivering. "Turncoat, get your Frenchie ass over here." Sniper shifts closer and reaches out to grab Spy, to pull him towards the fire. Spy doesn't expect it. He flinches and there's a flash as his butterfly knife comes out. Sniper reacts just as quickly, snatching his hand back and grabbing for his kukri, but Spy's realised what he's done. "Ah-- no--" Spy drops the knife and holds out his empty hands in front of him. "S'il vous plaît. Please." Sniper stops short of the kukri's handle and sighs through his teeth. "Okay, yeah, mate" he says. "I've got me instincts, you've got yours. No worries." He pulls back and moves to his original seat by the flaming chips. "Now come over here. I'm not going to believe if you say you're not bloody freezing because I can see you are, Spooky, don't think I can't." Spy says, "There is nothing I want to be more than close to you and your smell of piss," but he comes closer anyway, scooting up next to Sniper. "Did you use them all? Really? That was going to last a few days more. Honestly, you could have at least left some to eat." "Well," Sniper says, "we could also not be in this situation. It's a bit too late to complain, ain't it?" Spy looks like he's going to reply but he's interrupted by a shiver. He peels off his gloves and tucks them into a pocket before putting his hands to the fire. Seems he's decided otherwise on a witty retort. Seems he's also still cold. Sniper's about to pull off his vest before thinking that's a bloody awful idea: vests aren't known for their warmth. "Spook, come closer-- here, I'll come closer," and Sniper slings an arm around Spy's shoulder, sharing what warmth he has. Spy tenses up in surprise. "This is highly unprofessional conduct," he says. "And you're a bloody awful spy, you know that? One time I saw you run up to Demoman whilst in disguise, completely fail to backstab him and then get shot down by Engie's sentry. We have better things to talk about. Right, mate? I'm just trying to keep us both warm because--" "That was also gross and unprofessional conduct, both on my part for not being flawless and on your part for being a bushman who pisses in jars--" "--Shut the bloody hell up, Spook, I never asked you. Keeping us warm because, if I'm honest, this fire is helping only if helping is defined by not helping, which it isn't, otherwise why would it be called helping--" "--Oui, and you wasted all of my chips to make this fire, non? Once I watched Scout run up to you and smack you a few times with his bat. You didn't even lower your rifle--" "--I," Sniper says, "am going to gut you. Whether it will be like a Cornish game hen is to be determined. Spook, once this is over it will be over, so just deal with it while we have to." Spy doesn't reply, so Sniper's got the last word this time. He keeps his arm around Spy and silence prevails when Spy leans on him. They stay like that awhile, warmed by each other's body heat, before Spy shifts away again and coughs. "I feel sufficiently warm," Spy says. "I'm going to try and make a bigger hole in the snow." He shrugs off Sniper's arm, takes his coffee cup (old, chipped and battered; on it reads "No.4 Son": a birthday gift from Sniper's parents) and gets up to shuffle over to one of the doors. Spy starts scooping out the snow with the cup. Sniper wants to say that he's already tried, but Spy probably watched him for the entire time that he did and that's creepy enough without it being confirmed, so he doesn't. He sits there and rubs his arms for the heat and thinks it's weird that Spy's warm when Sniper's not. Spy meets the boulders in the snow but is undeterred, digging into a gap between them. He makes a hole to the outside. It's nowhere near big enough for any of their needs. All he'd be able to fit through it is a jar. That gives Sniper an idea. "Hey, Spook," Sniper says, grabbing some Jarate, "move over." Spy does so, crinkling his nose at the jar as Sniper comes to him. He unscrews the jar's lid and sticks it through the new hole, pouring it out outside. "What," Spy says, disgusted, "is that supposed to accomplish?" "If someone comes past, they'll see it and think something's shonky," Sniper says. He doesn't miss that Spy's shivering again. "Damn it, Spook, you bloody liar, you're still freezing." Sniper screws the jar closed again, puts it aside and pulls Spy back to where they were sitting by the useless fire. "We need to keep each other warm. I'm not just doing this for you - I'm freezing my ass off, too." Sniper pulls Spy into an awkward side-embrace and they both have to shift a bit to get comfortable. It's a while, again, before anything else happens: these long periods of inactivity are going to keep happening, Sniper thinks. It's disrupted this time by some sound coming from outside. "Are those footsteps?" Spy says, a tad hopefully. "Mate, if there's one sound I can recognise, it's footsteps," Sniper says, "and those are some wicked steps of the foot." Sniper's the one to break apart from Spy. He goes to the door with Spy's hole and calls out, to whoever's out there: "Mate! We're in here--" Spy looks around for something and finds it as Sniper's rifle. He grabs the weapon and, upon seeing the two together, Sniper begins to protest. Spy waves him away and sticks the rifle's muzzle out the window. "I will shoot out. To get their attention, non?" Spy's clumsy with the large weapon and he fumbles as he pulls the trigger. He was pointing it up to the sky, so as not to accidentally hurt whoever was out there, but as he shoots he angles it wrong. There is a resounding oof from outside. Then there's silence, both outside and in. More snow tumbles off the nest's roof, covering the holes. "Well," Spy says, after a pause, as they sit in the dark - the chips don't give up much light. "That sounded like Medic's oof," Sniper says, dryly. Spy carefully removes the snowy rifle from the hole and places it on the floor. "I have doomed us," he says, "forever. Our inevitable death will be soon. It will be just and deserving." Sniper can't bring himself to be mad. The cold's drained out all the heat of his anger, too. It's been a long day. He resorts to resuming their cuddling. It's not much longer before there's more scuffling coming from outside. It sounds like multiple sets of feet. Someone outside says, "Private, our colour is not red! Explain yourself." The same someone then says, "Wait, that's blood." "Soldier!" Sniper says. "It's Soldier. My team came out. Long live the queen, we're saved." He gets up and shouts to the men outside - banging on the walls, too. Spy soon joins him. It causes a reaction that would be, if described in numbers, a big, fat zero. No one notices. "How can they not hear us? We can hear them." Spy has stopped his attempt to get the team's attention. Sniper stops, too. "I'll be stuffed," Sniper says. "Piece of piss." All they can do is listen. This is what they hear: BLU Heavy: "Someone kill Medic out of fight? I will crush their eety-beety skull." BLU Soldier: "Yes! The perpetrators must be punished. This is against The Rules! I think I know who did it." BLU Scout: "RED, obviously. Man, I can't believe they broke The Rules! I'm going to town with my girlfriend, if town is their heads and my girlfriend is my bat. The fricking rats." BLU Soldier: "No, we don't know that yet. There are no footsteps! Interesting. I know what happened that led up to the scene of this crime. We must replicate it to make sure!" BLU Engineer: "Gosh darn it - is that pee?" BLU Spy: "How, exactly, are you going to replicate what happened, Soldier?" BLU Soldier: "We need a pee-- a person! To act as Medic in our re-enactment." BLU Pyro: "Mmph mm mmmf mmff." BLU Soldier: "I will not! Medic would kill me! We should--" RED Demoman: "[drunken singing]" BLU Soldier: "I have found a willing volunteer! Give me a moment, you fine Americans." [a moment is given] BLU Soldier: "This is Medic. We can do our re-enactment now." BLU Heavy: "Is looking forward to crushing baby skulls. Da, show." BLU Soldier: "The re-enactment is taking place... now! No more out of character speech, this is important. Medic has just been annoyed by Scout, because Scout has kidnapped one of his doves--" BLU Scout: "What? I didn't do it--" BLU Soldier: "--Medic looked near and Medic looked far! He couldn't find the dove. He met up with Heavy, who asked what was happening, so Medic explained. Heavy said, 'Scout let dove outside'--" BLU Heavy: "Did no such thing, baby Soldier--" BLU Soldier: "--So Medic went out to find the dove--" RED Demoman: "I'm the grass man, punk, yeah, you having heathen--" BLU Soldier: "--That is what he said. He was singing very loudly and stomping, because he was annoyed, so he didn't notice a massive robot made by RED come up to him--" BLU Spy: "There are no other footsteps. You acknowledged there were no other footsteps--" BLU Soldier: "--He saw the flying robot and peed himself in fear--" BLU Engineer: "Ah, partner, he's nowhere near it, and he doesn't seem to have wet himself--" BLU Soldier: "--and then the robot laughed and punched Medic's head off!" [loud clang, as if from Soldier's shovel] [noise of RED Demoman collapsing] [noise of no one believing this re-enactment] BLU Soldier: "We need to storm RED's base! This is a terrible crime." Sniper looks at Spy and says, "I thought they'd save us. I don't know why I thought that." Spy presses his fingers to his temples. "I cannot blame you," he says, "because the RED Soldier is just as much of a simpleton. So are, unfortunately, the rest of my teammates." Spy sighs and turns, feeling his way back to the little fire. As if on queue, there's the sound of RED Soldier's shout and there's more stomps outside as RED team arrives - they heard the talking and they especially heard the shovel. The two teams begin arguing about killing during their downtime. There is no fighting, because that is against The Rules. No one bothers to check if RED's Demo is even still alive. BLU Demo is nowhere to be seen - probably drunk, but safely in BLU base. Sniper blows into his hands, wishing he were in the base or at least awkwardly cuddling with Spy again. The arguing outside is likely to go on forever, considering the participants. They'll never be saved. Spy says, "What is this? Is this-- Gunpowder, non?" Looking over, Sniper sees Spy holding a small jar. "Yeah, mate. I forgot I had that lying around." He slumps back over to the fire. It's a wonder that it's still burning. "Give me my lighter," Spy says. Sniper'd forgotten that he still had it. He passed it over. "Move away, this will explode," Spy says. He proceeds to give Sniper no time to move away. It exploded. Outside: BLU Soldier: "Did you just fire a weapon?" RED Soldier: "They just shot at us! Charge!" The arguing turns into fighting. No one has anything other than the occasional melee weapon. Sniper and Spy look at each other and then Spy puts his face in his hands. "Doomed," he says again. "We are doomed to be surrounded by idiots and also to die." The fighting outside consists mostly of shoving members of the other team and screaming. BLU Soldier is clanging away with his shovel and it's one particularly loud clang that's Sniper and Spy's saving grace. BLU Soldier whacks RED Heavy with the shovel, sending him reeling back. He smacks straight into the snow blocking one of the nest's doorways and the boulder pile collapses. The two are free and neither team ever registered that either was gone. They don't say anything to each other: they scramble out of the nest, completely relieved and somewhat, for once, happy about their teams being filled with morons. Sniper says: "Stop fighting, you lot of wankers! No worries here, it's all good, Medic's got to have respawned already and Demoman's probably not dead. Thank God you saved me from spending more time with the bloody spook--" Spy says: "Cease this nonsense. I have everything under control. Medic died from a completely natural cause, otherwise called a bullet: no one was killed here. Thank you, Heavy, too - I didn't need to spend one more minute surrounded by a man and his piss collection--" They both stop talking. The rest of their teams stop talking. Everyone's looking at Spy and Sniper. "You didn't eat dinner," says BLU Soldier. He sounds hurt. "You always come in in the middle of dinner and get some food. I waited at the dinner table for you. I waited for an hour, after everyone left. You didn't get dinner. I waited for you." "Yes," Sniper says, "I don't know why that wasn't the reaction that I was expecting for my disappearance." BLU Soldier has a deep frown. "You disappeared?" "Oh," Sniper says. "Yes, that sounds about right." RED Soldier's still bristling, so Spy touches him on the shoulder. "There is no problem. We should go now." Spy then looks back to Sniper and, though he doesn't smile, his features at least soften. "You are filthy," Spy says, "and you piss in jars. Here." He takes Sniper's hand and presses his lighter into it. "You can have this." "I see why they call you a ladykiller," Sniper says, but Spy's already turned away to herd his team back to their base. He comes back after the rest of RED's gone and he picks their demoman up, throwing him over a shoulder. "Happy holidays," Spy says, repositioning Demoman on his shoulder. "Enjoy your Smissmas." Then he's off. Sniper frowns after him and then looks to his own team. "Well, we'd better get inside. I'd kill for a cup of hot coffee and a warm shower." "Of course you would. You're a fucking assassin, chucklenuts," Scout says, grinning at him. "You," Sniper says, "I'd kill for a night without you. That was a shitty joke. You should feel ashamed." Scout just laughs and follows the rest of the team back into the base. Sniper's the last one standing outside. He looks back to RED base, then the lighter, and he closes his hand. He smiles. It's already been twenty minutes since BLU Sniper got out of his nest. ----- Prompt: Sniper/Spy, warming each other up in the cold weather, adult and/or adorable.