On a Side Note_____________________________________ @9 shut up and stop inspiring me. Herk. @10 It's not a sequel but it's pretty jumpy. I half explained why Spy is living with Sniper but now that you've mentioned it I'll go into better detail at some point. HAVE A SHORT STORY. _______________{The Small and the Suffering}_________ It's December but no one can tell in the middle of the desert except for Sniper. He shields his eyes and looks to the east, the sun rising far later then it would normally. The nights are always cold, but it's not night time any more and he strips off his heavy Cold Front jacket off and tosses it lazily onto his lawn chair, stretching his long, aching limbs. "Anozzer day anozzer exorbitant amount of money." The BLU Spy says, tromping down on the fold out stairs from the camper van. Sniper glances back and smiles. "Another day another beautiful sunroise, mate." He says, looking back to the blinding glare of the sun pulling itself over the horizon, the sky an almost unnatural blaze of colours. "Were you up all night again?" Spy asks, coming up to Sniper's shoulder, picking up the lanky bushman's discarded jacket and wrapping it around himself. He pulls a smoke out from his borrowed jeans, lighting up and staring at the distance expectantly. Sniper shrugs. "It's alright on the days off." He puts his hand out and Spy sighs dramatically, putting the lit cigarette in his hand and digging out another one for himself. "What are you doing up this early?" "Plotting." Sniper looks over at him, tense. It melts away when he sees how haggard the man looks, how thrown about. He lifts his arm to put it around the other man's shoulders but scratches the back of his neck and Spy is never the wiser. Spy lets out a final huff and turns to go back into the van, falling and breaking his face on the metal steps. With a screech he's writhing, holding his face and rolling around. Sniper is on him at a second, or he tries to be, but he falls as well, another horrible screech grating his ears. He scrambles to his feet and grabs Spy. "You alroight!? Wot happened?" He shouts at the blood coming from between Spy's gloved fingers. "Didja break your nose?" There's another screech and Sniper's head swivels. There's a little...critter being kicked about by Spy's writhing legs. Sniper grabs it and tries to still Spy, who's pulling his gloves from his face and looking down at them, tears in his eyes, blood everywhere. He looks up at Sniper who's not looking at him at all. They both look at what Sniper has in his hands. It squeaks and chitters and screeches at them both, it's big fat head keeping it from rolling up properly. Sniper tosses it when it cuts his arm with sharp back toes and yells at it. It can't move, and Spy is pushing Sniper aside, grabbing the little creature. "YOU. YOU TRIPPED ME." He screams and it hurts his face. He shakes the little critter and it chatters at him in a terrified way, it's heart racing, it's little body quivering with it's quick breaths. Spy shakes it and yells and shoves it at Sniper. "WHAT EES THIS ANYWAYS. I WANT TO INSULT IT PROPERLY." He says, shaking the little thing by it's scruff. Sniper grabs it and holds it at his side with one arm, stabbing a finger at Spy with the other. "You need to take care of your nose is what you need! Get in the van!" He barks and Spy glares at Sniper then the critter and stomps into the van. Sniper follows, the critter forgotten in the crook of his elbow. Spy sits and Sniper berates him. "Get the fack up, you're gettin' blood all over my chairs!" He tosses the thingy away thoughtlessly and grabs Spy, sitting him on the tiny linoleum part of the camper van in front of the sink. Spy huffs and grimaces, shifting agitatedly. Sniper throws open a cupboard and grabs a medical kit he 'borrowed' from Medic and throws it. "WHY ARE YOU SO MAD." Spy shouts at him, swearing and throwing open the kit. "IT WAS NOT YOUR FACE THAT HAS BEEN SMASHED." "I AIN'T MAD!" Sniper barks back, slamming the cupboard door shut. He wasn't mad. He takes a moment to actually think about his feelings and looks down at Spy. "Ya need help?" "Of course I need help." Spy spits, unrolling a mile of bandages. Sniper feels his mouth move and wonders why the hell he was smiling. He crouches, his knees cracking loudly. Spy looks up, seething. His eyes lands on Sniper's smile and he seems surprised out of his anger. "What." Sniper shakes his head and takes the bandages, rolling them back up. He grabs Spy's head, his thumbs on either side of Spy's masked nose and looks him in the eye. "Does this hurt?" He asked, moving his thumbs against Spy's nose. The way Spy's eyes water and his yelped "Oui!" Tell him yes, Spy's nose is broken, and the second he cracks it back into place is very unpleasant for them both. Spy tries to keep his tears dammed up and Sniper doesn't look, busying himself with medical fixings. He dresses Spy's face as best he can through the mask and Spy eyes him carefully. "Merci." Spy says when Sniper is done and wiping his hands on his jeans. Sniper raises an eyebrow. "Mercy?" "Thank you, Sniper." Spy says with a roll of his eyes and a small smile. Sniper gives him a smile back and offers his hand. "Yeah, alroight. I don't speak nothin' but English, if that's alroight." "I don't care." Spy says with a shrug, taking Sniper's hand, the Australian hauling him to his feet. "Ah, I 'ave gotten blood all over your clothes." He says, looking down at the coat and jeans. Sniper's eyes brighten behind his sunglasses and he looks past Spy. "Don't care mate." He says as he shuffles past Spy and goes to the still creature laying on Sniper's unmade bed. "You said you daon know what this is?" He says, grabbing his kukri and holding his breath as he prodded the little creature with the tip. Spy looks over Sniper's shoulder with a nasty glare that softens after he sees the little thing laying so still. "Ees eet dead?" He whispers in Sniper's ear. Sniper flinches and gives Spy a hard look. "Ya moind gettin' away from me back, mate?" He says and Spy realizes and stands at Sniper's side, leaning over to inspect the little critter. "Eets so ugly..." It was mean but true. The little creature was about as big as a shoe box and had plating like a turtly like thing for all Spy could tell. But it had a big...Piggy like head. Spy's lip curled. "What a 'orrible thing." Sniper pokes it's bristly, hair covered piggy face with his knife, getting a bit closer. "It's still breathin'. You probably stunned it." He kept the 'Poor thing' to himself. "Looks like some sorta pig..." "You do not know what eet ees?" Spy sounds let down and Sniper gives him a 'just because I'm Australian and lived in the wilderness for a couples years doesn't mean I KNOW EVERY GODDAMN ONE OF THESE FUCKING CRITTERS, ALROIGHT? JEEZ. GO GET ME A BEER.' look. "All I can tell ya is what ya see with your own eyes." Sniper says with a final shrug. "Looks like it's hurt, anyways." He sheaths his knife and approaches the shaking, unconscious animal. Spy follows, hissing at Sniper. "Are you sure? Are you going to fix it? It could be waiting to bite your face off. Look at those teeth." Spy says, gesturing to the two, tiny under-bite canines poking out of the critter's mouth. Sniper pauses. "Think you're right. You do it." Sniper says, raising an eyebrow at Spy, who looked back at him and gave him a little mock laugh that Sniper really laughed at. Sniper test poked the creature's soft belly, noticing the dark hairfur on it's piggy face faded away to scaly reptile like skin with long, thin hairs poking out every so often. Gross. The creature chirped unhappily at the poke but didn't wake up or move. Sniper felt along the creature's belly, moving to it's legs and tail, running his hand over it's plated back and it's black furred ears. "Seems everything is in place...If this critter's got it's bits in all the regular places, that is." He says, looking at Spy who had been watching intently. "Ya moight have just knocked it around a little. It'll be alroight in a bit. Maybe a bit stupider..." "Will we have to keep it?" Spy asked, his affection growing for the hideous little abomination after Sniper's careful examination. "Don't have too. We'll see what it's loike when it gets up. If it's dumb enough to stay..." He shrugged and a little smile came to his mouth as he ran his hard, calloused hand over the coarse piggy head. A day or two passed. Sniper and Spy cared for the little piggy turtle as much as they could, keeping it wrapped in an old t-shirt of Sniper's, reading it bedtime stories and what not. It wasn't really animal care so much as an outlet for affection that both men secretly enjoyed. It didn't decide to wake up until the third day, though, and the moment it wrestled its way out of the blanket it dove back in, gunfire rocking the van on its wheels. It squealed and snorted, it's bristly hackles raised. It hid in the blanket for hours until the explosions stopped and two filthy, greasy, battleworn men stumbled into the van. "Shiit, mate..." Sniper sighed, kicking off his boots and shucking his everything above the waist. "It's a bleedin' furnace out there." He cracke dhis back and rubbed at the middle of his back. "Can ya stab me somewhere else next toime? Any where else, really, would be a relief. Got kinks ya wouldn't believe." "Monsuier Headshot wants me to stab somewhere else?" The BLU Spy said, pulling off his sweat soaked suit, tossing aside everything into a heap until he was left in his boxers. He threw himself on the couch, spreading out to try and cool off. Sniper flicked on a metal fan and sat down beside him, sighing as the humid air was blown back at them with their own stench. "Beer?" Sniper asked without moving to sit up. Spy nodded, licking his lips. "You do not even 'ave to ask." Sniper heaved himself off of the couch and dug around in his tiny fridge for his Victorian Bitter, tossing a can to Spy. He heard a shuffling and glanced over his shoulder at his bed. His eyebrows furrowed midsip as his blankets shifted on his bed. He set his beer down and stalked towards the sheets. With a holding of the breath he threw back the covers and squealed with a very unmanly delight. "Spoih!" He called. Spy groaned. "What. What do you want." "Come lookat this." "I do not want to look at anything." "I think ya do, mate." "You don't know what I want." "Pretty sure you're gonna wanna see this." "Sh, I'm drinking your terrible beer." "It's really cute, mate." "I don't care if it's six foot four with breasts bigger then your tires. I do not care." "Didn't know you were into tall girls." "I told you you don't know what I want." Sniper plopped the piggy turtle in Spy's lap. Spy's first instinct was to punch it in it's under bite teeth. Sniper saved it from it's second concussion just in time. "What the fuck!" "You startled me!" "SO YOU TRY TO PUNCH IT?" "EET 'AS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY." "Let's name it Jesus." "Jesus is a terrible name for whatever this is." Spy and Sniper stared at the piggy turtle. It was sucking up water as fast as it could without drowning in it on the fold out kitchen table, the skinny men sitting on the couches on either side of it. "It raised from the dead after s'ree days, though." "It wasn't dead, you kicked it unconscious." "What about 'Erbert." "Herbert?" "Oui, yes." "Can't name it Herbert. That's a terrible name for anything." Both men sighed simultaneously. Their little piggy turtle thing squeaked and scrambled away from the water to the food, devouring anything in it's path with gusto. "Name it Hippo." Sniper finally said. "It's not a hippo. Maybe if a hippo and an alligator boot had too much to drink." "I know it's not a hippo. But let's name it Hippo." "We may as well name it some'sing like 'dog' or 'cat' then." Spy explained, watching it eat. A little smile started on his mouth and Sniper smiled too. "Sir Joseph Jeffery Jofferson." Spy burst out laughing. Ugly little Sir Joseph Jeffery Jofferson was twice as fat as he was three weeks ago, and happy as a pig headed, armadillo plated clam. He was busy snuffling through Sniper's growing pile of dirty clothes, shared by both men after battle. The sirens had long since ended, but the men were still outside. Sir Joe's ears perked every time he heard one of his friend's voices, hollering about who or what was 'it'. Sir Joe didn't really understand 'it'. He wished they would let him out to play 'it' too, though. He got bored with the smell of gunpowder and spilled hooch and sniffed and snorted his way to the door, chittering at the crack of it, pawing at it with his cloven fore-hooves. The door wouldn't budge. How did his friends get in and out so easily? Sir Joe gave up with a frustrated grunt and buried himself in the laundry out of spite. Sniper and Spy burst into the van, slapping and shoving each other playfully. Sniper shoved the Spy and got himself off balanced and tumbled on to his face, a squeal and a wet 'squelch' ringing in his ears. THE END.