May I make a request? How about Sniper trying to tell Spy ‘I love you’ in French and absolutely fumbling the pronunciation? Thank you!
Of course you may, dear Anonymous person :) I might have diveged a bit from your prompt but I hope the floofiness will make up for it :) Thanks for your request!
"I'll never manage…" Sniper let the piece of paper he was holding fall on his lap before rubbing his eyes.
He sighed and took the piece of paper back.
"C'mon, how hard can it be…? 'Je', that's 'je', that means I. And then 't'aime', that's 'love you' but for some odd reason they put the 'you' before the 'love'.... So for them it's 'I you love'..."
Those were the last words scribbled on it, by his own hand.
'Je t'aime'
The French for 'I love you'.
"And God only knows how they pronounce it… Where's that bloody dictionary…?"
Sniper let his hands roam on his bed and his fingers soon bumped on a big book. He moved the duvet that was in the way and grabbed it.
"Do they say somewhere how you read the letters…?"
He flipped the pages quickly.
"Hm… That's the alphabet, nah, then that's - ah! Bugger, it's in phonetic alphabet, of course! I can't read these weird letters, ugh…"
He dropped the book to his lap.
"Well then, I'll do it as I think it is, and I hope it won't be too far from what it should sound like. Right, what time is it?" He glanced at his watch. "Gosh, I'm gonna be late!"
Sniper jumped out of his bed and put on his boots. He put his dictionary along with a notepad and his pen in a bag and left his van. He entered the base and went straight for Spy's room.
It was now a habit. Every other day, Spy would teach his mother tongue to his friend who made every effort possible to learn fast and well. It was the only way Sniper had found to spend more time with Spy.
Yes, as awkward and shy as he was, Sniper hadn't found any other excuse than that to spend more time with the man he dreamt of, may it be at night, or during the day, with his eyes wide open. Sometimes, he would even think of him on the battlefield. Each time he would blink, he would see him, against his closed eyelids, the masked face of the man with the most beautiful eyes, the most charming manners and a dangerous feline gait…
Sniper arrived in front of Spy's door and knocked.
"Entre."
[Come in.]
He pushed the door and entered.
"I think I'm a minute late, I'm sorry, mate."
Spy raised his index finger from his armchair.
"En Français."
[In French.]
Sniper frowned as he came to Spy and sat on the sofa.
"Uhm… Euh… Pardon, je suis… How do you say 'late'?"
"We say 'en retard'."
"Right, merci. So, uh, pardon, je suis en retard?"
[Thanks… Sorry, I am late?]
Spy smiled.
"Très bien."
[Very well.]
Sniper felt proud of himself.
"As-tu fait tes devoirs?"
[Have you done your homework?]
"Oui." Sniper fumbled through his bag and took his notepad out. He flipped the pages until he found the right one. "There it is!"
Spy raised an eyebrow with a smile.
"En Français."
[In French.]
Sniper had no clue how to say that so he looked at Spy, then at the notepad, then at Spy again and said with a shy smile:
"Tadaaa!"
Spy chuckled.
"You can't tell me it's wrong, you got the point." Sniper added.
"Indeed, I did. You could have just got away with a simple 'Voilà'."
"Really?"
"Oui 'Voilà' is the contraction of 'vois là', which means…?" Spy waited for Sniper to answer.
"Look here?"
"Oui! So we use 'Voilà' when we want to draw someone's attention to something." Spy explained.
"Ah, ok… I mean… 'Je vois'."
[I see.]
Spy nodded with a satisfied smile.
"You are making progress, mon cher ami."
[My dear friend]
"Yeah, well, I work hard and… Uh, I guess the teacher's ok." Sniper teased.
"You guess the teacher is ok?!" Spy repeated. "Your teacher is the best you could find for miles around, quite literally!"
Sniper chuckled.
"Yeah, it's true."
They exchanged a smile and blushed, but because of the mask, Sniper couldn't see Spy's.
"So, go ahead, read me your homework. I had asked you to write a few lines before going to bed, about something you think about. It could be anything and it doesn't need to be interesting, it is just a little writing exercise."
"Yeah, I think I did ok, uhm, here we go," Sniper cleared his throat before starting.
"La nuit, avant de dormir, je pense à quelqu'un de spécial."
[At night, before sleeping, I think about someone special.]
Spy raised an eyebrow but didn't interrupt Sniper who was almost hiding himself behind his notepad. He was reading slowly, paying attention to the letters that shouldn't be pronounced, and the hard French 'r' that was a nightmare for him. Spy had insisted that it wasn't too hard, it had to be purred. He had showed Sniper and purred again and again, not knowing that the Aussie's knees were turning to jelly as he did so.
"C'est un homme qui m'intéresse. Il n'est pas comme les autres."
[It's a man who interests me. He isn't like the others.]
Sniper looked up and saw Spy's eyes on him. He blished and hid his eyes behind his notepad again, flustered.
"Je pense qu'il est très mystérieux mais en réalité, il est très simple. Personne ne le comprend. Je ne sais pas si lui-même il se comprend."
[I think he is very mysterious but in truth, he is very simple. No one undeerstands him. I don't know if he understands himself.]
Sniper cleared his throat and went on, frowning on his handwriting. He liked it when Spy wrote things to him, even if it was just grammar rules. His handwriting was so soothing… He wrote in cursive and the pen always seemed to glide with such harmony on the paper.
"Personne ne sait ce qu'il cache derrière son masque. Mais je sais ce qu'il cache dans sa tête. Un esprit très vif, ça tout le monde l'a vu, mais aussi une grand patience."
[No one knows what he hides behind his mask. But I know what he hides in his mind. A very quick and witty mond, everybody has seen it, but a great deal of patience too.]
Spy's jaw had dropped as he started to catch the drift of it all. He began to understand who that man Sniper thought about was…
Sniper paused to catch his breath and gather his courage. He knew the last paragraph would be the hardest to read. It had been the hardest to write too.
"Mais ce que le masque ne parvient pas à cacher, ce sont ses yeux. Les plus beaux yeux que je n'ai jamais vus, je crois. Aussi bleus et clairs qu'un ciel d'été, avec de longs cils noirs, comme de fins rideaux qui couvrent de mystère un regard trop perçant pour moi parfois."
[But what the mask doesn't manage to hide, is his eyes. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, I think. As blue and loght as the summer sky, with long black eyelashes that cover with mystery his gaze that is too piercing for me sometimes."
Sniper felt as if hot lava was poured on his head. He was sweating bullets under the heat of the foolishness. He screwed his eyes shut as he concluded.
"Mais à cet homme, j'aimerais lui dire."
[But to that man, I would like to say.]
Sniper had to say it now, there was no turning around and going away, that was it.
"Je t'aime."
[I love you.]
He remained hidden behind the notepad. It was hard enough to say those things so if he had to bear Spy's gaze, he would burst into flames!
But Spy thought otherwise. He needed to see the man who had written and almost recited that poem to him.
Sniper spoke before he had the chance.
"I… I s'ppose it's full of mistakes and uh… The pronunciation might be shit at times but I, uh, I hope you got the idea."
Spy smiled behind the notepad.
"There was no grammar mistakes, not even the tiniest one. Were I to write it, I would have written the exact same thing."
Sniper disn't know what to feel. He was torn between the pride of having made no mistakes and the shame of what he had finally admitted.
"Although there was one thing you did not do perfectly. Could you pronounce that last sentence again for me, please?"
Sniper would have died of blush, his ears felt like they would have burst.
"J-je t'aime."
[I-I love you.]
Sniper saw four gloved fingers at the top of his notepad which slowly sank down, revealing the eyes he both could not get enough of, and could not face.
Spy had somehow moved from his armchair to the sofa and was now next to Sniper. He answered with his lips pursed in a sweet smile.
"Moi aussi, je t'aime, mon beau."
[I love you too, my beautiful one.]
