He had never been good at lying.

"No! I just wanted him to- Will you let me finish?"

Because he couldn't deal with the consequences.

"Mom, I think I'm old enough to take care of me'self!" Sniper said angrily. His voice was quavery, showing just how bothered he was with the conversation at hand. "It's just what I do, a'right?"

He'd been dreading this conversation since he sent that god damned post card. He hoped that his mother would simply tell his father the little 'white lie' and be done with it. That should take care of the problems.

That, or she'd be even more worried.

"No, mom. Mom-" he leaned a bit more against the telephone pole in defeat, pulling his hat to cover his eyes from the harsh mid day sun "-I meant tell dad that. Not tell him I wrote to you to tell him about- Ah, blasted." he stopped his explanation when he heard the phone being passed over to someone else.

For a few second he just stood there, apparently carefully listening to the conversation, until he almost threw the phone at the pole when a series of curses could be heard clearly through it.

He waited until the yelling subsided and picked the phone again, hands shaking a bit.

"Dad-" he stared at the cable connecting the phone to the pole for a few seconds, his tongue coming out to moisten his lips. "Listen, you and mom just have to understand that I do what I do. Nothing's gonna change that." He paused, and when his father didn't yell at him he continued "It's my life dad, I'm a grown man."

Of course, he didn't expect that excuse to stick, it never did. Usually it made his family even angrier. So it was with some surprise that he heard his father's next words.

"You want me to... What?" he looked dumbly in the direction of the BLU base for a few seconds. "Of course I have vacation time..." he listened attentively, occasionally hearing his mother's voice on the other side.

His parents wanted him to visit.

Being a bushman, as the others called him, he enjoyed his freedom greatly, even to the point of living outside the headquarters and keeping a certain distance from his teammates. But that didn't stop him from missing his parents, specially since he'd been forbidden to even be near their house. They didn't want a crazed gunman near them, and whatever problems he might bring.

His mother had been the one to keep contact with him after his parents found out about his 'profession', missing her little boy maybe a tad too much. Over the years it had been like that. The occasional job, the letters and phone calls, and with time, even his father returned them. It's as if nothing much had happened. Except for the fact that he still couldn't go see them.

Apparently until now.

"Of course!" He replied, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. "...in two weeks I guess." he did the math in his head. BLU allowed them a week of break from the 'war'. It might have been strange to do so, if they didn't have a 9 to 5 'work schedule' already.

His father told him he wanted to speak with him personally, which made Sniper's gut clench in anticipation and dread. That certainly did not bode well. His mother kept trying to take part in the conversation too, but when she did manage to get on the phone, it'd be to ask random motherly things, such as 'have they be'n feeding ya well?' or even the 'have you made any new friends?' which made Sniper mumble a few 'yes's and hope that Spy didn't have bugs in this phone, or that if he did, that he'd keep to himself.

Finally ending the phone call, he stood there for a few seconds, trying to come up with plausible reasons for such a strange conversation. Had something happened? Maybe a dead relative. He didn't keep track on other family members.

Figuring best to get his mind of such things, he turned in the direction of his 'van', ready to return. Though he was stopped short by a very light scrapping sound coming from behind him. He frowned, hand going for his kukri.

"How heartwarming..."