Chapter Text
Sniper was nothing if not a creature of habit. This was something he knew of himself, and something he never had any intention of changing. Each evening after the fighting was done for the day, he’d grab a portion of whatever was being made in the kitchen, passively observe that night’s dinner table discussion, then retreat back to his campervan. He rarely stayed in the base unless there was something particularly interesting going on – no such luck that day.
It was deep in the year, and notably chilly, being in the desert and all. The sun had gone down before dinner was even on. He knew well enough to be aware of his surroundings, even out here. Spent enough time in the outback to know that an angry animal waits for your back to be turned.
It was once he was in his camper that he tended to let his guard down a little. It was easily set back up should anyone bug him, but such intrusions were rare after sundown. Everyone knew that if you were gonna bother him so late, someone had better be dying.
The longer time went on, the more he eased. Once he’d gotten past the point of keeping his ears pricked, he could get a few rough hours of sleep for his usual early-ass morning routine.
Unfortunately, having a camper parked out in the middle of the wilderness meant you heard some weird things outside on occasion.
He jerked upright at a muffled noise from just behind the van, squinting at the barrier between him and whatever had caused it. It was an occasional thumping, and something else he couldn’t place. Probably some sort of animal. Maybe a raccoon. He returned to sharpening his kukri.
Of course, the world didn’t tend to be forgiving to poor Mick Mundy. The noises persisted, and were joined by increasingly concerning ones. Thumps, growls – coughs? He sighed bitterly. An unfortunate trade-off of living out here was that he was in charge of the perimeter. Anything less and Soldier would have his head on a pike.
So once the noises had gone on for an uncomfortably long time, along with steps, fading – he forced himself up and grabbed his rifle. You’d be surprised how many of the lead-poisoned freaks living in the area found themselves out there, and usually, all he had to do was scare them off. If it was just a raccoon, one well-placed shot wouldn’t only get it off the damn property for good, but all of its friends, too.
Peeking out the window, he saw nothing within his immediate line of sight. Complicated things, but not by much. It wasn’t pitch black out. Moon was almost full. He had a gun and a knife. He opened the door.
There was a distinct odor in the air. One that, from much experience, he was inclined to think was from his clothes. Adjusting his grip on his rifle, he crept around the side of the camper, closer to where he’d heard the noises disappear to. There wasn’t much place to hide out here, so he was likely to come face to face with whatever it was the moment he stepped around the corner.
With little more hesitation, he rounded it, rifle raised, just in case.
Then, he paused. His hands fell numb. Something icy formed in his stomach.
“Bloody hell.”
He’d found his raccoon. And the woman, mid-twenties, half-clothed in a blue dress with no socks or shoes, on her knees – eating it raw.
You see a lot as an assassin. Some truly depraved shit. He’d killed people guilty of crimes he couldn’t even speak of, and he’d seen the insides of people’s heads reduced to a fine mist on a near daily basis – all just part of the job. He himself, in his current line of work, had felt himself die dozens if not hundreds of times.
So it wasn’t exactly horror that gripped him in that moment. Shock was a slightly more applicable descriptor, but just barely. He lowered his gun, and made eye contact with the girl in front of him. Fresh blood coated the entire lower half of her face and neck.
Mostly, it was bewilderment. How the hell does a pretty girl like that end up in a situation like this? She didn’t look underfed. Certainly wasn’t feral, given the otherwise clean clothes. Her hair was long, and while it was messy, it was far from a rat’s nest. She hadn’t been out there long.
Her hands, coated in viscera, dropped the poor thing she’d butchered.
“D-don’t,” she started, hoarse, and above all else, horrified. Sniper was almost surprised she could talk. “Don’t look at me. Please. I don’t– I don’t know why I did this.”
She looked at herself like she couldn’t remember any of what she’d just done. Like she was witnessing a murder; one not performed by herself. Her eyes were wide and wild, and she didn’t move. Sniper couldn’t find it in himself to look away. Couldn’t find it in himself to speak, either.
“I was just,” she said, voice shaking, tears falling down her cheeks, “so hungry.”
Sniper’s finger twitched against the trigger of his gun.
The woman looked down, noticing the rifle half-cocked against Sniper’s shoulder. The horror renewed in her eyes, and Sniper prepared to lower his weapon – a mess of emotions were going through him at the moment, and ultimately, something human was winning out.
“Please kill me.”
He stiffened. At once, the woman stood. Her entire body trembled, like it wanted to collapse under itself. She reached her arms out, grasping at the distance between them with bloodied fingers. “Please. It’s so horrible. I can’t live like this, I can’t, please, kill me, please–”
“So ye just did what she asked?” Demoman questioned.
Sniper looked at him like he thought looks could kill, perhaps not enjoying the company of a drunk man after what he'd just been through. “Wouldn’t have bloody well asked y’to come take a look if I murdered the poor woman,” he replied darkly. Even in his direct involvement, he stuck close to his campervan, no intention of intruding upon the center of the fuss.
“I believe what Herr Demoman is getting at,” Medic said, standing from his initial inspection of the woman’s corpse, “is that while you certainly don’t seem to be lying, that story seems a little…” He waved his hand, venturing for a word.
“Looney?” Demoman supplied blankly. Medic said something – it was in German, so it could have been either agreement or dismissal. The Scotsman was off in his own world, per usual for that time of night, and he didn't pay much attention. Most he was aware of was that Scout had come out too, earlier, but apparently scampered off at the sight in front of them.
Dazed, he stepped forward to investigate himself. “Ain’t much t’deny ‘boot the state of these sorry folks,” he said, squinting at the mangled raccoon sitting not far from the woman’s final resting place. “What do ye think done it? Rabies?”
“It’s certainly a possibility!” Sniper wrinkled his nose at Medic’s enthusiasm. “However, I don’t have the equipment to test for that, even if her brains were intact.”
“Felt she deserved it quick,” Sniper defended. The longer this went on, the less he wanted to be involved.
Demo proceeded to not make it any better by clasping him on the arm. “Aye, did what y’could, lad. Poor woman pro’lly wouldn’t of lasted ‘til dawn with that on her stomach, anyway.” Sniper made a noncommittal noise, brushing the older man off.
“Someone with rabies, though…” Medic said. He was thinking aloud to himself, which Sniper could tell from his tone; thankfully for wanting some form of explanation, the doctor tended to explain his thoughts quite loudly. “I’m not sure they would react the way you described. Perhaps some kind of psychosis?” He looked over to Sniper excitedly, like he was discussing a medical breakthrough and not an ill woman’s death. “Do you mind if I take a few samples?”
Sniper huffed sharply, curling his lip. “Do what ya want with her. Ain’t my corpse.” With that, he decided to take his leave of the scene. He didn't want to stand in the stink of gore longer than he had to – even the inside of his camper was preferable to that.
He pulled himself inside, groaning at the realization that his damned ever-vigilant ears could still hear the conversation going on outside.
Ultimately, he didn’t want to come across as too affected. He’d done a lot worse than put a person out of their misery in just the past twenty-four hours alone. It wasn’t anything to do with the viscera or the killing. It was something to do with what the woman had said. The suffering she alluded to.
Something about it gave Sniper a very, very bad feeling. And it wasn’t one he was going to be able to sleep off.
Oddities as such, for as bizarre as last night had been, weren't so out of the ordinary that it warranted any sort of meeting. It turned into mess hall gossip, something that drew a few scrunched brows and a light-hearted ribbing from a comically blasé Engineer – “not at the table, boys. C'mon now.”
And it was left at that.
There was work to be done, as there was every Friday. Work could be sporadic, but Fridays always had something going on. Today it was defense for the REDs. Pyro was in good spirits, looking forward to hanging around Engie for the better half of the day. Scout was planning to smash his doppelganger's head in a couple times before the shift was over. Demo and Sniper were discussing something in the back, now that Demo was more sentient than he'd been the night prior.
With everyone in a good mood, they hopped on the teleporters to whatever base was at risk of getting blown up now.
Most workdays could be toss-ups, even if RED found themselves victorious a majority of the time. Some days, the BLUs just had a particular chip on their shoulder. Others, RED was just having an off one.
Today was, apparently, neither of those.
It was hard to call any shift easy, what with how most of them had died multiple times before the end of it, occasionally through methods as concerning as complete disintegration were someone on the opposing team feeling gimmicky enough, but for all intents and purposes, this one had been a cakewalk.
The sun was starting to set, and Scout, covered in grime and an amount of blood that was nothing to blush at, appeared by Engie's dispenser as the Administrator's voice counted down the BLU's dwindling remaining time. “Total ripoff, man. I didn't even see the other guy once,” he complained, leaning against the machine. Pyro, bored, prodded him absently with the end of their flamethrower until he flinched away.
Engineer hummed, combing his memories for any sighting of the BLU's speedster. He came up empty. “Makes sense why they sucked so bad if they're a man down.” He tilted his head down at Pyro. “We ain't seen their spook yet either, huh?”
Pyro mumbled in disappointment, resting their chin on their palm in a dramatic motion. A day where they didn't get to set a Frenchman ablaze was a day wasted.
“Maybe they got the plague or somethin’. Serves ‘em right,” Scout said. After grabbing a bottle of painkillers from the dispenser, he started to make his way to spawn along with the others. The humiliation period was more worth it when the battle was hard fought – everyone just wanted to bunker down for the evening, this time.
Putting away his temporary machines, Engineer huffed at Scout's comment. For a few reasons, he didn't have it in himself to be as performatively hateful towards the opposing team as the others could be. At the very least, he had nothing against their Scout. It wasn't much worth dwelling on, though.
He and Pyro entered spawn. The rest of the team was already there from the short walk guarding the last checkpoint. Scout, per usual, was testing the teleporter every other second, waiting for it to switch on. Everyone complained about how they only worked when both teams were in one of the spawns – the silent waiting game was an expected road bump in clocking out.
It usually didn't take upwards of five minutes.
Engie took what must have been his fifth glance-over of everyone present, once again assuring himself that no one was missing. It was Sniper who spoke up first. “The hell're they doin’ over there?”
He wasn't sure he liked it. He'd think the BLUs would want to get out of there as soon as possible after their sorry display. There was no reason for them to be out lingering. The natural answer, then, was that one of them was stranded – likely injured, not enough to die, but unable to move. In that sort of situation, most mercs just offed themselves, knowing respawn would fix whatever ailed them.
That only left a few options. Engie didn't have a good feeling about any of them.
And nobody had seen BLU's Scout or Spy.
“Well, men!” Soldier said, breaking Engie from his thoughts. “If one of those sorry bastards doesn't want to run home to their sorry bastard mother, then we all know the rules!”
Of course they did. Finder's keepers.
“Ain't we humiliated them enough, soldier boy?” Engineer teased. He had no intent of exposing his uneasy nerves to his teammates. Soldier's mouth twisted into a toothy grin that told Engie the answer he already knew. Half the team was already on their way out the door.
If the BLUs were looking for their teammate(s) as well, they were being subtle about it. It was in their best interest to avoid each other during these little hunts - lord knew how ugly they could get, especially with what happened to the BLU Spy the last time the REDs had gotten their hands on him…
“‘Ey, looks like guard dog’s got a scent,” Scout said loudly, clearly not caring as much for said subtlety as everyone else. Engineer’s gaze followed the man’s pointing finger to Pyro, who did not react to the comparison to a mutt, instead continuing to follow whatever lead they had apparently picked up on. They seemed to be looking at something very attentively, but it was nothing Engie could see - that was pretty common with them.
It was one of the flank routes, a half-closed off building, and Pyro pointed up a set of stairs with the end of the Homewrecker, mumbling something incoherent. Instead of continuing onward to the position they indicated, they hung back, looking to Engie for some sort of praise before he even knew what they’d stumbled across. That left Scout to check.
Sure enough, “yup, got ya Spy here,” Scout called. There was a small thump. “Yo, you dead or somethin’?”
Engineer made his way up next. The BLU Spy was indeed laying on the floor like a crumpled-over corpse, his back turned to the men approaching him. Proving the obvious, he flinched when Scout reared to kick him again.
“Easy, Scout,” Engie said lightly. It got an indignant huff in response, but Scout obeyed. Casting another look down, it was hitting both of them how odd this was. Sure, one might expect to find a Scout in this position, but Spy?
Circling the heap on the floor, he found that Spy was looking up at him. His eyes were glassy, and though he certainly didn’t look amused by the situation, there was a lack of recognition behind them. Leaning in closer, Engie could tell there was something sickly to his face – flush of fever under his eyes, lips pale. Looked to be drenched in sweat.
The smile that tugged at his lips was, admittedly, pretty sadistic. “Well, you’re just havin’ a real bad day, ain’cha?”
By then, Scout had joined him in his scrutiny. “The hell? I was jokin’ about the plague thing.”
“Pro’lly sunstroke,” Engineer dismissed. It was barely even hot in his opinion, but he wasn’t a Frenchman, and he sure as hell wasn’t wearing a thick suit, whatever was under that, and a ski mask in the middle of a sunbleached desert. “Doc might have to fix him up ‘fore we can get anythin’ useful out of him.”
The BLU Spy had yet to utter a single word – for a man specializing in espionage, both of the Spies could be rather chatty, so it was hard not to notice. The oddity could be attributed to his condition, of course. Less so could his general lack of protest to being lifted.
Engie had expected something. Even just a groan. Instead, the enemy Spy, apparently unable to hold more than an ounce of his own weight, did nothing more than stare just below Engineer’s eye level.
He wondered if the man was delirious, and if so, what he thought was going on.
“Don’t worry, turncoat. We’re gonna take real good care’a ya,” Engineer said, voice dropping into a self-amused purr.
Spy’s gaze lifted, just enough to meet his foe’s. His tired eyes narrowed. That was the most they’d get out of him for now.
Following another few minutes of stalemate, it seemed the BLUs caught on that the REDs had won both battles, as the teleporters began to work again. At the very least, that confirmed that the BLU Scout wasn’t also missing, just… absent.
In the meantime, Engie found it easy to return to the internal codename they’d used for the BLU Spy back when he was a head living in Medic’s fridge; Bleu. Tacky, but better than nothing.
While there were better, moderately more secure spaces to hold a captive in their primary base, Engie had enough standards to actually drop Bleu off with Medic. Now, whether that would turn out better or worse for the man in the end wasn’t up to him – but you couldn’t say he’d done the irresponsible thing.
Medic reappeared in the mess hall a half hour later, a bit faster than Engineer had expected him to. Say what you would, their doctor worked fast. “I’m afraid I’m not able to narrow it down beyond a fever,” he said, sounding disappointed. “The medicine I injected him with is helping. His first coherent act was to beg me for food.”
“Beg?” Their own Spy asked incredulously. Ever since he’d laid his eyes on Bleu that day, he'd been operating on some ongoing sense of extreme disgust towards his rival. The fact that Medic was actually preparing something for the man, the fact that it was just a small can of tasteless emergency rations aside, only offended him more. “You think they do not feed the man?”
“Oh, please. I can tell when a man is feigning weakness,” Medic said, more amused than anything. “I’m sure he will be much more cooperative if we give him what care his team clearly didn’t, ja?”
Spy settled with a huff, then returned to nursing his cigarette. Only he would manage to take the vulnerability of his own counterpart so personally.
“I’m with Spy,” Engie commented idly. His thoughts had been a churning whirlwind this whole time. No matter how much he told himself he was just overthinking things, his mind never did seem to slow down. “Man’s gotta be on death’s door to be willin’ to take it. Can’t say I like the looks of it.”
Heavy, who had been silently observing the conversation from the end of the table, finally contributed. “If BLU team is weak, is not bad thing for us,” he said, “if it is trick, we have little to be afraid of from drugged little Spy. Heavy does not see problem either way.”
A practical way to look at it. The way Engineer should have been looking at it. He hoped his lack of argument sufficed in terms of showing his understanding. He returned his attention to Medic. “Mind if I keep an eye on things just in case?”
“Ah, you know you are always welcome in my clinic, my friend,” Medic said, as joyous as if he had just invited someone to a particularly trendy restaurant. Engie gave him a quick smile, then excused himself from the table to follow Medic down to the infirmary.
He just wished he could slot the pieces together in his head in a way that made sense. On a surface level, it seemed so uncomplicated. No one else seemed so worried, at least not for the same reasons as him – why couldn’t he just shake the feeling that there was something gross about all this? The sort of something that made him want to hole himself up in his workshop until it passed?
Bleu, tied down to a gurney, was still fighting to stay conscious, despite whatever dubious drug cocktail Medic had given him. Heavy’s comment there did ease Engineer’s nerves a bit – the man was likely high as a kite right now, and while he’d never doubt a Spy’s tolerance, even a grizzly could be knocked down with the cure-alls Medic offered up on occasion.
Medic slotted easily into a “good cop” role, ever easy in his sadism as he briefly loosened his restraints to let him sit. “This will have to do. It’s all we could spare–”
Evidently, Bleu was not bothered by such matters. He all but forewent the fork. Engineer had seen hogs eat less greedily.
Maybe they were starving him.
As if the man wasn't directly in front of him – though he seemed to be too preoccupied to be bothered – Engineer pushed Medic a bit on the topic of what exactly was going on here. “There's really no tellin’ what's goin’ on with him?”
“Well,” Medic ventured, appearing hesitant before he continued, like he was unsure if what he was about to say was anything worth commenting on, “there's a mark on his hand, here–” he gestured to his own, tracing an area along his thumb, “but for all I know, it's some sort of allergic reaction.”
Engineer let out a thoughtful hum. Bleu had finished off his ration in no time at all, and for the briefest of moments, it looked like he was considering eating the can as well. Ultimately, once he'd gotten his food, he was apparently out of strength to even sit up.
Medic took the can from him, watching the bordering-comatose man with intrigue as he refastened the straps, to which Bleu offered no protest. “I'm afraid my curiosity is stronger than my professionalism in this case,” he said idly, tossing the thing in a waste bin. “You'll forgive me if I hold him a while even after he's coherent?”
“I'll make sure they will, doc, don't you worry ‘bout that,” Engie said, knowing what he really meant by the question. He was never one to deny Medic an opportunity to exercise his curiosity – and admittedly, he was pretty invested himself. There wasn't much they could get from Bleu that they didn't already know or have, and everyone knew that in the back of the mind. This was all just a ploy to entertain the lot of them at their enemies’ expense.
“Yes, what I wouldn't give to spend another moment of my precious life in this accursed place.” Both RED team members present were startled by the voice coming from the gurney, hoarse and deeply exhausted, but otherwise lacking any of the incoherence in the actions that preceded it.
Bleu looked like death warmed over, and was still too weak to strain much against his bindings. There was a new attentiveness to his eyes, however, something he'd lacked for the past hour.
If he grasped the severity of the situation, he didn't show it. That may have been the clearest sign he was lucid of all. At his foes’ confused expressions, he gave a dazed attempt at a smug smirk. Voice weak, he pressed, “well? Are you going to gawk at me like a zoo animal all day, or do you intend to tell me what you captured me for?”
Engie and Medic shared a glance. Neither were sure if the development was truly positive.
Engie, in particular, had his doubts.