Chapter Text
With everything that’s happened in the last two days, Sniper welcomes the steady weight of his rifle.
He holds it at his side in his left hand; its leather strap is still around his chest. He keeps his distance from BLU team, trails along behind them carefully. They had gotten the payload through that chokepoint of a tunnel--and out onto the first point--without so much as a scratch.
He raises his scope to his eye every now and then. Now on the hasty defense, RED’s made sitting ducks of themselves.
Bullets and Soldiers of both colors fly past. The latter men share the same laugh; it echoes around the basin.
RED’s Engineer scurries through Sniper’s sights more than once; he bobs along with a toolbox on his shoulder. He’s a slippery one, even with one of his collapsed toys weighing him down.
He ducks through the open ranks of his swarming teammates and disappears from the fight.
Meanwhile, BLU’s Engineer runs around in the same way. He--and his toys--have brought them up all the way to just before the second point.
They've got ten whole minutes to get there.
They're making good time as it is.
He and Sniper stay on the backline together; the former has his goggles on a new dispenser, his back to the latter man.
Sniper lingers at the first bend in the railway. He presses back against the hoodoo there, behind him; his arm brushes the rough pockmarks in the warm, orange rock.
Sweat runs down the side of his jaw. Drips onto the front of his shirt in fat drops.
They are making good time, but time’s tick, tick, ticking by. They’ve got another two hours before noon--in this heat, however, he toys with the idea that both teams will it kark it well before then.
It’s nothing that the Respawn machine can’t fix--nothing it hasn’t fixed before--but he can’t say that the slow and exacting nature of heatstroke is one of his favorite ways to go.
He hangs a few feet back from the point; his team; the chaos itself. Watches RED and BLU flail in the carnage. These first few points have never been an easy push--but the bottleneck corridor that boxes them in on both sides hardly helps matters.
He slings his rifle around his shoulder. He takes a few paces forward, careful not to trip on the railway; RED’s too focused on fending off the more present advance than they are with him.
He places a hand on the warm outer wall of the concrete building to his left. He scans the chaos.
Of the nine RED mercs, only four are pushing back against BLU: their Heavy leads the defense, with RED’s Scout and Pyro swinging around the field in wide arcs. Their Medic keeps behind Heavy. The bright red beam of his Medigun connects them; even from here, Sniper can see the wide, toothy grin on the man’s face.
BLU’s own Medic has his brow furrowed, his teeth bared. He’s bright-eyed, now, no longer asleep at the wheel--given that he’s elbow deep in the unforgiving throes of his work.
Beneath the harsh Badwater sun, he’s greyer. Older. His coat, hardly blue in this light, fans out across the sand.
He looks every bit like the man who smiles across the way.
Sniper shakes his head.
Focus .
If there are only four REDs on point, then that means there are four more that had either been disposed of earlier--or are on their way back from the Respawn now.
He doesn’t count their Spy; for all he knows, that cunt could be anywhere.
The lip of the bomb cart is a few inches from the steel plate in the railway--a few inches from capping them the point. BLU outnumbers RED, six to four, even without counting their respective Spies.
It’s a losing battle, always is, on this bend in the railway; whoever’s coming back from Respawn would be better off waiting for this to be over.
Motion behind the battle catches Sniper’s eye; the orange shutters of the loading dock to the left of the fight open.
No one comes through.
Whoever’s coming back from Respawn would be better off waiting for this to be over; whoever’s coming back has probably decided to stay where they are and start setting up on the next point.
If RED Engineer isn’t present--
Sniper swears under his breath. He’s no Spy; he can’t sap a sentry in his way. He can’t wait for BLU to raze another nest for him, either. Shooting it himself would just be a waste of time--and bullets.
He’s got a very small window of time before the match kicks into full gear.
Before the rest of RED team stands between him and--
If he’s going to act, he has to do it now .
He grips the strap of his rifle. The leather is rough and cracked beneath his palm.
He takes a breath.
Another.
He starts walking towards the fray before he can change his mind.
He walks fast. He keeps his head down. Hat over his face. Bullets whiz past his ear.
BLU team responds in kind:
They yowl when they’re hit.
They laugh when they aren’t.
A bullet whistles by his ear--too close for comfort. Instinct takes over.
He throws himself into the dock. Presses back against the wall. He breathes; his heart hammers in his ears. He checks himself over.
His rapid heartbeat fires in time with Heavy’s gun, with where it roars outside--but apart from that, he’s fine.
Sniper turns, chest and left hand coming against the same wall, and pokes his head out of the open doorway. The two teams continue on; RED Scout is missing from the fray; the fight is flagging.
No one had noticed him pass by.
With one man down, RED Pyro takes charge and pushes forward; BLU team staggers backwards, in turn, and out of range.
Sniper has half a mind to pop the firebug one in the back of their skull, save BLU the trouble--but with Pyro on the field, the fight pushes and pulls in a steady, slow rhythm; the chaos will cover his tracks.
He looks over his left shoulder. There’s a door up the stairs here that’ll take him to a catwalk on the other side, and closer to the third point.
But if he knows anything about--well, himself-- and this place, walking that catwalk would be like prancing out into the field during hunting season.
It’s too open; too likely to give him away.
There is another way to the same bridge, however.
Another doorway--this time to the right of the railway--sits at the top of a couple of stairs near RED’s former Respawn room.
He presses his lips down into a flat line. He drums his right fingers against the wall.
RED’s back is to him; they’ve only got eyes for BLU. They herd the latter team into a corner.
The payload sits, alone, on its rail.
Sniper gives himself to the count of five--
--then he runs past it.
He kicks up dust in his wake. The butt of his rifle bounces along his back as he goes. When he reaches them, he takes the steps two at a time. Ducks under the half-open shutter before it rises completely.
He doesn’t stop to admire the room--which is empty, anyway--and continues on through the next door.
He throws his back against the wall in front of him; the butt of his rifle bangs against the tin. It’s hot to the touch--practically burns his palms.
He winces.
Hisses low and sharp between his teeth.
The noise of the fight grows distant. He can still make out the two teams through the doors he had entered--but they’re nothing more than brightly colored blobs.
RED has unknowingly bought him more time.
Sweat runs down his jaw. Only now does he notice how his shirt clings to his slick back. He raises his forearm to his head; his skin is similarly hot, even under the shade of his hat.
He lowers his arm and checks his watch. A little while more until noon. Sunlight falls against the wooden wall before him. It bleaches the planks in its harshness; heat emanates off them in syrupy waves.
He figures it must be one of the hottest days on record.
He breathes out--even that small exhale comes out dry, parched in the heat--and peers around the corner.
The railway snakes its way along the path below. The building he’s hidden behind extends forward; has another, albeit smaller, corner up ahead by some rusted pipes.
Other similar tin sheet buildings surround the railing on all sides. One--the farthest--had been built into the wall surrounding the arena; Sniper catches the silhouette in its window just as the sun glints off of the front end of a rifle.
His eyes widen. He wrenches himself back into cover.
BANG !
A bullet glances off the tin.
He swears under his breath. He scans the wall before him. There should be a red dot flitting after him--but he can’t find it, not in this light.
It doesn’t matter, now, anyway; his RED counterpart has seen him.
Has seen him here, on RED’s side, all by himself.
Sniper swears again.
He has every opportunity to turn and run back the way he had come. Run back to BLU with his tail between his legs and never speak of this to anyone. Keep it down and sedated in some small, secret part of him until his very insides begin to gnaw at him to try again .
But how many more of these empty days will he let pass him by before he can muster up the courage to do just that?
How many times is he going to pick up that dead phone before he finds out who’s on the other end; who is missing from his memories; who would know it’s him by the ringing alone?
How long is he willing to let this go on for?
He’s too close to give up now.
He presses back against the wall. Chances are, as soon as he pokes his head out, he’ll get one between the eyes.
He’ll have to take those odds.
There’s cover up ahead; he just has to get to it.
Sniper braces himself--and skirts the corner.
He’s halfway across the catwalk--closer, now--
Another shot rings out; too slow, too slow ; red, hot and neon, cuts across his shoulder.
It tears a yell from him. He snaps his teeth together. Trips over his own unsteady feet.
He throws a hand out to stop himself from bashing his skull into the wall.
The wall-- he made it.
He stays hunched over and leaning against it. He pants out shallow breaths. Something wet soaks a thin line down his side; his left shoulder throbs with his sluggish heartbeat. He glances at it.
Part of his vest is torn, as are the two layers beneath. A semi-deep gash draws across his exposed skin. It glistens in the sun, caked thick and red at its edges.
Hot blood flows from the wound and blooms across his shirt; the damp cloth sticks to his chest.
It’s bad--but it could’ve been worse. He can shake off a graze.
His breath falls, ragged, from his lips. He tries to reign it in while he thinks of his next move.
They’ve been to Badwater Basin at least once every time that they’ve been stationed in New Mexico; he knows it like the back of his hand.
At the foot of the building where his counterpart has taken his post, there’s a little alcove beneath the catwalk; it leads to a staircase that’ll take him into the building itself.
The only problem is that there’s about two yards of open, exposed, air between him and that staircase.
He already has to squeeze himself into this corner as it is. There are some boxes on the path a few paces forward here, a forgotten stack of concrete cylinders there--but they’re both spread too far and few in between to be of any use to him.
He’s got to think .
His heartbeart pulses, slow and unsteady, in his shoulder; in his fingers; in his teeth. The ridges in the metal wall swim before his eyes. His mind wavers between the pain in his shoulder and the sick taste in the back of his dry mouth.
He shakes his head.
Think, Mundy.
Left hand still bracing himself on the wall, he puts his right over the crown of his hat.
Think .
The leather is soft under the pads of his fingertips.
He pauses.
His hat.
Sniper braces his right shoulder against the wall. He pushes himself up to a standing position. It isn’t quite upright; his left arm hangs, useless, at his side. He wobbles on his feet. It takes him a moment to steady himself.
He takes his hat off with his free hand. Stares into the hat’s opening. He had torn its brim sometime ago--he doesn’t remember how, exactly.
He traces the tear in question with his thumb. The leather is pockmarked where he had had to dig bits of shrapnel out.
He isn’t even sure if it had ever even been made of real leather to begin with.
With one hand, he moves the hat around until he can palm its crown. He holds it out in front of his chest, still staying within cover.
If he knows anything about Mick Mundy, it’s that when someone slips through his sights for long enough--he starts getting an itchy trigger finger.
Sniper throws his hat out into the open.
A shot cracks the silence and flies straight through his hat.
In the same breath, he emerges from his cover.
He all but flies down the stairs. He doesn’t have long. He’s as good a shot as he is fast to reload. His boots hit the ground running.
His heels pound the dirt.
Dust rises in his wake.
His hat lies directly in his path; the gunshot in its crown is a perfect, black dot.
He reaches out with his left hand. He swipes the hat up and raises it to his head--before his grazed shoulder screams a harsh reminder.
Black spots pop across his vision.
He stumbles--
--but he keeps going.
By some miracle, he makes it to the staircase. His breath burns in his chest; wheezes out of him as he climbs the steps. The wooden walls swell around him.
Muddy, familiar boots come into his view. They stand at the top of the next flight of stairs--
--then a spray of bullets hit the wall behind him as he drops to his knees.
Sniper wrenches himself back up, teeth gritted. He takes the steps two at a time. They shriek beneath his weight.
He throws himself, head first, at RED. His head hits the other man’s midsection. Sends them both sprawling. His elbow, his knee, bangs against the wood.
Something metallic clatters across the floor.
Sniper raises his head--just in time to see the Uzi go over the side of the catwalk.
He tears his eyes from it. He curls his hands into the collar of RED’s shirt; he pulls the fabric taut. He presses down on the other man in a vain attempt to keep him still.
The latter kicks up against him.
BLU finally looks RED in the eye.
His own face looks back.
Nicotine stained teeth bared in a snarl, all dull canines and hostility; a scar not unlike his own, albeit longer; blue eyes creased at their edges, and all.
The real Mick Mundy.
Something in Sniper aches at the thought. It’s a far more distant sensation than the throbbing pain in his shoulder--but it’s there nonetheless, murmuring beneath his skin. Razing his already strained nerves. A familiar kind of hurting.
Mick is every bit the original; every single wrinkle; scar; and tiny, grey hair that he has ever found on himself.
He is every bit the man that Sniper will never be.
The latter swallows.
“I have to talk to you,” he says.
Mick creases his brows, confused.
Before Sniper can go on--
His vision goes white. Something bitter and copper-like bursts in his mouth. He lists to the side, cheek and nose stinging. He clutches them in both hands.
He forces his eyes open. Blinks away his body’s instinctual tears. The world wavers.
Blood drips through his fingers and onto the floor.
He rolls aside just as Mick’s heel comes down on where his head had been.
The other man hovers over him, hands curled into fists at his side. The knuckles on his right hand are skinned.
The familiarity of this situation is not lost on him.
Sniper turns over onto his backside. He hauls himself up on unsteady feet. He backs away and out through an open doorway. A shock of sunlight falls across his nape.
Mick follows.
“C’mon,” Sniper gasps, red hands held out in front of him. “C’mon, mate, I just need t’--”
His back hits the railing; his rifle clatters against the metal.
His rifle.
Mick makes another swing at him.
He ducks this time.
As he springs back up, he pulls the rifle from his back.
He grasps the barrel and levels it like a bat--he’s not stupid enough to try and shoot point blank--
--but Mick’s quick to catch the stock.
They grapple for the gun. Sniper growls. Mick pushes; he steps to the side, his hands still on the gun. Lets his momentum push them backwards.
The other man staggers. His fingers slip.
Sniper wrenches the rifle back into his grasp. He raises it, again, and drives the stock into the middle of Mick’s ribs.
Mick cries out--but he stays standing, hand clutched to his chest. That’s gonna bruise pretty and blue later in the day.
“ Stop ,” Sniper hisses. He takes a step back, holding the gun out between them like a spear. “’m not--’m not here t’ fight you--”
Mick cuts him off.
“Then you shouldn’t be here.”
Something cold taps its long nails down Sniper’s spine.
For every step backwards that he takes, his RED counterpart advances. He backs them into another room--by the wide window to his and the door’s left, it’s the same room Mick had been firing from.
The window has a clear view of the ditch before the third point. The cart--and his teammates--rise up and out onto the other side.
Onto their side.
It’s his luck that he had taken them out of view.
Despite his relief, his heart tick, tick, ticks at the sight.
It draws his attention away from the man in front of him; from hands so like his own reaching for the gun; from noticing what’s happening before it’s too late.
He looks to Mick as the rifle leaves his grasp.
As Mick swings the stock into the right side of his head.
The world bursts into neon red; black spots; goes from him fast.
It trickles down,
down,
down
congealing into a miasma of color and static and incomprehensible thought and something searing and broken and, and, and --
The ringing in his ears envelopes him.
He isn’t sure where it, the pain, ends, and he--the bone shards and red pulp and the thin, starved meat of him--begins.
It takes his body a moment to remember the distinction.
Wood grain beneath his shaking fingertips. Knees against the hard floor. He blinks rapidly. His vision remains spotty. The wood floor curls around each black dot. He forces his lungs to breathe.
In.
Out.
Each one scrapes against his throat.
The skin on his neck is stiff; sticky; cold. His right shoulder blooms red. It stains the blue fabric black. It glistens in the sunlight.
It almost looks beautiful like this.
Blood runs down his arm, settles in the hollow of his wrist. It pools beneath his palm. Little glass shards spill out across the floor; the face of his watch is cracked.
He moves his lips to speak, to voice his confusion with this--but all that comes out is a whimper.
He’s tired.
He’d give anything to lay his aching head down right here. To slip away.
To give into the black lapping at the edges of his vision,; the emptiness that threatens to take him under.
Sniper sinks to his elbows.
Somewhere, in the back of his hazy, syrupy mind, a small part of him begs him to get up.
A new shape comes forward. It takes him a good minute to understand that they’re boots.
It takes him another to remember who they belong to.
He swallows the blood in his mouth; it rots his gums, sours the back of his throat. He spits what he can’t stomach out onto the floor.
He angles his head to the side and up, towards Mick; his skull throbs a warning. Keeps him from moving any more than that.
He sees part of the man’s pants, his belt, the edges of his vest. His hand around the rifle. The stock rests, red, on the floor.
“Please,” Sniper whispers. That same, small part that had begged him only a few moments ago dies as he begs now. “Please don’t do this. Please. I-I just need t’...t’ talk to you.”
Mick kneels down by his head--on his left.
(The gesture means nothing to him now.)
(That’s what he tells himself, at least.)
(Mick, after all, shouldn’t remember this about him.)
(And yet.)
And yet his hand is still on the rifle--like Sniper’s just caught game.
The other man’s face is unreadable. Brows pinched. Lips pressed into a thin line. He says nothing, so Sniper forces himself to continue.
His voice trembles out of him, thin and pathetic.
“Mick. Please .”
At the sound of his own name, something cracks in that familiar face.
The motion is so small--so small that Sniper thinks he must’ve imagined it--but Mick winces .
The silence stretches on.
Somewhere, beyond this, the sharp blue sky overhead; the red, wooden walls swelling and shrinking in the heat; the world comes to a standstill.
Mick isn’t going to talk.
Sniper’s too numb to feel any kind of despair at that.
The throbbing in his head fills the quiet. His arms shake with the effort it takes to keep himself upright. He focuses on the way the wood is rough beneath his elbows.
The way the sunlight falls across the floor.
The hottest day of the summer.
Dust motes.
After an eternity passes, Mick speaks.
“Heard ya the first time,” he says, softly. Carefully. “But this ain’t how things usually go.”
Sniper musters up a laugh; it comes out wet. Mick goes on, now a little more unsure.
“We aren’t supposed t’ talk like this, mate. We aren’t s’posed to talk at all .”
“I know.” Sniper looks up at him. The eyelashes of his right eye stick together; paint half the world in pretty red bubbles. “ I know .”
“I don’t get why ya didn’t--” Mick stops. Tries again. “ You didn’t fight back.”
He doesn’t say it like a question.
Every coherent thought in Sniper’s mind drips down the side of his face; mats his hair; turns his skin sticky.
He has no idea what to say to that.
He shakes his head slowly. He doesn’t have time for the long of it; he can barely speak as it is.
He has to mouth the words before he can think to voice them.
“Who do you call,” he asks, “every weekend?”
Mick’s grip on the rifle tightens.
“...What did you say?”
The question comes dangerously quiet.
“Who do you call every. Single. Weekend.” Sniper lowers his head to the floor. He presses the unmarred side of his temple against the wood; it’s deliciously cool against his feverish skin. “Y’find some phone in town, or on base; y’call this long number; y’talk for...for hours . An’ yer happy. You’re so, so happy .
But yer angry, too. The person-- people --on t’ other end--they don’t get it. They don’t get--” he splays one hand out on the floorboards, shaking fingers numb-- “ this . All of this nonsense. They don’t get it.”
Shadows move in his blurry peripherals. Mick leans down closer to him. With his hearing ear pressed to the floor like this, he barely catches what Mick says--but it’s there , however soft the words come.
“You been... watchin’ me?” His breath tickles the shell of his deaf ear.
“ No ,” Sniper exhales. His eyes flutter closed, but he forces them back open. “No. I swear. I swear it.”
Cyclical motions; this denial is familiar to him.
He continues in the face of the urge to vomit.
“I know.” He swallows. “I know because I do it, too. Every weekend. I-I know the number. But the phone on our base...’s broken. Call n-never goes through.”
He doesn’t say that he’s never tried another phone.
He doesn’t say that he’s too much of a coward to do so.
He doesn’t say that even if he were to find that courage, he’d end up a tourist; voyeur; intruder.
“You’re not makin’ any sense, mate. If y’know the number--then...then how can ya not know who yer callin’?”
“I never had them,” Sniper whispers, light and delirious.
“What?”
A little more lucidly, he ekes out, instead,
“I don’t know.”
Mick huffs. “I’d get my story straight, ‘f I were you. ‘fore I send you packing.”
Sniper squeezes his eyes shut.
A deep-seated exasperation springs up through his pain.
He breathes in, then plants his right palm flat on the floor. His left follows. He starts to push himself back up. His arms shake; there's a moment where he fears that they'll give out entirely.
His knees take longer to cooperate--but he finally gets them under him. He's got to get up.
A hand closes around his bicep before he can even try. He opens his eyes, startled.
He finds Mick’s hand there; trails his eyes up his arm; up, up, up to the unreadable look on the man's face.
Mick drapes Sniper’s uninjured arm across his shoulders. The motion throbs in the latter’s grazed shoulder. It’s another fresh ache among many others.
The former carefully raises the both of them to a standing position.
“Easy,” Mick breathes, voice all too soft against the shell of his ear. “Easy, now.”
He waits for Sniper to get his feet straight.
Then, they make their way, slowly, to the room’s second window--the window that faces the final terminus. Mick eases him down onto its sill.
Sniper hunches over. Though they hadn't moved particularly fast, the room still spins in lazy circles around him.
He keeps his eyes on his rifle--where Mick had leaned it against the wall behind him. Blood drips down the stock, pools into a small puddle on the floor beneath it. It’s nothing more than a black stain in the room’s cool, blue shadows.
His hands come to rest in his lap; he stares down at them. At the very same blood that crusts his right forearm.
He turns it over and finds more of that same red. It had pooled around his wrist. The lines of his palms are caked with it.
His fingers tremble with that ever-present shake.
He curls his hands into tight fists. He’s too numb to feel the way his nails dig into his already sore palms.
His RED counterpart stays standing. Mick crosses his arms; he looks everywhere, Sniper notes, but at him.
“Y’really wanna know, then?” he says, more to his boots than to Sniper.
Sunlight falls across the tips of his boots. Stripes Sniper’s own hands and arms in little golden lines; gives warmth to the deep red that had been stained into his skin.
What was it that the doc had said about head wounds?
That they’re dramatic.
That rarely do they impress after the blood’s been cleaned away.
But here he is, marked, at last, by the red noise that has bled into this borrowed life of his; the blood of his blood; the skin of his skin.
This is something that has been steadily picking him clean ever since he had acknowledged each of its pearly white teeth. They’d been hard to ignore when they’re all he’s ever had.
Now they’ve been knocked loose from his rotten gums.
“Please,” he whispers.
A beat passes.
Two.
Then,
“’s my parents.”
Sniper stares at the space between his shoes.
The answer--doesn’t make sense, at first.
It’s just that: an answer.
Chopped up syllables for the sake of a reply.
Something that will fill the silence of the whole year that he’s been the living, breathing copy of the man that stands before him, the man that he will never be but is in every way that matters--
--and this , it’s--
“Your parents,” he echoes.
“T’ let ‘em know I’m still kickin’. That I haven’t karked it.”
Every weekend.
Every single weekend, without fail.
Huddle in the back of a diner, phone pressed to his ear. Stay late into the night, out in the snow, the very last task of a long day. A long season. Breath fogging the air like punctuation.
Rain or shine.
Happiness by the roadside.
Mick clears his throat.
“But they...” His voice catches. “They passed.”
Sniper slowly raises his eyes to him.
His head hasn’t caught up with all of this yet--even as a wetness springs to his eyes. From the pain or something else, he can’t say. His mouth moves of its own accord.
“How long?”
Mick still refuses to look at him.
“’bout a month ago, now.”
He starts. Falters. Tries again.
Tries to keep his voice from breaking when he says that,
“I’m--”
“Don’t.”
Sorry dies on his tongue.
“’s that enough for you?” The floorboards creak as Mick shifts his weight.
Sniper can’t find his breath. His heart hammers in his ears. In his fingers. He tries to concentrate on the wood grain beneath his palms--but he can’t.
He can’t.
He thinks he says, “Yeah.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Mick comes a little closer. The light from the other window gleams through the folds in his RED shirt. He puts a hand on the wall to Sniper’s right. Leans down over him.
“Then you go back to your team,” Mick mutters, not unkindly, “an’ I’ll go back to mine.” He angles his head towards the other window. Nods to what he sees out there. “Seems like yours are lookin’ for ya.”
Sniper follows his gaze. BLU team has emerged from the tunnel; the stalemate; onto the third point. It won’t be long, now, until they start their final push. Some of them stray from the cluster.
They check corners. Rooms.
How can Mick know this about him, too?
Sniper turns back to the man in question. His midsection, clothed in his team colors, fills his halved vision. There are black spots splattered in fat drops on the fabric.
He’d say none of it is Mick’s blood but, well--that wouldn’t be true, would it?
Mick’s hands find his shoulders; they’re warm. Sniper shivers under his touch.
He rubs a small circle into Sniper’s right shoulder with his thumb. The motion is so soft, so gentle, that Sniper thinks it just might be another delusion spilling down the side of his head.
Another, kinder ghost.
“I’m sorry,” Mick breathes.
For what , he wonders.
Is he sorry for the blood trickling down Sniper’s neck; for being who he is; is he sorry for everything , when every part of it has always been out of his control?
(Even in this, they are one in the same.)
(Blood of his blood.)
(Skin of his skin.)
(And yet.)
And yet,
“Mick--”
Pushes him backwards--
--and out the window.
He falls,
falls,
falls.
His head cracks against the ground.
The sky above him flares bright and blue.
Another face shuts out the sun. He sorts it into parts, holds onto what little he can still understand: a strong jaw. A toothy smile. A metal helmet and its thin straps.
Blood, thick and crimson, runs down Soldier’s right cheek. It drips onto Sniper’s face.
Soldier’s mouth moves.
He says, “There you are!”
And then,
“...What happened?”
Sniper’s breath whistles in his throat. He thinks he’s trying to say Soldier’s name. Somewhere, his fingers twitch in the dirt.
Soldier’s face falls. He takes Sniper’s hand in his own. He squeezes it. Sniper squeezes back--at least, he tries to.
His muscles are numb. Cold.
BLU all the way down.
Before Soldier can say anything else, he turns to look at something behind him. His mouth opens, again--
--then the world explodes.
The pain trickles away.
An emptiness nestles its way into its place.
A nothing so exacting that it seeps into the meat of Sniper’s body.
It winks each nerve out.
One,
by,
one.
Some are faint, still.
Some fight.
The most minute motions of his body remain capable; functional; existing.
He opens his eyes to that smothering, vast nothing. He stands, motionless, in a silence so thick, that he doesn’t know where it ends and his breath begins. Doesn’t know where to draw that breathing from to begin with.
He’s dead; his body is here; and he’s still inside.
--
The dark doesn’t go; it’s like a film reel being rewound. Replaced. Played back again.
The locker room
click,
click,
clicks into place.
The picture is sudden and over-saturated.
Lights come on bright; they halo themselves in his vision. Dig into his eyes.
His body remembers itself.
Sniper’s back comes against the wall. He sinks down against it. The tiles are cold beneath him.
He clutches the front of his shirt. His chest rises and falls. Quick. Panicked. Each rapid beat of his heart hammers against his knuckles.
He raises his other hand to his head. He ghosts it with shaking fingers; the side of his temple is warm. Stitched back together.
But some small part of him whispers that there’s still blood on his skin, scarlet and permanent.
The truth made manifest.
Something hard bumps up against his fingertips. He stills. Traces the shape of it with his thumb.
In place of that tangible contamination, he finds one little starburst of a scar.
Shadows move around him. The door opens--but the shadows linger. Crowd the already pinched edges of his narrowing vision. He catches a wide eye here; a weapon lowered, there; BLU team surrounds him.
His chest grows taut.
He can’t breathe.
He can’t breathe --
“Herr Sniper?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. He hangs his head, as if that’ll make him disappear.
As if that’ll take him out from under the scrutiny of his teammates and bring him back to that soft, dark place; that place that is supposed to keep him; that has kept him for long enough.
(The thought does little for him now.)
Someone else speaks up.
“Lad?”
Sniper draws his knees to his chest. He hunches over them. He tries to focus on his team colors; the stitching in his glove; the unbroken face of his watch; but all he can think of, all that his mind roars with, is that--
This cowardice has cost him.
One of the shadows kneels in front of him. Blue fingers touch his arm.
He flinches. It takes everything in him not to lash out; to snap his teeth at them.
He backs away, uselessly, into the wall. His breathing slithers from him in strained wheezes. It fills the silence--animates it into a writhing, living thing that slips through his trembling fingers.
A blue tie. The wide lapels of a lab coat. One, latex glove, its fingers hovering over his wrist. He hangs on to these small details; he can’t bring himself to look Medic in the eye.
Demo’s hand is on the latter’s shoulder. He stands over both of them.
Yet another voice rises out of the swelling chatter.
“Snipes?”
There’s more worry to it than Sniper can bear to hear.
He presses his forehead to his knee. Medic moves his hand to his shoulder. Cups it in his palm.
This time, Sniper lets him.
“Herr Sniper,” Medic whispers, into his left ear. “What is wrong? Are you feeling sick?”
“Must’ve had a bad one,” Demo agrees, louder and from farther away, unknowingly following the same line of thinking. “Those bastards swept the lot o’ us in one go--”
“--that ain’t it, man,” Scout, in turn, argues. “Respawn sickness don’t look like this --”
Soldier, now. “I saw him--before we were cleared out. Something was--was wrong --”
Sniper’s heartbeat quickens with every word. It hammers against his ribcage; in the tips of his fingers; a steady, white-hot pulse twisting his all too frenzied nerves. He shakes his head against his knee.
Medic’s grip on his shoulder tightens.
“Everyone,” he says. His tone is sharp. Firm. “Please. Go.”
Scout’s shoes squeak against the tile as he takes a step forward.
“But, doc --”
“ Go .” Harder, this time.
The room falls silent.
Then,
“Aye,” Demo says, softly. “C’mon, lads.”
Little by little, they leave; but one person lingers.
Who it is, he can’t say.
It’s not long, however, before the shutter door bangs open one last time; falls closed; before they’re alone. The quiet rushes to greet him.
Each tick of his heart is louder for it; he almost wishes everyone had stayed, after all.
He gulps a breath down. Another. He can’t get enough. Every breath squeezes his already taut lungs. His chest aches, pretty and blue with bruises that aren’t there.
Another set of knees touches the tips of his boots.
“I am here,” Medic whispers, voice gentle once more. “You are safe . This will pass, Herr Sniper. This will pass.”
He hears the words--but can’t parse their meaning.
He nods against his knees, anyway.
Medic takes his hand from Sniper. There’s the sound of latex warping, then the doctor touches his arm once more. His hands are softer without his gloves. Pockmarked in some places.
His fingers touch the inside of the other man’s wrist. They stay there for a moment, then they rise to Sniper’s shoulders. Nestle into the creases of his sleeves.
Sniper’s hazy mind slithers between each little point of warmth. They shift with him. They hold him. They keep him together.
Keep it together.
He raises his head an inch; the lapels of Medic’s coat come into view. His vision swims, but he makes out three grey buttons; two black straps; strong forearms on either side of his head; blue sleeves rolled up to their elbows.
“Doc,” he all but whimpers. He doesn’t know what else to say.
He doesn’t even know where he’d begin.
“I am here.” Medic drapes a hand over his nape, thumb pressed against the artery in his neck. “I am not going anywhere. You’re going to be alright, Mick.”
Something sharp and panicked in Sniper jolts at that.
It knocks the words from him in a quick and unsteady spill.
“Don’t. Don’t c-call me that--don’t ever --”
“--okay, it’s okay. I won’t.” Two hands now grasp his jaw, cup the sides of his face. His fingers are cold against Sniper’s burning skin. “I won’t.”
Sniper grips Medic’s hands with his own. He squeezes his eyes shut. He finds the hard lines etched into the doctor’s palms. Holds onto them tight.
Medic strokes his cheek with his thumb.
A sigh, thin and worn, falls from between his clenched teeth. He leans into that gentle touch.
“That’s it,” Medic murmurs. “You must calm yourself.”
Medic gently eases his hands out from under Sniper’s; when the other man’s hands follow, desperate for something to keep--Medic accepts them into his. He presses his palms to Sniper's.
Sniper’s elbows come to rest in the crook of his hips, his forearms against his propped up legs; the latter are starting to ache. The miasma of noise in his body and mind softens the worst of it.
Small favours.
Kinder mercies.
Medic touches his thumb to the last knuckle on Sniper’s left hand.
“ Eins ,” he starts.
He moves to the next knuckle. “ Zwei .”
Then, the next. “ Drier .”
“ Vier .”
“ Fünf .”
Each touch, a spot of heat against skin and bone.
Medic's gentle voice herds Sniper away from the darkness that laps at the edges of his vision; that threatens to bring him under; that takes everything but its time.
It’s something for his mind to sink its teeth into.
Once he finishes, Medic’s left hand--holding Sniper’s right--continues the motion, starting with the knuckle of his thumb. He uses a different set of words this time.
It’s only when the doc starts it back all over again that Sniper realizes the words are numbers.
“ Eins ,” on the last knuckle of his left hand.
He manages to mumble, in turn, “One.”
Medic doesn’t skip a beat. “ Zwei .”
“Two.”
“ Drier. ”
“Three.”
“ Vier .”
“F-Four--” his teeth chatter as a shudder wracks his body-- “ four. ”
“ Fünf .”
The ache in Sniper’s chest begins to bleed from him, drop by drop by drop.
“Five.”
“ Sehr gut. ”
They continue on, up to ten; Medic in his German-- acht, neun, zehn --and Sniper in his wobbling English. With each set, his ragged breathing eases.
His pulse, alongside his panic, slows; they recede from his fingertips. They slither back into his heart. He breathes through his nose.
Easy, now.
Easy.
“ Gut , Herr Sniper,” Medic repeats, soft and kind. “ Sehr gut .”
Sniper’s throat squeezes shut.
“’m sorry,” he chokes out. Exhaustion drags each syllable out of him. “’m sorry, doc. T-This ain’t…Ya s-shouldn’t have had t’...Oh, God , the match, I--”
“Shh. It is nothing to trouble yourself with, kamerad .”
Sniper raises his head. An ache blooms in his stiff neck. For the first time since crumpling to the floor, he looks up at Medic.
The man meets his gaze, sharp eyes blue with worry behind his spectacles. His lips are pressed flat into a thin line. He had settled back onto his heels; he keeps Sniper’s hands in his own.
Even kneeling, Medic has a good few inches over him.
The locker room around them remains empty.
“Did we lose?” Sniper asks, voice small in the quiet.
Medic considers the question.
“I do not know,” he admits, after a moment. He tilts his head. “Time hasn’t been called as of yet, so...” He shrugs. “It is likely they’re still fighting out there.”
A shadow of alarm--and something of guilt--passes through Sniper’s nerves.
“They’re gonna be needin’ ya, then--”
“Oh, please.” Medic raises their joined hands, in lieu of waving him away. He lowers them. “For once, I doubt that. There is no one here; they are doing just fine without me.”
He opens his mouth to argue further--but the doc has a point.
It raises a similarly good question of how exactly they’ve managed to get on without support--but he doesn’t have the energy to figure that out right now.
He nods minutely instead, a concession in and of itself.
Medic rubs his thumb across Sniper’s knuckles, the motion near unconscious; the latter finds that he doesn’t want to let go, either.
--
The sharp, metal edge of the examination table digs into the backs of Sniper’s knees.
He shifts. This cold, sterile table is far from comfortable--but he’d rather be here in Medic’s clinic than under the others’ scrutiny.
The double doors to his left swing open. Speak of the devil: Medic walks through.
Sniper watches as he takes off his backpack; his belt; then, finally, his coat, in favor of the grey vest and white button-up beneath. He hangs his coat up on a hook by the doors.
He crosses the room, rolling his sleeves up as he goes, and towards a water dispenser nestled into the opposite corner of the room. After a few moments of the dispenser hissing, he comes to stand in front of Sniper.
He offers him a small paper cup.
Sniper stares at it--at the water inside. His eyes then flick to Medic’s, mouth already open to decline--
--but Medic cuts him off before he can even begin.
“I won’t hear it,” he says. The cup remains where it is. “Drink.”
Sniper grimaces. He makes it a point to glare at the cup before taking it.
He raises it to his lips and drinks; once the cool water touches his burning throat, he practically gulps it down. He’s more parched than he had thought. It’s gone in seconds.
Medic fetches him another; Sniper takes his time with this one.
When it is, at last, empty, he cradles it in his lap. Traces the paper rim with half-bitten nails.
Medic stands close enough to him that Sniper’s knees touch the front of his slacks. He clasps his hands behind his back. His blue tie sits askew.
His pale, grey eyes examine Sniper behind his spectacles.
The latter figures that he had just traded one dissection for another after all. He shifts his weight once more, uneasy.
He clears his throat.
“So,” he says, carefully. “How’re ya feelin’?”
Medic smiles a thin, patient smile.
“Am I not the one who should be asking you that?”
“Yeah. Guess so. The big guy was…” He shrugs. “Just told us you started a fight at the pub, ‘s all.”
“Well, yes, I may have...gone overboard?” He squints. “Is that the right expression?”
“That’s right, yeah.”
“Is that all Misha told you?”
“There’s more?”
“...Then let’s not talk about it, bitte . Perhaps I did self-medicate a little too eagerly; it had been a long week, after all.”
His smile loses a little of its sincerity. The harsh, white fluorescents of his lab draw the wrinkles on his face into longer lines; they make him look older. Greyer. Tired.
He's right in that it had been a long week--one with very little reward.
A week that Sniper had spent drifting from place to place, nothing more than dead weight.
“Guess so,” he mumbles. His unease turns itself over to guilt.
Medic watches him for a few moments, hands still clasped behind his back.
Then, he asks, “How are you feeling?”
“On a scale a’ 1-10?” Sniper deadpans, in response.
“If you’d like.”
“Four?”
“That sounds correct, ja . You have not been performing well lately.”
He resists wincing. Leave it to the doc to come right out and say it; they’re not talking about the elephant in the room quite yet, but now, at least, they’ve acknowledged its presence.
Medic sighs in the silence that follows.
“Herr Sniper,” he says. His voice comes soft. Not quite gentle, but soft. “You had a panic attack. You are not the first person on the team to experience this; you will not be the last, either. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is nothing to hide.”
“’m not hiding.”
It comes out more petulantly than he had intended.
Medic glances around the otherwise empty lab; crows’ feet line the corners of his eyes as he smiles, wry and toothy.
“Evidently.”
He’s got him there.
Medic takes a hand from his back and holds it against his own chest. He nods towards the doors he had just come through.
“They were asking about you, you know.” He sets his lips into a flat line. “All of them. They are worried , mein Freund …” His hand tightens an inch. “As am I . We are your team ; you must understand our concern.”
Sniper looks away from him. Focuses on Medic’s desk, which sits behind the man and across the room; the half-open partition beside it; the files stacked tall upon the table; a single, nondescript cup filled with a handful of pens and pencils.
He mumbles, eyes elsewhere, “What is there to talk about, doc?”
The plastic wheels of a stool roll along the floor. Leather squeaks as Medic sits down in front of him; the usually taller man now matches his height.
He smells like antiseptic; laundry detergent; sweat and natural warmth.
Their knees brush together.
“You tell me,” Medic answers.
Sniper frowns. He had thought this would be a quick examination--a tight blood pressure cuff and a couple of banal questions and a doctor’s note of absence.
He should’ve known better than to let himself be led into such an obvious trap.
After the match had ended, Medic had kept everyone and their thousands of questions at arm’s length by way of threatening anyone who'd come near with a stern look.
Even Engie had kept his distance.
Medic had all but herded Sniper into the company van; had stayed by his side the whole ride home, too. He had been a barrier between Sniper and the rest of BLU team.
Despite the doc's best efforts, Sniper had still felt the familiar weight of the team’s eyes on him, anyway, questions in and of themselves--not that he could bring himself to meet them with his own.
He had thought that what had happened in the locker room would be a good enough answer.
Good enough for those who hadn't stayed to see the whole sordid thing play out, at least.
What more can he do with the red that stains his skin--the red that soaks the very meat of his body--but paint a picture?
“Doc,” he starts, carefully. Slowly. “D’y’ever think about the other you?”
Medic cocks his head. “On RED team?”
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes.” He pauses. He hums, the sound near sharp with discomfort, then adds, “Is that what this is about?”
A vivid exasperation claws its way through the exhaustion fogging his mind.
He scoffs.
“Why do you all keep saying that?”
“Saying what?”
“It’s like you lot have forgotten what we are . Yes , that’s what this--” he gestures to his chest-- “ bloody mess ‘s all about.”
Medic stares at him. “I would appreciate it if you did not shout at me.”
He shuts up. The hot flush in his face trickles down to his nape; mellows into embarrassment.
An old, familiar shame.
“Sorry.” He lowers his voice. “Sorry, Doc. Didn’t--didn’t mean t’.”
Medic dismisses the apology with a raised hand. He then tucks that hand into the crook of his other elbow and crosses his arms. He motions for Sniper to continue with a nod.
The latter takes a deep breath.
Another.
“ I haven’t forgotten,” he says. He forces his voice to stay level. He sets the paper cup beside him, by his hat. “I can’t . An’ I don’t-- get why you’re all goin’ about your days like nothin’s the matter. Like they aren’t--God, doc, that’s us on the other side. But they’ve--they’ve got people waiting for them. Lookin’ out for them, askin’ after them.
“They’ve got family. An’ I only--”
His voice catches.
He stops.
Medic’s eyes soften. He keeps quiet, however, and waits for Sniper to continue.
Sniper breathes out shakily. He steels himself for what he’s about to finally let loose--but he still can’t stop the words from trembling on their way out.
“An’ I,” he says, “an’ I didn’t know I still had mine until today.”
Medic knits his brows together. “What do you mean?”
“My parents.”
There’s a heat building behind his eyes. He won’t let it fall. Not in front of Medic.
Not in front of anyone .
What had happened in the locker room crawls along his skin; sends goosebumps in its wake; haunts him.
Just as fast as he had bled onto those cold tiles, drop by drop by drop, he’s stitched himself back up.
But some threads remain loose; out of his control.
“There’s somethin’ I have to tell you,” he whispers.
“Then tell me, kamerad .”
He confesses to everything: to the phone number seared into his mind, a leftover from the Petri dish.
He had, for a time, let himself live a life that hadn’t been his. He had taken what was in front of him while he still had the chance to take it--had taken something that he had felt would’ve made his BLU-blooded name mean something. That would’ve made him real , however disingenuously.
That phone had been one of the only things to tie him to a world outside this one; its looping, blue cord had fixed his feet to this earth. Had kept him anchored to those same, shallow footsteps, certainly--
But it had kept him here all the same.
He had always known, in the back of his mind, that he--the original Mick--must’ve come from somewhere . Must’ve had parents.
But if Mick’s parents truly mean--had truly meant something to him, then why hasn’t that significance made itself known to Sniper?
Mick had gone into the backs of diners; stayed, late into the night, out in the snow; looked for them by the side of every road.
He had kept their number right next to his heart.
He had loved them.
But after all this time, with all that’s happened, Sniper comes to the same, exact conclusion that’s been staring him dead in the face--that Scout had so generously clued him in on--
And it’s that he has nothing to his name but the tangible lack of everything that might've made it his to begin with.
By the time he’s finished speaking, his throat aches. His head throbs; it’s a harsh and taut pressure between his eyes.
He wilts, his aching head coming to rest in his palm; his fingers automatically find the knotted scar above his right ear. He shivers; it's still tender, as of yet.
Medic had been listening, in silence, with his knuckles tucked beneath his chin, his elbow propped up on the back of his other hand.
He now lowers both and splays them flat over his thighs. His hands come into Sniper’s view.
“I see,” Medic breathes, above him. He sounds so, so blue . “Herr Sniper, I...I’m sorry.” One hand, bare and pockmarked with scars, reaches for Sniper’s; he allows him to take it. “I’m so sorry.”
Sniper squeezes Medic’s hand in a desperate attempt to stop himself from breaking down right then and there.
He’ll let himself take what is being so carefully offered to him--j ust this once.
“I lost them,” he says, voice thick. “Don’t think I even had ‘em t’ begin with.” His eyes flick to Medic’s; the kindness he finds there nearly sends him over the edge. “Why don’t I--” his voice cracks-- “ remember them, doc?”
“I…I do not know. I have tried to reverse engineer the cloning process--to understand how it was conducted--but all I have learned, as of yet, is that it is…not an exact science.” A weighty pause. “You have seen Herr Spy’s condition.”
“’s not the same.” Sniper rubs his eyes with his free hand. “I called ‘em like clockwork. How...how could I forget them? I can’t--I can’t even remember what they bloody look like.”
Sniper pulls his hand from Medic’s. He lays it flat on his own thigh, then curls it into a shaking fist. He digs his nails into the cloth.
“I just--” he starts, then falters. He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “ They were right there. If I hadn’t been so…so scared --if I had actually gone through to them...”
“Even if you had gotten to them,” Medic responds, quietly, “you wouldn’t have known who they were.”
“But they would’ve known me. ” Sniper raises his head to look Medic in the eye one last time. He can’t stand the grief that looks back; it's either a perfect mirror of his own--or otherwise, one of pity. “Wouldn’t that have been enough?”
Medic smiles; a small, sad thing of little heart.
“You tell me.”
Sniper falls quiet, unable to answer.