Sniper never liked people. He had always counted that to his advantage: assassins aren't known for their mobs of friends. It's a rare man who finds himself so perfectly suited to a calling. Sniper was the best at his job in either hemisphere. He knew this because he had put bullets in the heads of the second best, the third best, and so on.
Yet, he didn't feel quite so gifted when he arrived at Teufort to find that simply being around his team gave him sweaty palms. As a byproduct of camping for most of his life in solitude, he had developed an irritating social phobia. He knew this was the term because Medic said so, but more about Medic in a moment.
Sniper had a secret. Some time before he entered into his contract with RED, when he first arrived in America, he had spent two years living on a commune. Yes, with hippies. He couldn't talk about it, or word would get back to Soldier. Being called a hippie as an interchangeable insult was one thing, but if Soldier knew there was accuracy behind it, he would graduate from annoying to unbearable.
Truth be told, Sniper preferred the company of hippies to his coworkers. Sniper's senses were better than average, especially his olfaction. The hippies smelled like the comforting musk of nature, while his coworkers usually dripped with the acrid stench of gunpowder and gore. Either way, it didn't matter what the hippies smelled like, because clouds of cannabis perpetually fogged the commune.
They called Sniper a huge pothead back in his day, and they were right. He couldn't aim so well when he was high, but he didn't have to shoot anybody or anything on the vegetarian commune. He forgot to maintain his skills when flower chains and okra crops took precedence. While he had to work much harder when he left, he never regretted his holiday from life.
Cannabis transformed Sniper into a social butterfly. He made jokes, and the hippies laughed at them, which had literally never happened before. He wore outlandish clothes with pride, whistled and hummed even when others could hear, and spent most of his time basking in the sun with his transient girlfriend, Tangerine.
Tangerine had been the one to identify how Sniper was completely different when he was high. He was feeling too good to notice, and it almost brought him down at first, but he learned to ignore the nagging suspicion that he wasn't really himself. If that self was a cranky, asocial cunt, well, who wanted him around?
The commune eventually closed when the landowners forgot to pay property taxes, and the hippies dispersed like so many leaves in the wind. Sniper tried to hang on to remnants of that period in his life, but when his irritable nature returned, Tangerine left him, and then all he had was a taste for cannabis that he couldn't indulge to his preferred extent when he had to work.
Then, he joined RED, and learned that he'd have to spend several months out of each year living in a quasi-military base with a pack of bloodthirsty lunatics. He knew immediately what to do. First, he found the furthest possible camping spot for his van. Second, he went into Teufort and located a dealer. Third, he kept his mouth shut around the team so that they never assumed speaking with him was an option.
They noticed him more often than he would have liked, especially when they realized that he used his own urine as a battle tactic. At least their disgust kept them at bay. Sniper wouldn't call himself happy with his circumstances, but they were better than he could have expected, and between his penchant for standing back from the front lines at work and his way of disappearing into his van after hours, he rarely had to interact with anyone.
Except for Medic. As the team's only medical professional, he insisted on examinations, reviews, and other distressing routines that forced Sniper to enter the base and wait around to be stuck with needles and cut open. Like most of the others, Sniper avoided Medic at all costs. Sniper would go so far as to shoot himself and let the mysterious Respawn system sort out something like a broken leg, rather than bring it to their doctor. Where the Medic was concerned, you could enter the infirmary with a cold and leave with shark gills, and Medic would act as though you should be "grateful" for the "improvement."
Despite Sniper's best efforts to deflect Medic, he still saw him more often than anyone else. This meant that he could characterize Medic with the most depth of all, compared to the simple list of physical weaknesses he ascribed to the rest in his mental assassination files. Sniper couldn't tell you what any other member of the team did as a hobby, but he knew that Medic kept pigeons because the damned things liked to dive-bomb his open wounds, and he knew that Medic played the violin because he once spotted the case in a dark corner of the infirmary. He noticed the unusual closeness between Medic and Heavy, and the way that they were never far from each other. He tried to ignore these hints of Medic's humanity. It was easier to think of him as a monstrous Doctor Frankenstein that plagued him with unnecessary surgeries.
Until Sniper's blood pressure became an issue.
On most days, Sniper stayed as far away from the base's wretched canteen as possible. He preferred to hunt his own meat in the desert. Sometimes, Sniper passed by the kitchen and saw evidence of burned eggs and bacon, or bilious chili. He counted these remnants as proof that he had made the right choice.
Sniper was no stranger to desert survival. Gamey hares, stringy lizards, and the occasional vulture may not be so filling, but they were far better than enduring the torture that was a group dinner. He ate three meals a day, albeit from questionable sources. His weight was stable. He even had some persistent belly fat. He drank enough water, coffee, and moonshine to supply his kidneys with endless Jarate. As far as he knew, he was in good health.
There was just the matter of his lightheadedness. The New Mexico summer was no fiercer than the Outback, but as the days lengthened, Sniper began to notice dark spots swimming in his vision. Worse, they interfered with his aim. He sat down more often. If he stood too quickly, his vision narrowed to a pinpoint within a black tunnel, and his head swam with nausea.
He ignored the symptoms for as long as he could. Anyone else would have done the same, if they knew Medic. He did not need his organs replaced by an elephant's or a stork's or whatever the fuck else Medic had in stock. He drank more water, tossed more Jarate, and focused on keeping his score consistent for employer review. At night, he self-medicated, and he assumed that the cannabis had something to do with his stable condition.
Then, in the ultimate stroke of bad luck, Sniper had a spell in front of Medic himself. They were in the middle of a shift at the fort, and he stood on the top floor, aiming across the bridge as the BLU team advanced under a hail of gunfire. Sniper was vaguely aware of the sounds of the Medigun, and Heavy's plodding footsteps, behind him, but he focused his aim on the other team. He locked his knees, held his breath—
And woke up on the ground.
Medic's face loomed over him like a vision of Death itself. Sniper cringed.
"Your heartbeat is very faint, Herr Sniper," the doctor pronounced, as he bathed Sniper in the Medigun's fumes. "Come see me after work for a physical."
Sniper did not comply. As soon as they clocked out, he hid in his van, inhaling joint after joint, and then endless shots of moonshine, in a futile effort to calm his nerves.
His fear of Medic was nothing compared to the overwhelming dread that his career was over. What use was a sniper that fainted on the job? He had reached obsolescence much more quickly than he expected. He had no other skills but assassination from a distance. Not even Jarate could save him now.
Worse still, Medic did not leave him alone. Sniper had no choice but to show up for work the next day, and Medic was waiting for him.
"Herr Sniper," he greeted him, and stuck a needle in Sniper without further ado. Sniper jumped back, but Medic followed his motions with the syringe, and he quickly had a blood sample. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"Fuckin' Hell!" Sniper yelped, clutching his arm.
"Oh, you're fine," chided Medic. "I will analyze this over lunch."
"Of course you will," Sniper hissed, adding under his breath, "you bloody ghoul."
Medic frowned, but Sniper ignored him and made his way to the most remote crow's nest possible in the fort. He planned of staying there until he could clock out, but just before the day was over, Medic cornered him.
"Herr Sniper, I must listen to your heart."
"The hell you will! It's not even my heart anymore. It's some kind of baboon, you said!"
Medic shrugged in the most infuriating way, as if he could not help their circumstances. "The mega-baboon heart was the only one capable of withstanding the Übercharge. Herr Sniper, your blood pressure—"
"I'm fine! If there's anything wrong with me, Respawn will sort it out!"
Medic gave him a freakish smile. "Well, since I added the Über mechanism…your new heart requires a certain level of care."
Sniper gripped his knife. He wouldn't go down without a fight. "Doc, the only 'care' you could give me is a careful dissection. I'm not about to let you shove your hand up my ribcage again. I've had enough quackery for the rest of my short life, thank you."
Medic's eyes dropped to the floor. His smile faded. If Sniper didn't know any better, he would say that the monster almost looked sad. "You are malnourished," he sighed at last. "Your electrolytes are very low—probably due to that Jarate program. I must recommend that you eat regular meals with us. I have recently imposed a nutritional program that should fulfill all of our daily needs."
"You're joking."
"Our work is extremely demanding. You are not the only one at a calorie deficit."
"Why don't you worry about the fuckin' Scout? He's the one running around like a lunatic! Me, I just sit back and shoot. Coffee and rabbit meat's enough."
Medic squared his shoulders and looked Sniper in the eye. Sniper's blood ran cold. "It is not enough," barked Medic, "or you would be able to stay conscious during the job. I will not argue with you. You will attend regular meals, or I will submit a medical report and have you replaced. Our team cannot have a weak link. Do you understand me, Herr Sniper?"
Sniper wanted to stab him. He could, but the satisfaction would only last so long, and that would be the end of his extravagant RED paychecks. "Fine," he spat. "Fucking Christ."
"Sehr gut. Dinner is in one hour. I expect to see you there." Medic performed a flawless face-heel turn, the Nazi cunt, and marched out of Sniper's sight.
For the next hour, Sniper's dread built to a crescendo. He couldn't do it. It was already impossible to be with those psychotic mental defectives for any length of time outside of work, but to do so multiple times a day…Medic asked too much of him.
He got high first, of course. He had just enough time to sneak out to his van, toke for a short while, and come to terms with his situation. He would probably be twitchy and paranoid by the time he sat down with the team, but even a moment of calm was worth it.
His heartbeat did feel sluggish and strange lately. As he smoked, he could feel it in his ears, pulsing irregularly, as if a wet sack weighed on his chest. Medic probably had a point, even if he wasn't a real doctor. Sniper entertained the thought of stealing adrenaline or heart medicine or blood pressure pills from the infirmary. They were all labeled, weren't they? If he fixed his heart himself, then the whole problem would go away.
He was so fixated on this stupid idea that he burned his fingers. He hissed and dropped the joint. As he retrieved it, he noticed the time, and cursed aloud. He was already late for dinner.
The horrible smacking and gnashing of eight men stuffing their faces resounded through the base. After fretting outside for some time, Sniper tried to sneak into the canteen.
"Herr Sniper," Medic announced. Everyone turned to stare at him. Sniper's heart could have stopped then and there. "Come. Sit down."
Sweat beaded on Sniper's lip as he squeezed into a seat on the bench. There was only one gap, between Medic and Pyro. He could not imagine two worse dining companions, but then, literally everyone was disgusting. It was like they had never eaten before. Pyro sucked food under his mask like a mysterious vacuum cleaner, and on Medic's opposite side, Heavy swallowed the entire contents of a bowl like a smaller man would inhale a bite-sized pastry. Across the table, Scout and Soldier seemed to be in the midst of a food-flinging competition. As Sniper stared at them, Engineer loosed a hideous belch. Demoman, not to be outdone, competed with an even louder one. Only Spy seemed to share Sniper's trepidation and disdain. He sat at the edge of the table, nibbling at the food and patting his lips with a napkin between bites. His mawkish delicacy was nearly as revolting as the others' crude habits, and Sniper found that he had completely lost his appetite.
Medic served Sniper from a giant pot in the center of the table. "Eat," he ordered, placing a bowl of goulash before Sniper. He adjusted his glasses, leaned forward, and stared at Sniper as if he was a specimen.
Sniper could have been sick. Fortunately, the food did not smell so bad. He forced himself to take a bite. Beef, potatoes, vegetables. It was a better meal than he could ever make for himself. No wonder the others were so overzealous. Even Medic's weird, toothy smile couldn't stop Sniper once he tucked in. It did feel good to have a hot meal. Medic must have cooked it: anyone else would have burned it, or refused to devote his time. Furthermore, the team was so hungry that no one spoke, and each took second and third bowls. Once he got used to the sounds of eating, Sniper had almost forgotten why he had been so nervous.
That didn't last. Scout, predictably, finished first. With nothing to occupy his mouth, the boy started to yammer. "So, Sniper, why're you here? You never eat with us. Did the doc really shove his saw up your ass?"
Soldier laughed so hard that he choked on a chunk of beef. After Demoman smacked his back, he coughed it up into his bowl, and then swallowed it back down.
"I'm kinda surprised that you left camp," Engineer agreed.
Sniper mumbled a response. Even he wasn't sure what he meant to say.
"Mmph!" said Pyro, as if Sniper's non-answer was perfectly clear to him. Pyro turned to Sniper and issued an excited series of wheezing sounds through the filter of his mask, to which Sniper could only nod.
Medic saved him by clarifying, "Just like with all of you, I told Herr Sniper that we are changing the way we eat on the base. We must have good nutrition if we are to succeed with the war effort."
"Doktor is good chef," complimented Heavy, as he poured himself a sixth bowl.
"Wait, Medic made this?" Scout stared into his empty bowl. "Uh, Doc, what kind of meat did you use?"
Medic adjusted his glasses. "Why, beef, of course."
"Are you sure? Not for nothin', but, uh, I know you have a bunch of bodies in the freezer an' all, and sometimes, y'know, you get a little…"
"Stop it, lad," snapped Demoman, but the damage was done. He didn't finish his meal, and beside him, the Engineer also pushed his bowl away.
"The food section of the refrigerator is entirely separate from my cadavers!" Medic protested. "Why would I feed you my specimens? I need them for experiments."
"And the beef—that's, uh, that's cow, right?"
Engineer rolled his eyes. "Yes, son, beef is cow meat."
"Right. So that cow wasn't part of your experiments, neither?"
Medic hesitated. "Well…"
A groan went around the table. Even Heavy stopped eating.
"I was only trying to make more protein!" Medic assured them.
Engineer rubbed his temples. "Doc, I know you're a man of science, but you gotta admit that's a mite off-putting."
Spy stood. "Excuse me." He went to the toilet adjacent to the canteen. They heard him retch.
"I can't believe you just fed us crazy mutant cow beef!" Scout clutched his stomach. "What if we get bread tumors from this? I don't wanna get bread tumors!"
"Trust a Nazi to make us unwitting experiments at our own meals! This is a bona fide war crime," claimed Soldier, as he scrutinized his bowl.
Medic hung his head in misery. Sniper actually felt sorry for him. He had expected unbridled glee from the Medic as he documented everyone's reactions to his frankenbeef, but this didn't look like an experiment. It seemed as though Medic genuinely misunderstood what the others could tolerate. For the first time, Sniper realized that Medic's off-putting behavior was more a symptom of ignorance than malice.
"This does not change our nutritional program," Medic said, once he had pulled himself together, and once Spy stopped being sick in the next room. "Really, you are all such babies. The meat is from the market in town. I did nothing extraordinary to it. Just a little genetic rearrangement."
Engineer was the only one bold enough to argue. "Doc, I gotta know what I'm eating."
"I don't wanna die," Scout whined.
"No more splicing," snapped Medic. "There. Are you happy?"
"It was...a good meal, Doc," Demoman said, between long pulls from his bottle of scrumpy.
Pyro made an enthusiastic noise and dumped extra food into his flowery handbag.
"I will help Doktor clean," offered Heavy.
"Nein. Get out, all of you."
Soldier sprang to his feet. "This is not over, Fritz! If you continue to poison us with your Nazi rations, I will have you court-martialed! I will have you drawn and quartered! I will—"
"Out."
Soldier looked like he shat himself. "This is not over!" he repeated, as he backed away. "To the latrines, men! We'll dig them deep tonight!"
The others were more than happy to exit the canteen, even if they had to deflect Soldier on the way. Sniper, lagging behind, was caught between two visions of Hell. He didn't want to mingle with the crowd outside, but he didn't want to be alone with Medic, either.
"Herr Sniper."
Fuck. Sniper turned. "Yeah?"
"I hope you understand: I only wanted to meet your dietary needs." Medic lifted the pot of goulash and dragged it towards the sink. He dropped it with a heavy clang and rolled up his sleeves. "I will not tolerate skipped meals from anyone on the team, especially you. Your health is my priority."
"Sure, Doc. Only…"
"What."
Jesus. "You could have told us about it before we started."
Medic did not look at him. Sniper chewed on the inside of his lip as the Medic scrubbed out the pot. "Would you have eaten the goulash if you knew that I made it?"
"Well, I worked out that you made it, and that didn't stop me at first," Sniper answered truthfully. It was easier to talk when the Medic had his back to him. "I liked it. Really! It's just, the genetically…altered…beef. That was a surprise. You could have been a little subtler about it. You sort of startled everyone."
Medic sighed. He swiped the back of his wrist over his forehead. "I will tell you something, Herr Sniper." He looked over his shoulder. His face, usually so manic, now seemed so sad. "I am not very good with people."
"Yeah? Neither am I." Sniper actually wanted to make Medic feel better—he was probably still high.
An idea occurred to him.
"I have a way of coping," he began.
"Yes, I know," Medic answered, brushing him off already. He turned back to the sink and ran the water again. "You are avoidant. I would say that you have a social phobia. It is likely part of a more complex character disorder."
"Oh, piss off. I thought you were a surgeon, not a shrink."
"I am responsible for your mental well-being, in addition to your physical health. I also recognize your symptoms," Medic added gently, "because I identify with some of them myself. Unlike you, I do not have the luxury of retreating to a high perch. I have spent my entire life struggling with social situations. I seem to…make people nervous, for some reason."
"Gee, do you think?" Sniper couldn't be too harsh, now that Medic was honest with him. "I know what you mean, though," he admitted. "I never know what to say to people. Usually, I over think it and say the wrong thing, and then before I know it, everyone's looking at me like I sprouted an extra head."
Medic laughed. "Yes, I am familiar with that look. I try to smile. I hear that a big smile puts people at ease."
"Uh…well, Doc…" How do you explain to someone that his smile is terrifying? Sniper decided to change the subject. "I do have a different way of dealing with it. Aside from running up a tree, I mean. Have you ever smoked cannabis?"
Medic's eyebrows jumped towards his hairline. "Really?"
"Don't look so shocked. If you go around telling everyone that I'm a hippie, I swear to God—"
"I am just surprised that it grows in this climate. I have very limited experience with the substance." Medic seemed intrigued. He rinsed the pot again, dried his hands on a dishtowel, and turned around to face Sniper.
"Well, I don't grow it. I get it from some college kid in town." Sniper was getting ahead of himself. "Anyway, I had some before I ate, since you demanded my presence in this mental institution."
"I see."
"Calmed me down a bit. Made me hungry, too. I guess it can make you a touch paranoid, but it wasn't so bad. Mostly, it just makes you think about things in a different way. You might want to try it. It could give you different ideas about how to…um, approach your patients."
"You sound like quite the expert, Herr Sniper. Do you do this often?"
"Not when I'm working," Sniper hurried to clarify. "I can't fuck up my aim. Just, after we're done for the day, it can be nice…" He trailed off, and looked uncomfortably away from Medic, who fixed him with one of his bizarrely focused stares that made Sniper feel as though he was in a Petri dish. Perhaps this was a mistake.
"Fascinating," said Medic. "We must study the effect on your blood pressure."
Definitely a mistake. "No! I mean, it can't be bad, can it? I feel great, really! I just wanted you to try it, so you could cope with your social defect, or whatever you called it."
"Ah. I made you nervous by mentioning a study." Medic seemed to file this information away for later. "Don't worry. I do not propose any surgery. But I would like to try this cannabis."
"Really?" Sniper already regretted the suggestion, but there was no backing out now. He cleared his throat. "Well, why don't I meet you in the infirmary later?" He would have invited Medic to his van, but he balked at the idea of bringing anyone into his private space. "I'll bring a joint."
"A joint." Medic, amused by the terminology, nodded his head. "Very well. I will leave the door open." He turned back to the dishes, leaving Sniper to retreat.
The hall was empty. Sniper walked through it at a brisk pace nonetheless, although his nerves weren't as heightened as he expected. He had just had a longer conversation with Medic than he had with anyone since the commune. They were about to spend more time together, and he actually looked forward to it. The last person to smoke with him had been Tangerine, and his last memories of her were nothing but tension and disappointment. Medic had no such expectations of him, and they even seemed to have something in common.
As Sniper returned to his camper van and rolled another cigarette, he remembered how differently he had thought of Medic just that morning. Then, he was sure that he couldn't be in the same room as the doctor without enduring extensive surgery. Who would have expected the stern medical professional to insist on making a homemade meal for his entire team, just to fulfill their nutritional requirements? Medic's crestfallen expression when the dinner backfired had truly changed Sniper's perception of him. He had never seen Medic show concern for anything but his experiments. There was more to him after all. The thought of him no longer made Sniper's skin crawl.
Perhaps, for the first time in years, Sniper had a friend.
Sniper approached the infirmary in good cheer. The door was cracked, so he pushed it open. "Hey, Doc—"
He stopped. In the center of the room, with his back to the door, stood Medic. He was elbow-deep in the chest of a cadaver, and the room stank of embalming fluid and effluvia. Doves circled overhead, occasionally dipping down like flies to the corpse's wound, and Medic was too absorbed to wave them away.
"Have a seat, Herr Sniper," he said. "I will be finished momentarily." He yanked something out from deep within the cadaver. Dark, congealed blood splattered on the curtains around the surgical stage. "Hah!" Medic crowed. He tossed a gelatinous chunk of flesh into a pan.
Sniper's change of heart abruptly reversed itself. What was he thinking? He and Medic may have had something in common, but it only meant that they were both completely insane.
"As you can see," the Medic explained, unbidden, "this cadaver was once the BLU Sniper." Sniper's stomach clenched. He hadn't recognized the emaciated corpse, but he certainly did now. "I am taking tissue samples so that I can have a better understanding of your physical condition."
Sniper couldn't hold back anymore. "Are you fucking mental?" he shouted. Medic turned with a start, and the doves fled into the rafters. "No! I must be the fool! Here I am, trying to be friends with you, and you're ripping apart my clone right in front of my eyes! What in God's name is wrong with you?"
Medic slowly wiped the blood from his hands. "I didn't think it would disturb you," the doctor explained. "You are no stranger to death. After all, it is just a cadaver."
"Just a—" Sniper gesticulated at the corpse. "He's identical to me!"
"Would it make you feel better to know that I frequently use my own remains for experiments?" Medic beamed as if he was telling Sniper about a secret reserve of sweets. "You see, each time we die, Respawn recreates us, but we leave behind a remarkable amount of waste. It would be a crime to ignore such opportunities."
"Doc, I assure you that whatever you're doing right now is definitely a crime," Sniper spat.
"Semantics." Medic shrugged. "Well, if you'll allow me to wash my hands, I would be happy to sample this 'joint' of which you spoke."
"You still…I can't believe…" Sniper could have left right then. He should have. Medic was demonstrably a lost cause.
"Why not?" Medic answered cheerfully, as he scrubbed out. "Talking with you earlier put me in a wonderful mood. Now that you have expressed your frustration, I hope that we can still be friends."
Sniper wasn't made of stone. "Fine," he muttered. "Just…pull the curtains around that thing, will you?"
"Ah, yes." Medic, mercifully, shrouded the cadaver. "Would you be more comfortable if we moved into my room? Your color tells me that the smell does not agree with you."
"You sleep right next to all this?" Sniper was horrified.
"Of course! What would I do if there were an emergency in the middle of the night? Run across the base and lose valuable time?"
There was no end to the Medic's idiosyncrasies. Still, Sniper was grateful to retreat. Medic showed him to his bedroom, which was very similar to the other bunks on the base, and much more crowded with books and jarred specimens that spilled over from the infirmary proper. He offered Sniper the comfortable-looking reading chair, and sat himself on the bed.
Sniper got up to close the door before they started. "I just need a barrier," he explained.
"Right." Medic crossed his legs at the knee. His boots were still sticky with blood. Sniper tried to ignore that. "So, it is like any other hand-rolled cigarette?"
Sniper nodded. He had never been so happy to light a joint. The smoke would crowd out the cadaver's stench, especially now that they were in a small, enclosed room. He inhaled deeply and passed it to the Medic, who sniffed it before he toked.
"What a unique odor."
"You can smell it from quite the distance. Another reason why I keep it to off hours," Sniper explained.
"You are so defensive about this behavior," observed Medic.
"I'm a professional! I have standards."
"And yet you allowed your health to fall into such a poor state." Medic passed him the joint. "The smell is not as much of a problem as your inability to retain consciousness."
"Are you ever going to let me forget that?" Sniper cringed. "Christ, that was embarrassing."
Medic surveyed him with that intense look. As Sniper felt the cannabis work in him, he began to think that he saw some sympathy there. "You would rather starve yourself of essential nutrients than eat with us. That is why I changed the meals, you know. The food was unacceptable."
"I have to admit, you're a good cook. All experimentation aside."
"It is basic chemistry," Medic responded modestly, but there was a pleased flush in his face.
"No one else seems to have a grasp of it. I would go through the kitchen after everyone left. Rancid. Everything was burned. Who left Pyro in charge of meals?"
"Pyro was the only one willing. The others would be happy eating from cans. I suspect that this is where they got most of their nutrition. When Soldier's door is open, one can see piles of them. It is a health hazard."
Sniper scoffed. "If you want to make him clean up, be my guest. He'll probably bash your head in with that damned shovel. The man belongs in an institution."
Medic removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, which were now red from smoke. "Honestly, Herr Sniper, I believe that we all belong in an institution."
Sniper leaned back in the reading chair. Medic's words sank heavily into him. "Well," he answered at length, "can you blame me for keeping my distance?"
"No, but you must understand that we are a team. I must impress this upon you," Medic said. The way he spoke was curious, as if he was thinking aloud. "I said that we cannot have a weak link, and I meant it. You must be one of us. You must come to meals."
"Again with the fucking meals. Do you want to be Team Dad or something?" The idea was so absurd that Sniper started to laugh. "Bringing the whole dysfunctional family together, are you?"
At any other time, he would have worried about offending Medic, but it seemed his laughter was infectious. Medic smiled, and then he grinned, and then he actually giggled. Such high-pitched laughter from the formidable man was enough to set Sniper off again.
Sniper pitched back and forth, cackling. He pictured Medic in an apron, baking pies, dusted with flour. Suddenly, his mental image splattered with blood, as he remembered how frequently Medic encountered gore.
"How the fuck are you going to find time for all this?" he asked, sobering slightly. "When I first joined, you were always running around, busy with some experiment or another. Don't tell me that you're going right from your lab to the kitchen."
"I am extremely hygienic," Medic insisted, as his boots left bloody scuff marks on his bedroom floor. "But, yes, I have considered the amount of time per day. I think that I will extend tasks for the nutritional program to the other members of the team."
"You're going to make Heavy help you."
"I'm going to make him help me."
They laughed again, for no reason other than their concurrent thought. Sniper's face actually began to hurt from smiling, and Medic wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.
A companionable silence followed. Sniper forgot that he was capable of doing those in conversation. Usually, he would have forced himself to say something at that point. His mind wandered in great leaps from subject to unrelated subject, and he could tell from Medic's glazed expression that the doctor was experiencing the same.
Medic's fingers drummed on his knee. He looked longingly towards his violin case. "I need to do something with my hands. Do you mind?"
"Not at all." Sniper leaned back in his chair. As Medic unbuckled the case and withdrew his instrument, Sniper felt a light pressure on his shoulder, followed by the quietest of coos. One of the doves must have slipped into Medic's room before Sniper closed the door.
"Archimedes, don't bother him." There was not an ounce of sternness in Medic's tone, and not surprisingly, the bird failed to react.
"He's fine." Normally, Sniper hated the little buzzards, but this one wasn't currently pecking at his innards. Up close, the beady black eyes and pearly pink beak were almost cute. He stroked Archimedes' soft feathers, and the dove nestled happily into his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Medic began to play. The tune was unfamiliar but pleasant. Sniper had never heard Medic perform before, and he found himself nodding in approval. "You've got some real talent there, mate."
"Thank you." Medic bared every tooth in his mouth. Was that how he always smiled? Sniper didn't feel an overwhelming sense of dread this time. He had almost forgotten his dead body double in the next room, and even as he recalled the cadaver, he couldn't stir up the energy to be upset about it—not as the room filled with smoke and music. He almost wished that he still owned a saxophone. Maybe he would look for one again. He and Medic could play together. He was rusty, but Medic didn't seem like he would mind.
After several interlacing songs, Medic paused to stretch his neck. "He likes you so much," he commented. Archimedes remained on Sniper's shoulder.
Sniper cocked his head so that he could see the bird from the corner of his eye. "Looks like he fell asleep."
"Allow me." Medic gathered the dove so carefully that the bird did not so much as stir. Sniper watched him deposit Archimedes into a tidy nest of fabric scraps on the bookshelf.
"You're giving him the royal treatment." Sniper extended his arms over his head and popped his spine. "The little guy must have breathed in our secondhand smoke. He's out."
"I admit that I am also experiencing fatigue." Medic replaced his violin in the case. "I enjoyed our talk very much, Herr Sniper. You have introduced an innovative new treatment to me."
"I'm glad." Sniper stood to go, but a thought gave him pause. "Uh, and you won't tell the others, will you?"
"Of course not. Doctor-patient confidentiality."
"Right. Good."
"I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow," Medic reminded him.
"Right." Sniper sighed. There was no way of getting out of it now, but at least the prospect wasn't the worst thing he could imagine. He even let himself wonder what it would be like to speak with the others. If the ghoulish Medic actually wasn't so bad in person, then maybe he had a chance of getting to know them, too.
He stepped out into the infirmary and choked on the smell of his own death. Right. Some things would not change. Luckily for him, he and Medic had not finished the joint, and so far, it seemed that his secret was safe.
"Hey, Sniper!" Scout ambushed him in the hall. "How come you're still here?" The boy looked him up and down and took in a big sniff. "Whoah. You been smoking weed?"
Aw, piss.