Warning: If you are looking for a happy story full of sunshine, smut, and giggles, please just keep on browsing. I think this qualifies as sad, so consider yourselves warned.
~~~
It's not hard, slipping away.
Becoming invisible.
Making sure no one notices when he leaves early, every day.
Why should it be? He's a natural at it. He hardly has to try, and oftentimes he wonders why people seem incapable of not bumbling about like imbeciles. The first few times, two or three of his colleagues were curious, but gradually they stopped noticing.
Or caring, for that matter.
No one cares any more.
It bothers him more than it should, the idea of no one caring. Every now and then, Engineer will throw him a concerned or suspicious glance; and he is aware that the Texan wonders, but that's slowly fading too.
And so, no one notices.
It's the same twisted play tonight.
He finishes the deplorable company food with unnatural haste, stands, and silently puts the dishes away. No one looks or questions. He walks swiftly out of the door, just as the last person starts on their food, and a crash sounds behind him. He pauses as a yell fills the air, but soon identifies it as Scout's voice and continues into the cold hallways.
He arrives at his destination and looks at the heavy wooden door with a blank expression. He pushes it open, cracking and creaking as the decades-old hinges struggle to turn. He steps into his company-assigned room, dark and cold, bolting the door behind him and crossing to his desk. He begins to wonder why it hasn't started, but-
Ah.
There it is.
The gnawing, aching, abrasive pain, grasping at the corners of his mind and the center of his chest, ripping, tearing, biting-
He grips the edge of the desk, with what must be white knuckles beneath his gloves, with slightly trembling hands, with short gasps. Taking a deep breath, he turns on the light, the yellow glow providing no comfort to him. He swiftly grabs his cigarette case and hurries into his washroom, sinking to the floor in front of the large mirror as he fumbles with the case. He puts on the mask he needs, turns to the mirror, and-
There he is.
The pain is immediately dulled, although it has not disappeared. It matters little with him there to comfort his tormented thoughts. He leans his forehead against the mirror, as he does the same. The hand that attempts to caress the other is stopped by a cold barrier, as he knew it would. He leans back and studies him, turning his head this way and that to look properly.
It's him, and yet it is not. His badly kept stubble, his hat, his sunglasses, his overly sharp canines, his crooked grin that he tries to replicate and fails miserably. He knows he is being ridiculous, that it's pointless, that it's not worth it-
But it is.
The reflection of Sniper slowly raises a hand and presses it to the smooth glass, against Spy's, but he feels nothing. He presses his hand more firmly against he glass, but still there is no warmth.
The pain intensifies.
Curling his body and leaning against the glass, Spy shifts the mask so he can truly look and rests a hand against the Sniper's. Still nothing but the terrifying scrape of loneliness in his mind and heart, slowly building again-
He shakes his head fiercely. Spy's eyes sting, but do not water. He has not cried in years, and he won't do so now.
Rubbing his arms, he tentatively opens his mouth and whispers, in a perfect Australian accent,
"Hullo, Spoi."
Spy smiles as he says this, and his heart jumps when the reflection replicates his move. He leans in as close as possible, and once more rests his forehead against the glass- against Sniper's. Quietly, so quiet that not even someone who had their head pressed to the door of the washroom could hear, Spy whispers again,
"J'taime, Sniper."
The reflection imitates him.
And he's smiling with joy until he realizes that the reflection repeated Sniper instead of Spy.
Unexpected warmth spreads across his cheekbones. He reaches up to his face, and his hand pulls away, the tips of his fingers stained with tears. Slowly, he looks into the mirror again.
Sniper is crying. A look of utter devastation on his face, eyes red, mouth pressed in a flat line.
And there is no sound as the tears roll down his face.
Spy doubles over, the disguise fading, hands pressed to his face, his heart shattering, unable to control the terror, the pain, the realization of never, never,never feeling the warmth, of always being utterly alone, of no one caring, of no one realizing that he was gone, no one knowing that he had even existed in the first place-
It mattered little, in the end. His pain.
The mask drops to the floor, the BLU Sniper's face crinkled and torn.
How cruel was a god to deign it appropriate for him to love a man he was payed to murder?