Spy poured himself a glass of cognac, willing his hands to remain steady. He settled into a chair in his smoking room and clutched at the liquor like it was the elixir of life.
It should have been a normal battle, just like the hundreds that they had fought before.
In hindsight, he should have noticed that something was wrong from the very moment that the BLU Medic failed to return to the battlefield. Respawn was a finicky and terrifying machine, but while it would give the user a brief spell of nausea and lingering memories of the injury, those effects didn't last for more than a few minutes. For the man to not return and as a result cause the absolute destruction of his team, something serious had to have happened.
Being what it was, he was of course obligated to do some inquiries of his own. If one is expected to know everything, it pays to give them cause to hold that belief. It didn't come as any surprise to him that the reason the BLU team was so successfully routed was that enemy Medic was incapacitated. His own Medic could be almost impossible to work with at times, and very rarely helped him in battle due to the nature of his work, but he knew how crucial the man was to their success. He had seen far too many maneuvers fail due to their Medic not being in the right place.
Later, he learned that the BLU Medic had been in a coma; he had carefully listened to his own Medic's account of being kidnapped to examine him in between the man's bouts of vomiting and swearing. That in itself shouldn't have happened either. He would be the first to say that his counterpart was nothing more than a monkey in a cheap suit, but he would also have to admit that the BLU Spy was almost as cunning and crafty as he was. If he could effortlessly sneak around their base, he should have expected the enemy to be able to do the same.
Spy sipped at the brandy, staring out the window. It was getting dark now, and while he knew that some of the men would be gathering for an after battle bonfire, he was disinclined to join them.
It didn't come as a surprise to him to find that even without the enemy Medic on the field that the Administrator still expected them to fight. The many conversations he had held with her had made him sorely doubt her capacity for anything as remotely human as compassion.
What did come as a surprise was that the other team had won. Through his opponent's underhanded tactics, his own team was bereft of their Medic for the most part. He couldn't keep pace with the rest of the team and in the end became a burden even when the enemy Sniper hadn't dialed in on him. If he was feeling charitable towards the BLU Spy he might have almost applauded the man. That kind of underhanded behavior was certainly something that he would have done, if he found himself in that situation. When he had the opportunity, Spy vowed that he would find out what kind of toxin was used, and in what dosage. Given its ability to stay in the body despite Respawn and Medigun usage, it might become useful later.
He was somewhat grateful that the Administrator had granted both teams a day to reorganize after that disastrous fight. It had been absolutely embarrassing to watch Medic stagger around on the battlefield and vomit every couple of minutes. The man refused to give up, and while that kind of stubborn will had been the backbone of many a successful charge, that day it had resulted in utter failure when he couldn't keep up. They mostly had to depend on health packs and Dispensers, and Spy had wondered if this was how the BLU team felt when they were defeated.
That next battle however… Spy shuddered slightly, setting the glass aside. He lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
In a battlefield where he could work from the shadows and harass whomever he liked, it was sometimes difficult to not pick favorites. It was amusing to watch the enemy Sniper hack and slash at the air when he was standing at the other side of the room, and all too easy to play tricks on the Engineer. For this battle however, he was curious enough about the enemy Medic to decide to focus on him whenever he wasn't needed elsewhere.
That was his first mistake. Spy exhaled a plume of smoke and frowned. When he was about to uncloak behind the man for a perfect backstab, everything went wrong. The man should have been oblivious; Spy took great pride in his ability to sneak up on people. No one else was in the hallway, and it should have been the most opportune moment. He wondered later if it was the smell of smoke that had given him away.
As soon as he prepared to strike, the man shrieked and whirled around, lunging towards him. His cloak deactivated when he tried to scramble away. The enemy Medic tackled him to the ground still screaming, and he pulled out his bonesaw with a wild look in his eyes. Spy struggled and flailed at the BLU to no avail, and when the jagged edge bit into his leg he began to scream as well.
Spy took another sip of the cognac in an effort to calm his nerves as he remembered what happened. The most unsettling thing was how… controlled the man's actions were. His screams turned to hoarse laughter and the manic look never left his eyes, but his movements were sure. Spy could still almost feel the saw blade slowly hack him into pieces. The man had started with the legs and continued onto the arms, Spy's own blood splattering the walls. He remembered wondering almost in a detached way how much blood he would spill before he would die.
Eventually he couldn't scream anymore and the only sounds were his pained gasps, the enemy Medic's laughter, the dripping of blood, and the sounds of the saw grinding against his bones. He stared into Spy's eyes intently, half smiling with a chuckle on his lips. The BLU was a man unhinged, someone who had gone over the edge.
He could still remember what it felt like to hear the RED Scout pelt into the hallway, stop, and gape at the scene. "What. The. Flying…" he had said as he looked at the BLU meticulously dismantling Spy. The enemy Medic completely ignored the spectator and continued with his grisly work. A stream of blood shot out from one of his legs and almost hit the Scout, spurring him to shoot the BLU in head with a horrified scream. The last thing that Spy remembered seeing before Respawn claimed him was the young man's terrified, pale face looking down at what was left of him.
Had he been in the frame of mind to consider all of the outcomes of his own butchering, he might have conceded that the absence of the BLU Medic had helped his team gain victory. Despite the fact that his team ultimately won, all that he could think about was the glint of the blade slicing into him. Spy lit another cigarette, smoking it like it was a lifeline.
It was the laugh, that's what it was. Spy found himself wondering what could have possibly happened to the man to make him snap like that, to make him descend so thoroughly into the depths of madness from which he had clearly suffered in that moment. That deranged laughter echoed in his mind.
Heavens knew that they had experienced some terrible things in this war, and that atrocities against the other team were common. But the actions of the Medic went far beyond anything he had ever witnessed or felt. He felt compelled to consider that perhaps something had changed the man, something had scarred him so badly that he had gone into a traumatic fit of insanity. The man seemed to act normal for the rest of the battle, even if Spy hadn't dared even let the Medic see him. It was quite the mystery, but one that Spy was almost reluctant to find the cause. Some things were just too terrible to discover, and he felt that whatever had happened to the BLU might just be worth leaving in the darkness.
As he watched the stars come out, Spy hoped that the BLU Medic could find the light.
Notes: I'd like to take this moment to say that I have blessedly never had to experience a traumatic episode, nor have I seen someone in a traumatic flashback. A lot of the actions in this story are based off of Sethe's episode in Beloved (by Toni Morrison).
That being said, I wish to all of those who suffer from them that they will find peace. If there are any veterans of any wars out there reading this, I sincerely hope that you can find a measure of happiness in your lives. If anyone deserves to experience joy and the best of life, it's you.
There is a lovely piano composition I highly recommend called War (Longing for Home) by Peter Jennison.
This was written as a challenge to myself, and without my wonderful beta.