This was written long before anything else TF2 related - It's old and based off a daydream I had months ago. I fixed a few typos since I've decided to put it up here.
He zoomed in on him. Damn spook, he thought. He felt a trickle of warm blood slick down his cheek, where the Spy had nicked him. The RED Team had just taken over all of the Badlands. For the longest time, BLU owned all of the Badlands and the Dustbowl too. But, when paper pushers couldn't decide who would get the land, they sent Sniper, with eight other men, to fight for it. That was two years ago, but most didn't mind. Being in the Badlands, Sniper felt at home.
He watched the Spy run back to BLU, and Sniper could tell he was trying to cloak; quite desperately, too.
"Damn spook," he thought. He couldn't get a good enough chance to shoot. He could see Spy's blood soaking his suit, but he missed. The Spy was wounded, but he could still run. He missed his head.
He lowered his rifle. He climbed downstairs, and headed for the main room. He didn't stop, till their female medic jumped in front of him, and put a hand on the dried blood.
"Sniper! What's this?" She said. Sniper watched her brown eyes look him over, red bangs dusty in her face.
"Their Spy got me, it's fine." He grunted. He stepped around her, and adjusted his hat. "I'm going after him."
"WOT?" Demoman drunkenly yelled. "It's ceasefire, laddie! come an' DRINK! We got more scrumpy today!" Demoman burped, mumbled something, and took a swig from the brown bottle.
But Sniper ignored him, and continued out.
"It's getting dark.." The young medic said. "He could freeze to death."
"Maybe de new Sniper we get afferwards will DRINK wit' me." Demoman yelled louder than he really needed to, slouching over the table. "Lass, Mary, DRINK WIT' ME? C'mon!"
"No, Demoman," She refused. "You know my name is Maria, not Mary." She crossed her arms. "You know Medic would kill both of us personally and horribly if I drank."
"He ain't ya father, lassie." He laughed, before passing out. The bottle tipped over, and a little repugnant alcohol spilled out, but Maria picked it up and set it nearby, upright.
"Maybe he's not my father," She thought. "But he sure likes to think he is." And she looked to the door Sniper exited through. It was dark, and she couldn't help herself to not think he could be out there, dying. She shook it off, telling herself Sniper was tough, that he could handle it.
Engineer disturbed her thinking when he walked in. "Ree, why are ya' thinkin' so hard, for?" She jumped, and faced him. He was the shortest man around, but he was still taller than her.
"Sniper left, and I think I'm gonna go get him. He chased a Blu Spy into the desert."
Engineer gave her a stern frown, and put a hand under his chin.
"You don't say?" He asked. "Pretty darn unlucky he had to pick now to go. I'll call for a new Sniper in the morning."
"New sniper?" She asked. "It's not like he's gonna die, it's gonna be cold, but-"
"Missy, there is a dust storm a' brewin' out there fixin' to rip skin clean off the bone." He said, firmly. "You ain't a' goin' nowhere."
"Dust storm? Oh no." She whispered. She noticed his goggles laying on the table. She walked past him, hand on the table. "Thanks for telling me. I won't go, no use in letting myself die and leave this team with two comrades down. Call in the morning." She slipped the goggles into her coat pocket.
She could hear Engineer go through the cabinets, for something to eat. He wasn't going to notice anything missing for some time.
"Let's see, I'm gonna need..." She eyed Scout's room. In the open doorway was one of his brown duffel bags, flat and empty. She quietly slipped into the hall, and heard soft snoring. Maria grabbed the bag off the floor, and shut the door.
She climbed up a slope into the Med Bay. She flinched when she noticed Medic and Heavy, conversing. The two took notice to her, and greeted her, in their native languages. She nodded to them.
"Medic, does anything need to be done before the day is done?" Maria asked. He quickly pointed to a cabinet behind him. "Zhat could use some organizing. Bored, are you, Frau?" He smiled.
"Sort of, Medic." She grinned. It was perfect. She went to the cabinet, opening the opaque doors, and rummaged through the shelves and drawers. She slipped antibiotics and any other supplies she thought were basic into her overcoat, and replaced everything else where it belonged.
She bid the two goodnight, and exited the doors, uncaught. She felt guilt pang through her heart, it hurt to steal from Medic, the one that forced the others to allow her to be here, and letting her become a medic instead of scrubbing floors. But she was determined that if she did indeed bring Sniper back alive, the cause would outweigh the crime.
The last item on her mental checklist was a shovel. That posed a problem, since the only one with a shovel here was Soldier, and she joked to herself that Soldier would sooner marry his shovel than any woman. It was late, but his door was still open. She peeked inside.
It was eerily neat and tidy. She knew Soldier was no slob but the cleanliness surprised her; And right inside the door, was the shovel.
She hesitated, knowing she would have to set out quickly to have any chance of finding Sniper, and Soldier was probably still awake. She could hear the wind blowing outside. She gripped the shovel, and ran.
She slung the duffel bag she put the medical supplies in, stopped in the kitchen, and grabbed as many cans of soup she could, and took the whole tablecloth, and as she walked out into the dust, she slid the engineer's goggles over her eyes.
The storm was just starting. The woman medic could still see Sniper's footsteps in the dirt, and seeing how the Blu base was a straight walk away, she went in the same direction, her foot in his steps.
Much to her dismay, it quickly got colder, and colder. She was used to the hot sun in the day, and a heated building at night. She hadn't felt cold since she was very little. She quickly remembered how much she always hated it. Shovel in hand, she pulled and pushed herself against the scratchy wind, only stopping to make sure minimal skin was showing, to protect it from the sand.
She trudged through the changing, painful wind, and could see a blue colored concrete building, and towers of some kind.
It was the Dustbowl.
Maria looked up at the top of the towers, noting them to be possible sniper nests, and to be very wary when RED advanced on them. She stopped staring into the Blu base when she tumbled over a lump on the ground. She looked over her shoulder, and through the dark glasses, she could tell it was her team's Sniper.
She shuffled on her hands and knees and grabbed his shoulder, before sliding a gloved hand down his shirt, feeling for any pulse. She slammed the shovel into the sand, making sure it was sturdy, and pulling out anything she could to use with the tablecloth for shelter, and used several scalpels to keep the makeshift tent pinned down.
Sniper grunted as he felt the sand stop blowing against his face, and slowly opened his eyes.
"Wot de 'ell?" he groaned. He noticed Maria, only he didn't recognize her, all he saw was big black eyes, and her figure covered in white. "Ah, piss, I think I'd rather bleed ta' death."
She slipped her white overcoat off, and pulled the goggles down so they were around her neck. "Bleed to death?" She looked him over once again, and noticed arrows in his abdomen. "Oh jeeze..."
"I know, sheila," He groaned. "The dust storm's still 'ere, ya' need ta' get back to tha' base."
"Sniper, I came out here just to find you and get you back to the base." She said, scrounging through Scout's duffel bag. "I didn't expect you to be hurt, and I didn't bring that much with me, it's mostly food..."
"You. Need. To. Go." Sniper said, in a pained tone. "There's no use if we both die."
"You're not going to die, Sniper," She said, quite calmly. "I'm taking those arrows out, I have syringes and antibiotics, and some gauze. You'll be fine."
"It's not jus' my guts, girl," he said. "My leg, I can't walk on this leg."
She looked farther down, and pulled her scalpel, shredding the denim fabric only to find a bloody swollen leg underneath. "...What the hell is this..?"
"It was a bullet wound," He answered. "Enemy sniper shot me, I never even saw it comin'. The sand got innit, and I collapsed here."
She put a hand on his cheek, and kissed him on the forehead before lowering her voice to say, "Hand me your kukri," He pushed it to her with his fingertips, and she placed it to her side. He asked her why she would need it. "It's mostly so you don't hack into me when I pull these arrows out."
Maria reached over with a scalpel and quickly but gingerly, she removed both arrows. He let out one of the most painful yells she had ever heard in her life. Blood started seeping through both wounds, and she pulled out gauze and applied pressure with her hands. After a moment, she grabbed his hands, having him press down instead.
She grabbed the kukri and hacked off more of the denim fabric from his pants as she could. "I'm gonna relieve the pressure out of your leg."
"Wha, 'ow?" He asked. His eyes under his sunglasses shut tight.
"I'm cutting into your leg." She said. "If I do, you might make it back to your base with two legs."
"Wot if I don' let ya'?" He grunted.
"Then putting any pressure on it, add in the sandstorm, your leg will probably swell more and your skin will stretch and rip and you'll die from blood loss." She said, matter-of-factly.
"Cut my leg." He said, quickly.
"I was going to, whether you said no or not," She put the cleaned scalpel to his skin. "A doctor should do what's best for her team."
She cut very deep into his leg, making sure to not hit big arteries or veins, and she let what blood she would allow to come out with the pressure, before wrapping the leg in gauze, and using the trashed strips of denim to keep the gauze applied to the injury.
Sniper panted, having kept the screaming as minimal as he could wore him out. She grabbed his shoulder, sliding one hand under his back.
"C'mon, c'mon, sit up, now," She whispered. He sat up, but his head hung as if he were a ragdoll. She pulled his vest off, and pushed his red shirt up as much as she could, and she wrapped the last of the gauze around his torso. She pulled his shirt back down, and slipped his vest back onto his shoulders. "Lay back down."
He laid back, her overcoat now his pillow, and watched her look through the duffel back. She pulled out a syringe gun, and tore the casing off of it, pulling out a tiny syringe. She tossed the gun back in the bag, and pulled out a vial of clear liquid. She filled the syringe, and grabbed Sniper's arm. "Make a fist."
He balled his bloodied hand into a fist, his other laying over his chest. She poked his arm, and injected him with antibiotics. "Good thing I brought this out. Straight from the Doc's cabinet." She put the syringe into a pocket inside the bag.
"So, wot are we ta' do now?" Sniper said, weakly.
"We're gonna eat some..." She reached into the bag for the cans she grabbed. "...soup. Cold soup with... no spoons."
He made a waving motion towards him with his hand. "Give it." Sniper said. He took one of his own arrows, and poked it through the lid of the can. He handed her the arrow to do the same, and drank straight from the can. She followed his example, and between the two of them, seven cans of soup were gone.
Maria yawned and stretched out next to him, eyes shut. "Might as well sleep, it's cold and you have wet bandages on. We'll wait out the sandstorm."
She awoke to the sound of Sniper telling her to wake up. She sat up, and saw him slurping down another can of soup. He handed her an already-opened one.
"How's your leg?" She asked, finishing off her can.
He nodded to her, smiling. "Doesn't 'urt so bad anymore, but I'm definitely gonna wan' Medic ta' look at it."
"Yeah, well," She said, grinning. "We gotta head back. Everyone's gonna be mad at me till they realized I got you back alive."
"Mad? Wot?" He cocked an eyebrow.
"I stole supplies from Medic's cabinet, food from the kitchen, Soldier's shovel, Scout's bag, and Engineer's goggles." She said, sheepishly.
"I think th' cause outweighs th' crimes, Ree." He brushed sand off his arms and chest. She grabbed the duffel bag, and slung it over her shoulder. She pulled out the scalpels from the ground, and bundled up the cloth.
She handed the shovel to Sniper. "Use that as a crutch." She helped him up. She gave a cautious look to the Blu base, and could see the Red base far in the distance. She and Sniper held the cloth over them to prevent further sun and sand damage, and set off for the home base.