His Name Was Michael

by Giddy TF2

'They roll across coarse ground and sand. He's slammed into a chilly, suffocating world of murkiness. He kicks and flails. Water and blood flood his mouth when he tries to scream once more. He kicks and flails and screams until he can't do any of that anymore.' (RED Spy/BLU Sniper)

This is a place Spy's been to but never will again: A surging stream in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains, teeming with lively brook trout that Sniper's trying to catch with his fly rod and custom-tied flies. His gaze skims across the lush forest surrounding them. He hears a deer chirp in the distance. He smells the raw richness of the earth. He listens to the stream's low babbling. He feels its cool waters swirling around his bare shins, the afternoon sunlight upon his bare face.

He hasn't worn his dark red balaclava for a while. Years, now. He likes the warmth of the sun on his nose and his cheeks.

He watches Sniper cast the fly. Sniper is standing several dozen feet downstream from where he is near the bank. He watches the expanse and contraction of the muscles of Sniper's lean shoulders and arms. He traces their malleable curves with his eyes and envies the sunlight that can do that all at once.

Watch me, love. I'm gonna win this bet an' I expect ya t' deliver tonight.

He smiles. He watches. He sees in his mind's eye what he wants to, will do that night to Sniper. He sees Sniper recumbent and naked on the king-sized bed in their hotel room. He licks and sucks and swallows down Sniper's rigid, delectable cock. He grips Sniper's trembling thighs and basks in Sniper's bitten-off moans, in the uncontainable thrust of Sniper's hips as he pushes two, lubricant-coated fingers into Sniper's clenching, sweat-sheened body.

He sees the waters around his legs turn crimson.

He sees the blinding glint reflecting off the sharp, inwardly arched blade of a kukri. It isn't Sniper's, not his Sniper's because it broke into three pieces after that incident with the stone fireplace in their home in San Diego three years ago and –

He sees the blade punch through Sniper's flat, soft gut from front to back. Sniper's hot blood instantly soaks through a once white tank top. He screams along with Sniper. The sound of their pain shatters the cloudless, blue sky. He sees Sniper convulse as the blade skewering him is twisted. He sees Sniper's knees buckle. He rushes for his six-chambered revolver lying silent and asleep on his folded jacket on the bank. His legs from the knees down are saturated in red and he screams and can't stop screaming as Sniper vanishes into the waters.

His eyes shut as he's plowed to the ground by an eerily familiar weight. His frantic hands scratch tanned skin and pound solid flesh and squeeze around a long, sinewy neck. He roars at the vicious bite of the kukri into his thigh.

They roll across coarse ground and sand. He's slammed into a chilly, suffocating world of murkiness. He kicks and flails. Water and blood flood his mouth when he tries to scream once more. He kicks and flails and screams until he can't do any of that anymore.

He's cold. So very cold, even with the blankets around him.

He opens his eyes to see the stark whiteness of a wall. It's easy to imagine he's staring at that accursed light at the end of the tunnel, that he's dead and he's somehow had enough luck to die a quick, peaceful death.

He's rather disappointed that angels apparently look like solemn men in vomit-green scrubs and bloody, latex gloves. They speak to him in hushed, misery-laden voices.

He's in critical condition for now … punctured his stomach … we've had to remove some of his intestines … we're concerned about peritonitis and septicemia … he may need additional surgery … induced a temporary, light coma … he will continue to receive transfusions for the blood loss … be monitored in ICU until his condition improves.

His right thigh throbs within its bandage prison. His whole face aches. He doesn't breathe. He feels emptied out and bone dry.

Everything is hazy. Everything stings his eyes.

His lungs fill with air again when he finds himself in a dim room, next to a bed and sees his beloved partner in it. He doesn't call Sniper that out loud. He wants to but Sniper never lets him because it makes Sniper think of cowboys and herds of bumbling, hefty animals, and thinking about that makes Sniper think of his parents back in Australia. Sniper misses them terribly. Still does despite his father's violent, decisive reaction to their relationship.

He thinks that perhaps he should call Sniper's parents. At least Sniper's mother. Sniper still sends her letters although she doesn't reply them anymore.

But not yet. Not now, not this time.

He folds into the chair next to Sniper's bed like a collapsing house of cards. He listens to the monotone, constant beeping of medical machinery towering over Sniper on both sides of the head of the bed. He stares at Sniper's reclined, bundled form, at the cannula winding across Sniper's colorless, slack face. He reaches out and strokes the fragile skin of Sniper's left cheek above the cannula. He outlines the dark circles under Sniper's shut eyes. Sniper is cold as ice, even with heated blankets up to the shoulders. Sniper doesn't react to his touch at all. Sniper looks dead already.

He searches for Sniper's hand under the blankets and brings it to his face with quivering hands. He's careful of the intravenous lines that trail from Sniper's inner wrist and forearm like parasitic snakes. Sniper's hand is limp and cold against his cheek. He presses his face into its wide palm. Nuzzles the callouses of long fingers that so adroitly handle that single-shot, bolt-action rifle, that have set him aflame over and over with their caresses.

In another time, another branch of reality, he and Sniper would be in their hotel room now, making love yet again as dawn broke over the horizon. Sniper would be demanding – no, begging him to fuck him hard and fast this time, to make him feel the stretch and burn, fill him up so wholly and deeply that no gap or corner within him would be untouched. He would slow his hips then, slide in to the hilt and then stay there and shudder as Sniper clamped almost agonizingly around him. He'd listen to Sniper moan and swear at him, smack him on his chest and arms, and he'd laugh and swiftly withdraw and then thrust back in without warning and listen to Sniper shout from the intense pleasure.

Then, he'd snap his hips back and forth without mercy, giving his lover what he wanted, what he so sweetly asked for. He'd watch Sniper throw his head back, watch Sniper's mouth fall open in a soundless scream as Sniper came in powerful, long spurts. He would struggle to keep his own eyes open as he came deep inside Sniper, grinding his hips to prolong his lover's pleasure, thrusting again after his own orgasm had ebbed until Sniper stopped him and drew him down onto a heaving chest and told him it was too much, too good, too good.

It would have been beautiful, like every other time they've made love.

"Oh, mon chéri," he whispers into Sniper's palm, his sore eyes scrunched shut. "Je suis désolé ... je suis vraiment désolé."

Only the beeping of medical paraphernalia replies him.

He lays Sniper's arm back onto the bed. Lays his head upon Sniper's hand. He tries to sleep but he can't. He counts each breath that Sniper takes. He stares at the wall between the bed and medical machinery with half-lidded eyes.

He doesn't know how long he stays where he is in the chair, drowning in hospital scrubs and blankets, his back and shoulders hunched, his arms resting on the bed. He doesn't know why he hasn't been evicted from the ICU yet. He doesn't care.

In the morning, he is bestowed with an answer in the form of an old friend.

He doesn't recognize her at first, accustomed as he is to her long, black hair and demure, purple outfit from their Teufort days. Her hair is cropped short, utilitarian and masculine. The t-shirt under the leather bomber jacket is a purple so dark it may as well be black. The pencil skirt has been replaced by practical, black jeans. Her spectacles are now silver and metal, icy and fierce like her eyes. War has barricaded them, and her, in layers of impenetrable armor.

What has she seen and done, since they last met?

She being the professional that he and Sniper know her to be, he knows she will never tell.

He rubs away the sleep-sand from his eyes. He sits upright and greets her with what he hopes isn't a croaky voice.

"Miss Pauling."

Her left hand is grasping Sniper's right forearm, just above the wrist, above the blankets in a gesture of comfort. She doesn't move it away as she turns her head to look at him.

"Raoul. It's been a while."

A crack appears in her steely veneer. Warmth seeps into her eyes as they gaze at each other. He sees a glimpse of the young, reserved lady she once was, who dawdled in the Administrator's shadow with her clipboard and stooped head.

The Administrator was assassinated five years ago. A single shot to the head during TF Industries' annual general meeting in Carnegie Hall in New York City. Miss Pauling had been standing next to her at the podium. That was the last time he'd seen Miss Pauling as he once knew her.

It was also the last time he'd seen the sniper of his RED team. His teammate who smashed pitiless fists into his face and sliced his thigh and almost drowned him in the stream in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His teammate who almost killed him and the one he loves. Who may very well still have his job finished by infection and medical complications.

"You look like hell."

The warmth lingers in Miss Pauling's eyes.

He smiles as best he can. Strokes his jawline and chin, and says, "Still a handsome devil, non?"

The ends of Miss Pauling's lips quirk upwards.

"You don't need reassurance in that department, you old, cunning wolf," she replies, and his smile becomes more genuine, his eyes crinkling. Yes, she's still in there, the young sweetheart of a lady who'd taken care to remember their names and made sure their needs were met throughout their indenture with TF Industries. Before he and Sniper became lovers, he had not known that BLU also belongs to TF Industries nor did he know that Miss Pauling was aware of this and was, in many ways, the undervalued caretaker of eighteen mercenaries on top of being the Administrator's assistant.

Miss Pauling was the one who'd told him his Sniper's real name. She was the one who'd given him the courage to seek Sniper out in the night, to reveal his face, his heart.

His name is Gabriel. He asked for your name, but I didn't tell him. I thought … you would rather do it yourself.

He is grateful that the RED Sniper had failed to kill her in New York City.

"It's been dealt with," she says, gazing again at Sniper's face. Standing with her back to the windows, her face is masked by shadows. "We're taking the body back to headquarters in New Mexico. We recovered your gun from the scene. I'll get it back to you once the lab boys have processed it."

Spy says nothing to that. He is unsurprised by TF Industries' speed and efficiency at covering up a murder scene, even one in a national park open to the public. The media will never hear about it. Never report it to the masses. Anyone and everyone who'd witnessed the incident or interacted with him when he stumbled into that rangers station with an unconscious, bleeding Sniper propped on his back have very likely been subjected to amnesia-inducing beams by now, courtesy of TF Industries' intimidating R&D department. The doctors, surgeons, nurses and EMTs in this hospital involved in his and Sniper's treatment will also have their memories altered. Perhaps killed and removed completely from all records, should the beams fail to affect them.

Temporarily losing his gun is the least perturbing aspect of this situation.

"And his fishing rods?" he eventually asks.

"We recovered those as well. And the fly lures. Did he make them?"

"Yes."

"They're good. I like the red-and-white, feathered one."

He gazes at her as she continues to gaze at Sniper's face, her lips quirked up a second time. He is grateful that she isn't here to take Sniper away from him. Or to kill them both and take back their corpses along with the RED Sniper's for TF Industries' scientists to carve up and examine. TF Industries is still aggrieved that they can't figure out the formula for Medic's healing beam to replicate it. Medic certainly has the last laugh on that.

He would have called Medic for help already, if the crazy German bastard hadn't gone into hiding with Heavy somewhere in Europe straightaway after leaving Teufort seven years ago. Crazy, smart man.

"Tell me what happened, Raoul."

The crack in Miss Pauling's steely veneer is gone. The consummate professional has returned, here to resume her duties to TF Industries as their new Administrator. It is in his best interests to be straightforward with her.

"He must have followed us from California, somehow," he says quietly, trying not to grimace at the twinge in his lower back. "Gabriel and I had planned this trip for months, but we never told anyone else. It was supposed to be … a romantic trip."

He feels like a fool for the massive lump that lodges itself in his throat when warmth sparks in Miss Pauling's eyes once more.

He turns his head to gaze at Sniper's wan face. His shoulders slump. Sniper's still in a coma. Sniper won't be awake for hours, days yet. If he does awaken.

"He developed an interest in fly fishing. He began tying his own flies at home, and then he wanted to test them and he heard about the excellent fishing reputation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He said he wanted to come here. So we did. We used our teleporter. We haven't travelled by airplane since Teufort."

He glances at Miss Pauling to gauge her reaction to that, but her face is unreadable. When his and the other mercenaries' contracts concluded, each of them were permitted to take with them one device from Teufort as part of the deal. He had chosen one of Engineer's larger, upgraded teleporters, appreciating its massive advantage in a world that doesn't know such technology even exists. He had told no one of his choice, except his Sniper once they became lovers and moved in together.

He may not have been the only one who chose to take a teleporter out of Teufort.

"We only booked a hotel room after arriving, like we always do," he goes on, tugging closer the blankets around his shoulders. "Did our usual checks and reconnaissance. Not once did we see him. Not until we were already in the park. We walked for miles to a secluded stream. Gabriel wanted a spot where we could have a picnic in private. The sentimental imbecile."

He grips Sniper's hand in his. He doesn't care if she perceives the action to be that of vulnerability.

"He chided me, you know, for insisting on bringing my revolver. For once, just once, he wanted us to be regular men on a regular trip. Men who didn't need to carry weapons with them everywhere they went. Who weren't constantly paranoid about the threat of death. Just … men." He lets out a long, soft breath. "Just once, he chose not to bring his rifle with him. He said there was no point since he wasn't on a job. He was just here to fish. To be with me."

He stares at their intertwined fingers on the blankets, but what he sees is the lush forest of the national park surrounding him and Sniper. The hours rewind. The contusions and cuts on his face fade away. The wound in his thigh seals up. The hours rewind and rewind and then he's there on the bank of the stream, feeling the afternoon sunlight upon his bare face. The low babbling of the stream accompanies them as they settle on a checkered blanket to dine on a fruit salad, bread, cheese, cold cuts and chilled red wine from the insulated picnic hamper he'd carried. Sniper is atypically talkative, leaning against him while munching on a sandwich slapped together from the bread, cheese and cold cuts. He is atypically silent, savoring each and every smile that unfurl across Sniper's face, relishing Sniper's low laughter.

Sniper kisses him afterwards, cupping his face with both hands. He kisses back as gently and runs his hands down Sniper's bowed back to his narrow hips. He slots their bodies together and they kiss until they're both pliant and buoyant from the sensations and intimacy.

Sniper pulls back and smiles at him.

Betcha I can catch at least two.

He smirks and asks what Sniper's prize will be if he wins, dragging a thumb across Sniper's lower lip. Sniper smirks back and whispers his answer into his ear. He presses their stubbly cheeks together, his smirk spreading as he listens to Sniper describing himself being fucked hard on their hotel bed. He's had many lovers before Sniper, but none have satisfied him as much as Sniper has, especially when Sniper wishes to bottom for him.

He doesn't bother asking what his prize will be if he wins instead; he knows that Sniper knows what he enjoys just as much as fucking Sniper is getting fucked by Sniper. Sniper is the sole man for whom he has bottomed. It is a pleasure he desires only with Sniper and oh, it is a privilege he treasures.

He growls when Sniper mischievously fondles his cock and then backs away. His eyes twinkle in the radiance of Sniper's grin. He will make Sniper pay for teasing him soon enough.

He takes off his shoes and socks and rolls up his jeans above his knees while Sniper prepares his fly rods and lures. He wades into the waters and admires its translucency and purity. He squeezes smooth stones with his toes. His gaze wanders across the opulent forest surrounding them. He hears a deer chirp in the distance. He smells the raw richness of the earth. He listens to the stream's rumble. He feels its cool waters swirling around his bare shins.

He hasn't worn his dark red balaclava for a while. Years, now. He likes the warmth of the sun on his nose and his cheeks.

He watches Sniper cast the fly. Sniper is now standing several dozen feet downstream from where he is near the bank. He watches the expanse and contraction of the muscles of Sniper's lean shoulders and arms. He traces their malleable curves with his eyes and envies the sunlight that can do that all at once.

He glances down at the waters once more. He bends down and dips his fingers into the coolness and watches the play of light in the ephemeral channels created by his fingers.

He hears the splashing of water, the determined rhythm of someone dashing through the shallow. He glances up and sees the blinding glint reflecting off the sharp, inwardly arched blade of a kukri. It isn't Sniper's, not his Sniper's because it broke into three pieces after that incident with the stone fireplace in their home in San Diego three years ago and –

It's the Sniper from his team, charging at his Sniper with an unnervingly blank visage and stark, mad eyes. That blasted kukri is already slashing through the air. It's aimed straight at Sniper's belly, aimed for a malicious disembowelment or a fatal stab through the torso. Time slows to a crawl as the kukri pierces Sniper's body and forever changes its terrain and its core. He screams with Sniper as the blade erupts from Sniper's back in a vast spray of blood. He screams as the RED Sniper twists the kukri and sends him a malevolent grin, memorizing his reaction, his pain at witnessing the slaying of his lover.

His six-chambered revolver is so far away, too far away. He sprints towards it and is tackled to the ground by the RED Sniper. They hit hard, him taking the brunt of the fall. He pummels the RED Sniper with both fists and brutal kicks even as he's catching his breath. He seizes the RED Sniper's neck with both hands and tries to crush it. He roars at the vicious bite of the kukri into his thigh but he doesn't let go.

They roll across coarse ground and sand. He's slammed into a chilly, suffocating world of murkiness. He kicks and flails. He flounders under a ruthless onslaught of whacks to his face when the RED Sniper hauls his head out of the waters. The handle of the kukri lacerates his forehead and cracks his nose and splits his lip. Water and blood flood his mouth when he goes under again, when he tries to scream once more. He kicks and flails and screams until he can't do any of that anymore.

He's cold, so very cold when the RED Sniper hauls him halfway out of crimson waters and raises the kukri above his head for the killing blow.

He hears the deafening explosion of his revolver being fired.

He sees the upper half of the RED Sniper's head disappear in a mist of red and fleshy chunks. The kukri plummets from the dead man's loose hand into the stream. Seconds later, what's left of the RED Sniper topples sideways to join the kukri in the shallow, fouling the waters with even more blood.

He hears someone sobbing as he struggles onto the bank on his hands and knees. He wants to shut the sniveling swine up. He has no time to deal with such nonsense, he needs to get a fucking grip, now, right now and he needs to find Sniper before Sniper drowns, he needs to –

He hears a wretched groan of suffering. It hushes all other sounds with its force. He wipes his eyes with a shaking hand and tries to suck air into aching, hitching lungs. He blinks. He sees Sniper sprawled on the ground near their picnic hamper. A pool of blood is growing beneath Sniper's damp, motionless torso, drenching a corner of the checkered blanket they'd sat on mere minutes – hours? – ago. His revolver is silent and asleep once more in Sniper's open hand.

He scuttles to Sniper's side on all fours. He doesn't feel the rocks and jagged pebbles scraping his skin. His jeans turn red as he rips off his wet shirt, wrings it and rents it into strips to bandage them around Sniper's body. He grabs the checkered blanket and tears that too, folding the pieces into compresses to staunch the frightening tide of blood. There is so much of it. So much of it, everywhere.

Sniper lets out another harrowing groan as he cautiously lifts Sniper into his arms and presses one wad of cloth against the wound in the back. His eyes blur as he also pads the wound in the front and binds the compresses as firmly as he can. He can see the torment he is causing Sniper from the severe rictus on Sniper's face.

Tie it tightly. Sniper's lost too much blood already. Tie it tightly, make sure he isn't going into shock. Make sure he can breathe. Make sure he stays awake. Get him out of here before it's too late.

Sniper is gazing at him with watery eyes. Sniper's face is bone-white.

Non, he rasps when Sniper touches his cheek with a shuddering hand, when Sniper's pallid, blood-stained lips tremor in a parody of a slight smile. Non, non, non –

G'bye, love.

Sniper's eyes flicker shut. Sniper's hand slithers down and away from his face. Sniper wilts in his embrace and then, again, he hears someone sobbing. He hears someone sobbing and snarling and he feels his face crumple. His eyes burn.

Non, no, I won't let you!

He digs his fingers into the bandaged flesh of Sniper's belly, around the entrance wound. He hates himself with every fiber of his being as Sniper shrieks and writhes weakly from the agony. He can't allow Sniper to fall unconscious. Sniper will never wake up if he does and that'll be the end of everything and he'll wish that fucking bastard had finished the job with that kukri and hacked off his head.

After an eon, Sniper is limp in his arms again. Sniper is gazing at him again, rivulets of tears trailing from eyes full of forgiveness that he doesn't deserve. He draws Sniper nearer to him and kisses Sniper on the forehead.

Je suis désolé, je suis désolé, he whispers against Sniper's forehead. Je suis vraiment désolé.

He feels Sniper's fingers around his forearm. He feels Sniper holding on, for him. He can't give up, not now, not ever.

We're getting out of here. We're going to be fine, mon chéri. We're going to be fine.

He clasps Sniper to him as he briskly checks the wound on his right thigh. It's bleeding but it's scarcely a graze to him. Insignificant. Still, he binds it with the remainder of the checkered blanket. He has miles to go on foot. He can't worry about himself. Sniper needs him.

He puts on his shoes. He folds Sniper's arms into a cross over Sniper's chest then tucks Sniper into his jacket and buttons it up. He turns around, maneuvers himself between Sniper's legs and props Sniper up upon his back. He ties the jacket sleeves into a secure loop over his shoulders and in front of him. With his elbows under Sniper's knees, he can grip the loop with one hand and leave the other free if he needs it.

He stands up with Sniper on his back in one smooth movement. He hears and feels Sniper's ragged breaths against the side of his neck. He feels the heat of Sniper's blood seeping through the bandages and the jacket onto the skin of his back. Sniper is holding on. Sniper doesn't have much time.

He takes one step, then another. Then another. And then, he's treading through the forest in the afternoon sunlight, and he counts each breath that Sniper takes. He breathes in sync with Sniper. He is Sniper's anchor, and Sniper his. Sniper is holding on. Sniper doesn't have much time. Sniper needs him. Sniper needs him.

He walks for an eternity.

He doesn't remember much about arriving at the rangers station. He hears random voices speaking around him and to him, brimming with horror and anxiety. Everything is hazy. Everything hurts. He flinches from hands that touch him, that attempt to pry his precious cargo from him. He bellows with the rage of a vengeful god as Sniper is removed from him and thrashes against more hands holding him down. He kicks and flails and screams for Sniper to be returned to him until he can't do any of that anymore.

He doesn't remember anything about the journey to the hospital. He doesn't remember being treated in the emergency room. All he remembers is sitting in a waiting room in scrubs and blankets, waiting for Sniper's surgery to be over. Waiting for the toll of death to render him asunder.

"They told me the blade had missed his spine by an inch," he murmurs here and now to Miss Pauling, feeling the weight of a thousand regrets upon his shoulders. "They said if I'd reached that rangers station just ten minutes later, he would be dead."

He stares down at his fingers intertwined with Sniper's. They're bruised. He doesn't feel the pain.

He doesn't look at Miss Pauling.

For a while, the only sounds in the room are of the medical paraphernalia pumping oxygen and blood and drugs into Sniper's recovering body. He knows he's slept a bit, for Miss Pauling to be able to sneak into the room without him knowing it, but he's so tired now. He wants to sleep. He wants to climb into the bed with Sniper and pull Sniper into his arms and caress his lover's soft hair and tell him how much he loves him, how much he needs him.

"We found Michael's rifle and teleporter near the scene. He'd modified it, done something to it that enabled it to scan and intercept coordinates from other teleporters. The scanning range was wide enough that he could have easily lived on the other side of San Diego from you and still received the coordinates of every location you've gone to using your teleporter."

Spy stares blankly at Miss Pauling. It takes him a moment to realize who Michael is. Was.

"He took a teleporter as well. He … you're saying, he might have been following us for much longer."

Her expression has become a dichotomous one; her visage hardens even more with the pursing of full lips into a thin line, but the layers of armor over her eyes lower to reveal a glimmer of compassion.

"You know he killed Helen."

He nods. He hadn't seen the RED Sniper yank the trigger, but he'd seen his former teammate fleeing into the crowd outside Carnegie Hall and swiftly losing himself in the bustle. There were few men then who had the expertise to assassinate someone like the Administrator in such a high-security location with a single shot and then escape unscathed from TF Industries' security forces. Even fewer now. And one of them lies comatose in the bed beside him.

"I want to hate him, even now that he's dead. But it was just a job to him. Sanctioned by that gray-suited fucker. Michael was his assassin for five years."

He doesn't react to the bitterness in Miss Pauling's tone. So the late Administrator had indeed been slain under the direct order of Gray Mann himself. He'd suspected it for a long time, after rumors had surfaced in the underground intel circles about her stealing Mann's stockpile of Australium and almost killing him in the process.

Gray Mann remains the president of Gray Gravel Co., Mann Co. and TF Industries. Gray Mann is still Miss Pauling's superior.

He wonders if Mann is aware of the wrathful, young dragon lying in wait within his ranks for retribution.

"I contacted him last night. Asked him if he'd sent Michael after you and Gabriel. He denied it." She pauses, then says, "I believe him. He has no reason to take you two out. None that I can think of or search out. And Michael went off the radar two years ago. Seems Michael cut off all communication with him then too."

He feels her gaze upon him. He knows what she intends to ask next.

"Did he have any personal reasons for wanting you and Gabriel dead?"

He says nothing for a minute. In retrospect, the RED Sniper had chosen a particularly personal method of murder. A sniper prefers to kill from afar, out of sight, out of mind. A sniper never risks exposing himself unless he has no other choice.

Or unless he wants his victim to see him before they die.

The RED Sniper had made sure that his Sniper knew precisely who his killer-to-be was. Made sure that he knew. Oh yes, the RED Sniper had very personal reasons for wanting his Sniper dead, much more than him dead.

The problem is, he doesn't know what those reasons are.

He ponders upon it, knowing Miss Pauling will wait. Back in Teufort, he and the RED Sniper had been polite colleagues at worst, supportive teammates in battle at best. He remembers no enmity whatsoever between them. The RED Sniper had loathed the other Spy, not him. What little conversation they had at all were always cordial. In fact, he can count on one hand the number of times they'd spoken to each other off the battlefield. He knew next to nothing about the RED Sniper. He never felt compelled to discover more about his teammate, like he did about the BLU Sniper, his Sniper.

And maybe, just maybe, that's why this fucking mess happened in the first place.

"Perhaps … he found out about Gabriel and I. About our relationship," he says, blinking as the revelation sinks in. "Perhaps he had perceived that as a betrayal. In more ways than one." He shakes his head. "Didn't he know the war ended when our contracts did?"

"For some, Raoul, the war is all there is."

He gazes at Miss Pauling with old, empathetic eyes. They give each other slight, elegiac smiles. He grasps Sniper's hand again, warming it between his own. It was a sweet thing, that his beloved partner had wished for them to be simply regular men living a regular life, for a little while. Such a sweet thing.

"I suppose we'll never truly know why he wanted to kill us, Miss Pauling."

"No. I suppose we won't."

She squeezes his shoulder once before leaving. They don't say farewell to each other. He knows they will meet again, one way or another, be it as friends or enemies. There will be more battles to come.

He lays his head back down on Sniper's hand. He tries to sleep once more. He counts each breath that Sniper takes. He stares at the wall between the bed and medical machinery with half-lidded eyes.

His eyes close.

He breathes.

The days pass in a fog. He only leaves the room to use the hospital's public toilet facilities. He only eats and drinks whenever one of Sniper's nurses, a motherly, rotund woman with a kind face, provides him with sandwiches, coffee and water from the cafeteria. He thanks her every time. She also provides him a pillow. He aids her in shifting Sniper on the bed to avoid bed sores. She is gentle with Sniper as she examines the bulging bandages around Sniper's torso. She habitually asks him if he needs anything, helps him change the plasters over the lacerations on his face and checks the dressing around his thigh. He reminds himself to pay her back when he has access to his funds again. Buy her something lovely as well. Perhaps a giant bouquet of flowers. And a box of Tuscan dark chocolate enriched with hazelnut praline and whole hazelnuts from Italy.

On the third day, after officially pronouncing Sniper to be in stable condition, the doctors gradually decrease the drug keeping Sniper in a light coma.

On the fourth day, Sniper returns to life.

He's dozing with his head on Sniper's thigh when he's woken by a low moan. He sits up to see Sniper's eyelids fluttering, to see Sniper turn his head to the side. He leaps off the chair to his feet and goes to the head of the bed. He strokes Sniper's pale face and tousled hair as Sniper moans a second time. He strokes Sniper's furrowing forehead.

"I'm here, mon cœur. I'm here."

Sniper doesn't fully awaken for another hour. By then, Spy has freshened up in one of the public restrooms and cleaned his teeth as best he can. There's nothing much he can do about body odor apart from washing his underarms and wiping his body with a damp cloth the nurse had given him two days ago.

He's sitting on the side of the bed at Sniper's waist when Sniper finally opens his eyes. He's engulfed by a waves of emotions when Sniper gazes at him with half-shut, gleaming eyes that recognize him, and he doesn't care that Sniper can see every single one of those emotions flitting across his face.

There's a reason he doesn't wear his balaclava anymore. There's a reason he doesn't have to hide his face anymore.

He clutches the calloused, left hand of that very reason. He patiently waits as Sniper's lips tremble and then move to form noiseless words.

Did I miss?

He raises one eyebrow in response. He can't help smiling himself as Sniper's lips quiver in a noble endeavor of a smile.

Boom.

"Headshot," he says, his smile broadening. "Did you miss? What a silly question to ask. You know you never miss."

He lifts Sniper's hand to his lips and plants a long, noisy kiss on it. It's a solemn reminder of Sniper's current frailty that Sniper doesn't gripe one bit about the maudlin display of affection.

Sniper touches his cheek with the back of long, nimble fingers.

You okay?

He kisses Sniper's fingers, then murmurs, "I will be. When you are."

He lays Sniper's left arm back down on the bed and drags the chair nearer to the bed. Something in the left side of his chest throbs when Sniper reaches for his hand and clings to it. He squeezes Sniper's hand as tightly. He is warm again.

He studies Sniper's face as Sniper naps. He sees the similarities in physical appearance with the RED Sniper, in the dark, thick hair and the long, aquiline nose, in the angular jaw and long neck. He wonders if the RED Sniper – Michael, his name was Michael – had known about them being lovers since their Teufort days. He wonders what would have happened if he'd spent the time getting to know his teammate instead of the Sniper he knows and loves today. He wonders if he can live in a world in which he never knew and loved his Sniper. He wonders if he can live in a world in which his Sniper knew him but didn't love him.

He wonders if he would have turned into the cruel murderer his teammate had become, if that had been so.

It would be so easy to hate him for what he did, like Miss Pauling must over the former Administrator's assassination. So easy to reduce him to an inhuman monster. But he was no monster. He was a man. Just a man, who chose suffering and death over love and life. His name was Michael, and he is dead while they still live.

"I didn't win," Sniper whispers. Sniper's voice is gravelly from disuse.

It's the sweetest sound Spy's heard in days.

He smiles at the twinkle in his lover's somnolent eyes. He leans over Sniper and tenderly presses his lips to Sniper's dry ones. He touches their foreheads together.

"No, my darling," he whispers back. "We both won. Like we always do."

Fin