Because it was too good to pass up after the Announcer's friendship spiel. If anyone on here has done this already, I'm sorry, but I don't read many of the fics on here, so I didn't know.
Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my poor excuse for a brain that writes this stuff. Valve just hasn't banned me from using the concepts yet.
I first noticed the small scar at the base of my neck almost a week after my physical for being BLU's Spy. I passed with flying colors of course, since my hobbies and previous work had kept me at the utmost peak of physical potential. Though it was odd to have a scar and to know nothing of its origins annoyed me slightly, but I assumed that it was merely nothing and went on with my job. It was not vanity that made me annoyed (I wear a mask for the majority of my work), but the fact of not knowing where it came from. I supposed it could have been from my employers, but I did not feel pain at any time or fall asleep in order for them to perform any procedure on my person.
I thought anyway.
But now there's a throbbing at the base of my skull and I'm standing over this little boy, this Scout.
Ah, yes... he might be a man in age, but the way that he's staring up at me like I've somehow betrayed him by raising this knife against him makes him look like a four year old whose parent has drawn back a hand to strike: scared, shocked, and vulnerable.
What is wrong with me? The thought passes through my mind and prods my conscience like a lance. The pain intensifies.
Something in my head is telling me that if I do this- ruin our friendship, kill him- the pain will go away. The headache and the throbbing at the base of my skull that has plagued me for the last week will recede... but only if this boy ends up dead.
My eyes drift closed as I try to stay my hand and logically think this over. Waves of pain pulse from the base of my skull and wash over my brain, making thinking almost impossible.
Then I hear it. The soft, almost imperceptible, urging echoing in my ears at a decibel level that only my subconscious can unravel. The voice is unmistakably an old woman, perhaps sixty or seventy in years and all too familiar to us all.
Kill the whelp. The pain will fade into nothing and there will be nothing holding me back from my job...
I try to convince myself that he wasn't impeding my work, but I know that he was. I have refused to kill him many times when the chance arose and have recently approached killing his comrades in a less than professional way, often allowing them to escape with their lives and a little blood shed.
He has made me weak. He causes my pain. Him. Him. Kill him and I will be strong again, kill him and-
His voice rips me from my listening, it is tentative, questioning and only one word: "Spy..."
"S-Scout, je..." I can't even speak English anymore. The pain, the throbbing... it intensifies so much that I drop my knife, fascinated as I watch it pinwheel towards his foot, sticking in the ground and barely missing the boy's beloved appendage.
Even though his uniform is red, my mind tells me that he is my friend. I collapse to my knees, begging the voices to go away.
Friendship is insubstantial and- I block it out by holding my breath and focusing so that it sounds like a storm is raging in my ears. It calms the pain and I wish that I can stay like this for eternity, but I have to breathe and am soon gasping for air.
"Spy, you okay, man?" Scout sounds worried and I hear him shift closer through the rising volume in my head. My hands come up to ward him off. It seems like the closer he gets, the louder the voice gets and the more my ears feel like they are about to burst.
"We... we can no longer be friends." I murmur in French, pushing him away when his hand touches my shoulder. Oh, the pain diminishes a bit. I repeat it, this time in English and Scout looks at me like I have struck him while offering him a treat at the same time.
"Wh-"
"You heard me, boy." I attempt to be detached, my voice is stern and harsh from the last few moments of torture. "Go. Now." I state as I reach for my knife and tug it from the dirt.
"B-" he is cut off by my knife to his throat.
"I will spare you this last time, you insolent little fool, but the next time that we cross paths...!" He is gone long before I get to the threat, but I continue on anyway. What will happen the next time we cross paths? Will the voices come back again and drive me to madness? If they don't, will Scout ever forgive me for my crazy behavior?
No, he wont. I sigh as the information sinks in and that same voice that had previously been echoing in my head calls down from the speakers that we have captured the RED intelligence.
They are the enemy, familier... not friends.
"Oui... I have no choice but to agree..." I sigh up at the nearest speaker and flick my knife back into my pocket. "You hold all of the cards and we are merely the chips, eh?" I murmur sardonically before turning to walk away, to catch an enemy in the back before they can shoot down our Scout. He's so incompetent that he needs directions to the opponent's Intel spelled out for him. It's not like the bases are exactly the same.
At thoughts of my own team's incompetence I realize that without my friend's moral support and (though I will never admit it to his face) quite funny jokes, this war will seem to last forever.