There's a distinct difference between pushing somebody's buttons, and pushing them too far.
That's what Engineer says anyway. See, even out of context, the weight of it carries.
Scout knows how to push people's buttons. He knows how to get what he wants. At least, he used to. Used to be able to play Medic like a cheap violin, have him singing testaments to high heaven, have him bleeding sunshine in the concert of a smile –yeah, Scout used to play him like that. Used to play them all like that, but it was different with Medic. He had love like a crowbar, and wedged it beneath unliftable objects, watching Medic break his back, smiling the whole time.
But every man has his breaking point. Even those blinded by love, or by jealousy.
It's the night before the last day at Coldfront. Not that has persuaded the snow or the bitter winds to let up at all, but the thought of returning to Teufort in October, the most temperate weather of all year, has stirred some enthusiasm in the teams. The last day's battle is always bloody and nasty and personal. It's also shorter. But instead of celebrating a return home, RED spend the evening packing.
Scout can't bear to be alone with the memory of 'Scott F' once more, and fumbles his way down the darkening stairs and close, grey-walled corridors towards the Infirmary. Beneath the snowfall of A4 papers, Medic sits, looking very melancholic. There is a bird on his shoulders, slightly rosy with the blood of others faded into it's feathers. When he hears Scout, it takes him a good few seconds to look up, and when he does, Scout can read the emptiness in his eyes.
"What's got ya lookin' so down, Doc?" He murmurs, crossing around the desk. It's one of those times when sensory perception is at it's most important. Scout can sense not to assume consent, not to expect an immediate reply. With a soft hand, he touches Medic' shoulder, and follow's the man's gaze to a tiny picture on the desk.
It has been bent every which way, bleached by sunlight, soft with water-damage but loved hard. Loved to within an inch of it's life. Scout can barely make out what the picture once held until he tilts his head and a shadow casts itself there, making the shape of a woman apparent.
Scout knows to be very careful by Medic's silence. It's not tense or dangerous, but sad, and deep. He tries to appear as if he does not feel the drowning. "Damn, Doc," He murmurs, and whistles. "She's beautiful. That your sister?"
Medic's chest swells momentarily in a quiet chuckle. He sits up and blinks, like a machine whirring into life. The cold and robotic nature of his movements is jarring compared with the humanity from which he speaks. "No, Liebling." He shakes his head, and swallows like the words are too bitter to taste. "This isn't Ada." He says.
Scout nods, weakly. The picture means nothing to him, but from the way it has been said, it clearly means a great deal to Medic.
The older man swallows. "I was very young, and very good at fooling myself,"
Of course, Scout knows he needs to be quiet and respect the gravity of the memory, for Medic's sake. But his mouth runs at the speed of his thoughts and it bursts out of him before he know sit. "But you ain't that way, Doc. You're-…you're like me,"
Medic gives him a mirthless little laugh, and shakes his head. "That was Mccarthyism for you." He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. Scout never thinks about moving to Amercia. Never thinks about the prejudices and ignorant hatred against 'faggots', not just in Boston, but across the county. Not once has he considered the slurs he himself has muttered against the 'Nazi Medic on the BLU team'.
It's not a fence medic has been ties to, but likely a damn stake.
But all Scout says is, "Who was she?"
Medic's eyes come up from the midspace again eventually, looking sad and heavy and glazed-over as if in the grip of a memory. "Hmm?"
"Who was she?" Scout repeats himself.
That's when Medic's voice goes even quieter, and he can't stand to look at anything but the floor. "She was my wife."
Jesus, Mary and Joesph. If he weren't leaning against the desk, Scout knows he would have been bowled over straight onto his ass. The enemy's Demo had mentioned it once in a vague and crude insult, but Scout had always chalked it up to speculation. Nobody else ever spoke about a wife. Then again, nobody ever spoke of Medic's life before RED. There's probably a good reason, so Scout tries to act unsurprised, tries to right himself.
Then it hits him. Was?
"What happened to her?" He asks, still leaning against the desk in case Medic has some other enormous truths to hand Scout. Which he does. Medic stands up and picks the dove off of his shoulder delicately, before swinging the cage-door open, and setting the bird in there. He leans heavy on the side.
"Too much," Is all he manages to say. Then, smaller. "She meant a great deal to me." Scout can't imagine being really attached to anybody. He can't imagine being in love, or at least, admitting to it. He knows sex, and intimacy, but not trust. Not like the pain in Medic's voice.
"I'm sorry," Scout says. "I must be a great consolation prize,"
he really doesn't expect such a soft and quiet man to snap at him the way he does. But Medic's face turns ugly and he holds up a nasty finger to Scout. "She wasn't a prize."
Scout recoils, snarling. "Jesus, I didn't mean it like that." He backpedals, and then sighs.
Of course, the apology is usually enough, but not tonight. Medic's eyes are all shiny with hurt, and his posture is that hard, straight gait he wears when he's trying to be proper. But this grim politeness and sarcasm is false, and that halo Medic is choking on isn't his.
The man hisses. "And you aren't her replacement. You could never be." The words are hard and unkind and maybe Medic will apologise after he realises how caustic they are, but it doesn't dawn on him until Scout speaks.
"I know I ain't her damn replacement .I don't mean shit to you,"
It's Medic's turn to flinch. His face drops and the finger he's holding up extends to a palm. The arrows in his eyes that looked dull in the hatchet of hate turn bright with Cupid's hands, and he stammers. "Scout…"
The boy shrugs. He goes around the other side of the desk and looks down at the paper. "What?" He hisses. "You only keep me around for this stupid kid," His mutterings turn toxic quickly. The hand on his stomach is like the barrel of a gun.
Medic is still stammering, wounded by the words, and amazed at how quickly Scout can turn anything into an argument. "That isn't fair, Liebling, you're forgetting yourself."
He puts his hands on his hips. Part of Scout is just being controversial. He needs proof, right then and there. Empirical evidence that Medic does actually love him, and not just circumstantially, because he feels so damn alone and it feels like this is all he has left. But the man in front of him is uselessly silent. "Tell me I'm wrong," Scout says. "Tell me you'd still keep me around if I weren't sick,"
"You're not sick, Scout. You're pregnant," Again, the simpering comes, and it disgusts him. He hisses.
"You can't even lie to me!" He shakes his head, and staggers backwards a little." I fuckin' knew it, but your lack of effort is just astoundin'," Still, Medic isn't saying anything, and Scout is just getting angrier and angrier because all he wants is to be worth something, and to be really close to somebody. He just wants love, or happiness, but what those words mean gets harder and harder to define. What was once a sure thing is now a gamble. Still, Medic's silence twitches like napalm, and Scout explodes. "Say it!"
The response he gets is inaudible. "No."
"You probably did this to me." He continues, growing in both absurdity and savagery until his words start to meet eachother at their respective ends and beginnings. "An' when it's over, you're gonna leave me out to dry 'cause you're too busy suckin' Heavy's-"
Whatever Scout thinks he knows is proven wrong one fell swoop. He never expected Medic to come back with just as much ferocity, if not more.
"I will not be spoken to like this!" Medic's voice cuts him down the middle like a blade, and Scout freezes, alarmed by the sudden reaction. He watches Medic tear his coat from the back of his chair and give Scout one more nasty look. "You are a cruel child. You have no right to accuse me of anything!"
And the man marches off, stiff as Sunday manners, hands curled into fists and elbows bent a little, reeking of latent hostility. Scout doesn't know where his own aggression had come from. It seems that everybody else has been in love, and has been happy. It seems that he is passed between his own lovers like a possession far too much. After being frozen in shock for a few minutes, Scout follows the footsteps upstairs. He passes through the Rec room, and every pair of eyes present stares hard at him.
Engineer is giving him a queer look. "You set him off somethin' awful, boy,"
Scout shrugs. He will be held accountable by nobody. "I jus' pushed his buttons a little. He's fine."
The older man raises a hand, leant in his chair sideways. "He don't seem fine." And before Scout can go, the man makes one, parting remark. "Y'know, kid, there's a real difference between pushin' a man's buttons, a' pushin' him too far,"
Scout thinks about those words for a very long time. He thinks about them as he fumbles for a cigarette, and finding that he has only four left, and as he lights up, turning from Medic's path to the wall, where he is surprised to find Pyro of all people, sitting quietly. The man –if, indeed it is a man- waves a hand to Scout, and continues to light, and then discard matches into the snow. It seems an odd and wasteful habit, but it seems to keep him happy.
Scout lights up all the same, trying to smoke slow, trying to enjoy it, as he's only got a few left, and they certainly won't last the journey back to Teufort. The moment a curl of smoke reaches the bottom of his lungs, he lets out a contented sky. The air resumes whistling and the clocks start chiming. The world makes sense again.
Pyro turn's towards him, and makes a noise of curiosity, round goggles of the optic mask searching his face. "Mmmppf?" He waits for Scout's reply.
"Uh," The boy stammers, and takes another drag. It's cold, but he'll only be out there a little while. That, and he is wearing his track jacket. Unless he's alone, it never comes off. "Okay," And then a thought strikes him, too brilliant to ignore. He turns to Pyro and smiles with a menacing geniality. "I can talk to you, an' you won't tell nobody." He says. It's not a question. "You never say nothin' anyway, Mumbles,"
The noise he next hears from Pyro could be 'thistles', or possibly 'assholes. It's very difficult to tell. For the largest part, Scout just ignores it. To have somebody there in physicality is all he's asking.
"I hate it here, sometimes." He spits. Takes another drag. Takes a sharp breath in. The cycle repeats. "I've been thinkin' about goin' home a lot, lately," Of course, he doesn't say he thinks about going, and not coming back. The lack of eye contact doesn't encourage or discourage speech, and it stifles Scout for a moment. He flicks ash into the snow. "You ever get lonely?"
Pyro nods. He nods, only to find his response interrupted.
"I don't mean alone. I like bein' on my own fine." Scout draws his knees up to his chest and shivers. "I mean lonely. Even around other people." He lets out a cold little laugh and smiles around the cigarette: a wide, white smile. "They're the worst part." He says, bleakly.
A muffled exhale comes from his company. When Pyro nods this time, it looks sadder. More resigned.
"I know I ain't got a right to complain," Scout goes on, monitoring Pyro's response. He doesn't want to lose what feels like an ally. "I got friends n'all. But it ain't me they want." Another dark chuckle. "I mean, sure, they want me. But not after."
Pyro says 'trellis', or possibly 'jealous'. There's no way of knowing, but Scout doesn't pay it much mind. He needs to get his thoughts out, not to listen.
What was it Ma used to tell him? That he should 'take an inventory of his thoughts'?
"I guess I'm jus' fillin' the space. Spy can't have Sniper, so he settles for me. Medic can't have his woman back, so he has , even Ma wanted me to be Jeb." He throws the cigarette into the snow, and hisses. "It ain't right, y'know? It ain't fair. An' now this stupid ki-"
He realises, halfway through the word, that Pyro, along with the rest of the team, are unaware of Scout's private hell. They have their own suspicions and judgements, no doubt, but he doesn't have to hear them just yet.
Pyro looks at him, the mask casting assumed vacancy over hidden features. "Mmmpff mm?"
"This stupid Christmas thing's got everybody worked up," The lie occurs as he tells it. The simpler the better. "Worked up over nothin', y'know?" If he wants to gracefully cover his tracks, Scout knows he has to turn the conversation. "It don't matter," He mumbles, and kicks at the snow, rising.
There's the sad part. Scout would rather invalidate his own emotions than appear vulnerable. What's he squeezing his heart out to Pyro for? There's nothing e can do, and he doesn't even feel much better for having said anything. No, now Scout feels like everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. And there isn't anybody left to prove him wrong.
All he had wanted to do was pack and smoke in silence.
The door had to be locked, the window had to be open three-quarters of an inch, and the cigarettes had to be smoked in silence. Sniper has a knack for precision, and he can tell that the window is a little too far open, from the noise of it breathing a thin slice of air. Stuffing another handful of red shirts into his suitcase, he leans and adjusts the window- one-handed. The wastelands are oblivious to the war of colours. That's ironic, because the white is the only sure winner. Despite the departure tomorrow, the snow hasn't eased up a little. Slivers of ice like cracks frame the edge of the glass.
His attention is only ever needed when he finds a shirt that's too small. Sifting through the mess, he lifts it up, and finds a neat little t-shirt. The owner of the shirt had been a thin, quick little batter, who couldn't have tipped 150lbs soaking wet. Of course, soaking wet isn't the problem.
Grumbling, Sniper tosses it to the side. He'll return it later, or maybe Scout will come and collect it. The less he sees of the boy, the less guilty he feels. Maybe that isn't very nice, but Sniper never pretended to be. He would hate to play a hero almost as much as he'd hate to see Scout's heart break. There's a tinge of bitterness in the Egyptian cigarette.
He'll call it off. He'll end it and then he'll be able to look into the boy's eyes without feeling a very real burning in his chest.
He knows his politics are contradictory. Because he doesn't love Spy. He doesn't love anybody. Though, secretly, he can't help but feel a little relief when he sees Scout go off with somebody else. Of course, Sniper will do what he can to spare the boy pain, and it that means sneaking around, it means sneaking around. The whole thing leaves an itch in his heart that he makes a point of not scratching, because he's terrified of what will come leaking out if he does.
Usually, Sniper's rule of thumb is that he does what he wants. But what do you do if you don't know what you want? Or who you want? He supposes, as he sits down on his bed, that he should hurt them both and be done with it, because, as his mother had explained to him once, 'the only thing worse than a boy who hated you was a boy who loved you'. And how true that is.
His head lifts suddenly when his door slams shut, and he grumbles, because he swears he locked it. The RED standard regulation quarters are piss-poor and cheap, and he grumbles all the way to the door, sliding the bolt across and hooking the chain. As he finishes locking the door, though, he feels warmth behind him, and a voice pierces the veil of silence.
"A bolt-lock?" He hears soft, laughter, and can smell that same Egyptian that he tastes around his own cigarette. "You insult me, Bushman,"
And then, he turns and sees his deepest enemy, and perhaps his only friend, palm clasped around a small, gold pocketwatch. However glad he is to see the man, and however much the sight exacerbates that itch in his heart is hidden by his expression. He merely grunts, and walks past Spy, back to the bed where his things are still in disarray, much like his thoughts.
"Next time, I'll just put a sign on the door, then." He marvels at the pointlessness of the lock, seeing as every other resident could have just as easily blown it open or cut through it. It's a statement, but apparently, Spy has forgotten how to read. He's wearing this awful smirk and this Parisian cologne and it fills the room slowly when the man peels off his jacket, and places it neatly on the back of a chair.
Playing oblivious to Spy, and the smell of his cologne and the taste of the cigarettes like the taste of his lips, he continues throwing handfuls of shirts into the case, stuffing them down to make room for books, and then for his broken photo-frame. It's silly to be sentimental, and he knows that. So why is he smoking one of Spy's cigarettes? Why does his chest ache with this burning that consumes him?
Spy lifts the small shirt, the one that isn't his, and chuckles, folding it up. "Tell me you don't sleep curled around it like the sad fool you are."
The jest is a good ten years too early. It winds him, but he remains inert to the rest of the world. He snatches the shirt from out of Spy's hands, as if gloved hands are leaving stains that spell the word 'adultery'. When Spy starts to laugh, he turns on him. "He left it here." Sniper waits a beat to deliver the punchline. "An' he didn't have to pick the damn lock."
Spy seems to parry the blow with admirable elegance, and nothing but a barked laugh and this look on his face that says Sniper should 'come here and say that'. "Oh, you incurable altruist." He jeers. "Pardon me for forgetting 'ow good and loyal to 'im."
These are the moments Sniper remembers. The ones that have him so scared to fall asleep for fear of what he might dream that he's terrified of his own shadow, that leave him wide-eyed as his thoughts strain from his ears drain out of his fingertips until he is left with nothing.
He grabs a fistful of Spy's shirt. "Shut up."
The man is more concerned about the state his tie than being in harm's way, and scowls. "What do you think you are-"
"Shut up," He doesn't want to do it. But he does.
The kiss is the ugliest beauty he has ever felt. The sensation tears down him and settles in his toes, hard and sharp and warm. Immediately, he warms and softens, going from rigid to lax against the other man, bringing them together so that he can feel Spy's heartbeat like cheap rock and roll. And it's messy and nasty, but it's good, too. Because maybe there' love and sentiment and nostalgia on Spy's lips but it's buried underneath years of hatred and regret and so many what-ifs that his own thoughts feel fossilised by the time he breaks away, breathless and blushing, hot with his own shame.
The kiss is the most intimate part of their arrangement, and it lasts not ten seconds. In a moment, that chastity is forgotten, and replaced with carnal desire and instinct, no thinking or talking, but all nails and teeth, all hands that fumble.
No time for conversation. He want this, but he wants it over, too, and shoves Spy down hard, clamps a hand over the man's mouth and makes quick work with his shirt with the other, quick from practise. Jesus Christ, Spy feels good, he's slim and soft and while his skin looks snowy, the heat rises under Sniper's fingers quickly. He tears off his own shirt.
The kissing turns to biting, and once the air is on his own torso, his back is singing with the rake's song, to the tune of Spy's nails, and his neck is turning pink to red to purple from spy's neat teeth, and it drives him wild, because this is what he wants, this is what he needs on the most primal level. Already, he's rabid and half-hard and his pupils are blown. There's no co-ordination left in his hands, and it's with Spy's help that he manages to undo his own belt.
When both of them are completely exposed to the air, Sniper gives him a horrifyingly gentle squeeze and watches Spy beneath him relinquish all control, gives Sniper the entire damn world on a whim, thrashing a little beneath him. The man's pupils are blown and he's feral. "Don't –hn! Don't waste my t-time..."
He grows hotter and harder and heavier in Sniper's palm and that in itself is glorious. He doesn't mess about, moving further up, and biting down hard on Spy's neck, moving his hand all the while, keeping Spy desperate but alert, feeling a warm stickiness that assures him he knows what he's doing.
When he rubs a thumb over Spy's slit, he's done for. "Mon Di-" Sniper has to clamp a hand over his mouth again, blood singing with triumph. He did that. He is solely responsible for the way spy looks now, so desperate and wanton, and only he knows how Spy forgets his english when he loses his composure, but never tells a sole because the secret is so delicious and depraved.
"That's it," He croons, grinning. "That's-" But he never gets to finish the thought because as he's speaking, he hears the bolt click, and then he hears the clatter of can-on-carpet, and in the doorway a pale Scout is standing, looking completely swung open.
Beneath him, Spy goes rigid with tension, and it takes everything –it takes years of rehearsed silence for Sniper not to mewl.
"What-..." The shock in Scout's voice drops hard and heavy to the floor like an anvil, replaces with growing anger. "What the hell is this?" The silence that grows is unsatisfactory and Scout is going red in the face, not the embarrassed kind, but the kind that comes from being suffocated, but he's definitely breathing by the heaving of his chest. His hands are in fists and Sniper can't do anything at all but push himself up slightly and swallow.
But that's not good enough.
In a second, the boy is livid, and with a trembling hand, he's pointing his pistol at the floor near the bed with a lax wrist. The room is hot and heavy with a disaster that Spy doesn't seem to feel. His breathing is the main sound. At last, Scout speaks, but when he does, he's staring at some bleak corner of the room.
"I used to think you were the best thing that ever happened to me, y'know," He says, quietly. He swallows "But now, I think you might jus' be the worst."
Scout raises the pistol, still not looking at Sniper, and if he was, he'd see Spy slipping out from under him, quiet and agile and cat-like. No, instead, Scout just stands there, holding out the weapon. Of course, there's respawn, but there's also the metaphor of the action.
Sniper shakes his head. "I been a shooter more years than you been alive, mate. Put it down."
to his ears, Scout's voice sounds odd and pinched, and he raises the gun up a little hire. If his finger were to slip now, Sniper would be sent on a one-way trip to respawn. Instead of shooting, though, Scout stares hard at him, his face a portrait of hurt. "Why should I?"
And then, suddenly, there's a voice right in Scout's ear, and a friendly hand pulling his arm down slowly, prying the gun from his hands with a superhuman humanity. Spy is right up against him, smirking, taking Scout's cheek is his other hand and giving it a caress. "Calm yourself, lapin," he murmurs. No doubt Scout can feel his skin and that alone is enough for most good men to bury their sense. "There's no need to be jealous," Spy continues. "Ask, and you will receive."
Scout is staring at the floor in front of him looking very conflicted. His convictions are starting to look less and less concrete as Spy tosses the pistol away, and roams a free hand down one of the boy's strong thighs, and then up again, using his nails as he retreats and setting in shivers in the wake of his movements. He starts to be led to the bed by spy, who gives Sniper a knowing look through lust-addled eyes. "Come," He murmurs into Scout's hair. "Relax, mon cher."
Scout doesn't. At least, not right away. Quite quickly, Sniper picks up the hint, and both of them overwhelm the the boy with sweet nothings and kisses and lingering touches that have his cheeks burning brighter than the napalm silence. Scout might be apprehensive at first, but the tension in his body drains quickly and soon he's sinking against the pillows, whimpering in delight, and the pleasure is clear and visceral. He whimpers against Sniper's shoulder.
With practise, Sniper makes work of Scout's trousers right away, slipping them down over his socks, and discarding the jacket in a similar fashion. His eyes never leave Spy's, saying so much without ever using a word, doing so dam much to the other man –Jesus Christ, too much, without ever lifting a finger. Their battleground is Scout, and the boy never wanted to be anybody's proxy, but it's too late for that. As Sniper slips a finger under his t-shirt, Scout shakes his head breathlessly, and pushes the man's hand lower, wants more, wants now, asks for it in the only way he knows.
Not to be outdone, spy drops forward almost immediately, running a tongue down the length of Scout;s underside. The noise the boy makes is a verbal car-crash.
"Oh, Jesus-..." He throws back his head, with no regard to the etiquette, and thrusts with the desperation of a man on death row. The heat envelopes him, and it;s the kind of fellatio that wins wars, he swears, the right amount of pressure, and tongue, and he can feel the back of Spy's throat at intervals, Jesus Christ, it's so good, he has to keep his grip on the sheets no to blow his load then and there, arching his back off of the bed.
Sniper's touch comes from nowhere and tears his vision down the middle. "A-ah?" Scout can just about manage to lift his head, completely overloaded by the sensation of spy's cruel and vigilant mouth working in tandem with a single, long finger curled inside of him. It's heaven, it's everything. They are worshipping him completely, nothing else in their minds but him. They care nothing for anything else but getting him off. Oh, God, it's so hard to hold on. His eyes squeeze shut and his toes curl and by the time orgasm rips through him his extremities will be numb and tingling.
Spy's tongue starts swirling and a low, keening noise warms the back of his throat. "Oh, God," he hisses. Another finger curls inside of him and Scout can see the burning behind his eyelids of nights like this he screamed so hard the stars died. There's an unwinding within him, and as he breath draws short and his hips move rougher and the pressure becomes unbearable he lets out a wild hiss, throwing his head back in unadulterated delight as he goes in one fell swoop.
It is drawn out of him until he is left with nothing but unparalleled delight. Exhausted, he leans back against the pillows and sighs, his eyes heavy, his breathing levelling out slowly. His eyes drift lazily to the men around him, his men, who are looking at one another as if they are staring into funhouse mirrors. Scout knows he should return the favour, or do something, anything, but fall asleep. But he is so very tired, and the smile Sniper gives him is so serene, it carries him off.
So Scout sleeps.
It cannot be much later when he wakes again. His eyes do not open immediately, so the sound of quiet conversation mixes with his own dreams until he isn't sure what's real or not. After a few seconds of laying there, eyes still closed but very much awake, Scout can finally place himself. He must be between Sniper and Spy. There's the distinct smell of Egyptian cigarettes just about muffling the smell of sex. Scout is warm.
"Either way," He hears a familiar voice. Sniper is halfway through vocalising a thought. "At least he's young. I don't even get to call this an 'indiscretion o' youth'." Scout figures they must be talking about him. Part of him is flattered. Part of him is horrified. He doesn't dare crack an eye open, but remains listening. Spy's laughter is rich.
"There's no guarantee it is your indiscretion, mon moitié," There's a short pause. Spy sounds very casual about the whole affair. Of course, Scout can only guess, because what he hears is taken out of context, but his heart sinks under the strong suspicion that they're talking about his kid. "You 'ave no contract to fulfill."
Sniper takes a breath in. "So you reckon we should leave this in the hands of Medic?"
A shrug. The most non-committal of shoulder shrugs. "Why not?" Spy says, carelessly. "'e would do the best job of it, non? Scout likes 'im well enough." Scot tries not to think about how hard Medic tries to make him happy, balancing the weight of the world on his shoulders just to hear about the boy's day.
"Nah," Sniper laughs. "He does a good job of convincin' Medic that he's in love with him. Might not be a nice kid, but he's a smart one." High praise. Nobody ever says things like that directly to Scout for fear of actually complimenting him. It's nice to hear it spoken without agenda. "Does he know about Katherine?"
"Hmm?" Spy seems a little lost. Sniper gives him a patient sigh.
"That woman what Medic was married to." Is his explanation. "He ought to know, so that he ain't jus' bein' used as a replacement." there's a silence that fills the air, and the only sounds are breathing and smoking and it helps Scout to take an inventory of his thoughts. He thinks how much more Sniper would want him if it weren't for the child, and it makes him stiff with rage. After a while, Spy laughs.
"I 'ave never known you to be so considerate. You never were with me."
It's the first Scout's ever heard them speak of it. While it's said as a joke, the nature of it is very bitter, and there's clearly a lot left unsaid, and unheard. Sniper remains steadfast in his silence until he breaks.
"You know that was different., " He says, quietly, and then adopts the same strange, abandoned laugh. "Hell, I still can't sleep with me back to the door." They both laugh, this time, and spy makes a noise of amusement as he breathes out.
"Anybody would think you don't trust me." He says, gently. More laughter.
"A sensitive man like you, Spook? A rational bloke, never known to be violent."
Spy scoffs. "Oh, low."
Sniper's tone is playful. "I can go lower,"
"Bet you can." A sharp laugh.
"Not for you, mate."
there is another pause, followed by a sigh. Spy is talking with a smile. "Are all Australians this way? Sing love-songs about crocodiles?"
Sniper bites back just as quick. "Only the pretty ones." Hell, even at that, Scout squeaks out a laugh, and silence falls as panic reigns supreme. "Is he wakin' up?"
Scout can feel two pairs of eyes on him, and they are not unwelcome, but hot, and he adjusts himself a little, trying to look as sleepy as possible. It's difficult, though, because he is entirely distracted by another sensation. Not the groggy flutters like before, the ones he could ignore or blame on something else, but full and unmistakable kicks that make it an admirable task just to keep a straight face.
"Non," Spy says, at a much lower volume. "'e's still dead to the world,"
Their conversation grows quieter and quieter as the sensation that grips Scout grows more and more pertinent until he fades back into sleep, tired, satiated, but best of all, not alone.
Scout is playing a dangerous game.
He thinks he's unstoppable, uncontained, that he is the master of his own destiny. Scout thinks that it will take more than threats to scare him, and it's only because of this defiance that he sticks with his choices. He doesn't know the extent of the game.
On the last day, he learns.
Exhausted from the half-done battle and pierced by an arrow to the shoulder, he finds himself cornered by the BLU Medic once more, all sinister smiles and a cold, hard laugh. "You didn't think I would forget about you, Junge?"
He holds Scout to the wall with the blade of his saw at the boy's neck. He starts to saw at an excruciating pace, flecks of blood hitting the glass of his spectacles like rain, screams from his foe ringing out like slander. The blade heats up and the teeth of the saw munch hungrily as the innocent flesh, but BLU Medic continues, pressed right up against him, laughing at the helplessness of Scout, no ammo, no strength, and only enough consciousness left to suffer.
He prays for a quick death. He prays in gibberish, incomprehensible with agony until the motion of the blade stops and a remarkable silence sets upon the BLU Medic. His eyes are wide with surprise and his mouth opens with genuine, blindsiding curiosity. "Was..?"
Slowly, keeping his eyes on Scout's the entire time, he tears the saw from the boy's neck and cuts through the fabric of the track jacket, and then the stark RED shirt. His hand is cold and clumsy when he pushes his palm against the underside of Scout's belly and glares hard, eyes searching for some kind of explanation or answer, as men of science often are. The blood-loss is making Scout woozy. He'll be dead in a minute.
A whimper tears through Scout when he feels two or three hard kicks that betray him, and the sound tears through his resolve. "Surely not..." The noise of pleasure the BLU Medic makes is unmistakable. He knows. Jesus, he knows, and there will be no escaping him now.
"How remarkable," The man lets out a dark chuckle, and moves the blade very carefully, but not back to Scout's throat with spews blood like profanities. For a second, the BLU Medic appears to be trying to staunch the bleeding, before realising it's futility, and cursing. "Verdammnt." He hisses, and as Scout's vision fades into white spots and he can already see the blinking lights of respawn by the time the jagged blade slices the skin of his stomach in half.
Scout re-materialises bent over, breathless with what might be tears, and heaving lie he'll be sick. "Oh, God," He cries, voice shaking like a tremolo.
But he doubts that even God can help him now.