Warning for: blood, graphically described injuries, respawn sickness, strangulation, and torture

Concrete. Head spins. Nerves flare. Kneeling, you raise your hand beneath your gaze, flex it, fingers exactly as they should be, skin rippling, bare, leather of your fingerless glove flexing along your knuckles. Good. You stand on shaking legs in respawn.

It… you're seldom aware of the instant of death, but it's usually preceded by some pain or inkling of where, when, and you had delivered the blow—what weapon and why. But whatever Medic had done left no memory of pain. One moment there, and the next, gone.

It's a relief, and you will your blazing nerves to settle, stepping out of respawn on pins and needles. You hit the earpiece. "Scout, Heavy—still third point?"

["Yeah. Ya feelin' all right, Spesh?"] He sounded almost terse, and you feel your brow furrow as you retrieve the ballistic shield from your belt.

"Great, actually." Only partly a lie. You're not vomiting, at least. "You all holding fine?"

["We're good."] You can hear gunshots. ["Can probably use some support on the left flank while we pu—STAY DOWN, JACKASS—while we push."]

"I'll be there asap."

["Heard that! See ya soo—YA LIKE THAT? I'M A FREAKIN' FORCE 'A NATURE, ASSHOLE!"]

You click the line to your mic closed and chuckle. You're actually looking forward to catching up with the team.

You pass Engineer's setup on the first point, and he tips his hat with a grin as you jog. It brings your attention to the sun glaring down on your own uncovered head; it might be a good idea to invest in a little something to shade the eyes.

Bang! Buckshot clatters off your shield as you round the next corner, and instinct brings it to full height with a snap. "You will meet your match, little Specialist." The BLU heavy's bulk blocks the narrow alley, broad shoulders nearly touching the wall of each dusty shed. A nasty grin spreads across his face, shotgun between hands that make it seem no bigger than a pistol with an extended barrel, massive mini-gun at his feet.

For an instant, your heart sinks, but then—your teeth bare in a slow smile. He wants to make a stand? In this little alley? A direct challenge with no way to flank? Oh, that's a mistake on his part. You can feel a laugh stirring in your chest, but you keep it to yourself. "Sure about that?" you ask instead, and duck behind the shield when he fires again, and again, ineffectually. You raise your Gyrojet level with your ear and watch through the window—only somewhat fractured—as the heavy drops his shotgun to ready the mini-gun.

"Good thought," you say. Oh, man—this is just what you needed. You waste no time in pulling the trigger.

Crack!

Blood splatters in wide patterns on both walls, and the mini-gun clatters to the ground as the BLU heavy clutches at his throat for the barest of instants. You fire again, and he falls. "Headshot. Almost the first try," you shrug, cheeks burning with glee. "Close enough, no?" A laugh burbles up in your chest and you don't bother to stifle it as you leap over the massive corpse and continue on.

What the hell had he been thinking? So proud he failed to realize he's not the only walking fortress on this field?

Oh—haha! Indeed! A walking fortress, a wall of Kevlar and steel and Plexi. Better not let it go to your head.

"Heavy, I—"

Oh, fuck. You know that voice. Terror seizes your gut as he rounds the corner.

Well, at least his expression reflects yours. Wide eyes. Spectacles slipping down nose, frazzled in a way that tells you…

This was a trap. The heavy was meant to wait for support before cutting off RED reinforcements.

There's a deep pain in your chest, and you struggle to keep drawing breath. You want to run, to not look back for even a moment. You want to stay and tear out his throat with your bare hands.

You think you're going to be sick. You raise your shield as he gets his bearings. His gaze flicks to the corpse behind you. "I told you to wait!" He cries. Eyes, icy, return to you, and your grip on the Gyrojet tightens. You draw a sharp breath. You took down his giant. You can do this. There's a deep crease between the medic's brows. "Back for a follow-up fräulein?" The syllables rake your memory, but you dig your heels into the cracked soil, bite your cheek until a coppery tang fills your mouth, as it fades from the air, no doubt with the heavy's corpse. He fires the syringe gun, but the dart bounces harmlessly off Kevlar. "And so soon, too." But he does not grin, not like yesterday, ribbons and copper and red—

A feral cry tears from your throat. "Shut up! Just shut up!" You squeeze the trigger.

One, two, three, four.

The medic screams, dropping to his knees in the dust. "Fick." Three of four shots precisely where you intended: left shoulder, right shoulder, the junction of hip and thigh, torn through his white coat, slowly blossoming burgundy as blue gloves try to staunch the flow.

But it's not enough, no, as a churning stomach turns to flame, a red wrath over your nerves, pouring life into every limb, the coppery tang in your throat spurring you forward.

Full-force, boots dig into soil and you throw yourself behind the shield, slam the man down into orange, cracked dirt, knocking glasses askew, spilling blood further into white linen, onto soil and sand. He grits his teeth against another cry, even as blood slowly trickles from his nose, then flows rapidly over his lips. Your shield pins him from shoulders to thighs, and you lie across it, facing him down eye to eye, pistol pressed into his jaw. His spits in your face, spattering his blood in flecks across your cheeks.

A laugh tears from your throat. Is this all? "Is this all?" you ask him, digging the barrel into the soft flesh between neck and chin. "Yesterday, after all—this is what it takes?"

"Things don't always follow as planned," he growls. "If Heavy had waited for me, fräulein—" You flinch, press the barrel until a hitched gasp escapes his lips. He laughs. "Oh, fräulein, you've given away a bit much, haven't you? The sooner you finish me and get back to the battle, the sooner you can forget all this unpleasantness, fräulein."

Fuck. The way his voice curls cruelly along those syllables drags at your mind, plucks your nerves like the strings of a violin, high and shrill. Your jaw clenches. "You have nothing." The barrel of your Gyrojet moves to his temple, presses until it forms a white ring just above the jointed arms of his spectacles. "You know why I don't just pull the trigger and finish you? I don't want to. If I do, you'll just be dead, and then what?" You raise your arm and bring the pistol down at his hairline, watch the skin split and bleed as the BLU squeezes his eyes shut, grinds his teeth against blossoming pain.

"And I can't bring you to death's door and heal you up like new to do it all over again, now, can I? Where does that leave us?" you hiss. Drop the gun just above his head, and squeeze the man's graceful throat.

But he laughs. "Will you waste your time with torture, zhen, frä—"

Push your hand hard into the hard press of his Adam's apple, wrap fingers around the frantic tendons and soft, giving flesh until his gasps become choking sounds, half-formed in a helpless throat. The medic does his best to sneer even as cheeks grow red and icy eyes dance wildly behind broken spectacles.

He tries so hard to move, but there is no decent angle to be found beneath the shield, and you know he cannot unseat you, not as his efforts become languid, the twitching beneath your palm less frequent.

You raise your hand.

He gasps, splutters, chokes. There's a rush, a buzz starting in the back of your skull. He'll die—oh yes—but not until you decide. Not until you're satisfied, and the memory of his fingers pawing through your intestines is distant, insignificant.

"A close simulation, isn't it?" You ask as the BLU's nostrils flare and eyes burn indignantly. But—he's not looking at you.

"You could have continued for another twenty seconds without risk of brain death."

Medic.

You raise your head.

The RED medic.

You feel your cheeks heat. How long has he been there? You wet your lips. "Another… twenty seconds?" You hadn't been counting, in all honesty; just watching the pallor of his face, feeling the life falter beneath your fingers.

"Ja." What little sun there is in this alley catches his spectacles, and you swear his eyes are glittering.

"Do you… want to..?"

He shakes his head. "Not now. I do believe this is therapeutic. Do continue, neue."

Well this doesn't make you self-conscious. But the look of disgust curling the BLU's bloody lips spurs you on. You grasp his neck again, but don't squeeze, not yet. You wait for his icy gaze, but—

He won't even look at you, leering up instead at the RED medic. As though—what? He's more of a threat? More a threat than you—you who strangled him half to death and are perfectly prepared to do it again? You whom he wronged? You with a greater thirst for reconciliation, with a desperate cause in your mind each and every morning? You whose cause, after yesterday, was still in peril? You snarl and grasp his chin. "Look at me. Not him. I don't give a shit what he did earlier. This is about yesterday."
The medic grins, closes his eyes. "Ah, fräulein. You're going to waste part of your last forty-eight hours on me? I'm flattered."

Your blood heats, races, rages behind your eyes. "My last hours here? I'll—look at me. LOOK AT ME." You seize his throat again, dragging the nails of thumb and forefinger into his jugular veins, digging until his eyes snap open. "Helplessness isn't a good feeling, is it? Feels better to wish you would just hurry up and die, doesn't it? Why don't we move to that?" You press into the bullet wound at his shoulder, your thumb squicking through blood and muscle until you feel the either bone or the copper of the bullet—and he hisses.

["Spesh, where the hell are ya? Can't cap the point alone here!"]

Like a shock of cold water, dumped, icy, over your head. Shit.

Medic clears his throat, softly, and you raise your gaze. "Neue, I'll finish this, if you don't mind."

You nod, slowly, and open the channel on your mic. "Sorry, Scout. Ran into the heavy and medic. I'll be right there."

["Heard. Hurry it up, though; it's gettin' tense!"]

You close the line as Medic nods. "Gut. And don't worry, Specialist—" Your eyes follow the graceful line of his body from gleaming white shoulders to the curve of black-clad legs as he plants the heel of his jackboot on the BLU's neck until his doppelganger chokes and writhes. "I'll be sure he suffers."