WARNING for: brief delirium, blood, gore in this chapter
Dinner left you with no appetite, and you had collapsed onto your bed, The Count of Monte Cristo in hand before you even realized you reached for it. Three hours of tossing and turning on your creaking box-spring just to reach chapter twenty-six.
"Man," says the Count as you read, "is a very ugly creature when you examine him closely."
And you find you can read no more. You press the book on the nightstand beside your alarm clock with a tight frown.
Midnight.
You cast your eyes about the room, pushing the memory of Scout's anguished bark far from your mind, until the little bottle of vitamins on top of the wardrobe catches your gaze. Might as well find some water before you forget. You roll off the bed and land on stockinged feet with a soft thump. No use trying to sleep in any case.
You throw on a pair of trousers and shirt, slip on your Keds, and creep into the hall. All daytime visions and worries and deaths and respawns aside, at least you're not having nightmares.
You find the nearest piece of wood and softly knock on it as you pass.
The hall seems less menacing tonight, despite the wan glow of the emergency lamps. As you pass the medical wing, your stomach turns. You didn't bother putting any stipulations on your little arrangement with the doctor. Foolish. Desperate. To have your organs bare to the air yet again—running ribbons, ravenous fingers spilling speckled stains and—
You bite your tongue, dig your nails into your palms, and the pain jolts you awake at the double-doors to the kitchen. Medic was exuberant, but not completely inconsiderate this afternoon. Well. Not until dinner.
A little probing in the refrigerator turns up a bottle of water. You wonder, would Medic try to push the boundaries? How long before you were more experiment than human? Once your heart—the heart; could it really be considered yours anymore?—worked to the doctor's satisfaction, would he start on your liver next? Your stomach?
Your brain?
Spider-webbing cracks in Plexiglass blur the blood, crack, crack, crack the blade skitters, spins across creaking floorboards skull splits splinters splatters sticky slouching down your cheek-
Fuck. You push through the double-doors to the training yard and gulp down a cold breath of night air, watch exhale mingle with the desert night in a white puff that sails out under the moonlit sky. Your hands grip the chilled bottle tight, trying to calm the trembling quake spreading through them. Shit. You squeeze your eyes shut.
You have no recollection of running for the doors.
With a slow, shuddering breath, you open your eyes again and try to turn your mind away. You turn your gaze to the night sky.
Stars speckle the heavens, more than you could count in a lifetime, so many more than you've seen in the last couple years, living close to the city. Out here, the stars twine together in silver rivers across the blue-black, velvet night.
The door clicks shut behind you at last as you stare, there on the concrete steps. Night smells of sand and silence—and just beneath, the crisp, spicy scent of a fire. Your brow furrows. You'd been under the impression that the base's heat was gas-burning, not wood (and God rest your souls if BLU ever decided to take advantage of the former).
Your Keds make no sound on the cracked ground as you step off the stairs. You filter out the soft, swinging strains of a radio once again through someone's open window to follow the distant crackle of flame. You creep around the building until shadows fall and flicker across orange sand. Your eyes follow them to a roaring bonfire, twice the size of Pyro who sits, elbows on suited knees, cradling their masked face between their hands, nearly close enough to catch fire themselves. The sound of a guitar, idly echoing over the roar of the flames reaches your ears, and you squint past the bonfire to see the dim silhouette of either Engineer or Soldier.
Not sure if they see you, you approach slowly, the roar of the flames calming your nerves. The snap of dry wood echoes on aluminum walls behind you. Pyro's head turns when you're only a stone's throw away, and the wave, a welcoming arc that points to the sand halfway between them, and—the twang of the guitar stops, and the figure leans over the arm of his chair until the orange light reaches his features. It's Engineer, and he raises an arm in welcome, too.
"C'mon, have a seat! Wish I'd brought out another chair, but we didn't think anybody else'd be up."
It's after midnight, a silver half-moon hanging in the black sky among a river of stars, a fire higher than you are tall warming your face and your hands, radiating against the cold, night air. In the middle of a desert in Arizona. With a mercenary in a fire-retardant suit that speaks not one comprehensible word, and another playing his guitar like they aren't being paid to wake up in the morning and kill for ten hours out of the day.
And you're a mercenary, too, aren't you? The only difference is you've left your pistol under your pillow and raced outside like a madwoman as soon as your thoughts turned sour.
"You can take mah chair if ya like," Engineer offers, moving to set his guitar aside but you shake your head as you draw closer.
"Don't worry about it! I don't mind sitting on the ground." You sink carefully onto the sand about halfway between your team-mates. The sand is cold under your palms.
"Can't sleep, either?" you ask.
Pyro shrugs. "Mrph mr brmr." And with their hands, they spell: T-H-I-S—I-S—B-E-T-T-E-R.
"I like comin' out a couple times a week; it helps me shake off the losses. I don't know how often Py does this, but I certainly don't notice much wood lyin' around."
You look to them, but Pyro only shrugs.
"Got a couple beers here—want one?"
You let your eyes wander to the tall, flickering flames, dancing against a dark sky. A prod at your arm, and you return your attention to Pyro.
W-H-A-T'S—W-R-O-N-G?
You take a sharp, smoke-laced breath. How much would it be wise to confess? After today… "Do—" You hesitate. "Do you know what Scout meant at dinner?"
The strumming twangs to a halt. You can practically hear your team-mates stiffen as they exchange a look over the flames, the red tendrils flickering in the void of Pyro's mask.
You open your mouth to take it back when Engineer clears his throat.
"Look, darlin'." He frowns, brow furrowed under the goggles pressed up over his forehead. "It's not my business to disclose what exactly happened there, but what I will tell ya is that them dog tags ain't just for show."
Your mouth runs a little dry at that. You never quite made it far enough for your tags to mater.
Engineer's hands tap nervously along his guitar. "Scout served in 'Nam before this job."
A shiver creeps down your spine at that; your stomach turns, and you almost wish Engie had not told you. All reports coming out of Vietnam were… horrible. "I'm sorry."
He shrugs. "Don't be. Not fer askin'." The man sighs, fixing a distant gaze on the fire. "But that's all I'm gonna say about it. He'll tell ya if he wants to."
You nod. Of course. You would not even think of asking for more.
After a while, Engineer starts up his strumming again, chords that reach down to your bones and grasps at all the longing and desperation there, a tune you recognize-House of the Rising Sun. "That ain't all, though, is it," he says as the song carries softly over the sand.
"No," you find yourself admitting.
No one speaks for a while longer, and you know neither of the mercenaries will try to draw any further answer from you that you do not wish to give. The very thought puts a pang in your heart.
"What do you think of him?" you ask.
You have no idea how Engineer knows which 'him' you mean, but he answers accordingly before you can explain: "The doc," he says slowly, " is enthusiastic, and a bit on the merciless side—I won't lie to ya—but he's good at what he does. He won't let nothin' damage ya permanent."
You look at your feet, half-burrowed in crumbling dirt and sand. "So he's… pretty fair, then?"
His fingers pause on the strings. "Hmm—well. Medic's pretty trustworthy. Is this about that experimental heart 'a yours?"
"Well—" You wrap your arms around your knees. "—yeah. How did you…?"
Engineer lets a little half-grin spread across his lips. "Who d'ya think helped him build it? Medic's pretty brilliant about the human body, but he needs a little extra expertise when it comes to machinery, just to get things more efficient. But don't mistake—the medigun, the uber—none a that would exist without him. I'm just the practical guy."
Pyro tugs your sleeve as Engineer's attention returns to the flames, a more lively tune picking through the air. T-R-U-S-T-W-O-R-T-H-Y, they sign. M-E-D-I-C—K-E-E-P-S—S-E-C-R-E-T-S.
You nod, reflecting, as another stack of wood collapses with a crunch, and Pyro applauds the subsequent shower of sparks as they escape among the stars. You do remember your vitamin this night, when you crawl into bed smelling of sand and smoke as the first grey tendrils of dawn creep through your window. But, Man, you cannot help remembering, too, is a very ugly creature when you examine him closely.
Notes: This excerpt of Monte Cristo, translated of course by Lowell Bair, is brought to you from page 176, chapter 26.