The times Engineer had brought his shotgun to investigate a concerning noise outside Conagher ranch were many, and the times he'd actually needed it were mercifully few. Usually it was a sheet of metal he'd forgotten to tie down, banging in the wind like the devil himself was clawing at the door. Sometimes it was the unfortunate dinner of a prairie owl. Once, in the myriad of false alarms, it had been an actual thief, but he'd been smart enough to take the path that ended with him in handcuffs instead of a hole in the ground.

Never before had Engie rounded the corner with his gun under his arm and seen some he knew.

"Ah, laborer," the RED Spy said, clutching his side. "I thought you might never show."

He then fell to the living room floor and promptly passed out.

Engineer shook his head, wondering if he could blink away whatever still-dreaming fuzz was making him see things. But the adrenaline coursing through his system told him he was still very much awake, the night's cold stabbing away the doubt. His gun lowered, but he didn't approach, just in case this was some sort of feint. A mighty realistic feint if it was. There was blood all up Spy's side, dripping onto the sarape patterned rug (his mother's rug. Dammit, this is why he avoided shooting thieves if he could help it, bloodstains were such a pain to get out) and making a general mess of things. This break-in attempt was suspiciously bad. The window hung open, shuttering slightly in the wind, a clear trail of blood left on the sill and leaking down to the floor. Even if Engineer hadn't caught him, that blood was a terribly conspicuous trail of evidence.

He felt the Spy's pulse. Not letting his shotgun drift out of position, mind you, just taking one hand off while keeping his fingers lightly on the trigger.

The pulse was faint. Jittery. Spies had all sorts of gadgets to falsify their true status but even this was extreme. Engineer decided to take the chance.

The RED woke up a quarter hour later, gasping as his eyes flew open. He jerked, but he didn't get far, not with his hands cuffed to the dispenser behind him.

Engineer stood across from the dispenser, arms folded as he leaned against a workbench, pondering what to do about this. He'd done away with the shotgun for now—close by, but not immediately within reach. This was a pretty roundabout way to kill him, and he had a feeling there was something else going on.

"Howdy there," he said. "Any reason you felt like dropping by my little corner of Texas while we're all supposed to be on furlough?"

"I was…" the Spy replied, still mildly woozy, "…in the area."

Engie raised a brow. "Uh-uh."

"…More accurately you were in the area. To me. After I had been…" Spy glanced down to where the wound had once blossomed from his side. The traces had vanished and the dispenser had knit the suit back up, but he still flinched as though recalling the injury intimately. "…Accosted. I needed medical attention, and you were the only person within a few miles who wouldn't shoot me on sight."

"I almost did."

"Who would at least think about it before shooting me on sight," Spy amended.

"You intentionally came here for help, and didn't—oh, I don't know—try knocking on the front door?"

"Honestly? I thought attempting a break-in would be less suspicious." He blinked harshly a few times, obviously still recovering from that drowning state of near-death so far from respawn. "Or…more expected? Of me?"

It made an odd sort of logic, to a dying man at least. Or a Spy. Lord knows how those snakes' brains worked.

Besides, Engineer wasn't paid to kill Spies off hours. He'd never had a particular grudge against the man, he never was quite as obnoxious as the BLU Spy could get when he'd decided he was the smartest damn person in the world. No, the only time this Spy was annoying was when he was being infuriatingly good at his job.

"Why don't you tell me a little 'bout the folks who did that to you?" Engie said, nodding toward Spy's phantom wound.

Spy stiffened. "No."

"No?"

"These are not the sort of people you one should play games with, Engineer. I do not wish to talk about it. At all. In fact, I have already endangered you enough by coming here, I should take my leave immediately." Panic had slipped into Spy's voice, no matter how he tried to hide it.

"That's it? You show up for a quick heal and then amscray without so much as an explanation?"

"I will repay you for the healing, if that's what it takes. Now please." Spy moved his hands behind his back.

"How 'bout the next few times you think about sapping my sentry, you don't, and we'll call it even."

"I will repay you in a way that does not get me in trouble with my employers," Spy clarified. "RED can be nearly as dangerous as these others, if they decide one is not meeting his quotas. A favor to be repaid at a later date? Surely that is a versatile enough promise that you can find some use for it."

Engineer chewed his lip for a moment, then relented, kneeling down next to the Spy and unlocking the cuffs. "This better not come back to bite me."

"We can only hope."

He half expected to be stabbed in the neck as soon as Spy's hands were free, but no hidden knife came. In fact, Spy was still rather unsteady. After a brief hesitation, Engineer offered him a hand up.

"Many thanks," Spy said, straightening his jacket. He was still shaking fractionally. "I depart as quickly as I can." He paused. "Thank you, Engineer."

"You're welcome, I guess. Still not quite sure how I figure into all of this."

"Let's keep it that way."

When he was gone, Engineer let his shoulders slump, shaking away a confusing night. He powered off the dispenser, then made his way out of the workshop and back to the house for the necessary cleanup.

No sooner had he gotten the fresh blood off the windowsill than he heard a knock at the door.

"What the hell does he want now?" Engie muttered, throwing aside the rag he'd been using. The knocking grew more incessant. "I'm coming, I'm comi-"

As the doorknob twisted beneath his palm, Engie's sleep-fogged mind finally caught up with him. By then it was too late.

His front door slammed inwards, the butt of a rifle colliiding with his face. Immediately two masked figures barreled into his home, the one with the gun flinging him against the opposite wall. Mind flashing with images of the shotgun still in the workshop stupid, stupid, Engineer tried vainly to block the blow to his stomach, but it took the wind out of him all the same. As his vision swam, he was hauled sideways down the hall, then thrown into a kitchen chair as his arms were wrenched behind his back and fastened with something.

"DuPuis. Where is he?" the man pinning him to the chair demanded.

"They pay you fellas to rhyme?" Engie wheezed.

A fist cracked into the side of his face. One of his molars went skittering across his nice clean tablecloth.

"We're losing time, and so are you," the man said. "Where is he?"

"I don't know who the fuck you're talking about."

Both the invaders wore lacquered masks, bright yellow with stylized stripes coming off the sides. Were they meant to be bees? Tigers? The one holding Engineer down glanced over his shoulder to his friend now emerging from the living room, wiping off their hand on a handkerchief.

"Blood," they said. "Fresh."

Engineer felt his stomach sink. Jesus he didn't even like the Spy, and he was going to get bumped off because of him? His minded churned for something to defend himself with besides shotgun, but the first yellow-masked person turned on him with livid eyes staring at him from the depths.

"You had one chance to play nice." He nodded at his friend.

The second attacker drew a kitchen knife from Engie's decorative holder.

Engineer struggled, mind sharp again but panicked, going white as the one with knife moved closer and closer-

Suddenly, the body holding Engineer down convulsed. The arms slackened as he writhed again, and Engie wasted no time pushing the man off him and onto the floor. When he fell away, there was Spy, his balisong still coated in blood, poised and ready.

"Duck," he told the Engineer.

Engie ducked.

The one with the kitchen knife came swinging overhead, and Spy was forced to dodge as well, stepping backwards as the longer reach pushed him further and further away. Engineer recognized he was being backed into a corner. He needed help. He needed the stupid tiger-bee to be looking away.

Still barely thinking, Engie rushed them.

Stupid, stupid.

The masked figure saw, out the corner of their eye, and turned just in time to-

Something pierced his abdomen. His logical brain knew it was the knife, but the rest of him was too distracted to put thoughts in the right order, not even to see his attacker die to another successful backstab. Again, too little too late. Engie slumped to the ground.

"Engineer!" Spy followed him down, jamming hand against the blood now gushing from Engie's midsection. "Merde. Walk with me, the dispenser…"

The dispenser…now that sounded like a mighty fine idea. Engineer wished he'd thought of that. He let himself be helped to his feet, pain spreading throughout his stomach, but enough years of mercenary work letting him take those first agonizing steps. The rest he mostly leaned on Spy.

"Stay with me," the RED repeated as they made the long way from home to orkshop. "Stay with me, mon ami."

It'd be easier if it weren't so darn cold out here. Engie was still only in his nightshirt, and the wind kept blowing, sinking into his fingers and toes, making him only want to drift off…

"No, you do not get to do that. Not after all this time."

"Ya came back…" Engineer managed to mutter.

Spy lifted his head and looked straight ahead.

The last few feet to the dispenser might as well have been miles, and Engineer would have collapsed if Spy hadn't insisted on setting him down gently.

"Stay with me."

A hand on the side of his face. It was so, so warm, and Engie found himself burying his nose further into it.

"Engineer, how do you turn it on?"

"On switch," Engie muttered.

"Yes but where-?"

He must have found it, because a gentle humming started against Engineer's back, and that warmth spread to be all over. Spy began to take his hand away.

Engie put his own over it. "Stay with me."

His eyes were closed. When had that happened? He only heard as Spy hesitated, then sat down, keeping a palm pressed to his cheek all the while.

They waited, and Engineer's body slowly began to reconstitute itself.

Spy said, "my deepest apologies for leading them to you. It was what I was worried about."

"Hmm. Hopefully they didn't tell the rest of their friends where they were going."

"You assume there are more?"

"You wouldn't be scared out of your mind unless it was a whole organization. You handled those two pretty easily after all."

"With your help," Spy said. His hand had dropped, but his shoulder still rested against Engie's. "Still, I would put more sentries on the perimeter, just in case. Also, your response time is terribly lax. It took you eleven minutes after I tripped the alarms before you came out to investigate."

"What better place to get security advice than from than from the expert Spy?" Engineer chuckled. He was starting to feel himself again, and straightened his back. "That count as my one?"

"One what?"

"Free favor of any kind, so long as it doesn't get you in trouble with RED."

"Considering I brought this trouble upon you in the first place, I do not think that'd be fair."

Healed, but still damn tired, Engineer found himself drifting off. He had been in the middle of his eight hours when all this started, after all.

"I'm going to take…another few minutes," he said. "You…you mind staying a little longer?"

"...I will not go anywhere."