Chapter 2 – The sandwich
On Tuesday, it was Sniper's turn to eat one of Heavy's sandwiches.
He hadn't planned on it. In fact, he originally never had had any intention of eating one but drastic times called for drastic measures.
Sniper had been happily shooting people dead, as much happy as you can be in a war with a stable working schedule, when a bunch of stickies sent him flying against one of the walls of his nest. With his ears ringing loud and little idea of what had happened, he propped himself to his all four and crawled out of the room. His rifle, fedora and aviators were left behind. No time to pick them up. Nor that he was conscious enough to notice that he wasn't carrying any of them.
As his senses came back to him, he detected the stench of burned flesh mixed with fresh blood. It took him an additional second to realize that he was the one emanating that sickening smell. However, the overwhelming pain he was also starting to register in every inch of his body distracted him from the odour.
He coughed specks of blood and with the power of sheer will but mainly self-preservation, he pushed himself to limp down the stairs. When he surmised to hear the enemy Demoman taunting him from the room he had just left behind, he urged himself to speed up. He bit his broken lip to contain his whines of agony as he did so. He didn't dare to take a look at his wounded legs. He kept his stare fixed on the next step, avoiding eye contact with any of his injuries.
"One step. Another step. One step. Another step." He repeated in his mind, giving himself something more to focus than the aching pain.
Sometimes, while comfortably resting on the bed of his camper, Sniper still had trouble believing how he had gotten used to this drill, but his instinctive reaction proved that he had.
The idea was to first put distance between him and his attacker. If he was armed and in a decent physical shape, a surprise attack was recommended; if not, finding a medkit was the priority. Calling for Medic was out of the question. He was a Sniper. The fumes of the Medi Gun weren't meant for him. Once healed and if the circumstances allowed it, fighting became an option again; if the battle sounded too unbalanced in his head, losing his pursuer and moving to another nest was the preferable choice. Revenge would come later.
That was the idea.
The reality was that he usually didn't make it too far.
Surprisingly this time and against all odds, Sniper arrived at the exit of the building. Holding back tears and the craving desire of curling up in a corner to peacefully die, he continued walking in the direction of the closer Medkit. He leaned on the wall as support, painting it with the colour his blood and shredded uniform shared.
"It's lads like you that give war a bad name! Show me ya have honor, camper! Fight me in a duel!" The wobbling Scot exclaimed from some feet away and cut the air with his sword in a taunting demonstration.
The Australian didn't turn his head around or say anything that might suggest he was accepting his challenge. Instead, he concentrated on his plan. He chose to stay alive, even if it was just for a couple of more seconds.
"One step. Another step. One step. Another step."
The one-eyed drunk wasn't going to allow him to reach his destination. Sniper knew that. While he was having fun mocking him, the demolitions expert would let him believe that they still could have a fair fight but when the moment of truth came, he would ridicule him one more time and slain that false hope with the steel of his haunted weapon.
It was then, between that grim realization and the additional rage of his burning helplessness, that Sniper remembered where Heavy had buried one of his healing sandwiches. It was literally just around the corner. If he could make it there, if he could eat it; he might still have a chance.
He lugged himself forwards with renewed tenacity.
"Where're ya goin' in such a hurry, lad? To take the pain train station in train town? It's over here!" The bomb-lobbing wanker pointed at himself and stopped to laugh at his own joke. He loudly gloated over for a long while and after he was done, he took even more time to recover his breath.
But that was fine for Sniper.
Those precious seconds he had just so foolishly gifted him with were exactly what the Australian required to get to the blissful intersection.
"One step. Another step. SAANDWIIIICHH!"
At reaching the secret spot, he collapsed on his bloodstained knees and somehow managed to smile as he dug up the heavenly moist snack.
Cheese and ham had never felt so delicious.
With the first bite, his right leg snapped back together to his natural angle and the general pain was partially alleviated. With the second bite, his burn scars completely went away and his uniform rematerialized over his intact skin. With the third bite, he was already climbing up the gutter next to him with invigorated strength. At the last bite, he pulled out his kukri from his sheath and waited.
And waited… And waited…
The alcoholic with aspirations of sword master finally decided to catch up with him.
"Don't fret, boyo. I'll be gentle!" The Scottish Cyclops laughed perniciously but ceased abruptly at turning the corner and not seeing Sniper anywhere around. He frowned confused at not finding his victim laying defenceless where the trail of blood ended.
Now! Sniper didn't give him time to look up. He killed him with an aerial attack, skewering his kukri through his skull.
The dead body of his self-assured rival hit the snow with a wet thump and proceeded to further stain it with the red colour.
Once at his complete height, Sniper pulled out his weapon from the deceased enemy and cleaned the splattered blood from his face with the sleeve of his coat. He proudly contemplated his handiwork and muttered childishly, imitating the Russian's accent.
"Sandvich makes Sniper strooong."
During the regular downtime that Sniper was awarded every match, he debated what to do about the sandwich.
It didn't feel right acting like that situation had never happened but he was also a little intimidated about telling Heavy about it. By what he had seen, the Russian was extremely territorial with his possessions, even if some of them were nearly worthless. Sniper clearly remembered how, at the beginning of the contract, Scout had pleaded him, full of terror, to let him hide inside his van after "accidentally" eaten some of Heavy's leftovers or how, from outside of the base, the sharpshooter had also been able to hear the screams of the bald giant when someone allegedly had touched his beloved minigun.
Sniper didn't believe that basic survival would be an excuse good enough for the human bear and the Australian wasn't planning on making an enemy within his teammates for such stupid reason.
Moreover, confessing that he had eaten the sandwich meant admitting too that he had known in the first place where it was. It was true that he could come up with a fake story of how he had discovered the stashing spot by pure luck but again, Sniper felt like he was overcomplicating this problem just for a simple sandwich.
The only option left was making a new one and hoping that the Russian wouldn't notice the difference. However, the Australian wasn't ignoring the fact that he had underestimated Heavy's intelligence once and he wasn't sure anymore with which level of prudence should he act around the man.
In the end, he didn't get to reach any conclusions because the voice of the Administrator interrupted his thoughts to announce the victory of their team. Immediately after, the special energy of the humiliation round meant for the winners flooded Sniper's body and he smiled of pleasure at that feeling of that ecstatic electricity.
Sniper stayed a bit longer on his nest, keeping an eye on the battlefield for any BLUs that weren't already dead. Almost when he was going to pack and leave, he spotted the enemy Spy sneakily attempting to get into the RED territory, which Sniper had to admit, it would have been a smart area to hide if he hadn't been still behind his scope.
He put an accurate bullet into the snake's knee, let him grunt of pain, reloaded and shot him through the head.
It was his way of sending a message to his most hated rival:
"I could have let you suffer. I didn't. I'm a professional. Are you too?"
With that business finished, he placed his rifle over his shoulder and got downstairs with the intention of returning to his base.
He didn't expect Heavy to be waiting for him at the doorframe of the entrance.
His minigun was resting next to him on the floor, like a dog guarding his master, and the Russian was staring at him with piercing eyes. None of that made the Australian particularly uncomfortable, what it really spooked him was Heavy's evident awareness of his nest's location and how he had reached the infrastructure without coming across his line of sight.
Sniper cautiously approached him but the man didn't move from his place, blocking the exit. The Australian had to lift his chin to look him in the face. Being usually so far away from everybody else had made him forget how tall the giant was.
"You ate Heavy's sandvich." The Russian said eventually in a flat tone.
Sniper disguised his surprise face with a frown. As far as he knew, Heavy should have been respawning at that time. There was no way he had seen him devouring the snack. No one except the enemy Sniper or an invisible Spy could have seen him.
"Did ya see me eatin' it?" He responded with apathy, not directly denying it but not confessing either.
"No. But sandvich is gone and Heavy knows it was Sniper."
That reply confused the Australian.
"If ya didn't see me, how do ya know it was me?" He spoke his thoughts.
The giant attentively examined him for a long second.
Sniper got the impression that the man was deliberating with himself if it was worth it or not to give a full explanation. He might not have been able to guess what exactly was going on through Heavy's mind but that expression wasn't the type of face someone makes when is out of arguments.
In the end, the Russian opted to be frank with him.
"Someone followed Heavy in Sunday. Person walked over..." He made a pause trying to find the proper word in English. Unsure what was the precise term, he made it up. "Heavy's snow boot marks. Only Sniper and Spy would have walked over Heavy's snow boot marks. Only Sniper would have eaten Heavy's sandvich."
It was Sniper's turn to closely analyze his teammate.
Heavy had astonishing observational skills. That was very interesting.
Being honest, the Australian wasn't sure if he would have been able to recognize someone stepping over his snow footprints but the big guy sounded very convinced of his reasoning. There was plenty of room to deny his accusation but Sniper didn't feel like that was the smart choice to make. Heavy didn't have any real evidence to prove that it had been him but his hunch was correct and it didn't matter what Sniper could say, he was already guilty on the Russian's eyes.
Besides, brazenly lying to him like that would have been an insult to Heavy's intelligence and Sniper knew better now.
"Okay. I ate your sandwich." He admitted, holding the mountain of a man's gaze.
Heavy crossed his arms over his chest, awaiting an apology.
He wasn't going to get one. Sniper wasn't sorry of what he had done. A man must do what he must do to survive.
"It saved my life. So thanks." He sincerely said instead.
What it came next was a couple of very tense seconds of silence in Sniper's opinion. By the expression in his face, that inhumane mass of muscle was seemingly deciding his punishment. The Australian got tense as he waited for any telltale signs of an imminent attack.
However, against his false belief, Heavy didn't react violently.
"Make new one." He demanded simply. His tone indicated that he was still annoyed but it looked like he was rewarding his honesty with utilitarianisms.
The marksman had been expecting to be snapped in half, decapitated with bare hands or thrown against the wall. Thereby, that request caught him by surprise.
"Wot?"
Heavy looked at him as if the Australian was now the dumb one in the room and pinched the bridge of his nose in contained exasperation.
"Sniper makes new sandvich. Leaves sandvich in Engineer's dispenser. Sandvich must be there for three hours. That is very important. Later, Sniper puts sandvich back to hiding place. Understood?" He elaborated earnestly, gesticulating in each sentence.
The marksman listened attentively, puzzling over the Russian's benevolent gesture. He had heard the Russian losing his temper for much less.
"Okay." He nodded.
Heavy stepped aside and let him go.
When Sniper was preparing the sandwich, he didn't actually take into consideration that it was supposedly intend for Heavy. He just grabbed the first he had on hand in the small kitchen of his van and spread it over two slices of industrial bread.
He followed the Russian's instructions to the T and incubated the sandwich precisely three hours on one of the emergency dispensers that Engineer had erected around the base. He didn't believe such time exactitude was necessary but if somehow the sandwich didn't gain its magic healing effects, it wouldn't be his fault. It was quite bothersome to have to make the two trips, especially the second one when it was already quite late at night, but Sniper was a man of his word and deep down, he knew he owned Heavy at least that simple gesture.
There was also the fact that he didn't want to enrage the bald giant for a bloody mere sandwich. There were fights not worth picking. He had also learnt that in the Outback.
At first hour of Wednesday morning, just after the gates opened and they all rushed to the battleground, the Australian took a detour before going to his first nest of the day and hid the wrapped sandwich on the same spot he had taken it from the previous day.
With that action, Sniper firmly believed that his interactions with the Russian would end there.
He couldn't be more wrong.
It wasn't until Friday that Heavy was in need of Sniper's sandwich.
After respawning more times than he dared to admit from unbelievable silent backstabs, the sharpshooter had been forced to find a novel snipping spot. He had gone creative so in the present moment, he was laying down in the roof of the tallest building in the battlefield. The weather was incredibly nice that day and with no wind freezing him to death, this was an amazing position to oversee the whole match.
From distance, Sniper assisted in the successful capture of a point and after finishing off the fleeing enemy Medic, he idly scanned the rest of the map in search of some more BLUs. What he found was a scorched figure, resembling Heavy's constitution, staggering towards the sandwich the marksman had been asked to replace. The Australian was amazed how in his condition the Russian was still able to haul the hefty minigun with him.
Once there, the big guy leaned against the wall and let his body slid down until his butt touched the cold ground. With an exhausted attitude, he slowly unwrapped the snack and gave it a generous bite without not even bothering to examine it first.
He swallowed with difficulty and as the features of his face healed back to their usual form, a perplex expression of "From what the heck is this thing made?" became visually evident. The Russian put the sandwich away from his mouth very bewildered and stared at it with a countenance that could only be translated as "No, seriously. From what the heck are you fucking made?"
Sniper could only but to laugh at catching sight of his face.
While Heavy curiously studied the half-sandwich, an amused smile lingered from the Australian's lips. The big guy pulled his finger between the two slices and smelled his smear fingertip. Following next, he shivered and stuck out his tongue at directly licking the vegemite.
Sniper chuckled again. This was priceless.
For a long second, the mountain of a man gave a critical look at the snack and just when Sniper was beginning to believe that he was going to throw it away, Heavy shrugged and finished it nonchalantly, as if he hadn't stated his repulsion less than a minute ago.
For some reason, Sniper found that more amusing than any of his previous miens.
Finally, without losing more time, the giant stood up and jogged into the direction of the action with his regular blood-lusty attitude completely recovered.
Friday's match ended in a tie.
Sniper had finished unscathed so with no humiliation round today, he chose to stroll back to the base instead of waiting to be teleported to the Spawn room by the Respawn system. In his way back, he encountered Heavy, who was bleeding from his left arm but it didn't seem to be affecting him at all.
After what he had seen through his scope that day, the Australian considered taking another route to avoid facing the giant but that would have been impolite and expressly suspicious towards his teammate. For a considerable decent stretch, they walked side by side in complete silence but ultimately, the Russian ventured to speak.
"Heavy ate your sandvich today." He commented in that particular tone that was intended to be as neutral as possible.
When the man didn't add anything else, Sniper pushed him to expand his point.
"And?"
"What was sandvich made? Very strange jam." He immediately replied with an undisguised accusatorial frown.
"It was vegemite." The sharpshooter said casually.
When Heavy's expression didn't evolve, Sniper decided to explain himself a little bit more. Probably, the Russian had no idea of what vegemite was.
"It's an Australian product made from yeast extract. I eat a couple of toasts for breakfast every day."
Sniper caught the giant grimacing just for a fraction of a second and after displaying an attempt of poker-face to camouflage his real thoughts, his face changed into disconcerted disbelief. It gave the impression that he was accepting the Australian's words but he couldn't begin to comprehend why anyone would voluntarily eat and, more importantly, enjoy that gruesome substance he called vegemite.
"Did ya like it?" The sharpshooter couldn't resist teasing him.
Heavy faked indifference and shrugged.
"It was okay."
Sniper found that lie quite acceptable from a bloke who wore his emotions on his sleeve. He chuckled and made eye contact with the big guy.
"Heavy, I saw yer face. Ya can be honest with me, mate."
At hearing that revelation, the giant snorted embarrassed, imagining the laugh Sniper had definitely gotten in his expense.
So he decided to counterattack.
With a solemn visage, he held his teammate's gaze for a long second, like if he was going to share his deepest secret, and declared deadly serious with cold eyes.
"I prefer ham."
Sniper's mind couldn't avoid taking in Heavy's body language first than the meaning of that simple sentence. Clearly a bit daunted by the sudden change of behaviour and the proximity of the giant, the marksman cringed. One second later, he actively processed those three words and stared at the big guy even more bewildered than before.
It wasn't until the Russian's lips began subtly curling up in a mischievous way that Sniper realised his teammate was joking around.
And he had absolutely fallen for it.
Sniper chuckled bashfully once at how easily the man had gotten to him and then, he erupted into laughter as he replayed the absurd scene in his head. Immediately after, Heavy roared along with him, impelled by the effusiveness of his reaction.
"I thought ya're gonna kill me or somethin'. Good one, big guy. Good one..." The Australian conceded, partially regaining his composure.
Heavy, who was still laughing his heart off, slapped his knee in amusement and made Sniper flinched away at the noise. Their succession of actions was restarted all over again and they kept cackling until their rips hurt.
Shortly after they both cooled down to their seemly stances again, Engineer and Pyro would join them and the Australian would push himself into the background of the conversation.
Once back in his camper, he would realize that it had been a very long time since someone had made him laugh like that.
Heavy was a pretty funny guy after all.