16. Man hunt, part 1.
The unexpected things in life are what hit you the hardest. It wasn't the sewage swimming around his knees that bothered the scout, it wasn't the fact that he'd been woken in the middle of the night to hunt down a sixteen year old, it was the fact that… they needed to hunt her because she'd killed the medic. Out of everyone to be the killer he'd never expected the kid, and out of everyone to die medic was the least likely candidate.
But he was gone. Snuffed out like a candle in the midst of a hurricane, and Lucy needed to be brought to justice. After hearing Dell's roars tear throughout the base, most had woken up and those who hadn't had been gathered by the others. By three A.M the Pyros had sussed out that Lucy had fled into the sewers via a door in the basement ( don't ask him how, those things were like bloodhounds when it came to tracking people), and they had taken a divide and conquer approach with two groups searching the two main sewer pipes.
The smell was the worst part. The tunnels were huge, built to hold years of mercenary manufactured waste, so there was plenty of room to stand up in them but the smell… god scout couldn't believe he used to complain about subway stations.
" It smells werse than iffa sheep shit on yer buets befar throwin' up a mule carcass!" Tavish yelled, gagging for effect. This particular tunnel was quite full, and waste products came up to everybody's shins or higher depending on their height.
" Yes, thank you for that imagery." The scout quipped. His group consisted of both demolitions, His regalness the spy, Crazy-texas-lady sniper, dude soldier, the pyro he thought was from his team, and… the arch nemesis.
In light of everything, maybe that title wasn't appropriate. Sure, she'd kicked the crap out of him the night her team's heavy died but she had left the scout alone after that. More importantly, she'd left Miss Pauling alone after that. Though he was still nursing bruises, scout had developed a sort of grudging respect for Chloe. She stuck up for herself, wouldn't take any of his crap. That's deserves at least a few points.
Oh god, here she comes.
" Hey." Chloe breathed, slogging her way over to him so she could talk without being overheard by the others. " You have any idea what we're doin'?"
" Checking tunnels for the- you know the,"
" Murderer?" They pushed on in silence, scout had to swerve to avoid a particularly nasty pile of stuff he didn't even want to think about floating in the ungodly fluids soaking into his shoes.
" I'm okay with calling Lucy a murderer." Chloe continued. " Murder's exactly what she did. But the fact that I know what she did doesn't mean I understand why." Scout shrugged.
" Why does anyone do anything? Maybe she's just crazy."
" Doesn't add up to the how. Knives aren't really her style, and if you didn't notice she's pretty small. I can't figure how she managed to strangle Mariya, not to mention taking care of the body."
More silence. All Chloe said was true, and scout wanted badly to talk to Miss Pauling about it. She was smart, she'd know how to explain this, but sadly she was on the other team in a different branch of tunnels. All that was here was the squelching feel of feet plodding through the ghastly muck, and the stench of their own feces.
" I should apologize." The scout finally broke the silence. " I was kind of a dick earlier. I guess it took all this wild shit for me to see I was just bein' jealous, an' maybe you're not as much of a total bitchfesty cuntbomb as I first thought."
" Poor apology."
" What do want, an opera? This is the first time in living memory I have even tried to say I'm sorry to someone, appreciate it please." Chloe chuckled.
" Again, piss poor apology. But I beat the crap out of you, so it makes up for it."
" Hey, I got my vision blocked, if not for that-"
They bantered for several minutes, cussing and tossing insults back and forth. As subtly as a mosquito's wing twitch, a silent conversation was slid under their words.
' I was a homophobic tool to you this week. I avoided you the rest of the time because you made me feel guilty about it'
' I know man, we're good. I think I have a good thing going for me by just sticking with revenge sniper sex.'
' I respect you as a person'
' Same.'
Of course, their real conversation was far less articulate, but the meaning was there. After a few snickers among the filth, they sealed the exchange with scout tossing out,
" I still say the yankees are a piss poor excuse for a team." And chloe replying
" Puh-lease. Red socks suck cocks, true fact of the universe dude."
…
" Ar yue okay?" Tavish prodded as he slogged next to Aoife in the sewage.
" The qwestion's no' if eim okay, s'if yer okay. Yer medic's dead."
" Faer point." For a moment there was only the sound of fluids squelching beneath their shoes.
" So? Are yew okay?" Tavish shrugged.
" I'd feel bettahr with a dreink." He saw guys die all the time, that was nothing special. Dead forever; now that was a different matter. Aoife pulled up short behind him.
" Jesus Mary an' Joseph, yew thenk everythin' can be solved with alcohol!"
" Keep yer voice doewn." Tavish said, stopping beside her. Some of their other teammates had given an odd glance at her proclamation, and he didn't want this conversation broadcast to everyone.
" Oi will no' keep ma' voice down!" Aoife practically shouted.
" Oh, so i's like yue think aney different? I've seen ya' dreink, yue don' dreink liek someone who wouldan' use it ta cope!" Firing back now, he turned on her.
"It's different!" Aoife spat.
" In wha' way?!"
They were both yelling now, oblivious to the others. What did Aoife mean it was different? She drank like he did, no different, and after this he'd expect her to go for a drink right alongside him. Why the hell was she being so high and mighty, who gave her the right?
" Yew don' undarstand!" She hollered.
" Then help me, don' scold me!"
" MAI DA' AN' MAI LITTLE BRUTHAR DOID BECAUSE 'E DRANK. HE DROVE, AN' HE DRANK AN' HE PICKED US UP FRUM SKUEL AN' HE RAMMED INTO A BUS! ARE YEW HAPPY?" Screaming the final words, Aoife collapsed like a balloon someone had let all the air out of. No tears, but she deflated and flopped against the moist tunnel walls.
Everyone else stared, but Tavish waived them on impatiently and he heard them squelch on through the sewage. He was stunned as well, so not knowing what else to do he tucked his pride away for a moment and wrapped Aoife in his arm.
" An' now-" She breathed quietly, her voice sounding farther away than it was. " Yer goin' ta ask mei why oi drink. If da' doid and killed mei bruthar with alcohol why do oi drink? If it cost mei ma' leg why do oi drink? If it's hurt mei in a way nothin' else possibly could why do oi drink? And honestly," She broke off as a single tear rolled down her face. " Oi don' know. Maybe because it makes me ferget for a bit, how mean everyone is, in which case yer roight an' oi'm just usin' it ta cope. Maybe because da' drank… is how oi remembar him? Sounds stuepid as awl hell but maybe tha's it."
" S'not stuepid." Tavsih said, for lack of anything else.
" Stuepid or not, Oi'm not doing it again."
" What?"
" Drinking. Oi'm never doin' it again. All this death… Oi see now loife's too short to be spent down a bottle. Oi'm no' goin' to let maself cope with things by runnin' to a liquer store anymore, oi've got to face them head on or oi'm no' worthy to call maself a woman."
There was silence, just the two of them wrapped together in a sewer with the cold slime of god knows what running down their backs.
" Maybe we could due it togethar." Tavish whispered. Now it was Aoife's turn to be surprised.
" What?"
" Maybe yue're right about it not bein' the best way to deal with thangs. Problem is Ay can't go sobar bei meself, Ay'd binge within an hour. If we stuck tagehtar, yue help me, Ay help yue, we could do it."
" But the teleportar, and mai team-"
" Wha' due yue have to go back to? Yue tol' me 'bout yuer life, yue haven't seen yuer other brothers in months, parents dead, is anaythin' waitin' for yue at home? Screw yer team, hell screw main! We could due it, jus' runnaway an' not look back."
" Don't yew have a mum?" Tavish was silent.
" Please, jus' thaink abou' it." He finished, before standing up and continueing to slog through the filth.
Aoife waited till all there was was the sound of his plodding footsteps in the muck, and then she too continued down the foul smelling tunnel. They had a murderer to catch after all.
…
" Goddamn this is stuck tighter than a fat man in an elevator!" The female sniper groaned, heaving at a solid metal door they had come across. The sign read ' Danger. Keep out. High voltage.' with a pleasant caricature of a stick figure being electrocuted, and the door seemed to be soldered shut.
" Where's the demolitions? We need to blow this open!" She yelled.
" Why?" The spy drawled. He had been just as rattled as everyone else with the medic's death, though he'd tried not to show it. Waking up to the sounds of the engineers yelling, hastily dressing to see what had occurred, he hadn't even had time to think of what might be waiting for him. He'd simply laid eyes on the body, heard they had to hunt down a teenager, and stalked from the room so as to hyperventilate in private. He'd never admit it, not even to the sniper ( their relations after the one night stand had been less hostile than normal, even going so far as civil conversation) but death scared him shitless. He liked this world, like his suits and ski masks and closet sex; he wouldn't give it up for anything. Permanent death… well it would deprive him of those. It seemed he had not been as covert as he hoped, once the teams had been divided and everyone was entering the sewers the australian had pulled him aside.
" You're not okai."
"I'm fine." He snapped, shrugging off the hand that had been placed on his shoulder.
" We're all scared, no need to act tough."
" I said I'm fine!" His voice turned into a snarl, and he backed away. The spy was being uncouth, he knew it, but he'd spent too long stifling his fear to blubber to someone he'd only just slept with that week. Besides, it's not as if anyone cared enough to- wait.
What was that? Something had flashed in the sniper's eyes, was that… was that hurt? There was genuine hurt in the australian's face! Why should he be hurt, the romance in the closet hadn't changed how they acted toward each other. There was no profound difference, sure maybe conversation that didn't dissolve into insults, but there hadn't been any grand gestures of love.
Actually, maybe there had been. 'Spy, you miserable fils de pute, you can play women like a harp should you desire but men are ever a surprise! The closet was a grand gesture for the sniper, he considers himself such the professional it must have killed him to do anything spontaneous. And then what did you do, brush it off and just ice him back to the old ways?' The spy lectured himself. And now to top it all off, he'd gone and snapped at the man like he was some kind of diseased animal approaching. Of course the australian was hurt! He'd shown his affection through a decision that must have been difficult to make, and then had it brushed off as some sort of casual gesture.
"souffle du pénis." The spy had cursed under his breath, and did the only thing he could think of to apologize for just how royally he'd fucked up. He'd grabbed the australian by the head and kissed him. Not long, not hard, but enough.
" Oi think yer croiying." The australian said after, chuckling and raising a hand to the spy's ski mask. It was wet in two long streaks below his eyes.
" I love you." Spy breathed in return. " I have frosen you out, and called you names, and I will still say your accent is se worst way a human could possibly speak but I zink sat I love you."
There was more kissing, soft, sweet, gentle kissing on mouths and noses for both men. Finally, the sniper broke away.
" Don't die down there." Pulling off, he sloshed through the sewer pipe the rest of his team had started down. He had left the spy to catch up to the others, not stopping to listen to any warning from the spy that he may be the one to die.
Asshole. Now the spy was standing next to the sniper he did not love at all, the she-hulk texan who was hollering for the demolitions.
" If you had just killed someone where would you hide? Medic did tell me a soldering went iron went missing earlier this week, maybe Lucy sealed herself in! Now we need the demolitions to get the door open." She exclaimed in response to his question. The fluids swilling round their boots reeked of, well, of sewage. Spy never imagined he'd have to wade in his own shit as part of the job.
" It seemed sat ze demolisions were having a bit of a lover's quarrel earlier. I would not count on sem showing soon."
" TRAITORS!" The male soldier shouted, who had been hovering to the left.
" Oh shut up you inbred." If he was going to be civil to the australian the second most annoying person in the base had to be the soldier. But, ah, right on cue the demolitions showed up. Looking like how everyone else felt, no less.
" What was that yelling about?" The Chloe scout quipped. Spy took back what he thought about the soldier, he still disliked the scout most of all. He had no problem with Chloe, she had just reminded him how much he hated the male. Thank god the demolitions didn't answer her question, only saw the texan straining at the door and began to set to work. One swift operation of what the demolitions called " primary school stuff" later and with a groaning of metal work they were in.
There was a small room inside the door. It was mildewed, with a musty stench and worn down electrical equipment spaced throughout. A thick layer of dusted coated most things inside. There were a few exceptions
One thing that wasn't covered in dirt was a corpse. It was burned to practically to a char, eliminating face recognition but the body couldn't have been over five one. No close, shoes, or tools around it but it had delicate little hands perfect for reaching between wiring, and around the head you could just see a delicate tuft of hair remaining; a tuft, specifically, of strawberry blonde hair.
The spy vomited onto his shoes. He retched more , and over his retching he could hear various voice utterances of " Oh shit, oh shit, oh mother fucking holy god mother of shit."
" God how long has she been here?"
" Ugh, I can smell it now!"
" Corpse can't be younger than three days."
" Than huew-"
" Oh, FUCK! GIULIA!" This last sentence came from Chloe. Of course, who could it be? He couldn't recall seeing the female engineer or that pitiful excuse for a spy in the same room anytime after the second day. Motive? Screw motive the woman was psychotic! As the scent of his upended stomach mingled with all the other pleasant thing assaulting his nose, he heard the female sniper continue.
" Wasn't GIulia with the other team?"
"Shit, they could be anywhere by now!"
" They outnumber her how could she-"
That's when they heard the screaming begin. It came from deep within the sewer tunnels. It was long, it was loud, it was most definitely from a female the spy had never expected to hear scream.
" MISS PAULING!" The male scout roared, dashing out into the tunnels. He tore off frantically in the direction of the screams. " I'M COMING MISS PAULING!"
The spy straightened and dashed after him. It would be a tragedy about Miss Pauling, but by her screams she was beyond saving and he had another person on his mind. He had never been a good runner, and the soup around his legs made him even slower, but adrenaline had begun to pump through him and as he fought to catch up to the scout all he could do was mutter in a childish hope that the australian could hear him.
" Don't die down there."