A/N: So, technically THIS was my first TF2 fic, but it didn't feel quite right after I finished it. So, after writing "2 Porcelain Doves" and "The Mourning of Queen Frigga" – AFTER FINALS WEEK ENDED - I decided to go back to it with a clear head. Dedicated to Vlad. He knows why.
After 4 years of living side by side in the same barracks-like compound, the nine men comprising the Reliable Excavation Demolition team (R.E.D for short) had discovered more than they probably would have liked to know about one another. Embarrassing secrets, facts that were not so much secret, and things that were just plain weird.
In reality, the team had become a family in their own right, sharing hobbies, eating and drinking together, protecting each other, even their petty feuds were more familial than actual loathing.
In time they all revealed their talents in slow succession, finding that they had quite the interesting band going. Tavish DeGroot on the piano, Levi Mundy on the tenor saxophone (any sax he put his mind to, really), Dr. Wolfgang Ludwig on the violin (and accordion when he was feeling honestly experimental), Dell Conagher on the acoustic guitar, with the Spy on Cello, Flute and basic piano when Tavish chose to incapacitate himself with drink.
It seemed to become an unspoken tradition to gather in the common area with their instruments once a month and perform for one another without ceremony, the other wandering in when they heard the Sniper tearing up "Careless Whispers" or a particularly complex piece from the delicate fingers of the Medic.
Tonight was one of those nights, Scout and Soldier wandering in out of curiosity, listening to each and every one of their teammates (the engineer had been held up elsewhere) respectfully until the Spy began to play.
Jeremy saw an opening and took it. "Ya know, I'll never understand classical music nuts. Isn't it just simpler to have the three of them?" He was playing with his dog tags as he leaned on a door frame.
"Zhree of what?" Medic could not help but ask instead of shushing the boy.
"Classic composers. You got yer…. Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, isn't that all you need?" He seemed to be looking for a fight, aiming each of his comments at the Frenchman with a venom in his voice that was specifically acidic today.
It worked as he had intended, and finally Spy growled "Shut up, you imbecile."
The term seemed to irk the lad, but he kept going nonetheless. "To be honest, it's all quite boring, especially listening to someone who don't know what he's doing-"
"Quiet, you twit!" He hissed, doing his best to play through, accidentally sliding on two notes and cursing softly in French as he kept going.
But, there seemed to be no stopping the train of negativity as the younger man started again. "You've got to play something like piano ta get the really good stuff-"
"Silence!" Spy snapped as he stopped playing, holding his position and glaring at the scout with a look that could kill. "You obviously don't even know what I am playing," He sneered, letting his bow fall as he glared at the boy. "One can assume you were not given enough brain cells to comprehend talent if it stabbed you."
The scout snapped back at him, real anger in his eyes, the game was over. "Bach's Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No 1 in G major, I'm not stupid you froggy bastard."
Dr. Ludwig put down his own bow to place a hand on the boy's shoulder, noticing there were tears accompanying the fire in his eyes. "Mein Freund, are you-"
"No." He shrugged away with finality "I'm sick of being treated like I'm stupid. I can't read words, but I can read music like it's natural."
The medic had hypothesized the boy's possibility of having dyslexia for a while, but he had never felt the situation quite right to bring it up. After a few moments of pregnant silence, Tavish broke the silence. "What do you play, lad?"
The boy gave a sharp gesture to the spy "Cello." He snarled when he heard the soldier snort a little and Demo shut the man up with a sharp look; Jane threw his hands up in silent apology "I played cello in high school… my ma said that my dad had played and at the time I wanted nothing more than to impress him. I dropped out of school two years before I graduated, so It was just cello during the day, baseball in the evening, and working at night. After a few years I realized he wasn't coming back to grab his precious cello and I gave up. I wish I'd set the damn thing on fire."
They sat in silence as Spy's eyes glassed over slowly, knees slipping looser around his instrument as he seemed to be remembering something that honestly hurt him. "May we hear?" He finally spoke with a gravel in his voice that caught Doctor Ludwig's attention.
"What, no-" Jeremy paused then offered his hand "Give it to me."
When Jeremy sat, he threw up an emotional shield that actually caused the spy to trip a little, though the only one who caught it had been the German, everyone else had their eyes trained on the boy, slowly relearning the weight of a cello between his knees.
The man in the pinstripe suit moved to flip his score back to the front page when Jeremy looked at him with a burning hatred "Do I look like I need a score, jerkwad?" Was growled with a soft intensity that had spy stepping back once again
The boy was surprising all of them.
Even more so when he played his first note, a low G, and sustained it for a few beats as if testing the wind before he let himself float off the edge of the world, letting the cello become his wings as he played from memory with closed eyes.
The entire team sat in a trance watching the notes fly into the air like a paintbrush crossing a canvas. The boy could draw, sure, but the picture he painted with the cello bow seemed to be his best work yet. The work was not graceful, the bow see-sawing across the strings almost violently as the boy's entire body rocked to the passion of the movement.
About halfway through the piece his head had lolled forwards, eyes screwed shut like a child fighting off a nightmare, like he was simultaneously battling with the music as he danced with it. When he played his final triad, he threw his head back to hold the formatta, tears like a constellation of stars shining on long lashes. He let the bow of the cello rest on his leg, taking a moment to blink and swallow before coming back to reality.
Tavish, Jane, and Levi erupted into applause, the sax player tucking his instrument between his knees to clap with fervor. The medic applauded politely and put a hand on Spy's shoulder to keep him from falling over, the man having gone a bit paler upon the ending of the song.
"That was amazing Jeremy. Truly," He admitted choking down a nausea he would rather have died from than reveal the cause of, and swallowed thickly when the scout responded.
"Yeah, whatever. I learned for a man who'll never hear me play." There was a huffed laugh "I wish I could just forget." He knew he was lying. He practiced fingering techniques on the posts of his bed to this day, dreaming of duetting with the one man he'd learned for.
Tom Jones couldn't play cello.
But, he was better than a deadbeat.
Medic spoke up now "Herr Spy, may I speak to you a moment?" He voiced with a pleading look to Levi, who nodded minutely and slid into Jeremy's view.
"Bloody brilliant, mate! 'Ow do ya keep from cuttin' ya fingahs on the strings-?"
Spy found himself dragged to the surgical theatre "Kylain, I can see your color draining as ve speak, if you are going to keep zhis a secret-" Doctor had earned Spy's given name on the battlefield rather than colloquially as they had learned the other's, and so they kept names to private situations out of respect for one another.
"Wolfgang, I am fine."
"Mien freund, I can tell by just looking at you zhat you are lying. You are slipping." He allowed a faint smile to show that there was no animosity in the statement.
"Wolfgang," Kylain repeated, this time with a hitch in his voice that he cursed himself for allowing. "I know you know."
"Ja. I zhink everyone knows except for little Jeremy"
"Then you can extrapolate, with that fantastically analytical German mind of yours, why that stung." He snarled in response, and Dr. Ludwig squared his shoulders.
"I vas not the one who started zhis mess, Monsieur Dubois , zhere is no need for hurtful vords."
The Frenchman sighed "Forgive me, Doctor, I am still…. Uncertain how to process him. Perhaps if I had raised him, I might be able to."
"I trust that zhere vas a legitimate reason for you leaving." The doctor took a few steps forwards to grab Kylain's shoulder. "Sniper is right when he calls you a- how does he say it? Backstabbing mongrel, but, I zhink you are not a coward. Ja?"
Coward. He felt like one. He had not abandoned Jeremy completely, he had sent his former love more money than she had needed, they had corresponded through letters for a while before communication turned into simple bank notices. She had 8 children, including his son. He often had the fate of the world on his shoulders. Time seemed to sneak away from them.
But he protected the photograph of himself holding his son with ferocity, holding 'the runt of the litter' as Marilyn had called him, close to his chest with a goofy grin on his face that would have shamed even the giddiest of clowns. The boy held his father's balaclava in his hands and in his gums, looking at the camera with the exact same eyes.
His little Jeremy. The boy appointed by God (as he was so named) to watch over his father; little did either of them know that to protect and be protected by his father would be his destiny.
He looked to the medic and gave a curt nod, sucking all his emotion back before leaving suddenly.
Scout relaxed into to the applause once more. He grinned and stood, holding his cello and bow in the same hand, gesturing to his father as he bowed. Their duet had gone perfectly. He grinned and turned to the man to speak, catching a glimpse of a maroon balaclava before his eyes snapped awake.
He had the strangest feeling of cloth in his mouth….
On his bedside table he found an envelope with no address, simply the words "To Jeremy: For when you find him." In calligraphic scrawl, as if the person had tried to mask his handwriting unsuccessfully. Opening the envelope, he found sheet music. "Offenbach - Duo for two cellos, op. 52, no. 3"
Great. Something else to play with a ghost.
The music came to life as he looked at the page, but only the bottom staff. He waved it away and tried to imagine what it must sound like without spy practicing from his smoking room. He couldn't face to acknowledge there was no difference from the music he was looking at.