Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sniper was nothing if not a creature of habit. This was something he knew of himself, and something he never had any intention of changing. Each evening after the fighting was done for the day, he’d grab a portion of whatever was being made in the kitchen, passively observe that night’s dinner table discussion, then retreat back to his campervan. He rarely stayed in the base unless there was something particularly interesting going on – no such luck that day.

It was deep in the year, and notably chilly, being in the desert and all. The sun had gone down before dinner was even on. He knew well enough to be aware of his surroundings, even out here. Spent enough time in the outback to know that an angry animal waits for your back to be turned.

It was once he was in his camper that he tended to let his guard down a little. It was easily set back up should anyone bug him, but such intrusions were rare after sundown. Everyone knew that if you were gonna bother him so late, someone had better be dying.

The longer time went on, the more he eased. Once he’d gotten past the point of keeping his ears pricked, he could get a few rough hours of sleep for his usual early-ass morning routine. 

Unfortunately, having a camper parked out in the middle of the wilderness meant you heard some weird things outside on occasion.

He jerked upright at a muffled noise from just behind the van, squinting at the barrier between him and whatever had caused it. It was an occasional thumping, and something else he couldn’t place. Probably some sort of animal. Maybe a raccoon. He returned to sharpening his kukri.

Of course, the world didn’t tend to be forgiving to poor Mick Mundy. The noises persisted, and were joined by increasingly concerning ones. Thumps, growls – coughs? He sighed bitterly. An unfortunate trade-off of living out here was that he was in charge of the perimeter. Anything less and Soldier would have his head on a pike.

So once the noises had gone on for an uncomfortably long time, along with steps, fading – he forced himself up and grabbed his rifle. You’d be surprised how many of the lead-poisoned freaks living in the area found themselves out there, and usually, all he had to do was scare them off. If it was just a raccoon, one well-placed shot wouldn’t only get it off the damn property for good, but all of its friends, too.

Peeking out the window, he saw nothing within his immediate line of sight. Complicated things, but not by much. It wasn’t pitch black out. Moon was almost full. He had a gun and a knife. He opened the door.

There was a distinct odor in the air. One that, from much experience, he was inclined to think was from his clothes. Adjusting his grip on his rifle, he crept around the side of the camper, closer to where he’d heard the noises disappear to. There wasn’t much place to hide out here, so he was likely to come face to face with whatever it was the moment he stepped around the corner.

With little more hesitation, he rounded it, rifle raised, just in case.

Then, he paused. His hands fell numb. Something icy formed in his stomach.

“Bloody hell.”

He’d found his raccoon. And the woman, mid-twenties, half-clothed in a blue dress with no socks or shoes, on her knees – eating it raw.

You see a lot as an assassin. Some truly depraved shit. He’d killed people guilty of crimes he couldn’t even speak of, and he’d seen the insides of people’s heads reduced to a fine mist on a near daily basis – all just part of the job. He himself, in his current line of work, had felt himself die dozens if not hundreds of times.

So it wasn’t exactly horror that gripped him in that moment. Shock was a slightly more applicable descriptor, but just barely. He lowered his gun, and made eye contact with the girl in front of him. Fresh blood coated the entire lower half of her face and neck. 

Mostly, it was bewilderment. How the hell does a pretty girl like that end up in a situation like this? She didn’t look underfed. Certainly wasn’t feral, given the otherwise clean clothes. Her hair was long, and while it was messy, it was far from a rat’s nest. She hadn’t been out there long.

Her hands, coated in viscera, dropped the poor thing she’d butchered.

“D-don’t,” she started, hoarse, and above all else, horrified. Sniper was almost surprised she could talk. “Don’t look at me. Please. I don’t– I don’t know why I did this.”

She looked at herself like she couldn’t remember any of what she’d just done. Like she was witnessing a murder; one not performed by herself. Her eyes were wide and wild, and she didn’t move. Sniper couldn’t find it in himself to look away. Couldn’t find it in himself to speak, either.

“I was just,” she said, voice shaking, tears falling down her cheeks, “so hungry.”

Sniper’s finger twitched against the trigger of his gun.

The woman looked down, noticing the rifle half-cocked against Sniper’s shoulder. The horror renewed in her eyes, and Sniper prepared to lower his weapon – a mess of emotions were going through him at the moment, and ultimately, something human was winning out.

“Please kill me.”

He stiffened. At once, the woman stood. Her entire body trembled, like it wanted to collapse under itself. She reached her arms out, grasping at the distance between them with bloodied fingers. “Please. It’s so horrible. I can’t live like this, I can’t, please, kill me, please–”

“So ye’just did wha’ she asked?” Demoman questioned.

Sniper looked at him like he thought looks could kill, perhaps not enjoying the company of a drunk man after what he'd just been through. “Wouldn’t have bloody well asked y’to come take a look if I murdered the poor woman,” he replied darkly. Even in his direct involvement, he stuck close to his campervan, no intention of intruding upon the center of the fuss.

“I believe what Herr Demoman is getting at,” Medic said, standing from his initial inspection of the woman’s corpse, “is that while you certainly don’t seem to be lying, that story seems a little…” He waved his hand, venturing for a word.

“Looney?” Demoman supplied blankly. Medic said something – it was in German, so it could have been either agreement or dismissal. The Scotsman was off in his own world, per usual for that time of night, and he didn't pay much attention. Most he was aware of was that Scout had come out too, earlier, but apparently scampered off at the sight in front of them.

Dazed, he stepped forward to investigate himself. “Ain’t much t’deny ‘boot the state of these sorry folks,” he said, squinting at the mangled raccoon sitting not far from the woman’s final resting place. “Wha’dye think done it? Rabies?”

“It’s certainly a possibility!” Sniper wrinkled his nose at Medic’s enthusiasm. “However, I don’t have the equipment to test for that, even if her brains were intact.”

“Felt she deserved it quick,” Sniper defended. The longer this went on, the less he wanted to be involved. 

Demo proceeded to not make it any better by clasping him on the arm. “Aye, did what y’could, lad. Poor woman pro’lly wouldn’a lasted ‘til dawn with that on her stomach, anyway.” Sniper made a noncommittal noise, brushing the older man off.

“Someone with rabies, though…” Medic said. He was thinking aloud to himself, which Sniper could tell from his tone; thankfully for wanting some form of explanation, the doctor tended to explain his thoughts quite loudly. “I’m not sure they would react the way you described. Perhaps some kind of psychosis?” He looked over to Sniper excitedly, like he was discussing a medical breakthrough and not an ill woman’s death. “Do you mind if I take a few samples?”

Sniper huffed sharply, curling his lip. “Do what ya want with her. Ain’t my corpse.” With that, he decided to take his leave of the scene. He didn't want to stand in the stink of gore longer than he had to – even the inside of his camper was preferable to that. 

He pulled himself inside, groaning at the realization that his damned ever-vigilant ears could still hear the conversation going on outside. 

Ultimately, he didn’t want to come across as too affected. He’d done a lot worse than put a person out of their misery in just the past twenty-four hours alone. It wasn’t anything to do with the viscera or the killing. It was something to do with what the woman had said. The suffering she alluded to. 

Something about it gave Sniper a very, very bad feeling. And it wasn’t one he was going to be able to sleep off.

Oddities as such, for as bizarre as last night had been, weren't so out of the ordinary that it warranted any sort of meeting. It turned into mess hall gossip, something that drew a few scrunched brows and a light-hearted ribbing from a comically blasé Engineer – “not at the table, boys. C'mon now.”

And it was left at that.

There was work to be done, as there was every Friday. Work could be sporadic, but Fridays always had something going on. Today it was defense for the REDs. Pyro was in good spirits, looking forward to hanging around Engie for the better half of the day. Scout was planning to smash his doppelganger's head in a couple times before the shift was over. Demo and Sniper were discussing something in the back, now that Demo was more sentient than he'd been the night prior.

With everyone in a good mood, they hopped on the teleporters to whatever base was at risk of getting blown up now.

Most workdays could be toss-ups, even if RED found themselves victorious a majority of the time. Some days, the BLUs just had a particular chip on their shoulder. Others, RED was just having an off one.

Today was, apparently, neither of those.

It was hard to call any shift easy, what with how most of them had died multiple times before the end of it, occasionally through methods as concerning as complete disintegration were someone on the opposing team feeling gimmicky enough, but for all intents and purposes, this one had been a cakewalk.

The sun was starting to set, and Scout, covered in grime and an amount of blood that was nothing to blush at, appeared by Engie's dispenser as the Administrator's voice counted down the BLU's dwindling remaining time. “Total ripoff, man. I didn't even see the other guy once,” he complained, leaning against the machine. Pyro, bored, prodded him absently with the end of their flamethrower until he flinched away.

Engineer hummed, combing his memories for any sighting of the BLU's speedster. He came up empty. “Makes sense why they sucked so bad if they're a man down.” He tilted his head down at Pyro. “We ain't seen their spook yet either, huh?”

Pyro mumbled in disappointment, resting their chin on their palm in a dramatic motion. A day where they didn't get to set a Frenchman ablaze was a day wasted.

“Maybe they got the plague or somethin’. Serves ‘em right,” Scout said. After grabbing a bottle of painkillers from the dispenser, he started to make his way to spawn along with the others. The humiliation period was more worth it when the battle was hard fought – everyone just wanted to bunker down for the evening, this time.

Putting away his temporary machines, Engineer huffed at Scout's comment. For a few reasons, he didn't have it in himself to be as performatively hateful towards the opposing team as the others could be. At the very least, he had nothing against their Scout. It wasn't much worth dwelling on, though.

He and Pyro entered spawn. The rest of the team was already there from the short walk guarding the last checkpoint. Scout, per usual, was testing the teleporter every other second, waiting for it to switch on. Everyone complained about how they only worked when both teams were in one of the spawns – the silent waiting game was an expected roadbump in clocking out.

It usually didn't take upwards of five minutes.

Engie took what must have been his fifth glance-over of everyone present, once again assuring himself that no one was missing. It was Sniper who spoke up first. “The hell're they doin’ over there?”

He wasn't sure he liked it. He'd think the BLUs would want to get out of there as soon as possible after their sorry display. There was no reason for them to be out lingering. The natural answer, then, was that one of them was stranded – likely injured, not enough to die, but unable to move. In that sort of situation, most mercs just offed themselves, knowing respawn would fix whatever ailed them.

That only left a few options. Engie didn't have a good feeling about any of them.

And nobody had seen BLU's Scout or Spy.

“Well, men!” Soldier said, breaking Engie from his thoughts. “If one of those sorry bastards doesn't want to run home to their sorry bastard mother, then we all know the rules!”

Of course they did. Finder's keepers.

“Ain't we humiliated them enough, soldier boy?” Engineer teased. He had no intent of exposing his uneasy nerves to his teammates. Soldier's mouth twisted into a toothy grin that told Engie the answer he already knew. Half the team was already on their way out the door.

If the BLUs were looking for their teammate(s) as well, they were being subtle about it. It was in their best interest to avoid each other during these little hunts - lord knew how ugly they could get, especially with what happened to the BLU Spy the last time the REDs had gotten their hands on him…

“‘Ey, looks like guard dog’s got a scent,” Scout said loudly, clearly not caring as much for said subtlety as everyone else. Engineer’s gaze followed the man’s pointing finger to Pyro, who did not react to the comparison to a mutt, instead continuing to follow whatever lead they had apparently picked up on. They seemed to be looking at something very attentively, but it was nothing Engie could see - that was pretty common with them.

It was one of the flank routes, a half-closed off building, and Pyro pointed up a set of stairs with the end of the Homewrecker, mumbling something incoherent. Instead of continuing onward to the position they indicated, they hung back, looking to Engie for some sort of praise before he even knew what they’d stumbled across. That left Scout to check.

Sure enough, “yup, got ya Spy here,” Scout called. There was a small thump. “Yo, you dead or somethin’?”

Engineer made his way up next. The BLU Spy was indeed laying on the floor like a crumpled-over corpse, his back turned to the men approaching him. Proving the obvious, he flinched when Scout reared to kick him again.

“Easy, Scout,” Engie said lightly. It got an indignant huff in response, but Scout obeyed. Casting another look down, it was hitting both of them how odd this was. Sure, one might expect to find a Scout in this position, but Spy? 

Circling the heap on the floor, he found that Spy was looking up at him. His eyes were glassy, and though he certainly didn’t look amused by the situation, there was a lack of recognition behind them. Leaning in closer, Engie could tell there was something sickly to his face – flush of fever under his eyes, lips pale. Looked to be drenched in sweat.

The smile that tugged at his lips was, admittedly, pretty sadistic. “Well, you’re just havin’ a real bad day, ain’cha?”

By then, Scout had joined him in his scrutiny. “The hell? I was jokin’ about the plague thing.”

“Pro’ly sunstroke,” Engineer dismissed. It was barely even hot in his opinion, but he wasn’t a Frenchman, and he sure as hell wasn’t wearing a thick suit, whatever was under that, and a ski mask in the middle of a sunbleached desert. “Doc might haf’ta fix him up ‘fore we can get anythin’ useful out of him.”

The BLU Spy had yet to utter a single word – for a man specializing in espionage, both of the Spies could be rather chatty, so it was hard not to notice. The oddity could be attributed to his condition, of course. Less so could his general lack of protest to being lifted. 

Engie had expected something. Even just a groan. Instead, the enemy Spy, apparently unable to hold more than an ounce of his own weight, did nothing more than stare just below Engineer’s eye level.

He wondered if the man was delirious, and if so, what he thought was going on.

“Don’ worry, turncoat. We’re gonna take real good care’a ya,” Engineer said, voice dropping into a self-amused purr.

Spy’s gaze lifted, just enough to meet his foe’s. His tired eyes narrowed. That was the most they’d get out of him for now.

Following another few minutes of stalemate, it seemed the BLUs caught on that the REDs had won both battles, as the teleporters began to work again. At the very least, that confirmed that the BLU Scout wasn’t also missing, just… absent.

In the meantime, Engie found it easy to return to the internal codename they’d used for the BLU Spy back when he was a head living in Medic’s fridge; Bleu. Tacky, but better than nothing.

While there were better, moderately more secure spaces to hold a captive in their primary base, Engie had enough standards to actually drop Bleu off with Medic. Now, whether that would turn out better or worse for the man in the end wasn’t up to him – but you couldn’t say he’d done the irresponsible thing.

Medic reappeared in the mess hall a half hour later, a bit faster than Engineer had expected him to. Say what you would, their doctor worked fast. “I’m afraid I’m not able to narrow it down beyond a fever,” he said, sounding disappointed. “The medicine I injected him with is helping. His first coherent act was to beg me for food.”

“Beg?” Their own Spy asked incredulously. Ever since he’d laid his eyes on Bleu that day, he'd been operating on some ongoing sense of extreme disgust towards his rival. The fact that Medic was actually preparing something for the man, the fact that it was just a small can of tasteless emergency rations aside, only offended him more. “You think they do not feed the man?”

“Oh, please. I can tell when a man is feigning weakness,” Medic said, more amused than anything. “I’m sure he will be much more cooperative if we give him what care his team clearly didn’t, ja?”

Spy settled with a huff, then returned to nursing his cigarette. Only he would manage to take the vulnerability of his own counterpart so personally.

“I’m with Spy,” Engie commented idly. His thoughts had been a churning whirlwind this whole time. No matter how much he told himself he was just overthinking things, his mind never did seem to slow down. “Man’s gotta be on death’s door to be willin’ to take it. Can’t say I like the looks of it.”

Heavy, who had been silently observing the conversation from the end of the table, finally contributed. “If BLU team is weak, is not bad thing for us,” he said, “if it is trick, we have little to be afraid of from drugged little Spy. Heavy does not see problem either way.”

A practical way to look at it. The way Engineer should have been looking at it. He hoped his lack of argument sufficed in terms of showing his understanding. He returned his attention to Medic. “Mind if I keep an eye on things just in case?”

“Ah, you know you are always welcome in my clinic, my friend,” Medic said, as joyous as if he had just invited someone to a particularly trendy restaurant. Engie gave him a quick smile, then excused himself from the table to follow Medic down to the infirmary.

He just wished he could slot the pieces together in his head in a way that made sense. On a surface level, it seemed so uncomplicated. No one else seemed so worried, at least not for the same reasons as him – why couldn’t he just shake the feeling that there was something gross about all this? The sort of something that made him want to hole himself up in his workshop until it passed?

Bleu, tied down to a gurney, was still fighting to stay conscious, despite whatever dubious drug cocktail Medic had given him. Heavy’s comment there did ease Engineer’s nerves a bit – the man was likely high as a kite right now, and while he’d never doubt a Spy’s tolerance, even a grizzly could be knocked down with the cure-alls Medic offered up on occasion.

Medic slotted easily into a “good cop” role, ever easy in his sadism as he briefly loosened his restraints to let him sit. “This will have to do. It’s all we could spare–”

Evidently, Bleu was not bothered by such matters. He all but forewent the fork. Engineer had seen hogs eat less greedily.

Maybe they were starving him.

As if the man wasn't directly in front of him – though he seemed to be too preoccupied to be bothered – Engineer pushed Medic a bit on the topic of what exactly was going on here. “There's really no tellin’ what's goin’ on with him?”

“Well,” Medic ventured, appearing hesitant before he continued, like he was unsure if what he was about to say was anything worth commenting on, “there's a mark on his hand, here–” he gestured to his own, tracing an area along his thumb, “but for all I know, it's some sort of allergic reaction.”

Engineer let out a thoughtful hum. Bleu had finished off his ration in no time at all, and for the briefest of moments, it looked like he was considering eating the can as well. Ultimately, once he'd gotten his food, he was apparently out of strength to even sit up.

Medic took the can from him, watching the bordering-comatose man with intrigue as he refastened the straps, to which Bleu offered no protest. “I'm afraid my curiosity is stronger than my professionalism in this case,” he said idly, tossing the thing in a waste bin. “You'll forgive me if I hold him a while even after he's coherent?”

“I'll make sure they will, doc, don'cha worry ‘bout that,” Engie said, knowing what he really meant by the question. He was never one to deny Medic an opportunity to exercise his curiosity – and admittedly, he was pretty invested himself. There wasn't much they could get from Bleu that they didn't already know or have, and everyone knew that in the back of the mind. This was all just a ploy to entertain the lot of them at their enemies’ expense.

“Yes, what I wouldn't give to spend another moment of my precious life in this accursed place.” Both RED team members present were startled by the voice coming from the gurney, hoarse and deeply exhausted, but otherwise lacking any of the incoherence in the actions that preceded it. 

Bleu looked like death warmed over, and was still too weak to strain much against his bindings. There was a new attentiveness to his eyes, however, something he'd lacked for the past hour. 

If he grasped the severity of the situation, he didn't show it. That may have been the clearest sign he was lucid of all. At his foes’ confused expressions, he gave a dazed attempt at a smug smirk. Voice weak, he pressed, “well? Are you going to gawk at me like a zoo animal all day, or do you intend to tell me what you captured me for?”

Engie and Medic shared a glance. Neither were sure if the development was truly positive.

Engie, in particular, had his doubts.

Chapter Text

“So, what that lady had,” Scout said, idly fidgeting with a baseball, “it wasn't, like, contagious, right?”

Sniper sighed, his gaze fixed on the floor. Everything about this situation was skeeving him out. From the moment he'd laid his eyes on the state of the BLU Spy, he had the same dread as everyone else – and upon hearing of Bleu's “appetite”, it was clear that he and Scout were on the same page.

For that reason, it didn't feel right to give him any other answer than the blunt truth.

“If it is, I don't like the idea of it wormin’ its way in here,” Sniper said, eyes drifting back towards the doors of the makeshift interrogation room. Almost everyone had gathered outside of the infirmary as Spy was finally questioned. The formality struck Sniper as unnecessary, given the circumstances. He shook his head. “That woman was outta her mind.”

“Eh, Doc's workin’ the case, though. He gets results if not'in’ else,” Demo said. He was furthest from the doors, somewhere between uninterested in trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on beyond the thin windows and intrigued enough to stick around. Pyro was next to him, fiddling with a lighter.

Nobody was particularly reassured by this. There was no denying Demo was right, but Medic was a scary man when he had a new medical mystery to unravel. Nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of those experiments.

There was something deeper about it, though, that was really pushing Sniper's seemingly baseless anxiety into something much more warranted. Despite himself, he voiced it. “What troubles me is he died. A lot. Not that I was keepin’ particular track. And it weren't for his doctor's lack of tryin’,” He rolled his toothpick along his teeth. “Whatever's causin’ it, neither the gun or respawn is fixin' it.”

Scout worried his lip, glancing up at the door like he'd be able to tell what was going on through it by staring hard enough. After a moment, he said, “yeah. Thanks for that.” 

Sniper scoffed. He supposed he couldn't blame Scout for fussing. The situation was already nerve-wracking enough before things got, somehow, even stranger.

Nobody expected to be able to get much out of Bleu. That was simply what one could anticipate from any interaction with a Spy, the BLU team's had no reason to believe forthcoming. So, of course, the first act anyone had gone through with was contacting the BLUs to tell them they had their sick teammate in their grasp, and all the horrible things they might do to him. 

Initially, negotiations with the BLU Soldier had gone well. It seemed this would be wrapped up before the end of the night, with Bleu being able to be returned, bloodied and unable to fight on top of whatever else was wrong with him, the following morning.

And then BLU stopped responding.

Half an hour passed. No further communication.

The unsettled feeling in Sniper's gut that had plagued him since late last night was now a nearly tangible fog throughout the Northern RED base. Even Soldier and Pyro seemed noticeably bothered by the whole thing.

It was nice to feel like he wasn't overreacting, at least.

Demo opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by the door swinging open. Their own Spy stepped out, letting the door fall shut behind him. Without any further elaboration, he pulled his disguise kit from his pocket, retrieved a cigarette, and then a lighter. Everyone looked at him expectantly. “Well?”

He sparked the cigarette, sucking in a slow drag. With an appropriate amount of suspense, he said, “he is still delirious, but as stubborn as ever. What did you expect?”

Even if no one was surprised, the response still got a chorus of groans. A few left the waiting room, fed up with boredom. Scout and Demo remained. “I don't like him just sittin’ around in there all night,” Scout protested, gesturing vaguely at the door. “He's pro'ly… I dunno, tryin'a get us to get our guards down so he can kill us in our sleep, or somethin’.”

Spy huffed, tapping his cigarette. Demo watched the ashes flutter to the floor. “Nerves on end, hm?”

It took a solid few seconds for Scout to process what he'd said, but the moment he did, he started sputtering. “N– my nerves are fine, actually. Everyone else–” He made another vague gesture. “Snipes, maybe. He's freaked out. But I'm just talkin’, like, facts, y'know?”

“If we a'ready kicked their arses,” Demo remarked, unimpeded by whatever moment his teammates were having, “an’ they got somethin’ gain’ on back at base, an’ their Spy's brain's too broiled ta do anythin’ for us, I dinnae see why we can’ return him early.”

“Tired of the theatrics as well, I take it,” Spy commented, though he did seem a bit surprised. 

“If somethin's gain’ on wit’ ‘em, odds are we'll be gettin’ in trouble for not draggin’ their sorry arses to the battlefield ourselves,” he explained. 

Spy gave his response a nod, to which Scout seemed completely flabbergasted. “You guys ain't serious, right? What's the point of all that shit we just did if we–”

“You are the one scared to sleep in the same building as the man,” Spy retorted sharply. Before Scout could protest, he continued, “go find someone else to pester. Adults are talking.”

Scout was one of those people who you could see the gears turning in their head, scales of mind tipping back and forth as they weighed their options. After a moment, he frowned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and left the waiting room while muttering irritably to himself. He was, no doubt, off to loudly complain to the others.

Demo sighed, standing up and peering at the doors, vision swimming in a way more familiar than not. “Y'got an honest take on this one, lad?”

Another long drag, a final one. He strolled to a nearby trashcan, stubbing it against the lid. “I’ve seen the eyes of a man about to die,” he commented thoughtfully, discarding the used smoke. “I wish their doctor luck. For now, our technology offers nothing to a terminally ill man but more time to suffer. I can't imagine it's a pleasant fate.”

Though he said nothing, Demo found it hard not to agree.

There was an oddly nostalgic quality to the whole thing – doves fluttering in fitful patterns around the infirmary, lazy music spilling from the radio; the BLU Spy strapped down, barely lucid, onto a gurney in the center of the room.

Despite Scout's complaints, Bleu would be staying overnight. Thankfully for everyone, Medic had very little intent of sleeping; he had a lead to chase, and that was enough excitement to keep him up all night.

Bleu's condition was incredibly unstable. He would occasionally and suddenly regain his strength, fully lucid, only to fall back into near-stupor minutes later. Now that hours had passed, the latter state seemed to be more frequent, lasting longer, and the former diluted into feverish bouts of half-consciousness.

And, once again, he had begun showing symptoms of extreme hunger.

This was the part that caught Medic's particular interest. Maybe he hadn't eaten much, but he shouldn't be in this state so quickly, regardless. Breathing shallow, heart hammering, choking on painful, nauseating hunger pangs. He began to mutter in French. The familiar begging, but, once, Medic caught, in his loose understanding –

This is hell, doctor. This is hell on earth.

“If only you would tell me what was going on in that head of yours, my friend,” Medic mused aloud, adjusting his gloves over his hands. Curiosity had finally bested him. He told himself repeatedly, over these hours, that vivisection was too high a risk of killing the man in the state he was in. Despite the occasional accusation from his colleagues, he would never let a man die on his operating table if he could help it.

He was growing increasingly assured, though, that it might happen anyway this time.

“Don't worry, herr Spy,” he said, smiling to himself, “if you cannot tell me, then perhaps your intestines will.”

Bleu didn't appear to be lucid at the moment. He was looking elsewhere, sweat giving a translucent sheen to the exposed parts of his face under his balaclava. His eyes were like glass. Medic didn't fully understand what he was muttering to himself, this time. Something about a child. Delirium, Medic assumed.

The man was on a cocktail of drugs already. Medic didn’t bother with anesthetic on top of it all, not that he ever tended to. Underneath his scalpel, Bleu twitched and writhed, whining in apparent agony. His murmurings remain incoherent. “Oh, shush,” Medic chided, “it will only last a moment, du Heulsuse.”

It took Medic’s mind a moment to process what happened next.

Bleu hadn’t tested his restraints much. He wasn’t one to do it while anyone was looking, and nobody had taken an eye off of him since he got here. So Medic was caught off-guard when, at a jolt of pain from the scalpel cutting deeper, Bleu suddenly lunged forward.

Something snapped. It wasn’t just the bindings. It sounded painful. And for the briefest of moments, though he’d instinctively flinched back, Medic assumed that said pain would be enough to stop Bleu in his tracks before he managed to accomplish whatever his adrenaline-fueled state was driving him to do.

And then, there were a set of teeth clamping on his shoulder.

A string of panicked curses left Medic’s lips, and in a scramble of movement, flailing backwards, he managed to shove the offender off of him. It was only then that he saw that he’d also managed to strike his cheek with the scalpel, the fabric already staining with blood. He hadn’t so much as flinched.

The BLU Spy breathed heavily now, mouth slightly open. His right shoulder sat at an uncomfortable position, dislocated. This, too, did not seem to faze him. What he’d just done, however, did.

There was horror in Bleu’s eyes. And yet, he found himself swiping his tongue over his teeth, swallowing greedily. Through the stinging in his shoulder, Medic couldn’t help but think about the split second he caught Bleu’s gaze before it all – the hunger. The desperation.

It felt like hours passed. In reality, it was barely a second.

Bleu shot upright. “Verdammt,” Medic growled, struggling through the shock to stand as well. They’d disposed of all the man’s weapons, but truth be told, he didn’t really need them to– “verdammt, verdammt, verdammt–” He grabbed a syringe gun, turned, and pointed it to where he was sure the Spy would be.

He was alone.

“Verdammt noch mal!”

No watch or disguise kit was reassuring at least. He assumed the Spy would only be looking to escape.

Assumed, assumed, assumed. He also assumed that Bleu would not be able to break his restraints, assumed he wouldn’t be capable of fighting through a dislocated shoulder in the state he was in. He didn’t have time to check if any blades had been suddenly misplaced in the mere seconds it took to right himself.

He had to find the others.

Thankfully, he did not have to go far. It seemed he wasn’t alone in his restlessness – several of his teammates were already heading down to hear what the, apparently quite loud, fuss was about. “Sounded like you were gettin’ frickin’ murdered down here–” Scout started, ever the first on the scene.

“The Spy escaped,” Medic blurted, already exasperated within mere moments of having to explain the situation. “He caught me off-guard, I don’t know if he’s armed–”

“Others will find him,” Heavy said. He was the last to arrive, and the least panicked. There was still something perturbed in his gaze as he looked at Medic, though, something he couldn’t place until it was spoken upon. “Doctor is bleeding.”

Medic glanced down, finding that there was, indeed, blood dotting through the surface of his coat. And as much as he would like to assure Heavy that his fretting was as unnecessary as ever, he couldn’t help but be chilled by the extent of his own injury. It was surprisingly deep for a human bite, holes bored into his skin where Bleu had managed to clamp down the hardest.

It needed to be cleaned. Urgently.

“Yes, alright. Follow me,” Medic said absently. It was already understood that it would be Heavy who watched his back as the rest of the entourage laid out a messy plan for where to look. 

Medic couldn’t help but stare at the wound the whole time he prepared to treat it. In all his time spent in this line of work, he’d never sustained one quite like this. He dabbed hydrogen peroxide on it absently with a cloth, finally glancing up at his company.

The gurney was being met with great scrutiny by the giant man. “You are generous with restraints,” he said, idly, looking where the straps had either broken or come loose. “And with drugs. Was not your fault.”

His tone seemed to imply that he thought there was a chance it could have been, which Medic didn’t appreciate. Nevertheless, he agreed, “a freak accident. He broke his arm escaping.” He looked at how the restraints were set up, abruptly realizing Bleu must have hurt his legs, too, trying to get out so rapidly.

“But he runs,” Heavy said, echoing his thoughts. He looked up, like he was listening for some noise overheard. All that met their ears was the radio, unimpeded – a crooning love song. “And no one catches him.”

Medic decided he could get away with the cheaper, multi-purpose antibiotic ointment for now. It was all precaution at the end of the day. Didn’t want to risk the Medi Gun sealing any bacteria inside. “Well, he is a Spy,” Medic said dismissively. Heavy merely let out a grunt of acknowledgement. With the wound thoroughly cleaned, he walked over to his desk, positioning the Quick-Fix to face himself. 

“Next battle, I will take little Spy and bite his arm. Heavy thinks he will be baby about it.” His face doesn’t change, but it was clear the statement was an attempt to make Medic feel a bit better about the situation. It was a luxury Heavy only ever bothered with for him.

Thankfully, he did get a chuckle. “Ach, he’d never live it down.”

There was a smile on his face as the beam reformed his skin, leaving behind no trace of what had been inflicted on it beyond a pale red mark.

His skin was hot, but everything beneath the surface practically scalded from freeze. It was impossible to tell if it was the air carrying the chill, or something coming from deep inside him, already rotting.

The only pleasant warmth came from his teeth and tongue, still slick with the taste of raw meat. He could only half-remember what he'd done upon managing to stumble out of the RED base into the wilderness, even the ache of his re-set shoulder reduced to background noise. The taste in his mouth and the lack of emptiness in his gut told him it likely wasn't something to be proud of, though.

The moment the instinct had consumed him, to lurch forward and abandon all professionalism at the door and to try and take a chunk of the RED Medic's flesh for his own gluttonous purposes – that moment was when he realized that there was no fighting this.

He could feel it in his brain. Scratching. Scraping against the neural pathways. Rewiring him.

Bleu was not a simple man who would lay down and let the rot consume him. He had business to attend to.

The BLU base was deathly quiet. He'd overheard that there'd been a lack of communication, and he had a solid guess as to why. No one interrupted him as he made his way to his quarters. He resupplied himself with a watch, a disguise kit, a gun.

Didn't need a knife. Not yet.

Drying splatters of red beaded on the floor of the barracks’ hallway tile – smears and an askew end table told of a struggle. As he made his way to the end of the hall, he saw light filtering under the closed door of the strategy meeting room. Voices chattered restlessly inside. An argument.

He headed for the holding cell instead.

When he opened the door, he hoped the years of hardening his heart would save him. That the sight in front of his eyes wouldn't make sympathy twist at his heart. Given who it concerned, it only made sense he wasn't so lucky. “Scout.”

The man, cuffed to a chair, looked even more haggard than he'd last seen him. To say he looked like death warmed over would be sugarcoating it – he simply looked dead. And across his corpse-like face was clear distress. He turned away the moment Bleu acknowledged him. “I-I– I dunno what they told you, but it wasn't– it wasn't like that. I didn't–”

He wondered if they'd even told Scout that he'd been taken. What the series of events had been. How horrific it must have been for everyone to abandon their fine-tuned roles. “What did you do, Scout?”

It was odd to see him broken like this. He had nowhere to run, Bleu supposed. “I didn't– I didn't do nothing. I didn't. I didn't kill anybody, I swear it, I swear to god, I didn't kill him.”

His hysterics painted the picture nicely for Bleu. Without him around, there was only one other person bothering with caring for their ailing Scout. The two of them really did think alike. Though, in Bleu's opinion, theirs wasn't nearly enough of a scoundrel to deserve said fate compared to RED's, in his opinion.

Regardless, the denial, along with the mess staining down the front of Scout's shirt, also proved the fear that had brought Bleu here in the first place, because it was hiding something deeper. His Scout did not merely bite their Medic, nor did he simply kill him.

He'd eaten him.

Scout had very little energy left to cry. He was caving in on himself, shackles clicking as his shoulders shook. “Spy, you gotta believe me,” he begged, voice nearly gone, “it wasn't me, okay? I didn't kill him.”

“Oh, Scout,” Bleu said, circling behind him. He rested a hand on his shoulder, feeling him tremble beneath him. “I believe you. More than you know.” He wouldn't have been in this situation if he could keep himself out of Scout's business. His hand still itched incessantly where teeth had broken the skin. “They'll all realize it soon. You have nothing to worry about.

“Everything will be alright, Jeremy.”

It was as if Scout froze. His hand paused, gripping at his bloodied face. “Don't,” he said. There was a hint of something that might have been anger, if he had the strength. Instead, it came out hollow. “Fuck, man. Not now. Jesus, not now–”

Bleu let his son's words fall into a familiar background of static. He supposed his earlier delirium may have been right, and that whatever this disease was, it must be hell on earth. And he supposed the best thing to do with this knowledge, then, and the power he held with both his teeth and his gun, was be the one who decided who did and did not deserve it.

Maybe he couldn't reserve final judgement in this place, with its technology redefining the line between life and death, but he thought, as he placed the revolver to the back of his boy's head, that he could buy them some time.

The shot rang out, and the base once again fell silent.