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A hand lurches from the bush, its fingers twisting into the crisp, ironed shoulder of his suit and tugging him into the shadow of a tree.
Spy stumbles over into their arms, jerking as the other persons body catches his graceless fall. He bares his teeth like a cornered animal, his fingers already searching for the sharp edge of his butterfly knife when a muffled ‘shh’ pauses his attack.
Pyro had pulled him from his pursuers path and into some denser foliage, holding him still as the sound of crunching sticks beneath boots slowly drift away. Soon all he can hear is slow, steady breathing, the cold metal filter of their gas mask brushing his neck as gloved hands cling to his suit jacket. He extracts himself as quietly as he can, eyes narrowed and annoyed, even as the shorter mercenary releases him easily.
The forest was huge and dense, the perfect spot to try and stage a sneaky overtaking of Mann Co. At least that’s what their targets thought, turns out that only made them easier to erase without law enforcement getting involved.
It was such an easy job Spy had actually laughed to himself in the briefing. His exact orders were barely a single sentence long, Extract any valuable data from their shoddy hideout and burn it to the ground, leave no witnesses. He even tried to turn down his assigned ‘teammate’, the mute fire fiend, but Ms. Pauling said they’d been looking forward to the little outing and refused his request to work alone.
Now Spy considers himself a fool. He had underestimated the enemy, overextended himself and got himself captured, facing slow torture and death. Out in the middle of the forest, miles from the respawn range, he would have died for good. The very concept sends sharp ice prickling up his spine.
As he stood, brewing in his failure and wishing he hadn’t lost his cigarettes, a rubber glove enfolds his leather one, taking his hand and tugging him away from the direction their pursuers were headed.
The little maniac had saved him, going against their orders and any better judgment that may have been rattling around in their head. Only moments before Spy had planned to crack his cyanide molar, they barrelled into the room and split his would-be torturers head in two with an axe.
They didn’t even untie him until they were outside, they just threw him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes and ran, giggles leaking through their mask the entire way, even as gunshots followed them. He’s thankful, of course, but he can’t help but be annoyed that they had somehow lost their earpiece in the scuffle. Both of their lines of communication were lost, leaving them stranded in a forest of murderous men.
God, Spy wanted a smoke.
As they walk, he tries to make sense of the endless trees, but each stretch of forest looks identical to him. He sighs, letting his gaze fall back to the hand clasped around his. His saviour walks forward with a confident gait, though they must be just as lost as he is.
Suddenly, the black mask whips around, startling Spy for a moment as they presumably lock eyes, though he can’t tell if he actually met their gaze through the dark lenses. His hand is released and they raise their arm, pointing with their face turned to him in a blank stare. He follows the extended finger, spotting a dark shape through the trees.
Some kind of shed, rotted with time and neglect. Maybe somewhere to store hunting gear or camping equipment, but it doesn’t look like it had been touched in years.
“… Are you suggesting that we rest inside?” Spy glances over his shoulder, shuffling as he tries to spot any shapes through the trees. “That isn’t wise. I would prefer to keep moving, perhaps try to reconnect with Ms. Pauling, somehow.”
Pyro shakes their head slowly, trying to take his hand in theirs again, but he yanks it away, scoffing.
“Let me rephrase. We will keep moving. It would be foolish to stop, we would most likely be found.”
They shake their head again, the movement sharper this time. Their goggles glint and catch the sun through the trees. He turns to face the reflected sight, orange streaking across the sky as if in warning. It’ll be dark a lot sooner than Spy had thought. Sighing in defeat, he nods slowly.
“… Fine. Just until dawn.” As Pyro hums happily and snatches up his hand before he can change his mind, Spy grumbles to himself. “Fumbling around the woods in the dark will kill us before our pursers even have the opportunity to.”
With the same overconfident, fearless attitude that they seem to approach everything, they try to shoulder open the door. The hinges are horribly rusted, the wood dragging along the floor with great difficulty, but they just lean their weight against it until it yields enough for them to slip through into the dark, leaving Spy alone. Without any other options, he looks over his shoulder one last time and follows them in.
Somehow, it seemed smaller on the inside, untreated, cheap wood panelling on the walls and floor, crawling with dirt and bugs. Spy wrinkles his nose in distaste, watching Pyro explore with great excitement, poking around the clutter and filth.
“Ugh. Perhaps I’d rather to sleep outside in the dark. Let the bears eat me.”
As if he was joking, Pyro chuckles, swiping the dust off of a large object in the corner of the room. Spy squints, the roused cloud of dust settling just as his eyes adjust enough to make it out.
“A bed?“ He somehow manages to turn his nose up another inch. “I refuse to believe someone actually lived in this filthy hovel…”
Pyro nods, cheerily pointing over to a tower of assorted cans and bottles that Spy couldn’t make out before.
“Ah. It reminds you of our Sniper, no?” As if affronted, Pyro gasps, overdramatic and exaggerated. Spy can’t help but smile as they swat at his shoulder. “No, this is actually a building. It’s too good for our bushman, he only lives in vehicles.”
Their chest hiccups and they’re reduced to giggles, a hand over their filter as their head bobs. The laughter is muffled, of course, but light and twinkling. It isn’t an unpleasant sound, Spy admits.
But their ribs catch, their laugh cutting off sharply as a hand drops from their mouth, curling into the collar of their suit as they adjust their stance.
“Pyro?” Their head snaps up and Spy almost says something, mouth opening to say something asinine and emphatic. Thankfully they turn away from him before he can make that mistake, fiddling with the yellowed duvet as if nothing happened.
Abiding by their silent request, Spy lets his gaze drop from their raised shoulders, going back to surveying the subpar living arrangements.
If they wanted to pretend they weren’t injured, Spy would oblige. It would be an inconvenience to awaken to a cold body beside him, but not much of a problem. Finding a payphone would probably be easier alone, then he’d just inform Ms. Pauling of the body while requesting a ride back to the base. It wouldn’t even be much of a loss for the company. He’d seen the list of potential replacements for each class, while his list contained only 1 man who had a similar skill set, Pyro’s list could have hung from the ceiling and still reached the floor.
But… he might as well make sure it isn’t something incredibly preventable. It would be embarrassing if his assigned teammate died across the room from him because of a nail in their foot or something.
He has to help them, for his reputation. It’d be foolish not to. Having justified the decision to himself, Spy sneaks glances at the arsonist, silently scanning them for any obvious injuries.
Their mood doesn’t seem to have worsened at all, head bobbing as they fuss with the bed. They’ve successfully fluffed up the duvet and reach for the pillows when—
There. Their thigh gives out beneath them as they put weight on it to reach across the bed. Immediately their palm slams onto the side of the leg, hunching as they hold themselves up uncomfortably, sprawled out in an instinctual effort to lessen the pain.
A moment before they throw a glance behind their shoulder to see if their slip-up was noticed, Spy begins fiddling with a dusty bottle, pretending to be enthralled by its illegible writing. As they let out a sigh of relief and try to quietly correct their position, Spy locks his gaze back onto them.
It’s pretty noticeable, now that he knows where to look, a tiny hole in their suit. He thought that their trek through the forest had scraped up the fabric, but now that he looks closer, it’s a bullet hole.
Thinking back, Spy had heard gunshots, but he had assumed that their utterly inept targets were as awful at aiming as they were at everything else. And he was right to assume so. Barely managing to land a shot on a retreating enemy’s thigh would have been mortifying, if it were him who shot the bullet, that is.
But that wasn’t important, right now he had to figure out how to help his injured teammate. Admittedly, Spy had never been someone’s first option for medical care, and for good reason. He wasn’t exactly a calming presence.
What would Medic would do in this situation?
Knock Pyro out, heal the wound with magic red mist and then replace their internal organs with those of an endangered animal.
Or maybe Spy should just ask Pyro if they’d like some basic first aid. Yes, that’s a better idea.
“Is your leg bothering you?” They stiffen up as he had screamed the simple question. Too direct, Spy chastises himself. Too cold in tone, it sounded borderline accusatory. Clearing his throat, he tries again. “I couldn’t help but notice you favouring your right leg. Is there… something wrong?”
Before he had even finished his question Pyro whips their head side to side, shaking it emphatically while murmuring something under the rubber. They raise their hands, flopping them up and down as if to shoo away Spy’s worries, dismissing him in a completely unconvincing manner. One eyebrow raised against his will, his annoyance showing easily. He tries again.
“I believe you have been shot in the thigh? It’d be wise to remove the bullet and dress the wound before you rest. While I’m not as well educated as our doctor, I can assure you that my knowledge of first aid is more than adequate—“
With a huff and a gust of dusty air sent his way, Pyro throws themself onto the bed like a spoilt child, twisting to wrap the duvet around themself and flop down onto their side, facing away from the man.
The sudden offence rising in him was as disproportionate as it was impossible to ignore.
Fine. Spy turns away and shoves a dresser full of trash across the floor, ignoring the skittering bugs and miscellaneous gunk as he pushes it against the door to barricade it for the night. Pyro can let the bullet fester and rot inside themselves just like everything in this godforsaken shack seems to have. It doesn’t affect him. He doesn’t even care.
As Pyro stays hidden away in their heap of bedcovers, Spy settles on the floor, trying to find a mildly filth-free spot to rest for the night. He wasn’t going to sleep, certainly not, he was going to watch the door and occasionally rest his eyes. As uncouth as his teammate was, he was still responsible for them. So he’d keep watch tonight and hopefully they’d miraculously heal from their injury while they slept.
Spy really doesn’t know what Pyro expects. He peers over at the blob of sheets on the mattress. Refusing his help wasn’t just insulting, it was idiotic. God knows if they’d even be able to walk by sunrise and there isn’t a chance in hell Spy would carry them, even if he was able to. If they didn’t bleed out and die tonight, there’s a high chance Spy would have to abandon them here anyway.
Letting out a slow breath, Spy glares at the floor, eyebrows furrowing in unwilling worry.
They’d die a slow, lonely death in these rotten walls. RED wouldn’t bother wasting time picking them up this deep in the forest, especially since they failed their mission. They’d stay under those covers, they’d stay with a bullet in the meat of their thigh and they’d stay hidden away in the dark and the dust. Who knows the next time someone would stumble across this place and uncover them.
They’d rot in the uniform of a company that left them to die.
Well, no. The company wouldn’t have been the one to leave them. That would have been Spy.
A sudden rumble jumpstarts Spy’s heart, he jolts from his hunched position to scramble to the windows, unable to see a thing through the dirty, cloudy glass. He tries to catch the glint of a torch through the dark or hear the click of a pistol round but the strange sound calls not from outside, but—
Behind him. On the bed. Where Pyro was sleeping.
With his teeth gritted in irritation, Spy turns slowly and finds the pile of lumpy covers deflating with a slow exhale. And then it inflates again, rumbling with an unpleasant sound. A snore.
Spy almost throws one of the mystery bottles at them, fatally injured or not.
Before he can settle back down, Spy realises something. Pyro had always been a heavy sleeper, never roused by Scouts early morning whinging or Demomans workshop accidents or Soldiers… everything. Maybe he doesn’t need Pyros permission to save their life. He can sort it out while they sleep.
He shakes off the instinctual distaste at his idea and drifts closer to the side of the bed. Sure, it was uncomfortable, but they’d thank him in the end. It wouldn’t matter that it was horribly invasive and a dire overstepping of boundaries once they were back at the base. Because they’d still be alive.
He’ll be quick, he assures himself. They might not even wake up.
There wasn’t much around that’d be usable to dress the wound, but some fabric torn from abandoned clothes would be better than nothing. He tears his eyes from the bed and slinks away to choose a relatively clean shirt from the dresser in front of the door and returns to their side without a single creak of a floorboard.
Taking a slow breath, Spy peels the yellowed duvet back, feeling like a wolf looming over a sleeping sheep.
Starting quickly, he moves without thinking, refusing to hesitate. He knows if he lingers he might become a touch too aware of his actions and consider abandoning his effort. He reaches down, leather clad fingers slipping into the bend of their knee. He has to commit or he might lose them for good. He pulls on their leg, extending it to reveal the wound.
It’s a tiny, circular hole in their suit. It obviously missed their bone or they wouldn’t have made it through the woods. He leans over, place a hand on their flank to roll them towards him. The shards of the bullet must be still be inside, since there’s no exit hole.
He removes his hand, releasing them so they’re flat on their back. He holds his breath, listening for a slow, unconscious breath. A sleepy snuffle calms his worries, despite his examination they’re still asleep, somehow.
Deciding not to question it, Spy reaches for the clasp on the red boiler suits collar, undoing it to reach the zipper.
He considered just cutting through the leg of the suit with his knife but they’d have to make their way back to the base that way, with their jumpsuit reduced to a one sided pair of shorts. He knows they don't like showing skin. He inches the zipper down a tooth, as he justifies his actions. They’d prefer this, if they were awake.
More teeth slip through and Spy fights the urge to avert his eyes as he reveals the first glimpse of skin. No under shirt, it seems. The weather had been pretty hot lately, he supposes.
Without giving himself time to second guess, he pulls until the zip catches on the end, trying not to notice anything about their exposed torso, letting his eyes glide over the assorted scars and the dark lines of a tattoo. But as he reaches over to slide the fabric off their shoulder, he brushes against something soft that he can’t will himself to ignore.
Beneath him, they twitch once in warning before their neck muscles tense. The masked face jerkily whips up, meeting Spy’s frozen stare through black, dark lenses.
He blinks, the side of his hand still pressed against the unexpected softness on their chest. If they kill him for this, he deserves it.
A gloved hand strikes out in a wide arch, blind and frightened. Their fist hits him in the centre of his ribs hard, knocking the air from him as they curl away from his touch, a trembling hand holding together the front of their undone suit as if that’s where they’re bleeding from. He raises his hands in surrender, though he knows it won’t do much to reassure them.
“Désolé, je suis désolé, I shouldn’t have-“ He backs up another step as they cower on the bed, pressing their back into the wall and staring up with a silence that somehow sounds accusatory. “I wanted to help you, truly. Merde.”
He hisses and turns away, his back facing the pyromaniac. A headache makes itself known from behind his eyes, screaming at him to pull a cigarette from a case he doesn’t have.
“I apologise. I acted without thinking, I couldn’t… I didn’t know if you would…” He swallows, forcing himself to speak properly. “I was worried that your wound would worsen and I’d have to… leave you behind.”
Spy doesn’t wait for a response, he doesn’t expect one. He just shuffles where he stands, readjusting his gloves and straightening his mask, fiddling with his tie while he’s there. After a couple minutes of uselessly undoing and re-doing his cuffs, he hears rustling behind him, he doesn’t turn though, giving Pyro privacy to re-dress.
He doesn’t hear the sound of their zipper being re-done, only rustling as mattress springs creak. His head twitches to throw a curious glance over his shoulder but he quickly recorrects himself. He’s pried enough today.
Before he can find his spot to settle down and stare at the wall for the night, a hand wraps around his wrist. Not rubber, but flesh, warm even through the leather. He freezes, shoulders jumping up at the implication.
It tugs gently and he holds still, shaking his head.
“Pyro. I was wrong to attempt to heal you without your permission. I was in the wrong, do you understand?” The hand slips down his wrist, intertwining their fingers together as he speaks as plainly as he can. “You don’t need to accept to my asinine attempt at aid.”
There’s a moment of silence and then a mumble. They must still be wearing their mask, because the sound is unclear. A higher note, then a longer low mumble. An ‘oh’ sound somewhere in there. Spy surrenders to the light tugs and is pulled to face the bed as he puts together Pyros words.
“I know.”
They’re not naked, but it’s a close thing, wearing only underwear and their mask. He was rather close-minded to have assumed that his co-worker was assigned male at birth, but he just didn’t bother considering otherwise, finding the possibility both unlikely and unimportant, in the grand scheme of things. He really wished he considered it before undressing them in their sleep.
Clenching his teeth, he forces his curious gaze away, easily spotting the bloody spot on the outside on their thigh where the bullet rests. He kneels silently, releasing their hand to gather the knife and the scraps of clothes he was going to use to dress the wound. Hesitating, he lets his eyes drift up, trying to look past their exposed torso to meet the dark glass lenses. The familiar sight comforted him more than he’d like to admit.
“I’d like to try to remove the bullet fragments before dressing the wound.” With his knife in one hand he clears his throat, mouth twitching as he swallows. “It will hurt.”
Pyro nods easily, watching intently as he removes his gloves and brings the sharp blade close to their skin.
They don’t make a sound the entire time, letting Spy carefully manoeuvre the thin blade to remove chunks of metal. He keeps his gaze lowered and focuses completely on the task, not allowing his eyes to drift, even as this thoughts do.
He can’t stop himself from mentally compiling everything that had been revealed to him, a long learnt instinct that came from his many years as a spy. Pyro had freckles and long stretches of scarred skin on their left side. Just above the bullet wound, close to their waist, was a birthmark shaped like a squiggly butterfly.
With a sharp exhale through his nose, Spy refocuses on healing his teammate, annoyed by his inability to mind his own business. He manages to keep his attention on his task but can’t help but notice the warmth of their skin is as he places a hand on their knee to hold their leg still.
As quick as he can, he finishes up and cuts a long strip of fabric to wrap the wound, taking a moment to wipe up the blood that had smeared over their skin as he worked. He lets out a breath as his hands hover for a moment, not yet realising that’s he’s run out of things to do.
He hears a murmur over him, and looks up to see their mask, familiar even though it’s attached to a bare body he doesn’t recognise. He relaxes slowly, letting his hands drop.
“It should be okay now. In the morning we’ll both walk out of here.” Thinking for a moment, he rests his bare hand on their knee again.
“If you can’t walk easily, I’ll help you, you can rest your weight on me.” He swallows, finding himself unable to stop talking in this quiet, soft voice, now that he’s started. “If you can’t walk at all, I’ll find a way to get you out, I’ll drag you if I have to.”
Even biting on the inside of his cheek can’t stop the words from escaping.
“You won’t die here.”
Bare hands cup his cheeks, startling his mouth closed. After a moment they guide is head upwards, lifting him up and up until something cold and hard presses against his lips. The metal rim of their filter sends a chill through him, warming slowly against his skin as he stares at his reflection in black lenses.
A kiss, he realises after a moment.
But the hands don’t release him when they lean away, they pull him with them until he’s a moment away from collapsing onto them. He braces his hands on the mattress as they fall onto their back beneath him.
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to do but… now is not the right time for… for this.” He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the warm palms from his cheeks. “We’re still in danger and you’re injured, we… we can’t-”
Pyro cuts him off with a laugh, making his nose scrunch up in confusion. A hand curls into his shirt and tugs him, rolling him into the empty space beside them. As he flounders, trying to sit up, a hand stills him by resting on his bicep and a soft, raspy voice reaches his ears.
Even through the rubber it only takes him a moment to understand it. One word, long and soft.
“Sleep.”
He wets his lips, blinking at them.
“What if someone comes?”
They hum and shrug dismissively. Spy watches the way their shoulder muscles work, fat and bone sitting beneath skin. It’d be a mundane sight on anyone else, but for Pyro it feels like a privilege. He inexplicably melts into the mattress by their side, suddenly too exhausted to argue. His eyes never leave them as they sit up to pull the duvet up to their chins, settling on their side to mirror him.
For a moment they just stare at each other in the dark, mask facing mask.
And then they go to sleep.