Title: Qui Vivra, Verra

[cosmic_tuesdays]

Title: Qui Vivra, Verra
Author: Cosmic Tuesdays
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Sniper/Spy, Heavy/Medic
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Thanks to Amp and Kara for cheerleading, and Toxo and Teratomarty for beta-reading.
Summary:

I spent my life becoming invisible
It’s hard to maintain, and it’s hard to get by
I don’t recall fight or flight setting in
I have no introduction
I just breathe it in like the air
And there’s nothing to remember
There is nothing to remember - “Nothing To Remember,” Neko Case


1.

All told, Spy spoke a total of nine languages in varying degrees of fluency. He was perfectly fluent in four, could easily ask for directions and order food and insult parentage in another three, and knew two more that were used only in prayer. Of all the skills he needed for proper intelligence work, language acquisition was the one which came most easily to him, and one for which he had been praised all his life, and well deservedly at that. And of everywhere each language had taken him, speaking French still made him feel comfortable, secure – a sense of being home. Out of all the languages he knew, with all their ways to describe ghosts and longing and homelands, he couldn’t think of any words to properly describe the sensation.

He hadn’t expected anyone on the team would know how speak French, and had been highly surprised to learn Heavy – Heavy, of all of them – not only spoke it, but spoke it well. Their first mission, their first evening after everyone had finally arrived, Spy had made a disparaging remark about Scout’s family involving yearly cycles and litters, and when he left the kitchen, Heavy followed him down the corridor and quietly said, “It is in very poor taste to insult someone’s mother like that.”

Spy registered and understood the words immediately, but needed a moment to parse them out. “Yes, perhaps, I suppose.” He broached the topic later the following evening when they were alone again, him cleaning his pistol and Heavy working over his beloved Sasha. “You speak French very well. May I ask who taught you?”

“You may. And I may not answer.”

“That’s fair. I just found it – well, you enunciate your words so clearly, you have such a good command of its sounds. Did you learn as a child?”

“That? Yes, I did.”

It took the rest of the mission, small questions here and there that didn’t seem to add up to much, to learn it was Heavy’s parents who had thought their children should grow up speaking something elegant and regal, and that it had served him best when his family needed to speak privately. Between that mission and the next, Spy undertook some careful research to find out where and when the privacy had been needed, and from there, it was little trouble to put together a greater picture of Heavy’s life and history.

Not that Spy told Heavy a word of any of it. No sense in losing any potential leverage, and besides, Heavy was always pleased to not have to struggle with a language and Spy never needed to act happy to have the opportunity to speak French.

“No, no, I swear, it’s the truth! I notice him and I try to hide it, but he notices I notice, and he came to me and says so. And what was I to do? I don’t have the English to be clever.” Heavy chuckled. “‘Of course I notice, Doktor, you are credit to team, you are good friend, is good to know where you are for battle, keep you safe, is nothing.’ I babbled a bit like that, and he smiled and says, ‘Yes, that’s all true,’ and then –”

Spy coughed. “I think I can –”

“Anyway, then we go back to his room and fuck like rabbits.”

“That’s quite enough, thank you,” Spy grimaced while Heavy laughed. He waited for him to stop chuckling before asking, “And now that the two of you are together, have you made any plans for the future, any at all?”

“None yet. But he always speaks of Chicago so fondly, so perhaps I’ll leave with him to see his city when we go.” They chatted on a bit more on what cities could offer when one knew where to look before Spy bid Heavy good-night, asking him to do the same for Medic.

He was genuinely happy for the two of them, in a faint, distant way, and somewhat amused it had taken them this long to finally figure out what wasn’t being said between them. Having noticed it himself quite a while beforehand, Spy had more or less expected to hear the night’s news since the team’s second mission.

Stepping outside for a cigarette, Spy took a moment to savor the feeling. No matter the circumstances surrounding the situation, it was always gratifying to have his assessments proved correct. Being able to quickly read and judge people, pick up on their behaviors and tells and emotional tics to better figure them out – to see if they believed a lie, for one example, to lead them to give up information willingly, for another – was one he had practiced for much of his life.

After the linguistic surprise, Spy took care to give Heavy particular attention, and through his actions towards the rest of the team, noticed Medic’s hesitations and glances he always took care to surpass and suppress. A few minor accusations to see how he behaved when he lied gave Spy more than enough.

Soldier was far simpler. The man had long ago settled into his uniquely abstract view of the world and excising everything that didn’t contribute to or support it left no room for any in-between. Spy knew it wouldn’t take him much effort to maintain his current position in Soldier’s eyes, and decided to settle in comfortably. Scout, with his universally youthful braggadocio and swagger doing its best to distract from what he didn’t want seen, had taken as little effort to examine. Sadly, Scout had the ability to support at least a handful of his claims, on the battlefield if nowhere else, which failed to make life any easier for his teammates.

Spy blew out a loose cloud of smoke before taking another drag and holding the flavors in his mouth before beginning to practice blowing smoke rings. Demoman lived a life at odds with itself, and had an easier time switching his personae at a moment’s notice than any number of professionals Spy had worked with. He made no apparent effort towards balance or integration, and Spy often wondered what it took, besides massive chemical assistance, to create that lack of tension – such a trick would have benefitted no small number of his former colleagues.

Engineer carried himself as those with no patience for duplicity often did, with emotions and allegiances open and clear for all to see, and encouraged others to treat him in the same manner. He was remarkably friendly, and quite dangerous. His allegiances, like Spy’s, ran beyond friendships and to far greater ideals, and there was no telling what such a man would do if pressed, threatened – or worst, encouraged.

The next ring was more crisp, but a breeze came by and diffused it before Spy could savor the sight. As far as he could tell with the mask and suit in the way, Pyro needed no encouragement for his own deranged behavior. The man had a need for privacy that dwarfed Spy’s own, as the scuffle for rooms at Double Cross had demonstrated. His simultaneous efforts to maintain that privacy, and integrate himself into the team, were nearly endearing and terrifically puzzling. There was still no guessing as to who exactly might be hidden within that rubber suit, save that he wished for the most control over his interactions with others that he could maintain. All take with minimum give. It would have been selfish if Pyro was not quite so bent on attempting to communicate even from inside the suit, but from his body language, and what mumbles were audible from the mask, he sustained a genuine cheer in his line of work, and wanted to see the rest of the team cheerful, as well. Spy found it fascinating.

Of course, that fascination didn’t extend to other teammates who saw fit to exhibit such behavior. Sniper’s own need for privacy rivaled Spy’s and Pyro’s. The man only deigned to sleep in a base if temperatures ran low enough, and even then, spent what free time he could alone and away from others. He didn’t appear to mind someone else joining him in the shower block if he was alone, but then, neither did Scout or Heavy. He contributed to the team’s larder and took part in shared mealtimes, and though he seemed content enough to maintain them if someone else began, rarely initiated a conversation. And most maddening of all, there was no telling what his precise stance was regarding his teammates’ sexual preferences.

While Spy knew that his own preferences were universal, tolerance for them was far less widespread, and he had never had the fortune to work with an Australian prior to this contract. He had thought he’d read the particular way Sniper carried himself correctly, and knew that if he wished for a quick, convenient fuck, Sniper would hold tight to his precious professionalism and keep anything from going beyond the initial arrangement. Of the team, he was the best to ask.

He’d done what he could to gain his trust – so as not to frighten him off after more than five minutes of speech – then approached him one night, and broached the topic over a shared cigarette.

Spy breathed out a lopsided ring, smarting at the memory. He had hinted at an offer, not doing anything so crass as to mention his skills with either gender, simply mentioning the benefits of a discreet working relationship when convenient.

Sniper had nodded, taken a drag, passed back the cigarette, and exhaled slowly. “Be nice, definitely.”

It had been so beautifully noncommittal Spy had to dig deeper. “And should one present itself, you would be amenable?”

“I might be, yeah.”

In all his years of intelligence work, Spy had never heard such a polite declaration of disinterest, and excused himself shortly afterward. As he had that night, he went to the shower block, locking the door behind himself as to bathe without the balaclava or having to worry about the cloaking device suffering water damage. And again, as he had that night, back in his room and behind a lock – thankfully, having to fight Pyro for such a door was fast becoming a thing of the past and unlikely to be repeated – shaved his hair back down to a fine stubble, decided his face could wait another day, and altogether dissatisfied with the goings-on of the rest of his teammates, slipped a notebook and pen from the lining of his suitcase and began taking down what information he had gathered over the day. Some days he managed three pages. On others, barely three sentences. Some days concerned the battle strategy employed by the BLU team and the positions of the satellites tied to the control points. Other days, it was Medic’s enthusiasm over spotting a rare bird. Some days there was absolutely nothing of note to write, and on those days, he noted that itself.

It wasn’t much, but writing in French always helped Spy clear his head after the days he had on the contract and in the forts, settling his mind down a little bit more. Both the French and the writing itself. He often knew Heavy to be the only other person within dozens, if not hundreds, of miles to speak French, trusted him to respect Spy’s privacy as much as Spy demonstrated he respected Heavy’s, and still hid his notebook when he was finished. As good as it felt to empty out his mind, he knew how dangerous it could be to do so unless he took the proper precautions. It was less old habits dying hard as old habits being those which kept him alive and well for decades, and never turning his back to them.

2.

The notebook stayed hidden deep in the suitcase until Spy returned to Manhattan. After the airplane touched down, he caught a taxicab to take him back to the island and no farther, tipped well and transferred to a subway train, got out early to walk the last few blocks to his West Village townhouse, and went in through the back door. Then it was up the stairs to his bedroom, and after he’d unpacked almost everything in the suitcase, it went back into the closet along with his suit. Finally the balaclava came off, and he sighed in relief at the cool air rushing over his skin.

It was too late in the day to consider visiting a grocery store. There were a few times Spy had been fortunate enough – if that was in fact the correct word for the situation – to have a mission for RED end early and find it necessary to leave for Manhattan with barely a moment’s notice, and after those rare defeats and returns, there was typically time left in a day to purchase fresh milk for the morning’s coffee. But night had already fallen, and he was so tired on his feet, and besides, there was far from nothing available for him. There were lentils in the pantry, a few carrots and onions and some decently fresh garlic, and a few canned tomatoes gathering dust over the weeks he’d been gone. After tasting and adjusting the spices just so, he had a decent stew bubbling on the stove, filling the kitchen with a hearty promising scent. Almost half of it was devoured quickly and the rest went into the nearly-empty refrigerator for another night. There was just enough time for a blisteringly hot shower before climbing into bed and finally letting sleep overtake him.

There had been no mail to gather, all of it delivered to a nearby post office. So the following morning, after waking early and nearly an hour’s worth of exercises and a bracing cup of black coffee, Spy collected over a fortnight’s worth of letters, flyers, and six different newspapers, and waited until he was back in his living room to start looking through what he’d collected. He began with the American ones first, about half their contents quickly dropped with the rest sorted into four different piles. Then the Canadian and English ones, then the German, and finally the French publication set aside in its entirety and saved for later. The other five, winnowed down to their meager useful components, were taken to a nearby café to be read with coffee with cream and a terrifically indulgent canelé.

The waitress glanced at his satchel when he placed his order. He noticed and made a show of waving it off. “Vacations – you go, and the papers keep coming,” he said, as flat and American as he could manage. She nodded, and he smiled as bright and real as he could fake when she brought his coffee and cake to him. And if anyone happened to come across him, there was nothing more ordinary than a man reading newspapers while drinking coffee and smoking and perhaps chatting up the lithe blonde waitress when she came by to offer a refill or when he asked for the bill.

Of what he’d read, about a third of it was important enough to keep with the rest tossed into a rubbish bin two blocks out of his way on the route back. He made a point to let them rest in the kitchen when he went out for groceries, letting himself mull over what he’d read without it being present, allowing it to simmer until the evening. Some of the lentils were eaten cold for lunch, and he took his time through the afternoon to read about the goings-on of home, who had been cast up or raised down in politics and entertainment, what would be built and who wanted something done, arguments over exportation and immigration, the social implications of the latest philosophical discourse, all conversations he no longer participated in. Not himself personally, at any rate. The mission at Ravine had involved RED’s investments in the French West Indies, and that had been as close as he had come to working for his government in years.

He went back to sorting, going more and more fiercely, only the most relevant pieces allowed to stay, eventually reduced to ripping out articles and discarding the rest of the pages. By the time he was done, it was much later than he would have preferred, but nothing could be done for that. Dinner was roasted chicken, nothing fancy or heavy, but something he could make to busy his hands and keep his mind working without overtaxing it, as well as something to be eaten cold tomorrow when he’d want more time to work.

Back upstairs in his bedroom, he retrieved another notebook, virtually identical to the one still in the suitcase in his closet, from its hiding place in his dresser. They were purchased at the same time, from the same little bookshop, the same color and texture to the covers and the same lines across the pages. It was the contents that varied. As useful as it was to know what sort of exotic jams could buy a favor from Engineer or Demoman, such information gathering was secondary to what he collected on these nights alone in the light from his desk lamp and the tip of his cigarettes, with the remnants of newspapers neatly stacked and organized around him.

At the moment, he was most concerned with the hidden story of an investment company’s high-level involvement in illicit activities designed to put pressure on several governments as well as disrupt an underground drug ring. It was all quite fascinating, and he was able to trace it better with several points of view offered, to cross-reference and find missing spots. Names didn’t appear until ten days into the reporting, and he had to go back to the previous month’s notebook to find the last mention of one name in particular.

“Found you,” he whispered.

Irrefutable proof of a name, a position, and ties to several such organizations, proof positive what he was searching for was not smoke in the wind. He would need still more to expand the sketch into a portrait, but this was the first piece of positive evidence he’d found in far too long, and it made him happy enough to smile. Now, with a name and proof and knowledge where to look for more, he leaned back in his chair, ran his fingers over his growing stubble, and let out a contented sigh.

Such was the business of his profession. While he had lived through his share of back-alley fights and rooftop escapes and runs through the jungle, far more of his time for the French government, and then RED prior to the field missions, had been spent waiting, watching, listening and talking to those who possessed knowledge others needed them to share. Patience was more than a virtue for a spy. It was vital when secrets weren’t as easy to come across as they were in the cheap pulp novels where a clue could be found on every third page. Spying, proper spying, required waiting, gathering, and being able to wait to gather.

Spy had begun his career for the SDECE in 1952, his first of three field missions to Vietnam coming in 1955. All long-term to keep track of who was lying when, and to whom, and parsing out the truth nested within. He’d already learned the language and how to use chopsticks but not spin a butterfly knife, and along the way picked up a taste for chili and lemongrass, took in the sights, bedded willing partners as his desires drove him. There had been no shortage of double-crosses and bluffs, and he was always careful to allow the betrayed party to believe he had always been on their side while simultaneously carefully grooming those poised to fill the power vacuum that would begin with the betrayed party’s demise. On his second mission, under deep cover the night of a new moon and the suspicious gaze of Bình Xuyên, he sat for six tattoos in one marathon session. And it was on his third that he stumbled upon one of the very few things in his life he wished he had not seen, something which made his life far more difficult than it needed to be.

It was hardly his fault. He was good at his work. It had simply been a time when he had been too good for his own good.

There had been a brief period on his second mission when he had been taken off fieldwork until he was fully recovered from the bites and broken bones. When he was well enough to return to work – if only to the offices – there was comparatively little to do, and frustration and boredom motivated him to take on more and more tasks. And it had been due to that boredom, that he found himself paying attention to who was requesting what files, from which offices, and what missions, and what their home agencies were. It was an amusing exercise in bookkeeping, until Spy noticed the patterns.

Researching them took a short rest when he was sent home for a year, field agents rotating as the hub dictated. When he returned to Vietnam, it was back to the field, and in addition to his official covert mission to look into the opium trade he paid attention to the whispers and rumors of those said to be above power. Before, he would have seen fit to dismiss such things as quickly as they reached his ears, nonsense and nothing more. But then, having seen the patterns, he couldn’t help but listen.

Back in the offices, he found copies of requested records which were to be sent elsewhere, direct and messy violations of protocol. It took very little effort to compile a list of everything sought out and the common threads between them. Old investments and deals, antique economic records, gains and losses, what passed hands when, to whom, for how much. All of it regarding long-term control of trade routes and land holdings. Some of it was as straightforward as these operations ever managed, with bribes passed through the appropriate channels to grease the right hands, while other aspects were the sort of manipulative balancing acts he was forced to admire when performed with enough dexterity.

He had to wait until he was back home to distance himself enough to see the entire picture clearly. When he could he’d had to ask for a pair of very different favors to gain access to additional information, and both were nearly worth what he paid to learn about the company exerting its influence from behind the scenes.

It was nearly worth what he had paid, because almost as soon as he had the information he’d wished for, he found himself ejected from the agency, burned beyond recognition, summarily cut off from any and all official channels and lucky to have his real name left to him. He’d grabbed what he could from his emergency caches and began mad, scrambling attempts to reach out to what contacts still admitted to remembering him until someone came and approached him.

“And if I come to work for you,” he began over cups of tea at a hole-in-the-wall café with barely passable scones, the light from the streetlamps hazy in the rain. “If I give my loyalty to this company and pledge my hands to it, you have the power to reinstate me?”

Miss Pauling took a sip before answering. “We do. Not immediately, but we have the resources to make it happen.”

“Pardon my uncertainty, but I would very much like to know how this would be possible.”

“We’d find out who’s responsible for burning you, and why. If they wanted you dead, I wouldn’t be talking to you now. Whoever burned you wants something more than that. It’d just be a matter of learning what that is, and how to use it. RED mostly deals in information – you know how that works.”

He nodded, finished the last of his cup in one long swallow, and when he signaled for the waitress Miss Pauling put down the money, plus a tip, before he had a chance. “Business expenses,” she said.

“Then be sure to save the receipt.”

He spent close to a year working for RED in a capacity similar that which he’d worked for the French government, though far more subdued. Nearly all their missions for him were short-term, very safe, mostly safeguarding something of minor interest to a larger network. There wasn’t time to be bored by it, because before boredom could set in he found himself with a new type of work. When he’d asked why the transfer was necessary, Miss Pauling had simply told him, “We’re shifting you to a more active role.”

Spy poured her a cup of coffee, sat down across from her at the kitchen table, lit himself a cigarette. She never partook, and never minded when he smoked. “Should this worry me?”

“I wouldn’t think so. But if it’ll make you feel better, then go ahead.” She added a bit of sugar to her coffee. “The missions will be more intense than what we’ve had you do, and you’ll be working with the same team for all of them.”

He poured a splash of milk into his mug and knocked some ash off into the tray next to it. “I hate to admit to being out of practice, but it has been quite some time. I suspect I’ll pick it up again without a fuss.”

“That’s what we like to hear.”

It took him longer to adjust than he would have liked, the work itself straightforward, familiar, and unlike anything else he had ever done, his private research falling by the wayside for the first two months while he adjusted to the lack of a schedule. Once he did so, resuming it was simple enough, as was supplementing it with all he could learn about his teammates both from them and their mutual superiors. Of course, simply walking into RED’s offices and asking for confidential information went against his contract, an act warned about on almost every single one of its twenty-seven pages. Sneaking in to uncover such facts was another risk, and one he was hesitant to take without a direct goal in mind, such as the exact circumstances of Heavy’s recruitment, or too often, no more than once every ten months.

Spy often felt it more important to keep his private research going, as well.

After his contract with RED came to its end, when he would be reinstated in the SDECE – he hummed to himself as he put his notebook back in its hiding place. What he was doing was not, strictly speaking, necessary for that to happen. But once he was there, to show he had both been working and burned for good reason, then it would come into play.

He stood, stretched his arms over his head, cracked his back, and yawned deeply. Back in the Service, back in the offices, a corner office with plants on the windowsills and late afternoon sun, art on the walls. Rarely occupied, for he would be out in the field again, more as a place to return to, much as his townhouse was now.

There was half a cigarette still burning in the desk’s ashtray. He finished it slowly and decided against starting another. It was late enough as it was, and while there was nowhere for him to be tomorrow, strictly speaking. When he had the chance to sleep safely he’d learned long ago to always take it. A long hot shower, as well.

Tomorrow, there would be no newspapers, no late-night sessions spent chronicling and researching the goings-on of the world. Perhaps a museum, or a film. Looking into the family lives of his enemies. But as ever, waiting patiently for more.

3.

For all that he enjoyed pursuing his own work, there was a great deal of satisfaction in what his employers asked of him. Back in the mountains, once more trying to keep BLU from accessing RED’s data network during hostage negotiations – a straightforward enough assignment, but BLU never allowed anything to be boring. This time, they had begun their forward push quite early, less than a week into the mission, and with the limited timetable, meant that was how it was likely to go until said negotiations were finished.

Spy could hardly blame them. In a situation such as this, where BLU needed less than thirty minutes of access – and only four points under their control for those thirty minutes as well – he knew that if he were on their side, it would be the sort of strategy he would follow himself. Sometimes fast and dirty was what won the day.

Of course, as he was not on BLU’s side, subterfuge was how he would help his team win this night. The muffled shouting over the second point in RED’s area traveled well on a night that was otherwise quite still. He twirled his lighter between his fingers, spun it about to make the flame dance, before lighting a cigarette. As the battle raged on from the other side of the wall, he closed his eyes to focus and took in a deep lungful of smoke, held it for a moment before blowing it out, steeled himself before he reached out to ask.

The third tattoo, the lower-left corner of the hexagram, stirred awake somewhere between his mind and his body, the queerest sensation he knew. It didn’t ask in words or sounds or even images, but in feelings, both bodily and mental sensations. Reaching back to him, asking what Spy wanted it to do for him.

Spy whispered, “Give me the dark.”

And it was happy to give. Right away, as soon as he asked, it was happy to give. Not to give freely, but as part of an exchange, with the agreement of a mutual and inevitable trade for services rendered. And it was happy to wait for him to be ready to give in return, as they had done many times before.

“Thank you.”

When he opened his eyes, it was to the same world he had left behind moments ago, merely much brighter, much easier to look into, with what little light there was more than enough for him to see by. Any and all feelings of weariness were gone, replaced with focus and energy, sharp awareness and a fidgeting, restless desire to move. He took another drag and blew out the smoke to see it glitter when it caught the light from the lamp overhead, and he wanted to laugh at the sight. Perhaps it was an unfair advantage, to be given the dark. But there was too much to do to speculate on such a matter.

There were other favors he could ask for to help tip the battle in favor of his team, but there was little sense in being greedy, and he was hardly so desperate.

The favors would last as long as he needed them to, for hours or even days at a time, and he would pay accordingly and equivalently at the end. As such, it was in his best interest to see to it that there would be less to pay, rather than more. He slipped into the bright shadows, back into the battle, having already taken more than enough time for himself.

It was very nearly a delight to have the dark given to him on nights like this, when he could do some of his best work without worry. He could do it without fatigue, without flagging. Convincing the BLU Engineer he was above suspicion until the very last moments before moving on to destroy his teleporting exit and disrupting BLU’s major strategy for the night was just the beginning. Hours later, with dawn arriving and the light of the world adjusting to his eyesight, he could see how weary the rest of his team had become, soaking up the fumes of the medigun and dispensers, while he felt just as alert and fresh as the moment the favor was granted. He made a point of not letting it show, and pretended to be just as tired as they looked when he needed a wound healed or ammunition replenished at the same time as someone else.

BLU didn’t retreat, and it was no fault of theirs that both teams’ superiors called upon their respective combatants three days later, RED having held the days and nights long enough BLU no longer had any reason to remain. Their last mission, the opposite had been true, Spy and his teammates having been the ones to pack up and depart with only the time it took the train slid into the little station to prepare. Now, they had the minor luxury of having close to two days in which to do the same, rather than just under two hours.

His tattoo, in particular, was happy to hear of it. He repeatedly asked it to remain still for a few minutes more, to no avail. It squirmed in anticipation all through the evening until he was done with his shower, back in his room behind a locked door and finally in bed.

As soon as he closed his eyes to sleep, he opened them again, and it was morning, just like that. It was as though the night had never happened.

Such was the service rendered in exchange for the dark. It was the knowledge that he had slept and dreamed which made the waking so strange. That whatever had come to him during the night was gone not because of forgetting but something more, and the best word he could use for that was eating.

He stretched in the early sun, and idly rubbed the tattoo. Sometimes it needed more than one night in exchange, but this time, one was enough. Full and content, it would rest until he needed to be given the dark once again.

4.

When they were next in the mountains, it was after BLU had managed to gain the upper hand too frequently for either the team or their employers to be happy. Neither side enjoyed losing, but to lose over and over again, one mission after another, sat rank in the mind. It made it a matter of getting back to the battlefield to set the score down properly, and perhaps exact a bit of revenge.

They were all eager to do so, some more than others. Pyro seemed to think his new flamethrowing machine would single-handedly help them carry the day, and he’d seen fit to demonstrate it for everyone’s benefit during one of their morning strategy sessions. Spy made a point of avoiding him on the field for the next two days, sticking instead to cover Medic and Heavy and target his opposite number, taking comfort in the knowledge that however this mission went it would be over quite soon. When it was over, it was in his team’s favor, BLU rushing to leave and the train pulling out of the base at top speed while RED took a moment to breathe before getting on with its business in the few days it had the base to itself.

Spy had managed a cursory investigation of the base and the surrounding landscape the day he’d arrived and promised his tattoo he would go to bed shortly, just as soon as this last errand was finished.

“Ah, Scout?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” He turned around to lean against the closed lockers, arms crossed over his chest, entirely nonplussed over being nude save for his dogtags when Spy was still fully dressed.

“If I may, I wished to borrow your satchel.”

“My bag? Sure, what for?”

“Oh, for a day or two.”

The boy rolled his eyes at Spy’s wordplay. “Fine, just don’t mess it up too bad.” Retrieving and tossing it over, he made his way to the shower block as Spy left to go right back to his room, skipping supper and bathing to give his tattoo as much time to feed as possible. He wanted to be up as early in the morning as it would allow, to get to the forest as soon as he could. August was not the best of months for foraging, but it would suffice. Though he wasn’t as intimate with this land as he was with the French countryside, wild garlic was the same the world over, and a blackberry was always a blackberry. Some greens looked familiar enough he knew them to be safe while others reminded him there were books to consult on such matters.

He’d tucked his gloves into his vest’s pocket hours ago, having left his jacket and tie behind. The balaclava remained, as much for protection against the sun as any other potential reason, even though it was morning. This would hardly take all day, but it could well take most of it, if he took his time. Bending down to pull up some more garlic, shake off the dirt gently, stow it in the satchel, Spy took a moment to savor the feel of soil passing through his fingers, to be crouching down while hidden in the woods and searching for fodder for dinner. He had no wish to count how many years since he’d been in this particular situation – and now, not even out of necessity. Some lessons never left.

Spy took a deep breath of the rich, dry scent of the forest as he stood and pulled off the balaclava. It was only off for a moment, just long enough for him to run his hands over his head and feel the sun on his face. He shielded his eyes as he looked up into the trees overhead. Little brown birds were, too, the same the world over. Perhaps Medic would know the particular details of this region’s species. It could well be worth asking him, gain some favorable points in his eyes which could well come in handy later.

Returning to the base, he took his time gathering the berries, going only for the best. His gloves went back on for what protection they lent against the thorns as he picked the vines’ fruits one by one.

Everyone else was more than happy to leave the kitchen to him for a few hours, and there were even a pair of uncooked rabbits he could work with as he liked. No fresh herbs aside from the garlic, but then, fresh garlic was one of the joys of life, and there was olive oil instead of whatever rancid vegetable by-products some bases possessed. With such ingredients, it was hardly hard work to pull together something enjoyable. The praise he received for the dinner was nearly as delicious as the animals he pulled from the oven.

“Where exactly did y’learn what tucker there is t’find up in the mountains?”

Spy smiled at Sniper’s question, and decided to allow himself a moment of unbridled honesty. “My grand-mère. She saw fit to teach me what there was to find in the forest to fill one’s belly.”

“Good on ’er.”

“Yes.” She’d taught her two grandchildren that even when there was no food to buy or steal, there were still ways to keep from going hungry. “She was, for a time, a grand virgin truffle-hunter, but those days were, of course, long gone by the time we met.”

“A what-the now?” Engineer asked.

“Virgin truffle-hunter. The tradition is very nearly pagan, and very much frowned upon by the church. They work by smell alone, like the best of dogs, or pigs if you wish to be unkind.”

“Ach, pull th’other one.”

“Gentlemen, I assure you, it was an ancient and glorious profession ended only by a woman’s passions getting the better of her. She told me once she knew a hunter who’d made it well into her seventh decade of purity, who lived and died in that, ah, that graceful state.” He sighed, then smirked. “I have no idea how she managed, though I can guess past her fifth decade temptations would be somewhat smaller.”

That got a chorus of assorted laughter from around the table as they went on with their dinner. As it turned out, Heavy had spent a good deal of time gathering mushrooms in the forests of his home country, and had much to say on the subject of foraging. “And would you recognize any around here?”

“Goodness, no! My mother and grandmother taught me, as yours did, and I wouldn’t ever think of trusting a mushroom unless I’m told it won’t knock me dead the moment I take a bite.”

They continued chatting in French about the wisdom of mothers and grandmothers and the bounty that could be found in forests around the world. The evening continued amicably, peacefully, everyone cheered with the prospect of doing nothing of import the next day. Spy retired early, and had finished recording what he’d learned of Heavy’s history and was preparing for bed when there was a knock on the door.

“Ah, one moment.” He set his cigarette aside, pulled on the balaclava and opened the door to Sniper, who pushed his way into Spy’s room, closing the door right behind him and locking it for good measure. Spy crossed his arms, curious. The man wore no hat, no vest, not even any sunglasses, all of that strange, just as strange as the look he wore on his face. He knew exactly what that look meant, and never thought he would ever see it on Sniper. “Is there something you wanted?”

“I don’t like games, Spy.” He moved to stand in front of Spy, to look down into his eyes. “Don’t have time for ’em, don’t like it when other people try t’play.” There was no flicker in his gaze and no mistaking what he wasn’t saying.

“Is that what you call it where you come from, games?”

Sniper said nothing. Moved in even closer, he brought his hands up, and he and Spy were kissing just like that. Spy’s tongue slid over Sniper’s lips and they parted to let it slip inside, warm and soft and smooth, Sniper’s hands on Spy’s hips moving up to his sides to pull him even closer. There was just a moment for Spy to think that this had taken long enough, and what a story it would be to share with his lady, before he let the rest of his thoughts fly out the window and gave himself over to those strong hands holding him tight. He leaned into the embrace, stepping forward, and Sniper took a sudden step back to land flat against the wall. All the better for Spy to push forward, cup Sniper’s chin in his hands and cradle his face to angle his mouth just right and run his hands through that thick dark hair, such a treat for his fingers, and all the better for Sniper’s hands to drop down underneath his trousers to better grip Spy’s ass.

Spy moaned when he felt fingernails, pulling back, and Sniper followed. They half-stepped and nearly stumbled and managed to get to the bed without falling down. Falling all over each other was the best outcome, with Spy somehow finding himself on top of Sniper, who thrust his hips to grind his erection onto Spy’s thigh, Spy’s own pressed against Sniper’s stomach. Spy groaned, “Dear lord, the things you do to me – why did you have to make me wait so long?”

Sniper simply moaned, “That’s it, that, that.” He moaned again quite differently when Spy pushed himself up to sit on his knees and hop off the bed, and then quickly followed his lead when Spy began pulling off all his clothes. Tie and shirt and undershirt, shoes and socks, pants and briefs – nothing there for Sniper, how oddly unsurprising – with the balaclava working only to heighten his nakedness. He leered at Sniper who smirked right back, deftly stepped over the discarded clothing to return to Sniper’s arms. Back to the beautiful heat of his mouth, the slide of their erections against each other the perfect building of pleasure, so sharp and fine. Hands roaming over every flat plane, every smooth curve, charting new maps of skin.

“So,” Sniper broke the kiss to smile. “We gonna get to a proper rootin’ anytime soon or just leave that t’another night?”

“A proper rooting would – what would that involve?”

Sniper kept grinning. “It means fuck me, Spook.”

“Well, then,” Spy leaned down to give him a quick kiss. “We’d best get to that quite soon.” He got up again, then stopped when he saw Sniper’s confusion clear on his face. “Is something wrong?”

“You need somethin’?”

“Have you got anything hidden anywhere? I’ll need to get –”

“Spit’ll do fine.”

If Spy wasn’t already so eager, that would have killed the mood just as effectively as one of Engineer’s sentries felling an unwary Scout. Spy shook his head. “Just a moment, s’il te plaît, I have a little something.” The little something was not, in fact, intended for precisely this purpose, but hand lotion would do the trick in a pinch and quite well at that. Sniper spread his legs and bit his lip when Spy settled back on the bed, flipping the top of the cap open and thoroughly coating his fingers – everything would be thrown in the wash and with what they were going to do, a little messiness was nothing.

“You see? Go on, yes. There’s no need for that, be as loud as you like, I myself don’t mind, yes, go ahead and scream just like that, oh the joy of making you sing like this, you have no idea.” Spy pushed Sniper’s leg up and added a second finger, bending down to lick away the clear drops of pre-come as he scissored his fingers deep inside Sniper. Once he found that spot, and checked again just to make sure and hear that sharp moan, Spy took great pleasure in teasing around it, not touching it to drive Sniper to make more and more of those delicious sounds. If he was making words, Spy had no idea what any of them meant. Not that it mattered because at a time like this, tone and feeling mattered far more than anything else. He took a long, slow lick up the underside of Sniper’s cock, crooked his fingers to scissor them again and pulled them out. Sniper looked up and groaned when he saw Spy squeeze a bit more of the lotion onto his hand, and threw his head back against the pillow and groaned again when Spy began pushing in.

“Ah, Spy – you bloody – ah!” He arched his back at the first push and stayed tense, trembling, as Spy slid in as smooth as silk. Spy didn’t stop until he was as far in as he could go, sheathed to the hilt in that magnificent ass, and neither of them said a word when Sniper wrapped his arms around Spy to bring him down for a kiss. He broke it when Spy began thrusting and held on tighter.

“You fool, you beautiful fool of the world, why did you wait so long for this? Fucking you is so beautiful, you do it so well, so perfect, you feel so right to fuck, so good.”

Sniper looked up at Spy with something wild in his eyes, and Spy angled up just a little, which was just right to make him make those delicious sounds again. “Now this,” he managed to gasp. “This here’s a proper bloody rootin’, an’ next time you’d best –”

“Next time, mon cher? You make such an assumption.”

“There’d better be a next time, Spook, else you’d – ah!” Spy thrust in hard, again and again, and his fingernails dug into Spy’s back. “Ah, fuck!” Spy could tell how close he was, and eased his pace for just a moment. He snaked the hand that hadn’t been inside Sniper down between their bodies and wrapped it around Sniper’s erection, finger by finger, until he was firmly in his grasp. When he was, he began stroking him in time with his thrusts, whispering endearments to him the whole time, silly ideas, filthy things, promises to keep.

Sniper gave one more moan and came. It only took a few more thrusts before Spy followed.

When he knew Sniper was watching, Spy made a show of licking the man’s come off his hand, deliberately putting on a show of sucking every drop out from between his fingers, across his palm, stopping just short of popping them out of his mouth. When he was done, Sniper didn’t hesitate to pull him down and kiss him again, to pull him close and nuzzle against his throat. Spy indulged him a moment, then wiggled out of his grasp to wipe himself off, toss Sniper something he wouldn’t be wearing again without a wash in any case, and light a pair of cigarettes. Sniper took one with a smile. “Cheers.”

“To your health.” They smoked quietly side-by-side, pressed up against each other on the narrow bed. Spy closed his eyes to blow a stream of smoke out his nose, savoring the itching burn of it, before going back to gentle puffs. There were no such theatrics from Sniper, just the smoking of a cigarette by a man who knew how to savor them. Spy found he liked watching him smoke. It was clear he knew how to enjoy the act. He accepted the ashtray when he was finished, then leaned back against the wall with a contented sigh.

Spy relit the half-smoked cigarette he’d discarded earlier to finish it off. It had been quite the evening.

“If I may – if you don’t mind my asking, but I am quite curious…”

“Go ahead.”

“What prompted this tonight? For nearly a year, I thought there was no interest from you, and now tonight you come to me without even letting me make the offer once again.”

Sniper chuckled. “Trust me, I was plenty interested. I was just waitin’ on you.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Waitin’ on you t’ask me.”

“So then – so you were, but if that was the case, why didn’t you take up my offer when I first made it?”

“Like I said, mate, I was waitin’ on you t’ask.”

“What were you waiting for? Did you just want me to say ‘come now, let’s fuck tonight’?”

“More or less, yeah.”

“You really must tell me how they do things where you come from.” As Sniper laughed, he took a deep, long drag and blew it out between his teeth. “And what was it precisely that prompted your change of heart tonight?”

“Tired of waitin’. Well.” He shrugged as best he could. “That, an’ the plants y’got for supper tonight.”

“Do tell.”

“Figured that anyone what can find his supper out in the wilderness is all right if he wants a shag, even if he doesn’t know how t’come out and just bloody ask me for one.”

Spy ground out the butt and deposited the tray back on the desk. “Well, if it’s any consolation, the next time I want to fuck you, I know to simply ask.”

“Aces,” Sniper said with a smile. He stretched his arms over his head with a sigh, then gathered his clothes and started to dress. Spy followed Sniper’s example, though with his pajamas.

“And I trust this will remain discreet?”

“What you wanted, right?” He buckled his belt and leaned an ankle against a knee to pull on a boot.

“Yes, silly me.”

He nodded, looking far more like the teammate Spy was used to seeing. “Well. G’night.”

“Good night.” Spy opened the door for him, and he let himself out.

5.

In the end, the notion of sharing was only a passing fancy, nothing more. The potential to sully one part of his life by drawing in another was too great, and such a thing simply would not do.

What had begun as a simple plan to enact a bit of petty revenge had somehow grown into the sort of complex problem his mentors had warned him to avoid. Namely, one in which he had a personal investment. Perhaps if he had stopped long ago at just the fucking, it would not be quite this messy. But here he was, on the train, waiting to arrive in Boston and see his lady again.

Spy leaned back in his seat to lose himself in the trees sliding past. Thinking of the beginnings – the very early stages of the courtship, the thrill of the theatrics – still filled him with curious warmth. Within fifteen minutes of speaking with her after the initial introductions, the apologies, and the offer of a hot beverage which simply couldn’t be turned down, he knew most tricks in his arsenal simply would not work with her. For someone who had never been more than five hundred miles from the city where she’d been born, she was more a woman of the world than many he’d met. He supposed the children helped, and when he’d asked, flattery cushioning the curiosity, she’d agreed on that point. They’d given the world more shape and weight, she’d said. There was more understanding of what it might contain, and what she had to do, when she’d become a mother. Her eyes lit up when she described holding her sons in her arms, and he sat by silently, listening to every word.

She’d then warned him eight sons and one husband had taught her exactly when someone was lying, putting her on, bullshitting, and he’d better not try to pull anything like that on her. Even if she wasn’t some grand dame who’d traveled all over the world or had a high position in society or a huge family fortune, just a huge family, she knew who she was and where she stood, and if she ever thought he might consider pulling anything like that she’d leave him behind without a second thought or a single regret.

“You do know that when you talk like that it only makes me want you more?” She’d laughed, and he’d curled back around her, legs intertwining, both of them perfectly comfortable to lie together. One hand slid underneath her to pull her close, and the other made its way down her stomach to past her navel to scratch those thick, dark curls in that way she liked. “You are such a woman.” He’d nuzzled the back of her neck and spoke quietly right in her ear. “You are a woman of virtue, and who could find a woman such as you? You are worth more to me than any jewel…” He’d kept whispering as he’d pleasured her, bringing both hands down for one to tease her clit and the other to slide into that soft warmth within her. She pulsed around his fingers as she came, as she cried out softly, beautifully.

There was never a guarantee for enough time in between missions to linger with her, or to plan for more than two or four days in her company. This time, there would not be any lavish restaurant dinners, no private museum tours, only time together spent simply. In his suitcase, nestled by his suits, were salted capers, Spanish saffron, a small selection of chocolate truffles with different ganaches of fruit and tea, and a bottle of a fine Southern Italian white. She’d provide the meat, the kitchen, and the bed, and he’d provide the rest.

And her proper gift, safely stowed for travel, was an oil painting so much like the one that had made her sigh so fondly in last the museum they’d visited. Not the exact one – art theft had never been a part of his bag of tricks – but one close to it in both style and subject. With her children finally all grown and gone, she had returned to art as a way to fill her time, this time with no dreams for a life of it, simply the pleasure of the watercolors or the charcoals. He was always more than happy to pose for her when she took out her pencils and paper. Untrained but not untalented, no. She had good eyes for shadows.

Damn him, he had really come to care for her. Telling her any more than what she already knew would only bring harm to them both. It was not a prospect Spy found pleasant to consider.

He was not about to tell her of his recent acts with Sniper, but he would not lie to her, either, not if questioned directly, not with the ultimatum she had given. It was in his best interest to avoid giving her any reason to ask or doubt. She knew he had his own set of secrets, and though she had none of her own, she would respect his. Considering Sniper as part of them was a simple matter, and one easily accomplished. It was something which came as second nature to any good spy, layers upon layers of known secrets and hidden ones. There had been times all there was to him had been washed away and supplanted with a carefully constructed set of lies to support a new persona, lessons first given to him and his sister with the intent to keep them safe, his first lessons in the art of being a spy. And any spy that found he or she couldn’t manage to balance their self with their personae quickly found themselves elsewhere – definitely nowhere in the profession, wherever that might be, perhaps another branch of public service or simply a graveyard. And he had been better than that. He had always been better than that.

He knew she would not be there when the train pulled into the station, and quickly gathered his luggage and rented a taxi to take him into town. Thirty minutes from her home, he tipped generously and began walking, his footsteps echoing loudly through the dark alleys. Coming in around the back to knock on the kitchen door, she was already there smiling and waiting for him.

6.

True to his word, Sniper remained discreet and professional about their arrangement. Spy made a point to avoid any mention of it, directly or otherwise, for the next two missions to put his words to the test. He passed admirably, giving away absolutely nothing, no more than a glance to see who had joined him in the showers. It was a skill Spy couldn’t help but admire, and it wasn’t until after they won the day at Fastlane that Spy came forward and approached him – directly, as he had requested.

Barely an hour afterwards, they were lounging naked and sweaty together in Spy’s narrow bed. There was just enough room for them both provided Sniper lay on top of Spy to use him as a makeshift pillow, his head resting on Spy’s collarbone.

“We still have another night here,” Spy said after several minutes of silence.

“Yeah.” He turned over to look up at the ceiling. “I might head out a bit earlier. Not like I gotta wait for the train t’come ’round.”

“Do you have any pressing engagements? Here I thought we would do this again tomorrow night.”

Spy waited a moment, then Sniper said, “If y’like.”

“I would, very much.” He stroked a hand up and down Sniper’s upper arm, fingers tracing around old scars. “Shall I find you at your camper? Would you prefer to meet in the showers, or to come to me as you did before?”

“I’m fine with what you like.”

“In that case, I will let you know tomorrow afternoon when we might meet here in my room again.”

Any measure of control that he could retain for any situation was worth holding to fast. He’d had the rug yanked out from underneath him before, and he avoided dwelling on the time between being burned and being contacted by RED. Better to do what he could to keep moving forward, with his lady and his lover, with his job and his own research. Doing so made the occasional mishap that much easier to cope with, such as being assigned to a mountain fort for three weeks because of a series of scheduling and communication errors. There were worse fates. It could be three weeks in an ironworks without even any shrubbery to relieve from the artificial landscape. When they weren’t full of rain, the forests around Sawmill were quite lovey, full of all sorts of bounty. On the second day he returned from foraging at the same time Medic left to go birdwatching, binoculars and book and all, and that evening they had a lovely conversation in German over tea about the joy of being lost in the woods.

When Spy went to call on Sniper two days after he’d brought down the deer, he found him sitting outside his van making arrowheads with Pyro reading beside him. When the firebug looked up and saw Spy coming, he pushed his chair away and started stomping back into the base, still clutching the book tightly.

“And how are you this afternoon?” Pyro responded with a typical American gesture and kept on walking. Spy shook his head, took the vacated seat, lit a cigarette and gave himself five minutes to wait. He didn’t even need one.

“He doesn’t seem t’like you much,” Sniper said without looking up from his handiwork.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“I think he’s still smarting over that time you tried t’take the one room with a lock.”

“That was ages ago.”

“Y’kept tryin’ t’peek on him in the showers, too.”

“That – all right, perhaps not ages ago, but I’ve given that up as well.”

“Guess he’s just a bloke that likes carryin’ a grudge.”

“It must be tiring, though, especially to hold one to a teammate.”

“Just don’t go askin’ him if y’don’t wanna make it worse.”

Spy snorted out a laugh. “I will be sure to keep that in mind.” He smoked in silence for a while, ground out the stub underneath his heel, started working his way through another, then turned to Sniper. “I did want to ask, would you like me to fuck you tonight?”

There was a ghost of a smile at the edge of his mouth. “Tonight – yeah, that’d be good.”

“Now,” and here Spy knew he had to walk carefully. Sniper wasn’t wild, but he wasn’t quite civilized, either – that strange in-between feral state shared by Victor of Aveyron. “Would it be possible for me to do so somewhere besides my own little room?”

“Where you got in mind?”

“Yours, perhaps.”

“You’d have t’come with me if I’m pickin’ out a room, it ain’t cold enough –”

“Not your room on the base, whichever one that might be.”

That got Sniper to look up and make eye contact. Something flickered behind his glasses, and he finally said, “Can’t promise you’d like it in there.”

“I fear that unless I see it for myself, I will not be able to say for certain one way or the other.”

He hesitated again. It was quite something for Spy to see him do so. Sniper glanced to the van, back to Spy, and Spy didn’t let his own face move when Sniper finally answered. “Guess if you just wanna have a look ’round an’ see if y’like it.”

“If you would be so kind, monsieur.”

Spy stood to wait politely while Sniper gathered up his arrowheads, punched a code into the keypad, and opened the door for them to enter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

“It appears you were correct.” At the very least it wasn’t too short, as both of them could stand without hunching over, and Sniper hadn’t even needed to remove his hat. It was also well-lit, with panels in the middle of the ceiling that snapped to a yellowish-white at the flick of a switch. And beyond that, there was little in the way of creature comforts. A tiny kitchen faced a folding table, a blurred window, and what must have been a water closet. A board of postcards tacked up beside the door spoke to ties of the world outside the war. Positioned behind and above everything else was a bunk that made Spy stop and wonder, as it had its own window but no headroom or depth whatsoever. “How on earth do you manage to sleep up there?”

Sniper shrugged. “It’s mostly for when it’s rainin’.”

“I suppose that is a reasonable compromise.” It would be a stretch to call it cozy, but it was certainly lived-in, and it didn’t even smell particularly stuffy, the brown-green patterned fabric on the walls and floor not yet faded. There were two stacks of paperback books on one of the shelves underneath the bunk, and Spy moved past Sniper to pick up one of the balls of brightly-colored yarn lying next to the books, and rolled it around in his hands. Sniper stood still in the middle of the little cabin, watching and clearly waiting for something more to happen, so Spy took pity on him and said, “Perhaps it would be for the best if we continue with the arrangement of using my room for a rendezvous. Still, this does seem quite serviceable for one with modest wants.” He shrugged and put the yarn back, followed Sniper out. “Do you – well, have you ever entertained someone back there?”

“Nobody’s been by t’ask.” The sun had managed to gather the muster to burn through the clouds, and Spy sighed as he stepped into a beam. “The last people I had in there were up front in the cabin, an’ that was a few months ago when Miss Pauling an’ that bloody Director wacker –”

“You mean wanker?”

“Nah, wacker. Different things.” He flopped down into a chair, legs splaying out. “But yeah, they needed a ride t’the base with all his gear so it was me or Truckie, an’ since I was closer t’pick ’em up, I got stuck with the drongo.”

“And Miss Pauling.”

Sniper chuckled as he started working on turning another piece of flint into a murder weapon. “Yeah, an’ Miss Pauling. Say, y’know what happened to him?”

“No, I cannot say that I do.” He had his suspicions, and knew not to ask. Spy also knew that, in some queer way, seeing the inside of Sniper’s van was a more intimate act than fucking him, and that would take some time to consider. Which they had plenty of out here, with nearly two weeks left.

Once he had his fill of the sunbeam, he turned to ask, “When you took down the deer, you used the laborer’s –”

“Spy?”

“Oui?”

“It’s fine if y’wanna stay out ’ere, an’ it’s nice if y’wanna stay out ’ere with me, but if y’don’t mind, some quiet’d be nice.”

“Ah. My apologies.”

“No worries. We’re still on for the shag tonight.”

“That, yes, that is good to know.”

“Aces.”

Spy nodded, sat down next to Sniper, and lit a fresh cigarette.

7.

Spy knew few things worse than learning he was horribly out of practice in regards to a basic aspect of intelligence work. One of them was finding that he had not only put himself at risk, but one of his lovers as well. As sweet as it was to finally have a picture of the two of them together, as well as a tangible memento of that particular night, what it told him about the man who had taken the photograph, as well as the man and woman within it, did not sit well.

There would be time to speak with her later. Just as the pictures did not sit well, neither did the scar on Sniper’s face. As much as Spy wished to comfort both of them, only one of his lovers was present at Teufort. The rest of the team’s fascination with it was not helping matters any, at least not in regards to the sudden awareness that respawn was no longer guaranteed foolproof. As Sniper told it, he’d been dispatched by a cluster of sticky bombs he hadn’t noticed – his bow was a thing of dangerous beauty, but the man had no practice venturing out into combat, which cost him a trip through the machine. What would otherwise be a routine lesson in paying attention to one’s surroundings became a far more sinister warning. After the day’s fighting was over and there was time to breathe, Scout had been the first to notice the scar across Sniper’s cheek, and Scout being Scout, immediately ran to inform the rest of the team.

“Look, he came back, and pretty much in the same shape and still in one piece, so it’s still workin’ fine, just not perfectly. We’ve had how many people run through it and never notice anything?”

“Noticed? Noticed? Ye mean it could’ve been goin’ wrong all this time an’ we just –”

“No, that ain’t what I mean.”

“I believe we were informed that if something did go catastrophically wrong, that itself would send you through the system again.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna help me sleep tonight. Seriously, it doesn’t hurt or nothin’?”

“Listen, you little mongrel, you keep askin’ me that an’ no, it doesn’t, now get that hand outta my face.”

“You are sure everything is fine?”

“If you would like me to check, Heavy, I would be more than happy to.”

With Soldier and Medic arguing together for mandatory exploratory surgeries and everyone else arguing together against them, Pyro most emphatically, Spy slipped out – not to his room, but out of the base entirely, out to a more secluded spot where he could smoke in peace, perfectly alone. Spy’s fingers trembled as he lit the cigarette and the first drags did nothing to help steady them.

He had thought he’d been more careful, better at keeping the many different parts of his life separate. He had managed for nearly two years, and had done so before and for far longer, keeping aspects of himself so secret no one suspected there was a secret to begin with. Perhaps he had grown complacent, or perhaps he had made assumptions, or – no. There was no room for perhaps, there was his mistake, his error, and his obligation to see it right.

Finding and destroying all copies and negatives, to start. Cornering the BLU Spy, learning how he had come into his knowledge of Spy’s liaisons with his lady. Tomorrow he could begin damage control, focus on mimicking the BLU Soldier and Heavy to pass around false material or deny any allegations made to information kept. Both men could easily be doubted for reasons of insanity and language barriers – it would hardly take any time to make sure neither was to be believed when it came to this particular subject.

By his third cigarette, he finally felt calm enough to try for smoke rings, and clicked his tongue in irritation when none came out right. Of all the weekends – the one he had thought to flatter her, show her what she might have if she stayed with him after the war, the first time in months that she had asked for something fancier than coq au vin or a bowl of pho two days in the making or a box of oil paints. Spy had been more than happy to indulge her wishes.

There had been, there might yet be, so many opportunities to find out something about the BLU team, their agendas, their home secrets and greater strategies. He had wanted such things from her, once, and now he wanted her safe. The danger of being connected to someone with the war was less than one being connected to their opposite side. He could find a way out of most any allegation, but did not know if she could. And if he were to see her again, he could hardly be so careless.

He would need to see her again, at least once, to tell her face-to-face what had happened and what might come. She deserved that, if nothing more. It would do no good to leave her with nothing, and perhaps worse to leave her with nothing but a phone call. She was the mother of one of his enemies, she had been in his life for barely two years, and there were some days where she mattered more to him than even the prospect of returning home at the end of the war.

It would not do to have her drawn in farther than she had been already. It simply would not do. There was nothing for it except for his obligation to see it right, to see her set off safe.

He ground the cigarette out underneath his heel and lit another. No one on his team knew. The commotion over Sniper’s scar proved that. She didn’t know about Sniper, either, and he didn’t know about her. That itself had made it easier for Spy to balance himself between his two lovers.

But – perhaps there was room for one perhaps, just one, that perhaps there might yet be a way to keep her, and keep something of what they had. As simple and easy as it would be for Spy to cut her out of his life, what was simple and easy was rarely best. Of course, Spy knew what would be for the greatest good, and it sat rank with him.

He closed his eyes and asked for the night, for no reason other than he knew he would have no wish to remember any of his dreams.

Sniper was still at the mess hall table, staring at the steam rising out of his personal mug. It would be pointless to wait for him to speak, so Spy refused to do so, and instead took a seat across from him and the time to just look at the man.

There was no such worry with Sniper as there was worry with his lady. The absolute worst would be for their team to find Spy fucked him regularly, and even that would be tolerated reasonably well – it was not as though they were on opposite teams, good lord, now that would get messy beyond all belief. Demo hadn’t done more than strike up a friendship, and look at where that had taken him. No, Spy’s relationship with Sniper – such as it was – hardly mattered at all. Life within the war followed its own rules and its own codes, none of which had a single thing to say about the two of them.

Spy felt a smile play over his lips. Truthfully, it was quite nice, and even pleasant, to be aware of that. Life within the war demanded a great deal, and his lady was simply one more thing from the world outside the war which required no small number of compromises and balancing. If his worries were proved correct, there was still hope that their parting could go amicably, and in any case, the five-year mark for contract renegotiation was coming sooner every day. Two more years was only a little time to wait.

Sniper sighed and finally took a sip of whatever he had in the mug, still staring off somewhere in the distance through the wall behind Spy. Literature, perhaps, they had not reached a satisfying conclusion to the debate on translations, no, that wouldn’t do.

“If you like, I could fuck you tonight.”

He came back to himself as he shook his head. “Thanks, but – ah. Don’t get me wrong, ’preciate the offer, this just ain’t a good night for it.”

“You could fuck me, if you’d rather.”

“Look, it’s nice that you’re offerin’, but this ain’t –”

“Quite all right.” Spy squinted at Sniper’s cheek, asked his tattoo to hush, and suddenly all the light in the room came from the mounted overhead panels. He leaned forward across the table, reached out his hand, “If I may?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Sniper tilted his head and let Spy cup his cheek in his palm, run a thumb over the scar. “Somethin’ wrong?”

“No, not precisely.” They both stood up to go. “I find…well. I gave the BLU Sniper a similar wound earlier today, prior to capturing the intelligence.”

“Y’don’t say.” And Sniper finally smiled, just a faint ghost of it that didn’t reach his eyes. “Funny ol’ world.”

8.

It was funny, too funny. Funnier than anyone could believe, or would have guessed.

When Spy returned to his townhouse after learning what was underneath Pyro’s mask, what had been there for the entire time he had known her, he was barely though the door before pouring himself a very stiff drink and knocking it back without wasting any time.

Tempting as it was to charge in right away, he forced himself to wait a full day before making his way to RED’s local headquarters in Manhattan. He knew going in the front door and asking for what he wanted to read would simply see his request refused and him turned away, at best. Rather, this was something he could only accomplish through infiltration and deceit. This was not something he had done for several years, having grown too fond of his teammates to consider doing so again – but now an urgent curiosity overrode any partiality.

Spy knew sneaking in during the dead of night would be the best way to be apprehended and brought before his superiors for a personal audience and an outcome he would not wish to live through. So he came in through the side door early in the morning along with most everyone else on the staff. Dressed down in the drabbest clothing he owned, pieces he used when he wanted to walk the streets in something other than his uniform, he very much looked the part of one of RED’s paper-pushers. He’d left his balaclava behind as well, and as it had been some time since he’d shaved his head as well, the little amount of light brown hair covering his scalp helped make him look different enough from himself someone would have to look at least twice to make sure who they had seen.

If he were caught now, he would claim to be busy, or to be en route to a meeting, or not supposed to be here today, and would be left alone. Infiltration was as much a question of earning trust as it was blending in. To that end, he wove his way through the hallways, past conference rooms and offices, drank a cup of spectacularly bad coffee in the aggressively boring break room, and poured another before he went back onto the floor to find what he had come to gather. For a place and a time like this, a cup of coffee was as good a piece of camouflage as his invisibility watch.

There was no central document repository, but rather several rooms placed about the building, each specialized to focus on a particular subject. The room that contained all the information about his team and their records was where it had been when he’d looked up Heavy’s history. He still had no real conception of the classification system RED followed. This was not a matter of looking up a book in a library’s card catalog, as no such catalog was available to help him along. He sighed, took another sip of coffee and began checking drawers and random files to get an idea of the schema.

Someone he didn’t recognize pushed open the door, and he looked up from the file regarding the mission at Harvest last year to see a woman in a rumpled grey suit and a smartly-cut bob of dark brown hair framing smoldering anger.

“Hey,” Spy said, forcing his voice out through his nose and making it as flat as he could manage, hunching his shoulders slightly, projecting an image he knew she would be receptive to – that of another individual in her own circumstances. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She signed in relief. “Yes, thank you, I need a copy of the contract for one of the big team members. The mercs. Subject oh-three-PY.”

He nodded. “Right away. Where will you need it?”

“Oh, not me, Miss Roberts needs it in her office as soon as possible.” She smoothed out her top, closed her eyes and let her face relax for just a moment. “I’d do it myself but I haven’t got the time this morning – I was already working on Lighthouse Keeper when someone just came in and demanded –”

“Got it. Miss Roberts’ office right away. Just, ah, which…”

“Right here.” She pulled the heavy drawer open with a metallic whine, all the way out until it ended with a small bang. Pulling out the single desired file was a small struggle for her, the drawer stuffed practically to bursting.

“I got this. You go, Lighthouse needs you.”

“Thank you,” she said, and left.

Spy made three copies, just to be safe. He spent the rest of the day doing similar errands, taking three carefully timed smoke breaks and a barely palatable lunch in the cafeteria around noon and another cup of terrible coffee at four, and left at five-thirty along with most everyone else while carrying a perfectly ordinary briefcase. It was an exercise in patience to wait until he was back in his townhouse to read over Pyro’s contract and file. Nearly as thick as his own, there was much left out – her name, for one, and any motivation she might have had for the fires, for another – but there was still a great deal to learn about someone whom, for four years, he had only thought of as a mask. Such as where she had come from, and where she had been, and where she could be reached.

When he was done reading, he poured another stiff drink, although this time he took the effort to savor it. All this time – the same city the whole time, and he’d never had any inkling of her presence. They could have shared the same subway car, brushed past each other on the streets, or even visited RED at the same time, and he would not have known. There was simply no way.

He finished the glass, and was about to pour himself yet another when he read back over the provided timeline. She had been contacted in a burn ward in 1966, but not recruited until she left in 1967 – and then there was yet another small duration before she had begun alongside everyone else. Spy had been recruited in 1965, and he knew Engineer had been working for RED for nearly five years before being transferred over to the mercenary team at the same time that Spy had been. Come to think of it, they had all been pulled into the team at the same time, no matter how long they had been working with RED to begin with.

Spy put the bottle back.

The next three days were spent back in RED’s offices, doing more of the same – chatting in hallways, making copies, taking smoke and coffee breaks, attending meetings, finding and occupying an empty desk to think for a moment and then filling out a series of forms someone dropped on him rather unceremoniously. And at the end of each day, a few copies of files that could bring down empires walked out with him.

It was almost entertaining, when Friday came, to know the office would be closed over the weekend and he could not return. Spy had never had a job which allowed him the luxury of a prescheduled day of rest. Not that he had one now, as there was too much research to be done. His newspapers were cluttering up the kitchen and he had to get to them before it got to be too much – at times it was like swimming in a river. For all his research into his own interests, Spy took care to pay attention to the results of the missions beyond simply winning or losing when he could. It was rare that Spy and the rest of the team were told the entirety of why they were capturing intelligence or control points. But the times he was properly informed, it was enough for him to chart out what happened in the world thanks to the missions.

If what he suspected was correct, perhaps it would be better to say it was like swimming in the ocean.

In his time for RED, Spy had filled three notebooks detailing what he had learned on the missions, and another six on what he had come across in his research, and had rarely thought to cross-reference the two of them. There had been little reason to do so, with no reason to think about considering it.

Again, it was his error, and his obligation to see it right.

He worked his way through a fresh pack of cigarettes in roughly six hours, sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor with a fresh, blank notebook in his lap and the rest of them fanning out around. The new one was quickly marked in, and marked up, of what his others had to share between them. There were dates to consider, common events, something in one setting off another and then the other way around. It was rarely as simple as RED wanting what BLU had, or the opposite. He knew enough – when he knew where to look – to know when it was a quest for something more than simply power, any fool could grab power if he wanted to. Keeping power was the trick to it, and that seemed to be more of the focus. They were looking towards power through control, through information and leverage, through agreements and diplomatic arrangements and massive applications of force by specifically chosen, hand-selected teams, the best possible mercenaries to address such situations.

When Spy looked to the clock, he wasn’t surprised to find it was very nearly morning, perhaps an hour and a half left until sunrise. There was still a bit of time to sleep before daylight arrived. He sighed, stubbed out the cigarette, and began to gather up his notebooks to return them all to their old hiding places. Their purposes had changed overnight, which did nothing to render the information in them useless. The newest one found itself in the hall closet, just outside of his room, hidden much like the ones in his dresser.

He had no idea yet where his research was going, and he knew he had best keep what he had secret until he did.

9.

It would have been simpler if Spy knew he had to tear down everything and begin all over again. Reconstructing his entire outlook with the knowledge he’d spent the last seven years looking to solve the wrong problem, all that effort sunk into something nearly meaningless, made him wish for a mission to come sooner rather than later, the better to force his mind elsewhere and take out his frustrations through some choice backstabs.

He couldn’t afford to let himself return to RED anytime soon, at least not to the Manhattan branch office. There were such offices scattered throughout the United States and quite a bit of the world, and he knew not to press his luck and visit each and every one of them in turn. Moreover, until he knew what he needed to look for, blind grabbing would do him more harm than good. Proper intelligence gathering required finesse. Doing so alone called for caution.

Small questions were a fine way to begin. Would that he had the excuse to ask Miss Pauling, but even that would require more awareness of what it was he needed to know. Spy needed a good source to provide general information to help him determine where precisely he needed to begin, a source with deep holdings of knowledge that would give freely.

So he went to talk to Engineer. Excuses were easy enough to find. Both of them favored heavy-caliber handguns and an enthusiasm for antique weaponry, and a casual conversation that ranged from the weapons themselves to nineteenth-century smiths and craftsmanship over to one’s history with using the weapons themselves was hardly suspicious, even with the standoffish nature he’d cultivated to maintain his privacy. Spy continued his line of questioning two days later in Engineer’s workshop, with the simple inquiry as to how long it had been that they had each worked for RED.

“Five years,” Spy said, going first as a way to establish he was to be trusted, even though he was hardly giving away anything of value. “Though sometimes it feels quite a bit longer.”

“I know the feelin’, but right now I got the opposite problem. It’s been maybe nine years on my end, and I swear, some days there ain’t no way it’s been that long.” Engineer didn’t look up but kept working on his mechanical fingers with only his left hand. The process was fascinating, and Spy tried not to think about it too much. He knocked away some ash and continued smoking and cleaning his Ambassador.

“Nine? That long before the war?”

“That’d be when they called me up t’offer me the job.” The fingers twitched as he worked over them, one after another, as though he was testing their reflexes. Perhaps he was. “An’ I must admit, it was a fine offer – I’d take it up again tomorrow.”

“I experienced something similar as well. Just for a year, though, and nothing quite so exciting as what we’re doing out here.”

“Like what?” He began working over the wires at the end of his arm.

Spy deliberately took a moment he didn’t need before answering. “A good number of them were spent chaperoning documents or individuals from one place to another. Hardly the sort of work which leaves anyone thrilled or excited.”

“An’ you can’t tell me more than that, I take it?” He began the process of reattaching the hand, something Spy avoided watching.

“You guess correctly.”

“I getcha.” He chuckled as his hand began clicking and whirring.

“If I may ask, what was involved with the offer you received?” He sucked in a lungful of smoke before turning to see Engineer pulling on his glove, and he breathed out a cloud of relief.

“’Course you can. I’d been in and out in the oilfields ’bout ten years then, makin’ decent coin but nothin’ to write home about, same with the work – puttin’ myself through most of my PhDs then, tryin’ to find a good position in a university somewhere, lecturing sometimes, publishin’ if I could. RED didn’t exactly offer tenure, but they paid off the last of my loans scot-free, an’ that alone was temptin’ enough.”

“So what did they have you do for them?”

“Are and dee. Research an’ development. Some projects they gave t’me, some were my dad’s they wanted me t’finish, some I wanted t’do myself. Mostly what I wanted t’do myself. They’d read some of my papers and liked what I had t’say, so they wanted me to keep at it.”

Spy nodded, ground out his cigarette and tossed it in the nearest rubbish bin. “That sort of freedom is quite good to have. Spies rarely get such luxuries as to pursue their own work.”

“That ain’t ever been somethin’ I’ve given much thought, but I gotta say it makes sense.”

“Such is the nature of most spy work. We know we are doing well when most people do not think about us.” That got Engineer to give another small laugh, and Spy knew he had his opening. “Though, what you said – your father?”

He filled up two full pages that night, furiously scribbling every relevant scrap of data from the conversation. The middle-right tattoo held it for as long as he needed to recall it perfectly, and the favor asked for in exchange was every flavor he tasted for the next day. Spy felt was a perfectly reasonable price to allow him to record everything he needed. Three generations involved in the conflict, and even the oldest hadn’t seen the war’s very beginnings. Engineer’s grandfather had joined the war some time after its establishment, not at its inception, and his son and grandson had taken up the same position one after another – though not immediately one after another. The details provided were fuzzy and inexact, colored by secondhand accounts and family affection, and they still provided him with invaluable information to help him move his research along.

It would be some time before he could dig into any archives, legally or otherwise, and rather than waste his time doing nothing or spinning his wheels, he continued to do what research he could under the limited circumstances. One after another, little questions to pull a history together. When everyone had begun, why, what drew them to it, questions asked in a way that drew no suspicion to what Spy was after. To all appearances, they were simply questions asked in a friendly and open manner out of genuine curiosity to possess facts as yet unknown to him.

“Seven and a half years,” Medic answered while pouring himself, Spy, and Heavy mugs of tea flavored with berries Spy had picked that Heavy dried in the oven. “They promised me opportunities for research, private research, but only after I helped them with a few projects they already had going. After I saw the state of those projects, I could hardly be frustrated – they clearly needed someone better than who they already had.”

“Only five years for me, like you,” Heavy said, blowing on his tea to cool it. “It was close to what I do now. Guarding, killing, protecting. Is more fun here, though. More battles, more fighting, less standing and glaring to frighten little men away.”

“And what drew you to say yes to begin with?”

Heavy smiled, and Spy knew his ploy of English worked to pull Heavy in and let him keep Medic in the conversation. “Pay. Very good pay, to support family. Get us out of Russia – well, not all of us, I stayed there alone for a time, but Doktor was right, Chicago does get cold enough to have good winters.”

When asked the same question, Demo had more or less the same answer. “It’s gettin’ so th’old professions aren’t guaranteed t’give someone a life. Havin’ a trade, a family trade, simply isn’t what it used t’be.” He sighed and didn’t look up from poking through the wires of Spy’s sapper kit. “I got some cousins lookin’ elsewhere t’pay f’r their daily bread, an’ there’s no shame in it, sure, but there’s no glory, either. An’ it’s not th’same t’be doin’ it in America, but it’s the family trade, an’ I’m happy t’do that anywhere.”

“I had no idea your family worked in such ways.”

“Ah, like ye wouldn’t believe! Jobs f’r demolitions men are hard t’come by, it’s specialized work, it is. I hate t’say it, but thank God for the war. An’ here ye go, it’s all lookin’ dandy.”

“Thank you.” Spy took his kit back, knowing that if there had been something wrong instead of a fabricated ghost in the machine, he trusted Demo to find it. “Just how long has it been since you joined?”

“Five years. Five glorious years. Brings a tear t’me eye t’think about it.”

No subterfuge was required to learn about Soldier, simply asking him while he brushed his teeth how long it had been since he signed his contract. He was rewarded with a spittle-flecked answer of five years, with further froth and gesticulations punctuating the presumably partially fabricated narrative of RED recognizing his gifts and rescuing him from the former drudgery his life had consisted of for nearly two decades. Although he would not have guessed Soldier had worked as a groundskeeper, it did not surprise him. Spy knew it was pointless to ask what of his story was true or why the contract had been signed to begin with, so he simply wiped his face and moved on.

Learning about Scout also allowed for directness, as the little boy was always happy to talk. “Right outta Kentucky, can you believe it? The officers called me in t’talk my first week there jus’ ’cause I ran the two miles in like six minutes when I hadn’t even warmed up, but they didn’t keep me there or nothin’, just talked for a while an’ then asked me t’do it again, and that time I got it in maybe four, four and a half, but they still sent me back to trainin’ right along with everyone else, but then they call me back a few months later an’ they didn’t say why but Miss Pauling did when I finally gotta talk t’her, she told me that that’s why they wanted me, an’ man, that was it, I couldn’t sign that paper fast enough.”

Spy nodded as the coffee continued to get ready to boil. The two of them were the only ones awake, so breakfast duties fell to them. “I take it RED offered a better career path than the army itself?”

“You better believe it did, no goin’ overseas to some damn jungle, you bet I’m stayin’ at home. All my brothers came back an’ in one piece too, thank Christ, but I wasn’t goin’ over there if I didn’t have to.” He shook his head. “Look, I ain’t one of those hippies who thinks we shouldn’t be there, but if I didn’t have t’go – my brothers got stories, an’ I got stories better than theirs now, but I didn’t then, an’ I didn’t wanna come home tellin’ stories like that.”

“Let me guess, the stories you come home telling now trump theirs.”

“The ones I can tell!” He laughed as the pot started gurgling. “Nearly all the good ones I gotta keep t’myself, but ones I can share right now are just as good as the ones they came home with, an’ I keep gettin’ more, too.”

The lesson about non-disclosure agreements they’d all received had been quite swift and powerful, one of the few times their employers had seen fit to interact with them directly beyond mission briefings. Spy found RED unusually hands-off in that regard, and nearly always appreciated it, and he had been one of the few who hadn’t given away anything new when they’d been interviewed by the director.

Pyro had been another. Thankfully, said contractual agreements had absolutely nothing to say about sharing with teammates – that was all down to personal inclination, as she knew well.

He found his opportunity for her the following evening after BLU won Freight’s third control point and shifted their battle plan to a far more aggressive one. Spy had been closing in on the BLU Soldier when something whistled past his ear and suddenly the Soldier was pinned to the wall by an arrow to the head. He spun around to see Pyro shaking her flamethrower over her head and laughing before running off to presumably deal with the BLU Sniper. She had well earned her moment of triumph, and he made sure to compliment her on it after the fighting ended for the day and she was cleaning off her mask in the locker room. He knew from experience how difficult headshots could be, and couldn’t imagine how she’d accomplished the feat.

“I wasn’t aiming for his head, that’s the fucking thing. It just managed to hit him there. Look, I’m just as surprised as you are, but you bet your ass the next night we got free I’m dragging Scout out somewhere to start practicing.”

“And he won’t mind?”

“He’s got a helmet.”

“It really was quite remarkable. And you’ve only been here five years?” He lit a cigarette, and she watched him smoke for a moment before blinking several times and going back to cleaning.

“Five and a half, really.” She unscrewed her mask’s little port, peered in and blew through it, then started cleaning that as well. “They hired me maybe a month before I got shipped out.”

“I would have expected a little more time to adjust.”

“I did too. But it worked out okay.”

Asking Sniper was something Spy knew he could do most any time, even while simply passing him in the hallway. As such, waiting for an opportunity did him no harm. Their team had come out victorious, and Sniper had come knocking at his door that evening as he usually did. Afterwards, Spy lay curled on his side with their legs intertwined, teasing Sniper’s hair between his ungloved fingers.

“When did you leave Australia?”

Sniper took a long drag of the cigarette and tapped out the ash into the tray on the windowsill before handing it to Spy. “’Bout six years ago.”

“Just for the war? RED didn’t have you perform any missions for them otherwise?” He took a drag and blew out a long, thin stream.

“Nah. They knew what they needed me t’do for ’em, so they had me come on board for just that.”

“Boom, headshot,” Spy mimicked, making Sniper laugh.

“You saw Pyro’s move th’other day? Damn fine corker of a shot she got there.”

“I was there.” Spy left the butt smoking in the ashtray. “So – that was it? They hired you and you left?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” The question slipped out without his being aware, and he swore to himself.

“Why what?”

“Why not, they pay handsomely and offer many opportunities for career advancement.” This seemed to satisfy Sniper, who stretched out like a giant cat before gathering up his clothes. If he was slightly less tired, the sight would have made Spy want another go. “And when you do speak of your home, you always speak so fondly, and I wonder why you left. When I have the chance to go back to mine I won’t be leaving.”

“Save the pillow talk for next time, spook.” He tipped his hat to Spy and saw himself out. Spy scooted to the middle of the bed and stared at the ceiling, soaking up the last of Sniper’s body heat.

It was something to wonder about in another place and another time. Here, now, there were the facts that everyone had begun the war at the same time, and that the war had begun with everyone as well. With individuals such as himself and Medic and Engineer, it made sense for RED to keep their talents on its own payroll. Others such as Pyro and Sniper and Scout were only necessary so long as there was fighting for them to see to.

If some of them had come forth in the world earlier, then given what little he knew from what Engineer had told him two weeks earlier, and what he could pull together out of the single notebook he’d brought with him, it seemed the answer would be yes. Their fighting could have begun in sixty-six or even sixty-five, and he shook his head, sliding the notebook back to its hiding place.

Four days later, he was on a train to Boston. They’d become proficient at phone calls and writing letters, and how to use them to bide the time and make it go more easily, but there was nothing quite so fine as holding her in his arms after making love or swaying gently to music, even in secret. Especially in secret, sometimes. He would not spend as much time with her as he liked, for RED had an office in Boston he had never yet been to in person, one he could visit to gather some more intelligence. And if he spent more than a handful of days with her, he knew words would fall from his lips or from hers, and neither of them would be better for having heard them.

So instead, he held her, and she held him, and they held to their time together as strongly as they could.

10.

Every mission meant learning more about the war. Perhaps not from fleeing the BLU Pyro after an ambush or a particularly savory headshot on the enemy Scout, but knowing his team had been assigned to Offblast with the goal of keeping a set of trade secrets as secret as possible. It told Spy what to look for when he returned to his townhouse and his research, reading about events and developments that came into being because of him. Though not every mission could be as straightforward as was promised. The doves had been just one of the surprises present for them at Badwater.

“They must have been someone’s specimens, the poor things.” Given the looks of their roost, no one had cared for them in quite some time. No wonder they’d flocked to Medic.

“Why birds?” Scout asked. “Ain’t mice an’ rats what they usually use?”

“Usually,” Medic agreed. “But for some tests, they would have been the better choice.” He looked down at the bird on his wrist and sighed.

“Thinkin’ o’takin’ them home with ye?”

“If I get permission, yes. Otherwise, I’ll leave them to the wild.”

“Is that good idea?”

“Leaving them to the wild? Better than leaving them here with no one to care for them. They’ll die either way, let them have some sky before they go.”

Two days later, when BLU mounted its first offensive, Spy had an inkling of what they were really doing at the base. Two weeks later, as the siege campaign dragged on and he saw what BLU was now capable of – he would never have believed men to be pulled together and formed like that out of thin air if he hadn’t seen that Soldier, out of thin air, good God – he knew that it would be better to simply focus on getting out the other side of this mission. He found himself calling upon more and more favors, running up a debt like he rarely had before, not since his nights running through Vietnam’s jungles and across its cities’ rooftops for the French government. Both there and here, he was ostensibly working for a higher cause, and while his knowledge of that stayed intact, his focus shifted to dispatching his enemies that he might stay breathing a few minutes more.

So he fought, and kept fighting, and waited until he heard someone calling to him that it was safe to come out.

He had not yet paid any favors when he opened up his shirt that Medic might implant the gear-jam invulnerability device inside his chest, and wondered if his teammate could feel anything squirming underneath his fingertips as his hands moved over Spy’s skin. “Mind the tattoos.”

“Of course.”

“And – if it would be all right, might I keep my heart?” He asked in German.

“I suppose, but why?”

Spy shrugged as best he could with Medic pushing his organs aside. “My mother gave it to me.”

“Ah! Not a problem, I’ll just fetch a container.”

“Perhaps a less powerful device? I will not need one often, it would not need to be so strong as to make my heart explode.”

“Possibly. Let me see – I’d rather get everyone done tonight, but if you’re willing to wait I suppose I could talk to Engineer. Is he – ah, here we go, would this one work?”

Spy had absolutely no idea. “Do you have another heart you could test it on?”

“Tonight, of course.” It failed to make a deceased BLU Soldier’s scavenged heart explode, and that held true for Spy’s as well. Under his tattoos, an invulnerability device hardly felt strange. When he was all healed up and re-tying his tie, the first thing he thought of was that airports would now be somewhat more difficult to travel through.

Two days after the last of the devices was implanted in Engineer, RED came out victorious, after twenty of some of the longest days of Spy’s life – for all his insanity, Soldier had an impeccable and trustworthy internal clock. Demo had just enough scrumpy left for a celebratory round, and though Spy wished to raise a toast along with everyone else and mean it, he was far too aware he needed the alcohol for something besides straightforward celebration.

“Will you kill me, please?”

“Soon.” Spy leaned against the refrigerator door. Stubbing out the cigarette his opposite number had smoked down to the butt helped make everything more real, much easier to comprehend. “You will destroy your photographs of myself and my lady. The negatives, the prints – don’t, I know you made copies, you are my enemy but I respect your skill as a spy and because I do I know you made copies. Every scrap you have of us together. I don’t care how you do it, burn them if you have to, but destroy everything.”

“I will.”

“You know of us. I can’t take that from you, much as I would love to find a way to rob you of that secret, but I can’t do such a thing.” He took a deep breath. “I want to know I can trust you to not bring the outside world into this conflict any longer. I have material on you I could well use, and –”

“You don’t. You’re lying, you never –”

“His name is Guillam.”

To his credit, being a disembodied head in a fridge made the BLU Spy much more willing to trust another’s words and not put up any protests, or even attempt to resist an interrogation. “All right, so you do know. That’s fair. You destroy what you have of him and myself, and I will do the same for you and your lady. I promise.”

Spy smiled. “We will meet again.”

“I can promise you that. When we do, watch your back.”

The moment the wires were pulled from the battery, the BLU Spy shuddered, closed his eyes, and managed to sigh out, “Keep…”

In the next moment, he was gone, and in the next he disappeared, finally picked up by the respawn system. Spy managed to bury what was left of the ghastly set-up and told Medic that the BLU Engineer had been responsible, and he was so happy about getting permission to keep the doves that he believed Spy’s blatant lies. He’d been tempted to tell the truth, but thought better of it. His bottom-left tattoo, angry with hunger, hissed at him for lying, and he did his best to ignore it.

Back in New York, it took the better part of three days to pay for every favor, and two more to finally feel awake. That evening, he called Miss Pauling to see if she was free for a friendly chat the following Sunday. He had no way to reach Sniper, and this was a subject off-limits to his lady, so she was the most fitting person with whom to speak. Not even regarding the details, specifics, or particulars of this mission or any other, only regarding where BLU was heading and how much RED had to do to keep it from getting there. And to have a conversation with someone where slipping up wouldn’t cost either of them much of anything.

She slid into the booth across from him. “You always manage to find the best places.”

“I’ve cultivated a taste for them.”

“Should I ask how you got this reservation?”

“If you like. It was hardly difficult – all it takes is one person to penetrate a network.”

“It’s finding that person, though.”

“Mais oui.”

They kept chatting idly as they ordered their teas and waited for their lunches, sipping gently and glancing out the window at the people passing by on Madison Avenue. She’d gotten a pot of a dark green tea, something Chinese, that she tempered with honey to go with her smoked salmon. Spy drank his black chestnut blend without anything else in the cup and took his time with his squash and mushroom soup. It was, for all practical purposes, a business lunch between colleagues, and it didn’t take long for the conversation to settle onto his team’s last mission.

“We didn’t know BLU had those capabilities.” He poured out the last of his tea and watched the leaves settle in the cup. “It took us a good deal of time to reassess our strategy.” She’d looked surprised when he’d first told her some of the details, just surprised enough and in the right ways he could tell she didn’t fully mean it when it came to the invulnerability devices. Just as she did in regards to the description of the waves of soldiers.

“We didn’t, either. That wasn’t something anyone plans to hear about.”

“Even in this war, there are still surprises. When did you want me to come in to give my report?”

“Technically yesterday. But tomorrow would be fine.”

“Tomorrow works for me as well. Eleven o’clock?”

“Whenever it’s best for you.”

“We have so few missions now that require reports, it feels a little strange to give one now.”

“Not a lot of missions deal with what you just went through.” His flourless chocolate cake arrived, as did her caramel pudding.

“It does make me wonder, though, not for the desperation of BLU, but…well.” He took a moment to appear as though he was composing his thoughts. “I have seen what BLU can resort to, firsthand, if it cannot achieve a goal though diplomacy or bureaucracy or the standard application of force. And so I wonder if RED would ever suffer such desperation.”

“No,” Miss Pauling lied.

He smiled and cut a bite topped with a generous dollop of raspberry syrup. “That’s quite comforting to hear.”

Spy did show up at RED’s office at eleven the next day, and was out by two-thirty. He was there the following day as well – pressing his luck, but needing to, after overhearing something about the successful myxomatosis testing on Wardang Island. What he found out was enough to confirm his suspicion that the conflict was not continuous but tidal, coming out and going in, periods of activity balanced by times of rest – the war as he was engaged in now, writ on a much larger scale. During the fallow years, RED and BLU were still active and operational, but not sending mercenaries out to attack each other on an irregular basis. Sometimes some bureaucrats settled a conflict, and other times there was simply no conflict whatsoever, not even one that could be settled with some pushed paper. As though the companies suddenly had reason to mind their own business and not involve themselves with each other in any way.

Those fallow years ranged from sixteen months to eight years, with no pattern to them that he could see. Not yet, at any rate, and certainly not tonight. He kept his cigarette between his lips as he began gathering up his notebooks. To wait one more night to begin putting together the rest of the picture, to figure out this new development, was hardly long to wait at all.

11.

For a little more than two years, none of the missions that followed were easily comparable to the one at Badwater’s hospital. After a handful of other missions, all of them very ordinary as their work went, the events faded enough in their memories to be joked over and talked about with jest. Soldier managed to resume sleeping through the night. In time, Badwater took on something close to respectability, representing a certain benchmark in regards to desperation on the field and a level of despair they never thought they would meet again.

If nothing else, working for RED was a continuous education.

“I’d fucking kill for a cup of coffee.”

“Six-sixty-four eighty.”

“For Christ’s sake, give it a fucking rest.”

“Six-sixty-four ninety.”

Given that what she said next was entirely in Mandarin, and took her a good deal of time to finish as well, Spy guessed it was worth at least another dollar and would have made Engineer quite irate if she had said it in English. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, all dressed in her suit save for her mask – there was little reason for her to guard her privacy as she usually did, not when BLU was not around for her to guard it from. When they had arrived at the base with BLU nowhere in sight, they had guessed the mission to be a repeat of their incorrect stationing at Sawmill, and swiftly learned that was not the case.

“Would ya?” Scout asked.

“Would I what?”

“Kill for a cup a’coffee.”

She shrugged, still looking away. “Okay, maybe not right now, but tomorrow morning, maybe.”

Even with the BLU team elsewhere, Mann Manor still held inhabitants that had been waiting for Spy and his team to arrive. What instructions they had received failed to identify said inhabitants by name or inclination, and instead addressed how they were to be dealt with, which was as swiftly as possible and with the intent to drive them out of the place as soon as they could.

Heavy sighed, breaking the silence. “I have.”

“Have what?” Spy asked.

“Killed. For cup of coffee.”

They had another eleven nights to spend in this makeshift tomb before their mission’s time was over and they would be allowed to leave. Indeed, until then, they could not. It was not a matter of would. Their capability to do so had been stripped from them rather neatly. Scout had been the one to test that lack of capability, and said it had felt like going through respawn but with less light.

“Just for a cup o’coffee, ye killed a man.”

“Not just for coffee. It was not, you give me that coffee or I kill you. It was more, we all need food, shelter, you have, we need you to share with us. He would not, so I challenge him, and then kill him.” Heavy shrugged. “But, he did have coffee that was ready to drink, and I had a cup, so yes, I can say I killed for cup of coffee.” He laughed. “Worst part of story is, was not even good coffee.”

“Oh, now that’s just unfortunate,” Sniper said. “If a bloke’s gonna get killed over coffee, it oughta be worth the trouble.”

“Coffee was bad, yes. But there was plenty of it. So, not too bad. Have killed for worse reasons than bad coffee.”

The ghosts could be killed, as it were, at least for a little while. Even the pumpkin-headed one – even that one could be dealt with, though never permanently. There was no way to see all the grounds freed of them. Thankfully, there were wards and charms to keep them away, and Spy had helped Demo set aside a room in for just the living, with no trespassing on the part of the dead. They were huddled together in the barn around a lantern, under scavenged blankets, with the doors shut tight and sigils etched into the wood and drawn on the ground. In the morning, they would venture back out. For now, they waited, and talked to keep their spirits up.

Soldier was sitting ramrod straight, legs crossed. “And might I ask what reasons you have for killing that are worse than bad coffee?”

Heavy shrugged. “Not knowing my own strength is one.” Medic chuckled at that.

“All right, I’ll give you that.”

“So how many men have you killed?” Spy asked, pulled his blanket in closer.

“Yeah, how many?” Scout echoed.

“What you mean?”

“How many guys have you killed? You know, offed, snuffed, whacked, cleaned, whatever it’s y’wanna say for killed. An’ women too, I guess. How many?”

“Is hard to count. Well.” He rubbed his chin in a hand. “Let me think – you want me to count battlefields? Is hard for this, when it might not be me.”

“Okay, discountin’ the ones you ain’t sure you did yourself. How many?”

“Fifty…Fifty-seven.”

Scout’s face fell. “Oh.”

“I have met men who have killed more, and killed less.” Heavy chuckled. “Mostly less.”

“Fifty-seven’s a nice, respectable count,” Demo mused. “Even if you’re takin’ ’em out in groups, it takes a good while t’get a good number like that.”

“Yeah, well. That’s just great for him.” Scout wrapped his arms around his legs and glared at the ground like it’d offended his mother.

“Come on now, you don’t need t’feel so bad,” Engineer got up to sit down next to him and pat him on the shoulder. “I ain’t ever killed anyone before comin’ to this war myself, it’s nothin’ t’be ashamed of.”

He turned his head to look at him. “Really?”

“Really. Had my fair share of fights, but none of ’em laid a man out t’rest.”

Pyro smiled as she leaned back, bracing herself on one hand. “No kidding.”

“No kiddin’ at all.”

“Would you please explain how with all those opportunities you still never killed anyone?” Medic asked.

“Well, I ain’t much for fights even when I have ’em – I’d rather stop one before it starts, but if I gotta get into one, better t’end it fast, an’ I’d rather leave a man who can learn himself a lesson ’stead of jus’ winnin’ himself a death certificate. Why? How many you got, Doc?”

“Eight.”

“Eight’s a fine number, nothin’ too shabby, ’specially since you weren’t in a business for it.”

“I would have expected something much higher, given where you come from and your reasons for leaving,” Soldier said. “What kept you from breaking into double digits?”

“Opportunity. You see, there were only five that I sought out, and the other three were – well, they were remarkable circumstances, and very fortunate ones at that.” He chuckled. “Ah, such circumstances they were.”

“Clean work too, I expect.” Sniper shifted under his blanket, uncrossing and crossing his legs.

“Oh, yes, clean. Not fast, but clean.”

“See, that’s how you earn yourself a reputation, ya gotta have standards for your work. Fifteen, every one of ’em neat, clean an’ over an’ done with before they knew what’s happenin’. An’ fifteen might not sound like much, but I’d rather have fewer that mean somethin’ t’me than more what don’t.”

“Fifteen’s also fine, if ye haven’t got a decent work ethic.”

“I do precision work. What’s it you do, house cleanin’?”

“Aye, an’ twenty-two t’my name, I’ll have ye know, laid a whole ten out t’rest as our good tinkerer’s said, last job I had before comin’ t’RED. Huntin’ party comin’ up over th’moor, an’ suddenly they’re too good for this sinful earth.”

“Ah. See, that there, there ain’t nothin’ neat or clean about work like that.”

“Gentlemen, contract work stipulates a final rendering of services, not necessarily the precise methods. Both of you should take pride in your own specialties.”

“So what’s your count, Spook?”

“Nineteen.”

“No kiddin’.” Scout leaned in, bracing his hands on his thighs. “I wasn’t expectin’ that many from you, nothin’ personal, I just thought since you’re always talkin’ about sneakin’ around an’ bein’ all, all sneaky, you make it sound like killin’ a guy’s a good way t’get found if you ain’t got one of those disguise watch gizmo things.”

“Oh, oui, mon petit lapin, you are correct. It is a superb way to blow one’s cover and require a hasty retreat. And if there happen to be more people blocking the way, one quickly becomes two, which becomes three, and in the end you are the only one left standing over thirteen less skilled at the act of killing.”

“Take that nineteen and add another five and that would be one fine night storming Trzcińsko-Zdrój to flush out an insurgent chapter of renegades trying to hide themselves away in the countryside – it was unfortunate they would not reveal themselves right away and I had to dispatch a few civilians as encouragement, but I managed to draw them into the open and made fast work of them. Oh, yes, June of nineteen-forty-six, I remember it well.”

Scout huffed. “Okay, so you –” Medic made a throaty warning sound and he suddenly thought better than to finish his sentence as first planned. “Look, just cut to the chase, how many didya come home with?”

“Six thousand and seventy eight.”

“No freakin’ way.”

Even in the low light from the lantern, Soldier’s grin managed to shine without any friendliness to it. “Whether or not you believe it isn’t my concern. I have the facts and I know what happened and your trust in my word doesn’t change what transpired.”

“Now that I can believe,” Pyro said with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Ye must’ve gotten up very early in the mornin’.”

“Crack of dawn, as well should you all.”

Demo shrugged, then turned to Pyro. “So tell us, lass, what’s your headcount?”

“Yeah, come on, share with us. An’ if you ain’t got one that’s fine too, you can share that instead.”

“I’m not sure.”

Heavy looked down at her. “What is it, you mean by that?”

She shook her head and shifted to sit cross-legged like Solder, except slouching with her hands on the ground between her legs. “It’s like what you’ve got going. I’m not sure how many I’m supposed to count.”

Spy found himself leaning in. “Tell me, what do you mean by that?”

“I never shot anyone or chopped someone up myself before coming here, but there were people who died because of me, even if it wasn’t me who, you know, took them out myself. So do I count them or not?”

Medic pushed his glasses up his nose. “For the purposes of this conversation, let us say everyone who died as a result of your actions. I believe that is the standard method for such a measurement.”

“Okay.” She nodded and licked her lips with a small hum. “Uh…hm.”

“So come on, how many?”

Pyro smiled and nodded, clearly happy with her memories. “Seventy-three.”

Spy could safely say that if he was surprised to hear such a number, no one else had expected one such as it either. It was Sniper who found his voice first. “Seventy-three?”

“Yeah. That’s, yeah, seventy-three.”

Medic cleared his throat. “That – yes. That is a highly respectable number, how on earth did you manage seventy-three without the usual methods?”

She shrugged. “I set fires.”

“Set fires t’what, people’s homes? Hospitals?”

“Fuck no! I’m not an arsonist.” She was clearly offended at Engineer’s accusation and his ignorance over fine distinctions regarding fire-setting both he and Spy had not been aware of.

“Six– ”

“How did you make fire big enough for seventy-three?” Heavy asked.

“It wasn’t seventy-three at once, it was seventy-three over a bunch of them.” She spoke as though he was putting her on and making a joke. “I set a lot of fires.”

“I also find it difficult to believe that fire alone would be potent enough to kill that number of people, even when done on as large a scale as you seem fond of,” Soldier mused.

“Well, you would be incorrect,” Medic smiled. “Fire has many ways of killing people.”

“Now just hang on a minute, if it wasn’t you what did ’em in, how can you say they were all yours?”

“I’d read about it in the papers afterwards.”

“So what ways are we talkin’ ’bout here, Doc?”

“Oh, there’s –”

“There’s infections, complications, there’s shock, smoke inhalation and suffocation – there were these hikers I read about who were downwind of a fire I set and they didn’t get touched by it but they suffocated from all the smoke, there’s burns you can get inside the lungs if you’re in a room that’s hot enough, there’s organ failure, there’s hyperthermia, hypothermia, there’s blood –”

“Thank you, luciole, that is quite enough.”

“You asked.”

Everyone jumped at the sudden wailing of a ghost caught by one of Demo’s devil’s traps – the screaming never lasted long, but even after three nights, none of them were used to them. It took nearly a minute for the sounds to subside and everyone to let out a sigh of relief.

“An’ this’s why I never took a contract on tribal lands,” Sniper grumbled.

“I’m nae gonna argue wi’ that,” Demo replied.

12.

Thirteen nights later, Spy was nearly as delighted at the sight of San Francisco as he was with the prospect of finally sleeping in a proper bed. Sniper’s camper’s bunk was better than the barn’s floor, but Spy knew it wouldn’t be nearly as comfortable as the beds in the room behind him. He sighed deeply, wriggled his toes into the carpet’s rich fabric, took another sip of wine and felt some of the tension in his shoulders and spine melt away.

The previous morning, Miss Pauling had been waiting. She informed them that they had done a fine job, and that thanks to their efforts RED would be able to manage its interests in the property. None of them had particularly cared, interested only in what foods would be eaten, the baths that would be taken, the companion animals that would be given attention, the errands that would be seen to on their return. Which was why Sniper had come to the city. And why Spy had followed.

Fifteen minutes after they received the all-clear, Spy gathered his belongings and was smoking beside Sniper’s van.

“You’ll be wantin’ a ride to an airport?”

“Potentially, although you did mention having to visit a consulate for your visa, correct?”

“Yeah, it’s gotta get renewed every two years, an’ it needs t’be scheduled at least a fortnight in advance. Th’paperwork’s a bit of a nuisance an’ th’fightin’s worse, but it really ain’t too bad. At least the city’s nice.”

“San Francisco is, yes. I was wondering whether or not you wished for a bit of company.”

Sniper leaned back against the van and crossed his arms over his chest. “Wanna come along or you just wanna lift out t’the airport?”

Spy snorted and ground out his cigarette under his heel. “You have absolutely no sense of extended foreplay, my dear sharp-eyed outdoorsman; may I join you in San Francisco?”

He was rewarded with a smile. “If y’like.”

They shared a roasted rabbit for dinner that night, cooked over a little fire under the stars, and Spy took the heart when Sniper offered it. On the grounds that he would be fine spending the night outside with nothing but a sleeping bag – “Swag, it’s a bloody swag, I thought you knew English” – Spy took the little bunk over the driving cabin. As sleeping places went, it was at least adequately soft, with a suitably firm pillow, and it was just long enough for him to lie flat on his back without his head or toes touching the ends of the bunk. Sniper had shown him how to open the window just enough to let a bit of early summer nighttime air in, and Spy curled onto his side to let the breezes play over as much skin as they could reach. The next morning, Sniper asked him why he’d come along.

“I’ve never been to this city before, and there’s quite a lot in it that I’d like to see,” he replied, not even needing to lie.

That afternoon, Sniper parked and locked his van in Oakland, and he and Spy rode a sleek little train underneath the bay to emerge in the glistening heart of San Francisco. Apparently, Sniper stayed in the same hotel on the bottom end of Market Street every time he visited the city, and when they got off the elevator and into their suite, it was easy enough to see why. The view alone was worth the price, not that paying it was any trouble for either of them, and the wine was more than suitable, though any lodgings with indoor plumbing and a lack of restless spirits would be welcome after the last mission.

He placed his glass down gently and finished undressing when he heard the shower stop. When Sniper emerged, still damp, he stopped at the sight of Spy.

“I take it you enjoyed yourself?”

Sniper continued to stand there with his mouth hanging open. Spy smiled.

“You do enjoy your showers, and the water pressure is quite good here, I admit, and they have the good grace to provide real soap as well. I might take some for myself.”

He finally closed his mouth and continued to look at Spy. “You’re…”

“Nude, yes, it is hardly remarkable, when we both want to fuck each other.”

“Where’s your mask?”

“With the rest of my clothes, set aside for housekeeping. I have a spare in my suitcase, if you want it on.”

He came forward cautiously, and Spy stood his ground, held it, even as Sniper moved to just a hair’s-breadth away, and then closed the distance by cupping Spy’s face in his hand, gently, as though he might shatter him with such a simple touch. It felt quite nice, and Spy fought back a smile.

“Don’t y’need it?”

“For my uniform and work, yes. The disguise kit works best with fewer features to my face – I expect it would never fail in Pyro’s hands – but I’m not required to always wear it.”

“She’ll be right.” He ran his thumb across Spy’s cheek and Spy reached up to take Sniper’s hand in his own. When Sniper didn’t move away, he quickly turned his head and kissed his palm, keeping his lips pressed there longer than they needed to be. He smelled clean, like water and sandalwood, and under it all, he smelled like himself. Spy could hear Sniper’s breath quicken, and tightened his hold on his hand.

He felt his other cheek taken, his head turned, and he closed his eyes when his mouth was brought in for a kiss. Sniper leaned in and kept his hands on Spy’s face, and Spy was happy for them to stay there as long as the gunman liked. He slid his hands over Sniper’s arms, and brought them to rest on his shoulder blades, pulling him in. Sniper murmured wordlessly, sounds coming from somewhere deep inside, and Spy could feel his growing erection against his thigh, and he knew Sniper could feel his own as well. The shower and the wine and Sniper’s hands resting gently on his face all kept his arousal low, and let him enjoy the lazy building of it without feeling desperate. He could tell Sniper felt the same, and leaned up to press their bodies even closer. One of those hands slipped down to the back of his neck while the other cupped his head, running fingertips over the freshly-shaved stubble.

“D’you just keep it shaved for fittin’ under the mask?”

“Mmm, yes. And it makes it far easier when I’m not guaranteed a shower at the end of a day.” He brought one hand up to slide his fingers through Sniper’s hair, far thicker and darker than his own would ever be, and such a treat to play with. Sniper seemed to think the same of his, and Spy rewarded him by pressing his mouth to the man’s throat, pulling yet more sounds from him that, eventually, turned into words.

“Keep on – yeah, that, right there, that, more – c’mon, more –” His fingers tightened and Spy pulled back, pulling Sniper with him, turning them about, and grinned as wide as he could before pressing forward with another kiss, tongue sliding inside Sniper’s mouth and laving over his lips – he faintly tasted toothpaste. Spy wrapped his arms around the gunman and pulled him down, never breaking their kiss, not even when Spy rolled them over to come out on top. He reached down between them, finding Sniper not quite as hard as he was. He sat back on his knees.

“An’ what’s this gonna be, then?” Sniper grinned up at him. “Gonna get to a nice, proper rootin’ face-t’-face? Gonna bend me over that desk there, gonna pin me up ’gainst the window an’ fuck me in front’a th’whole city?”

“None of that was quite what I had in mind, although the window is quite tempting.” Spy moved back just a bit to line up their cocks. “Now, hold still.” This was not something he had done often, as he rarely had a partner suited for it. They were both aroused and growing more so, but not too much – Sniper wasn’t yet fully erect, still soft enough that Spy could wrap his lover’s foreskin around the head of his own, cut cock. He shivered from the closeness, with the feeling of Sniper’s pre-come slicking the head of Spy’s cock. There wasn’t the room for him to properly thrust, only to make slight movements – but it was enough to allow him to fuck Sniper’s cock. He twisted the foreskin around to make Sniper growl, gripped them both, and only pulled away when Sniper hissed from the growing strain on his delicate foreskin. And he groaned, the sort of groan Spy knew meant he wanted more.

“No worries, mon cher,” he laughed and stroked his cheek. “That was only foreplay.”

“Then what’s it you’re bloody well waitin’ for?” Sniper growled and thrust up, their cocks sliding together, and Spy moved one hand to grip both of them, holding them together. His other hand pried Sniper’s fingers off the duvet, twining them in his own. It was Sniper’s other hand that found the back of his head, and Spy moaned into Sniper’s mouth at a particularly strong thrust, delighted with the feeling of so much skin. Such rich closeness.

Sniper was grunting, growling right into his mouth, and Spy swallowed down every sound, twisted his hand on their cocks to squeeze them again, loosened his grip to let them slide against each other. He almost wished there was some lubricant when Sniper sighed, a sound he hadn’t heard him make during sex before, and he ran his thumb up over the head of his cock, moaned right into Sniper’s mouth, and came.

When he came down, he realized he had the lubricant he’d wished for, and readjusted his grip and began murmuring into Sniper’s ear. “You do me in like no one else in the world, like no other man, come on now, join me, come for me, die a little death and come join me.”

His moan when he came was filthy and rich in the best ways, and he kept their hands twined together while Spy lay atop him. It was Spy who pulled his hand away to roll onto his back, all the better to get up and light a pair of cigarettes. Sniper took one gladly, just as he took one of the wet washcloths Spy offered when the cigarettes were finished.

“Think you could get the curtains?” Sniper asked as he turned off his bedside lamp.

“Certainly.” With them shut and the lamps off, it was finally dark enough for sleep. He stretched out in his bed, relishing the feel of the mattress and the cleaned, starched sheets, tucked in perfectly at the corners, and arched his limbs before relaxing and turning onto his stomach to press his cheek against the pillow and settle in for the night.

They ate breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant, more out of convenience than any favor to the chef, although Spy did grudgingly admit the coffee was acceptable.

“Yeah, that’s one of th’best things about the city. It’s bloody hard t’find a decent cup of coffee in the States, but they know how t’do it here. Not a whole lotta places know how t’get it strong enough.” He took another drink of his own and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There’s a couple nice shops I like round here, not too far.”

“Thank you, but perhaps tomorrow. Today I was hoping for a more – not dérive, not flânerie – ah, stroll. A relaxed stroll through the city.”

“Best way t’find out what somethin’s got, see it on foot.”

“Indeed.” Spy finished his coffee and insisted on paying for the meal. “Shall we meet again today?”

Sniper shrugged. “I figured we’d just meet back in th’room sometime tonight.”

“If that suits you.”

“See y’then.”

After he left, Spy ordered one last cup of coffee and spent most of the following hour leisurely reading through a pair of local newspapers – not for his usual research purposes, though an editorial regarding decolonization did catch his eye, but rather to obtain a general idea of the local news and happenings. One of the tricks to blending in wasn’t to know everything about something – the story of the spies caught because they knew every verse of the American national anthem still made him smile – but to know something about everything. As such, he concerned himself with finding out which upcoming public events and art shows would be worth attending, the fluctuations in housing prices in the Inner and Outer Sunset districts, current skirmishes between governing bodies and union workers or the public and former soldiers, and whatever else was happening in and around San Francisco that those living there would know about.

Spy knew he would have made his way out to San Francisco eventually. Coming with Sniper when he needed to renew his visa simply gave him a convenient excuse.

It would have been nice to stroll through the public parks, pop in and out of shops and cafés, or even see the new collection of Vietnamese textiles at the Asian Art Museum without any pressing concerns in the absence of a mission, but like Sniper, he had errands to attend to. The first of which involved learning the address for the local headquarters of Builder’s League United, which turned out to be information printed in the local telephone directory which had come complimentary with the suite. As ever, it all involved knowing where to look, and finding it in the first place he’d thought to look made the finding even more satisfying.

It took Spy perhaps forty minutes to walk from the hotel to the neighborhood, and another twenty to walk by BLU’s local office, all the better to give himself the appearance of a tourist interested in local architecture. When he finally laid eyes on the building in question, it was remarkable how unremarkable a structure it really was, looking just like any other newly-renovated office block. It would have been nice to stop and stare, but he could only look for as long as the traffic light held him on one corner, and had to move on once it changed. Thankfully, smoking a cigarette in another building’s shadow, just around the corner, allowed him to take in the sight at his leisure.

He didn’t hurry through that cigarette or the next one, managing to stretch out his time in the shadows to nearly three-quarters of an hour. Only two people entered the building, with three more coming out, one after the other. All of them plainly-dressed office workers and paper-pushers; all of them typical of their profession. None of them noticed the nondescript man across the street as he flicked the end of a cigarette, and continued on his way.

Had any of them saw fit to approach him, he would have simply bluffed his way out as a tourist. He almost wished one had, and took in one last glance before moving on.

RED had local offices in the city as well – not nearby, and far enough that he could maintain the same façade of architecturally-minded tourist throughout the entirety of the walk. Again, he smoked his cigarettes in the shadows across the street, although finding a suitable location took him longer to find than he preferred. He sucked in and held a deep lungful of smoke, casting through his memory to try to recall if any favorably reviewed restaurants were in this neighborhood. When he couldn’t do so, he walked away, and kept on walking until he found one that looked reasonable enough.

Visiting either company today was a possibility, as was diving into the Pacific Ocean fully-dressed or leaping in front of a trolley car and expecting it to miss. It would go so far as to define folly, doing so without more planning and reconnaissance. So, instead, Spy finished his sandwich and his coffee, made his way back through the neighborhoods through alternate routes to better understand the surroundings and disappear into them if need be. As lovely as he knew it would be to linger on some of the sights, to do such things as find his way to the top of Telegraph Hill without a map or visit one of the world’s most famous island prisons, to do little more than wander from one neighborhood to another, there was no time for him to do so, not this time around. San Francisco was not going anywhere. RED and BLU, on the other hand, prided themselves on going places.

Thankfully, once nighttime came, opportunities for plain-view espionage dried up, and he allowed himself to relax. Spy found himself a superb bistro in North Beach, and spent quite a bit more time at windows of shops that had closed for the night – price was no object, but his lady had very specific, particular tastes, and he had worked hard to learn their intricacies. It was a relief to turn his mind to more recreational deductions, and he enjoyed several hours of deriving the contents of closed shops, just from the spread of their window displays.

At the hotel that night, Sniper seized uncharacteristic initiative, more or less demanding that Spy receive the wettest, filthiest, and most exceedingly skilled blowjob he’d had in years. He didn’t even let Spy ready himself, pushing his hands away and nuzzling his crotch, taking each of his balls into his mouth in turn, one after another, wrapping his lips around them and humming, then laughing when Spy started swearing in French. “Fucking hell, keep on with that! Who the hell taught you to do that? It’s fucking magnificent!”

Sniper let Spy’s balls out of his mouth, and trailed his way up Spy’s now-full erection with just his tongue, tracing his way around the head before dipping into the slit. His hands gripped Spy’s hips a little harder when he finally got on with it, taking a bit of Spy into his mouth, then some more, then the rest, until almost all of Spy’s cock was down his throat. From there it didn’t take much time for Spy to finish. When he came to, he smiled at Sniper, and waved him to come on up and join him, and Sniper let himself be pressed down, head resting at the foot of the bed and his feet on the pillows – Sniper’s pillows, thankfully – and his hands came up to rest on Spy’s head and pet his stubble as Spy returned the favor. They still kissed, as they always did, though not for as long as Spy felt was the usual duration. No matter. Sniper let him have the first shower again, and he woke up refreshed. Not terrifically eager, however, but he felt that was warranted. Should he get caught today, death would be one of the more favorable outcomes.

His grand-mère had taught him and his sister much, and taught them well, and still the best advice she ever gave to him was that which he received on the first day he arrived to live with her, something he did his best to follow in every day afterwards: Don’t get caught.

All that there ever was – don’t get caught.

He ordered a light breakfast with only two cups of coffee, and after the first attempt fell flat, avoided any further efforts towards conversation. Sniper hadn’t even made eye contact with the waitress.

“If I may – just how many days does an Australian visa renewal require?”

“Just two.”

“Well, here’s to it being over quickly, at least.” Sniper only grunted in response. “In any case, if it all goes well, I assume we’ll meet back in the room tonight.”

“See y’then.”

“Au revoir.”

“You too.”

If he could have gotten away with it, Spy would have asked for a kiss – for luck, for a farewell, for the simple pleasure of a kiss. He hesitated a moment, almost risking the asking, then stood and left Sniper’s still face behind.

13.

All that there ever was – don’t get caught.

Blending in was easy. He’d not brought along clothing in the appropriate color scheme, but found a set of suitably rumpled pieces at a consignment store the previous day.

If successful, it would be worth it to keep the outfit. Spy knew BLU, like RED, had offices all over the world, and each and every one of them would have something for him, if he only looked. The San Francisco office was mere opportunism. Terrifically risky opportunism. Even a quick walk through the offices under the guise of looking for a particular someone or missing file would benefit him in the future, all the better to give him an idea of what he might expect in New Orleans, Detroit, or Boston. If this particular mission went well, he would be far more prepared for others like it.

All he had to do today was not get caught.

It would be a waste of a perfectly good unplanned, highly risky, and completely unsupported operation to simply pace a circuit around the floors and then leave. Even if there were only six of them. The office looked very much like a BLU base, from the gray concrete exterior, to the sleek shapes of the taps in the men’s lavatory. Not that he had expected anything else.

It struck him as appropriate that the best way to sneak in was to stroll in through the front doors, scuffed briefcase and all, and simply walk past the guards. The secretary required slightly more effort. He stopped to greet her, then stayed to talk about the local baseball team – he could hardly have guessed Scout’s obsession would provide useful in any capacity – and finally disengaging himself when a genuine employee came by and had to enter as well. She waved him on, and he was in.

He could slink around the edges, or he could barge right in. He knew which one would look more suspicious.

Spy took a moment to linger on in the lavatory just off the stairs on the second floor, wash his face and collect his wits and double-check the charge he had on his cloak. Clearing his throat to deepen his voice, he made his way back out into the sea of cubicles, deliberately seeking out one of the more weary-looking workers he could find. The weariest of all would do him no good, but someone nearly there would be more pliable, easier to sway.

Given that the name badge said Barbara, the proper diminutive was never in any doubt. “Hey, Babs.” The woman underneath the bleached-yellow bun sighed, pulled down her glasses, and slowly looked up at Spy. He didn’t give her a chance. “Yeah, I know you’re tired and I know you’re up to your neck in everything, but I can’t find Kelly and I need your help pronto, come on, I don’t have all day.”

“Kelly? Isn’t she –”

“Whatever she is, I can’t find her, and I ain’t going to waste my time looking. I can’t find the file on the Badwater mission, and I needed it for my report yesterday, and I mean that, it’s not a joke. If I get it in by five today I’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, we’ll all be fine, but only if I find the damn file.”

“It should be right where it always is.”

“Then you’d better come along and help me find it, because I already looked twice.” That did the trick, and she got up with a heavy sigh and motioned for him to follow across the floor, to the elevators, up one floor, and right into the file room. She went right to one cabinet, slid a low drawer open and flipped through its contents, and pulled out a rather thick file and handed it over.

“I don’t know what went wrong if you couldn’t –”

“Babs, honey, you’re a lifesaver, trust me, thank you.” Spy didn’t have to fake his smile. “Look, it’s almost lunchtime, you go ahead and take it a little early, I’ll get Mike to give you a hand when you get back. Lifesaver, trust me.”

She blinked, then visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping and her face losing some of the lines that didn’t belong on a woman quite so young. It made him think of Miss Pauling. “Thank you.”

“Go and get yourself a nice sandwich.” Spy waved her off as she left.

Every single piece of paper in the file folder, all sixty-seven of them, were carefully copied and then returned to the cabinet. The contents of another four files followed suit. Spy felt no need to be greedy, just selective, with no need to rush and be sloppy, just quick and thorough. He had gathered intelligence on BLU before, though doing so within their bases was a very different beast than within their offices – there was the permission to be there, as well as the knowledge of what precisely he was looking for to begin with. This was as much learning how to infiltrate as it was obtaining the documents. To learn how to enter, examine, and exit without getting caught.

Perhaps that would be for the best if he left sooner, rather than later. There was no need to be greedy about time when he never had much of it to begin with, and he had already taken quite enough. After he found a Mike – he had yet to find an organization of this size lacking a Mike or the local equivalent – and corralled him into giving Babs some help when she returned, Spy took his leave of the regional office, walking out with his head held high and looking straight ahead, walking as though he belonged there and would be right back after a brief errand. He might well be, now that he knew what it would take. Doing something again was always easier than doing it for the first time, up to and including infiltrating his employer’s sworn enemy.

Fuck, but he needed a drink.

One convenient bar and two vodka shots later, he felt much more prepared to be proud of what he had just done. He would find out soon enough if he had managed to pull it off, agents from one company or the other knocking on his door or following him down an alley – a perfectly rational fear for an accomplished spy, nothing he knew how to live with. It was a given that no plan was ever done perfectly, and yes, he could have simply observed for today as well and stayed in the city on his own after Sniper finished whatever he was involved with at the Australian consulate, and perhaps he should have. But at the same time, no, that would not have gone quite as well. The risk would be lower, and without that same awareness, he might be somewhat more lax, and tempted to dawdle.

Not that speculating further helped, or even mattered, as he had managed to gather together quite a bit of classified information, all of it safely nestled in his briefcase resting against his elbow on top of the bar. Spy didn’t let the briefcase out of his sight or even stop touching it for the rest of the day. It stayed resting against his elbow through the glass of lemonade that helped return him to sobriety, settled on his lap during his late lunch at a small and well-packed tourist spot, gripped by the handle as he lingered over the Vietnamese textile exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. More than once he saw his tattoos stitched within a tapestry, and found himself quite unable to place the feeling.

Spy didn’t let go until he had returned to the hotel room, having spent enough time in the city, never even having needed to use his watch to make a quick getaway. Still, he knew it better to have it and not need it than the alternative. Without reading any of them, he shuffled all the papers into the lining of his suitcase next to his notebook, using pockets he hadn’t had reason to employ before. Then it went back in the closet, as secure as it could be under the circumstances, and when he closed the door he felt something inside his chest untangle just a little bit.

Rather than leave, Spy ordered up an early dinner of something bland and dull, and a glass of wine to go with it. When Sniper returned much later, he only grunted he’d already eaten and disappeared into the water closet without ever looking at Spy – who supposed it had been too much to expect Sniper to take the initiative again. So Spy waited until the shower was well along before finally putting Sniper’s book aside and knocking on the bathroom door.

“Oi, what’s the fuss?” Sniper called over the water.

“Mind if I join you?”

“You can’t wait fifteen bloody minutes? Fine, if y’gotta get in here.”

Spy closed the door behind him and pulled back the shower curtain wearing nothing but a smile. “When I asked if you would mind if I joined you, I meant – good lord, where did those come from?”

“Which ones?” They were all over his torso, his arms, legs, a few on his face – bruises, cuts, abrasions, scrapes, nicks, scratches of all shapes and sizes and colors, what looked like a bite wound on his right arm, a bite from a human intent on holding on. The largest bruise marked Sniper’s lower belly, just to the right of his navel, purple-blue and nearly the size of Spy’s hand. There was another large one, slightly smaller but much darker above and to the left of it, and plenty more besides, some a sickly yellow-green and one a blaze of red. Spy stepped closer to peer at the black eye that’d been hidden by Sniper’s sunglasses.

“All of them. Were you mugged?”

Sniper smiled the smile of one who come out ahead but only just, the smile everyone on the team wore when they’d won a mission by the skin of their teeth with almost no time to spare. The smile of one nearly too far gone to enjoy the victory. “Nah, just finished renewin’ my visa, is all.”

“Fucking-ass whoreson-of-a-bitch, you said fighting but I had no idea the process involved gladiatorial combat.”

“What’d you think it did?”

“I cannot say I gave it much thought. Mon dieu, this is how it’s done?”

“If I want t’do it proper an’ not lose my citizenship or get deported, yeah.” Sniper shrugged. “It’s good for another two years now. Anyway, ya wanted t’join me in here?”

“Yes, yes I had, but – one day you’ll have to tell me how they do things where you come from.”

“Nah, not really.” He smiled again, a much happier one, the smile of one ready to play.

The hotel was quite generous with its bathing tubs, to the point where it wasn’t at all crowded when Spy joined Sniper under the water. This wasn’t something they’d done at any of the bases, too much risk of being caught, and Spy knew from Sniper’s initial reaction to tonight’s proposition this wasn’t something he’d ever done at all. In Spy’s experience, it wasn’t always worth the trouble, especially if one genuinely needed to shower and get clean, but if that wasn’t a concern, it was a very pleasant way to spend a bit of time.

Now that he had been introduced to the concept, Sniper seemed to share that opinion. He smiled and his hands came up to Spy’s head to settle on the stubble, the better for him to rub it, scratch at it slightly, and pull Spy in for a kiss. His mouth was warm, his body was warm, the water was warm, and Spy felt his temperature rising to match the heat in the room.

“You do like your showers hot.”

“I like ’em cold, too.”

“Ah, but of course you do,” Spy teased, tracing his fingers up and down Sniper’s back, mapping out the injuries as gently as possible, all the way down to his ass and grabbing it to give a nice, firm squeeze. He felt Sniper’s cock start to harden, and his as well, so he moved his right hand about to take their cocks and hold them together, to squeeze them closer and let them slide against each other with the water running over them. Sniper’s left hand moved down to his shoulder and held on tight, digging into the muscles usually held tense – it very nearly hurt, and felt good, quite good, precisely because it very nearly hurt. He groaned softly into Sniper’s mouth and received a little mumble in response.

Spy knew better than to rock forward or pull back or anything quite so adventurous enough as to threaten to make them lose their footing in a tub this big. Perhaps in a smaller shower they could have leaned against a wall, as he had often done before. As they weren’t in such a shower, it was far better to keep standing, and use each other for balance. Spy kept stroking them both to full hardness, and then began bringing them both off in earnest. He smiled at the eager sounds Sniper was making – hard and fast was what he wanted, and Spy was happy to make that happen. The water felt magnificent against his skin, washing everything but the two of them away. When Sniper broke the kiss, it was only to press their cheeks together, all the better for him to mutter right into Spy’s ear.

“Spy, yeah, that’s aces, Spy, bloody aces,” he murmured in a steady, low rhythm, rolling his hips for punctuation. It took Spy a moment to match it, to time his own little thrusts just right, and when he did it was even sweeter. In between their bodies it was almost sharp, they were nearly ready, and Spy leaned in and gently bit Sniper’s neck. That was all he needed to cry out and empty himself into Spy’s hand, and Spy only needed a little more before he followed.

They both turned to face the water and wash themselves off. Spy would have liked to linger, but Sniper reached around and shut the water off. The steam remained, filling the room, and with the absence of water and the afterglow still upon him, Spy was left light-headed. He shivered when Sniper stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel and began drying himself off.

“So,” he began. “Now that you’ve finished the process of Australian visa renewal, have you other plans?”

“Why you askin’?”

“It would be possible for me to take a taxi or even public transportation to the airport, if you aren’t –”

“’Cause I was thinkin’ of goin’ up north a bit, maybe up into the hills, out t’the wineries, get outta the city day after tomorrow.”

“Wineries?”

“Yeah, some real nice ones not too far from here.” He tossed Spy a towel.

Much as he wanted to head back to his townhouse and begin the process of extracting the information from the papers he’d acquired that day, Spy knew there was no possible way he would ever consider missing the opportunity to watch Sniper struggle through a wine tasting. “Perhaps I might come along with you, then.”

“Too right.”

“Though – why aren’t you leaving the city tomorrow?”

Sniper shrugged. “Haven’t had my coffee yet.”

“Of course.”

14.

Even fighting traffic, it took Sniper little more than an hour to drive them from Oakland and the greater urban Bay Area to the much more pastoral Napa Valley. During that hour, he and Spy exchanged a grand total of forty-seven words, most of them Spy’s, and all of them within the first fifteen minutes, after which Spy had given up and dedicated himself to watching the scenery. Sniper hadn’t been quite so tight-lipped during the drive from the Manor to California, having slipped back to laconic the previous morning, so Spy felt it was a reasonable guess that his silence was at least somewhat if not totally caused by the visa renewal process. RED had sponsored him through the process of becoming a resident alien, and the ease of the arrangement thereof made him wonder why Sniper hadn’t followed the same path.

Spy knew there was little chance of getting an answer out of Sniper on a day such as this. So he tuned the radio to a station broadcasting out of Berkeley, put his feet up on the dashboard and lit himself a cigarette, and did his best to sit back and enjoy the ride. Sniper didn’t give any indication as to whether or not he cared if there was music playing, which Spy took as an invitation to turn up the volume when the DJ announced an upcoming forty-five minute block of French imports ranging from Pilaf to Brel to Dassin.

Even without the music playing, the clear sunlight and light blue sky, the low, soft hills covered by grasses, the fields which gave way to rows and rows of vineyards would have easily reminded him of certain parts of home. With the music, it was an even more remarkable illusion. He turned the volume down somewhat before rolling down the window and letting some fresh air in. It didn’t seem right to sing along to such cheerful music without an open window, or with stale smoke hanging about.

Sniper refused to give an opinion on the matter, and when he pulled into the parking lot of a small winery, all he did was reach over and turn off the radio and told Spy to roll up his window.

“As you wish, monsieur.”

Once inside, Sniper appeared happy enough to stay silent and follow Spy through the place, as well as his lead through the beginning of their first tasting.

“Sir, would you please remove your sunglasses?”

“Nah.”

“All right, anyway, you know to hold the glass up to the light, see how it passes through? Look for color and clarity.” Their vintner, a small, curly-haired portly man with half-moon glasses, possessed both a great repository of information and an abiding passion for wine, and in addition, patience for dealing with recalcitrant tasters who refused to remove their sunglasses or balaclavas. Spy had no choice but to admire him. “See those streaks on the glass, those are legs.”

Spy already possessed enough knowledge of tastings he didn’t need any coaching, and devoted himself to paying attention to Sniper rather than the man walking them through the process of smelling their wine. He seemed to know what to do as well, or at least follow along without making any crass comments or a glaring faux pas. To his credit, at least he knew he was ignorant enough to ask if he was supposed to spit or swallow.

“So how was it?”

“Quite good. Perhaps more tannic than the majority of whites, but I can see how that would be a quality to appreciate, given the long finish.”

“And you?”

Sniper shrugged. “It wasn’t too bad. Stronger than most white I’ve had, but like he said, it ends all right. It’d hold up to something grilled, a rabbit maybe.”

The vintner nodded to both their answers and Spy hid his surprise over Sniper’s. He didn’t possess the proper vocabulary, didn’t speak of acidity or depth or terroir, but clearly knew how to talk about what he was putting into his mouth. It wasn’t by rote, either – he had something different to say about each of the next five wines they sampled, all of it appropriate and clear he’d picked his words carefully.

“And where were you two thinking of going next?”

“You’ll call ahead and arrange for them to meet us? You’re far too kind.”

“No, no,” he chuckled. “Just thinking that if you don’t have plans and you’d like some recommendations, then there’s a lot of stuff out there I’d like to make sure you avoided. We’re nearly in prime tourist season, and you two wouldn’t be interested in most of what they’ll be after.”

“If you’re willin’.”

“In that case, I’ll just go get a pen.”

“My appreciations.”

Sniper recognized a handful of wineries from both columns by name, and agreed they were either well worth avoiding or seeking out, depending. But that was all else he said to the vintner besides a perfunctory farewell. Spy made sure to bid him one properly, then followed Sniper back to the parking lot. Rather than ask him anything personal, he inquired about the night’s sleeping arrangements.

“If I’m comin’ out here alone, I’ll just sleep on some hill or in the van. Never stayed in a hotel ’round here, so I wouldn’t know what’s good or what’s not worth the time.”

“Would you like to go back inside and ask?”

“Nah.”

“Very well. Onward, then.”

Sniper responded by getting into the driver’s seat and closing the door behind him.

Their next stop was for lunch, a little farther down the road in a small town with no shortage of restaurants. Spy asked, and was unsurprised to find, Sniper didn’t hold an opinion on the matter, so he cheerfully settled on picking one suited to his tastes and forcing Sniper to make a second circuit of the town for Spy’s entertainment. If doing so bothered him, he refused to display any sign of it. His stoicism was just as entertaining as anger or frustration, and even more fascinating to watch, especially when taking other people’s reactions into account. The poor, beleaguered waitress seemed so put-upon by Sniper’s lack of friendliness Spy felt it was imperative that he flirt with her in order to put a smile on that tired face.

That such flirting would also tell him just how well he knew Sniper, or thought he knew him, was simply a bonus. And they told Spy he didn’t quite know Sniper as well as he wanted.

They’d picked an outdoor table next to the wall, Spy facing the restaurant door and Sniper facing the street, and there were enough patrons to give them a bit of cover. Spy asked Sniper if he ever let himself forget, even for a while, and received a strong negative answer.

“It is rather difficult to give up a learned instinct. Such things serve to keep you alive, and who would want to leave such a thing behind.”

“Some cartoon, I’d guess.”

“Yes, whatever that is. Anyway, once – oh, yes, hello.”

Their waitress smiled at him and avoided looking at Sniper, who was still slouched in his chair and staring at the light that fell through the water and landed on the table. “Here you go, one aubergine omelet, one grilled chicken sandwich.”

“Merci.”

She giggled, very briefly. “Thank you.”

“She does seem nice,” Spy said as she left.

“Suppose she does,” Sniper said, straightening up and leaning in to start on his meal.

Spy shrugged and took a bite of his own. He chewed that first bite for only a moment before stopping, then simply held it on his tongue to make sure he could place the taste. “Oh, mon dieu.”

“Somethin’ the matter?”

“Non, the opposite.” Spy took another bite, chewed it even more slowly, and found it to be so. “These – these are very good eggs.”

“Yeah, they do good food out here.” Sniper resumed eating his sandwich.

“You mean, this entire region.”

“Yeah.”

Spy had not tasted truly good eggs since he’d left France, close to thirteen years. After his first year in the United States, he abandoned his search for them, and outside of a rare, vague hope of competence on the part of the chef, had given up eating them as well. But this aubergine omelet – it tasted like eggs. Proper eggs that tasted as though they’d come from hens who’d scratched the dirt and eaten insects once grain became too scarce, hens that were worth more to hungry children alive than dead, even when the new government relaxed by a fraction and allowed purely religious public ceremonies so long as they were not used as displays of national pride in any sense or capacity. A roasted hen would have done wonders for those hungry children’s morale, even if they would never have participated in such ceremonies, but then that hen would never have served Spy and his sister eggs ever again.

He took another bite and closed his eyes, and let himself remember.

It was gone faster than he would have liked, even forcing himself to take his time and savor. The aubergines had been cooked to perfection as well, nearly surprising in their silkiness, adding a lovely bit of saltiness to the rest of the dish. He would have been perfectly happy to remain seated for a while longer, savor some coffee and shake the chef’s hands, but when their waitress returned, Sniper grabbed the moment to ask for the check before Spy could speak up. Sniper then literally grabbed the check when their waitress returned with it before either she or Spy expected him to move. Spy tried not to laugh at Sniper’s outburst of emotion, and it took her a long moment to regain her composure. It seemed even more important that he flirt with her again to rouse her spirits, and Spy made sure to slip a little more to her tip when they left without Sniper noticing.

They drove in silence accompanied by the radio for close to half an hour until Sniper declared they’d nearly arrived at their next destination. The second winery of the day – and Spy managed to successfully argue it into being the last winery of the day, the better to savor each wine without tiring themselves, largely by dint of Sniper not arguing any position in return – was much more crowded than the first, with a group of nearly a dozen individuals just outside the front doors wrapped up in a lecture from their tour guide. Sniper pushed his way past them, and Spy followed in his wake. There were yet more tourists inside, and though the space was suited for all of them and more, Spy had no desire to share it with any of them.

While wineries had not been present in his childhood, large wooden buildings he had sneaked away to with no one else about had been a major feature of the autumns of those five years in the countryside. During the summers he had shared them with his sister, but in autumn, it had been far easier to slip away alone for a little while, a skill which continued to serve him well. This Californian winery was nothing like those French barns, built for entirely different purposes, and shared only the most superficial qualities of being made of wood, possessing tall ceilings, and allowing him to be small and alone in silence.

After nearly an hour of his self-guided tour through the processing facilities, past the great barrels and the prodigious, subtle smell of the angel’s share, he made his way back to the main public areas. The hour seemed to have been enough time for Sniper to rouse some energy to devote to speech, as Spy found him drinking a small sample of a light red and engaging in limited conversation. It tasted much richer than it looked, and Spy first quieted himself to give Sniper a better opportunity to speak, then gave himself over to a conversation with their vintner regarding terrior. When he asked, she took a few minutes to explain the word’s layers of meaning to Sniper, and there were a pair of times during her lecture when Spy very nearly smiled.

“There’s a lot of debate about it, and how far it goes, and it’s not something that’s ever going to be settled. But you know how much it can mean.”

“Well put, love.”

“And you two, well. You would.” From nearly anyone else, that would have come off as crass at best. It was her tone of utter honesty reflected in her face – very nearly the same age as the vintner from the morning, with similarly curly hair pulled into a bun suiting a woman of her years – that kept it from being so. “I was born here, just over in Sonoma, and I could go on for ages about it. I’m sure you two could.”

“Oh, please, do not get this man started. Yes to that, though.”

“And where are you two from? I know France, but saying France is like saying Canada, there’s more to it than just the famous cities.”

“Quite right, mon chéri. Bléville, in western Normandy.”

“I’ve been through Lorraine and Alsace, but not to there.”

“Both fine places.”

“And you?”

“Leeds.”

Spy fought to keep from showing any reaction. After they bid her farewell and began walking away, Spy asked, “Leeds?”

“As good an answer as any.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is. But after all the trouble you went through just two days ago, why was it that you didn’t tell her you’re Australian?”

Sniper looked to Spy, staring at him as though that would help him parse out the words. His mouth twitched, in anger or another emotion, Spy honestly could not tell. Then Sniper burst into laughter. It began small enough, the sniggering he did sometimes and then the laugh he used when dominating a BLU, and then grew in volume and size to become the deep, honest, manic laughter of a person who had just heard one of the most absurd things in the world and could do nothing but laugh.

He was still laughing a full minute later, and Spy began to worry for both Sniper and the attention he was beginning to attract to them.

“Oh, Spy.” Sniper finally stopped when he ran out of breath, slapping a hand against his chest. “Oh, that’s a good one.” He clapped a hand to Spy’s shoulder and let out a low wheeze, as though he was trying to muster up the energy for still one more laugh. “Just tell ’em I’m Australian, that’s a bloody good one.”

“I…”

“C’mon, let’s see what else they’ve got ’round here.” If nothing else, whatever it was that had just happened had done wonders to help make him more willing to tolerate the presence of other individuals. He still kept himself silent and his face still, but his posture and manner betrayed his feelings. It continued through their evening, all the way to them finding a suitable hotel for the night.

It was entirely unimaginable and outside of his vast realm of experience that he would ever lie and claim to be from Switzerland or Belgium. Spy held too much pride in his motherland, too much love for dear Marianne, for le coq gaulois. He knew Sniper to be fiercely patriotic as well, to the point where he had gotten into several fistfights with Demoman regarding British imperialism. Parsing out why it was Sniper kept his homeland private would not be easy, not with what he already knew.

When Sniper came out of the shower clean, naked, and smiling, Spy felt it would not be an unreasonable course of action to wait on parsing it out for at least the rest of the night. Being treated to a view of that fine ass while he bent over and rummaged through his small bag for the tube of KY – there was no need for a traveling suitcase when he had the entire back of his van – was a treat in and of itself. They fucked gently, but strongly enough to leave them tired, sticky, and sweaty, to the point where Spy was tempted to indulge in a second shower. He fell asleep easily, and the next day, ordered another omelet for breakfast – peppers instead of aubergines, cooked perfectly to that point of still being soft with just a little bite left to them, with eggs still tasting of eggs.

Spy initially turned down the idea of another winery so soon after breakfast, but when Sniper mustered the enthusiasm to argue for one, he only briefly considered turning down the invitation. Rather than begin within the winery itself, Spy charmed a two-man tour of the vineyard out of their assigned guide even after being assured it was restricted this time of year. He always enjoyed such challenges.

The sun rose quickly through the June morning, and Spy soon folded his jacket over his arm – it wasn’t yet terrifically hot, but with few breezes and no clouds, the day promised to reach such temperatures as the ones he had experienced at Ravine and Hightower. Of course Sniper didn’t mind, and when Spy told him it could reach upwards of thirty-seven Celsius by midday, he seemed downright pleased, even after Spy pointed out such temperatures were unusual for this climate in June.

“It won’t be kind to the grapes,” Spy said.

“It’ll be good for ’em. Strain ’em some, gets the flavor stronger.”

“That’s ninety-eight Fahrenheit, right? Say, that won’t be too bad, we can break a hundred, hundred-two in August.”

Spy began to consider the possibility that perhaps the tour hadn’t been the best plan he had yet made, given the perpetual and aggressive cheerfulness of the guide even while he broke the rules. Though as Spy soon found himself with opportunities to speak with the field hands and practice both his Spanish and Vietnamese in quick succession, he could hardly call the morning wasted.

“And you miss it, Vietnam?”

“Less than I used to. It’s been – damn, it’s been close to twenty years. I mean, of course I do, it’s always going to be where I came from – but California’s where I live now, and it’s where my children were born. Twenty years, damn.”

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

“Now that the war’s over, maybe. But it’s still a mess. I read the papers, I watch the news, maybe in a few years when it gets quieter. It’s not home for my children, it’s – it’s the motherland, you know? Even if they weren’t born there, it’s their motherland.”

“Yes. Always, there’s always the motherland.”

“Always. I think if I knew that it was really safe, I’d go back for a while if I had the money. But – it’s the motherland, but California is home.” He sighed and offered Spy a drink from his canteen. Sweet lime and lemongrass cut through the water, flavors that ran like knives over Spy’s dry tongue. “I won’t be going back to the Vietnam I left. And it’s almost as though if I never go back, I’ll never find out it’s changed.”

“I know how that can be.” He cleared his throat as Sniper and their guide approached. “Well, thank you for the water and conversation.”

“No problem,” he smiled and went back to his vines.

Perhaps it was the language he so rarely had reason to use, or flavors he didn’t often taste, that had him thinking of things which weren’t present. It was a dangerous way of thinking for a spy – it kept him from being as aware of his surroundings as he needed to be to operate to the best of his abilities. Yet, perhaps, in rare instances where he had someone else to keep his eyes open for dangers, someone who knew to sit with his back to the wall and facing the door, it could be allowed for short periods of time.

“What’s it you got there?” Sniper asked.

Spy sighed and put the little jar of marjoram back on the shelf. “Just a little wistfulness.” The little main street shop stocked no small amount of goods produced by local farms, some of which they had sampled at the winery during their earlier lunch. Sniper himself had purchased several skeins of fine sheep’s-wool yarn that had come from a nearby ranch. “I can’t help but think how fine it would be to cook with these herbs, and how rare it is to be stationed at a base with anything close to a reasonable kitchen.”

Sniper nodded. “There any reason you can’t take ’em with you?”

“Space, for one. Packing a suitcase is simple enough but taking several jars of herbs into consideration would be more trouble than it would be worth, even for the end results.”

“That’ll be right.” He looked across the shelf, then without turning to Spy, asked, “There any reason I can’t take some of ’em for you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Few a’these wouldn’t take up too much space, an’ I could spare a bit of room in the back. Wouldn’t be much of a fuss t’find a decent place t’keep ’em from rattlin’ about.”

From the angle he was standing at, to his side and just a little behind, Spy could see the edges of the bruise around Sniper’s eye, and no movement at all at the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t bring himself to wonder. “Now that you mention it – no, I cannot think of a reason you could not take a few of these. Except perhaps I might overindulge in your generosity.”

“No worries, I’ll give you the drum if it’s too much.”

“Merci, mon faucon.”

He selected a bare half-dozen, nothing as fancy as tarragon and dill, merely staples like sage and parsley. It was something of a struggle to force himself to stop after the bay leaves – he knew Sniper would tell him if it was too much, but it would be easier to stop rather than winnow down. There was no need to be greedy.

The following day, with temperatures just as high as the day before, Spy was more than happy to have the morning alone and indoors while Sniper saw to his own entertainment outside. There were enough galleries and bookstores to keep occupied, as well as a particularly knowledgeable cheesemonger who had been happy to give Spy a discount on his lunch in exchange for the conversation. He ate in the public park in the shade of native oaks, welcoming the scant breezes, smoking carefully and calming the growing restlessness with the promise that he would be on his way back to New York and his research soon enough. There was nothing forcing him to stay if he did not wish to remain.

Sniper returned when the afternoon was nearly gone, insisting that Spy come with him for the remainder of the day and unwilling to accept any alternative. Spy allowed himself be taken along, this time out of the town entirely, past vineyards, and away up into the foothills with the sun behind them. And again, the same Berkeley radio station filled the silence as they drove, building up the illusion that nothing seemed to be able to keep in check. Spy was fully ready to admit that this time about, he brought it on himself. There were excuses he could make to justify his behavior, and he knew the foolishness of believing any of them, from the reasonable to the ridiculous to the sublime. Better to face reality. The radio was playing good music, and if it reminded him of home, as did the landscape Sniper took them through, such were his current circumstances. Eventually the station petered out, too much static and interference, and Spy shut it off for them to continue in full silence.

Sniper accepted the cigarette Spy offered without even a grunted thank-you. He continued driving for close to three-quarters of an hour, moving through the van’s gears and ignoring the continued rocking movements, driving from paved road to unpaved road to a pair of dirt paths snaking through the grass before finally stopping and announcing they were here – ‘here’ being a spot Spy was unable to distinguish from any other patch of the trail near the edge of a hillside until he followed Sniper up the ladder to sit atop the roof of the van facing west.

“Think you’d a’been happier stayin’ behind and mopin’ about?”

“Mon cher, I would not have moped about, as you say. Such behavior is far beneath me.” He didn’t turn to look at Sniper, and kept his eyes on the sunset. “Perhaps I might have taken a bottle of wine all to myself and turned in early, but I would have done so with decorum and respectability, not –”

“Right, thanks for the reminder. Be back in a tick.” Sniper climbed down the ladder and into his van, and Spy pulled off his balaclava as he listened to Sniper rummaging about. He unfortunately did not make enough noise for Spy to guess what he was looking for, though he didn’t leave Spy much time to wonder, as he handed Spy a bottle of wine before climbing up to join him a moment later, sunglasses left behind. The bottle was from the second winery they’d visited on this little vacation, and he knew Sniper had gone back and purchased it earlier in the day without any need to ask if that was in fact the case.

“Are we to swig it right from the bottle?” As an answer, Sniper handed him a plain, unadorned version of Sniper’s own personalized coffee mug, chipped here and there from years and travel. He took it gingerly, tracing a finger around the rim. “I take it this is the best you have.”

“Don’t usually have guests about,” Sniper said, uncorking the bottle and pouring Spy a generous amount. “No reason to keep anything fancy.”

“A drastic oversight on your part. One must always be prepared for this sort of eventuality.”

“Having a nice glass of wine?”

“Having a nice glass of wine with the man who fucks you.”

“Well, next time I’ll have somethin’ a bit more poncy, you snotty little nance.”

“I look forward to it.” Spy took a sniff of the wine as best he could out of the ceramic mug. “It’s the Grenache, isn’t it?”

“You liked that one best.”

“Indeed I did. Ah, smoke, some cassis…”

“Good legs on it.”

“A fine selection.”

“Cheers.” The mugs made a dull clink when they tapped them together, and Spy returned Sniper’s faint little smile.

“To life.” It was not a toast he made often, and was very nearly without precedent. When he had opportunities to toast, they were rarely times when that one in particular had been appropriate to the situation. Having such an opportunity out here and so far from home sent a thrill through him that the wine followed perfectly.

As the day slowly departed, the cooler temperatures promised earlier finally began to arrive, a gentle breeze rustling the tall dry grasses around the van. They were too gentle to rustle the clouds, which kept on of their own accord, spread thin across the lowest portion of the sky, barely reaching a hands-breadth above the far hills. Not a solid mass parallel to the horizon, not with the sun bursting through them off to their left, too bright to look at head-on but instead out of the corner of the eye. The riotous whites and yellows shifting to a thousand shades of red cutting between the lines of clouds, melting into the light, solid blue of the sky above, a light blue that moved to dark, then black, as nighttime followed the sun as it dipped beneath the horizon. But at the rate it was going, it wouldn’t be nighttime for a good while yet.

Sniper poured him another mug of wine, then finished off his own and gave himself another. Spy watched him take a long drink, and then stare out at some point beyond the clouds before he finally gave voice to his thoughts. “’Preciate you comin’ out here tonight.”

“My dear bushman, had I known this was what you wished to share to me, I would not have protested in the least.”

“I’m jus’ real glad you came.”

For Sniper, a man who waited a year to ask for a fuck, that was quite the admission. “Well. I am as well. I find that I enjoy myself whenever I am with you.”

“Yeah, the same. It’s – I like bein’ alone with you.” He took a sip and Spy followed suit. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Sniper said, “You asked me why I left home once, while back.”

“Oh? Yes, I suppose I did, quite some time ago.”

“It’s like home out here.” Sniper gestured with his free hand across the landscape. “I don’t mean th’people, jus’ that it’s someplace what almost looks like it looks sometimes back home, here an’ there.”

“I’ve noticed that as well.”

“Most people back home, they don’t – they don’t really know themselves. These bloody cartoons, thinkin’ they’re the dinkum Aussies, they never give a toss about anythin’ outside of the little world they’ve got just for themselves. All those ockers with their shorts an’ moustaches, all of ’em up themselves – if that’s what people think of when they think of Australia, Australians, then I’m ashamed t’say, and it’s – look, Australia’s my homeland. It means somethin’ t’me t’be from there. Those cartoons, you can’t talk about anythin’ sensible t’any of the bastards, it’s always just shit, nothin’ real to it, nothing’s real t’them. They’ve got no deep, real feelings ’bout anything, jus’ what goes on in those cities. Those cities – that’s their Australia. But it isn’t mine.”

Parsing out Sniper’s slang always took a moment, longer when he was feeling slightly drunk. “Yet it means so much to you, and you keep it private.”

“Like there ain’t anythin’ you don’t share.”

“I didn’t leave France by choice.” Sniper dipped and turned his head to face Spy, a question in his eyes. “When a spy’s services are no longer needed, sometimes they are given a pension check, but sometimes what happens is they are burned – forcibly removed from their agency, all contacts severed, their entire history gone in a puff of smoke.” He set aside his mug and pulled out his cigarettes, knowing he needed one to continue. After it was lit and he’d taken a bracing hit, he went on. “Such was my rather unfortunate fate, made far worse for not knowing the reason I was burned, and no longer having access to the channels and personnel that could tell me why.” He lit a cigarette for Sniper and handed it over. “RED promised me they would reinstate me when the war ended, should I desire my position.”

“Can they do that?”

“At this point, I do not doubt that they can do anything.”

“All I wanted from ’em was a chance t’get away for a while.”

“You couldn’t simply have left.”

“That ain’t how we do things down under.”

“You really must tell me how they do things where you come from sometimes.”

“Nah, I really don’t.”

Spy laughed, and blew a perfect smoke ring. Sniper smiled, and blew a stream of smoke right through it.

“This region reminds me of my home, as well.”

“You don’t say.”

“Oh, I do, mon cœur, I do.”

“An’ ain’t that th’way of the world. Findin’ home where it ain’t supposed to be, leavin’ you wonderin’ just where you are.”

“Dépayser.”

“You want a dispenser?”

“Non, dépayser. It means…” He ground out the cigarette on the heel of his shoe before flicking it away. “It means, oh, the feeling of not being in one’s home. The strange feelings that come from being so far away from the motherland.”

“Good word.” Sniper licked his fingers and snuffed out his cigarette.

“It has its uses.”

He sighed, rested his chin on his hand and looked at the last rays of light peeking out from over the horizon, the sun entirely gone from view now. “Got a lot a’meanin’ packed into one little word.”

“I would not call it particularly little, but otherwise yes.”

“Like terroir.”

“Oui.”

“It’d be nice t’know a few more like it.” Still without looking at Spy, he asked, “Don’t suppose you could teach me some, could you?”

“Are – my apologies, but did you just ask me for language lessons?”

“Reckon I just did.”

Laughing into his palm, he couldn’t bring himself to even blush. “Oh, oh no, no.” Spy took a breath and kept chortling. “I am afraid I cannot –”

“Afraid I’m gonna know what you’re sayin’ when you talk dirty t’me? That what you’re afraid of? Afraid I’ll know when you’re callin’ me a soufflé or somethin’?”

“You must be joking.”

“Why’d I be joking?”

“For one, I’d never call you a soufflé, and another, we’ve both been drinking. But – no, you don’t sound like you are. So, to make sure, you are being serious, and want me to teach you French.”

“Yeah, I would.”

“Very well, then, let us start tomorrow.”

“Not tonight?”

“My dear, darling bushman, I would rather wake up in a bed than a van,” Spy said as he pulled on his balaclava.

That seemed to satisfy Sniper, and soon enough they were winding their way out of the hills down into the valley, somehow beginning their lessons early after Sniper recognized the song Spy had been humming, and insisted he teach him the lyrics that he might join him in singing. It quickly became an exercise in proper phonemes and tone, something Spy approached with equal parts amusement and frustration. Dassin deserved quite a bit better.

“Au soleil.”

“Ah solee.”

“Au soleil.”

“Au solee.”

“Au soleil.”

“In the sun.”

“In the sun. Yes, very good. Now, under the rain.”

“Soo la pleeh.”

“Sous la pluie.”

“Soo la pleeh.”

“Sous. Sous. Sous la pluie.”

“Soo la pleeh.”

“When we get back to the hotel I expect a blowjob of superb quality. I want nothing less than your absolute peak of skill as an admittedly very skilled and talented cocksucker, something to leave me wrung-out and sore from coming so hard after fucking your dirty, filthy mouth, and I expect you to give it to me happily after everything you’re doing to Dassin.”

“I ain’t gonna even try repeatin’ that.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. Sous.”

“Sous.”

“Very good. Now, sous la pluie.”

“Sous la pleeh.”

“La pluie.”

“La pluee.”

Spy rolled his head around to stare out the window at the stars overhead. He rolled the window down and let the breeze come in, and took in a deep breath of the scent of the countryside, of the soils and the grasses and the land which was almost home for them both, so very close, and he looked to see Sniper opening his window and taking a deep breath as well. Spy leaned back, rested his feet on the dashboard.

“Au soleil, sous la pluie.”

“In the sun, under the rain.”

“Very good.”

“What’s thank-you?”

“Merci.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Now, the next line: À midi ou à minuit.”

“Ah meedee.”

“À midi.”

“Ah meedee.”

15.

After Dassin’s lyrics served Spy’s purpose of giving Sniper a brief lesson in enunciation and elocution – not nearly enough for Spy’s taste, but enough to lay the foundation – he moved onto the basics of the language’s construction while Sniper drove him to the airport.

“It’s the descriptor which comes second nearly every time – let us start by saying every time, we can discuss exceptions after we know the rules. Since the descriptor comes second, you cannot say something such as ‘le rouge vin’ because that would be utter nonsense. Instead, ‘le vin rouge’. Additionally, each object has a gender, so you can know how to describe it correctly. First the gender, then the description, the first changes the second so they all follow.”

“There anything that doesn’t get a sex?”

“No, everything does.”

“All things an’ places, but what if I say he ran, or he fucked, then would that make a difference, that I’m talkin’ ’bout a man?”

“Verbs we will do another time, let’s not get ahead –”

Spy stopped in surprise and sudden worry. He didn’t know American vehicles as well as he knew European ones, but he’d never heard a ringing beeping noise coming from the dashboard that started without warning to be a good thing.

“Oh, piss.” Sniper shifted gears, pulled over and parked by the side of the highway, with the ringing beeping noise still going after they’d stopped. “Sorry, I gotta take this.” He reached over Spy’s lap, opened the glove compartment, pulled out a small black object roughly the size of two packs of cigarettes, and began tapping his fingers against it. The ringing stopped, and he brought it up to his ear and started to talk. “Yeah, hello. Speaking.” He carried out a conversation with the object over the next few minutes that Spy guessed, from the half he heard regarding account statements and recent balances, involved his financial status and the current international exchange rate. When it was over, Sniper tapped the object a few times again, then sighed.

“And what, precisely, is that?”

“This?” He looked at the object in a rather puzzled manner. “Oh, it’s a mobile.”

“A mobile what?”

“Mobile phone. You know, a phone you can carry with you.”

“Yes, I do know.” Spy had seen Miss Pauling’s portable telephone a number of times, but that was an elaborate, boxy device, nothing like the compact thing Sniper evidently used. “Where did you get it?”

Sniper shrugged. “Australia.”

“Of – of course you did. May I see it?”

“Sure.” It looked like a tiny computer screen without anything attached, with a trio of miniscule buttons across a small portion of what Spy assumed to be the bottom side. Not that it necessarily could be said to have one – as he moved it in his hands, the words and images on the screen rotated with the rest of the object. He tapped and stroked the screen with his fingers, watching with fascination as the images responded to the touches, and he pulled off a glove to see if he could feel anything correspond to the movements.

“This is – this is a telephone.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“How on Earth did you manage get it through customs?”

“It’s just a phone, mate. Checked it with the rest of my luggage, just let it come on through.”

“Just a phone.”

“Yeah.” Sniper reached towards him, and Spy had to force himself to hand it over.

“Just a phone? That is the single most elegant piece of technology I believe I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a bit, and you say it is just a phone?”

“Well, yeah.” He poked the buttons and the screen went dark, and he put it back in the glove compartment. “I guess since it takes pictures, too, you could say it’s also a camera.”

“It takes pictures.”

“An’ shoots some video, runs a few little programs, keeps a calendar, got a little web browser, not much. Nothin’ too fancy.”

“Nothing…what the fucking-ass whore shit balls do you consider fancy?”

“Somethin’ the matter?” Sniper didn’t look to Spy as he began driving. “Look, like I said, it’s just a phone. Ain’t even a new one, just the one I got when I left home. Even then I’d had it ’bout two years.”

“You don’t say.” Even though he was seated, Spy felt his knees go weak.

“Yeah, they keep comin’ out with new ones every year, an’ I might get one of ’em one of these days, but I’ll be honest, it’d be nearly too much fuss t’deal with.” He shifted gears as they picked up speed. “Shippin’ it from back home’s a cost, takes weeks, an’ swappin’ out the old sim card’s always a trick.”

“I believe I will take your word for it.” Spy glanced out the window, and the upcoming sign declared they had reached nearly halfway to the airport. “And you could not get someone at the consulate to do it for you?”

“Nah, I’ll jus’ see to it myself once I get ’round to it.”

“Of course you will.”

Sniper asked they move back to language lessons, and Spy spent the remainder of the trip explaining the principles of masculine and feminine while keeping his eyes firmly on the road in front of the van.

When he returned to his townhouse that night, any time he might have spent wondering about the contents of Sniper’s glove compartment was instead devoted to the untangling of BLU’s stolen intelligence. There was only so much energy for so many mysteries. Three days was barely enough to scratch the surface of the documents, especially when he had nearly three weeks’ worth of newspapers waiting for him at the post office, but it was still enough to lay the groundwork to continue after his return from Mountain Lab. Knowing it was a mission that would be over in twelve days or less helped the waiting.

Thanks to some train delays in leaving New York, he was the last to arrive on the base. After greeting nearly everyone else and picking out his room – and thankfully this was a base designed for more paranoid civilians, with every room in the dormitories possessing locks – he went to find Sniper, and found him with the other teammate he hadn’t yet seen.

“Did you even ask what was wrong with it, or why the old owners wanted to sell, or anything?”

“No.”

“For fuck’s sake, Sniper. Oh, hey Spy.”

They both waved to him, and Sniper looked back to Pyro. “Look, I appreciate all this, but I ain’t askin’ for a lecture, all I wanna know is –”

She wiped her gloved hand on the front of her suit, doing little to clean either one. “Yes, I know what’s wrong, yes, I can fix this. It’s just your fan belt, and if I had a replacement it’d be running perfectly by tonight, but the best I can do with what we’ve got here is get it to where it won’t fucking explode on you when you drive another fifty miles. Jesus, have you ever talked to anyone about your van?”

“I figure they’re professionals, I’d best leave it to ’em. It ain’t like I can’t afford it.”

“This isn’t about how much it fucking costs to replace a goddamn fan belt, it’s knowing you need the goddamn fan belt and not having to go and just take some fucker’s word for it. There’s a fuckton of dishonest mechanics out there, and I’ve heard my share of bullshit and trust me, you don’t need to fall for it if you have even the faintest fucking idea how your goddamn engine works. Just call ahead to some shop somewhere so you can get this fucking fixed when the mission’s over. Tell them exactly what’s wrong, tell them exactly the part you need, and don’t fall for any bullshit about what you won’t need– if you need me there when you make the call, I can be there.”

“You can’t make it?”

She snorted out a laugh and shook her head. “You’re a fucking guy. They’ll trust you even through you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about before they’ll trust me. Believe me on that.”

“You sure I can’t just get Truckie to whip somethin’ up?”

“Yes, I’m sure you can’t get Engie to whip something up.”

“Why is our dear Laborer not present for this discussion?”

“I asked him, an’ he said t’get Pyro.”

“Just because he’s got a fucking PhD in mechanical engineering doesn’t mean he knows how to fix everything. Engie drives a 1944 Chevy pickup and Sniper drives a 1965 Land Rover. I’ve worked on both, and I know what I’m fucking talking about here. He just needs a new fan belt. Most garages have them in stock. We’ve got enough time before BLU gets here and the shit hits the fan for you to make a call.”

“I do not see how that could be a problem – I assume you could make such a call right here and now, if you liked.”

“Does he know where to fucking call? Do you? If you did I’d be pretty fucking impressed.”

“Nah, but I know we got a yellow pages inside an’ I can just check that for somethin’.”

“Good. You need me there for you?”

“I’ll let you know, how’s that sound?”

“Fucking a.” They shook hands, and she left for the base. Sniper closed the roof of the engine, then turned around to lean against it by his elbows and sigh.

“Did you ask Engineer?”

“I told you, mate, I asked him first an’ he just said t’get Pyro.”

“She does know what she is talking about when it comes to vehicles. Perhaps it is worth a small bit of verbal harassment to get a trustworthy answer.”

“Usually is.”

They chatted a bit longer, planning to fuck in Spy’s room that night, and Spy disengaged to find Engineer, who had set up his workshop in one of the locked-down research rooms. When asked, he told Spy it had the most electrical sockets, and relit the blowtorch to prove his point. Spy moved to stand behind him.

“I trust that you did all you could before calling upon Pyro’s services for Sniper’s van.”

“Well, when he asked me t’take a look I was busy gettin’ this set up, but I knew for a fact Pyro was otherwise unoccupied, an’ there’s no sense in wasting anyone’s time.”

“Indeed there isn’t. For someone as devoted to machinery as our sharpshooter, he does not see fit to care for anything that is not a firearm of some kind.”

Engineer turned off the blowtorch and flipped up his visor to examine his handiwork. “That’d be somethin’ you’d have t’ask him about.”

“He has complained about problems with his telephone, though. Perhaps you might be able to provide some aid.”

“His phone?”

“Ah, oui, a portable telephone.”

“You mean like the one Miss Pauling’s got?”

“Something much like hers, yes. You seem knowledgeable about fine communication devices such as that.”

“Well, thank you. I suppose I could see about askin’ him what’s giving him reason t’complain t’you.”

“I have no doubt he would appreciate the gesture.”

Spy made sure to couch his words in such a way as to make sure Engineer would not lead Sniper back to him, and to remain present when Sniper allowed Engineer to handle his phone for the first time. It was one of the more roundabout schemes for petty revenge Spy had ever engaged in, and still one with a very swift payoff – Engineer’s face was a wonder to behold, but it was his continual pestering to see the device and Sniper’s nerves wear thin that left Spy feeling satisfied. And perhaps it was not particularly fair, as he held many things close to his vest as well. But then, near-contraband communication devices decades ahead of the rest of the world’s capabilities were things which their owners should have known to share with individuals possessing an interest in such things.

It certainly would have made Spy’s life easier on any number of occasions, knowing what number to call. Even without knowing the number, knowing that there was one to begin with – that alone would have been enough.

16.

Spy wiped his knife on the BLU Engineer’s corpse before sliding it back into its sheath and putting on the Engineer’s face – he had close to fifteen minutes before the man returned to exact revenge and each of them counted, sapping the second-level sentry before moving on to make use of them. Snow did not make stealth impossible, only far more difficult than it was worth, as turning invisible did no good when he was followed everywhere by a trail of footprints. When stationed at a base like Coldfront, it was far easier to run towards the enemy while disguised as one of their own, fooling the sentry into letting the BLU Demoman run past, the Engineer with screams about the RED Sniper, and get behind him and clear the way that his own team’s Demoman might follow after and continue the work.

The BLU Pyro taking no notice of its teammate’s breath not being visible in the cold air was only to Spy’s advantage. So much the better to gain its trust, then sneak up and dispatch it with a quick and neat headshot before Sniper could take it out himself.

“Could you at least drop th’face? It’s bloody weird t’hear you speakin’ from it.”

“And is that how we say thank-you?”

Sniper sighed, turned away to look at the battlefield, and then answered, “Thank you.”

Three years of lessons, and his accent still sounded like he’d just begun. “You are quite welcome. And…”

“And please take off the mask.”

“No, I need to keep it on for now. But if you do not want to ask politely, then –”

The crack of Sniper’s rifle rang out, followed by a round of laughter. “Take that, ya one-eyed drunk!” As he reloaded, still not looking to Spy, “Why wouldn’t I want t’ask politely?”

“Since we fuck, that allows us to be somewhat more casual in our conversations.”

“Because we fuck, I need to stay polite.”

“Is that how they do things where you come from? Are you worried – oh, son-of-a-bitch!” There was just enough time to dodge the worst of the BLU Pyro’s detonator, and Sniper had to abandon his perch and Spy had to dash out back to the battlefield, back to the second point, breaking up the BLU formations from behind the lines. Another ten days of this, without even the time to take a decent piss, barely any time to stay warm. His two uppermost tattoos saw to that for him, only asking for all the music he heard while they did their favors – the kitchen on their half of the base had a working radio that was often used in the mornings, and to Spy, it was only so much noise. He considered it a fair trade to keep from being cold, though it kept him from being warm as well. His tattoos just keep him. They had kept him in the heat before and they kept him in the cold now, as nearly everyone else wished to be back in Goldrush.

There was a slight thaw that evening followed by another snowfall, and the new surface creaked as Spy sprinted to get inside, leaving footprints in the wake of the BLU Heavy – only to find the BLU Engineer happened to be just inside, camping at the second point with his team’s Pyro, both waiting for someone such as himself to come along. It had been his team’s plan to let Spy slip past and usurp the final point, cripple BLU’s foothold, but that could well come later rather than sooner. One or the other he could manage alone, but on a day like this, both were too much to ask for. Better to offer what support he could to Medic and Heavy as they defended the point in the middle of the fort, rather than sneak past those two today, not without offensive reinforcements.

Despite their strong start and initial pushes towards victory, the mission did not end well for his team. Four days before the prescribed end to their time in the mountains, BLU managed to breach his team’s defenses, rising forth as he had rarely seen them do, rallying around and blasting through everything thrown at them, and in just a scant few hours of lunatic battle frenzy they undid all the good that his team had managed. RED barely had time to throw their suitcases together before they dashed out.

Spy found himself oddly grateful Sniper hadn’t driven in, as it meant they could share a bench on the train. Sniper didn’t deign to speak, but then, no one else did either, so that was all right. He no longer needed any favors from his tattoos, and Sniper was quite warm – it was nice to feel warmth again, more so when it came from another body, especially coming from him.

Additionally, while there hadn’t been much time to do any proper work or research, on the fifth day he had managed to find a cache of documents in an unsecured desk drawer. That they were outside his areas of expertise was no matter. He had read them, and could recall them later when he had the necessary time.

Sniper stared out the window, at the clear Northern stars, at the snow slowly disappearing as they moved down the mountain. Spy nudged him, and he took the offered cigarette.

“Is something bothering you?”

“Yes. We lost.”

“Such things happen.”

“I know it happens. I don’t like it.”

“I would think that after all this time and so many missions you’d have gotten used to disappointment.”

“What’d you just say?”

“Disappointment?”

“Yeah, what’s that one?”

“Disappointment.”

“So…you asked why it disappoints me?”

“Very nearly. Ah, close enough.”

“An’ you know how t’deal with it?”

“I have had many years of practice at exactly that.”

He had another opportunity to practice the following evening. Spy didn’t reach his townhouse until the afternoon, and had to wait until evening to ask his middle-right tattoo for help recalling each and every word from the contraband documents with perfect clarity for the time it took to transcribe them. He filled up nearly fourteen pages, and his hand cramped painfully by the end. When he read over what he’d written, finally in possession of time to digest the information, it was nothing of use – scattered reports from three different projects years apart, few details relating to anything he was researching that would have benefited from additional information. He ran through the rest of his notebook, and could find only the most tenuous link to other intelligence he’d gathered, with these new details providing nothing regarding the war’s fallow periods, now that he might have used.

Spy glared at his reflection as he shaved his head before showering. Even with as much practice and training as he possessed, there was nothing he could do to dim the initial moment of hope that this latest piece of intelligence might be just the one needed. There was always the chance. In this case, it might still be so – few details, not none – but only after another infiltration and retrieval operation.

And he had so hoped to have the time to see his lady after so many weeks apart. There was always the chance.

17.

Sniper practically howled as Spy drove into him, hands clenching at the sheets and sweat dripping down the back of his legs. This was not what he had asked for, and it was what Spy needed. Giving someone a good, hard fucking, nothing gentle or graceful about it, pleasure so sharp it hurt. His cock slid over Sniper’s prostate as he pulled out, dragging a whine from deep inside Sniper’s chest he could feel echo up and down his spine. Spy gripped Sniper’s shoulders harder, fingernails digging into the tense, thick muscles, and forced himself to hold still with so little of him inside Sniper, nearly pulled out all the way. Then, ever so slowly, he moved back in, counting down from sixty in Italian and measuring the pace.

“Ah, fuck, Spy, fuck.”

“You want this.”

“Yes, yes –”

“Tell me how you want it.” Pulling out just the tiniest fraction, holding himself there to savor Sniper’s trembling, then pulling out just a little more. His cock was just on that spot, not moving, not even pressing against it, and Sniper threw his head back, hair plastered to his forehead.

“I want –”

“No,” Spy hissed, grabbing that hair and forcing Sniper’s head down to look at what was happening between his legs. “Tell me how you want it.”

“Spy, please, just –”

“You will tell me what you want, and you will tell me now.”

“Please fuck me, Spy, please, I want you to keep on fucking me.”

Spy began fucking him again, gently and carefully, pressing his chest against Sniper’s back and fucking him with sharp little jerks of the hips. Not nearly enough movement for either of them, and when Sniper shifted his weight just enough Spy got there first. He batted Sniper’s hand away from his cock and gripped it tight around the base, holding him back. His other hand lashed out to grab Sniper’s, pulling his fingers off the sheets to lace between his own.

“You want me to fuck you – tell me how you want me to fuck you.”

“I want hard, pain, more.”

“Tell me you want me to fuck you like you’re a woman.”

“Fuck me like I’m a woman.”

“Very good,” Spy purred in Sniper’s ear. “Perhaps I will, I’ll fuck you like you’re a virgin on our wedding night, you’d like that wouldn’t you, to be fucked like a little virgin girl?” He punctuated each question with a snap of his hips, his thrusts firm and sharp and controlled.

“Whatever – fuck, do what y’want, whatever y’like –”

Spy laved his tongue over the back of Sniper’s neck, chasing those drops of saltiness, pressed his nose into his hair and took a deep sniff as best he could through the balaclava. Sweat and gunpowder and male – nothing like the shampoo and sea and female of his lady – and Sniper cried out when Spy bit down and gripped the base of his cock harder, and Spy felt it twitch between his fingers.

“And you like this?”

“Fuck –”

He loosened his grip, hissing right in his ear, “A good, proper, bloody, rooting?”

With one last cry, Sniper came all over his fingers, and Spy waited until he was done trembling to wipe his hand clean of Sniper’s come. Spy smiled, reared back, settled his hands gently on Sniper’s hips, and began fucking him harder than he knew was comfortable at this state. Sniper pressed his head onto the bed, moaning, hands back to gripping the sheets. It was a beautiful sight to see him so well-fucked, so undone, and Spy clenched his teeth and bit down his moans when he came inside Sniper’s beautifully well-fucked ass. He rested there a moment, feeling himself soften, enjoying the smooth heat and then finally pulling out with a sigh. Sitting back on his knees, no longer panting for breath, he looked down at Sniper, limbs splayed out all over, and the sheets an utter mess. Spy watched him finally managed to roll onto his side and pull his arms and legs in, then flipped over onto his back, right into the wet spot.

Though to be fair, Spy knew that if he had just received such a rooting as the one he’d given Sniper, he would hardly mind lying in the wet spot as well. At least for a few minutes afterward.

He got up, lit them each a cigarette, and they smoked quietly. Spy watched Sniper smoke, and he could see that the man very much wanted to say something, but very much wanted to say nothing as well – it was clear from the way he sucked the smoke down and held it in his mouth, from the way he would not look at Spy.

“I take it you enjoyed yourself.”

“It ain’t often ya have a go at somethin’ like that.”

“Would you care I made a habit of doing so?”

“Nah. Just – wasn’t expectin’ it, is all.” He blew out a careful, fine stream of smoke, and Spy was tempted to try for some rings, to give the man a target, but held back. “Still had a nice time.”

“A craftsman is always proud to hear his work is appreciated.” The smile he received in exchange was gentle, the tension in Sniper’s hands gone – still faintly there around his eyes, and even that left when Spy gave him a good-night kiss before departing for his own room. Watchtower was quite pleasant in May, much less so in November, and even after fifteen years in North America, Sniper still longed for dry, baking desert heat. At the moment, Spy only wanted to wash off and warm up slightly, and made a detour to the showers. Locking the door behind him, he had the privacy to wash his face, shiver in the hot water that never ran cold on any of the bases, and allow himself a moment where he had no need for any sort of composure, not even for himself.

Once the moment ended, he finished drying off, redressed, and returned to his room, more than ready for sleep to take him.

The mission to keep the control point secure was straightforward, of a brief duration, and ultimately in RED’s favor. With nearly a day and a half of the base to themselves, there was enough time to see to some relaxation, and not enough to let restlessness set in – when he had heard the mission would be at Watchtower, Spy had been close to disappointed that it was not at Foundry or Gullywash, something of a longer duration to keep himself occupied. There was little better than a mission to keep his mind focused and away from anything else in the world. It had still been enough time to keep from dwelling on what he would and would not return to once the mission ended.

He had enough time to smoke and take in a sunset, at least. A west-facing window was suitable compensation for a door with no lock – if there was only one room with such door, then that room was Pyro’s, who brooked no debate or argument on the matter. Spy was not one to begrudge her for holding her ground on that position, and neither was anyone else on the team. After all, every member of the team had their own positions on which they held their ground, and each was respected by their teammates. It was precisely that sort of mutual acceptance which helped keep them together – that understanding and acceptance of everyone possessing their own secrets which allowed everyone to be somewhat more companionable and close. With everyone aware of secrets being kept, even without knowing those secrets, it became easier to hide them, for not having to hide having them to begin with.

Spy stubbed out his cigarette as the sun moved down across the sky, towards the horizon line behind the mountains, a cool wind followed after. There was the hint of moisture on it, rain on its way. More the pity to the civilians and scientists following them, as Watchtower was both in a very pleasant segment of mountain range and became quite cramped after more than two days indoors. That had been quite the post-mission lull. He lit another cigarette, watching the night slowly fill the sky and finding it an effort to smile even while thinking of the debate between Demo and Heavy that started over what ought or ought not to be added to tea and ended in bloodshed and tears.

The next morning, as everyone began to disperse after breakfast, Spy lingered over his second cup of coffee. Sniper simply lingered.

“I take it there is something you want from me. Well, out with it.”

“How’s about you ride back t’town with me? Train’s nice an’ all, but it won’t take ya right t’the airport.”

“Hm.” Spy took a sip to draw out the moment. “Yes, I suppose that is acceptable.” One more day would hardly make a difference in regards to what would be waiting for him when he rejoined the outside world.

It went well enough, and both being forced to put on a good face for Sniper’s benefit and walk him through the conjugation of some of the more complicated irregular verbs helped keep his mind busy for most of the first day’s drive. But there was little to do when he realized the rain was following them, and the heavens opened wide shortly before when they stopped to sleep for the night.

“Your swag won’t be of much use.” Even the brief dash from the cabin to the back left them uncomfortably wet, stripping down to peel off damp, clinging clothes and doing their best to find available surfaces to hang them.

“Nah.” He sighed. “I’ll grab a tarp, just sleep in the drivin’ cabin. You can have the bunk.”

“On a night like this? No, preposterous. You heard the radio weatherman. This will pass by morning, but I won’t have you dashing out into it. Come, we can both sleep back here.”

“I’m not sure that’s gonna work.”

“Of course it will. Besides, it will be – oh, what’s the English for – yes, cozy.”

“You’re sure I can’t just take the cabin?”

“I insist. For warmth, if nothing else. And it is only for a night, I can promise you I will be gone tomorrow.”

It took some careful wriggling and repositioning in such a confined space, and no small amount of swearing, and they could only fit by lying on their sides – the bunk was too narrow to allow them to lie next to each other comfortably, not unless they wanted one to sleep on top of the other. Even spooning, it was a tight squeeze, legs tangled together and arms folded tight. Sniper faced the little window and Spy his backside, and when he pulled the blanket up over them and it settled over their shoulders, proved Spy’s assertion about coziness correct. He did not seem to mind being wrong in that particular argument, or even having to share his space. Spy could feel the tension slowly slip out of him, even as his breathing told Spy he was nowhere near sleep.

“Tell me, have you ever entertained someone in here since I asked you last?”

“Nah, mate.”

“Then I am the first.”

“That you are.”

“Well, then. As you say, aces.”

“Spy, it ain’t like I never –”

“Oui?”

“Nothin’.”

“No, please, you never…what is it you’ve done before?”

“It ain’t like I’ve never slept with someone before.”

“Oh.” Spy swallowed quickly, glad Sniper couldn’t see his face, and kept his words even. “I should hardly expect as exotic and skilled a specimen as yourself would let his nights go cold and lonely.”

“Not when I got you waitin’ for me.”

“No, indeed not.” He leaned forward and kissed the back of Sniper’s neck. “Shall I say good-night?”

“If you like.”

“Well, then, have a pleasant evening, now let’s shut up and go to sleep.”

He felt Sniper chuckle. “You too, my darling.” Spy had nothing to say in response. Having spent so much time with Sniper, he knew that particular word was a common enough term of endearment from where he came from. That was what it meant in English, at least. Spy knew Sniper was well aware of its full range of applications and contexts, and that he was likely using it in French the same way he would have used it in his own native language.

There was little he could say to mean something similar, in either case, not in a language Sniper would understand. He had several in German, some in Vietnamese, a paltry few in Italian and Spanish – robbing a word of its potency, and then returning that meaning to it unawares, was no mean feat. To say something back of similar power was, somehow, out of Spy’s reach. Whether or not Sniper was more comfortable admitting to certain feelings when he was using words he had not grown up with was something Spy could only guess at. There were yet some things he could still not bring himself to say, in any language.

He had told his lady he loved her many, many times. When he had begun with her, it had been a falsity, but soon enough it became the truth. Every time he said it, he meant it, all the way through to the last time he held her, just before leaving for the last mission, left for Watchtower. Their passion for each other had lingered on far longer than was smart or wise, longer than either of them wanted and nowhere near as long as either of them wished. She had always been beautiful to him, even as the years took their toll on her and somehow leaving him behind. Her hands – even now, even when he had last seen them, her hands were always beautiful, and as the years crept along on them, down her knuckles past her nails back to her palms and through her wrists, they had known strength to tie thin sailor’s knots, they had known beauty, had gripped charcoals and pencils and paintbrushes and turned simple tools and paper into lovely things.

In his suitcase, next to his notebooks, was her parting gift to him. He had many such pieces, all her original works, some of them portraits, some of them sketches of Boston, her home city meaning as much to her as his home country did to him. She had known it would be the last time, and insisted on this one being special – he had posed for her before, but always, without fail, always within his mask.

He trembled to show his naked face to her, and she had wiped away his tears.

From his breathing, Spy knew Sniper had fallen asleep. He lay next to him, simply feeling, enjoying the physical sensations. The novelty of sleeping with him. It would be well worth attempting in a much more suitable bed – though not his own in his townhouse, good Lord, not that. No matter how much he loved him, there were some things he could never do for Sniper, some things he would never say. He was far too much a spy, too long used to keeping certain secrets, to ever feel free to say certain words.

There were certain situations, however, where the rules could be relaxed slightly, where there were ways to accomplish certain goals otherwise forbidden or impossible.

Spy wriggled closer to Sniper, pressed his nose into his hair, closed his eyes. Spoke as quietly as he could.

“Her name is Rosemary.”

18.

She was late, a terrifically rare occurrence – Miss Pauling was always punctual, and often early. But having spent twenty-two months preparing for this meeting, Spy had no qualms with waiting an extra ten or thirty minutes. Only the first month had involved the records of either RED or BLU, with the following thirteen coming from civilian sources, much as was the case with his newspapers, the information only valuable if one knew what to look for. Though most of those sources had been open and free to the public, not all were, and the hospital archives and medical files had required traditional subterfuge. The last eight months had been dedicated to dispelling any last shadows of possible doubts, to collect the last pieces of irrefutable proof everything had been worth the time it took to acquire, that it had all been genuine and worth the price. And, perhaps, to show off a very little bit – to remind his superiors why he had been hired to begin with all those years ago.

She was only fifteen minutes behind schedule, and apologized sincerely. He did not press the matter. They greeted, shook hands. Spy stood and pulled out her chair and refused to sit until she was comfortable. She ordered for them both, and when their tea and pastries arrived, they had moved onto more personal matters which weren’t communicated in inter-company memos and briefing reports.

“And are you still with Richard, correct?”

“Yes, we’re still together.”

“No plans to make it more serious, I take it.”

“We’re considering moving in together.”

“I cannot see you happy in Des Moines. But perhaps, if I make an effort, I might imagine some pleasant circumstances.”

“Actually, he’d be moving in with me.”

“How very forward-thinking of you two.” He raised his cup and gestured to her with his best fake smile. “Here’s to your future. You know, I never managed to figure out how to properly balance work and personal life. It was a skill which eluded me – I can only hope that is not repeated in your case.”

“Spy.” Miss Pauling laid her knife and fork down next to what remained of her slice of coffee cake. “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“I should hope you aren’t. If you were, I would have done much worse.”

“We know you’ve been going behind the scenes –”

“Please. You know because I want you to know.”

“We don’t know how long, but we’ve gotten the message and you’ve got my attention.”

“Très bien.” He took a bite of his own piece of black forest. “They use such excellent chocolate here. Would you like a bite?”

She laid her hands flat on the table, then looked up to meet his eyes. “Yes.”

Spy smiled, cut her a rather generous portion, and transferred it over to her plate. Once there, she ate it in three small bite, chewing each slowly and deliberately.

“Would you like some of mine?”

“Oh, no thank you, but I appreciate the offer.” His tea had cooled and he sipped it gently. Miss Pauling waited for him to set it down to speak, a courtesy he was rather thankful to receive.

“What do you want?”

“It is not what I want, but what I need.”

“And that would be?”

“I need to see her.”

In the seventeen years he had known her, she never reacted quite as she did with his request, going perfectly still – out of fright, out of shock, out of horror, perhaps even out of disbelief.

“We can’t do that.”

“I know. But I need to see her just the same.”

“That’s not how it works. You know that’s not how it works.”

“It wouldn’t be for long. I only need to see her once.”

“That can’t happen.”

“Fifteen minutes. All I would need is fifteen minutes. Promise me fifteen minutes, ten even, and I can assure you –”

“You should know better than to even ask.”

“I’ve spoken to her before.”

“Yes, because she wanted to talk to you. That’s how it works. You can’t just ask to see her. That’s not how it works. She decides, and that’s all.” She stood up rather violently, her chair whining as it scraped on the floor. “I’ll get the check, you can –”

Spy lashed out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him, give him her attention just long enough to make sure she heard. “Her name is Caroline.”

She went still again. He knew if she was anyone less, he would suddenly be in the middle of a very violent, loud, messy altercation. But she was not, and when he let go of her arm she sat back down, pulled her chair in, and slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

“There are a lot of women named Caroline.”

“There are many Carolines in the world, but only one of importance to the woman I wish to see.”

“I’m not going to ask,” she said. “I’m just not. It’s going to be easier for us both if I don’t know how you learned that, so please don’t tell me.”

“I shan’t.”

She looked away, nodded slowly. “I can’t promise you anything.”

“You promised to reinstate me after the war’s end. Feel free to promise me anything and everything you like.”

“I can’t promise you anything,” she repeated. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you for being such a dear friend.”

“You’ll hear from us soon.”

He watched her go, and did not envy what she would face.

Four days later, Spy stood outside one of the tiny conference rooms in RED’s regional office, itching to light a cigarette.

“You’ll have fifteen minutes,” Miss Pauling warned. “Don’t waste them.”

“I promise I will not.”

Miss Pauling nodded, and opened the door to let him in, then closed it behind him. The room was well-lit, at least, and there was an ashtray on the table as well – something he seemed to see less and less of, as time passed. He pulled out one of the two chairs and sat down, noting the wastebasket, the single door, the ceiling-mounted fan, the false mirror and dummy security cameras, the likely hiding places for the genuine surveillance equipment, and the exact amount of trouble into which he had managed to place himself this time around.

But he had not been caught, at least. He was here because –

Then she walked in. And it was almost as though the world stopped spinning, just for a moment.

She held herself with grace and power, both of which he knew to be hard-earned and deserved. Spy didn’t breathe as she closed the door behind her, walked to the table, pulled out the other chair and sat down.

When she drew out her cigarettes, Spy pulled out his lighter and flicked it on before she had a chance to do so with her own. No thanks were offered for the gesture, as he expected, and rather than be disappointed he lit a cigarette of his own. The rush of nicotine through his system was as welcome as it always was.

Spy knew it was not just the chemicals that kept him from shaking. He had spoken to her before, though never in person, and infrequently at that. He had heard many stories, most of which were true, about the woman seated across from him. They had given him some idea of what to expect, but even keeping every warning in mind, watching her attack her cigarette, he was not scared. He knew fear too well to let it rule him – and he had seen worse than her. Spy had seen evil, heard the news when evil marched down the streets of the capital. He had been intimate with it, let it tousle his hair when he was just a child and hiding in plain sight from those who wished him and his family and his people wiped off the face of the world. She was far beyond those soldiers. What she was, he would not begin to guess. But he knew she was not evil.

“You have my attention,” she said, her voice so different in person than when it came through a microphone. “Sometime this month, please.”

“Tell me, exactly what is it we are fighting for?”

“Global supremacy.”

“For what end?”

“Victory over the opposing forces.”

“And they want what we are after as well.”

“Of course.”

“When was respawn developed, and by whom?”

“Nineteen sixty-five, a research team of in-house staff.”

With that time frame – “You brought on Medic and Engineer to help finalize it.”

“Correct.”

“Why were they transferred out of research and into the war itself?”

She ground out her spent cigarette and he lit her next one. “They had always been a part of the war.”

“Yes, and when –” He sighed and tapped some of his ash away. “I know you do not want to be here, and I would rather be many places as well. There is little we can accomplish in this sort of stalemate, and there is very little I can do in my position, no matter how much intelligence I acquire. If you simply indulge me in my curiosity about the nature of the conflict you pay me to participate in, it would be in your best interest, as it would satisfy me and keep me from continuing on these clandestine operations which do little good to anyone, save exposing the flaws within your security systems and my ability to exploit them.”

He looked carefully, and saw the barest, most minute hint of a smile around her eyes. “Very well.” She blew out a perfect stream of smoke. “I didn’t want them picking up on the big picture, and they had grown close to doing so.”

“How long has the war been fought?”

“It began in eighteen fifty.”

“Why was respawn developed?”

“The brothers had grown tired of losing their teams, and wanted to see the war end. And in their infinite capacity for stupidity, they decided that finding a way to revive their mercenaries after they were killed would be the best way to accomplish that.”
“When did you come into your position?”

“Nineteen fifty-eight.”

“Why did you have me burned?”

“I wanted your services for the war. You had come close to learning about the true nature of the world you live in, and I simply could not abide with that from a rogue entity.” He ground out his cigarette and lit another. “I knew there was no way you would join the team no matter how tempting an invitation I would make, not with your pesky sense of duty and patriotism. So I had you burned to create the leverage to bring you on board.”

“Would you still reinstate me at the end of the war?”

“If it ends, if you would like, I can do that.”

Spy nodded, and lit her yet another cigarette – good lord, she put him to shame and then some. “What is it you wish to accomplish from your position?”

“It isn’t a matter of what I want.” She leaned back. “This has never been a matter of what I want.”

“With all your power, I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, perhaps I do enjoy it a little. But this is not a position I chose.”

“Please, do go on.”

“You disappoint me. In all your research, surely you’ve come to learn how this conflict’s responsibility is passed on from one generation to the next.” When she smiled, there was no friendliness in it. “You would know, after all. So much comes from the mother.”

“Yes, I am well aware.” He forced his hands still to light himself another cigarette. “Why, with all your power, do you not simply end the war?”

Spy had heard her laugh before, and this was entirely different, and quite more frightening – she meant it when she laughed this time. “You want to know why you’re still fighting in their war? My god, can you imagine what would happen if one of them won the damn thing?”

“I am afraid I cannot.”

“Good. Do not ever push yourself to picture such a scenario.” She took another angry drag. “It is everything I work to keep from coming to pass.”

“And a perpetual stalemate is the best you can do to satisfy them.”

“Now that they have their little champions to fight for them forever, yes.”

“I see.” He swallowed. “The battles, the missions – do they accomplish anything?”

“Of course they do.”

“Beyond satisfying the brothers’ need to feel superior over the other for a brief moment.”

“Yes, that as well.”

“Indeed. Thank you.”

“Is there anything else you wish to ask? You won’t have the luxury of additional time.”

“No, I think that might be everything.”

“Very well.” She left her cigarette burning in the ashtray, embers slowly fading as she left.

A woman beyond all power in the world, right in front of him, willing to answer anything he wanted to ask, but he had only one question left. “Ah, yes, just one more. I was wondering, if I may. How is your daughter?” Spy asked.

“How is Caroline?”

She stood at the door, her hand resting on the knob, and Spy sat and watched as the ripples of emotion run over her features – briefly, painfully, something to them he’d never seen, not even on his lady. And for a moment, just one he knew to be a privilege reserved to very few, the woman underneath the position showed herself. Then the moment ended, and she was just as she’d been when she’d walked into the room.

“She is – she is well.” She didn’t turn to look at Spy. “Miss Pauling will see you out. Good day.”

“And a good day to you as well.”

When offered, he accepted the ride which took him right back to the front steps of his townhouse. There was little reason to maintain any sort of precaution when they were utterly useless time wasters, not even good as superstitions. His time was far better spent considering the very nature of the brothers’ war, this useless conflict – two little boys that had never learned to share or play nice, trying to play king of the mountain with the whole world.

She was right. Lord help them all if one of them managed to succeed.

Spy didn’t bother taking off his balaclava to pour himself the first of many drinks, each of which he slammed back as quickly as possible, or to stumble upstairs, pass out on the bed, and lie motionless for nearly two hours once he woke up the following morning. Something in the hangover made him wonder if taking it off at that stage would take his face along with it, or if it had gone so far as to become his face.

A long, hot shower and a pot of coffee with quite a generous kick took care of the worst of it.

Miss Pauling came to call on him the following afternoon. He welcomed her inside and went to fixing them a pot of lapsang souchong.

“All right, so how did you find out about her? She’s a level five clearance item.” They sat in the kitchen again, late afternoon light streaming in through the windows. It was far less intense than the light of home, even less intense than the light of California, and not just because it was edging into September and out of summer.

Spy smiled as he poured her a cup, taking what pleasure he could in the simple act of doing so. “Medical records.” He handed her the honey, to add as she liked. Coldfront had proved quite useful, once he began to see what those seemingly useless records had to add to the war’s timeline – helping to shape what wasn’t there. “Our dear employer takes so little time off, connecting the cessations and cease-fires to conditions such as pregnancy was a remarkably easy feat.”

It had been horrifically difficult to begin, finding even the faintest ghost trace of a life lived by their employer, but once he had, following that trace had eventually led him to where he’d wished to be when he’d first been burned – speaking to those who had done it to him. And it had not been quite what he’d imagined.

“No wonder she wanted you,” Miss Pauling mused as she added two generous teaspoons to her tea. Spy poured in a touch of cream to his own, and sat down to join her.

“Are you serious about this Richard man of yours? This little bartender who knows next to nothing about the world you inhabit?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then.” He raised his mug to her and did his best to mean it when he smiled, and toasted in the language of his and his mother’s people. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Trust me, you will need it.”

19.

Tempting as it would have been to continue, and with as many questions as he still had yet unanswered, Spy kept his word and left the records of both RED and BLU alone. He cancelled his subscriptions to all but two of the newspapers, and let himself be brave enough to consider what he might do with the intelligence he’d managed to collect. The prudent, careful, paranoid option would be to destroy his notebooks somehow – shred the pages, toss them into the Hudson river at high tide and let them be swept out to sea, bury them, even burn them. But there was too much sentimental value to them to consider such crass fates. Better to let them remain intact, but hidden away. Like so much of his history and life.

He poured himself another glass of wine and shuffled off into the living room, pulling the curtains closed and settling down in one of the large armchairs he so rarely used. Grand and impressive as it was, and as much as he appreciated having a formal reception room, it was not one he spent much time in as he so rarely had guests, and even then, they were mostly in the kitchen. No, it was for nights such as this, to watch the light from the occasional pair of headlights paint across the room and hear the sounds of the accompanying cars follow and fade. Spy sipped the wine gently without speculating on who might be traveling at this hour and why, finding it easier as he went farther down the glass. The more he sipped, the more he felt the world around him slipping away, replaced by the world the wine brought instead. Spy knew the grapes had been grown in California from cuttings grown in France, and that they had been fermented nearly seven years prior, that it was a summer vintage and carried the fruit’s memories of sunlight and rain and the hands of the workers who had come across the world to tend to it.

As he sipped, he thought of tall, dry grass swaying in the wind, nearly dead from lack of rains and rustling and shaking as he walked through them, the texture of the seeds at the ends of the grasses soft and sharp as he trailed his hands over them. Dust kicked up as he followed Sniper, tickling his nose without the balaclava in the way. There was no moon, only stars, and he was far away enough from the rest of the world – and the world was so much bigger when he was a child, filled with monsters that smiled and complimented him on his quick grasp of German, and as the world grew smaller those monsters lost their teeth and claws and became humans – that there were also blinking satellites, moving patiently across the sky. He and his sister had glimpsed exotic Australian satellites in their childhood hiding from monsters in plain sight, wrapped in their father’s and grandmother’s faith, and he and Sniper looked for those of RED and BLU in a country neither of them called home. On long summer nights, when he was with one other person, there was no one else in the world. All his life, he looked for comfort in the night. It was the nights which made the days easier to bear.

His parents had entrusted his grandmother to keep her grandchildren safe, and she had done so admirably, doing whatever she could to uphold that promise. They had also entrusted him to keep his sister safe, and he promised them as well, swearing that he would do whatever was necessary. And he had, though not all of it was to keep her safe in body. Sneaking out when they should have been sleeping put both him and his sister at risk, but little more than what they lived with during the days, and far more worth the peril. She was five years younger and always followed when they were out past curfew not for one of the illegal and immoral dances, but to also feel a little bit of freedom. He followed Sniper as his sister had followed him, to find the same feelings hidden in the dark.

“Where will you go, when this is over?” They lay together in Spy’s bed at Viaduct after a successful mission, something they did more and more frequently. Spy had little reason to leave Sniper or make him leave with no more research to conduct, and Sniper often found excuses to stay in bed, some of them valid – this time it was his distaste for waking up cold and alone. Better to just wake up cold.

“The mission?”

“The war.”

“Dunno.” He couldn’t shrug from his position of lying half-under Spy, but it was clear in his voice that he would have were he able. “Go home, I suppose.”

“Back to Australia?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I have not entertained such fantasies for a good long while.” Spy shifted his legs about to get somewhat more comfortable. “But when I did – yes, I would go home as well. Back to France.”

“Fantasies?”

“That the war might one day end.”

“It’s gotta end sometime. Them or us, someone’s gotta win.”

“It would be nice to have your faith.”

“What, you think we’re gonna go on fightin’ forever?”

“There are some days I cannot help but consider that will be what ends up happening. No more life, no more freedom, just this little, endless war.”

Sniper pushed out from underneath him to lie on his side and prop himself up on an elbow. “You feelin’ all right?”

“Yes, I suppose. Just a little – oh, it doesn’t matter.”

“You sure ’bout feelin’ all right?” He reached out to run a hand over Spy’s chest, and Spy brought one of his hands up to lace their fingers together.

“Reasonably so. But never mind, please. Back to Australia, you say. What would you do once you return?”

“Dunno, really.” He lay back down half on top of Spy, head on Spy’s collarbone. “I mostly wanna just see it again. See how my folks are getting’ on, see what’s new an’ what’s still the same.”

“Now that I understand.” Spy sighed. “Not the part about the folks, but the rest of it.”

“Sorry,” he said quietly, breath warm on Spy’s chest.

“It was a long time ago.” His fingers found their way into Sniper’s hair and began petting. “And I was not there – I think that makes it easier, sometimes, to have left so much behind already, that they were simply one more part of how life was before.”

“You really got no one waitin’ for you?”

Spy knew there were second and third cousins on his father’s side, distant relatives he knew on paper and had never spoken to. Everyone from his mother’s side had been ripped off the face of the world, and his father had been too close to them, too in love with his mother, to turn aside and run when he could have done so, and he’d perished along with her. There had never been any details to learn, not even from the official channels when Spy had been working for the SDECE when that agency had still existed – his parents were two of many who had died during the Occupation, and anything more was buried along with them.

His sister had lived and grew up tall and proud, found a good man of their people and raised her children in their faith, and her grandchildren as well. Spy followed them through the regional newspaper that he continued to receive, birth notices and wedding announcements and obituaries when life came to that. There had not yet been one for his sister, and for that he was glad. He had not spoken or written to her since he was burned, save once, when he had made the attempt to see her and was quickly reminded of the dangers involved for her if he kept her in his life.

“No. No one.”

“Just back t’France, then?”

“Indeed.”

“She’ll be right.” Spy looked up from his petting to take in Sniper’s features as best he could from his current angle. The man had his eyes closed, relaxed and content in the circle of Spy’s arms, and Spy knew him too well to know it was not an act.

“Have you ever been?”

“T’France?”

“Yes.”

“Nah, mate. Jus’ home an’ here.”

“Oh, now that does seem a shame. There is so much within the world you could never possibly imagine until you experience it for yourself.”

“I’m sure there is, an’ it’s been doin’ just fine without me. Seems it’ll be all right even if I never make it out t’China or Amsterdam. They don’t need me comin’ around.”

“Perhaps they do not need you, but you would be much enriched for your time spent abroad.”

“I been abroad a good long while.”

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

“What’s it you mean, then?”

Spy wriggled back down underneath Sniper, disengaging their hands and laying Sniper’s arm over his torso. Long, solid muscle, delicious to stroke and squeeze, and always so warm. Like he carried the desert within his skin. “I simply mean that you should not disavow any potential ventures simply because of preconceived notions of what constitutes a fully lived life.”

“What’s it you mean, then?”

“Are you asking me something in particular?”

Sniper sighed. “What do you want to tell me?”

“While I have no one waiting for me back home, it’s entirely possible that I might bring someone with me when I finally go back.”

“That sounds very nice for you.”

“Such a someone might well enjoy their time there.”

“It’d be a waste of time if they didn’t like it.”

“You remember, I told you California was like France as well as your beloved Australia.”

“Spy.” His eyes were still closed, but his face had gone hard. “If there’s somethin’ you wanna ask me, just bloody well come out an’ ask. I got no time for games.”

“You never have,” Spy said in Vietnamese. “Would you care to come with me to France, after the war ends?”

“Oh.”

“We would not even go in wintertime, if you would prefer to avoid the snow. There are parts of the country which remain warm for the entire year, down in the south.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure there are.”

“And the wine – the Judgment of Paris was a blow to our pride, true, but it is still our pleasure to offer up many of the finest wines in the world, and if we cannot claim the very highest honor we shall fight to regain it.”

“We got wine back home, too.”

“Ah, indeed, that you do, I do remember that one particularly luscious red you managed to acquire.”

“Had t’swipe it from the embassy.”

“Worth every moment of subterfuge.”

“All you gotta do is walk ’round like you own the place.”

“And that is a good sixty percent of successful spying operations right there.”

“Yeah.” He slid away from Spy as best he could in the small bed, curling up on his side with his arm still resting over Spy. “Guess there’s a lot t’France.”

“You guess? Oh, you wound me, my lovely.”

That earned him a chuckle, which disappeared almost immediately. “I just…”

“Yes?”

“Nothing,” he said too fast.

“What is it?”

“Nothin’.”

“I would deeply appreciate it if you would tell me what it is, even if it does amount to absolutely nothing as you say.”

Sniper sighed again. “I had thought that if you had me follow you home, then – it’s really nothing, Spy.”

There were some things Sniper would only say in French, and Spy could hazard many guesses with nearly all of them involving Sniper tricking himself by not using English to allow himself to voice such things. And there were yet a few that seemed beyond his ability to communicate, and it was his reliance on Spy’s understandings to fill in what went unsaid.

“You want me to follow you instead.”

“I could sponsor you for a visa, if you need.”

“Yes, you could.”

“It – it ain’t like France, you gotta have someone t’say you can come in.”

“And tell me, would you have to be in Australia for this to matter, or would a consulate be enough? You do things so strangely where you come from, and you never share.”

“A consulate’d be fine, just t’get you in th’system.” He kept his voice flat and even. “But it’d take a while t’process wherever I get it done, so dependin’ on when, I might be gone by the time it’s done.”

“Ah. You would then be someone waiting for me?”

“It’s nothin’.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. Why, you must make this offer to every –”

“Please stop talking about this, please.”

“Very well.”

They slept poorly that night, and the next day, Spy managed to find it in himself to accept the offer of a ride to the airport. Much of it was spent in careful conversation, never getting quite so close to the subject Spy most wanted to ask about, but giving him enough to work with that for the first time in nearly two years, he pulled out one of his old notebooks and began writing to make sense of the whole thing. For the life of him, he could not parse out Sniper’s recalcitrance to speak of where he came from. He knew how much it meant for him to claim Australian citizenship – just as much as it meant for Spy to say he was from France. Everyone on the team came from somewhere, even Pyro, and while some days it seemed she had sprang fully-formed out of a fire rather than born from a mother, even Pyro had come from somewhere to be in the war. She would not speak of it, not of her family and upbringing that Spy knew only through subterfuge, but she spoke of her fires, of her work with automobiles and other machines, of the men she’d worked with.

Demoman never spoke of the first man and woman that had raised him. Neither Heavy nor Medic would talk of their time in their respective labor camps. As willing as he was to spin tales about wars and battles, Soldier was always hesitant to speak of the circumstances surrounding his placement in the insane asylum, though not the work he did there tending to its gardens. There were subjects off-limits within each of their histories – even Scout, who had the least of one – and circumstances in which they would not speak of anything at all. There were times it was safe, and there were times it was stifling.

What had once been a source of amusement, over wondering where the next lie would retroactively place Sniper, was now a source of careful consideration, to attempt to map out the patterns and draw a conclusion, the better to know his lover.

Spy lit a cigarette, and went back to the notebooks from his first three years in the war. There was simply no way he could ever do what Sniper did. He still had too much pride and love for his homeland to claim another, even in jest. It had done too much, and treated his and his mother’s people too well, for him to turn aside when Marianne had to cover her face in shame. He knew he had reason to be sickened over the crimes his country had committed, even knowing so much of them happened not because everyone was afraid of the monsters now living among them, but because having the monsters there had given them the excuse. What Sniper had said years ago in California still resonated with him – he, too, knew how it was to share a country which those who would not share it with him. But he had reasons to be proud of his home as well, for the resistance of the people against the regime, for what his home did after the monsters were gone and humans were left in their place, and it was so much harder to be scared of another person than a monster.

There was so little to be scared of, anymore. The brothers’ war was a place where death had no power, and in such a place, once one came to accept the nature of things, there was almost nothing to frighten anyone any longer.

Spy slept well that night, and took most of the following day to read his old notes from when he barely knew Sniper. The better to remember how to look at him with fresh eyes – all the better to see everything he knew about him now in yet another way. He found he needed a short respite during the middle of the readings, coming across his passages speculating on the purpose of the conflict, that were written by a man who knew so little Spy could hardly remember being him.

When he returned to Sniper and the war a week later, he was much better prepared for conversation, and returned to his notebooks eighteen days later with new observations to recount, digest, and examine. And twenty-six days after that, it was back to the war with an even clearer image of his lover.

“It really did not scare you?” Spy asked as he gutted one of the rabbits Sniper had brought in for dinner, reserving what organs he could.

“What’s t’be scared of? I had my rifle, I had a good shot, it didn’t stand a chance.” He chuckled as he removed the kidneys. “Buffalo culls – gonna miss ’em. Always were good for a few weeks’ work.”

“Will you miss the rabbits as well? Gone since what, seventy-nine?”

“Seventy-eight, an’ good riddance to the buggers. Nah, they’re tasty enough, but I won’t be sad t’come home an’ not see any around.”

“What a clever little virus that was.”

“Worth every cent.” Sniper brought up his rabbit to eye level to examine it more closely, then let out something between a growl and a chuckle. Then, glancing to Spy, “An’ thank heaven they got the toads, too.”

“Indeed. Cleaning up the whole continent, yes?”

“Ah, too right.”

Spy nodded, patting the rabbit dry to better hang it for the next night’s dinner. “Tell me, it won’t be too much of a shock to come home and find so much changed?”

“It might,” he said as he went to get the twine.

“There is little comparable to what I might find so changed to my home.” Spy took the offered twine with murmured thanks, and went to tying. “Though I suppose, simply living without missions and respawn would take quite some time to get used to.” He glanced over at Sniper, whose face was held still with his mouth an angry line, his scar tugging at his cheek. Waiting for the answer took some time, and even then it was mostly noncommittal.

The subject of life after the war came up again on the hastily-assembled train ride back to civilization, and then only briefly. Finally, with no other possible option, Spy resorted to one of the oldest and crudest tricks possible for his trade and got Sniper good and drunk. Everyone was drinking to commemorate the end of their fourth week at Hydro, with Spy matching Sniper cup for cup – that four of his five happened to be missing their scrumpy went unnoticed in the hubbub.

“Yeah, she was – she was a good root, yeah,” Sniper leaned against Spy as they shuffled off to their room. “Real good, I reckon. Wasn’t what I was hopin’ for, but you never turn someone down what turns up in the never-never.”

“Yes, and just how much time did you spend with her?” Spy asked for the third time.

“Oh, plenty,” he smiled at Spy. “’Bout three weeks.”

“And that is – that was the most you’d ever had.”

“Yeah, ’till you came along,” Sniper chuckled. Spy pushed the door open and tossed Sniper unceremoniously onto the bed, and he landed with a heavy sigh and a groan of cheap springs.

“Three weeks is hardly enough time for a relationship,” he said as he locked the door behind them.

“Nah, it’s plenty, an’ that’s how we do things where I come from, you just meet ’em an’ you root an’ you’re done.” He gave up trying to pull off his own boots after the second attempt, so Spy attended to the task to keep him talking.

“We have had missions that lasted longer than this little fling in the desert where you didn’t even get her name.”

“Didn’t need t’get it.” Sniper pushed himself up on his elbows, wearing the face of a drunk man trying very hard to be sober. “She knew who I was, an’ I knew who she was, an’ that’s enough. It ain’t like we’re not doin’ the same, you bloody spook.”

“How is our relationship anything close to what you had out there?”

“She never got my name, an’ I haven’t gotten yours, is all I wanna say.”

“And is that all?”

“Yes, that’s bloody all, you bloody spook,” he snarled. “It’s different out in the bush, it’s different out everywhere else but here. The war’s different, how bloody drunk are you?”

Spy began undressing, keeping his voice light as he undid his tie. “Is it all that different? There are some days I suspect nothing’s changed for you.”

“The whole bloody paradigm’s a change! It’s different ’cause we ain’t going anywhere ’till the mission’s over an’ done with, an’ she was gone when we were done, but even when we’re goin’ and done when a mission’s over we’re comin’ back when we got another. We always got another, an’ she never had another. We’re always comin’ back, an’ no one else ever came back, I never get someone again, not ’less he’s a bloody fucking spook.”

“That sounds remarkably lonely.”

Sniper flopped back down onto the pillow and pushed his glasses up to press the heels of his palms against his eyes. “You don’t go out bush if you get lonely.”

“You never get lonely? Never?”

“It’s not hard t’learn if you really want to.”

“And do you ever miss anyone, out all alone?” He folded his jacket, his pants, draping them over the back of the room’s chair, before finally pulling off his balaclava.

“Yeah. My folks, old friends, I miss people, sure I do, I ain’t heartless.”

Spy pushed Sniper aside to sit in the narrow space. “Do you miss me when I’m not around?”

“Of course I do, what’s it you take me for?”

“You don’t seem all that elated to see me when we’ve spent time apart.”

“Shut your cake-hole,” Sniper said, leaning up to wrap an arm around him and drag him down. “I miss you, but I don’t need t’be sad just ’cause you ain’t around.”

“And if I was never around, then you’d be happy as well?”

“Nah.” He sighed. “I know you’re comin’ back. Long as the war’s on, I don’t have t’miss you at all.” Pulling him closer, “Could go on forever, far as I’m concerned. Wouldn’t have t’miss you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Thought we said this’d be all we’d have.” He mumbled. “Just the war together. Wasn’t that what we said, back at the start?”

“That doesn’t have to be the case.”

“I never got so close to someone before. Dunno how it happened.”

“Speak plainly, bushman.”

Sniper nuzzled Spy and kissed his forehead, who could hear the effort he used to speak in Spy’s mother tongue. “I don’t want this to end. I love this too much.”

Spy said nothing, and Sniper soon dozed off, snoring.

He still thought of his lady whenever he passed a gallery or museum, when he noticed a dish on a menu he would have taken the time to learn to make for her, when the nights were long and he had no one to share it with. Even on some nights when he could share it, there was a reminder – and often an unpleasant one – that he had been unable to care for her or their love as he should have. Had he listened to his fears, not his pride, perhaps she would be in his life as something more than a few pieces of paper and canvas and years of memories.

Not that Sniper seemed to be leaving him much more than that – perhaps not paper and canvas but yarn instead, the objects different but the idea the same. And yet Sniper still managed to overcome whatever had been inside of him to bring him to Spy’s arms, his bed, and remain there even when he would have been happier running wild. The process had taken years, nineteen since he’d first propositioned the man, and finding out it was no longer fragile and ephemeral but solid and strong left Spy’s head spinning. It scared him to death.

If the war ended was no longer the question. It was not the war, precisely, which Spy felt he could not think of in this strange borderland between sober and drunk – he was too drunk to think clearly, and not drunk enough to think deeply. If the war itself had no meaning, then whatever he wanted it to mean, it would, and if that was the man holding him, that was what it well could be.

When the team was next getting drunk, to celebrate their fifth week at Hydro, Spy matched Sniper cup for cup again, not bothering with sobriety.

20.

Three days after returning to his townhouse, shuffling about, Spy thought he’d settle in with his morning coffee and porridge when the phone rang. There was hardly cause for speculation when so few people had the number, but did not entirely rule out who it might be. “Hello.”

“Hello, Spy,” Miss Pauling said.

“Ah, good morning.”

“Yes, good morning to you. I, um.” He could practically see her readjust her glasses with the sigh she made. “I take it the last mission didn’t end too badly.”

“No. A bit of frustration with a stalemate, but nothing we cannot deal with. I’m sure the next one will be more decisive.”

“Yes. About that.”

“Oui?”

“Never mind, this – I should –”

“Oh, don’t tell me there will not be another.”

“Spy…”

The air went cold. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.” He gripped the phone tighter, and leaned back against the wall for support as his knees weakened. “I’d wanted –”

“And this is it?” Spy hissed. “Twenty-two years of loyal service terminated with a phone call? The least you could do is fire me in person.”

“You’re not being fired,” she pressed back. “It’s over. That’s why I’m calling, you deserve to hear it from someone.”

“Pardonnez-moi?”

“It’s over. That’s all I can say about it. Don’t ask why, because I can’t tell you. But it’s over. It’s done, and you’re the first person on the team I’m telling about it.”

“Well. Thank you for your concern.”

“You’re welcome.”

“If.” He sucked in a breath, began again. “I take it not everything has disappeared?”

“No.”

“Then when may I see you to discuss certain clauses in my contract?”

“When would be best?”

“At your earliest possible inconvenience.”

“I’ll be back in New York tomorrow.”

“One o’clock, our usual bistro.”

“I’ll see you there.”

Spy hung up, and by the time he managed to get enough strength to move back to the table, the coffee had gone cold. He drank it just the same, staring out at the sunlight passing over the world at barely seven o’clock in the morning. There were two cups’ worth left in the pot, barely lukewarm, and he drank them each with a splash of milk as he always did, as he’d learned to do so long ago.

Rosemary used to take it with cream and sugar, and Sniper always drank it black.

He waited until he could be sure, just enough time to get dressed and shave and feel somewhat more prepared to make the call, and then dialed the number he’d fought long and bargained hard to get. It took almost no waiting for Sniper to pick up, which was strange until he explained that received the news by phone as well, just a little while ago – he’d heard the mobile ringing from the campsite and kept it on his person in case someone had more to say about these developments.

“There might be, yet.” He sucked in a deep lungful of smoke and blew it out as he continued, “I’ll be speaking with Miss Pauling tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“And you?”

“Why’d I need t’talk with her?”

“The terms of your contract regarding the final cessation of hostilities between RED and BLU. I suppose it could be done at any regional office, but – where are you now, anyway?”

“South Dakota. Out near the Black Hills.”

“Ah.”

“Still in New York City?”

“The novelty of living without reliable flush toilets gets quite old very fast.”

“Snotty little nance.”

“Savage bushman.”

“So what you got comin’ next?”

“Aside from speaking with Miss Pauling, I cannot say. It will be contingent upon our meeting.”

“Gotcha.”

“Though – no.”

“What?”

“I do have this lease for quite some time, several more months at the very least. And I so rarely have guests.”

“Sorry t’hear that.”

“Not quite as sorry as I am to say it.”

“It ain’t so bad, bein’ alone. You get used to it.”

“Yes. You’ve reminded me of that, many times.”

“Spy, look –”

“I did not mean it that way, you oaf.” He blew out one smoke ring, then another and another, to watch them float away like ripples across a pond. “Merely that you are always quick to defend living in such a state, when one challenges you regarding its merits. Do not deny it.”

“Wasn’t going to,” he said, with something sharp behind his words.

“Nor would I expect you to. You always describe it with such grace, even in English.” Spy lit another cigarette with the glowing embers of the last one, held the smoke in his mouth and let it float in the air around him. He stared, almost hoping to find a pattern in it, as one would look for a face in the clouds. “And you speak of it with such fondness. I cannot expect you to tarry when you return.”

“Yeah. There wouldn’t be much keepin’ me from goin’ home right away.”

“The same is true for me as well. I expect there will be some affairs with the company to see to, but beyond that – well. I can end my lease early, I suppose. You do not even have that as a concern.”

“No,” Sniper said, very softly.

Spy smacked his lips around the cigarette as he kept on smoking it down to nothing. He had needed more time to adjust to Sniper’s brand than Sniper had needed for his. “To finally see home once again is not something I would wish to delay.”

“No.”

“Indeed not. To see one’s home again, to return to the motherland – such is the stuff we always dreamed of, this long war.”

“Not every night.” The words came quickly, and Spy could clearly see Sniper’s face, the twist in his lip, the blinking, all choreographing regret over letting words dash out like that.

“Yes, but most,” Spy pressed, picking his own carefully, dodging counters against his agenda. Mimicking the tone his mother had used. “Enough. More than enough. I cannot say there would be much of anything keeping me in America, or from France, any longer than I would have to be. I would assume the same is true for you and your beloved Australia.”

Under most circumstances, listening to Sniper breathe was a soothing experience, but such was not the case this time. “Sniper?”

“Yeah. No – I mean, yeah, there ain’t much in America t’keep me from goin’ home too.”

“Yes.” What home was could change very deeply in a short period of time. Home could be a place that did not exist anymore, a house wiped off the map or a piece of land that changed hands and was lost to the family, a sensation of belonging to a certain time and place that could not be revisited. It could well be a place that still existed, or a feeling that could be replicated under favorable circumstances with the proper surroundings or the correct people. And sometimes, it would not even take many people. Going home could well mean returning to one person’s arms, wherever those arms might be. Two people, alone, could be home. Spy knew Sniper knew that well, and listened to him heave out a sigh.

“That’ll be right.”

“Well, then.” He tapped some ash away and took another drag, releasing it as he continued. “So it goes.”

“Yeah.”

Spy looked about the kitchen, the afternoon light spread across the ceiling. “You’ll be fine, won’t you?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“Au revoir, Sniper.”

“Good-bye, Spy.”

The next afternoon, at the café, he had only enough restraint to wait until Miss Pauling sat down. “So who won?”

“Does it matter?”

21.

“It was red. Definitely red.”

Even at the height of its power, Spy knew RED would not have possessed the capacity to reinstate him in an agency which no longer existed. Though a shadow of its former self, it still could have placed him in the DGSE, but he had lost his taste for the prospect of continuing to associate with those like himself. Instead, he found his way into a profession where his training in intelligence work suited him and his superiors well.

“Do you remember the author, or the title?”

“It’s about dragons? A dragon. I think there was just one in there.” Spy found it nearly endearing that this boy of eleven was pulling up such efforts to recall a book of his long-lost past of three years earlier, efforts which put certain professionals he’d met to shame.

“I see. And was it a picture book? A chapter book?”

“Chapter. It was definitely a chapter book. But, it had pictures, too. But not in color.” The boy looked into the distance, the face of dawning comprehension as more details came to him. “And – there were gorillas, I remember gorillas. It was all on a lot of islands. And something, I think with crocodiles, maybe.”

“All right.” Spy turned to the computer and began his search. “And you’re certain you can’t remember the title or author?”

The boy just shrugged.

“Well then, let me see what I can find, and what we might have.” Parsing out the query, discounting large swaths of information from the database, refining the results of the search twice, and he was soon left with four possible books, the second of which was the French translation of the American book My Father’s Dragon.

“Yes!” The boy’s face lit up when he peered at the screen. “That’s it right there.”

“We have two copies on the shelves in the children’s section. Gannett. Ah, but only one of the sequels on our shelves.”

“That’s okay.” He grinned and took the printout of the relevant information. “I can get it somewhere else, now that I know what I’ll need. Thank you!”

“Glad to be of service.”

There were yet a few more queries to answer before he could leave the reference desk – consultations on marine biology and on ornithology, recommendations for travel guides and books of romantic poetry, requests for help using the computer database and definitions imbeciles could look up in any dictionary they pleased – and let Aimee cover the field. And there was yet more work to complete before the end of the day, though thankfully that could be done behind a closed door.

Of all his wishes from so long ago, that the one which had come true had been the most frivolous seemed perfectly fitting. His own corner office, with plants on the windowsills to catch late afternoon sun, framed prints hung about here and there, very nearly as he’d imagined it. That it was a small town’s library rather than the government intelligence agency was not a characteristic of the situation he tended to dwell on. After all, it was his corner office, his very own. It was either that, or leave himself to cry, and there was yet more cataloging to be done – another batch of art histories that had to be added to the collection, and with Sophie on vacation, he was the next most qualified. With the windows open and the late spring air of May coming through them, the work was tedious but hardly unpleasant, and he soon bid his fellow librarians a good evening and hopped on his bicycle to be off for the day.

It was a good life – a good enough life. There was enough to keep himself occupied, and he found it was in fact quite pleasant to continue in the intelligence field for the love of the work when the most at stake was whether or not there would be a long wait to read a book.

Spy pedaled through the town’s streets, right by the Café Lapin where he regularly purchased his morning espresso and lingered over the local newspaper, along the edge of the central park’s lawns to take in the scent of the freshly-cut grass. He wove a longer route than what he strictly needed to savor the cool of the oncoming evening, darting past a group of pedestrians to have the street all to himself. Sitting up, he laced his hands behind his head and through his hair to better take in a deep breath of the clean air rolling in from the east, before lighting up a cigarette. Dropping one hand to steer as he smoked, he continued on to his apartment, over fresh pavement and cobblestones, past hand-painted windows and flowering trees just beginning to lose their blossoms. Perhaps on the weekend he would pack up a lunch and simply bicycle along through the countryside. The weather promised to be amicable for such a sojourn. But tonight, he simply made a sharp right and gently squeezed the brakes to come to a graceful stop in front of his mailbox.

Three flights up from the quiet streets near the edge of the town, barely half the floor space of his old townhouse, was the small private space where he spent his nights. He sorted out the unnecessary pieces and set the bills aside on his desk and the letters by his bed before heading to the kitchen to prepare dinner. The lunch he’d packed had seen to the end of the roasted chicken, and he’d left work too late to visit the greenmarket on the way home, but there were still eggs from Tuesday’s market, a few mushrooms, some tiny pink potatoes in the pantry and new leaves on the basil on the windowsill, and it wasn’t long before he was sprinkling some cheese into the omelet, pouring himself a glass of a fine dry Northern white, and opening the windows for the breeze to come in before finally sitting down to his supper.

Just as he did so, a car passed by the edge of the apartment complex, music blaring out loud enough for him to hear and an unwelcome intrusion on the quiet that soon passed. He sipped his wine, considering and then rejecting the idea of putting on the radio for some music of his own. It would only be to produce something to fill up the quiet, not to listen to what that would be.

If he was on his fourth or fifth glass, he might have considered the possibility Sniper would have approved. But he was not nearly so far gone, even in this little private space. A space private enough for ritual.

Spy had little reason for faith with the life he’d lived. It had been a dangerous thing to possess, his own in particular, and it had been safest to leave it to the wayside so long ago and not look back. To not even consider what he’d left behind. Perhaps it was having come back to his homeland and find it safe that made him reconsider certain aspects of his heritage. Though he had no room for faith, he knew well the need for ritual and the comfort it could bring – not for the dead, as he had no such illusions, but rather, for the living. He would never know the date his parents died, or the circumstances, but the day he’d said good-bye to them so long ago seemed fitting enough.

When he could look up from his desk and his papers and finally count three stars in the sky, it was time to light the candle.

All told, Spy spoke a total of nine languages in varying degrees of fluency. He was perfectly fluent in French, German, Vietnamese, and English, could easily ask for directions and order food and insult parentage in Italian, Spanish, and Catalan, and knew how to pray in Aramaic and Hebrew. But there was no need for words now, in any language, just a moment to stand silent and look inward on all that had changed in the time since he’d last lit such a candle that would burn for a full day, exactly one year ago.

The kettle was boiling when he returned to the kitchen with Engineer’s latest letter, and Spy set the tea to steeping as he began to read. Of everyone from the team who ended the war possessing a mailing address, Engineer had been first to begin correspondences, and the one who wrote most often, often upwards of ten times a year. He could hardly be said to have a way with words, but the sheer volume of them he used, and with such enthusiasm, made up for any lack of a creative turn of phrase. There were five neatly penned pages detailing his son’s sixth birthday and his growth and development, the current weather conditions and possibility of turning to beekeeping as a hobby, recent developments regarding his local community and a pair of guests he was expecting soon.

Of all the guests Engineer could entertain, Spy would not have guessed the ones mentioned, and once the surprise wore off, went ahead and poured him another glass of wine. A red, this time, something dark and strong from the antipodes, and he raised the glass west, towards America, and gave the young lovers a proper toast, to life, and to all the luck in the world. Draining it fast, following shortly with to savor more slowly. His apartment did not have a balcony, but his bedroom did have windows with wide, deep sills that allowed him to drink and smoke as he watched the sunset and considered the twisting nature of the world and the people in it.

Sniper’s sponsorship was still valid, still in the books – it would be quite some time before it lapsed, a legislative holdover from the time when going to Australia meant going for good. Spy knew Sniper was still alive and well – such a favor was easy enough to ask, when he still had socks and scarves, other gifts, imbued with the man’s essence that his tattoos could sniff out from anywhere in the world. They could not tell him precisely where, merely that he was, and often, that was enough.

It would not be difficult to visit Paris and the embassy, purchase a ticket and board a plane and find himself at the edge of the desert. The outback, the bush, beyond the black stump, the never-never. Spy had imagined himself doing so, many times. And it would not be difficult to ask his tattoos, all of his tattoos all at once, for one last favor. They would work together, all six of them, to show him the way and sustain him through that desert – just let him walk for the days, the weeks, perhaps the months that it would take for him to reach Sniper, and return to those arms.

And the price of such a favor, the biggest one he could ever ask, would be to never be able to ask them for another favor ever again. It was a fair exchange, one he might yet pay in time.

He might yet.