Be there the once.

He knew it had worked. The fact he’d retorted was proof of that. The BLU Sniper wanted to act like he was above it all but, like hell he was. So when he stepped away, Mick felt a small twinge of irritation too, not appreciating that he was attempting to get the last word in before getting on with his day.

“I missed, did I? Well… thought I’d take a take a leaf out of your book, y’know. I was inspired by your tactic of never bein’ able to land a proper shot above the neck.”

Mick then picked up an apple, and crunched into it, adding to that disgustingly cocky persona he liked to put on when within ten or so feet of this particular man. 

isetheby:

The crunch of fruit is sweet and crisp and entirely arrogant. A series of unvoiced warnings whiz by unvoiced, lightning fast: He better pay for it. He better not waste it.

Resisting the urge to grind his teeth, he reminds himself to save it. Save it and just do his job tomorrow. Still against better judgement, he hears himself mutter bitterly at his basket as he retrieves it from the floor.

“Good.”

Admittedly, he could have just snuck past the enemy Sniper and left him to his shopping completely unbothered. If it had been any other BLU, that would be the course of action he’d take. Bickering or getting into altercations off the clock just wasn’t his style…

But… the urge to intrude on this guy had taken a hold on him. This guy… he had looked far too relaxed for Mick’s liking… 

“Yeah. Didn’t expect t’see ya out of the medbay so soon. You were left in a bad way the last time I saw ya.”  A familiar toothy grin spread across his face, and he knew that the sight, along with his comment, would incense him, even if he didn’t show it outwardly. 

The urge to taunt and tease… it was just too great. Mick knew it was immature, bordering on unprofessional, but he couldn’t resist. Something about this bloke always brought out a side of him that he didn’t experience with anyone else. The two had a personal beef that could only be understood by a merc and his direct counterpart; that sort of competitive streak. The urge to preen and show off, just to annoy him. 

isetheby:

His grip on the orange twitches at the memory. Getting a sniper round through the arm first thing in the morning was no walk in the park. Nor is getting stuck in the building because all the reasonable exits would be in the enemy’s line of sight. 

Scowling, he resists the sudden urge to pitch fruit into that smug sniper’s face. He could hear the smile without looking up and it was infuriating enough just to know. 

If it were anyone else he would say nothing and move on. There’s nothing to be gained by rising to roundabout gloating. 

Setting what he wants into the basket at his feet, he straightens to walk away. The bitten out response is sour.

He’d expected someone to be out and about when he exited the base, which is why he’d apologised for his tardiness in the first place; however, it became abundantly clear that there wasn’t, and why that was.

❝ Ah, piss. ❞

Sniper attempted to dart out of sight, but his slow reaction due to his drowsy state might have just cost him greatly.

Breathe, hold, pull.

The shot rings out, a crack above distant gunfire. The body in his scope jolts, but does not fall. He scowls. Shoulder.

  really ?   was that necessary ?   a sigh fell from lips as fingers curled around the kettle’s handle, pulling it close enough to make the hot steam touch skin as heat desperately escaped from its steel confines. it wasn’t a big deal  — it wouldn’t become a big deal.  with one swift motion the medic poured himself a cup of earl grey ( plenty of sugar,  no milk ), which he intended to do before the blu sniper took back the kettle.  

   “  do you still need this ? ”   why not ask ? 

The action is regarded in silence, fixed on escaping steam and the small stream of hot tea. So tame. Like there was no offense meant at all, making an entire pot of tea instead of steeping what was needed in a mug on it’s own.

Because it wasn’t just boiling water, he’d have to wait. Despite the inconvenience, he wasn’t about to let anything go to waste. The answer comes just as emotionless as ever. Singular and factual.

‘ Amore Cecil Sniper,

If this letter has made its way into your hands then I’ve been killed I am no longer around.

My name, my real name is... [ The letters to the words are incomprehensible, whether or not it was on purpose is unclear ]. I was born in Italy on the 19th of March, 1927. My sister was born3 years later. When I was 8, there was a devastating fire at my home-- I lost everything my entire family in the blaze and spent the rest of my childhood on the streets. I was in the war, as you could have probably guessed. I don’t really remember which side I fought for anymore, nor do I care. I think I was 16 when I enlisted. It isn’t worth going into detail of what I did during that time-- I was only a teenager with nothing left to lose and everything to give. I became a mercenary when the war ended. I was 18. Between that and the labour work I started doing when I was 12, I suppose I had managed to make a living. A year later, my time as a hireling went sour as I was framed for a murder that I had no part in and I was sentenced to death. To be killed on my 20th birthday. I only escaped the death sentence after the death penalty was scrapped in Italy. I was released in 1950 after being proved innocent. The man actually responsible confessed-- can you believe it?

As you can imagine, the only job left out there for me was mercenary work-- nobody would hire a man with a criminal record like me. I did what I did for nearly 20 years of my life, getting better as I went, getting more brutal and efficient. I am not proud of what I’ve done over the years due to desperation and hunger. I was 40 when I saw the job application for Mann Co. And, as you say, ‘the rest was history’.     I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I suppose it’s because I wish for someone out there to know exactly who I am what I’ve been through over the past 44 years. There is nobody else in the world but you that I would rather have know. Not that it matters now.

I miss you. I miss you a lot. I think about you a lot. And about how we ended things. I suppose, that will be my biggest regret. I wasn’t enough to keep you by my side, but I will still treasure what we had. From the day I finish writing this letter until the day I die.

I’m sorry.

- From, Spy - Sincerely, Blu - Love, Enzo - Vito

I love you, Cecil. I love you, I love you, I love--

[ The bottom of the letter is unintelligible as it seems that the writer began to cry across the pages, smearing the ink. ] ’

The letter comes unmarked with Lucy’s, one day. They’d fought months ago and he isn’t angry anymore-- had sent something back stating as such. That, and how he was going to stay away now for her sake. Perhaps in as many words as he could manage, but what for once did not feel like enough. Despite this, she’d always been stubborn. 

It’s what he reads first, because though the extra envelope caused mild alarm-- no one was supposed to know about that PO box other than his sister-- curiosities could wait. It goes much about how it has, with every other letter. By the time he puts down her words for the other letter, his heart is already full.

The long, half scribbled out mess is greeted with a flicker of irritation. He’d always been slow at reading, and asking someone to decipher something so suspiciously addressed is out of the question. His annoyance only mounts as he makes his way painstakingly past crossed out but still-legible words, squinting the whole while.

The first bit made it clear it was him. He’d disappeared a few weeks ago, and Cecil had been getting on. In reality, he’d been getting on long before that. There was the long festering vexation that had set in like rot, the kind he’d tried to ignore in favour of what had been good. Foolishness. Cecil had never changed, and in the end all the happiness was a lie. The man’s soft touches seemed like they happened to someone else, and he didn’t miss them anymore.

He finds himself skimming, the more difficult and obscured words escaping comprehension. It was the history of a dead man he’d barely spoken to in weeks and weeks, of which the last dregs of interest for were being even further overwhelmed with distaste as he read on.

It makes him wonder, how he’d ever tolerated it. The names near the bottom of the page seem to insult him with their indecision, to the point where whichever one is true hardly mattered. Cecil would never know without investigative effort, and he’d been done putting any effort into Spy long before this.

Why tell him this at all, if it was acknowledged to be useless anyway? Why not even bother to keep it readable, if it was so important? In the end Cecil folds up the muddled words and love of someone he no longer cares to know, and stores it away in his van. Safe, for all it means anything. Perhaps it is only because of some sense of courtesy that he doesn’t toss it. 

     It’s breakfast -- he’s hungry. There’s a small part of him that wants to let the sad little machine live out its last leg. Toast (or more likely) irradiate on final piece but the toaster seems hellbent on rushing to kick the bucket as it bursts into flame. “Mann Co. issued.” Is all the explanation offered and the only one needed as he smothers the fire. This isn’t the first toaster lost and it won’t be the last but the blackened piece of bread that was supposed to be his breakfast makes it all the more bitter.

 He can build a new toaster just to have it be broken by some of their more reckless teammates later and maybe he will but right now all he wants is food. Toast is out of the question but eggs are still an option. Not even half way to the Mann Co. issued stove and it decides to burst into Mann Co issued fire. Just another thing to fix. Wordless, the Engineer slips into the seat across from Cecil inhaling the smell of burnt toast, blackened coffee, and smoke. No oven, no toast, and he’ll be damned if tries for that mystery jar that’s been there since he was a kid in the great beyond of the fridge. Practical problems call for practical solutions. So, as the Mann co issued stench of burnt breakfast fills the room he takes a pull of the saddest sludge of coffee in a mug before setting it aside.

 “Ya’ll eat yet? Reckon we can go t’town fer a spell ‘n pick up a bite. My treat.”

He watches the appliances self destruct in sequence and is glad the kettle was out of range. The scent in the air is acrid, but a step up from burning flesh. One learned to take the small things for what they are

Any sort of half-way prepared breakfast seemed unsalvageable this morning, and he observes the Engineer’s muted reaction with a rare sense of sympathy. Though his own idea of breakfast was usually of even lower effort. A half finished loaf of cold sour dough sat in one of the tallest cupboards, undiscovered still by the more inconsiderate teammates. There were advantages to being tall. Especially when anything in the fridge edged towards free-for-all, unless the individual had run some sort of intimidation beforehand. Even then, he could name a few colleagues whose recklessness edged on death wish levels.

Cecil’s gaze raises from his own mug, impassive as always. The Engineer’s offer seems sociable, and its a bright morning. Besides, the man’s company has almost always been north of tolerable.

@lilolnumber asked: Cecil talking about how he feels about Dell Conagher || Open

The only evidence the question was heard at all is a subtle incline of the Sniper’s head. Private conversations are better had in noisy rooms, and most of his colleagues are just that.

A proper response comes unhurried, flat but not lacking in conviction.

“Works hard. Good at it.”

It’s high praise. A wrench may be a blunt object on a field with guns and explosives, but he recalls the image of the Texan braining some poor too-slow Spy with muted satisfaction. Flashes of blueprints he couldn’t make heads or tails of, the inner workings of machinery too fiddly and complex for him to understand. Sentries that covered important choke points. Dispensers that knit his wounds shut. Pleasant smiles that turned feral and dangerous.

That was a man that was capable. 

There’s a pause, almost long enough to indicate the end of his answer. But something akin mirth flickers underneath reflective lenses, and when he speaks again it is as dry as the desert they fight in.

The RED’s brow wrinkled as his face twisted into a persisting grimace—perhaps a bit agitated to be approached by the BLU Sniper. The man was always too quiet for Mick’s comfort—funnily enough, something he had initially respected, but now found just a touch unnerving. He was aware of the hypocrisy there, but it was frustrating not being able to quite tell what the hell was going on in his counterpart’s head. But, perhaps, that might’ve been a mutual feeling.

And just because it was a ceasefire didn’t mean he was going to keep his guard down, especially while the other man made his way over. Out of the corner of his eye, Mick spotted what the BLU was holding and his jaw visibly clenched. A small length of silence lingered between the two before he finally broke it.

“...Just because I lost it doesn’t mean I want it back.”

It’d been stuck in the wall, just outside the stairwell to his post. A mistake or a threat, he couldn’t quite tell-- it’s been too long he’d watched the things lobbed across the battlefield in his direction, picking off teammates with a different sort of terrifying accuracy. Almost insulting in their velocity, just slow enough to think you could dodge.

He doesn’t see the point, splitting one’s focus onto something that did essentially the same thing. But that could be ignored for now. They did fight together now, against an enemy that couldn’t think, though he suspects he will always find distaste for the other Sniper’s personality methods.

The arrow rested between his hands like a bridge, more or less intact. It bothered him. Not because of the potential offense at being crudely threatened now of all times-- though that would be irritating-- but because he didn’t understand. The angle of it was strange. How did it get there considering they’d been defending from the same angle? Why? He hadn’t seen any robots succumbing to arrows today either. It seemed strange for a mere mistake, had he simply missed it?

These mysteries itched at his focus. Not enough to cause significant distraction of course, but still itched all the same. And he is not above asking questions to someone he dislikes.

Without so much as a hint of emotion in his expression, voice plain and unwavering, he speaks. 

“ Maybe so, ” the Engineer responded, tone light despite the topic of conversation. He quietly strummed his guitar, tuning it with nimble fingers before playing a proper song. He found this to be a calming pastime between battles, whenever his arms were too tired to work, but his hands too restless, and his mind too meddlesome. Dell knew more about this war than he should, and yes, maybe it was useless to partake in any of it. But by God if this was going to be his family’s legacy, he didn’t want to do anything else.

     Besides, he liked the company far more than at any other place he’s worked at. Might not get the opportunity to be around like-minded people ever again after this.

     He’d rather die in battle.

“ But don’t it depend on the angle you’re lookin’ at ? Spend too much time on the bigger picture and you start feelin’ mighty small. First of all, ask yourself if there’s anythin’ you’d rather wanna do than this. ”

He wonders sometimes, looking at the Engineer. What keeps him like this, able to keep up what is at least the pretense of light pleasantry even with the things he must have been through. Not that he knows the specifics, but he’s long since learned there is often tragedy that precedes a man’s decision to take on their profession.

He doesn’t claim to know the hearts of strangers, of acquaintances-- but the Engineer has never seemed a liar. At least, not for things as inconsequential as this. 

So the time is taken to think seriously about this question. Taken apart and considered without emotional influence like all the problems he faces every day. He thinks of Lucy, old enough and successful enough to not need his help. Lucy, who used to cry when he accidentally crushed a moth underfoot.

“What do I want?”

He laughs again, unhinged and incredulous.

“I want a lot of things. I want things to be normal again. I want food, maybe pasta or noodles. I want to watch this building burn to the ground with you inside. I want to jump off a cliff, and I want to drag someone with me.”

Scrubbing his face with his hands, the brutal manages another sound and straightens again, stalking ever closer.

“Do you think you could help with any of those?”

Insanity is the soldiers he’s seen stop. The ones that shook and felt things that weren’t happening, sometimes when they couldn’t afford to. At times he feels it too, he thinks. The dread of events long past crawling into the edges of his vision, loud and all consuming. That is the insanity he knows. That, and the kind that scrapes and scrapes even as he ignores it, misery in the fact that there is no one there, that you are unable to want anyone there.

This is different. There are so many questions, but even he can sense they wouldn’t help now. So instead he takes what’s given to him to their literal aspects, and the answer is obvious.

Even as he tenses in his defensive stance, even as his hand adjusts it’s grip on his machette minutely in anticipation to strike, gaze unblinking and prepared, he cannot lie. Perhaps it will only make the situation worse, but stubbornness is baked into his bones.

"I know countless ways to make someone show all their secrets, they keep locked away wherever they go."

Knife twirling in hand, almost ITCHING to plunge into his former teammate's neck, Gabriel laughed. An uneven laugh, tittering and uneasy, almost a completely different person in that one sound alone.

"Do you want to make this easy or hard?"

His gaze is even, but recognition of a familiar face in this situation is irritating. It’s a dull blade trying it’s best to cut, and Cecil feels the situation in equal frustration. He doesn’t understand. It’s dissonance, something that doesn’t add up from what he’s seen because pieces are missing. 

But understanding isn’t required for this. At least not obviously, at least not in this specific, current question. It’s only betrayal.

unwillingly evil

you were forced. your resolve was broken slowly but surely, and now you're unsure of whether you'll ever get it back. for some reason, you believe that your current position is your fault. it isn't. it's the fault of those who did it to you. and yet you soldier on, facing forwards even as you slowly lose your will to continue. when you die, you're calm. unafraid for the first time in a while. this is the one thing they can't take from you.

Tagged by: I stole it. I’m a criminal.