#candygrahm

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Spy ducked through a doorway a bare moment before a rocket followed him through it, screaming across the room to slam into concrete and detonate, sending chunks of cement and shrapnel flying, peppering him with a light spray of pebbles. A failed gambit had left him with his ass hanging out in the wind and the enemy Soldier on his tail for his trouble. He drew his knife and waited, trying to steady his breaths in case the rowdy American had given chase, but when enough time passed that he was sure he was safe, he sighed and collapsed against the wall beside the door for a moment, letting his heart finally slow a bit.

The defense of Gravel Pit was not going well, the BLUs operating with ruthless efficiency that day. It was getting exhausting, constantly playing catch-up, and Spy was finding it trickier and trickier to get behind enemy lines in time to make a difference. Their Engineer was quick on moving up their teleporter and defending it, and he was having a hell of a time catching up to his nest, let alone making inroads to it. The whole lot of them were twitchy and hyper-skeptical of one another, spy-checking with unusual frequency. He idly wondered if their superiors had given them hell for getting sloppy, and they were now overcompensating.

Unfortunately, it was working.

A ruckus approached, the sound of voices and heavy bootfalls rushing from RED’s side. It was music to Spy’s ears. His team was finally pushing back, and he could make out the voices of Soldier and Scout calling orders to one another. Soldier would hold them down with rocket fire while Scout flanked and tried to catch eye of the enemy’s positions to report on-mic. The muffled voice of Pyro mumbled out something, and Soldier simply replied, “Pyro, you’re with me. I need airblast support.”

Pyro replied, sounding a bit grumpy at his words being ignored, but they continued on, regardless.

Spy couldn’t help making a face. He had no idea what Pyro had said; he never did. Nobody ever did, really. It was a known fact that nobody on the team tried to hide, so he could barely be justified in sounding so put-out at whatever he had said being ignored. That mask muffled everything he said so much that he was basically unintelligible.

All the same, it had to be frustrating, to be so alienated, your words impossible to parse by your own team, the men you lived and died fighting beside. Spy let out a little sigh at that thought. It was tragic, in its way, and he couldn’t help a pang of empathy in spite of himself.

A new battle plan began to take over Spy’s thoughts as he returned to focusing on his job. He would wait for Soldier, Pyro, and Scout’s distraction, and use the cover to slip past the lines under cloak. Now he just needed to wait for the chaos.

Explosions rang out along with Soldier’s telltale scream. There was that chaos, right on time.

Spy slapped the cloak button on his watch and practically dove out of the building in which he hid, racing across the field as fast as his feet would carry him. He skirted close to his team as he rounded a corner, but the sound of Pyro’s voice caught him blisteringly off-guard.

It was muffled as always, but for the first time, Spy understood what he was saying, ringing out as clear as it could from behind rubber and filters, "¡Que les den por el culo!"

Spy’s eyes went wide, his head snapping to the side to look, seeing Pyro cheering Soldier on as he erupted into the air off of a rocket jump and began to bombard the other team from above. One gloved hand pumped his fist in the air while the other hefted his flamethrower, laughter forcing its way through his mask in bloodthirsty glee. So distracted was the rogue that he didn’t see the piece of debris in his way until his foot caught it, and he went tumbling ass over teakettle into the dust, his watch shorting out. A blue laser dot flicked past his vision.

Spy awoke in respawn, the lights blinding him as he opened fresh eyes. He was alone, which spoke well for his teammates’ offensive, so he took a moment to compose himself. He lit a cigarette and took a drag, slowly leaving respawn as he mulled over what he’d just witnessed.

He’d heard it. It wasn’t plain as day; nothing could be when garbled through a gasmask. But he’d heard it. Pyro had yelled to Soldier to, “fuck their asses”. In Spanish. Realization dawned on Spy, and he wondered if the reason he’d never been able to parse what Pyro was saying was the simple fact that he’d been trying to decipher his muffled mumbles into English.

He suddenly felt deeply foolish. And deeply curious. He had to know for sure.

For the rest of the match, he kept an ear out for Pyro. They rarely crossed paths on the field, the gap between offense and support a large one, particularly for their specific specialties, but whenever he found himself passing by, Spy tried, regardless.

"¡Mierda!”

“¡Sos más feo que pisar mierda descalzo!”

“¡Me cago en to madre!”

Spy fought to keep himself down to mere snickers through the rest of the match, but it was after a failed push and the absolute botch of a sticky trap led himself, Pyro, and Demoman to awaken in respawn at the same time, followed by the arsonist grumbling at an already-leaving Demoman, “Tus padres deben ser hermanos ¿no?” that Spy finally broke.

He snorted in spite of himself, trying and failing to hold back the bark of a laugh that forced its way out of him. He doubled over, bracing himself on his thighs as he giggled, heaving out the giddy amusement that had been simmering in him for half the match. Pyro turned to him and stared through blank, black lenses.

“¿Lo has entendido?” Pyro asked, standing up straight, reeling away from Spy in shock.

“Claro que si,” Spy assured him, hefting out a last giggle and wiping his eyes, finally standing back up and composing himself.

“No sabía que hablabas español.”

Spy merely smirked in reply. “But now I know that you do.” With a nod and a smile, he strode out to rejoin the match, leaving Pyro standing there staring after him in surprised silence.

*

After the match, Pyro caught up with Spy in the hallway to their quarters, caging him in to stop him in his tracks. “How long have you understood me?” he asked, muffled Spanish through his mask sounding perhaps more breathless than usual.

“I am fluent, you know,” Spy dodged with a smirk, stopping to lean casually against the wall. He withdrew a cigarette from his case and snapped it shut, holding the unlit smoke between his fingers.

“That’s not an answer and you know it. How long have you understood me and not said a single fucking word?”

The words were simple, but the tone cut to the quick. How long have I thought I was alone? How long have you let me suffer, thinking I wasn’t understood by anyone? Why?

Spy shook his head and lit his cigarette, taking a long drag. He hated playing his hand, but the hurt in Pyro’s voice was unfair to allow to exist. He liked playing with people. He was a bastard. But he wasn’t a monster . “Truly? Since you told Soldier to fuck the BLU team’s asses earlier today.”

“What?”

“It paints me in a poor light. A spy who’s worked with a man for half a year and hadn’t sussed out what language he even spoke, but I hope you’ll forgive me for not too readily parsing that what was already deeply mangled by rubber and filters wasn’t the same language the rest of the team was using.”

“…so you were expecting English, so you never realized it wasn’t?”

“Shamefully,” Spy chuckled ruefully. “You understand English, though. That much is clear from how you react when the others talk.”

“Mostly, yes. But I don’t like to speak it. It’s…hard to put together my thoughts into words.”

“Understandable. I felt similarly about English when I learned it, as well. Too many synonyms that have very small differences in tone. And very little patience from English speakers for imprecision.”

“Yes! They jam three languages together, call it one, and get mad when you don’t know every little nuance like it’s obvious! Most of them don’t even know what most of their words mean! It’s shit!”

Spy chuckled at that, and Pyro laughed in turn, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet excitedly. “ But yes. You’re not so alone as you thought, though from the others’ dossiers, I fear I am the only other Spanish speaker here.”

“Engie knows a few words, but not enough to have a conversation. I can ask him basic things, like where, or when, and he can gesture and say numbers, but not much else. It works, but it’s not the same, you know? I know more English than he does Spanish, but not enough spoken to really hold a conversation with him, either. Not unless we’re writing things down.” Pyro looked down, regarding his own boots for a long moment. “I’m not exactly a strong reader regardless of language, though.”

“I’ll be sure not to bother becoming pen-pals, then,” Spy teased, earning him a half-hearted swat from Pyro in reply.

*

The rest of the work week had been an exercise in escalating attempts at cracking one another during combat. Pyro had pulled out all of the stops, making sure to try and clock when Spy was nearby before pulling out his best battlefield shit-talk, and Spy in reply had made it his mission to sneak past Pyro with a few choice jokes on his way to the front. They would laugh and compare jokes and kills off the field, chattering animatedly in the locker room and at dinner, leaving the rest of the team to stare in wonderment at the absolute change in both men. The sassy-if-incomprehensible arsonist and the snide, aloof rogue laughed and carried on like old friends.

One quiet evening, they found themselves in the rec room, Pyro staring blankly at the television through smoky lenses while Spy tried and failed to read a magazine.

“You say something?” Pyro asked, half-turning.

Spy shook his head. “No, but while I have your attention …what does it look like, to you?” he asked, finally setting his magazine down, curiosity too strong to keep pretending he was doing anything else.

“What does what look like?”

“The television. The battlefield. Life. What do you see when you look at me?”

Pyro seemed to deflate in his spot, seated on the floor with his legs crossed under himself. “You know about my psychosis.”

“Yes.”

“You pulled my dossier.”

Spy only tried a little bit to look scandalized. “I am a spy, after all.”

Pyro sighed. “I have hallucinations. Auditory and visual. What it tends to be and how severe depends on the situation. Day to day it’s mostly colours and perspective shifting sometimes. Fire always looks so beautiful, like colours melting up into the sky. Sometimes I’ll see birds where there aren’t any, which really sucks with Medic keeping doves in the base and all. Sometimes I’ll hear music in the distance, or think I hear someone say something when they didn’t.”

“Is that why you asked me if I said something? I’ve noticed you do that sometimes.”

“Yeah. When I’m alone sometimes I’ll see someone walk into the room and have to check if anyone actually did or not. Usually throw something. If it bounces off then they’re real.”

Spy nodded, pursing his lips. “I suppose it makes you predisposed to spy-checking.”

That earned a laugh, and Pyro fully turned from the television to look up at Spy. “Got me there.”

“What situations make it more severe, if it varies?”

“Work, usually. Anything where I’m stressed or overstimulated can kick it into high gear, which is why I keep the gas mask on outside work hours. Helps keep things from getting overwhelming when the guys are around, getting all rowdy . But when it gets stronger? Stuff changes. Everything gets brighter. Colours go pastel, and everything sparkles and shines. Screams sound like giggles. The BLUs look like babies, and fire like sparkles and colours. Blood and guts become gears and machinery and confetti. It’s…a lot.”

“Almost like your mind is trying to protect you from your own actions.”

“I don’t know if I’d read that far into it, but yeah, it’s almost disorienting. Landscape doesn’t change, though, and I can still do what I do once I parse out what everything is. I tend not to see things that aren’t there then, at least. Just, kind of like it lays over everything.”

“There is nothing to be done to control it?”

“Why try? I can do my job just fine, and have fun while I do it. I’m in control the whole time.” Pyro scoffed. “Not like it’s gonna turn me into some kind of axe murderer or something.”

Spy snorted a laugh at that. “Fair enough, I suppose. If you ever need something confirmed as real or not, I will be happy to assist.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

*

“ Happy father’s day!”

Pyro stood in the doorway of Spy’s quarters and held out a bottle of whiskey with a bow on it, tilting his head to the side in a masked approximation of cheerfulness.

Spy looked down at the bottle and back up to Pyro in horror. “What—”

“You’re not the only one who can pull dossiers,” Pyro teased, pushing the bottle into Spy’s hands, “ Papi.”

The rogue pursed his lips. What a little shit. “You little shit.”

Pyro couldn’t help a laugh at that. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you know a lot of it is redacted anyway. Still, it’s surprising! You strike me as the kind of man who’s careful with his liaisons.”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t a matter of being irresponsible when bedding femme fatales in exotic locales like spy novels would have you believe ,” Spy huffed, retreating back into his quarters to set the bottle down, the unspoken invitation to enter taken as Pyro slipped in behind him and closed the door. “Young love, I suppose. She was ravishing. I was foolish enough to think that I could settle down in spite of the life I’ve lead, that it wouldn’t catch up with me and force me to run away from what we were trying to build together. Not that I tried to fight for it, either. She deserved better, and my son…he was barely walking when I left. Hopefully he doesn’t remember me.”

“Dossier said he was born in ‘45. He’s Scout’s age; a whole-ass man by now.”

Spy swallowed hard, freezing a bit as he waited for Pyro to say anything else. He tried his best to school away any suggestion that he was panicking in his own head, that somehow the arsonist had extrapolated the truth from very incomplete information. When nothing else was said, he simply said, “Yes. And likely more than a man than I was when I left him.”

Pyro visibly deflated, his attempt at a bit of playfulness turning swiftly tragic. He approached Spy, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “If he’s even half the man you are, he’s better than all of the rest of us.”

Spy smiled softly, turning and looking into the darkened lenses of his masked companion. “ You’re too kind.”

*

The scuffed, scratched, abused wooden floors of RED’s hallways were warm under Pyro’s bare feet, the heat of the desert that permeated the structure throughout the day never quite bleeding away from its interior in the cold of night. His soles slapped against the warped, uneven surface as he padded his way through the base, wandering aimlessly in frustration. Sleep was not only not coming easily, it wasn’t coming at all, and enough tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling in frustration, watching phantom shapes dance in the dark, had chased him from his bed in aggravation. So he paced the halls, looking for something, anything to distract him from sleep that would not come.

A crack of light arced across the floor, seeping out from under a door. Pyro’s eyes followed it to the door itself, and he realized he was standing in front of Spy’s smoking room. Finding it occupied wouldn’t normally be a surprise, save for the late hour. Tugging his mask down over his face, he tried the door. It was unlocked, so he slipped inside.

Spy lounged on his sofa, which he had pulled in front of his fireplace, watching the flames dance with an almost-empty rocks glass of whiskey in one hand, the end of a cigarette in his other. When the opposite end of the sofa sagged, he looked over to see Pyro settling in. His purple and pink unicorn-themed pajamas provided an interesting counterpoint to the gasmask he wore. Spy smiled a little, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the fireplace. “You can’t sleep either?”

“Yeah. Surprised to see you up this late.”

“I often am. Sleep and I are fickle lovers, sometimes enemies. Passing ships in the night.”

“You have insomnia?”

“Nightmares. And insomnia as a frequent result. So I comfort myself in what ways I can, in hopes that sleep comes peacefully for me in time.”

“Watching the fire is comforting.”

“Having company, doubly so.”

A comfortable silence fell between them as they stared into the warm glow of the fire. Yellows, oranges, reds, whites, and subtle blues danced before Spy, while a panoply of colours joined them to Pyro’s reckoning, enchanting them both with its lazy gyrations. Pyro tugged his legs up under himself, sitting cris-cross on the sofa, cozying into the plush cushions.

“Having company means a lot,” he said, speaking English for the first time that Spy had ever heard. His words were slow, halting, and felt unfamiliar in his mouth. But nonetheless, he’d used the language, and Spy’s smile grew wider.

Pyro had been alone, barely understood, isolated by a language barrier he thought insurmountable. And then Spy had changed it all in a moment.

“Being understood is what all humans want,” Spy replied warmly.

He was sure Pyro was beaming under his mask, the way his body language straightened up in excitement. “ That, and to have a good time,” he added, returning to words that were more comfortable for him.

Spy chuckled softly, he gaze turning back to the fire, “If I continue providing understanding, will you continue showing me such a good time?”

He heard a warm laugh, and shifting beside him. Pyro’s voice came unmuffled, “It’s a deal.”

Spy looked back to him in surprise, to his face illuminated by the fire, and felt his heart skip a beat. He wasn’t sure what he’d figured the man would look like, but he was entirely more handsome than he’d been prepared for.

Pyro noticed Spy staring and grinned. “Expected more burn scars, huh?”

Spy averted his eyes, grateful that his own mask hid the pinkness of his cheeks. “You’d be a terrible pyro if you were getting yourself burnt up all of the time,” he demurred.

Pyro hefted out a laugh. “It would be like if you were covered in knife wounds.”

“I’ll elect to keep my gloves on, then. More of my youth and the safety of my fingers than I like was spent on learning balisong tricks.” At Pyro’s answering laugh, he did give in a bit. “I will offer you this, however.” He set his drink down on the carpeted floor and took hold of his mask at the neckline. In a smooth motion, he tugged it free of his head, immediately sinking one hand into his hair and combing at it to try to fluff some body back into it.

Pyro turned his gaze fully from the fire, a blush racing across his face as he beheld Spy’s sharp nose, his salt-and-pepper hair, and the even paler patches of skin that didn’t see the sun of the battlefield. “Why would you ever cover such a nice face?”

“Well, when you’re this handsome, it tends to make you a lot of enemies.”

Pyro shifted his legs out from under himself and leaned into Spy’s personal space. “Just enemies?”