Chapter Text
Only just recently did RED remember the Demoman was meant to be a defensive class.
Tavish blamed the new Engineer, who built his sentry practically inside the base, so cautious that any BLU who actually made it this far would certainly be pumped full of lead by Sasha before the sentry got in edgewise. Not that Tavish was sober enough to say anything about it. He wasn’t in the business of telling other people how to do their jobs.
What he was in the business of was, apparently, helping Engineer babysit his nest. Engie insisted that sticky traps had a use beside jumping, and that use was hiding them in damn near every corner of RED base, just on the off chance some suicidal idiot mounted a push there.
Tavish couldn’t find the grounds to argue. While he’d gotten used to spending his days doing whatever the hell he felt like, he did, technically, have a job to do here.
It also helped that the Engineer was, well, nice about it. He seemed genuinely excited for BLU to try and take their nigh-impregnable tower, just so they could, ‘send those city-slickers running for the hills’. He greeted Tavish jovially with a slap on the back whenever he came in from his rounds about the ramparts, and was blindly optimistic about collecting that final bounty when they ran BLU out of the badlands.
It was hard to be irritated with him. Tavish tried to remember if he had been like that when he’d gotten his first gig, so damn excited just to blow some aresholes up that he didn’t notice the vinegar running through every crack in his associates. If he had, it must have been a long time ago. He’d arrived at RED already as he was now: worn, wise to the idea that he was an investment with diminishing returns.
The new Sniper, on the other hand, was somehow worse than the old. It was hard to put his finger on, but something in Tavish’s gut just writhed around him, and based on recent events Tavish wasn’t in the market for ignoring his instincts. There was just something in the way the man leered. Like he was just one moment away from going feral.
So his time roaming the battlefield was relegated to nights, and his days were spent sitting with Engie, only getting up to stretch his legs.
Which was where Spy found him, gripping his arm with all the urgency that his smile did not convey. “Demoman, a word?”
“What is it?” Tavish lowered his voice. “Shouldn’t we be having this conversation back at the room?”
“There’s no time,” Spy belied. “As long as you keep your expression merry-” The word came out through a fog of heavy connotation, “-we are just two friends having a conversation.”
Tavish did his best to steady his breath, preparing for the worst. “What’s going on, Spy?”
“We need to act quickly,” Spy said, as though talking about the weather. “Unforeseen events have forced me to move our timetable ahead drastically. To today.”
“As opposed to when?” Demo asked tersely. He didn’t remember receiving a memo on what exactly this grand plan was.
“Some time in the indeterminate future,” Spy waved away. “The important part is we must act before tomorrow, or we may not get another chance. I know you had your doubts, but you must decide if you wish to escape with me, and you must decide now.”
Tavish swallowed. He thought of the foolish, naive Engineer, who’d probably be humming contentedly away until he got himself killed. He thought of the enemy Soldier, who was aiming to get himself killed, no mater what Tavish did to stop him.
Then he thought of his mother, who he hadn’t written to in months, who the last thing he’d said to was that he was heading out for another job.
“Alright Spy,” he choked out. “You got me.”
Despite the practiced expression Spy had ironed his face into, the relief was overflowing in those blue eyes. “Thank you. You have turned this from a slim chance into nearly good odds.”
“Well doesn’t that put shine to my shoes,” Tavish grumbled. “What do you need me to do?”
“A distraction. Anything loud enough to draw the base. I will do the rest.”
Tavish already had the parts of an idea forming in his head. “Aye. I can do that.”
“Thank you,” Spy said, with desperation tingeing every inch. His composure was almost gone, and then he repeated, “thank you.”
And he leaned up and pressed his lips against Tavish’s.
It was shocking how soft they were, how little they tasted like cigarette smoke. Tavish barely had time to register them before they were gone, along with the Spy and the fading call of, “good luck.”
Tavish stood there, struck as still as if he’d been backstabbed. It was a long, long time before he moved again, and then it was only because when Spy had kissed him, he’d slipped something heavy into Tavish’s hand.
It was a pocket watch, old and faded where countless thumbs had worn its center to a brilliant shine, all while the edges were bronzed with age. Tavish clicked it open.
Inside was a note:
North most side of no man’s land, 1645, January 8th.
A date and a time. Tavish inhaled. He had a date that would take him out of here, forever, and he forced himself to control his breathing. Aggressively, he managed wrangle the scrap of hope that dared to rise in his chest; he had a job to do after all.
At request, the explosion rocked every inch of the base, collapsing in a sonic boom that shattered windows. Immediately, he heard Soldier’s, “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!” reverberate nearly as loudly.
Soldier, Pyro, and Scout rushed on to the scene of the crime within seconds, Heavy lumbering after them with his gun spinning. Instead of being greeted with a breech in the wall and the mercenaries of BLU team pouring through, they instead found their inebriated demoman, holding a bottle of scrumpy while staggering over a scorched hole in the courtyard.
“Ach, sorry ‘bout that lads,” the Demoman slurred. “Case ‘o nitro was a wee bit slipperier than ae thought.”
“Nitro!” Scout practically screeched. “As in nitro-freaking-glycerin? What the hell is wrong with you man!?”
“I WILL TELL YOU WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM,” Soldier bellowed. “HE IS A DRUNKEN WASTE OF SPACE THAT IS GOING TO GET US ALL KILLED!”
“All hell,” Engie said, finally arriving on the scene, likely because he debated so long on whether to leave his nest or not. Similarly, Sniper crept into view, looking down from the third story to watch the mess unfold.
Despite every eye on the building bearing down on him, Tavish gave his best, ‘what are you gunna do?’ expression.
Soldier was not having it. He stormed down and grabbed Tavish by the lapels. “LISTEN HERE YOU INCOMPETENT ENGLISH SISSY, IF YOU EVER SOUND A FALSE ALARM AGAIN, I AM GOING TO TAKE YOUR FRILLY LITTLE WINE BOTTLE AND SHOVE IT SO FAR DOWN YOUR THROAT IT WILL TOUCH THE PLACE WHERE YOUR LIVER USED TO BE.”
The part of him that still had spine wanted to snap out of it, shove the Soldier off him and sock him one in the jaw for good measure. Drops of spittle flew in his face as Soldier hurled vulgarities, and Tavish couldn’t help but miss the old RED Soldier. He had been brutish, but in an almost charming way, one where you thought he was more a danger to himself than to the people around him. Tavish would trade anything to have him here instead.
(He would trade anything to have Jane here.)
Soldier kept going. Tavish hoped this was taking long enough that Spy could do whatever he was up to, because he didn’t want to spend a minute more shouldering the burden of scapegoat. “Said ae was sorry,” he muttered.
Soldier made a noise of disgust, and dropped him. It was forceful enough that even if Tavish weren’t playing the drunken fool, he wouldn’t have been able to catch himself, and he fell so hard enough against an overturned bench that it hurt his ribs.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Scout said, and turned to go. The others slowly followed, one by one, shooting him looks that were pitiful at best and repulsed at worse.
Finally, Heavy scoffed, and Tavish was left alone with the crater he had fathered. This was him then. He had, after all, become the freakish drunkard they all thought he was, and would probably prove them right again now and in the future. He scooted himself against a wall and took a drink.
No one had wanted him around, so he’d left for the border early. He was shocked to see the BLU Soldier already there, and told him, “well, aren’t you a sight for sore eye. How early do you actually get out here?”
Soldier shrugged. “Whenever I finish my patrols.”
“Don’t you write up your own patrols?”
“Affirmative.”
“Lucky you,” Tavish said, sitting down in his usual place. Soldier had never come to his side again, and Tavish had done his best not to hyperventilate anymore and give him a reason to. Something about that night had felt dangerous, and not in the way he normally felt doom poking at him all the time these days. “All the fun of war, but all the joy of being your own boss.”
“Negatory! This here is still a military outfit!” Soldier puffed himself. “I just happen to occupy every rank.”
“Oh, my mistake Private-Sergeant-Major-General Jane,” Tavish chuckled.
“You forgot Corporal.”
“Bollocks your Corporal.”
“You will do no such thing to my Corporal!” Soldier said aghast.
That got an off guard snort from Tavish. He was amazed how quickly the ordeal from earlier that day was fading from his mind after just a few short minutes with Soldier. Like water draining from a barrel. “Do you even know what bollocks means?”
“I connot be expected to know every crazy Scottish word that comes out of your mouth.”
“You’re one to talk!” Tavish laughed. When Soldier still glared at him, he said, “ah don’t give me that look. Besides, you won't have to worry about me and my crazy words much longer.”
“…What?” Soldier blinked.
Working on the cork of his first scrumpy of the evening, Tavish said, “I think I might die soon.”
“Do- do not die!” Soldier yelped so sharply Tavish stalled.
“I’m not trying to,” Tavish said, not thinking he would need to clarify that. “Things have just been getting worse and worse over at RED, and I don’t think I’m going to live to see the end of it.” Or he might make it out of here, might be one of the few to escape. But that hope was still too fragile, he wouldn’t nurture it just yet.
“Oh.” Soldier sat rigid for a moment. “When you said…I thought you were going to…”
“…Ah.” Tavish found he couldn’t look at the Soldier, and instead drank while staring at the BLU wilderness. “Nah. Not this time around.”
Silence lapsed between them, and the faint pink of sunset brought out the first stars of the evening. With his head turned like this, Soldier was nestled in Tavish’s blind spot, so it was hearing rather than seeing the man get to his feet that made Tavish turn his head.
Haltingly, Soldier crossed the barrier once more, and sat at Tavish’s side. “I do not want you to die,” he all but whispered. “Ever.”
It wasn’t fucking fair. Soldier wanted too much from him, he wanted him not to die but he also wanted him not to leave. “We all have to die sometime, lad,” he said sadly.
“That is quitter talk, maggot!” Soldier huffed. “I will make sure you live forever! I will break whoever kills you, do you hear me?! If they so much as think of killing you I will take that part of their brain that thought that thought and shove it up their ass!”
Tavish started laughing. He started laughing so hard scrumpy came out his nose, and then Soldier had to slap him on the back until he stopped choking.
Wiping away a tear, of mirth this time, Tavish said, “thank you Jane.”
“You are welcome.”
“No I mean-” Tavish took a breath. “Thank you. For always doing these things you do for me.”
“You saved my life.”
“And you’ve saved my life every day after.”
Soldier said nothing. They were now facing the same direction, both looking ahead instead of across from one another. Their shoulders pressed warm spots into each other, all the way through their jackets.
Tavish woke up late that morning. He’d spent a long time out in the desert, longer than he ever had before as he and Soldier watched the moon climb over the horizon until their bones grew cold. When he got back, Spy still hadn’t returned. Tavish had spent a good while hissing, “you there lad?” and smacking random corners with a pillow to no avail. There was no getting around it: the man was missing.
It took practicing every positive thinking technique Tavish had ever known to keep himself from jumping to the conclusion he naturally wanted to go to. If Spy simply had meant to use him and run, he wouldn’t have passed the note, he wouldn’t have…
It was best not to think about. Instead Tavish awoke and thumbed over the pocket watch while putting on fresh clothes. First he had assumed the humming bird timepiece was some sort of invisi-watch, as was Spy’s modus operandi, but try as he might he couldn’t get it to activate, and his button mashing only managed to set it forward a few minutes.
So he went to breakfast with the little watch pinned inside of its namesake, all the while thinking about the Spy…
And then seeing the Spy.
The old grain mill RED base might have been had odd bits of wood hanging off in all places, blown from their rightful shapes into abnormal parodies of usability. Spy was hung from one, moving pathetically in the faint wind, arms outstretched like some sort of demented crucifix as his weight pulled on the cords that had tied him there. His tongue lolled from his mouth, fat and blue like an overlarge slug, coated in blood that had come to wash over his entire face. Someone has slashed his stomach so that his intestines rained down in a gory cascade of streamers.
“Ah, Herr Demoman,” Medic said cheerily as Tavish found himself underneath a body that was slowly wearing on the bonds that held it in place. “You just missed the ah…demonstration, ahaha.”
If that laugh was bone chilling before, it was nothing to what it inspired now, this feeling of absolute despair as Tavish looked up and knew that horror was still alive in the world. “Demonstration…” was all he could say, his voice barely above a whisper. He did not remember walking into the courtyard, it felt as though he had simply materialized here and been nailed to the spot.
“I have finally caught him in the act! It turns out he was the one killing my test subjects,” Medic continued cheerily. “Among other things.”
At that, Sniper snorted into his mug of coffee. He was seated, leaned over an old newspaper like the martyred corpse above them was background entertainment.
Tavish felt numb. Cold all over, not sure what he should say, how to keep from vomiting at the sight—he wanted to flee but also to tear Spy down from his humiliating spot and hide him from onlooker’s eyes. Yet he couldn’t. He couldn’t even find it in him to yell, let alone take action. Not when he knew his crime would net him Spy’s fate.
It was one thing to know what the price of betraying RED was, it was another to see it.
Medic took his silence for indifference. “A shame, however,” he noted. “It is not good to be down a man before an important battle, but I suppose having an imposter among us is worse than having no Spy at all.
“Battle…?” Tavish felt lobotomized, reduced to repeating the words placed in front of him without understanding their meaning.
“Hm? Oh yes, did no one tell you?” Medic carried on their conversation, light as air. A drop of blood landed not five feet away in the chalky soil. “We killed BLU’s Heavy and Medic last week. With their Sniper also dead, it will certainly be enough to push our advantage to their base. But! Speaking of that, I must be off. Much to prepare for today’s attack, ja?”
And then he was gone, tailcoats flaring out behind him, evil cruising in his wake.
Tavish was left to stare up at Spy, truly alone, truly seeing what horrors men were willing to bring on each other. Spy didn’t deserve-
No he couldn’t even finish that thought. This was beyond deserving and not deserving, this was sickness in its truest form.
Sniper caught him looking and snickered. “Was just waiting for something like this to happen. Wanker had it coming.” Then he took his paper and left.
How long had Spy been here? Hours? A few minutes? The question churned in Tavish’s mind until the most pertinent one arose: had he failed? Did his distraction fizzle so poorly that even when doing the one thing he was meant to be good at, he had killed the only person in the world that depended on him? If he had been here instead of spending so long with Soldier...
He didn’t know, couldn’t know. His hand clutched the pocket watch and he tried to make himself think about something else, anything else as Spy’s once lively eyes stared down at him.
Like how he was alone now. He didn’t know what Spy’s leverage was supposed to be and now he never would. Even if he made it to the rendezvous, he had nothing to pay his way out of here.
Not that he would make it. Because apparently they were now storming BLU base, today of all days, a downright suicide mission.
He thought of the panic in Spy’s eyes. He must have known about the attack, that’s why he’d moved his plans up, but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t bloody told Tavish. Hadn’t told Tavish anything, not about his plans, not even what he was supposed to goddamn steal.
You’d think a mercenary’s life would prepare you for death. It’s always a risk, but never a certainty, and that’s an arrangement that will draw a lot of men in. But realizing it was a setup, that was what filled Tavish with a burning hatred for RED, for BLU, for every idiot in this place. He wanted a choice when he went out.
But he was back at square one. Alone, without allies, without a clue, and surely as dead as the man above him.
BLU base loomed.
In all his time, Tavish had never been on this side of the battlefield, never crossed that deadly threshold that changed possible fights to inevitable ones. What this place used to be he couldn’t imagine, its sleek metal and concrete a far cry from the splintering ruins that RED called home, and its machinery so derelict that one can only guess what it was once used for.
They approached from the west; from the setting sun whose glare would blind any scope pointed their way. Not that they had to worry about that. The BLU Sniper was long dead.
The closer they got to the center of BLU territory, the better conditions the buildings were in. Sometimes Tavish could almost recognize the after images of humanity: an old fountain with a charging horse, a library, a phone booth with its red peeling off and door dangling from his hinges. It made him wonder what this place used to be, how it had gone from being full of life to wiped clean off the map.
Assuming it was real in the first place. Assuming it wasn’t just some stage, put together by whoever was conducting this stalemate, crafted for their little war to play out on.
It was getting too difficult to think about. There were BLUs to kill, after all.
I don’t want to do this anymore, Tavish had said. What a laugh. Now he was chucking bombs over the wall while Heavy screamed a charge, RED flooding to the porus openings of the outer base. Their momentum wouldn’t last long. They would reach that first courtyard and-
Tavish found himself alone. All those promises to himself and he was still back in his old habits, back to a life of mercenary work and skirting death like chasing balls at the edge of the cliff where he used to play as a lad. He placed a trap to cover his flank, but then went back to lobbing pills into the fray from the apartment window.
He wondered if Soldier would hold back. He prayed to every god, every spirit, every fey king he could think of that they wouldn’t meet, because if they did Tavish himself wasn’t sure what he would do. If Soldier hesitated then, well, that just meant that a rocket intended for him would wind up aimed at one of his teammates instead. Maybe one of the lives RED had already lost should have been his own. His life exchanged for one of theirs.
There had been no sign of the sentry yet, but when there was, someone would expect him to move up. They’d retrieve him and then-
He heard footsteps rushing up the stairs. He spun, but failed to fire his trap as he saw the man flanking him was already beyond its reach.
“Whoa, whoa!” Scout said. “It’s me! Ch-cherry Kangaroo!”
Tavish forced himself to relax, taking his finger off the manual detonator that wouldn’t do him any good now. “Ah, fine, fine. News?”
“Medic says he wants you south side, above axel. They’re getting ready to push.”
“…Good to know.”
Scout made a move to leave, but when he saw Tavish wasn’t following he demanded, “yo you coming?”
“Aye, just give us a minute.” Tavish turned, checking out the window, silence in the surrounding area but carrying the echoes of a battle not far away. The motion was executed as casually as possible, a simple look around and nothing more. His shoulder was turned just enough, leaned slightly askew from the man behind him.
In short, too good of an opportunity to pass up.
When he spun around again and shoved the end of his grenade launcher into Scout’s stomach, the knife aimed at his back froze mid air.
He pulled the trigger. The BLU Spy went flying backwards, landing against the wall with a splatter as the point blank detonation rocked the small room. Flames leapt up Tavish’s sleeve, but the Spy had certainly gotten the worst of it, now twitching helplessly and gargling out his last pained breaths.
“It was a good attempt mate,” Tavish said. His voice sounded dead to his own ears, the ability to gloat long lost to him. “Might have worked too, if I hadn’t seen Scout get a mouth full of lead not half an hour ago. He’s dead in the old bar.”
Spy was not able to respond. In fact, Tavish severely doubted he could even hear him by now, with how much of his ribcage was poking at the sky.
Tavish sighed. Or he tried to. It seemed he didn’t even have enough in him for that, so he skipped that step and walked over to snap the Spy’s neck. It shouldn’t have been as easy as it was. When he pulled his hands back, the disguise finally failed, and Scout melted away to the BLU uniform underneath, which only ached Tavish’s conscience wider. He wondered how many more promises he’d go back on today.
He wandered from the apartments, back toward the sounds of battle. The Spy had been trying to lure him to the south, so whatever was that way he wanted to avoid. Most likely a trap, or a handful of BLUs waiting for whoever Spy could manage bring down.
So north. And the reverberations of death throes just grew louder and louder, calling him, Soldier’s scream before being sharply cut off, the pained murmurs of the Pyro somewhere in this madness. The beep of a sentry.
Tavish blinked as the noise he’d been looking for finally reached him. That was his goal. His only goal. He’d probably be blasted to smithereens without and Über to back him up but that seemed so trivial now. What else was he meant to do?
So he rounded the corner to take the thing out-
His last thought was ah. It makes sense they’d have a Demoman too, doesn’t it? Then the world went red.
Tavish was not conscious. He was gone, out, long for this world. Yet, somehow, he was aware enough to feel himself being dragged away, a hand on the back of his collar as he was pulled into the bellows of BLU base.