Chapter Text
It wasn’t so much as waking as things slowly became more real to the flayed mess that was his senses. There was a surface under him, light above him, but more than that arrived on him too gradually to be of any use. What came more readily was the panic. It was onset by confusion, the fact that he didn’t know where he was or the vaguest idea how he got there as he lay on his back under the indistinguishable light. Being towed along the rubble crusted ground—he remembered that—but what else? Before that what was he doing?
The line of questioning was short as the pain lurking on his periphery realized he was awake and decided to pounce. A strangled cry erupted from his parched throat as tendrils of fire shot up his leg, forcing the world to snap back far more rapidly than it was meant to. He tried to sit up only for gravity to be one of those pesky little things that suddenly applied again, and floundered on his back while spots danced across his vision.
Panic threatened to take over. BLU base, the attack, Spy, the other Spy-
Turning a corner and planting one foot into a mesh of stickies, their little spikes clinging to the dirt like prickleweed burs tossed in the wind.
Wincing, Tavish rose more carefully this time, and got one of his elbows underneath enough to examine himself. His left leg was gone. It was surreal, seeing a tied-off pants leg where more shin was meant to go, empty blanket lying next to his other foot. Maybe it was the shock of seeing it or simply just the act of sitting up, but Tavish fell back with a spasm, blacking out for several seconds. When he woke, he didn’t try to look again.
He felt nauseous, the kind brought on by vertigo. Head trauma maybe. Now he could remember being thrown against the wall in the initial blast, the shrapnel flying by as heat singed his skin. Definitely enough to give him permanent damage.
But he wasn’t in the base anymore, at least he didn’t think. Not lying while waiting for some BLU to finish him off, just lying in general, and he squinted in an attempt to parse his surroundings.
The walls were concrete, which gave some clue. There were mason jars stacked about, and no ceiling bulb that he could see, but several high windows that let in a midday light. A plate of stretched crocodile skin hung from the wall.
Tavish’s heart skipped several beats as he realized where he was. The terror of not knowing what had happened was replaced with the terror of certainty, certainty of being trapped in the BLU Sniper’s domain. Lying on a sheetless mattress. He would rather have died in the explosion than find out what would happen to him here.
Jerking to action, he rolled over on his side. Third time’s the charm after all, and he managed to accomplish his task for the small price of a blood-curdling scream escaping his lips. He lay there, gasping, doing his damndest not to pass out again. Step one, accomplished. But from sideways to vertical was something else entirely, and the only thing keeping him going was that he had to get out of here before the Sniper came back.
He landed on the floor. It wasn’t a far fall, as he’d been on a mattress only a few inches off the ground, but it was nearly face down in a way that pinned his arm underneath him. It should have been easy, to just push his bodyweight up like he had when he still kept himself fit, but a wave of nausea hit him as soon he tried, and there he dropped on the tile floor.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. The dread it sparked in him gave Tavish one last drive of conviction, but that too failed, and he was now at the mercy his own failing limbs.
Somewhere, a door opened. “…Shit.”
Although it was barely above a whisper, the voice was not the one Tavish had been expecting, even through his grogginess. It was ringed by worry, and the footsteps that clamored over to him were heavy with combat boots.
“Dammit…”
A pair of hands turned him over, helping him back onto the blanket-covered mattress. His voice ached, muzzy and displaced, yet he managed the faintest, “…Jane?”
The Soldier didn’t say anything. His face was hidden even more than usual, only the firm line of his mouth to reveal the apprehension he was so obviously hiding. He arranged Tavish’s limbs until they were back where they’d started, and then pulled a rolled blanket under Tavish’s neck, supporting him until he was comfortable.
“Jesus Jane I thought-,” he mumbled. “I thought the Sniper…”
Soldier’s frown wrinkled slightly. “Sniper’s been dead for a month.”
Right. Tavish had known that, it had been half the reason RED had mounted their push yet it’d slipped easily between the tracks in his train of thought. “Oh. I- I can barely think straight right now. Why exactly am I here then?”
“This was the most out of the way place I could think of,” Soldier explained. “BLU didn’t send a replacement, and nobody wanted to deal with whatever Sniper was hiding in here so they just stay away. Turns out it was a lot of nail clippings. And jars of urine.”
“…You dragged me up here. Out of the battle.”
Soldier didn’t look at him.
“That was…thank you.”
“Just so you were out of the way,” Soldier went on. “At first. But then RED retreated and didn’t take you with and I knew that if anyone else got a hold of you then…”
He didn’t have to finish the thought. Tavish tried to settle himself in a better position, not exactly seated but no longer lying down either as he shoved the makeshift pillow behind his back. His missing foot throbbed with every slight jostle.
“I suppose I don’t know what to say,” Tavish admitted.
“Hm,” Soldier grunted. “There is nothing that needs to be said, private. We all do our duty. You will stay here until you are healed, and then you can go home.”
“Healed?” Tavish practically choked, the horrible reality setting on him again. “Are you looking at the same thing I’m looking at? They blew off my fucking leg. I’m- I’m a cripple, just fucking- fucking look at me.”
The foot wasn’t going to come back. Not even Medic’s fancy new Medigun he’d been churning up plans for could bring back what was blasted to smithereens-
(And Tavish didn’t want to think about Medic, didn’t want to be touched by him,
(Spy’s bloated corpse leaking his own entrails, made an example of and no one had even cared)
especially didn’t want to see what new horrors the doctor could unleash if he was at the man’s mercy.)
He was alive but lesser, somehow even more of an aberration than he had been before.
“Should I fucking walk back to base?” He laughed, a bit of hysteria creeping in. Then he slumped, the past day washing over him. “Maybe I should go back. I’m not any better than them, am I? Been trying to lift my own self-righteous corpse out of the mud, but I’m just as much a monster. Rotten inside and out.”
“You are- no, I just meant-” Soldier stuttered. “You just can’t stay here. There’ll be another Sniper eventually.”
The words penetrated Tavish’s skull, but he couldn’t find it in him to care about that right now. Instead, he took to wallowing, aching for a drink that probably hadn’t blessed his bloodstream in hours.
When he didn’t respond, Soldier shifted back and forth. “I uh, found something. There’s good stuff int the ruins, and I though it could help.”
Again Tavish barely noticed as Soldier came and went, only raising his chin off his chest when he returned with a black-rubbered toilet plunger. “How in the world is that supposed to help?” he asked tiredly.
“I thought you could make like a peg-leg out of it,” Soldier illuminated helpfully. “And then when your leg was better, you could. You know.”
For a long, agonizing moment, Tavish didn’t put together what Soldier was saying. It was a minute of vacuum, a lull before that inevitable firestorm when what Soldier was implying finally hit him.
Voice dark and dangerous, he demanded, “is that supposed to be funny, BLU?”
“Uh, no,” Soldier said as he lowered the cleaning implement he’d been offering hopefully. “Not funny, just fitting.”
Tavish threw a jar at him.
His aim was pitiful and his arm was still weak so it shattered several feet short, but the Soldier still jumped. “Get out,” Tavish growled at him. “You bastard, get out of my fucking sight.”
Soldier swallowed visibly, but he obeyed without delay. Tavish was left to mercifully mourn alone, throwing his arms over his face and screaming into his own embrace.
The Soldier didn’t stay away for long. Which was fine, since Tavish couldn’t stay spiteful for long either, not when his own despair kept numbing him to it. Whatever defects or insensitivities Soldier possessed, he had repaid his life debt, and there was nothing in this dreary murder den that came close to bringing Tavish comfort besides Jane’s cautious attempts at succor.
He’d never had time to fully process’s Spy’s death, and in the days lying on the mattress while Soldier brought him smuggled rations and bottles of water, he felt he was grieving for them both. For Spy, the man, and the more abstract future he had promised.
Because there certainly wasn’t any of that future any more. What was he meant to do, go back to RED and feel inevitability coming at him far faster than he knew it had any right to? Return to living like he had before, a vagabond in his own team, despised at every turn? Here at least there was Soldier, who was oddly soft-spoken, oddly gentle as he re-bandaged Tavish’s leg with stolen dressing from the infirmary. Who’d accepted Tavish’s apology for the broken glass with a quiet, “I understand,” and nothing more. Who was maybe the only thing worth fighting for in this godforsaken battlefield.
No, no he couldn’t pin all his hopes for salvation on Soldier. That was an even worse idea than when he had pinned them on Spy. They held tragedy for each other in the palms of their hands, yet neither of them could quite fully turn away.
So Tavish would soldier on. Bitterly, he asked himself when he had ever done anything but soldier on. When had he ever actually been proud to be living?
As the weeks wore on—the threat of an incoming Sniper eventually joined by the realization that there would be a Demoman replacement he’d have to beat too—no better alternative for a prosthetic leg presented itself. Despite the humiliation of it, Tavish had to admit Soldier had actually showed some ingenuity with the garbage lying around, and he began to modify the plunger into something workable.
He shortened the shaft until it was just the right height, then got the rubber to stay on his stump thanks to some buckles that could be loosened if need be. The rickety contraption turned out to be fairly easy to make, even for a man more used to building bombs than accessories.
The impossible part was walking.
He was running out of time. Every day he would practice, tottering across the small room that overlooked the entire BLU territory with jittering, stilted paces, blind to the life that was still churning outside these four walls. Soldier would bring him news, who had survived the battle and who had not, but Tavish was too focused on his undertaking to really care. Nubile, callow movements on untested feet. He usually only ever made it a few steps before collapsing.
There had been significant damage to his back muscles as well during the explosion, injuries not as obvious to the naked eye but no less debilitating, holding him back until even the most straightforward motions required effort. He would make it a few steps: fall. Then he would get up, make it a few steps: fall again. Ad nauseam. For hours. For the days he filled with those hours.
What had once been an abstract deadline was now bearing down on him, hot breath on his neck as he tried to perform the simplest of tasks. Soldier could rocket jump him halfway there, but he had to make the final mile to RED base under his own power. He had to do this.
Up, step step, down. Up, step step, down.
He wore himself to exhaustion. Soldier couldn’t make him stop as he was not a man who would tell another when he was past his limits, but he would watch with those eyes, the ones that seemed to glisten as though Tavish were doing it to him instead of himself. Those eyes that wanted to say something-
Up, step step, down. Up-
He didn’t even make his first stuttering step this time before falling, before crumpling to the ground as he lost the fight against his own body. Giving up implied a choice but there was no choice here, only coulds and could nots. He couldn’t move forward anymore.
But nor did he hit the ground.
Meeting the chipped green tile had grown so commonplace that the various shapes and stains had become like old friends, and to suddenly be halted from its greeting startled something in the Demoman. He looked up to the arms holding him, to Soldier who was now supporting him entirely, lowering him off his ineffectual, cobbled legs and holding him until they were both sitting.
Tavish buried his face in Jane’s neck and sobbed. This was weakness gone to rot, but he no longer cared, he no longer wanted to just keep pushing on. He wanted to lie down, he wanted nights under the moon with Jane and none of the events that had brought them there. He wanted the warm hands rubbing his back in circles and the voice in his ear saying, “Tavish, Tavish it’s alright, I’ve got you. We’re going to be alright. I’ve got you.”
Tavish pulled back from the slowly damping collar of the blue uniform and kissed him.
The hands on his back turned to fists, digging into fabric and stretching it taunt, ever tighter as Jane pressed forward into Tavish’s mouth. It was desperation, like Tavish was still falling, waiting to land, and the only thing in the world keeping him from it was this man that was more human than any person Tavish had ever known.
“Jane,” he gasped desperately, pulling back because the kiss was wet and salty and the air had all been sucked from his lungs, but also because he wanted to say Jane’s name in the way Jane said his. “Jane, Jane, fuck this, fuck all of this. Fuck everything that isn’t us.”
Jane pressed his forehead against Tavish’s, meeting his beanie with a softness that should have been impossible for a man who’d killed as much as him. Who’d killed as much as either of them.
“You are not a monster,” Jane said softly. Tavish didn’t know where the helmet has gone and he didn’t care. “If I tell you anything, I want to tell you that. You are the most magnificent son of a bitch I have ever known, better than every one of the goddamn nancys, RED or BLU. Never let me hear you say otherwise again, private.”
Fresh tears welled in Tavish’s eye. There was damp on Jane’s cheeks too. He choked out, “it’s not fucking fair Jane. It’s not real. Everything that’s happened isn’t real.”
Jane leaned back, blinking at him with unsheltered eyes.
“The war’s a whole bloody fake,” Tavish sputtered out. “Neither side wants it to really end. There’s no outs in our contracts because there’s not meant to be, no retirement in case we talk about the hell here and hurt their future recruitments prospects. They want us to kill each other Jane, they want us to kill each other so badly.”
“What…” Jane struggled for a question and came up short, his jaw moving soundlessly as he began to process a new confession instead of the ones they had been imposing on each other before. “I mean, how can you say that…?”
“Spy showed me a briefcase,” Tavish explained perilously. “There’s nothing in them, we’re sitting in our strongholds defending nothing.”
Jane just stared, lips parted so slightly and gorgeously all Tavish wanted to do was kiss them again.
“I didn’t tell you,” Tavish said. “I knew you wouldn’t want to know.”
“I decide what I want to know, maggot,” Jane commanded. “And if I have decided that I know a thing I do not want to know, then I will damn well unknow it.”
He was rambling. Tavish had known this would happen, had realizing this place was far more important to Jane’s pillars of reality than his own.
The Soldier had dependencies, no problem holding two opposing ideas in his head if it meant he got to suit up and go to war every morning. It was how he had fared so much better than Tavish, how he could claim to stop death itself from taking the Demoman but not realize the irony of what the gravel wars entailed.
Poking holes ran the risk of bringing everything else down with it.
Tavish’s own babbling rose to meet the Soldier’s. “It’s true, I swear. That’s why I don’t want to fight anymore, not because I don’t think I can win but because I know I won’t,” he explained. “I want my bloody third option. Spy had a plan to get us out, but RED killed him. Strung him up. Maybe they even knew someone was helping him.”
A demonstration, Medic had called it. He had told the rest of RED it had been for sabotaging his Über experiments but Tavish knew it was because of what Spy was investigating. There had never been an incident after the Scout, so Medic had no reason to turn on Spy unless he realized…
No, that couldn’t be right either. That had been Tavish’s assumption in the days following Spy’s death, but that would imply that Medic also knew about the conspiracy yet was actively choosing to stay. Soldier he could understand the compulsion, but Medic?
“Medic was the one who killed Spy,” Tavish noted absently, now as lost in his own thoughts as Jane was in his. He wound his arms behind the Soldier’s back to ground himself, trying to think. “But that means he was the one who caught him. He…he didn’t come when I set off the flash-bomb.”
Tavish could see it now, all those faces crowding over him, but no Medic. It didn’t make sense, why him…
Then something Spy had said came back to him. What they desire is immensely more valuable than that detritus. And more closely guarded.
Miracle of modern technology that had become so mundane, Tavish had forgotten that it was even valuable to people beyond their little bubble. Something that could revolutionize warfare, or at the very least medicine; a secret Medic kept so close to his chest that he only ever let patients into his infirmary under watch.
“Holy shite,” Tavish said softly. “I know what Spy was trying to steal.”
Jane, who had only barely been following along, stared at him blankly.
That didn’t matter to Tavish, because an even greater realization was coming upon him, one that felt daringly like hope. “The medigun plans, that's what he went to get. They’re in RED base, I could still get them, I could still-” It hit him like a rocket blast, and he inhaled his own lungs as he moved his hands to grip the side of Jane’s face. “Jane. There’s two spots on that helicopter out of here.”
“Out of here?” Jane balked. “Are you crazy?”
“Aye, if folks are to be believed. But you are too, and we’ve broken this whole thing wide open.” He moved from Jane’s face to claps his hands in his own. “Come with me Jane. Run away with me.”
“N-no. This isn’t right Tavish.” Soldier shook his head. “It’s can’t be fake, the war is perfect, it’s out there that’s fake. I. I don’t belong anywhere else.”
Tavish’s heart sank into his stomach, hopes crumbling seconds after being born. He croaked, “not even with me?”
Soldier looked away. “It should be the same thing. You’re the one who’s leaving…running off with a damn Spy…”
“I want to run off with you, you daft idiot,” Tavish insisted, but he could feel Jane pulling away, feel he was losing the one person who mattered nearly as soon as he admitted he did. “How long do you think we can keep going like this?”
“Your leg will get better, and then you’ll go back to your side,” Jane said plainly. “Then things can go back to normal.”
“Normal?” Tavish begged in exasperation. “It was borrowed time, Jane. What about the next time RED or BLU decides to throw themselves against the rocks? What if the next time I go out for bevs on the border, you’re not there?”
Jane shook his head, withdrawing his hands from Tavish’s. “I can’t…I just…I can’t.”
Tavish was afraid of that. Realized he had been afraid of this more than anything. He felt an ache, a gap at his side where Jane had been a moment ago and was now evacuating, getting to his feet and helping Tavish back to the mattress. Then Jane left. Tavish didn’t stand up again for the rest of the evening, instead withdrawing the hummingbird watch from his pocket for the first time in a month and checking the time.