Here's the eleventh commissioned story for my Fanfiction Fundraiser, with many, many thanks to the magnificent madjesters1! I am very grateful for her patience and understanding while this story went through a complete re-write, my computer dying on me, my keyboard temporarily dying on me after I accidentally spilled coffee on it and other personal emergencies. But! It's done! And here it is, having sealed me as a nother true-blue Medic/Sniper shipper, hahaha. (Oh, there'll be a NSFW version of the story. I'll edit this post to link to it when I post it up.)

If you want to know what the environment of the RED Sniper's camper van atop Thunder Mountain looks like, there's a great image of it on the TF2 Wiki under 'Thunder Mountain'. Spy's smoking room is based on the one in Expiration Date.

The title of the story is also the name of the song I listened to while writing this, the classic from 1932, Fascination. Do take a listen to the instrumental version by Mantovani, and the version sung by Nat King Cole on Youtube. (Just imagine Sniper playing the saxophone trumpet part!)

It was fascination, I know
And it might have ended
Right then, at the start
Just a passing glance
Just a brief romance
And I might have gone
On my way,
Empty hearted

He supposes he would have ended up here sooner or later, be it by someone else's hand or his own. He saw this long before he came to America, long before the denizens of Rottenburg who once greeted him with reverence hunted him down with lit torches and rusty pitchforks, bound him to that wooden stake and tried to burn him alive. He saw the madness in Vater's stark, blue eyes, growing and growing after every experiment in their house's basement laboratory, until it was wearing Vater's skin and face and there was nothing left of his father.

He saw it lurking in his own blue eyes whenever he gazed into the mirror and he would always think about Mutti saying, you look so much like your father, and he saying back, but I'm not Vater, I'm not him. Mutti never had the chance to see it grow in him too, see it fighting him to wear his face, his grin. It's a blessing, he knows that now. He was her perfect child. He was the best part of a lonely, loveless, brusque life in an aptly named, rotten village.

She never saw him winning the battle, and that's a blessing too. He doesn't really know what survived. He doesn't know if he's really him, or if the madness has become him. He wonders if Vater would be proud of him, finally. He wonders if Vater would have eventually left Germany like he did, to seek greener pastures, to go further than any other scientist has ever dared to and accomplish what he already has for BLU.

He's being paid now to do what his former fellow villagers once condemned him for. His superiors are awed by his healing formula (for which only he and he alone knows all of its elements, still). He's become the most important member of a team of nine war-hardened mercenaries. He is generous in blessing his teammates with brief spurts of immortality on the battleground. He is a god on earth Vater wished he could have been.

He's spent his whole life getting to this place. He's ripped out the hearts of countless living creatures so that his own is untouchable in its dark chamber in him. He is a god on earth, and he supposes a god would be untouchable from head to toe, invulnerable to death itself.

He just doesn't expect a devil in red with yellow eyes and the smile of a ravenous beast to prove him wrong on that. Again and again and again.

He doesn't expect that devil to do to him what he's done to countless others, either.

29 hours from now – RED Sniper's camper van on Thunder Mountain

The RED Sniper is going to kill him yet again. There is nothing he can do about it, and the rage that roils in him at that is blinding. The Administrator's thunderous announcement of his team's defeat still peals in his ears. His bone saw trembles in his crushing grip. He feels like the embodiment of electricity, charged in every cell with murderous intent, and if he just concentrates hard enough, he can visualize his bone saw slashing through the schweinhund's scrawny neck, slicing quivering tendons and arteries bulging with blood.

His reprieve in his imagination is fleeting. The RED Sniper has stood up and swaggered over to the kukri on the ground nearby. The RED Sniper is smirking as he picks up the kukri with one hand and twirls the bladed weapon almost playfully.

He snarls as the RED Sniper approaches him.

The schweinhund thinks this is a game.

One more time, he struggles against the invisible force restraining him from carrying out any violent actions. It's futile, he knows. Even Heavy, the most hefty, bear-like member of the team who easily totes around a three-hundred-pound Gatling-style machine gun, is incapable of breaking out of it. What can he, a slender, wiry, middle-aged man, do against it?

The RED Sniper is standing close, so close to him now. He has to stiffen his knees to not flinch and stagger back. Lift his head to continue glaring at the smirking scheisskopf.

"Well, Doc, s'just you an' me now."

The RED Sniper's breath singes his face. The RED Sniper's nose is mere inches apart from his. If he could fight back, he would sink his teeth in it. Tear into it and spit out its bloody chunks and leave his mark on this sacrilegious creature that dares challenge his godhood. If he could, oh, he would. He would.

His breath hitches at the chill of the kukri's blade against his neck, below his Adam's apple. It wouldn't be the first time this devious beast slays him by puncturing his throat with that accursed kukri. It wouldn't be the first time this beast stares him in the eye as he drowns in his own blood.

But it's the first time that the kukri cuts something upon him that doesn't bleed.

The point of the kukri's blade grazes the suprasternal notch between his collarbones. It slices down and through his tie, shirt, vest and coat in an unerring, straight line. He shivers under the afternoon sunlight. Shivers when the blade stops short of his leather belt low around his waist. His exposed skin pebbles with goosebumps. His ragged breaths quicken.

Their wide eyes lock in an unblinking stare. A droplet of sweat rolls down his left temple. His bone saw plummets from his hand. It hits grass and gravel with a muffled thud.

The RED Sniper leans forward. The tips of their noses brush against each other. The RED Sniper's breath singes his face, his lips.

He shuts his eyes.

49 hours from now – Spy's smoking room, BLU headquarters

"Bonsoir, Docteur."

Medic doesn't reply at first. He has only been in this vast room once, on the day of their arrival to this remote mountain base of theirs. It'd been vacant then. A bleak void before light and life entered and terraformed it. Now, it is an Eden that belongs solely to an enigmatic, masked, dangerous member of his team. Perhaps the most dangerous of all.

Spy is seated on a blue, cushioned reading chair in front of and parallel to a massive, marble fireplace. An identical blue reading chair faces Spy's. The fireplace is lit. Its crackling flames outline Spy in orange and gold, kindling a cunning gleam in Spy's eyes. Above the fireplace is an immense, conventional painting of fruits in a bowl. To its right, towering bookshelves teeming with books in French, Spanish, Catalan and English. To its left, a wooden table flanked by four chairs, a blue couch and framed photographs and newspaper clippings on polished, wooden walls. Next to the couch, to the left of the door behind Medic, is a hat stand. To the right of the door, a large-scale, museum-quality globe on a bronze stand.

Spy has an open, dark brown book in hand. Spy isn't reading it. Spy is gazing at him. Waiting for a response.

The air between them tingles with muted energy. Spy's eyes are heavy-lidded. Spy's posture is regal yet relaxed. The sole lighting from the lit fireplace casts an almost romantic pall over them, but there's nothing romantic about what he's going to ask of Spy.

He hears the door click shut behind him. Something in his chest canters. Oh yes, this is indeed an Eden before the fall. He's here for knowledge, and before him sits the living embodiment of it. A scaleless, treacherous snake upon an eternized, hewn tree, eater of its imperiling fruits, seer of all secrets and information.

Never trust a snake, Mutti used to say. It is in its nature to bite you, even when you have done a good deed for it.

Well, he can probably be forgiven this one time for consulting this particular devil tonight. Only a devil knows how to conquer another. And Mutti would surely understand his urgent need to maintain and prolong his survival. His sanity.

"Guten Abend, Herr Spy."

"Please, join me," Spy says, gesturing at the empty reading chair.

Medic hears the low hissing of a snake. If he lets himself believe it, he would see a vision of a gargantuan cobra rise behind Spy and loom over Spy like a canopy over a king, its eyes aflame like Spy's. Walking into Spy's domain is no different from walking into that of such a fearsome creature.

At least such a creature cannot speak and whisper sweet lies before stabbing him in the back.

He goes to the empty chair with his back straight, his shoulders squared and his head held high. Spy's face – what he can see of it through the holes of the blue balaclava – betrays nothing for him to decipher. He sets his own face to stone as he sits on the chair and faces Spy with his back still straight and his hands loose upon his thighs.

Spy closes the book in hand and puts it away on the side table next to his seat. It's a French book, that much Medic can see from from the emblazoned title on the cover.

"Would you like a drink, Docteur? My order of Chateau d'Yquem from Sauternes arrived yesterday. A truly marvelous 1947 vintage, I assure you."

"I zhank you for zhe offer, Herr Spy, but nein, I do not vish to drink tonight."

Again, he hears the hissing of a snake. Its curiosity has been piqued.

Spy's placid expression doesn't change at all. Spy nods in acknowledgment and then stands up and saunters past him to the well-stocked bar on the right side of the room. Medic doesn't turn his head to watch Spy. He stares ahead. He listens to Spy uncapping a glass decanter and pouring what smells like a sweet yet highly acidic wine into a glass. His hands clench into fists for a few seconds, then loosen again when Spy has finished pouring the wine.

Unwise to show any weakness in front of this devil. Very unwise.

"So. I presume this is not a social call."

Spy has adopted an even more relaxed sitting pose, lounging back in his seat, his legs crossed at the ankles, his left arm resting on an armrest and the other grasping a wine glass half-full with a golden nectar. All of it calculated. An act to lead him into casting off his own shields.

He leans back in his own seat, not once taking his eyes off Spy's face. He molds his face into something less stern, something more beguiling.

"I vant to kill zhe RED Sniper. I vant to break him. Tell me how."

It is only as he murmurs the words that it occurs to him that perhaps, Spy had anticipated his visit. Set the scene, the chess board before he even walked down the blue-carpeted hallway to this room. He'd entered as a king on that board, or so he'd assumed. But what does it matter whether he is the king or a pawn when none can move without the chess master's hand?

Spy takes a languid sip of his wine. The ends of Spy's lips quirk up in a small, sharp smile.

Medic feels himself being moved across the board by a prince of lies. No, he is no king, no god. Not here.

99 hours from now – The base of Thunder Mountain

Slumped on the ground, his back towards Heavy, he listens to his dying teammate's grating, wet breaths. Heavy's lungs are filling with blood. Bullets have pierced both, and there is nothing he can do about it, not with the RED Sniper standing over him with a drawn compound bow whose steel-tipped arrow is aimed at his forehead.

"That jigglin' butterball s'not gonna help ya now, is he?"

The RED Sniper looks so proud of himself, like a boy who's just shot his first pigeon and wants to slaughter them all.

He bares blood-painted teeth at the RED Sniper in a vicious growl. He's certain this hurensohn has used innocent birds as target practice before. He hates people who murder birds.

The RED Sniper doesn't appear daunted by his display of aggression. The RED Sniper stares at him with wide, unblinking eyes from behind yellow-tinted sunglasses. The eyes of an animal, a predator eying its prey. He can almost appreciate the brutal honesty of the RED Sniper's appraisal of him. Very few men have dared to look him in the eye for more than several seconds before dropping their gaze when he is enraged.

Right now, he's thinking about whether he can be faster than a fired arrow despite the bullet wound in his belly. Whether he can clamp his jaws around that scrawny neck and savage it before he's shot dead.

He is far beyond enraged.

They are still staring at each other when Heavy sucks in his last breath. He smells the ozone-like scent and hears the crackling of the Respawn system whisking away Heavy's corpse in a white cloud of light. He will be joining his teammate soon, but not before he coats his mouth and teeth with blood not his own.

He pushes himself up into a sitting position with his gloved hands. He winces. Fick, the bullet wound hurts.

"Mach es dir selber," he grates out as he glares up at the RED Sniper. At this tiny distance between them, the fired arrow will impale his head and mutilate his brain. Maybe burst through his skull. Whether he dies a hasty death or not is another issue altogether.

The RED Sniper says nothing. Does nothing.

Once more, the RED Sniper is hesitating to kill him.

He should find this amusing. An advantage, even. Instead, it brews more loathing in him for this blasted hurensohn who defies him and dares think him to be less than the other mercenaries.

"Vhy do you vait?" he says, his eyes half-lidded, voice gone deceptively gentle. "Do you zhink me harmless?"

He sees the RED Sniper's eyes widen at that.

The RED Sniper takes a step back, then another, and another, and then he leaps at the RED Sniper, his fingers curved like talons. His mouth opens in a war cry. His bellow overwhelms the RED Sniper's harsh gasp.

The last thing he sees is the arrow flying from the bow towards his face.

29 hours from now – RED Sniper's camper van on Thunder Mountain / The Respawn room & the Infirmary, BLU headquarters

The RED Sniper's lips are dry and shockingly soft. The RED Sniper has brought their lips together, the pressure upon his escalating with each second. The RED Sniper's stubble tickles his lower face.

The RED Sniper is … kissing him.

He's frozen in place, his face gone slack, his eyes popping open to be wide as saucers. He sees nothing but reflective gold. He smells nothing but earth and blood and fresh sweat and something spicy, woody, something he's never smelled before that shoots straight down to his belly and blossoms into a bouquet of indescribable sensations. He feels nothing but pulses of electricity racing through his nerves from his parted lips to the rest of his rigid body, up and down his arched spine. Feels the heat of his blood burning and the power of the RED Sniper's grip on his upper arms and restlessness and need.

Mein Gott, the RED Sniper is kissing him and he can't strike back to stop it and he … he doesn't want it to stop -

"Let's do this again, next time."

The RED Sniper is whispering into his ear. The RED Sniper's lips skim across the delicate whorls of his ear and brand them with something warm and strong. Something true.

Something in the dark recesses of his chest is fluttering, trying to beat its way out into the light.

A noise escapes his moist lips when the RED Sniper's bristly face slides away from his. It's an embarrassing noise, high-pitched and frail. A noise a helpless prey would make in the lethal maw of a mighty beast. His chest constricts as the fluttering in his chest intensifies, as he gapes at the RED Sniper.

The RED Sniper is staring at him again with those wide, unblinking eyes. The RED Sniper's expression is raw. Unguarded. Tender.

It is the most terrifying expression he has seen yet on the enemy mercenary's face.

The kukri burying itself between his ribs is an agonizing favor that frees him from it. He jerks and lets out a rattling gasp. He tastes iron in the back of his throat and upon his tongue. He has enough time and lingering soundness of mind to note the blade's precise penetration of his heart before he dies. The inevitable flash of light of the Respawn system wipes out his sight, his mind, everything.

For an eon, he drifts in white, tranquil emptiness.

Then, he opens his eyes, and he is greeted by the accustomed setting of the Respawn room. It's a plain room with tiled walls and several steel resupply lockers, each one ornamented with his insignia. It's the second time he's been here today, but he isn't alone now. The entire team is here in the aftermath of their defeat, and the frustrations of each member are manifesting themselves in an eclectic variety of ways.

"EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU NUMBNUTS HAS FAILED! AGAIN! YOU ARE THE SORRIEST EXCUSES FOR SOLDIERS I HAVE EVER SEEN!"

Soldier is by far the most vocal and loudest, a cacophonous clarion that on any other day, he would have gladly shut up by stabbing one of his syringes through the idiot's head. Today, however, he stands rooted to the spot to one side of the room, feeling as if there is no floor beneath his feet, as if there is not enough oxygen to breathe in.

He presses his hand against his churning belly. His clothes are once more pristine. It is as if the RED Sniper had never sliced his clothes, never stabbed him.

He still feels the iciness of the kukri upon his skin, the frisson when the RED Sniper leaned forward and -

"Come on, now, Solly. We did our best out there to push that damn cart. Was just a real bad day, that's all. There's always tomorrow."

Engineer is, as usual, doing his best to pacify Soldier with low, lulling words and raised hands with palms out. His efforts aren't so effective today, much to the chagrin of everyone. Even Scout, the youngest on the team, looks weary to the bones.

"Fuck this, I'm goin' to bed," Scout mutters, his shoulders hunched, his cap pulled over his eyes. "Wake me up in a hundred years."

Demoman wraps an arm around Scout's shoulders. Demoman is missing his beanie and seems as far from his jolly, energetic self as Medic has seen the black Scotsman in ages.

"Aye, lad," Demoman mumbles after a deep sigh. "I could sleep like th' dead myself."

A Demoman who doesn't want to go a few rounds with his beloved Scrumpy before the day's end? The team's succession of losses in this month alone is disheartening, indeed.

Pyro stands near Engineer and observes the exchange of hollered insults and placating comments between Soldier and Engineer like one would a frantic tennis match. Pyro's muffled rambling is indecipherable, as always. Spy is leaning back against one of the resupply lockers and silently smoking, an aloof and outwardly disinterested figure in a three-thousand-dollar, pinstriped suit and balaclava. Medic knows better than to assume that Spy is ignoring everyone. Even now, Spy is harvesting information from everything he sees and hears, everything he doesn't see or hear. The devil is in the details, as the saying goes.

He shares a fleeting glance with Spy. As expected, Spy reveals nothing and simply removes the lit cigarette from pursed lips to blow out wisps of smoke. He also shares a glance with Heavy who stands nearby with those impressive arms crossed over an equally impressive chest, who looks at him as if to say, are you fine, comrade?

He doesn't know how to respond. He doesn't know what's splayed across his face right now. He doesn't know if he's still reeling from … from that kiss.

His gaze flits away from Heavy to the floor. His tongue slides across his lower lip. He thinks he can still taste the RED Sniper on it. It should disgust him. He should be spitting and rubbing his mouth clean with alcohol swabs and swearing vengeance upon the RED Sniper for daring to defile him that way.

But he … doesn't. He doesn't want to.

He licks his lower lip again.

He feels someone's gaze upon him. His eyes dart towards Spy and yes, Spy is watching him now, that damn reptilian expression on Spy's visage obscuring a universe of secrets from him. He is pinned like a butterfly on a board by Spy's gleaming eyes. How much has Spy seen? How much does Spy truly know?

Was Spy there when it happened?

His brain goes blank when someone bumps into him from behind and murmurs in a raspy, frighteningly familiar voice, "Sorry, Doc. Didn't see ya there."

Whatever air is in the room vanishes and leaves him an asphyxiating, quavering being. Blood surges through his veins at alarming speed. Something in his chest hammers as fast. He spins around to face the possessor of that raspy, frighteningly familiar voice, to gape at the lanky, bristly man in that dark brown slouch hat and vest.

Sniper – the Sniper of his team – eerily resembles the one on the RED team. They have the same dark, short hair, sideburns and beard stubble. The same long face, neck, arms and legs. The same yellow-tinted sunglasses, slouch hat and vest. Even the same nose and … lips.

"Medic? You all right, mate?"

He blinks. He wrests his gaze from Sniper's mouth. He feels heat suffusing his face. He watches Sniper remove those yellow-tinted sunglasses to expose bleary, blue eyes. Those eyes do not stare at him wide and unblinking. They are not the eyes of an animal. They're glazed with exhaustion. They're warm. Amiable, empathetic. Human.

No, this is not the red, yellow-eyed beast who haunts him, torments him. This Sniper calls him mate. Calls him friend. He is safe in the presence of this Sniper.

He is safe here. He is safe. He is untouchable.

His lower lip throbs.

He wants to lick it again.

He gives Sniper a jerky nod. He gives in to the masochistic urge to glance at Heavy, then Spy again. The concern on Heavy's granite features is par for the course and privately appreciated. The small and so very sharp smile curving up Spy's lips is not.

He dashes from the Respawn room. He ignores Heavy's rumbling shout calling for him. As he heads for the Infirmary alone, he shakes his head to rid his mind of Spy's smile, of the memory of the damn kiss. By the time he flings open the door to his office in the Infirmary, he succeeds in blocking out only the former from his thoughts.

The reverberating slam of the door behind him does little to make him forget the softness of the RED Sniper's lips.

His office is dim due to the drawn curtains and switched off lamps. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves heaped with medical textbooks and personal, hand-written journals flank his mahogany desk in the center of the room. Shafts of afternoon sunlight seep in through the gaps between the curtains and sear thin bars of colors across the desk's polished surface. A stack of folders sits on the left side of the desk, a minimalistic, glass lamp on the other side. Two wooden, blue-cushioned chairs face the desk and the leather chair behind it.

If the smoking room is Spy's Eden, this office is his Eden. This is his sanctuary when he requires space and physical separation from his teammates to recoup from his daily stresses. This is where he doesn't have to uphold his ramrod straight posture, his austere mien.

This is where he can let the light into the darkness in him, for a while. This is where he can crack.

He trudges over to the desk and collapses into the leather chair. He rests his elbows on the desk top and covers his face with his gloved hands. He releases a shuddering breath.

Even now, he can feel the blade of that kukri cutting through his clothing, baring his chest and belly to sweltering air. Feel the coarseness of the RED Sniper's shirt and vest against his skin, wishing they weren't in the way so he could also feel -

"Nein," he rasps to himself, digging his fingertips into his scalp. "Nein, zhat is not true. I do not vant zhat."

"Oh, I think you do."

He leaves his hands where they are over his face. He doesn't startle at the other voice, at the other presence sitting in one of the wooden, blue-cushioned chairs in front of his desk. He knows exactly who it is. What it is.

His madness has never cared for the rules set by reality. Much less his rules.

"Leave me alone. I do not vant to listen to you. Not today."

"It's high time you stopped lying to yourself, don't you think so?"

He doesn't bother saying anything. It's pointless anyway.

"Don't you ever wonder how that skinny bastard gets so close to you? So many times? And kills you?" He hears the rustle of clothes, the squeak of smooth rubber against polished wood. "Well, I know."

Against his better judgment (hah, as if he has one!), he lets his hands fall from his face. He stares with old, tired eyes at his double, identical in every way except for the large, surgical staples that vertically bisect a face half-grafted with pale, discolored skin on the left side. He wonders if this is how he would have turned out to be if he'd lost the war with his brain like Vater had with his. He wonders if this is how he appears now, and he just doesn't know it.

He wonders, yet again, whether he is really him, or if the madness has already become him.

He wonders if that is why the RED Sniper hunts him down over and over, as if he is the beast.

"Do you realize you're always alone when he finds you and kills you?"

"Und?"

"And?" His double cackles and flails gloved hands about. "Think about it, my good doctor! You're on a team of nine mercenaries, and one of them is rather protective of you. Hmm?"

He presses his lips into a thin line. He feels a trickle of guilt as he recalls the concern on Heavy's face earlier. Heavy once took a missile to the chest for his sake. A fireman's ax to the shoulder on another day. Numerous arrows and bullets, not to mention the number of bruises, lacerations and fractured or broken bones. Ja, Heavy has always defended him whenever possible, demanding him to get behind that enormous, intimidating bulk of muscle and strength. And together, especially after an ÜberCharge, they are invincible.

"Indeed, with Heavy around, the most that bastard can do to you is blow your head from afar. And yet ..." His gruesome double drums fingers against pale, discolored skin and dramatically pouts at him. "Yet you don't stick to Heavy. You move away from him, from the rest of the team. You do that every time. You want to be alone on the battlefield. You want him to find you, to touch you -"

"Nein! I do not!"

"To rip your heart out and ravage you!"

"I DO NOT!"

"YES, YOU DO," his double yells, grinning from ear to ear, the surgical staples tugging revoltingly at tanned and discolored skin alike. "HE KISSED YOU AND YOU LOVED IT -"

"I DO NOT, I DO NOT, I DO NOT!"

He thumps his fists so hard on the desk that his lamp topples over. His shoulders tremor. His rough breaths seesaw in and out of his lungs like that of a racing horse's on the final track to the finish line. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again.

His double is gone. He is alone once more. He's safe. He's safe and untouchable. He is.

Gott, he is such a pathetic mess.

He jumps in his seat at the mellow coo he hears from behind him. He presses one hand to his stuttering chest as a white, feathered friend hops from the back of his chair to his shoulder and then down onto the desk. He tries to say Archimedes' name but fails. He strokes Archimedes' feathers with a wavering hand as the dove gazes up at him with inky-black eyes.

"I do not vant him," he whispers, in time. "I do not."

Archimedes doesn't coo back in agreement.

49 hours from now – Spy's smoking room, BLU headquarters

"No."

Tense seconds tick by as Spy's succinct answer sinks into Medic. He gapes at Spy, his mouth open in an 'o', his eyes round and dazed. He watches Spy take another sip of wine. Spy returns his stare with eyes twinkling with amusement, and it is this that snaps him out of his astonishment.

"You deny me?"

"Oui, Docteur. And it is for your own good."

His hands clench into tight fists. This time, he doesn't care that Spy sees this. He isn't feeling weak. Oh, quite the opposite.

"You deny me? Vhy?"

The crackling flames of the lit fireplace now cast an almost hellish light upon them. He imagines that his own eyes must be glowing a devilish gold like Spy's are, knife-like and laden with resolve. He imagines the various methods of persuasion he will gladly employ to make Spy talk despite being weaponless. If he has to be like a devil to grapple with one, so be it -

"Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love."

Medic blinks at the ostensibly non sequitur reply. Of all the things to quote as an answer, the words of a man suffering unrequited love in a play by Shakespeare?

Then the implication hits him.

He clamps his lips around the explosive exhalation that threatens to erupt from his lungs. His fingers burrow deep into his palms. He's sitting with his back ramrod straight again, and he's thinking, so seriously thinking about lunging full-body at Spy and punching that smug smirk off Spy's face with both fists.

How dare he ... how dare Spy presume that he could ever be in – in love with that filthy, repellent, uncouth RED scheisskopf!

"You - you zhink I feel anyzhing for zhat dummkopf?! He is zhe enemy!" he roars, smacking his fists upon his thighs in lieu of smashing Spy's face in. "I hate him! I hate him! He hounds und kills me like a vild animal! I am sick of it und I vant him dead!"

Spy merely imbibes more of his wine, composed as a piano melody by Debussy.

Medic's eyes narrow, and then he says very quietly, "Is it zhat you von't tell me how to kill zhe RED Sniper … because you are zhe vone who feels somezhing for him?"

Spy stares at him for a moment. Then, fiercely, boisterously, obnoxious laughter gushes forth from Spy's mouth. Spy laughs so hard that he throws his head back and nearly spills what's left of his wine all over himself.

"Oh, Docteur, Docteur," Spy says between snorts and more guffaws. "You are so close, yet so far." Spy shakes his head at him like an all-knowing father would at a young, naive child. "We are more alike than you know. But sadly for you, you are still … how do you say? Swimming in a river in Egypt."

He gapes at Spy with eyes round and dazed again. Spy is a devil of riddles tonight, unbelievable riddles. He and Spy are nothing alike. Spy obviously has no wish to help him in ridding him of the RED Sniper, for reasons unfathomable to him. Spy is even accusing him of swimming in a damn river in a country he's never visited!

"I meant what I said. It is for your own good that I do not tell you anything. You will be sorry if you chase your obsession with the RED Sniper and you cannot handle him ..."

When Spy trails off into a gravid silence, Medic feels a muscle twitch in his lower jaw. Obsession? Obsession? Now Spy thinks he has an obsession with the RED Sniper?

His mouth opens, a river of profanities raring to disgorge from it and plough into Spy's face.

Nothing but silence emanates from between his lips.

He snaps his jaw shut and scrunches his nose in distaste. Opens his mouth again. Closes it again as words perish on his tongue, doomed in the shadow of a petrifying revelation: He'd told Spy he doesn't feel anything for the RED Sniper, but … hatred is an emotion. He hates the RED Sniper with the immensity of oceans.

That's all he feels for the RED Sniper. That's all.

He grits his teeth. He shuts his eyes. He's sitting motionless as a statue, scarcely breathing, and yet it is as if he is hurtling towards a cliff. Like he's about to fly off the edge and fall and fall and fall into the unknown.

Mutti always did tell him he is too fond of risks. Of seeing the edge and vaulting over it anyway.

He opens his eyes to half-mast, then murmurs, "Say I do have an … obsession. Vhat if I can handle him?"

Spy sits up and gazes at him with an inexplicable glint in eyes far too astute.

"If you can, well … you and I will have much to talk about, then."

He tilts his head as he gazes back at Spy. He is no king on Spy's chess board and he never will be, but even the chess master has weaknesses. The tiniest chinks in heavy-duty armor. And for more reasons unfathomable to him, Spy has just disclosed one of them to him, shrouded in mystery as it is.

Is Spy implying that he has chased an obsession of his own? An obsession with the RED Sniper? Or someone else, someone like the RED Sniper? Who?

He knows Spy won't tell him. Not tonight. As Engineer is wont to say, though, there is always tomorrow.

"Herr Spy?"

"Docteur?"

"I zhink I vill have some of your fine French vine."

30 hours from now – RED Sniper's camper van on Thunder Mountain

The RED Sniper is still scanning the vast expanse of forest through the telescopic scope of that single-shot, bolt-action rifle for him. He can see the frustration etched in every taut curve of the RED Sniper's gangly body, see it in the lurching swings of the rifle from one side to the other and back again. The RED Sniper must be wondering if the RED Soldier had succeeded in killing him with that launched rocket (that turned several trees to splinters and a boulder to dust but left a spry German doctor unscathed). Wondering where he's gone if the RED Soldier had failed. Wondering where he's skulking down there, and not considering the possibility that he has muscular, long legs that can effortlessly outrun the Scouts of both teams even with the Medi-pack on his back, that he can be quieter and stealthier than a cloaked Spy.

Heh, the RED Sniper's underestimation of him will be costly. The dummkopf will pay in blood and pain. A great deal of pain.

He smiles mirthlessly to himself as he observes the RED Sniper from behind an outcropping of rock next to what appears to be the RED Sniper's camping tent. There are so many ways he can butcher the RED Sniper now: With the advantage of surprise, he can charge at the RED Sniper and shove him off the planked platform overlooking the side of the mountain to a ghastly, high-impact demise far below. He can fire his air-powered Syringe Gun at the RED Sniper's back and turn the RED Sniper into a human syringe porcupine. Bludgeon the RED Sniper's thick skull with a cast-iron skillet while he's at it. Put his darling bone saw to excellent use and hack the wild beast to grisly portions!

Ja, he likes the sound of the last option very much.

He steps out into the open. Gravel crunches beneath the soles of his boots. He hears the plaintive call of a bird far away. He feels the wind like a cold shroud across his face. He hears the RED Sniper's acute intake of breath as the RED Sniper swivels around to face him, rifle raised in readiness for an execution.

The sensations of one of its bullets spiraling through his skull and brain a mere hour – two hours? three? - ago have yet to dissipate from his memory. Contrary to popular belief, it had hurt like hell. Four times of dying that way in this cursed place, and it doesn't get easier, not at all. He'd screamed obscenities in the Respawn room once he floated out of that white, tranquil emptiness, stamping his foot and clenching his hands so hard that they vibrated. A mortifying outburst of emotion he is grateful no one witnessed.

Oh, he's going to enjoy chopping off the RED Sniper's head with his bone saw. Maybe he'll take it back with him to the Infirmary, turn it into his little pet he can store in the fridge and play with whenever he wants.

Oh, ja, that sounds fun.

They stare at each other as he removes the Medi-pack from his back and lets it drop to the ground, as he pulls out his bone saw and brandishes it. In retrospect, months from this moment, he will wonder at the RED Sniper hesitating once more to kill him, wonder and know why. He will wonder why he'd been so blind to the clues parading before his eyes for weeks, why he'd been so stupid, why the RED Sniper had been so stupid, why they'd wasted so much precious time with their stupidity.

But in this moment, his sole thoughts are of hurting the RED Sniper as much as the schweinhund has hurt him already. He doesn't see the blaring clue in that thought. Doesn't see the blaring clue in the unceremonious manner the RED Sniper flings that high-tech, valuable rifle aside. Doesn't see the blaring clue in the RED Sniper's ear-to-ear, delighted grin or in the RED Sniper whipping out that kukri from its sheath and flourishing it as if to say, c'mon then, let's dance, you and I.

Medic makes the first move: He propels himself at the RED Sniper and swings his bone saw at the RED Sniper's neck in a wide arc. The RED Sniper counters it with a swift swing of his own weapon, blocking the bone saw with the sharp side of the kukri. The contact of steel is forceful enough that the RED Sniper stumbles backwards and ends up precarious inches away from nosediving off the planked platform. He glares at the RED Sniper through the 'v' formed by their clashing blades. He wants to wipe off that conceited smirk, drench it in a sea of blood, give the vile animal a taste of its own medicine -

He grunts as the RED Sniper pushes him backwards and sends him staggering back up an incline of grass and gravel and away from the planked platform. Another blaring clue he misses, that the RED Sniper hadn't just driven him over the edge and concluded their battle none the worse for wear. They circle each other in front of the camping tent, he snarling and searching for an opening, the RED Sniper twirling the kukri and passing it between long-fingered, calloused hands.

Again, he propels himself at the RED Sniper. Again, the RED Sniper blocks his ferocious blows, no matter how quick he is, smirking the whole time. His vision goes red. He is deafened by the thunder of life in his ears, his arteries. His arms and shoulders start to ache. He howls when the RED Sniper shoves at his shoulders and snickers. The schweinhund thinks this is a game. The schweinhund thinks this is just a game!

He impels all his might into his next strike. For a second, he is blinded by the reflection of sunlight off the blade of his bone saw. He feels the juddering collision of his bone saw with the RED Sniper's kukri. Feels his bone saw forging down, forcing the kukri out of a grip looser than it should have been. Hears the coarse expletive shooting out of the RED Sniper's mouth.

When the glare of sunlight disappears from his eyes, he finds the RED Sniper kneeling on the ground before him, his bone saw biting into the RED Sniper's bared neck. There is something almost … exquisite about seeing the RED Sniper on spread knees before him, panting through an open mouth, arms unfolded, throat presented as an apt oblation for his godhood. Something emancipating. Something destined.

He grins, his eyes wide till there is white around blue irises. He stares down at the RED Sniper who stares back at him through yellow-tinted sunglasses. His own breaths rush in and out of his lungs in sync with the RED Sniper's. The wind feels like a lover's caress across his face and hair.

He thrusts the serrated edge of the bone saw deeper into the skin of the RED Sniper's neck. The RED Sniper tilts his head back a little more, eyelids flickering behind those sunglasses. A horizontal line of crimson oozes along the blade of the bone saw.

He raises the bone saw into the air above the RED Sniper's head. It glimmers in the sunlight. The RED Sniper doesn't move away, doesn't recoil from him. He raises his bone saw as high as he can, the muscles of his shoulder and arm bunching with adrenaline, with excitement and -

"YOU'VE FAILED!"

And he can't move. It's the Administrator, announcing his … his team's defeat and he can't move and he hasn't killed the RED Sniper yet, hasn't even hurt the beast and nein, oh nein, he can't move. His lifted arm shivers. His lower lip trembles.

He watches the RED Sniper's lips slowly arch up in a triumphant sneer. He hears the RED Sniper's snicker, low and gravelly.

The plaintive call of a bird echoes once more from far away.

The RED Sniper is going to kill him yet again, and there is nothing he can do about it. Nothing.

23 hours from now – Spy's smoking room, BLU headquarters

The presence of the second reading chair had been another blaring clue he'd overlooked during his previous visit here. This time, he sees it for what it is. He sees many things now. About himself, about Spy. About the devil in red with yellow eyes whose lips torched his with a mystifying, unquenchable drought.

"Bonsoir, Docteur."

He stands in front of the closed door of the smoking room, on the very spot where he'd stood before, gazing sedately at Spy. Spy is seated on that blue, cushioned reading chair in front of and parallel to that massive, marble fireplace, although there is no book in Spy's gloved hands. No glass of wine.

The air between them tingles with muted energy. Spy's eyes are heavy-lidded. Spy's posture is regal yet relaxed, just like it was the last time they met here. The sole lighting from the lit fireplace casts an almost romantic pall over them, and tonight, what he's going to ask of Spy isn't going to be romantic either.

He cannot say the same about what else he will learn from Spy.

"Guten Abend, Herr Spy," he murmurs, his voice staid, his eyes as honed as his scalpels. He waits for Spy to invite him to sit in the second reading chair. The chair that is not meant for him, not even the first time around.

Spy doesn't do so. Spy stares at his face. Scrutinizes it with eyes as razor-sharp as his own.

"So. He finally made a move."

He fervently hopes that he's distant enough that Spy cannot see the bobbing of his throat, or the ephemeral quiver of his gloved hands. Spy doesn't have to specify who he is and what that move had been.

His lower lip begins to throb anew.

"How much did you see, Herr Spy?"

His voice remains steady.

Spy cocks his head, his expression suspiciously bland.

"I didn't see anything." The tips of Spy's lips quirk up. "But I do now."

Medic doesn't hear the hissing of a snake, nor does he feel himself to be set upon a chess board. At least not one of Spy's creation. Tonight, he's entered this Eden not as a king or a god, nor a pawn, that much he's sure. What he'll be when he leaves, that is something else.

"Do you still wish to kill him? To break him?"

He is as unsure of the answer to Spy's impassive questions as he is of his imminent fate atop a rocky, tree-dotted mountain and its homicidal, aggravating, perplexing dweller who baits him so.

Ultimately, he rasps, "Ja."

Even he is unconvinced by his own reply. To Spy's credit, Spy doesn't smirk or laugh or mock him at all.

"Tell me, Doctuer. What will you do next, should you kill the RED Sniper?"

He stalls for time by taking a few languorous steps towards Spy. Spy doesn't react to his approach. Spy stares at him taciturnly, ever the secretive, sly snake brimful with schemes and paradoxes.

He stares back, but all he sees is darkness, emptiness where he should be envisioning victory and gleeful celebration over the RED Sniper's corpse. He doesn't know what he'll do after killing the RED Sniper. He hasn't even mulled over how he'll do it, much less how he intends to ensure the demise is permanent.

Something deep within his chest flutters torturously, as if it craves to be free, to flee from that thought.

He licks his lower lip and says nothing.

"Here. Catch."

A silver, metallic object soars through the air towards him from Spy's flicked hand. He nimbly snatches it with his right hand, then glances at it. It's Spy's Invisibility Watch, a digital watch with a wooden face, silver buttons and segmented wristband.

"It's a modified version," Spy says before he can ask about it. "Its cloak will last for at least five minutes, with a recharge time of only ten seconds."

He examines it, understanding and appreciating the boon with which he has just been bestowed. Yes, total invisibility for five minutes is more than enough for him to ambush the RED Sniper. The RED Sniper will never see him coming. Literally.

Never trust a snake, Mutti used to say to him, when he was still young and he had not yet eaten the forbidden fruit and seen the world for what it is. Never trust a snake, for it is in its nature to bite you, even when you have done a good deed for it.

Mutti was a wise woman. Mutti had many wise things to tell him before she died in her sleep. Unfortunately, Mutti had not deigned to tell him what to do if the snake decides to do a good deed for him instead.

As he gazes down at the watch, he asks, "Vhat is your stake in zhis?"

"Perhaps … I am simply an amorous soul who recognizes a kindred spirit."

His eyes flit from the watch to Spy's face. It is difficult to miss the sardonic albeit mild bow of Spy's lips. It is just as difficult to miss the deliberate cast of Spy's gaze at the side table next to Spy's chair. At the very familiar, dark brown slouch hat upon its burnished top, concealed in the shade of Spy's figure from firelight.

His eyes flit from the hat to the other reading chair in front of the lit fireplace. He stares hard at the ostensibly unoccupied chair, wondering how many Invisibility Watches Spy owns, and how many of them have been altered to have a cloak lasting as long as that of the watch he has in hand.

"Herr Spy?"

"Yes, Docteur," Spy says patiently, his expression bland, too bland.

Medic turns his intense stare on Spy.

"Are zhey as alike as zhey look?"

Spy's smile twitches into something laced with amusement and not a small amount of deference.

"I believe you will prefer to discover that for yourself. Hmm?"

Medic's own lips twitch into a similar smile. Instead of replying Spy, he glances at the other reading chair, at the vicinity where an adult man's head would be if he was seated in it. A lanky, bristly man who'd forgotten to don his hat before … hiding in plain sight.

"Herr Sniper, I zhink an appointment to examine your eyes may be necessary in zhe very near future. It is not a good sign vhen you are unable to see a person standing right in front of you und bump into zhem."

Without waiting for a response, he glances at Spy again and says as casually, "Zhank you for zhe Invisibility Vatch. I vill put it to good use."

Spy nods, still smiling.

"I am sure you will."

Medic nods in return, in farewell. He pivots and opens the door of the smoking room, and as he strides out into the blue-carpeted hallway, he hears Spy erupt into vociferous guffaws and a raspy, frighteningly familiar voice mutter, "Oh, bloody hell, told ya he'd figure out your game."

Now – RED Sniper's camper van on Thunder Mountain

The RED Sniper is alone beneath a full moon and a cloudless, star-strewn night sky. He's sitting on a wooden folding chair in front of a campfire near his camper van, prodding blazing small logs and kindling with a sturdy stick. He's garbed in a white tank top, dark brown pants and boots. His slouch hat, vest, red shirt and sunglasses are nowhere to be seen. Neither are any of his weapons.

Medic has never seen the RED Sniper off battle hours before. He's never seen the RED Sniper without those yellow sunglasses shielding those wide, unblinking eyes. Divested of much of his outfit, the RED Sniper looks … slighter. Tamer.

He doesn't know why his hands and belly are quavering like they are. He doesn't know why he isn't already using Spy's Invisibility Watch to cloak himself, why he isn't already hacking the RED Sniper to grisly shreds with his bone saw.

He doesn't know.

He doesn't dare to know.

He's crouched behind the outcropping of rock parallel to the camper van, where the RED Sniper's camping tent formerly was. (The RED Sniper must have taken it down and packed it since their ... face-off here.) He has an unhindered, frontal view of Sniper and the campfire. He stares at the RED Sniper's exposed arms and shoulders, at their sinewy muscles contracting and expanding as the RED Sniper leans forward to rest elbows on knees and gaze into the fire. He stares at the RED Sniper's exposed hair, thick and dark and coiling in the moist, mountain air, at neatly trimmed sideburns. He stares at the RED Sniper's exposed face, at the long nose with its prominent dorsum nasi, at small nostrils and thin lips framed by a crease on each side, at stubble gone darker with the hours, at thick albeit shapely eyebrows that were always obscured by the sunglasses.

The expression on the RED Sniper's visage is … meditative. Wistful, even. As if the man is ... yearning.

Medic squeezes his gloved hands into fists. Digs his fingers into his palms until they quaver for a different reason.

Nein, nein, the RED Sniper is a beast, a devil. Not a man. No. He mustn't forget that -

The sudden flapping of broad wings over his head scares him, making him jump and almost topple backwards onto his backside. In a panic, he presses down on the activation button of the Invisibility Watch around his left wrist and immediately becomes invisible. Still, he grimaces when he does tumble onto the ground on his side in an ungainly heap. He may be invisible now, any noise he makes muted to all except him, but the RED Sniper is no amateur at dealing with cloaked, armed enemies.

He freezes and instinctively holds his breath, listening out for the RED Sniper. The bird that flew over him must surely have alerted the RED Sniper to his presence. Any minute now, the RED Sniper's going to stomp his way here with that rifle or kukri and slay him again, again.

He doesn't want that. He's tired of that, so tired. He wants that to end tonight, once and for all.

He stares at the digital screen above the wooden face of the watch, at the neon blue, glowing bar meter counting down the minutes and seconds until his cloak runs out. He listens for furious steps across gravel and grass, for a furious holler vowing death for his trespass.

He hears something else entirely.

"Sir Hootsalot! There ya are!"

The happiness in the RED Sniper's voice is shocking, enough that he unfurls from his fetal position on the ground and crawls back to the outcropping of rock to peer over it. Sir Hootsalot? What creature warrants a name like that? What creature can make the RED Sniper happy like that?

He can't help his soft gasp of admiration as he lays eyes upon the snow-white horned owl perched upon the RED Sniper's right shoulder. It truly is a gorgeous creature, heavily built and barrel-shaped, with a large head and great wings spanning a sensational four feet from tip to tip. Its humongous eyes of yellow irises glint in the firelight. Its dense, white plumage is darkly scalloped on its head between its ear tufts and on its upper wings. Its deadly beak and talons are dark gunmetal-gray.

"Did ya find yourself somethin' good t' eat?" the RED Sniper murmurs, smiling at the owl with overt affection.

The owl hoots back with equal affection.

"Who-hoo-ho-oo."

"Yeah? Had a good one on me, did ya?" The RED Sniper chuckles and strokes the owl's feathers. "C'mere, ya little beauty."

Medic's lips are dry and parted as he watches the owl carefully inch nearer to the RED Sniper's face to rub its body against it. The owl hoots gently. The RED Sniper smiles again, teeth flashing, still stroking the owl's feathers, nuzzling its head and side with eyes shut. The owl's talons should be hurting the RED Sniper, but it's blatant that they aren't. It's blatant that the owl doesn't fear or detest the RED Sniper.

The RED Sniper has an avian companion, just like him. The RED Sniper has an avian companion that cares for him very much, just like him. The RED Sniper is just … like him.

In one smooth movement, he stands up to his full height. The quavering in his hands and belly has migrated upwards into his chest. Something in its winding sanctums is scuffling through the murkiness, creeping out towards the light and it's tired, so tired of being untouched, unpossessed.

The RED Sniper doesn't notice him, doesn't see or hear him. His fingers curl into talons as menacing as the owl's. His breaths grow deeper, heavier, louder, each exhalation edged with a guttural growl. His upper lip rolls up to bare teeth itching to embed themselves into a scrawny neck. Where was this RED Sniper, this man when they confronted each other on the battlefield? Where was this man, this benevolent soul who shares an affinity with birds and smiles like that, when they shot arrows and bullets and syringes at each other? Where was this man when he needed him -

The traitorous thought razes to ashes in the flames of his burgeoning wrath. No … no, this is no man, this is just a lie, a devil, a blasted devil in red with yellow eyes and the smile of a ravenous beast!

He leaps over the outcropping of rock and lands on the grassy ground in front of the campfire. A mantle of sand billows into the air around his invisible legs. The campfire crackles and sparks. He presses another button on the Invisibility Watch, and two seconds later, the cloak wanes away.

In those two seconds, Sir Hootsalot startles and flaps away from the RED Sniper's shoulder in a flurry of white feathers and piercing screeches. In those two seconds, the RED Sniper hops to his feet so fast that his folding chair capsizes. Gawks at him as he materializes into view with his bone saw in hand.

Gawks at him, and then grins.

The smile the RED Sniper had given the owl minutes ago is an inferior remnant compared to this grin shining upon him. Decades fall away from the RED Sniper's face. The creases framing that long nose, those thin lips and flashing teeth deepen into grooves that remind him of the spectacular, looping valleys of the Black Forest. And the RED Sniper's eyes, those eyes, they're crinkled and gleaming and they're ...

Blue. The RED Sniper's eyes are blue.

They're warm. Empathetic, amiable, and so very -

"Oh, fuck," the RED Sniper mumbles, glancing at his bone saw, grin gone.

The RED Sniper lets out an amazingly shrill yelp as he scampers for the safety of the camper van. It makes Medic's vision turn crimson, makes him grin like a starving wolf that's found dinner, a delicious one at that. He lunges at the RED Sniper and misses the RED Sniper's upper back by an inch. He springs over the campfire and dashes after the RED Sniper and swings his bone saw at the back of the RED Sniper's neck. Its serrated edge clangs against the olive green door of the camper van as he misses a second time, and he has no qualms about roaring his vexation for the world to hear.

The RED Sniper apparently doesn't like that.

"Ahh, look, mate, ya gotta keep it down, all right?! You're gonna wake up th' whole -"

"I HATE YOU, I HATE YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!"

"Yeah, I bloody well got that – GAAAH!"

The RED Sniper almost trips as he bolts around the front bumper, arms flailing and booted feet sliding haphazardly on damp grass and soil. Medic does trip on the same spot, landing hard on the ground on his left forearm and knees, his bone saw striking more olive green steel and a number plate with 'HS 101' embossed in white. He roars again as he clambers to his feet. He sprints past the front bumper to the other side of the camper van and … the RED Sniper isn't there. The RED Sniper's gone.

"COME OUT, YOU COWARDLY SCHWEINHUND!" he bellows, swinging his bone saw rashly through the air. "HYYYAAAAAAA!"

In just hours, despite the outcome of this night, he will chide himself for being so careless, for allowing his emotions to surmount him so badly that he had not checked underneath the camper van. Right now, whatever else he'd wanted to scream is silenced by a large, calloused hand over his mouth. Another large, calloused hand seizes his right wrist and stretches his right arm down and back, paralyzing it. He feels the bones in that wrist grate against each other but he doesn't let go of his bone saw. A sinewy arm clamps itself around his chest and under his left arm. He thrashes like a madman in the throes of terror, shaking his head and grabbing at the hand over his mouth with his left hand, kicking back at the RED Sniper's legs.

"Nrgh, listen! Just listen t' me!"

"Mmmmpppphhhh!"

The RED Sniper tightens both hands. Hauls him backwards until he feels the RED Sniper collide with the camper van behind them, feels the RED Sniper's bristly cheek against his, feels the whole, ripcord length of the RED Sniper's body against his, heaving chest to arched back, groin to buttocks, thighs to thighs. Feels the RED Sniper's hot breaths against his face, his neck. Feels and smells that unique spicy, woody scent again, that luscious scent that shoots straight down to his belly, his loins and blossoms into a bouquet of indescribable, carnal sensations.

"Steady … steady now." The RED Sniper's voice is hoarse, tremulous. "Just listen t' me."

That scent, it's … it's his scent.

"I don't wanna fight you. I wanna talk. I wanna talk, now that we can an' - I'm … I'm gonna let ya go, all right?"

The RED Sniper smells … really good. Really, really good.

"I'll let ya go if ya don't shout or try t' take off my head anymore. All right? Please?"

It takes a very long time for Medic to pull himself out of his hypnagogic trance, to respond in any way. The break in the RED Sniper's voice at that last word resonates within him, like a ripple across a mirror-still lake. He inhales more of that luscious scent into his lungs, his blood. He slumps in the RED Sniper's embrace – and it is an embrace, it is, he won't deny it, won't deny any of it anymore – and lets his eyes waver shut. He lets his bone saw go.

"Right." The RED Sniper's shuddering sigh washes over his cheek like a caress. "Right, then."

He probably imagines the swipe of the RED Sniper's thumb across his lower lip as the RED Sniper releases him. He totters where he stands. He hears the RED Sniper take faltering steps away from him, grass crunching under the RED Sniper's boots. He opens his eyes when the crunching stops.

The moonlight cascading upon them delineates every elegant curve and sweep of the RED Sniper's lean physique. The RED Sniper's hair has become even more tousled, a frantic mane. Sweat constellates the bronzed skin of the RED Sniper's forehead and upper lip. Somewhere along the chase, the RED Sniper's tank top has ridden up to bare a flat, defined belly to his sight, and he stares at the treasure trail of fine, dark hair starting below a narrow navel, thickening the lower down the belly it goes.

He wonders what those fine, dark hairs will feel like against his nose, his lips.

He wonders if this is where he finds out whether he's gone truly mad, whether he is all madness and beast himself.

And he wonders, he wonders why this doesn't frighten him.

He drags his gaze up to the RED Sniper's face again. His own face feels like it's been scorched by a desert sun at midday.

I hate you, he wants to say, to shout once more.

But nothing comes out of his mouth. The false words stick in his throat and wilt there. He closes his eyes again, for a minute, feeling the tide of heat of his face spread down to his neck and shoulders under his shirt, vest and coat.

"I … I didn't expect things t' go this way."

The RED Sniper's voice is small. Fragile. He's gazing down at the ground, arms crossed over his chest in a defensive posture.

Medic stares at him with an outwardly blank expression. Inside him, something is stirring again, fluttering like a bird caged for far too long. He's remembering the grin on the RED Sniper's face when he deactivated his cloak, the grin that had been all joy and no hostility.

"Und vhat, exactly, vere you expecting?" he says very quietly. "Vere you expecting me to greet you vith open arms? A smile? After everyzhing you have done to me?"

The RED Sniper flinches.

Medic takes one step forward. Takes another step, his face still outwardly blank, his tone still dangerously low and cool.

"You infuriate me. You hound me. You torment me."

The RED Sniper winces, but lifts his head to look him straight in the eye. He has to give the RED Sniper some merit for that.

"I … It … wosn't meant t' be like that."

Medic takes another step forward. Less than a dozen steps more, and their toes, their chests will touch.

"Explain yourself."

He sees the RED Sniper swallow visibly, glance away and then look back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. Wide, unblinking, blue, warm eyes. Such warm eyes.

That thing in his chest flutters ever harder for freedom.

"It's … it's fascination, isn't it?" the RED Sniper rasps. "That's wot I think it is."

Abruptly, Medic thinks about Spy, seated on that blue reading chair, annihilating his defenses and gathering all his secrets with a mere gaze. An obsession, Spy had said, he had an obsession with the RED Sniper, one he would regret chasing if he couldn't handle the man. Obsession, fascination … are they the same? Are they not the same?

"So you hunt me down like a beast und kill me, again und again … because you are fascinated vith me?"

The RED Sniper sways from one foot to the other. Fidgets like a boy being admonished by a strict teacher in front of the class.

"I … I had no choice. Ya hafta believe me." The RED Sniper's gaze goes coy. Flits away and then back at his face. "It just happened. Just a glance, one bloody glance of ya runnin' an' firin' that crossbow when our teams fought for th' first time, an' that's all it took t' ..."

Medic has to gulp down a noiseless gasp when the RED Sniper blushes from forehead to neck and bashfully bows his head. It's … endearing. It hits him in the chest like an arrow (and he knows what that actually feels like).

"To vhat?" he prompts, taking yet another step forward.

"T' be fascinated with ya. You're … you're amazin'. Divine," the RED Sniper says, his voice stronger now. "I just … I keep thinkin' about ya. Keep thinkin' about when we're gonna meet again, when I can get near ya an' … just be near ya. An' I dunno how t' stop it. I dunno if I … want t'."

Medic stares at the other man, feeling as if there is no ground beneath his feet, as if there is not enough oxygen to breathe in. His lower face, where the RED Sniper had touched him, and his right wrist are throbbing. He now thinks, of all things, of his childhood in Rottenburg, of the days before he learned that he has a heart, that a heart can shatter if he doesn't lock it up deep inside himself where it can't be harmed. He'd been six years old, and there was a blonde, pig-tailed girl his age who would chase him, hound him, torment him by calling him names and yanking his hair. He'd thought her a tiny demon who'd been inflicted upon him due to pure bad luck, the bane of his innocent, idyllic existence.

It was only when he grew older, when he discovered the complexities and complications of sex, that he understood what her annoying treatment of him (which thankfully lasted just two months before she shifted her attentions to another boy) had really meant.

And now, he knows what the RED Sniper's actions towards him, all this time, had really meant too.

"Look, I get why you're angry. I do. Like I said, I had no choice but t' kill ya. Only reason I can at all is 'cause of Respawn. We can't die 'cause of it so … so I know you'll be all right. I know you'll be fine."

His chest throbs along with his face and wrist at the softness of the RED Sniper's voice. He watches the RED Sniper begin to pace to and fro in front of him, trudging five steps in one direction before swiveling around and trudging five steps in the other.

"An' – an' there's th' problem of th' other fellas, don't ya see!" The RED Sniper spreads and waves his arms in a gesture of frustration as he paces. "We're fightin' an' we're supposed t' kill each other an' if I don't do that, they're gonna get suspicious, aren't they! They're not gonna be … be –" The RED Sniper's gesticulations grow more turbulent. "Acceptin' of this! That's not how it is. An' even if it is, we're on opposin' teams here. How am I gonna get close t' ya, then? How?"

The expression on the RED Sniper's visage now is one Medic has seen before. It's that unguarded, raw, tender expression, that expression he'd thought terrifying, that he'd dared not name.

It isn't terrifying. It's stunning.

It belongs to him, him alone.

He stays motionless and silent as the RED Sniper stops pacing and drops those sinewy arms to his sides, as the RED Sniper approaches him cautiously, unhurriedly, as if he is a skittish creature about to take flight. As if he is a treasure of immeasurable value.

The RED Sniper halts before him with a foot of space between them. They gaze at each other, their eyes wide and unblinking, blue and warm and hopeful.

"But I get that ya hate me," the RED Sniper whispers huskily, as if it hurts him to do so. "I got that loud an' clear. An' I don't blame ya. I don't."

Medic swallows down another gasp when the RED Sniper tugs the collar of his tank top down and tilts his head back. He can see the fine dusting of dark hair on the RED Sniper's forearm and broad chest. He can clearly see the smooth, vulnerable column of the RED Sniper's neck beneath the moonlight, see the rapid pulse at its base.

He wants to press his mouth to it. To lick it and count the beating of the RED Sniper's heart.

He wants to take the RED Sniper's heart, take what has been offered to him, and keep it.

"Go 'head, then. Finish th' job. Finish wot ya came here t' do."

The RED Sniper's eyes are half-lidded. They watch him and glisten with resignation, with acceptance.

He returns the gaze, stable as bedrock, knowing finally what his fate is here with this man, this man who's been fascinated with him from just a passing glance, whom he'd already broken and been broken by ever since. He maintains eye contact as he removes his spectacles, as he strips his right hand of its blue glove. He sees the RED Sniper's eyes widen as he also strips his left hand of its glove and lets the gloves and spectacles fall to the ground at their feet.

He unbuttons his coat, his vest. His shirt, slowly, slowly, taking his sweet time with each button, pop, pop, pop.

The RED Sniper is starting to breathe hard, desperation tinging each exhalation. Staring at his bare hands as they loosen his blue silk tie, at his hirsute torso from collarbones to waist while his hands pull apart his shirt. He may not be young anymore, but he is proud of his physical fitness and vigor. The months of sprinting with his Medi-pack, of battling RED mercenaries – especially this one who captivates him so, this one – have toughened him, strengthened him. Burned away fat and replaced it with hard-won, athletic muscles.

The RED Sniper's respiration stutters when his right hand comes up and lights on the RED Sniper's chest, over a hammering heart.

It's mine, mine, he thinks.

His own breath snags when the RED Sniper presses a hand over his, skin to skin, when the RED Sniper presses their foreheads together.

Let's do this again.

Let's do this, now.

It isn't their first direct physical contact, not by a long shot. It isn't their first kiss either, but it's the first kiss that means something to them, that provokes a moan out of both of them while he slides a hand around the back of the RED Sniper's neck and the RED Sniper grabs a fistful of his shirt and coat to yank him closer. Their lips find and home in on each other, both open and absorbing breaths puffed into them. He works his mouth against the RED Sniper's, licking and nibbling the RED Sniper's soft, soft lower lip. The RED Sniper melts into him, opening his mouth even wider, drawing him as close as their sinuous bodies can be. The RED Sniper's mouth is hot, so hot and wet, with an agile tongue that eagerly stretches to meet and twine with his own. He shivers with pleasure at the RED Sniper's deep groan when he pushes that white tank top up to the underarms and skims his hands over a heaving chest and trembling belly, over that treasure trail of fine hair.

Oh, mein Gott, kissing the RED Sniper is so good, so wunderbar. He's being deluged in that spicy, woody, splendid scent, that scent he can't get enough of, ever. He's dissolving in the heat, the reality of the RED Sniper's body, that lanky, strapping body finally, finally exposed and pressed up against his bare skin. He revels in the solidity of the RED Sniper's even-textured skin and firm flesh, the lushness of dark, thick hair under and between his fingers, the avid, addictive lips against his, the rocking of their hips in a dance as old as Time.

This is so much more than he'd ever imagined, than he'd ever believed he would have. This is too good to be true.

His eyes pop open even as the RED Sniper's hands rove across his chest and back under his clothes in ways that make thinking challenging, that make coordinated movement a near impossibility.

This is … this is going too fast. Going out of control, his control. They've barely begun to discuss the situation between them. Yes, he knows where the RED Sniper stands, what the RED Sniper feels for him, but the RED Sniper doesn't know where he stands, what he feels about it all.

And he has yet to receive a guarantee that the RED Sniper will not hunt and kill him again.

But he will, he will. He knows he will.

He grasps the RED Sniper's face with both hands, blending and deepening this last kiss (for now, only for now), breathing in the RED Sniper's air while the RED Sniper breathes his, until his heart has reached the light and is fluttering its wings and flying, flying. At last.

The RED Sniper whines when he reluctantly breaks the kiss. Those large, calloused hands that were stroking his back now glide to his sides under his clothes, letting him ease back. Whatever awkwardness or tension he feels is dispelled by that.

He is safe here. He is touchable and the RED Sniper has his heart in hand like he has the RED Sniper's and he – they are safe. They really are.

"Don't go away," the RED Sniper is murmuring, panting against his mouth, stroking his sides and hips. "I just found you."

He hushes the RED Sniper with a swift kiss to the corner of his mouth, then whispers, "I vas here all along, mein Schatz. I still am."

The RED Sniper moans upon hearing the endearment, sliding a still-hot mouth down to his jaw and biting it tenderly.

"Too much too soon?"

"Ja," he admits, dropping his head back, running his fingers through the RED Sniper's disheveled hair. "It's … it is too much, right now."

The RED Sniper licks at his neck, over his pulse, over the tendon on the side of his throat. Then he licks up to his ear, nibbles it. Then, the RED Sniper draws back, tugging down that white tank top, and he has to cling onto his coat to stop himself from kissing the other man all over again. The RED Sniper's face is flushed, those thin lips now red and swollen and wet, those warm, blue eyes smoldering and yearning for him. Yearning for him.

"It's fine. It's fine. We got a lot t' talk about, I know." The RED Sniper fondly taps him on the nose with a forefinger. "First on th' agenda bein' how I'm gonna make it up t' ya for bein' such an arsehole. Things are gonna be different now, for you an' me. I promise."

Ah, there it is, just like he'd anticipated. His lips tremor with mirth, and more contentment than he'd ever believe he could feel and have.

That, too, seems too good to be true … but it is true, and that is what matters.

"Vhy don't ve discuss all zhat at a later date, hm?"

The RED Sniper is quick, very quick on the uptake. There's that luminous grin again, brighter than the full moon and the multitude of stars above them.

"Later date?"

"Ja. Ve can, how do you put it … take zhings slow."

The RED Sniper sucks in a deep breath. His chest puffs out with satisfaction.

"Yeah … yeah, I'd like that. Very much. I'd like t' … get t' know ya. An' not just in th' biblical sense, mind you."

Again, Medic's lips tremor.

The RED Sniper steps back. Shoves those large, calloused, magnificent hands into the side pockets of those dark brown trousers in what Medic is certain is a half-hearted attempt at avoiding the temptation that is his exposed torso. Coughs once.

"I, uhm … I play th' saxophone," the RED Sniper says nonchalantly, straight-faced and red-faced, eyes twinkling.

Medic wonders if his eyes are twinkling as much.

"I play zhe violin," he replies as nonchalantly.

Again, the RED Sniper smiles, his eyebrows going up with pleasant surprise.

"Really? Whoa, I'd … I'd like t' listen t' ya play, some time. Maybe we could … play together. Some time." The RED Sniper clears his throat a second time, waves one hand in the air and says, "Oh, an', uh, you've met Sir Hootsalot. He's my … well, he's my friend. An old friend." The RED Sniper grimaces, as if readying himself for ridicule. "I know, I know, he's an owl, a bird, but -"

"Burds can be zhe finest companions a man can ever have," he says suavely, savoring the RED Sniper's expression of astonishment transforming into one of gradual euphoria. "I also have a friend like yours, a white dove who adores to bathe in blood und guts und frolic in zhe chests of my patients. He used to make his living zhrough vedding dovery. Zhat vas how ve met, actually; I stole a catering van during zhe prime minister's vedding und he vas in it. His name is Archimedes."

That raw, unguarded, tender expression has returned to the RED Sniper's visage, more charming than ever.

"Whoa, now that's nice! I guess we … have a lot in common. Don't we?" The RED Sniper chuckles, but it is a very different chuckle than the one he'd directed at the owl. It's mellifluous. Buoyant with elation. Medic likes it, very much. "Ya think Sir Hootsalot an' Archimedes will get along?"

Do you think we'll get along, too?

Medic allows his lips to finally arch up into a smile. He bends down to pluck his spectacles and gloves from the ground, and when the RED Sniper hastily bends down to help him and then retrieve his bone saw he is torn between letting his eyebrows shoot up his forehead and smiling even more. He wonders what his next conversation with Spy will be like and how much Spy will be willing to divulge about the Sniper of their team. He wonders if the Sniper of their team is just like this Sniper. His Sniper.

His lips make the choice for him, spreading like they do into a beam of merriment and a fair amount of awe.

"Vhy don't you introduce me to Sir Hootsalot?" he asks, putting on his spectacles. With them on, the RED Sniper's (his Sniper, his Sniper!) optimistic smile is stupendous in its every detail.

"Yeah," the RED Sniper rasps, reaching out to clasp his bare hand, to entwine their fingers as they saunter back to the campfire. "Let's get t' it, darlin'."

Yes, he supposes he would have ended up here sooner or later, be it by someone else's hand or his own. He may not have seen this coming, not in a billion years, but he's here now, having spent his whole life getting to this place. He'd ripped out the hearts of countless living creatures so that his own was untouchable in its dark chamber in him, unwittingly damning it to isolation, to desolation. He'd fooled himself into believing himself to be a god on earth, untouchable from head to toe, invulnerable to death itself.

He'd never expected a devil in red with yellow eyes and the smile of a ravenous beast to prove him wrong on that. Again and again and again. Never expected that devil, that beast to do to him what he's done to countless others, either, and he's glad, so glad to have met the man behind that facade instead. The gangling, eccentric, sacrilegious, passionate man, marked by family in a country faraway, by precious few friends and enemies galore, by conquests and disappointments, wandering this untamed earth, simply searching for somewhere to belong like him.

Just like him, after all.

It was fascination, I know
Seeing you alone
With the moonlight above
Then I touch your hand
And next moment
I kiss you
Fascination turned to love

Fin