Author's notes: This is about two-thirds of the chapter, hence the 'to be continued' at the end. I'll edit the chapter when the rest is complete and copypaste the rest here.

iii. If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face

Now, when Heavy thinks about the months after the RED team's orientation day – and it was just one day as RED had warned them the warfare would commence within twenty-four hours of their arrival at 2Fort – he thinks most about his interactions with his fellow team members off the battlegrounds. In combat, his mind was shrouded in a crimson miasma, the world around him a fuzziness of darting figures and eruptions of light, of earth tremors and deafening blasts overwhelmed by his exhilarated laughter and roar of, "CRY SOME MORE!"

There was next to nothing human about his thoughts throughout such spans of time, nothing civilized. There was only his reptilian mind, hungering to be king of the jungle, hungering for more blood, more death. Death, death, death until no one in his path was left alive.

It was why he was so adamant about Medic being behind him at all times during battle. It didn't count that they had the Respawn system, that they could return to life no matter how many times they died. The sheer thought of inadvertently murdering Medic in his berserker state made him sick to his stomach. He would rather shoot himself in the head a hundred times over than commit such a heinous act, accident or not.

He had shared that thought with Demoman one night as they were having drinks at the bar in the rec room, six weeks after orientation day. It was past midnight, and they were the only occupants. He was nursing a shot of Stolichnaya while Demoman happily guzzled another bottle of Scrumpy. He was astonished that Demoman wasn't already dead from alcohol poisoning, the way the trigger-happy man could consume bottles of the hard cider per week. Perhaps Demoman was actually a mythical, indestructible creature like that Loch Ness monster he kept going on about. Except he was a Scrumpy-addicted one.

"Ah, lad, ye cannae help it if ye shoot Medic by accident one day. It's war! Friendly fire happens all a' time."

Heavy tried not to wince as Demoman drank straight from the bottle and then released a resounding burp that assailed his nostrils with an indescribable pong. Gospodi, and here he thought Old Man Vasily, the drunkard whose bakery was on Mokhovaya Street where he'd lived in Moscow, had rotten breath!

"Maybe you are right, Demo." Heavy took a long sip of his vodka, mostly to use it as a barrier against the reek. "But I still vould not vant it to happen. To any other teammate also."

Demoman grunted, then punched his upper arm and said, "Ye worry too much! Respawn takes care a' everythin', ye big galoot! Jus' th' other day, Sniper and Soldier were blown up by one 'a my bombs an' they were jus' fine!"

Heavy sucked in his lower lip and did his damnest to not smile. Yes, he distinctly recalled that incident. Five days ago, Sniper and Soldier were chased by BLU's Pyro down the bridge connecting RED's fort with BLU's, and Heavy and Medic had appeared just in time to see one of Demoman's bombs sailing through the air … and landing directly on the ground between Soldier and Sniper. Without Medic's ÜberCharge, they never had a chance and died at once, their obliterated remains siphoned off to who knows where before reemerging in the Respawn room. It wasn't the unintentional bombing that tickled Heavy though, as much as he'd enjoyed watching Soldier explode into blood-stained chunks. It was Sniper's behavior upon coming out of the Respawn room and back to the scene of the crime.

"WHERE'S THAT BLOODY ALCOHOLIC BOGAN?!"

Sniper had unsheathed his kukri, its curved blade glinting in the sunlight. Heavy had never seen Sniper so infuriated. Even Medic had one eyebrow quirked upwards as the Australian mercenary tramped an unerring course towards Demoman, who emitted a very unmanly squeak and scrambled up the miraculously intact left post of the bridge onto its just as miraculously intact roof. Sniper rapidly followed suit, hacking at Demoman's legs with his kukri, sending splinters of wood whirling into the air with each chop into the post. Demoman was fast enough that the lethal blade missed his limbs by inches.

"THROW A BOMB AT ME, WILL YA, WILL YA?!"

Spy made his presence known at Heavy's right side with a snicker and an amused smirk.

"Ah, the wild bushman in hiz element," Spy said, puffing out a ring of smoke after inhaling it from his lit cigarette.

Heavy noticed, with a surreptitious side glance, that Spy was not only staring at Sniper, but was most certainly not looking above Sniper's waist as Sniper clambered across the bridge roof to get to a shrieking Demoman.

"I WOS AIMIN' TH' BOMB AT THEIR PYRO! I SWEAR TAE YE!"

Demoman's voice was ten times higher in octave.

"STOP MAKIN' EXCUSES AN' C'MERE, YA BLOODY DRUNKEN DONGER!"

Demoman almost met his demise at the kukri's razor-sharp edge. He would have, if it wasn't for Sniper realizing that everybody present had gone stationary and noiseless and was observing his every move with rapt eyes. Heavy had become acquainted enough with Sniper to know how much of an aversion the man had towards public attention on him, and he saw the very air go out of Sniper the way it would out of a balloon, saw Sniper hunch into a defensive posture when Spy chose that instance to cackle. Sniper had then scrambled down the roof faster than he'd gone up, striding back into their base without a glance at anyone. With Spy standing at his side, Heavy had a firsthand view of Sniper purposefully bumping into Spy's shoulder as he passed.

"Ah, so he iz still angry with me," Spy murmured inexplicably, then vanished into thin air.

The mêlée of the day concluded a minute later with the Announcer's vociferous broadcast that RED had won, thanks to Scout taking advantage of the uncommon situation and sneaking in and out of BLU base with BLU's intel before anyone knew it. Heavy had had to suppress his curiosity numerous times since about Spy's behavior around Sniper and vice versa. It was quite out of the ordinary for Sniper to snap in public like he did, and Spy's comment before leaving the scene was … curious. There was something more going on between those two than met Heavy's eye –

"Aye, if ye want somethin' tae really worry about, worry about that monster in Loch Ness!"

Oh, Demoman was fuming about the hapless creature again. Heavy made the mistake of mumbling, "But … Loch Ness monster is not real –"

"YE TAKE THAT BACK, YE BLOODY BA' HEID!" Demoman hollered, banging his fist on the bar's cherry wood countertop with such ferocity that Heavy's glass of vodka shook. "TH' LOCH NESS MONSTER'S REAL! I SEEN IT, THAT CUNTBUGGERYFUCKTOLEYBUMSHITE BEAST! I'M GONNAE KILL IT IF IT'S TH' LAST THING I DO!"

Heavy's right eyebrow shot up. Apparently, apart from drinking potent cider like water, Demoman was also rather talented at ejecting profanity.

"But vhy?" Heavy said like he would to a ticking time-bomb on two legs, wiping errant spittle off his face with the back of his hand. "It is not – it is just animal that live in lake. Vhat did it do to you?"

Demoman sniffed, took another swig of Scrumpy, then said with a very grave expression, "Jus' an animal in a lake? Nay, th' Loch Ness monster is no' jus' an animal. S'a demon from th' lowes' level a' hell. My parents are dead 'cause a' it."

Heavy was taken aback. Demoman's parents, killed by this monster? Was it possible that books about mythological creatures were wrong, that the Loch Ness monster was real, then?

"Aye, when I wos a wee lad a' six, I haddae plan, a terrible plan tae kill it. I planted dozens a' homemade bombs 'long th' shores of Loch Ness, but instead a' killin' th' beast, it wos my parents who were killed!" Demoman sniffed again and wiped his nose with his left hand. "'Cause a' that beast, I los' my eye too and had tae go tae a school fer orphans near Ullapool 'til my real parents found me."

Heavy frowned and blinked hard at the same time. Wait, didn't Demoman just say that his parents were killed?

"Real parents?" Heavy asked, and Demoman replied, "I didnae know at th' time either, but I wos adopted. My real parents came tae see me at th' Crypt Grammar School for Orphans where I wos and told me I wos abandoned at birth 'til my demolition skills showed themselves. Wos a Highland Demolition Men tradition."

Heavy did not know whether to be happy that Demoman's biological parents were still alive, or to shake his head in mystification and sympathy. These Highland Demolition people were a strange, strange people. Did all of them practice bomb-making as children? Even the babies? How did any of them survive long enough to unify into a clan? And if Demoman never knew his birth parents until his adoptive parents died and he went to a school for orphans, how did he become occupied with explosives and demolition in the first place? Was it in his genes, then? And how did Demoman survive all this time doing what he did while being a raging alcoholic?

These were questions Heavy wisely decided to not ask in case more of Demoman's Scrumpy-laden spittle bombarded his face again.

"You are married, Demo?" he said, changing the subject to one he hoped was more mollifying in nature.

Demoman's expression shifted from solemnity to … something Heavy could not define. It seemed to him to be a weird combination of satisfaction, resentment, anticipation and no small amount of guilt.

"Got somebody's wife," Demoman muttered with the mouth of his bottle of Scrumpy against his lips.

Heavy was careful to not display any outward reaction to the confession, pretending to not have heard it. So Demoman was having an affair with another man's wife. It was a deed he disapproved of, but who was he to judge another man for that when he had sins of his own that dwarfed it?

Many would say sleeping with another man's wife was a far cry above brutally slaughtering scores of men, in terms of morality.

"Vhat vas that?" Heavy said.

Demoman sat up and pasted on a smile, and Heavy abruptly felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, hit by a premonition that maybe, just maybe, Demoman wasn't always as inebriated and irrational as he appeared. Maybe it was a pretense, to fool others into underestimating him, into seeing him as he wanted them to see him.

Just like his decades-long pretense of being a heterosexual man with no attraction whatsoever towards other men.

"Said I'm no' married," Demoman replied louder. "Marriage's no' fer th' likes a' me!"

Heavy nodded, sipping his vodka again. He wasn't going to push Demoman for more details. Everyone had their secrets, and no one liked to have them unveiled for the world to see. Least of all, him.

A minute of comfortable silence passed. Then, brows furrowing with puzzlement once more, Heavy said, "Vait. I still do not understand."

"Understand wot?"

Heavy scratched the side of his neck.

"I still do not understand vhy you hate Loch Ness monster. Vas not Loch Ness monster that plant bombs. Vas, uh, you –"

When Demoman slammed his fist on the countertop this time, Heavy's near-empty glass toppled over.

"YE SIDIN' WITH THAT BLOODY MONSTER O'ER ME, YER MATE?!"

Heavy stared at Demoman with wide eyes, both lips sucked into his mouth. Chyort, would this volatile man blow him up with a grenade right there in the rec room if he said yes?

With no vested interest in perishing that night, Heavy whispered under his breath, "Loch Ness monster is not real so …" then at a normal volume, "No, I do not side vith Loch Ness monster."

In a flash, Demoman was grinning again, barking out a spry laugh and smacking Heavy on the back.

"Ah, yer a good fella, ye wee bawsack."

Unsure of what a 'wee bawsack' was, Heavy simply smiled, then bade Demoman good night after washing his glass in a small sink at the bar. The next morning, before the day's hostilities, he found Demoman asleep at the bar, sitting precariously on a stool, face flat on the countertop with his arms cuddling an empty bottle of Scrumpy to the side of his head. It was incredible that a half hour later, the demolition expert was hopping on his feet and raring to go to war with BLU, with no hint of a hangover and no blown up teammates at the end of the day.

In light of that, Heavy's qualms about fighting alongside Demoman faded. In the subsequent weeks, his qualms about other teammates also faded, Sniper in particular. Sniper, by his own admission, was not an easy man with whom to converse. Sniper was accustomed to being alone for prolonged stretches of time, sitting silent and immobile in the same spot for hours, sometimes days, the entirety of his concentration on his doomed target. Chitchat was meaningless to such a man.

But, also by Sniper's own admission, even a marksman who enjoyed his job like he did couldn't do it every waking hour of his life. Even a recluse like him required social interaction on occasion to maintain his grip on reality. So, six days after chatting with Demoman in the rec room, on a rare no-combat day, Heavy approached Sniper's camper van with a pack of cold beer and was greeted with a small smile and a nod.

"Thanks, mate. I wos just thinkin' a' goin' inside t' get some," Sniper said as Heavy handed him a bottle.

"Da. Is hot day."

The desert of the Badlands in which 2Fort was situated was higher in elevation than the Sonoran Desert to the west, over six hundred meters above sea level, which meant milder climates and lower temperatures in the summer. Heavy had endured much higher temperatures than today's in the expanse of the Amargosa Desert in Nevada during the late '50s, but 40°C with no breeze wasn't something to be scoffed at either. Sniper was lazing on a plastic, green lawn chair next to a portable fan, clad in just denim shorts and a white tank top beneath the merciful shade of his camper's striped awning, and still, he was sweating, tank top darker at the underarms, moisture dotting his nose, aviator glasses and the sides of his face. It made Heavy ponder why Sniper didn't just stay in the living quarters when the weather got this hot. The continuous air-conditioning there – as well as in the Infirmary – was superb. Was Sniper that averse to social interaction?

Heavy glanced at Sniper's 1965 Land Rover camper, at the vehicle's green-grey, steel exterior with discolored patches, at the aged albeit resilient wood of the carriage, and saw history etched in them. No, perhaps it had nothing to do with avoidance of social interaction. Perhaps Sniper merely wished to be where his heart was.

"Is fine, I sit here on crate," Heavy said when Sniper sat up and was about to stand and offer him the lawn chair, gesticulating at a large wooden crate beside the chair. There were no discernible labels on it, but Sniper didn't protest and sat back down on the lawn chair. Heavy didn't ask what was in the crate and gingerly sat on it, loosening up when the box didn't so much as creak under his weight. Wouldn't be the first time he'd have shattered a wooden crate by sitting on it.

For a while, the two men glugged down their revitalizing beer, absorbing the panorama of remote, contradictory cliffs and mountains thousands of meters high and treeless miles and miles of fine sand and rubble beyond 2Fort's boundary fence in a deferential hush. The desert was so unlike the vast mountain ranges of Siberia, and yet it possessed a familiar splendor that spoke to Heavy's heart. One had to be truly hardy to survive here. There was no room for the feeble, no room for mistakes. Death was a tenacious companion. So was life, however, and life was everywhere, if one knew where to look, to see.

Heavy wanted to impart these observations to Sniper. Problem was, he was clueless about how to do so without risking much awkwardness on Sniper's side. Sniper wasn't just reclusive, he was a very private man too, and might not be motivated to share personal details of any kind in return.

Heavy smiled to himself. Heh, he wasn't the sort to shy away from an opportunity to befriend someone, irrespective of the severity of their introversion. A friendship could make the difference between life and death. Literally. He had learned that lesson well from his escape from the Gulag.

His smile widened as a grand icebreaker of a question arose in his mind. Ah, considering the first colonists of Australia were from the United Kingdom and Australian culture had British roots, Sniper might know the answer to it.

"Sniper … am I a 'vee bawsack'?"

Sniper promptly sprayed the mouthful of beer he'd just sipped all over himself.

"I, uhm, I'm gonna guess Demo called ya that, yeah?" Sniper said, once he wiped his face dry with his tank top and was no longer coughing.

"Yes. Vhat it mean?"

Sniper cleared his throat, then said, "A'right, first things first. Wos Demo happy or mad when he said that?"

Poker-faced, Heavy replied, "Vhat is definition of mad?"

Sniper's lips twitched with mirth, and for an instant, so did Heavy's.

"Wos he angry?"

"Nyet. He vas very happy, actually."

"Ah. Well …" Sniper pushed his glasses higher up his nose with a forefinger. Its yellow-tinted lenses obscured Sniper's eyes from Heavy. "S'an informal word t' describe someone or somethin' as small, wee. As for bawsack, it's actually ballsack. Means yer, uh, scrotum."

Heavy blinked.

"Scrotum?"

Sniper cleared his throat another time, then pointed downwards at his groin. As Heavy's gaze followed the direction of Sniper's finger, he became very conscious of Sniper's physique, of the way Sniper's tank top clung to the wiry man's torso and delineated the firm curves of a broad, hairy chest and rippled belly, of the hem of aforementioned tank top riding up to expose a trail of hair from the belly button down. A treasure trail, if Heavy remembered right, and aptly named. He'd discovered many a treasure down such trails, be they blond, brunet or black.

Heavy wondered whether Medic had a treasure trail too. A silky, dark trail of fine hair he would lick and nuzzle and kiss till he arrived at the paragon of paradise between Medic's long, supple legs, and oh, what he would do then, to make Medic writhe and moan with pleasure, make Medic wrap those legs around his head, his waist as they made love.

If only he could be so fortunate. If only.

Heavy hoped that the heat of the desert would excuse the heat of his face, that Sniper couldn't hear the thumping of his heart. He coughed, then said with a nonplussed frown, "Oh. So, Demo call me … 'little scrotum'?"

The twitching of Sniper's lips became a full-scale grin, infusing a brightness in Sniper's features that rivaled the glare of the sand. Sniper was an attractive man, and in another time, another life, where Sniper was amenable to homosexual sex or was homosexual himself, Heavy might have propositioned him. But in another life, he might not be homosexual. In another life, he might have remained trapped in the Gulag, and died there, alone, never knowing and learning of the world beyond the Soviet Union. Never knowing Medic.

In another life, Medic might not exist at all.

And any life without Medic, without loving him, was not one Heavy yearned to live.

"I'm sure he meant it with th' upmost affection, mate," Sniper said while patting him on the shoulder in consolation, and he smiled and chuckled with Sniper. Whatever ice there was between them was undeniably broken now.

To guarantee it stayed that way, Heavy asked, "Sniper, vhat is 'donger'?"

Sniper laughed, then proceeded to teach him that – "S'a slang for dick. Like doodle. Or cockie." – along with a slew of Australian lingo and cuss words. Then, as if inner floodgates within had burst open, Sniper spoke animatedly and at length about his birthplace, highlighting its unique fauna found nowhere else on the planet. Heavy was mesmerized by the fantastical imagery Sniper's descriptions painted for him, one or two of which he deemed too farfetched to be true.

"This koala, I can believe is real. Is like little grey bear vith long claws and bad temper. Emu and dingo, also. But this plahteepoose that is mammal that lay eggs and look like duck, otter and beaver together …" Heavy shook his head. "It cannot be real."

Beer bottle on his lap, Sniper laid one hand over his heart and raised the other with its palm forward, expression earnest.

"I swear, th' platypus' real. I don't blame ya for not believin' me though. When British scientists saw its pelt in th' 18th century, they thought it wos a fraud, like maybe someone sewed a duck's beak t' a dead beaver. But I swear, it's real. Had a pet platypus when I wos a boy livin' in th' highlands in Tasmania. S'wos this cute, chubby little thing that'd swim up th' river every mornin' t' where th' family camper wos, an' I'd sit by th' riverbank an' share some a' me breakfast with her."

"How you know it vas she?"

"That's 'cause a female platypus doesn't have venom in its ankle spur. Got scratched a couple a' times when I stood shin-deep in th' river t' let her swim between me legs. If it'd been a male platypus, the pain from th' venom woulda made me wanna kill myself. That's how bad it is." Before Heavy could comment on that, Sniper shrugged and said, "Yeah, I know, I wos young an' reckless. Mum screamed her head off when she saw me playin' with th' platypus th' first time. Wos just lucky it wos female."

Heavy gazed genially at Sniper as the Australian man drank another mouthful of beer. He understood his teammate a little better now, understood Sniper's necessity for solitude. Heavy didn't know much about Australia, much less about Tasmania, but if its highlands were anything like the mountains of Siberia, towns and villages must be very few and far between. Those who lived in the towns and villages would be in close-knit communities, while those who lived outside of them were hermits, eking out a living with Mother Nature as their sole provider. It was very likely that Sniper moved from one town to another in the family camper, always travelling, always uprooted before any bonds with other human beings could be set in stone. His playground would have been the tremendous wilderness, far from human civilization, and his friends would have been its untamed inhabitants, creatures of instinct and basic needs. Creatures of a primal language that did not distinguish the concepts of good and evil. Creatures that killed only for food, for survival.

So, how did a boy who had a pet platypus and lived in a camper with his parents in the Australian highlands turn into a professional assassin with a proclivity for fatal head shots?

Heavy turned his head to glance at the camper van behind him. Sniper did the same, then patted the side of the camper.

"Nah, s'not th' family camper. Sold that decades ago. My parents are livin' on th' mainland now, in Melbourne." A sentimental smile arched Sniper's lips. "This camper's all mine. RED shipped it straight from th' Outback t' America as part a' my contract."

Heavy glanced at Sniper.

"The Outback?"

"Yeah. S'what we Aussies call any land outside a' urban areas. Land so remote an' arid nobody wants t' live in it." Sniper snorted. "A lot like this place."

"Vhat vere you doing there?"

Sniper leaned back on his lawn chair, stretching his long legs and crossing his ankles, half-full beer bottle held with both hands against his abdomen. The wind from the portable fan ruffled his short, dark brown hair.

"Back in th' day, I'd live there all by myself for months on end, trackin' dangerous animals like crocs, snakes an' emus – 'oi, don't laugh, emus are gentle birds if ya don't piss them off, yeah, but lemme tell ya, they're lethal with those legs an' clawed feet a' theirs. One time, I got too close t' a male emu an' it chased me for wot felt like a bloody mile. Tried t' kick me arse too! Thought I wos gonna cark it an' – oh, ya think that's funny, do ya?"

Heavy attempted to stifle his snigger and failed badly, shoulders shaking as he saw in his mind the image of a younger Sniper sprinting and screaming his lungs out while a colossal, brown-feathered flightless bird pursued him across sunbaked, orange-brown soil. It was like imagining Sniper being hounded by a … an overgrown chicken!

Luckily, Sniper didn't take offense to his amusement and sniggered also, and what could have been a discomfited moment became one of camaraderie.

"Yeah, it is sorta funny when I think back on it," Sniper said after a while, still smiling. "S'wos a bloody big bird. Almost seven feet tall. Think you would have had trouble dealin' with it too."

Heavy did a quick conversion of the height into meters and nearly gasped. A bird that was over two meters tall!

"Hah, now ya know wot I'm talkin' about, don't ya!"

Heavy grinned and said, "Da. But I vas also thinking … is big bird like that tasty after roast?"

Sniper's laughter, when the man dropped his inhibitions, was unexpectedly jubilant and contagious. It bordered on paradoxical when paired with Sniper's dour everyday expression. Who knew that underneath that somber mien was the soul of a cheerful, carefree boy?

"Australia is place of many veird, vonderful things."

"It is," Sniper murmured, and Heavy heard the despondency in the two words, the despondency a man felt when he missed his homeland, and Heavy knew then that he wasn't the only man who could not go home. "If I had a choice back then, I woulda stayed in th' Outback forever, just livin' off th' land, trackin' animals for th' fun a' it, never havin' t' deal with other people. Ever. But ya can't have everythin' ya want. Specially not when yer money runs out an' ya need it for bullets for yer rifle an' petrol for yer camper."

Heavy said nothing, but looked at Sniper attentively. Sniper was staring out at the desert.

"Trackin' just isn't as fun when other people get involved. Worse when it's a buncha filthy rich, whingin' show ponies wantin' t' give wild game huntin' a burl like it's child's play." Sniper sneered, his nose wrinkling. "My last client for that job wos this billionaire who owned one a' th' biggest loan companies in th' country. Had a rep t' keep, so th' trip with his cobbers into th' Outback t' kill wild game wos all kept under wraps. I even had t' sign a secret contract sayin' they could sue th' livin' hell outta me if I ever told th' press about it. So here they were, these overly dressed yobbos who'd never seen a real wild animal in their lives, orderin' me about an' tellin' me about their dozens a' petrol-guzzlin', luxury cars an' their supermodel wives an' how hard life wos … an' when I finally found them th' biggest fucker of a croc I could, like in th' contract, ya know wot happened?"

"Vhat?" Heavy mumbled in amazement. He had never heard Sniper articulate so many sentences in one go before. Was it because of the heat, or the beer? Or both?

"Their gang leader, th' wuss couldn't even aim his rifle at it 'cause his knees were knockin' too hard. Th' croc was just lyin' there, far away, starin' at him, an' he couldn't even aim an' pull th' trigger. His mates were wusses just like him, but they were lookin' at him like th' dipstick he wos so … he turned th' rifle on me." Sniper's hands were taut around his beer bottle, white-knuckled. "Shouted a load a' codswallop about me not followin' th' deal. Demanded I walk right up t' th' croc an' shoot it in th' head, or he'd kill me an' let th' croc eat my corpse. Said he had th' money to cover it up, t' make sure no one would ever find out wot happened t' me. Said he'd even kill Mum an' Dad,if it came t' that."

Heavy sighed, his own hands clenched around his beer bottle. Now, now he understood Sniper's repugnance of human socialization. There were many menacing animals in the world, in Australia alone, but none more so than humans. None more malicious and loathsome. Above all, against their own.

"So … s'what I did. I walked up t' th' croc."

"Then vhat?"

"I looked it in th' eye. It looked back at me. Then I turned around an' told th' cowardly bastard he might as well shoot me 'cause I wosn't gonna shoot it. I never killed an animal unless it wos for food."

Heavy smiled inwardly at that. He'd conjectured as much, but it was good to know it was fact.

"Th' bastard wos spewin' by then, purple in th' face, an' I thought he wos really gonna shoot me. But then …" Sniper shook his head slowly, and his voice lowered with admiration. "Th' croc suddenly sprang t' life. Charged at him like a truck at full speed. Had him in its jaws, just like that, an' then his mates were all screamin' an' runnin' as th' croc dragged him into th' river an' under. I did shoot at it when it grabbed him, I did. But it wouldn't let go. He wos done for."

"I vould say, vorld did not lose anything vith him gone."

Sniper smirked, though not cruelly.

"He had a wife an' two kids." Sniper paused, then said with a broader smirk, "An' four mistresses lookin' forward t' publishin' their tell-all books about him, if th' news' t' be believed."

Straight-faced, Heavy shrugged and said, "I vould say, vife did not lose anything vith him gone, either." He and Sniper snickered, and clinked their beer bottles together.

After opening their third and final bottles, Sniper said, "Th' really awkward part for me wos havin' t' guide th' other blokes back t' th' city 'cause they didn't know how t' go back. They were like chickens with their heads cut off. They wouldn't let me call th' authorities or his wife. On top of wot th' billionaire already paid for my fee, they made me accept a … generous extra an' promised t' leave me an' me parents alone if I kept mum about it all. They said they'd handle th' press an' pass it off as a nasty car accident. An' they did."

"Money has much power."

"Yeah." Sniper angled his head and looked at Heavy. "Th' whole time they were yabberin' about their wealth an' how excited they were t' kill some wild animals I had t' track for them, all I could think wos how good it'd feel t' shoot their heads."

"That is how you become sniper?"

Heavy perked up as Sniper removed his aviator glasses to wipe them with the cloth of his tank top. It was the first time Heavy had seen Sniper's eyes, and in the midday light, they were a vibrant blue, shaped like a feline's and framed with thick, dark lashes. He would be lying if he said Sniper's eyes weren't striking. It was a pity Sniper always shielded them from sight. Perhaps the glasses really was a shield, screening Sniper's emotions from the rest of the world.

"I guess. Didn't think I wos cut out for it at first, though. Shootin' a person s'not th' same as shootin' an animal. But holy dooley, once th' jobs came rollin' in an' it became so obvious that everyone, th' targets an' th' people who want them dead, wos guilty of some seriously fucked up bizzo one way or another …" Sniper donned his glasses again. "Feels like doin' a favor for th' world, gettin' rid a' these people."

Heavy grunted, a non-committal sound. Sniper's rationalization of his occupation was thought-provoking. Was a death sentence acceptable if it was for a person judged as evil, a person who'd perpetrated evil deeds? Who would have the authority to pass that judgment in the first place? The judge and jury in a court of law, who were all human and flawed? The nation, also all human and flawed? The victims of the person judged as evil? The assassin with the high-powered rifle, hired by those who'd been wronged by the target?

If the answer to the first question was yes, did that mean his slaying of those Gulag soldiers and guard dogs in Dolinka Village was acceptable? Righteous?

Heavy's brain said yes. His heart replied something else entirely.

"When RED approached me in Melbourne for th' job here, that's wot they said t' me. That I was doin' th' world a favor." Heavy sent Sniper a sharp glance, and Sniper said, "They said they knew every job I'd taken, knew th' details a' every single one, an' that my talents were wasted there. An' th' money wos …" Sniper shrugged. "Wot can I say? It'll ensure Mum an' Dad will live comfortably for th' rest a' their lives."

Heavy smiled warmly.

"You love parents very much."

Sniper smiled as well.

"I do. I call them whenever I can. Mum keeps me up t' date with everythin' an' still talks t' me, but Dad …" Sniper's expression fell. "Let's just say he doesn't approve a' my choice a' work." He scratched at his collarbone above the collar of his tank top and stared at a spot on the ground near their feet for a few seconds, then glanced at Heavy. "I'm a little envious a' Demo 'cause a' that, ya know? His parents fully support wot he does. At least, s'wot he claimed."

Heavy gazed back at the other man, mutely. He sensed that something was weighing on Sniper's mind.

"Between you an' me … I don't think Demo tells th' truth most a' th' time. I don't think Demo even knows it."

Heavy's eyebrows rose with inquisitiveness.

"Vhat do you mean?"

Sniper sat higher up on the lawn chair so they were eye to eye.

"Well, last week, we were havin' a drink an' chat, an' he said somethin' about stayin' at a boardin' school as a teenager."

"You mean, school for orphans?"

"No, no, not that Crypt Grammar School place. Though I'd bet that place isn't real either," Sniper said, waving one hand. "Wos a different school. Looked like he regretted sayin' its name an' where it wos in Scotland. But he did, an' I remembered it an' asked Spy about it later."

Although Heavy didn't indicate it in his demeanor, he was intrigued by Sniper's nonchalant mention of Spy. Whatever had gone down between the two men almost two weeks ago must have been resolved, enough that they were on cordial terms with each other.

"Vhat did Spy say?"

"Spy said there wos no boardin' school in Scotland with that name." Sniper grimaced. "But there's a mental asylum where Demo claimed th' school wos. Same name too. Been there for a century."

Heavy's eyebrows rose even more.

"How Spy know this?"

Sniper let out a derisive snort and made a face that amused Heavy.

"He said there wos some 'beautiful goddess of a Scottish lass' years ago who had th' hots for him an' wanted him t' marry her an' live in a castle an' all that bulldust. Said her mum ended up in that asylum. He went there with her once, an' he wos sure it wos no boardin' school."

For a minute, Heavy didn't know what to say. He'd been suspicious of Demo's life story since he heard it, but as he knew very little of Scotland and its people and culture, he gave Demo the benefit of the doubt. As implausible as it seemed, perhaps there was a Highland Demolition clan that specialized in manufacturing and detonating explosives and had their distinctive child-rearing traditions. Perhaps Demo really had involuntarily killed his adoptive parents with bombs along the shore of the Loch Ness when he was a boy. Adoptive parents who, for all Heavy knew, might have been conjured up by Demo's imagination instead.

Perhaps the people he killed were his actual parents.

And perhaps it was why Demo might have lived in a mental asylum for who knew how long, and fabricated such outlandish tales about his past and fostered such illogical animosity for an imaginary water beast.

Who wanted to suffer every moment of their lives sober and excruciatingly aware that they'd murdered their mother and father as a child?

"Bednaya dusha," Heavy murmured to himself. Then, to Sniper, he said, "You are vorried our bomb expert is alcoholic and mentally ill?"

"He already blew me up once. Don't think it can get worse than that. I mean, who are we t' judge somebody for mental illness, yeah?" Sniper replied, his tone compassionate. "Dad thinks I'm mentally ill 'cause a' what I do, an' I don't think I am."

Heavy made another non-committal noise between his lips. If Sniper was mentally ill, then so was he. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders definitely asserted that, last he checked in 1963 when he accompanied Mary-Louise and her four young children to a bookstore in Baltimore. Mary-Louise was still grieving over Johnny's passing, and the children constantly stayed close to him, keeping him within eyesight, hanging onto his hands as if doing so meant he would never leave them. He, too, was still grieving for his lost friend, brother, and did not let go either. It was when he came across the DSM on the shelf that his attention momentarily left the kids. The brown leather-bound book was hefty, its black words stark upon bone-white pages, and Heavy's fingers had quivered with soundless anger as he glowered at the entry on sexual deviation.

The book had not only pronounced homosexuality as a 'pathologic behavior' – a disease – it had also lumped it with sexual sadism and pedophilia. Pedophilia!

He would rather cease his own life than hurt a strand of hair upon the heads of Johnny's precious children, or any other children.

He was oblivious of his hands reducing the book to a trashed ball of paper until little five-year-old Tara, Johnny's youngest, tugged his pants and said, "Uncle B.? You can't read the book anymore. It's squished."

Derr'mo, how chagrined he'd been that he had to reimburse the bookstore for the garbage!

"An' anyway, there's Respawn. Demo could blow us up all he wanted, we'll just keep comin' back, good as new," Sniper added, and Heavy nodded in concurrence.

Then, Heavy asked, "Vhat happened that day, vith Demo?"

Sniper immediately knew what he was alluding to and pressed one hand against a high forehead, smiling from embarrassment. It made the Australian man appear adolescent.

"That wos really unprofessional an' impolite a' me. Demo didn't deserve it. I made amends with Demo that night, but yeah, I'm still ashamed about it. It did hurt like hell when th' bomb exploded and I wos mad as a cut snake, but it wosn't Demo I wos really mad at. Th' night before, Spy came over t' th' camper an' –" Sniper pursed his lips. Hard. Then with a much too blasé voice, he said, "Ah, he just did somethin' that made me mad, that's all. It's been … dealt with. Yeah."

If it'd been anatomically possible, Heavy's eyebrows would be at his non-existent hairline now. Spy visited Sniper at his camper? At night?

Heavy didn't remark on this newfound tidbit of information. He could almost hear the walls within Sniper erecting themselves again, blocking Heavy and the world out, towing their master back into their sanctuary. Sniper didn't say anything else or look at him, and Heavy took this to be the conclusion of their conversation.

"Ah. That is good, then." He picked up the empty bottles and slotted them back into their cupboard casing in which he'd carried them, then stood up. "I think I vill go see vhat Doktor is doing."

He last saw Medic in the dining hall at breakfast, about five hours ago, and the Infirmary was just minutes away by foot. But already, he missed Medic. He'd missed Medic from the second they left the dining hall and parted ways.

"You an' th' Doc, you're close."

Sniper was gazing at his face now, expression placid.

Heavy returned the gaze and said, "Da. Doktor is …"

The man who made my heart beat again. The man who made my heart believe again. The man I love, with all of that heart.

"Doktor is very important person," he murmured, and it seemed an adequate answer for Sniper who sent him a small, cryptic smile, a smile that made him muse about just how much Sniper saw behind those tinted aviator glasses.

Sniper opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it again, frowning to himself. Heavy took a wild guess what Sniper was trying to convey to him, and reached down to give Sniper's left shoulder an amiable squeeze.

"Vas good chat. Ve have drink and talk again soon, da?"

Sniper's smile was a grateful one.

"Yeah ... It wos nice." Then Sniper's lip curled, an expression of disgust aimed at himself. "God, s'wos just me yabberin' on an' on, wosn't it?"

Heavy chortled good-humoredly and replied, "That vhy ve have talk again," and Sniper smiled once more.

"Thanks again for th' beer. Have a g'day, mate."

"Da. Good day," Heavy said, also smiling, delighted to have made a new friend.

After throwing away the empty beer bottles down the kitchen garbage chute, he headed for the Infirmary and found Medic busy with paperwork in the office, scowling and muttering to himself in German every so often as he wrote industriously on the lined pages of a maroon-colored journal. Heavy longed to stroke away the groove between Medic's eyebrows, to smooth the lines of irritation from Medic's forehead with his lips.

He rapped the open office door twice with his knuckles.

"Doktor, you are fre–"

"Nein, nein! Go avay! I must write zhis down before I forget!" Medic exclaimed without lifting his head, shooing him away with the flapping of one hand.

Heavy felt like a man who'd just been kicked in the throat.

"Oh. I vill go then –"

"Heavy?"

It was the gentleness of Medic's voice that swiveled him around to face Medic again. Medic was sitting upright now, his fountain pen on its side next to the open journal on the desk, and his expression was … Heavy couldn't quite pin it down, but seeing it caused his chest to swell with something marvelous.

"Oh, I did not know it vas you, Heavy. Vhat is it?"

Heavy was tempted to request that Medic let him loiter in the office, except he had no idea what to do if Medic did. Well, no idea what to do that didn't include sitting in one spot and observing Medic like the doves that resided in coops in another room in the Infirmary. There was no way he could pull that off without Medic thinking him creepy and –

Wait a minute. Medic chased him off because the doctor thought he was someone else. Did that mean Medic chased off everyone else aside from him?

The thought made Heavy's chest swell all the more.

"Is all right. Vas just seeing if you are free. Vill not disturb you and your vork."

Medic had his pen back in hand, his expression warm.

"If I can finish zhis by dinner, I vill play chess vith you zhis evening, ja?"

"Is a date," Heavy said, and his chest came close to bursting when Medic gave him a mock stern look and said affectionately, "Dummkopf."

Temporary insanity must have seized his brain, for he replied without thinking, "But I am your dummkopf, da?"

With the sunlight cascading in through the windows behind Medic and Medic bowing his head to resume writing, Heavy could not tell whether Medic's face was flushed or not. Medic's amused smile, however, was evident as the sunshine, and Heavy couldn't stop himself from smiling too.

"Get me flowers, a bottle of Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon und a chateaubriand steak, zhen ve vill talk."

"Doktor, you are expensive date –"

Heavy's jolly laughter echoed in the Infirmary as an accompaniment to the blunt thud of a book against the office door, lobbed in jest at him by Medic. As soon as he stepped out of the Infirmary, the sensation in his chest altered into a twinge that didn't go away even when he rubbed his chest with his palm. It was astounding, how a man could so intensely miss someone he just saw.

Moreover, where was he going to find flowers in a desert like this?

The solution would come to him in the form of a restless, gangly Bostonian sprinter who ambushed him from above in the fort's courtyard with a strident, "YOOOOO, HEADS UUUUUPPP!"

Since their third week at 2Fort, Scout would enthusiastically play-wrestle with him whenever they weren't fighting the BLU team, with the reasoning that it was beneficial practice of close combat for both of them. Heavy had to agree that Scout had a good point there. It was just that the odds were so stacked against the younger, smaller man, and Scout didn't know – or at least, Heavy suspected Scout didn't know – that he always controlled his punches, let them swing harmlessly inches past Scout, and exaggerated his responses to Scout's onslaught upon his person.

What Scout's fists lacked in brute strength, they compensated with speed. Lots of speed.

"YEEEEEAAAH! YOU'RE GETTIN' DOMINATED, CHUCKLEHEAD!"

Heavy laughed jauntily, spinning round and round on verdant ground as Scout latched onto his shoulders and delivered a flurry of punches onto his head and chest. It would upset Scout for sure if Scout knew this, but Heavy scarcely sensed them. His years of professional boxing had proven to him that the dense muscle and fat of his torso could tolerate an inhuman amount of impact. His head, he had toughened by smashing slabs of concrete on it, and his fists, by pummeling daily the coarse rock walls of the gold mines of his village since he was a boy and was trained by his father in brawling.

There wasn't much else to do up in the isolated mountains back then for children and teenagers, besides working together with their parents in the mines, playing games or being homeschooled. He was one of the favored few whose parents had tutored him to habitually read and write, whose parents would travel to the largest city in Khabarovsk Krai and bring back books and gifts for him. Reading had been a clandestine hobby, though it'd later unlock avenues in life that would be otherwise unavailable to him. He would always be indebted to his parents for teaching him the art of war and words to take care of himself.

"NOT SO TOUGH NOW, ARE YA, ARE YA?!"

Heavy laughed some more as Scout evaded his hands and then got him in a chokehold that was akin to a pair of twigs enclosing the trunk of an oak tree. Heavy lurched around like an intoxicated man, puffing out his cheeks, sticking his tongue out and crossing his eyes, and Scout hooted and tumbled to the ground with him, rolling away as he flopped onto his back and splayed his arms with a dramatic groan. Scout pounced on him in a tick and did his best to get him into a chokehold again, and Heavy thrashed about like a fish out of water, ever cautious of Scout's whereabouts, of not flattening the younger man with his bulk.

For this bout – like every other bout between them – Scout emerged the victor, smacking the top of Heavy's head when he bellowed, "YOU ARE UNCLE!"

"That's right!" Scout shouted, grabbing his head with both hands and shaking it to and fro. "And what have we learned today? I always win! SAY IT!"

"Schout alvhaysh vhins!" Heavy said as clearly as could with his cheeks and lips squashed by Scout's hands, and Scout released him and let him fall back onto the ground, grinning smugly while straddling his midriff.

"That's right! And don't ya forget it! Woohoohoo!"

He smiled to himself after Scout leapt off him, then peeled open one eye to watch Scout dash up and down the green inclines of the courtyard, fueled with the energy of the young. Play-wrestling with Scout reminded him of the fondest days of his childhood. He'd been one of just six children in the village. The other five were girls who never hesitated to play with him, play games like Cat and Mice, in which he was always the cat who chased them, and Cossacks and Robbers, in which he would be partnered with one girl while the rest formed a team due to his massive size and strength. Even so, the girls were robust and plucky, laudable opponents who made it quite an effort for him to win. It also made the games exhilarating and frosty, work-free winter days bearable, and taught him to respect the female side of the human species. A well-aimed knee to the groin during a game had a tendency to do that.

As luck would have it, the same girl who kneed him – a sunny, rosy-cheeked ten-year-old with light brown hair and hazel eyes – gave him his first kiss when he was nine.

In the same week, he caught himself ogling her eighteen-year-old, muscular, dark-haired brother after a day's work in the mines, and realized he would never be like other boys and men.

"You remind me a' my oldest brother," Scout said as he continued to run and spring about, and Heavy blinked the past away from his eyes.

"Vhat is he like?" Heavy asked, sprawled on the shorn grass, crisscrossing his fingers on his belly.

"Jeb?" Scout executed a flawless long jump over Heavy and landed with poise several meters away. "He was a lot bigger than me, but still real skinny compared to ya. I wrestled with him the most, outta my seven brothers, 'cause he was the biggest. I thought, if I could beat him, I could beat all a' them, ya know?"

Heavy noted Scout's use of past tense.

"Da. Good plan."

"So, yeah, he got these big hands like you too. He used to box our ears if he managed to catch us, 'specially if the rest a' us were late for dinner and Ma was yellin' for us to get our asses inside already. She'd yell at him if we didn't, see, 'cause he's the oldest and he's s'pposed to keep an eye on us, so most times, he'd come after me 'cause I was the smallest and his arms were long enough to keep me outta reach whenever I wanted to punch and kick him."

Scout spoke like he ran. Sometimes it was difficult for Heavy to comprehend what Scout said, but this tranquil afternoon, without the clamor of a skirmish, with only the noises of Scout scurrying around and whooping now and then, Heavy had the time to untangle Scout's run-on sentences.

"You beat big brother, leetle Scout?"

Scout skidded to a halt near his head, then ambled in circles next to him, scuffing the grass with his shoes. Heavy couldn't see Scout's face, or his expression.

"Jeb left home years ago. Said it was gettin' too small for him, that he was meant for bigger things. Bigger cuts. Didn't wanna be known as the head a' the Quinn Mad Dogs anymore. Was ashamed a' us 'cause we weren't a real gang or some shit. Told us to end it." Scout suddenly kicked hard at the grass. "Like he was one to talk. He started it. Then he left. Hadta go join the Mullens and then get k–" Scout kicked again at the grass, harder still. "Fuck it. Ya don't leave family."

Heavy kept his eyes on Scout as the younger man sat down beside him, legs drawn up, elbows on knees and arms crossed. Reclined on the ground as he was, most of what he saw was Scout's back and the back of Scout's capped head.

"You and brothers vere street gang?"

Scout huffed a brief, low laugh that sounded far too old and bitter for a youth like him.

"Was just us Quinn brothers, but we were somethin'. We weren't the Mad Dogs for nothin'. Shit, Jeb caught the eye a' McGonagle, ya know?"

"McGonagle? I am not familiar," Heavy said, and Scout glanced back at him with an expression of comical disbelief.

"Ya dunno who Paulie McGonagle is? He's the head a' the Mullen Gang in South Boston!" Scout tilted his head to one side, eyeing him with a smile of incredulity. "Don'tcha have gangs where ya come from?"

Heavy also smiled, although his was one of patience and worldly insight. Scout was young, very young compared to the rest of the team. Scout was almost half his age. Twenty years old. In most states in the country, including Scout's home state of Massachusetts, it was still illegal for Scout to consume alcohol, and from what Scout had previously told him of his life in Boston, the young mercenary had never left the city until RED hired him.

To Scout, Boston was the center of the universe. Everything he knew, he'd acquired there. Everything he'd lived through, from birth till coming here to New Mexico, had transpired there. Everything that mattered to him was there, and therefore, Heavy couldn't blame Scout for assuming that everyone should know what he knew about the place. There was so much of the world that Scout had yet to explore, to experience. So much to see, so much to do, to learn.

Once upon a time, his Siberian home village had been Heavy's center of the universe, too. But a great deal could change in thirty plus years. Now, his center of the universe was no longer a place. It was a person. A very important person.

"Like, the Mafia is Russian, right?" Scout said, and again, Heavy blinked, the vision of Medic at his desk waning away in the sunshine.

"Da. Mafia is of many gangs, with vory v zakone as leaders."

"Whazzat mean?"

"It mean thieves-in-law. Top criminals who join together under one set of rules, the Thieves' Code. Vory v zakone vas born in Gulag, vhen Stalin send criminals and political prisoners there."

"Like, the Mafia was set up there 'cause all the crooks were there."

"Da."

Scout had turned around and was now facing him, rangy legs still drawn up, drumming his fingers on his knees.

"Ya said you were in this goolag place."

Heavy had to consciously preserve his neutral countenance as he recollected the slur-ridden clash with Soldier that resulted in him blurting out that smidgen of info.

"I did."

"So … you Mafia?"

Scout's expression was of ingenuous curiosity.

"No. Vas there for … other reason. Did not join them."

"Oh." Scout began tapping his right foot on the ground. "Why not?"

Heavy almost shot the younger man a glance of surprise, but curbed himself in time. If Scout's oldest brother had established the Quinn Mad Dogs before Scout was born or when Scout was very young, gang life was all Scout knew. All the violence and power struggles, within the gang and without, and the conquests of territory in the gang's name would be so commonplace, taken for granted. In such a domain, a boy could never become a man unless he proved himself worthy of being in a gang. If a man wasn't a gangster, one who owned the streets he walked, he was no man at all. To choose to not become a member of one gang or another had to be a very alien notion to Scout.

"The Code did not allow helping or making friends vith prison vardens. I vanted to escape Gulag. I knew I need help from someone on other side to do that. Also, I did not agree vith Code. Did not vant to live criminal life. And …"

Heavy lapsed into silence, at a loss as to how to explain why the Gulag gangsters shunned him without divulging his sexuality to Scout. He'd been branded a petukh from the beginning of his prison sentence, the lowest type of prisoner in the system that was unremittingly subjected to degrading acts by other prisoners. A petukh couldn't touch or talk to non-petukhi prisoners, and was saddled with the worst section of a prison cell. A petukh's status was a lifelong one. If a petukh did not inform other prisoners of his status, the punishment for it was a vicious beating. Even death.

The irony of his statement to Soldier about his fat belly was, it did save him from dying in the Gulag but not in the way everyone had assumed. His big belly, big body, big arms and hands, big everything had combined into an extremely convincing facade of a man who probably battered petukhi prisoners to death for fun and had an incalculable number of women as notches on his bedpost. Despite his petukh label, many of the other prisoners kept a prudent distance from him, fear tangible in their eyes. When the vory confronted him for the first time, they'd laughed till their sides hurt, unable to accept that he was a homosexual, the way he appeared and behaved. They figured the wardens got it really wrong this time, and even made an exceptional offer of membership to 'correct' his petukh status.

He declined.

Several days later, they'd retaliated with the order of a sexual assault on him by a dozen prisoners. After the thirty second-long scuffle in his cell, not one of those prisoners were capable of twitching a toe, much less crawl away to report to their masters. He was utterly unscathed, save for the dark red wetness that coated his hands and forearms. Five wardens armed with rifles had to guard him in a solitary cell while other wardens hauled out twelve destroyed, blood-spattered bodies to the infirmary. Or to be buried. The wardens then succeeded in doing what the vory couldn't, marring his face and body with contusions and cuts as they hammered him with their rifles. A warning, the first and final one.

The gangs never bothered him again. Only the most desperate and foolish prisoners persisted in attacking him after that, throughout the three months he was in the Gulag, and they were foul enough.

"And they were scared a' ya, huh?"

Heavy was torn between sighing in relief and shutting his eyes. Either one would have let Scout on that he was withholding something, so he did neither and stared up at the pellucid sky with a mild smirk.

"Yeah. Ya don't need a gang. You're like a whole gang in one, man." When Heavy looked at him and slanted one eyebrow, Scout said, "'Ey, I've been fightin' together with ya for weeks now. I've seen your handiwork, 'kay? I saw ya punch BLU's Spy's head clean offa his shoulders after he stabbed Medic with that knife last week!"

For a tenth of a second, Heavy considered denying it. It'd been a one-off occurrence, something that happened so fast that it was over long before he realized it, a blank in his memory. He only remembered the moments of before and after, of Medic spasming and howling in pain when the BLU Spy shoved the blade of a Balisong into his right flank, then of Medic in his arms, unconscious and bleeding, and BLU Spy's decapitated body on the ground in front of him, evaporating in a mist of blue as BLU's Respawn system removed the corpse from the arena.

And why did BLU have a Respawn system just like theirs, when RED and BLU were enemies? Did BLU steal the technology from RED? Or was it the other way around?

"Okay, I did that. But! Did not mean to."

Scout grunted and said, "Yo, you forgettin' somethin', pancakes? We are s'pposed to kill them! You've probably killed them all a bazillion times with that gun a' yours!"

Heavy grimaced a tad.

"No, vhat I mean vas, I do not like killing like that."

Scout's right foot went motionless. Scout studied his face for a minute, big blue eyes focused and astute. Unafraid.

"You've killed lotsa people that way, huh?" Scout murmured.

"Is not first time, da. But I am not sure if it is 'lots'," Heavy answered truthfully, his eyes half-closed. "Escape from Gulag is ... blurry memory. I remember some things, but not all of it."

Scout bowed his head and picked at the grass between them, quiet in rumination. Then, still staring down at the grass, he said, "It's kinda funny. What we do here. It's like, it's a game or somethin'. Nobody really dies. Ya kill them, and they just keep comin' back. Ya get killed, and you keep comin' back to life too. Maybe that's why I ain't freaked out about killin' the BLU team. Or about them killin' me. Feels like none a' it's real, sometimes. Like a blurry memory, like ya said."

"Hmm."

"Sometimes … I wonder if Jeb killed anybody. When he joined the Mullens." Scout paused, then muttered, "He used to come home to see Ma and Pop every weekend. Give them money, or whatever. Pop couldn't work anymore after his arm got crushed in that factory accident. Always got so pissed off when I saw Jeb's face, 'cause he'd lay it into me first thing, call me a runt and laugh and tell me I shouldn't bother joinin' any gangs 'cause I'd be fuckin' useless. Told me I should just stay home like a good, little boy and do what Ma says, get a desk job and live some boring, sucky life. Every single time." He started tapping both feet in tandem, as if he was itching to run, run as far away as he could from those damning words. "He oughta see me now. I've fought and killed more guys, made more money than he ever would. I ain't a runt. I ain't useless."

The bill of Scout's cap cloaked his face from view, but Heavy would have to be deaf to not hear the resentment in Scout's voice, the disappointment of being unvalued by his oldest brother. A brother he must have respected and loved very much, to be this wounded by said brother's betrayal. If it really was a betrayal as perceived by Scout. As Scout described his last interactions with his brother, Jeb hadn't come across as a spiteful bully to Heavy. In his mind's eye, he saw instead a man apprehensive for his family, a man who'd regretted enmeshing his brothers into gang life but couldn't free himself from it. A man who'd hoped that his youngest brother would not follow in his footsteps to an early grave, that abrasive words alone would goad him away from that road.

What would Jeb Quinn say, if he could see his little brother now?

"You are not useless," Heavy murmured. "Sometimes, people say one thing but mean another. Sometimes, they try to reach someone, to save them, but do not know how."

Yet again, Scout's feet became motionless. Scout peered at him from underneath the bill of his cap, brows creased, those big eyes abruptly so childlike. Heavy peered back, his eyes kind. Scout swiftly went back to staring and picking at the grass, his frown morphing into a bemused expression as he digested Heavy's reflections about his brother, and Heavy remained silent. He knew when to retreat, when to give someone space to organize their thoughts. To see things in a new light.

Three minutes passed before Scout asked, "You lived through the Great Depression, right?"

Heavy propelled himself up onto his elbows and then sat up, his eyes squinting up at lenticular clouds taking shape in the sky. He could see irisation along the rims of the clouds, shimmery belts of mother-of-pearl caused by sunlight diffracting through the clouds. They were spectacular.

"Vas born in 1922. Live through Great Depression vhen I vas child in Russia."

Scout gazed up at the sky with him, legs now flat on the ground, hands propped on knees.

"Did ya join RED for the money too?"

"Da. It vas offer to not refuse."

"Yeah. A million smackeroos, pally!"

Heavy's lips arced up when Scout began tapping his feet against each other. There was something humorous to him about the younger mercenary's hyperactivity, or rather, Scout's unawareness of it. It seemed Scout couldn't stick to one location without repetitively moving one limb or more, like he'd explode into a column of perpetual energy if he didn't do it within a specific number of minutes. Or seconds, even.

"Vhy you ask about Great Depression?"

"I was just wonderin'. Ma and Pop lived through the Great Depression too. Got married when it was at its worst. Jeb was the only one who knew what it was like, 'cause the rest a' us were born after it was over. Ma told me that a lotta days, she and Pop had to live on one bowl a' watery soup a day, and that was after they worked all day, six days a week. Sundays don't count 'cause they gotta go to church. She said, one time, Pop was so skinny, she could count all his ribs just by lookin' at him. Ya know?"

"I know. In Gulag, get one piece of bread vith mold and bowl of soup each day. Must fight for it, or you die hungry."

"Man. Life fuckin' sucked back then."

Heavy shrugged, then replied, "It vas bad, but not alvays. Bad times do not last forever."

"The good times don't either, 'less you're damn rich."

"Is true."

"Yeah. A million bucks. That'll keep the good times going for Ma and Pop." Heavy glanced at Scout in time to see Scout nod sagely to himself, eyes narrowed with resolution. "Yeah. Ma and Pop, and Mikey and Jeff, Danny, Kev, Tony and Ricky … we'll never starve again. Never gotta wonder when the next meal comes. Never gotta work our asses off again for shit pay, and Pop can get that operation for his arm and we can fix the roof and get some good heatin' for once durin' winter. We'd be free, man."

Heavy sent Scout a benevolent smile. Sitting side by side as they were, the dissimilarities of their bodies and facial features couldn't be more apparent, and yet, once stripped of their skin, their accents and nationalities, they were the same. They had positive and negative memories of their past. They had parents, family, and abundant love for them. They had dreams for the future, for a better world. They were people, just people, trying to find their place in the universe.

"And vhat about Quinn Mad Dogs?" Heavy murmured. "Vith so much money, do not need gang anymore, da?"

Scout was quiet for a very long time, frozen in place, staring forward blindly.

"I was the one who found Jeb at our front door that night. He was beaten so bad, he was slidin' on his belly on the sidewalk for a block 'fore he reached home. I saw the blood." Scout's voice was monotone. Hollow. "Ma couldn't stop screamin' when Danny and Mikey carried Jeb in. She thought he was already dead, but he was still breathin' and when Tony called for an ambulance, they said it'd take them ten minutes to get to the house and I just ran outta the house with a baseball bat and kept running. Just ran and ran till I got to the nearest hospital and grabbed the first doctor I saw and made him drive back home to help Jeb.

"The ambulance still hadn't arrived. Jeb's eyes were open. He couldn't talk but he kept lookin' at me like he wanted to say somethin', and then a whole lotta blood poured outta his mouth and the doc said he was dead. Nothin' he coulda done 'cause Jeb's rib went into his lung and his head was like a cracked egg. And that was the first time I saw Pop cry."

Heavy had to clamp his hands together to not give the younger man a consoling clasp. Scout would not appreciate such gestures, he knew.

"Some bastards from the gang came to the funeral. Went up to Pop, said they were sorry, that they'd avenge Jeb, gave him some money in an envelope like it could replace Jeb. Pop threw it in their faces and told them to get the fuck out, and they took it back and said Jeb was never really one a' them anyway. Just a dog who thought he could be a lion. After that, me and my brothers, we swore we'd stick together no matter what. Only gang we needed was each other. We didn't need the Mullens or the Killeens or whoever the hell else wanted to run the streets. We saw what Jeb's death did to Ma and Pop." Scout's voice plummeted to a whisper. "He didn't deserve to die like that. Nobody did."

"I am sorry, Scout."

Scout's back was ramrod straight, his hands pressed upon his thighs, but when Heavy saw Scout's visage, the expression engraved on it wasn't rage. It was profound remorse, and it pared away the veneer of youth to reveal a man already timeworn and weary, a man with the courage to speak his heart. The dampness in Scout's eyes did nothing to lessen that courage.

Many minutes later, Scout murmured, "Hey, Heavy … ya think Jeb would be proud a' me today?"

Scout's voice had reverted to a semblance of its usual tenor.

"I think he alvays vas," Heavy said, and Scout looked at him and smiled sideways, and the Earth rotated on its axis once again.

At that instant, Heavy heard a coo, then felt the air above his head swirl as something pintsized and feathery flew past. It was a pure-white dove, one of Medic's pet birds. Whether it was Archimedes after a bath, or one of the other doves, Heavy couldn't determine. They all appeared the same to him.

At that instant, Heavy also recalled his current dilemma, and asked with a self-conscious smile, "Scout … you, uhm, know vhere to find flowers?"

After their lugubrious conversation, Heavy welcomed the comical look of perplexity that contorted Scout's features.

"Huh? Whaddaya want flowers for?"

Scout obviously didn't believe his fib of requiring flowers to cook some little-known Russian dish. Thankfully, Scout did not call him out on it and led him to a secluded area at the back of the base, to the right side of the garage fringed by a rickety wooden fence. There, in the corner between the garage and fence, was a shrub of pale lavender blossoms, half a meter tall and wide. Its leaves were toothed, dark green and downy on both sides. Up close, Heavy saw that the flowers were in head-like clusters, more bright pink to magenta and had heart-shaped petals. Some of them were bleaching to blue.

"So? This what ya lookin' for?" Scout asked, hands on hips, one eyebrow quirked.

Heavy harvested a bouquet of the flowers and grasped their square, downy stems in his left hand, his eyes crinkled with contentment as he envisaged Medic's reaction to the flowers. Now he just had to review the fridge inventory for red wine and tenderloin steak.

"Da. Is just vhat I am looking for. Thank you."

Heavy snickered when Scout, true to form, dove for the flowers in his hand in a frisky ambush, and they shouted and wrestled over the flowers all the way back into the fort, so much that a grime-smeared Engineer peeked out of the half-open door of his workshop as they passed by. When Heavy invited Engineer for a drink in the rec room later, the smiling Texan had to turn down the offer.

"Sorry, Slim, gotta take a rain check this time. Some of my Sentry Guns need lotsa repairin' and it can't wait."

"Is fine, Tall Man," Heavy replied, smiling at Engineer's nickname for him. "Another day."

Engineer's smile broadened. Then he pointed at the flowers in Heavy's hand and said, "You thinkin' of sprucin' up yer room with them flowers?"

Heavy glanced at the flowers, his smile becoming one of bashfulness. Scout had accepted his fib, but Engineer, who had eleven Ph.D. degrees to his name, would certainly doubt it or worse, inquire about the recipe and whether he was going to cook dinner tonight or not! And with Scout present –

"Uh …" Heavy said, glancing around, his shoulders slumped with relief that Scout had run off somewhere already and left him alone with Engineer. "Da! Sprucing up room."

"I didn't know you were into interior decoratin'," Engineer joked, and Heavy grinned and replied, "Do not be fooled, I am man of hard and soft sides!"

Both of them chuckled and then waved farewell at each other, Engineer slipping back into his workshop and Heavy strolling onwards to his room in the living quarters. He had to find a vase for the flowers, or at least a bowl until he gave them to Medic after dinner, and if they withered before then, there were more where they came from. A Sandvich would be a nice reward for Scout, whom he knew was as fanatical about them as he was.

As he passed Engineer's room beside the workshop, the muffled, erratic muttering of a man floated to his ears. His steps slowed as his eyes fell on the door of the next room. It was open with the tiniest of gaps. Heavy tiptoed to it, then leaned as near to the gap as he could.

"… they need to get with the program already! All of them! Dishonorable numbnuts … especially that fatass Sputnik and that Fritz geezer!"

Heavy flinched from the door, scowling, his canines bared. This was Soldier's room. Who was Soldier speaking to in there about him and Medic?

"Our Stars and Stripes beat their dumb Hammer and Sickle and Swastika any day! Goddamn maggoty Commie and Nazi … they're dishonoring this unit, I tell you. Them and that French fry and the kangaroo and that one-eyed cross-dresser and that freaky, red fire-retardant thing!"

Heavy's scowl turned into an expression of forbearance, and he rolled his eyes, feeling exasperation and pity for the American mercenary. What a minuscule, lonely world Soldier must live in, to mistrust anyone and anything that didn't measure up to his xenophobic principles –

"It's just you and me, Shovel … you and me. You'll never fail me. I know you won't … that's right … now that's what I wanna see … yeah …"

There was the sound of clothes rustling, of Soldier's breaths hastening, of something gooey being squirted out of a tube, and Heavy took his cue to hightail it like a bat out of hell, clutching the desert flowers to his chest, his face in a rictus of horror. Oh, govno, Soldier was talking to his shovel the entire time and then Soldier was taking off his clothes and then he was … he was –

Seconds after the door of his own room slammed shut behind him, Heavy bent forward and laughed heartily, slapping his right hand on one knee. Oh, this day was just getting better and better! Did anyone else know about Soldier's … predilections? It was one thing for a man to feel romantic and/or sexual feelings for another man or woman, but something truly different for a man to feel those feelings for an inanimate object. A shovel, no less!

Heavy's hilarity dampened when his eyes flitted to his Minigun on the table. He sauntered to it and laid his right hand on Sasha's barrel cluster, shaking his head, his smile gone abashed. He didn't care for Sasha as much as he would a living human being, but still … he had named Sasha. Named and deemed Sasha male. Devoutly cleaned and maintained him, and blown a gasket more than once whenever someone touched Sasha without his explicit permission. Was he really more decent than Soldier?

"At least I do not have sex vith you, Sasha," he murmured, and laughed inaudibly at the unbidden imagery of Soldier humping his shovel on a bed. He'd never see Soldier's shovel the same way again. And wait till he told Medic about it!

Three hours later, after a brisk shower, obtaining a bowl of water for the flowers and then a rummage through the kitchen's enormous refrigerator that yielded several bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon – Beaulieu, from California – and dozens of pieces of raw steak ready to be roasted, Heavy sat alone in the dining hall, munching on his last Sandvich of the night. The sole person to join him for dinner earlier was Sniper who showed up in his typical red shirt and brown khakis, fresh out of a shower. Sniper opted for some hand-sized, beef-and-cheese meat pies that he shared with Heavy, and left after a fleeting chat about food and the iconic status of meat pies in Australia. Having eaten two of Sniper's five pies, Heavy had to concur that Australian meat pies were indeed scrumptious and worthy of their reputation. Sniper should order more on their next inventory update with RED.

With the kitchen to himself after dinner, Heavy was easygoing with his cookery of Medic's repast: Roasted beef tenderloin with shallot and wine sauce, and some sliced, sautéed potatoes on the side. He prepared raw ingredients for more than one person in the event other team members came in, but no one did even as he was arranging Medic's meal and glass of wine on a silver tray for transportation to the Infirmary. They were all probably making the most of their day off. Heavy sniggered to himself as he imagined again Soldier in coitus with his shovel. He hoped Medic would laugh after hearing about Soldier's antics. It made him happy to hear Medic laugh.

He stopped by his room to get the flowers, then walked to the Infirmary. Upon entering it, he saw that only the automatic ceiling lights were on, that the office door was open and the office was dim inside.

"Doktor?"

The desk lamp was switched on, casting a warm, golden glow on a sleeping Medic whose head was resting on crossed arms on the desk. Medic had shed his coat and hung it over the back of his cushioned chair. Medic's head was turned to the side, towards the light, and Heavy had an unhindered view of Medic's face as he set the tray on the desk.

The angles and lines of Medic's face were tempered by the illumination, decades erased away. Medic's eyelashes were more noticeable, long and dark fans of fine hair upon high cheeks, and Medic's lips were parted, appearing fuller and softer in repose. Medic's hair was tousled, as if he'd raked his fingers through it, and ah, the temptation Heavy felt to do the same!

Heavy sighed, fidgeting his fingers as he stood beside the desk and gazed down at Medic. Medic's hair was a lustrous dark brown in the light. So copious and glossy. How handsome Medic must have been in his younger years.

"One touch … just one," Heavy murmured to himself, biting his lower lip.

His right hand seemed to move on its own accord towards Medic's hair, fingers straightened and trembling oh so slightly. Just an inch away from contact, Heavy snatched his hand back, lucidity ice-cold and sobering to his senses. What was he doing? What if Medic woke up as he caressed Medic's hair?

He glanced at the steak, wine and flowers on the tray, and his chest constricted. What if Medic woke up and saw the meal and flowers and thought it was him making a romantic overture? What if Medic laughed at him for it? What if Medic scorned him for it?

And what if he doesn't? What if he cares even more for you?

"Stop it, heart. Do not feed me such hope," Heavy whispered, his hands in fists at his sides, eyes helplessly homed in on Medic. "Doktor is heterosexual man."

And how do you know that, exactly?

Heavy had no answer to that, and his heart said nothing more, leaving him with his predicament. To touch, or not to touch? When would he have such a chance again?

Heavy's right hand moved towards Medic's hair a second time. A tremor zigzagged up his arm when his fingers finally grazed the dark locks, and his brain logged every sensation as he combed his fingers through them, as he outlined the rounded contour of Medic's head with his fingertips. Medic's hair was softer than he'd ever thought. Medic's head fit perfectly in the cusp of his hand. So much brilliance, so easily lost with one wrong word, one wrong move.

Heavy withdrew his hand with acute reluctance. It was better to have Medic simply as a friend than to not have Medic in his life at all, and if that meant stolen touches and glances, if that meant hiding behind jokes and laughing off any surmises about his intimacy with Medic, so be it. Wouldn't be the first time he had to do all that. Not even close.

But it would be the first time he had to do all that about someone with whom he was head over heels in love.

Medic didn't stir when he took Medic's coat off the chair and swathed the slumbering doctor with it. Medic must have exhausted himself, to sleep so soundly.

"Spokoinoi nochi, obladatelʹ moyem serdtse," Heavy said, and after one last glance at Medic from the door, he departed from the office, the sensation in his chest alternating between heat and a chill as he wondered what tomorrow would bring him.

(To be continued ...)