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“Yes, we have three days to live!” Were the exact words from Medic that made your heart drop to the bottom of your stomach. Sitting beside Sniper in the crowded living area, he grabbed your much smaller hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. The stunned silence from everyone, even Demo, made the tension in the room so thick it was hard to even breathe.
“Oh my god,” you whispered, clutching Mundy’s course hand tighter, “What’re we going to do?” You turned your head slightly to look at Mundy in his eyes, his face in pure shock and worry.
“I- I don’t know,” Sniper was slack-jawed and at a loss for words. With having respawned for however many years, Mundy never questioned his mortality. This was like a punch to the face, stomach, and groin, all at once.
You don’t remember getting there, but, back in the camper you were laying on your back with Mundy’s face buried in your neck, too shocked to cry; you both layed there in absolute silence and in each others company. A cacophony of primal fear, confusion, and sadness made you and Sniper as numb to the world as a bag of rocks. Both you and Mundy staying in that state, wasting two days in the small, cramped, tight, camper.
“I don’t wanna die in one day,” you finally got out as you glanced at your death watch, it read 25:27:00, “ I wanted a family and a future and a wedding and all those cliche things but instead we’re just wasting it, here, doing nothing,” your voice started to shake, the realization that all these things would never happen now hitting you like a brick wall.
A deep sigh escaped Mundy, “I want to have a few ankle biters ‘round and a house out in the boonies and teaching them little ones how to hunt and I want more of you,” Mundy’s voice also shook as he silently cried; his tears making your neck damp, “And we don’t even have the guts to do anything about it, we just wasted two days in silence.”
“We can’t just sit here and cry, you heard what Spy said, we’re mercenaries, we can do anything,” You sat up and faced Mundy head-on while he moved to let you sit on his lap, his large hands sitting on your waist, rubbing small circles into it through your shirt.
“Yeah, until Scoot ‘ad to go an’ ruin it,” Mundy let that handsome smile slip through at the memory of Scout planning a horrible joke at Spy’s expense.
“So? Let’s drive out of here, go dancing, get drunk, watch the stars, have one last go at living life before life gets us,” You gave Mundy a long kiss on the lips, “What d'ya say?”
“For you?” Mundy gave you his own desperate kiss, stubble scratching your face, grounding you to him, “Anything.”
The two of you dragged yourselves into the front cabin and Mundy just drove straight out of the training grounds near Teufort, no plan on what city you'd be going to, no ideas on even what direction to go, just going out to get drunk, dance, and stargaze. Even if the drive would take a few hours from your life, it would be worth it in the now inevitable end.
The smaller bar that you two found was comfortably crowded with modern people in modern clothes, a buzz of conversation mixed with some rock music filling the room. The two of you surprisingly fit in with your t-shirt and jeans combo. You both sat down at the wooden bar near the back between a young lady looking a bit desperate with a tight skirt and face full of product and a mechanic just off of work and still in his blue and grease smeared jumpsuit. You and Mundy ordered two pints of beer and two shots of whisky to get things going right, the night quickly going into a soft buzz where the lights seemed just as fuzzy as your brain.
Before you knew it, Bryan Adams "Everything I Do" sang itself from the speakers and the tables in the middle of the room being pushed to the side to make an impromptu dance floor for all of the couples. You and Mundy included.
The soft rock ballad pulled at all of the deepest of emotions from your heart including your love for Mundy, the sense of finalism of your life, and being at peace with that. Mundy pulled you close as he basically gave you a big hug while shuffling back and forth. The song becoming a blur of soft guitar and steady bass. Neither of you wanted to talk and ruin the moment.
And Everything I do,
You rubbed your face closer into Mundy’s chest, his slow breaths rising up and down. Tears on the verge of breaking from your eyes, but you held them back so as to not make Mundy worry. You two had cried enough in the past few days for a lifetime, anyways.
I do it for you.
The song ended blissfully slow and you both went back to the last bit of your pints, the mechanic turning to you two with a sympathetic look on his dirty and scratchy face. He couldn't have been older than twenty five with how his eyes still shined with light and innocence.
“You two look as if y'all are gonna die tomorrow, let me buy ya another round,” he waved two fingers to the bartender.
“No thanks,” you replied, “We’re about to get out of here,” you moved to stand up, alebit a little wobbly.
“If y’all say so,” the mechanic slowly turned back to his own beer and started talking to the bartender.
“Come on, ” Mundy rumbled low in his chest, his large hand finding the small of your back before giving it a warm and gentle push.
You followed him outside where it was now pitch black to his van where you awkwardly climbed back in the cabin. It wouldn't be a problem if the thing wasn't just so high up. Mundy silently drove with his hand on your thigh for only a few more minutes before coming to a slow stop on the side of the dirt road and killing the ignition so that the only sounds were a lone coyote and the howling wind.
You somehow stumbled to the top of the van without help where Sniper laid down worn red woolen blankets for you two to lay down on. Mundy could only think about how the blankets were a gift from his mother, how he was going to see her again, and what he would say to her. A deep sigh left Mundy as he sat down with those complicated and deep thoughts swimming in his head.
You, however, were more focused on the cacophony of stars above you. The sky bright and clear this far away from any major source of light pollution. Whites and blues and purples filled the vast expanse of the ancient and mystical night sky. All the while, you clumsily moved from sitting to laying down beside your one and only Sniper from above, a soft sight also escaping your lungs.
Being beside Mundy gave you enough heat to lull you to sleep in your buzzed state, Mundy stayed awake to see both of your clocks at 21:45:00; just enough time to hopefully sleep for the night and come back to the base to help those that need his or your presence to help soothe them, but first, he would have to fall asleep despite the circumstances.
Waking up in the blazing heat, on top of the metal van, with sore necks, was a strangely welcome experience. At least you were both alive for now; alive and slowly filling with tumours that is. The drive back to the base was filled with idle radio chatter from some morning station, a strange but soft smile on your face as if you were coming to peace with your death and what you might see in the afterlife. Hopefully, Mundy was coming to terms with it, too.
Once back in the base, the first thing you noticed was the briefcase emergency alarm sirens blaring, the red lights and loud noises filling your senses with a sense of upmost urgency.
Before you could even try to figure out what was going on, however, Medic and Engineer ran by you at full speed. By god, they were booking hell. Something must’ve been end-of-the-world kind of wrong for them to be hauling ass that badly.
Catching up with them, practically leaving Mundy in the dust, you yelled over the sirens, “Doc! What's up! Where’s the fire?”
Medic kept on running with pure panic on his face but he slowed down a bit to answer you, “We may have a mutated bread monster in the nuclear bay,” Fritz saw the clear confusion on your face and nodded his head forward, his glasses going crooked in the process, “Both of you can just come along and help us fight it.”
Giving a sigh of resent you sped up and ran with Mundy at your side to the blast doors. What you saw inside you saw a giant loaf of mouldy bread with large, sharp, teeth and tentacles flinging about wildly, a mighty roar bellowed out of it and shook the walls.
“Go left, and I’ll go right,” Mundy gave you a quick kiss, “Try not to die for-” he checked his death watch, “ - twenty minutes, I love you,” and with that Sniper went to try and get some sort of vantage point for his rifle.
You darted left to try and do any damage you could but whatever rounds you let loose with your pistol, it just made the bread monster angrier, not even Heavy being Ubered could make a dent. Not to mention the fact that those tentacles could put you out cold at any second.
“Fuck me, we can’t beat this thing!” You yelled over to Tavish right beside you, not really expecting an answer as he fired more grenades at it.
“Ach-” Tavish was cut off my Miss. Pauling yelling with urgency.
“Guys! Close the blast doors!” She yelled as all of you ran out of the room once you all saw what she was doing with the bomb cart. Heavy tried to keep the doors open but the bomb cart got thrown at it, forcing Mikhal to run out of the room lest he got crushed by the cart.
“Keep, on running, Y'all!” Dell yelled as you all stumbled down the thin and dim corridors to a safe distance, not giving you any time to rest..
The blast from the bomb shook the concrete floors while you heaved and stumbled into Mundy’s chest, enveloping him in a hug. Everyone’s death watches eerily beeping at the same time; sobs racking your and Mundy’s body until the bitter end.
And then, nothing. Absolute silence.
“Are we dead?” Soldier asked nobody in general.
You all silently looked around and saw was most certainly not heaven in Mundy's eyes, hell in Medic's eyes, or purgatory in anyone's imagination, rather, if it was, it was more terrifying than anything.
“Love,” Mundy looked at you in shocked relief, “I don’t think we carked it,” Sniper gave you a deep kiss, “We’re alive!”
“Oh my god,” You ran suddenly stood up and ran towards the blast doors without warning. Everyone following you on your heels to see what the issue was, “Are Jeremy and Pauling okay?” You asked with genuine panic in your higher pitched voice.
Heavy made quick work of the doors with his massive hands when he heard your concern, prying them open like a sardine can. Solly, however, ran in and ripped open the dead bread monster with glee, Scout and Pauling laying inside, messy and covered in goop, but very much alive. Just like how you and Mundy were very much alive and not filled with tumours.