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Medic half expected his slowly-budding relationship with his team’s Sniper to be squashed after their talk. He’d resigned himself to that reality as soon as he’d begun the descent down the ladder of the gunman’s camper a few weeks ago when they’d spoken. The doctor scolded himself for having a glimmer of hope that he’d be wrong when he caught a glimpse of Sniper looking - in his own wildest dreams, perhaps with longing - into the infirmary windows after Medic had left him alone with his mug.
He’d told himself not to get his hopes up, that doing so will only make things more difficult. Medic knew both he and Sniper valued their professional relationship, and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. Not after all they’ve been through. It simply didn’t make sense to wish something more would ever come of this. So, Medic retired to his room that night and slept hardly at all, reliving and overanalyzing the conversation and the touch-contact and the body language and how Sniper smiled, and smelled, until he passed out, dreaming of the sounds of Archimedes and Hootsalot’s shared chittering.
There weren’t many times in Medic’s career that he’d been wrong, even fewer in which he was delighted to be so. However, he discovered that perhaps Sniper was not the only one who was guilty of mischaracterizing.
“You beauty! Nicely done, doc!”
Medic had swung his bonesaw in a practiced motion, neatly decapitating a cloaked Spy that was trying to get the jump on him after successfully felling their Heavy and Pyro. Sniper had caught the spectacle and chuckled into the mic, tossing out a warm compliment. Typically not one to fawn over anyone’s praise (it was only natural that good work warranted the noting of such, after all), Medic turned his head towards Sniper’s nest so fast he was worried that the gesture would snap his own neck. He couldn’t see the bushman, but his enthusiasm and laughter had seemed to leak out of the speaker in his ear and into his skin, past blood and bone and into the heart of him, spreading heat like liquid honey through his veins. He categorized the feelings as he felt them. Surprise . Relief. Joy. Immense relief. Fluster? Delight.
He swore he’d thanked him for such a compliment, especially one that he was not expecting, but all he could do was look to the tower and smile and laugh much too loudly into the mic before gathering himself and proceeding to group up with Heavy and Pyro. It had been over as soon as it happened, but Medic felt himself invigorated by the idea that perhaps his budding friendship with Sniper wasn’t over like he’d originally hypothesized; perhaps it was stronger now. The foundation was laid, steel and concrete flooding over unstable earth and rusted pikes. Better . Now, there might have even been room to build more. The thought made Medic’s heart skip beats in its enthusiasm for the idea.
“What, you have a freakin’ hanger in your mouth? Let’s go, go!” Scout urged the doctor to follow him, Spy (who was studying him with an inquisitive raised eyebrow), and Demoman in hopes of disposing of an enemy sentry nest that the BLU Engineer had spent a greater part of the battle building. Medic followed them and the building lit up with red as Demoman did his good work. Sniper grinned to himself as he watched them disappear into the sewers of the map, beginning his quick move to a location that would get him closer to BLU’s spawn and able to call out respawns as they were coming out.
Medic had done plenty of praise-worthy killing in the time since their talk, but this was one that Sniper couldn’t let go unappreciated. He’d watched the doctor handle the situation so deftly, with an air of practiced grace that maybe only another mercenary could appreciate. The way he’d wielded his bonesaw was impressive, with the abrupt flick of his wrist to get excess gore off of it after the kill being something Sniper would not soon forget. His hair had gotten messed up, that posh coif pushed just slightly out of place, and the gunman watched as Medic urged it back into its place with a movement of his head and neck before it yielded and laid against the spot on his forehead that it always did.
It was efficient, and even had the audacity to be graceful. Pretty. His white coat tails now had the splotchy, unpredictable stainings of Teufort’s miserable dust and blood matter that clung to everything it could, but it didn’t do the doctor any kind of aesthetic disservice. Sniper thought it made him look like one of his cherished doves; not stark white like Archimedes, but like the mourning doves that Sniper knew he also kept. Warmer-colored. Browns that met grays and black like a union of dark skies and sprawling desert, gray like the moon that bore itself over their base nearly every night. Sniper used to chart it when he’d been doing mercenary work alone, finding peace in the routine rotation of the sun and the moon and his knowing of the patterns of their dances. Now, he wished he could chart the way that fine dust and blood stained Medic’s gray temples and throat, tarnished his coat tails and dulled the brilliant red of his gloves as if added there by the same divine intention that spun space around its axis.
He supposed he already did. Instead of on paper, it was behind his sharp eyes, kept like a secret. The enemy could pry open his ribcage and tear out his heart, put his brain in a blender, but they’d never know that the way Medic’s coat tails moved in combat reminded him of the tailfeathers of his precious pigeons. That his laugh, shrill and excitable and always too loud, was really the perfect pitch. He liked to watch his Adam's apple lilt with the pleasure of the song, his hands regripping the medigun as though he’d been tempted to drop it in his ecstasy.
Sniper envied the way Medic lived, always onto the next thing and content to take things as they were presented to him. Based on thinking with facts, not emotions. He’d known it to be ‘thinking with your head’, not your heart. Head-thinking, when done by Sniper, had always landed him in worse territory than if he’d just heart-thought. Said what he meant, didn’t have to over-analyze or underthink or any which way of mannerisms, speech or dialogue. He’d liked to think he wasn’t ruled by his emotions, and that he too was a head-thinker, but the older he got - and now, this thing with Medic - was making him realize that he might have been in a bit of denial.
He’d spoken with his heart when talking to the doctor, and Medic had spoken with his head, and things were good. Sniper could make himself sick thinking about the lethal intricacies of usual conversation, but Medic was very literal. Sniper sensed no ulterior motive, no judgment. No care for embarrassment or tenseness, spoken with directness and emotional feeling, but not harshness. These mannerisms which, in his mind, were wrapped up with a neat, concise word that ensured he’d never have to examine the feelings beyond the uttering of: Professionalism. The gunman hadn’t realized how much of a relief it was to not feel as though he was being scrutinized with every word he spoke. Even when Sniper had made the talk difficult, Medic spoke with patience and understanding; didn’t coddle him like a child, either.
Their doctor, whose charisma was rivaled perhaps only by their Spy’s, had spoken to him in a way that felt catered to Sniper. It felt like they were speaking a language that the marksman was native to and that Medic was learning on the fly… with Sniper making it obscenely difficult by making up new verbages and words and clauses that were meant to deter his speaking partner, who simply chose to press on and commit the changes to memory. Not only that, but it seemed like Medic didn’t mind learning the language, either. That was certainly new. Sniper couldn’t recall the last time anyone had made an effort to understand him. Patience was not a gift that Sniper was often rewarded with, no matter how much of a mess of himself he made in his past attempts to earn it.