Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Men, there is a gigantic eyeball floating above the control point,” Soldier said. “In an hour, it’ll be shooting rockets at us!”

Spy rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette. He bookmarked the page on white wine in his catalogue. At this time of the year, Mann Co. had advertisements for their products put in every magazine on the market and practically begged people to buy their Halloween hats. It was a tiring tactic that Mann Co. resorted to using every year to tempt the weak and the feeble-minded, and Spy was disgusted by their obvious manipulation of the consumers’ minds.

Also he might have spent his paycheck on one or six of their products.

“We need a battle plan, and we need it quick,” Soldier said, pacing the rec room, “if we don’t want to be blown to smithereens by that eye.”

Or at least it’d been the rec room before Soldier had stormed in and commandeered it as his command center. Not that that had made its occupants pay attention to him. Sniper was still sharpening his kukri on his whetstone in the back of the room and Engineer was strumming a few notes and tuning his guitar. The only man that had been interrupted was Demoman, who was glaring at Soldier from the couch while Soldier stalked back and forth in front of the television set.

“I have an idea.” Demoman crossed his arms. “Why dunnae ye be a good lad and move outta the way and let me finish me show in peace?”

“Don’t talk back to me, son! That’s your eye floating up there,” Soldier said, “and your eye will be the last thing we see before we take a rocket to the face!”

“No thanks to yer bloody roommate,” Demoman said.

“Merasmus isn’t here, so I have to blame someone else,” Soldier announced and poked Demoman hard in the chest. “It’s your eye. It’s your duty as a hot-blooded American to kill your eye!”

“Take yer hand off me, before I cut it off and mount it on me sword,” Demoman said, glowering and rising to his feet. “I bet it’ll make for a real pretty sight when I charge into battle.”

Soldier squared his shoulders and stood his ground. “I’d like to see you try after I put my foot so far up your ass that your other eye falls out!”

“Y’all stop that bickering right now. You ain’t gonna do jack squat to each other,” Engineer said. “Friendly fire is disabled in this base.”

“And for good reasons. There are too many morons on this team,” Spy muttered.

“No, it’s because of spies like you that we have to spy-check, and we can’t spy-check if friendly fire is enabled!” Soldier said. “It’s your fault we can’t kill each other!”

“Spare me your nonsensical logic. If it weren’t for spies, you imbeciles wouldn’t be able to take out any sentry guns on the battlefield,” Spy said.

Engineer sighed. His strumming on the guitar strings faltered. “I was hoping to not be reminded of that.”

“I’m simply stating the facts. There’s a reason I’m needed on this team,” Spy said.

“Spies are back-stabbing cowards. I don’t like spies. I never have and I never will,” Soldier said.

“Hear, hear,” Sniper said without stopping in his knife sharpening.

“Backstabbed me when I was laying down sticky traps. Me stickies were gone when I came back,” Demoman said. “Did ye know how long it took me tae make those bloody traps? I had tae start over from scratch again!”

“That’s the fault of the enemy Spy, you imbeciles,” Spy hissed.

“I say we kick Spy off the team for today’s match!” Soldier said.

“Aye, spies are a bloody nuisance,” Demoman said. “Why do we have tae spy-check when we can be blowing things up?”

“And that tiny knife ain’t gonna help either of the teams kill that stupid eye monster, is it?” Sniper said. “Can’t kill the eye if both sides are too busy checking their backs.”

Engineer scratched his head, and said reluctantly, “You gotta admit he’s got a point. We could do with a little more guns and a little less knives on the battlefield today.”

“Good! We’re going to pass the vote! Speak now or forever hold your peace!” Soldier said.

“I can tell when I’m not wanted,” Spy said stiffly. “I wish you all a very unpleasant afternoon, gentlemen. Have fun being shot at by a flying eyeball.”

He closed his magazine and activated his cloaking watch. But he didn’t move from his chair. Instead, he pulled out a new cigarette and settled in his chair with his shoulders hunched and his legs crossed. He refused to let anyone dictate where he went. He would leave the room when he damn well liked to and it wouldn’t be because some idiots voted him off of today’s battle.

Spy scowled though no one could see him and smoked harder.

“Spook, you still here?” Sniper said.

Spy didn’t answer.

“Spy is right. We still have a crisis on our hand, men,” Soldier said. “Next, I nominate Demo to be the one to kill his eye monster before it kills us all.”

“Why, ye turncoat, I oughta skin ye alive,” Demoman said. “Then maybe that wizard of yers would stop hounding us!”

“We good Americans kill our eyes when they get out of control!”

“Here we go again,” Engineer said.

“Don’t know why you bother,” Sniper said, wiping metal shavings from his kukri with a wet cloth.

“To tell you the truth, I’m asking that myself too,” Engineer said.

“Hm,” Sniper said, his eyes drawn to Demoman and Soldier as the two men started jabbing at each other with their pointer fingers like they were fencing. They poked and dodged and their hands were a blur of movement. Soldier yelled indignantly while Demoman was howling with laughter.

Spy took a drag on his cigarette and looked out of the window. It was two in the afternoon but the sky was already inky black. Thunderclouds were roiling like sand at the bottom of the sea. If the mercenaries’ experiences of Halloween in the last few years were anything to go by, it’d be days before they saw daylight again.

“He poked my eye out!” Soldier shouted. “Medic!”

“This is gonna be a long night,” Sniper said.

Chapter Text

“Woah, are you seriously going out there dressed like that?” Scout said.

“Like what, exactly?” Spy said. The reflection of his eyes peered back at him from the blade of his knife. It was the fourth time he’d polished his knife in the last ten minutes. He wondered if he had time to shine his shoes and dry them before the battle started. Probably not, though time had a tendency to stretch on for much longer than usual when Scout was around.

“Like that,” Scout repeated, bouncing his leg and rocking the locker room bench they were both sitting on. Spy had half a mind to hog-tie Scout and leave him in Medic’s locker. But then there would be no expendable body for the team to throw around corners to listen for sentries during the match. To take his mind off of the wobbling bench, Spy patted his suit jacket. The shoe polish kit must be in one of his pockets somewhere. Scout continued, “You ain’t wearing the mask.”

“I am wearing my mask.”

Engineer brushed past their bench. “Where is my shotgun? I swear, that darn thing has a mind of its own. Solly, have you seen it?”

Soldier jumped to attention. He slammed his locker door shut and clutched his shotgun to his chest. “No! This is my gun and mine alone! You’re not taking my gun!”

“Alright. I’m just looking for my gun. No need to get riled up about it.”

“That is what commies say before they try to take away everyone’s guns!” Soldier yelled. “No one will take my gun! God bless America!”

“I’ll try Heavy and Pyro,” Engineer said.

Spy fished out a pair of scissors from the insides of his jacket. He didn’t remember sewing the shoe polish kit into the lining of his suit, but one could never be too sure.

“I mean the Saxton Hale mask,” Scout said. “Last year? I tried to get a meatshot on the Horsemann and got too close to him. Got stunned by that screaming thing he did. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t do nothing. Worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Yes, and you cried, I remember,” Spy drawled. “I had a picture of it framed on my wall.”

“Laugh all you want, Spy. That ain’t gonna happen today ‘cause I got this,” Scout said. He tugged at the paper bag that he was wearing over his head. A caricature of Saxton Hale grinned out at Spy. “Who doesn’t want to wear Saxton Hale’s face on their head? Even Demo and Heavy and Medic are doing it.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“I get it: Hale is not the most popular guy in the world. No problem. If you don’t like the Saxton Hale mask, you can wear a pumpkin over your head. Same deal. I could lend you mine if you threw away yours. It has the glowing eyes and mouth and shit. Best mask you’ll, uh, ever see…” Scout said, his spiel trailing off as Pyro loomed over him.

Pyro was wearing a pumpkin head. The pumpkin had a frozen grin carved onto it. Pyro mumbled something, the sound echoed dully inside the pumpkin mask, and handed Scout a smashed pumpkin. Pyro gave Scout and Spy a thumbs-up, and then went to the sinks where another pumpkin was sitting under a mirror.

“Oh my frickin’ God,” Scout said, staring at the pieces of pumpkin in his arms.

“Yes, and whose fault is that?” Spy said. “To answer your question: No, I’m not wearing the masks. I don’t worship muscle-bound Australian billionaires and I certainly don’t want to be picking pumpkin seeds out of my hair for the rest of the week.”

“Woah, hold up. You mean you actually have hair under that mask?” Scout said. “Are you sure it’s not a wig or a toupee? I think I can still win it if it is a toupee.”

Spy narrowed his eyes at Scout. “It’s not a toupee.”

“Aw, man, Heavy is gonna make me pay up when he hears about this.” Scout groaned. “Half the guys on the team are practically bald. Is there any chance you’d shave off your hair, like, now?”

Scout ran out of the door seconds before Spy finished reloading his revolver.

- - -

Being burnt alive was never pleasant.

Spy kept to the walls like a shadow, as he got out of respawn and walked past the uncaptured third control point to return to the fight.

After a quick capture of the first control point, the fight over the second point had dragged on for half an hour. His team had forfeited the first control point in favor of building a strong wall of defense at the second control point. Currently, his team was pushing the enemy team back to the first control point. Explosions and gunfire could be heard from the tunnel that connected the two control points.

A quiet clank drew Spy’s attention to the dark corner behind the shack that housed the second control point. Spy activated his cloak and peered around the corner.

The enemy Engineer was building a teleporter exit in the tall grasses there. He was crouching A dispenser was up and running a few feet away from the teleporter exit, far enough that Soldier and Demoman couldn’t take out all of his buildings with a few explosives. No one else was with the enemy Engineer. But if the teleporter exit was built, the rest of the enemy team would by-pass the tunnel that Spy’s team was defending and capture the second point.

Invisible, Spy stood next to the enemy Engineer and waited.

The enemy Engineer crouched on top of the teleporter with his back to the wall. After four hits from his wrench, the teleporter exit started up. A blue light shone bright in the dark as the teleporter spun in a lazy circle.

“Well, now let’s see if we can get this fella to go a little faster,” the enemy Engineer straightened up and walked to the dispenser to get more metal.

Spy decloaked and sank his knife into the enemy Engineer’s back. The man let out a half-strangled cry and dropped to the ground. Spy stepped over the dead body, and sapped the teleporter before anyone from the enemy team could make use of the device.

It was a clean kill if he said so himself.

“Better luck next time, laborer,” Spy said, pulling out his revolver to finish off the sapped teleporter.

Then a bottle was smashed over his head. Pain shot through his skull. Shards of glass rained down on his balaclava.

The enemy Demoman ran away from him and towards the tunnel that led to the first control point.

Spy touched his head gingerly. His gloved fingers came away with something wet but clear. Not blood. His head was aching and his ears were ringing, but he didn’t think he was bleeding.

Purple mist swirled over the ground. Spy frowned. And he froze when he realized something was wrong.

The Headless Horseless Horsemann stared at Spy through the eyeholes in his pumpkin head. The bones of his legs were gleaming white under his armor. Purple mist rolled off of him. The enemy Demoman hadn’t been running away from Spy; he’d been running from the Horsemann after tagging Spy to be the Horsemann’s new target.

The Horsemann raised a huge purple axe above his head and charged at Spy.

Spy ran. He ran towards the tunnel that the enemy Demoman had disappeared into.

The Horsemann was quick on his feet; he was only slightly slower than Scout and Medic. Spy put on a disguise even though he knew it wouldn’t fool the Horsemann, and cast his eyes for anyone from the enemy team. He didn’t care about getting backstabs. He’d be fine if he cut someone in the face with his knife and had the Horsemann chase them instead.

Someone fast was coming out of the tunnel and towards him.

“Scout!” Spy yelled in the enemy Engineer’s voice. “Help me!”

The enemy Scout gaped at him, and turned tail and ran.

Spy swore. There was no way he could catch a Scout, and he didn’t have to look behind him to know the Horsemann was closing in on him. The ground was shaking with every step that the Horsemann took. It was only a matter of time before the Horsemann sliced off his head.

Spy darted down the tunnel.

The rapid rattle of a firing minigun echoed inside the tunnel. The enemy Heavy was approaching the other end of the tunnel and peppering the walls with bullets, shredding anything or anyone that tried to come out of the tunnel.

There was no way for Spy to go but the way he’d come.

He turned around.

The Horsemann towered over Spy. The grotesque grin carved into the Horsemann’s pumpkin head stretched wide over his face. The heat radiating out of his hollow eye holes was so hot that Spy could feel it through his balaclava. The Horsemann raised his axe. The blade glinted in the cold light of the moon, and came swinging down on Spy’s head.

“Merde,” Spy said.

Chapter Text

“Fools! You think you can defeat Merasmus?”

“You owe me five bucks for the grocery, Merasmus! Cough it up before I kick your ass back to wizard school!” Soldier yelled.

“Never!” Merasmus thundered from on top of the control point, his voice carrying over the noises of bullets and rockets and grenades firing at him from both sides of the battlefield.

Spy swung his knife at Merasmus for one more time, and beat a tactical retreat. The gunfire was getting a little too hot for Spy’s taste. Despite the temporary truce between the two teams, anyone standing in the line of enemy fire would get hurt. Spy walked up a sloped runway and onto the wooden battlements that overlooked the control point. The battlements provided Spy with a clear line of sight to Merasmus and the enemy battlements. Sniper was already standing in his usual perch, and pulling an arrow out of his quiver.

“Bushman,” Spy said.

“Spook,” Sniper said. He drew his bow, and fired the arrow at Merasmus. “Nice of you to join me. Can’t say I’m too happy to see you though.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I can help it,” Spy said. “This truce is ridiculous.”

“Funny thing to say, considering the truce is the only thing keeping you alive right now,” Sniper said.

“Pardon?”

“Enemy Sniper has his sights on you.”

Spy looked down at himself. A laser dot was wandering over his chest. Spy could just make out the tell-tale glint of a rifle scope near the enemy battlements.

“Oh, please. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the truce,” Spy said. “I’d be lurking behind their lines and killing their people.”

“You ain’t the only one unhappy about the truce, that’s for sure.”

The laser dot wavered and disappeared. The enemy Sniper must have seen him watching the sniping spot where he was lurking, and gone to snipe another spot. It was charming that the man thought he could hide from Spy. When the truce was over, Spy would find him and gut him and relish in the wet gurgles in his slit throat. In the meantime, Spy refocused his attention on shooting at Merasmus. The sooner the wizard died, the sooner this stupid truce ended. Not that he was helping things along much; his shots barely registered amidst the rockets that were exploding on Meramus’s face.

“Are you getting any headshots with your peashooter?” Sniper said.

“It’s not hurting him. I rarely deal with enemies that are twenty feet tall and protected by magic spells,” Spy said tersely.

“That’s what I thought,” Sniper said. “Watch this.”

His arrow landed right between Merasmus’s eyes.

Merasmus trembled and groaned in pain. He flung up his arms and a wave of bombs dropped from the night sky. The crowd of mercenaries cluttered around Merasmus ran for cover. Green liquid splashed out of the bombs as the bombs exploded. Seizing the moment of distraction, Merasmus teleported to the other side of the control point. Then Scout started yelling incoherently because his head had been turned into a bomb.

“Your arrows may actually be more effective than they appear,” Spy said.

“Arrow beats head any day of the week, mate,” Sniper said, tipping his hat back and looking pleased with himself. “Doesn’t matter if the bloke is made of magic. I win every single time.”

“I am fully charged!” Medic yelled, running out from under the battlements. His Kritzkrieg was crackling with energy. Heavy grunted in affirmation and opened fire on Merasmus.

Merasmus was visibly cracking under the siege of charged bullets from Heavy. He waved his staff and, with a twirl of his cloak, disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Enough! Merasmus will leave in fifteen seconds! You will never find me in time!”

“Bloody bogan!” Sniper yelled. The sudden raise in the man’s volume made Spy jump. “What are you doing? Running from a fight, you useless coward? Come out and face us like a proper Australian!”

Spy didn’t point out the irony in Sniper’s words or how everyone had witnessed Sniper jump out of a second-story window to get away from the enemy Scout on more than one occasion.

From the way Sniper was storming to the ammo box at the end of the battlements, Spy could tell that he wasn’t in the mood for much teasing.

Mercenaries from both teams scrambled to look for Merasmus’s hiding spot. Heavy was lugging his mini-gun towards a piano that had magically appeared next to a pile of crates, while Medic ran off to heal Soldier who was screaming at Scout for stealing a health kit that was suspended on a platform above a bottomless pit to hell.

Sniper refilled his quiver with so much force that he bent the feathers on the end of his arrows. He grunted under his breath, “I nearly got him too. Bloody hell. All it’d take was one more shot in the eye. One shot. No one walks away from a fight with me.”

Spy pulled out his cigarette case, and lit two cigarettes. “Here, have one on me.”

“Thanks,” Sniper said. He sucked on the cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs, before letting out the smoke out in one long breath. “God, that’s good.”

“Bring your own cigarettes next time,” Spy said. “A smoke will relax your mind, make you less cranky.”

“What? I ain’t cranky, you bloody spy. I’m a cold-blooded killing machine.”

“No, you aren’t,” Spy said.

Sniper glared at him. But before Sniper could throw more insults at him, Heavy announced, “Found you, wizard.”

Chapter Text

“Boo!”

“Go away, Scout,” Spy said irritably, crouching behind a boulder to recharge his cloak. Like most things in Hell, the boulder was hot enough to scorch a hole in his glove when he touched it, so he tried to hide behind it without burning his clothes. But it was hard to be inconspicuous when he had a ghost following him, doubly so when the ghost was draped in a bed sheet and hovering three feet off the ground.

The boy was relentless. “Boo!”

“Shall I tell Soldier where you hide those pornographic magazines? He’ll be pleased to know that his raccoons didn’t eat them after all.”

“Boo!” Scout said. He floated through Spy’s chest just to be stubborn, and then went to annoy the enemy Scout.

Spy sniffed his jacket and grimaced. His clothes smelled like decomposing bodies and graveyard dirt. Before the teams had been sent here, the battlefield they’d been fighting on had reeked of the two dead bodies that had been stuffed into the payload carts of both teams. For men that had been dead for years, the Mann brothers had been surprisingly intact, but they’d smelled worse than ever.

Now the stink on the battlefield was replaced by the strong stench of sulfur of Hell, where a sea of lava stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Spy picked his footing carefully as he followed the footpath that winded through Hell.

The path was narrow and treacherous, lit up by the red hot lava that bubbled up through the cracks in the paved road. At the end of the path was a long stairway that led up to Skull Island, where a gigantic human skull with horns awaited.

The match would only end when one of the teams went into the skull and stayed there long enough to lower a cage that held an empty spellbook.

Spy had no interest in racing the other team to the spellbook. In his experience, his fellow mercenaries were often blasted off of the path by rockets and stickybombs and into the sea of lava before they could reach the stairway. The lava was hot enough to melt flesh and bones. Nothing was ever left of the men that died in it. Spy had no intention of reliving the experience of having his mouth and throat and stomach be burnt from the inside out by molten rock.

Better to wait for everyone to kill off each other first.

“Mmmmph.”

Quickly, Spy activated his watch and perched at the edge of the footpath. Lava lapped at the heels of his shoes. He could smell his soles burning.

The enemy Pyro came around the corner, trailing after a ghost. The ghost was flying erratically. It darted out of the enemy Pyro’s outstretched hands and fled down the path. The enemy Pyro let out a muffled string of laughter and followed the ghost.

Once Spy was sure the enemy Pyro was out of earshot, he stepped back onto the footpath and decloaked. “Dieu merci.”

He should leave before the enemy Pyro came this way again. The abomination had a tendency to burn everything in sight.

A heavy body collided with him.

Spy drew his revolver and swore when he saw he was out of ammo. He’d used up his bullets during the battle in Helltower and there were no ammo boxes in Hell.

“Look where you’re going, maggot!” the enemy Soldier shouted, backpedaling to keep his back away from Spy and frantically reloading his rocket launcher. “I’d tell you to go to hell but we’re already here!”

“Deus invictus!” Spy flung a ball of magic at the enemy Soldier. The spell hit its target and exploded into a swarm of bats. The bats screeched and scratched the enemy Soldier’s head.

“No!” The enemy Soldier flailed as he stumbled backwards and fell off the footpath in a splash of lava, which Spy sidestepped neatly.

The lava gurgled and burped up a new bed sheet ghost. The ghost regained its bearings, and dove straight for Spy. Spy could practically feel the ghost seething under the bed sheet as it tried to head-butt him.

“BOO!” the ghost yelled angrily. “BOO!”

Spy continued on the footpath. The ghost tailed him doggedly and yelled at his back, “BOO!” Spy ignored him. It’d be a waste of energy trying to reason with the enemy Soldier. As Spy got closer to Skull Island, he pulled out his disguise kit and hoped no one could understand what the ghost was saying either.

Ghosts from both teams were gathering at the foot of the stairway that led up to Skull Island. They were drifting over the steps and getting along more peacefully than they’d ever done when they’d been alive. Spy couldn’t tell them from one another; they all looked like floating bed sheets to him. But from the color of the ghosts, it appeared that at least half of his team had died.

Another ghost on his team floated down the stairway from Skull Island.

Spy frowned and hazarded a guess. “Sentry ahead?”

“Boo!” the ghost said.

“BOO!” the ghost of the enemy Soldier yelled from behind Spy.

It was impossible for ghosts to emote through their bed sheets, but Spy had the distinct feeling that the two ghosts were glowering at each other. It reminded him of a time when Demoman had tried to convince their mailman to take up arms and fight the enemy Soldier.

“Boo!” a ghost said enthusiastically, and joined the enemy Soldier in bobbing behind Spy like oddly shaped satellites.

“Scout?” Spy said.

“Boo!” another ghost said. The rest of the gathered ghosts were getting riled up by the sudden noises.

“Boo!”

Spy hated his life.

By the time Spy ran up the stairs to Skull Island, holding his sapper, he had a train of ghosts following him.

“Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!”

Chapter Text

“Mmmmph mmmph!” the enemy Pyro taunted and lifted a Phlogistinator, which glowed blue as it was charged with crits.

“Die, hellspawn.” Spy stabbed the enemy Pyro in the back.

A small pumpkin dropped out of the enemy Pyro’s suit. The insides of the pumpkin had been hollowed out and stuffed with American candies. Spy crammed the candies into his mouth. As expected, the chocolate had more sugar than cocoa in it and the candy corns were as chewy as rubber.

The things he did for his team.

“Shoulda left that for someone else,” Engineer said from behind him.

Spy managed to not choke on the candies.

A dispenser and a sentry were set up right around the corner, against the wall of a farmhouse, and both of them had been upgraded to level three. The dispenser whirred quietly as it produced metal scraps and ammo and dumped them into its open drawer.

“And risk having our enemies break your nest? I think not.” Spy swallowed the thick lump of chewed candies in his mouth. His revolver was enveloped in red light as soon as he drew it out of his jacket. The bullets would do critical damage if he fired his gun now. Not for the first time, he wondered what ingredients the Americans put into their candies. It seemed vaguely unsafe and probably radioactive.

“Didn’t know you care, Spy,” Engineer said.

Spy spread his hands. “You wound me.”

He put on the disguise of their team’s Pyro, just in case anyone from the enemy team saw him with Engineer and decided they were easy pickings. When Engineer saw the paper mask that Spy was wearing, he huffed a laugh but didn’t make any objection. Spy leaned against the dispenser, bathing in the warm light that it gave off, and smoked.

“Nice out here, ain’t it?” Engineer said.

“If by nice, you mean there are less magical monsters trying to kill us, then yes, it’s nice,” Spy said.

“That there is a nifty bonus. The scenery, on the other hand, is really something else,” Engineer said.

Harvest hadn’t changed much despite serving as one of their battlefields for Halloween, except for the perpetual night and the pumpkin bombs that were placed in strategic corners for optimal destruction. A full moon hung high above the farmhouses and sheds. Occasionally, a rocket lit up the sky above the control point.

Not far away from them, Soldier was yelling at a ghost and telling it to stop being dead. The ghost ignored him and floated towards the two Demomen, who were running in circles and trying to slice off the other man’s head with their swords. When the ghost glided past them, they screamed shrilly and dropped their weapons.

“It is not what most people would choose to wax poetry about,” Spy said.

“You ain’t wrong,” Engineer said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s just something about this place that makes me feel right at home. Guess I’m nostalgic for the good old days.”

“Do tell.”

The sentry beeped. The enemy Heavy let out a cry when he was launched into the air by a rocket from the sentry.

“Back in the days, me and the rest of the kids from school would play in the dirt, gaze at the stars, and drive big-ass trucks without a driving license ‘cause our daddies were on the other side of the farm and could do with some darn help right now.” Engineer chuckled. “Had my first roadkill then and there too.”

“I take it you enjoyed it?” Spy added hastily, “Your childhood, I mean.”

“Some of the best time of my life,” Engineer said. “If you ask Medic, he’ll tell you he’s done these same fool things as a kid, ‘cept he’ll be talking about a graveyard instead of a farm.”

Spy raised an eyebrow at that, though he couldn’t say he was surprised. Medic wasn’t one to keep his scientific interests a secret. In fact, the last time Medic had gone with the team to a bar in town for drinks, he’d insisted on loudly explaining the benefits of adding an extra reproductive tract to the human penis. Needless to say, they didn’t take Medic out for drinks anymore.

“But I can’t imagine why he’d relate his experience to you,” Spy said. “Unless he thought body-farming is part of the agriculture industry.”

Engineer laughed. “Well, he misheard me when I was talking to Soldier about harvesting the crops behind the farmhouse, and, boy, did he have a lot of stories about digging up dead folks.”

“Yes,” Spy said. “Which reminds me to never get into a car alone with Medic.”

“He’s a nice enough fella,” Engineer said. “A tad eccentric, but pretty funny once you get past the ‘mad doctor’ part of his personality.”

Spy seriously doubted that there were more parts to Medic’s personality than ‘mad doctor’. But then, considering that Engineer had several PhDs and an unexplained penchant for building oversized guns, Engineer was hardly in any position to call Medic names. It was the mad doctor calling the mad doctor a mad doctor.

No wonder they got along so well.

Making a mental note to give the laboratory at the base a wide breadth when Medic and Engineer were working in it, Spy almost missed the soft pops that broke the comfortable silence of the night.

“Aw, hell,” Engineer said.

Four glowing grenades were blinking up at them from the grass.

“Time to go.” Engineer hauled his sentry over his shoulder.

Chapter Text

“It’s bloody unprofessional,” Sniper grouched, sitting hunched in his bumper car with his legs bent and his knees tucked behind his ears.

“I have moved the ducks!” Merasmus’s disembodied voice gloated over the race track. “Find them, and make them yours!”

“For once, we’re in agreement.” Spy had little room to sit comfortably in his bumper car. He was swamped with rubber ducks that were piling up at his feet. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever had the misfortune of doing.”

“No one told me we had to assassinate people with bumper cars when I got this job,” Sniper said, staring at a rubber duck that had appeared out of thin air next to his bumper car. “Crikey, my back.”

“You call this assassination?” Spy picked up the rubber duck when it became clear that Sniper was too busy grunting and squirming in his car to do so. The rubber duck joined the ever-growing heap of ducks in his lap. At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to get out of his car without assistance after the game. “This is mindless slaughter. There is no skill or finesse in bumping people to death.”

“That’s ‘cause you suck,” Scout said, zooming past them neatly and knocked right into the side of the car of the enemy Sniper, who was sent flying over their heads and cursed up a storm.

“So you’re good at carnival rides that are designed for children and men-children,” Spy said flatly. “What a surprise.”

“What can I say? I’m just that awesome,” Scout said. He turned his steering wheel with an easy flick of his wrist, and, narrowly missing Engineer who was coming up from behind him, swerved his car back into the hectic traffic. “Gotta find me some more losers to sucker-punch!”

“Watch it, son,” Engineer said shortly, pulling up beside Spy and Sniper. “Kids these days have no respect for road rules.”

“Lighten up, Herr Engineer!” Medic said, whisking by them in his bumper car without stopping. “Ooh, bonus ducks.”

“I’ll lighten up once I figure out how to operate this contraption,” Engineer said, although Medic had sped out of earshot and was laughing hysterically as he raced the enemy Spy for the golden ducks that were glimmering in the distance. Engineer steered his car, and only managed to do an agonizingly slow about turn on the spot. He sighed in frustration. “Hell, I’ve driven vacuum cleaners that handle better than this.”

“I hear you, mate,” Sniper said. “These cars belong in a wrecking yard. I can’t even feel my bloody feet.”

“Please,” Spy sneered. “The fatman has it worse than you but we don’t hear him moaning about it like a two-bit whore.”

If looks could kill, Spy would be floating in the sewers underneath the base in several dismembered pieces. But Spy stood by his point. It was almost comical to see Heavy being squeezed into his bumper car with how big he was. It was less funny for the enemy team when they realized Heavy was no longer limited by his speed and was studiously ramming people off the track.

“I should put you in a suitcase half your size,” Sniper growled. “See how much you like it.”

“Put your legs up on the hood if it bothers you so much,” Spy said.

“I don’t wanna get my legs crushed by some speeding idiot, do I?”

“You’ll die when I tell you to die, maggot!” Soldier yelled, trying uselessly to control his car as it spun in tight circles. The enemy Pyro let out a muffled laughter and ploughed into Soldier’s car again, not noticing that Heavy was driving straight at the two of them.

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Spy said dryly.

“Take yer filthy paws off me ducks!” Demoman charged at the enemy Scout. He was driving with the reckless abandonment of a man that had never had a driving license in his life. His bumper car scraped long lines of paint off of the wall of the track, and then it hit a speed boost ramp and jolted forwards violently. The enemy Scout screeched as he flew off the track.

“You win!” Merasmus announced with glee. “You killed everyone on the other team!”

A white light was building steadily in the center of the room, growing brighter and brighter until it consumed the track and everyone on it.

Spy blinked.

He was no longer sitting in his bumper car or buried waist-deep in rubber ducks. The race track and the enemy team had disappeared. He and his teammates were standing in front of their base, the gates of which were open and waiting for them in a welcoming yawn.

“Merasmus is leaving!” Merasmus’s voice boomed over them. “Until next year, fools!”

The sun was peeking through the clouds, painting the sky in broad brushes of red and gold and bathing the desert sand in its warmth for the first time in too many days. The air smelled faintly of the ripe pumpkins and burnt out candles that they’d left out on their porch to ward off costumed children. The chirping of birds could be heard from inside the base and the trees that dotted the outskirt of the battlefield.

Spy didn’t think of himself as a sentimental man, but he could stay in this moment forever.

“Someone has defaced our door with toilet paper!” Soldier yelled. “Merasmus!”