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Dinner went as any other, the usual chaos of the mercenaries far from subdued. Soldier loudly discussed rockets and explosives with Demoman, occasionally flinging a piece of potato at the Scot, who responded in kind. Scout was rambling about the comic series that he was reading to Sniper, who occasionally asked questions that received lengthy answers. Engineer, Pyro, Heavy, and Medic were probably talking about some scientific affront to god at the other end of the table. Spy stayed out of most of these conversations, too tired to care.
The cold of the wineglass seeped through the fabric of his gloves as he picked it up, the ice water sloshing around inside. He raised it to his lips, frowning as the taste of the liquid registered on his tongue. The water was different, worse than the water that they usually got.
“Gentlemen,” Spy began, “Does the water taste different to any of you today?”
“No!”
“No.”
“Tastes like prion disease. So, normal.”
“Mate I don’t think that’s how water should taste. And no.”
“Mmph.”
“Nope.”
“Scout, did you take any of my disease samples to put in the water?”
“NO?! That’s freakin’ disgusting!”
“No.”
He frowned at all of his teammates. Were they not civilized enough to tell the difference between bottled water from Colorado and water from California? Spy wondered why he even bothered asking himself that question. Clearly the answer was no. “This water is from a different source than usual.”
“Oh yeah? How’d you know that?” Scout leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“It has slightly more Australium than usual. Less calcium, however.”
“I think you’re making things up. How could anyone taste that?!” Scout seemed thoroughly unconvinced.
“I’m surprised you can taste anything with the radioactive soda you keep drinking,” Sniper responded, earning him a playful shove from Scout that nearly made him hit Engineer. He just moved his chair closer to Pyro, who was busy molding the bread on their plate into little unicorns.
“Interesting…” Medic stared at the glass that Spy was holding. “Can I take a sample of that?”
“Non. Take it from another bottle in the case.”
In a flash, their team’s doctor was gone from the table, darting into the kitchen for only a moment and escaping with a single bottle of water. Within a moment, he was gone from view, off to do some experiment.
At the other end of the table, Spy saw Heavy look at Medic’s mostly uneaten plate and sigh, grabbing both his and his own, following the path that the scientist took. That left seven of them at the table.
He decided that it would be best to leave before anyone commented on how it was impossible to taste minerals in water again. Fools.
Spy strode down the corridor, glancing at the mostly barren walls in this wing of the base. There weren’t bloodstains here, yes, but the white and blue and grey that stretched on forever was not very appealing to observe day after day. Day after day. Day after day. At least his teammates weren’t boring.
He stopped in front of a wooden door, quite possibly the only one in the base. While some of the others may seem made out of wood, they were actually constructed out of Mann Co grade wood, which was not wood at all. Probably for the better, given how easily they would be destroyed if they were. Soldier’s rockets, Pyro’ fire, and Heavy’s strength would all turn the doors to mulch or ash in the right circumstances otherwise.
The golden handle turned effortlessly, allowing Spy access to his smoking room, where he would stay for the remainder of the night.
Soldier’s shouting was always a reliable alarm. An unfortunate one, given that it was at 5am every day, but a very consistent one. And of course it never failed to wake anyone up.
Spy walked back through the halls, a displeased expression on his face. It was entirely too early for this.
He approached the dining room of the base, preferring to stay out of the way as he usually did. Unnoticed. This mission quickly became a failure, as Medic spotted him the second he stepped into the room.
“Herr Spy!” He called, turning every eye to the Frenchman. “I tested the water, and you were right! It does have higher Australium and calcium content than usual!”
“Wait wait wait.” Scout dropped his fork with a clatter. “Are you sayin’ that he was right? That he wasn’t lying?”
“Oh please. Why would I say something like that if it wasn’t true?”
“You’re a spy. Lying’s what you do. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It did seem like a kind of weird thing to lie about though. Like you can just taste water better than the rest of us. That’s like the lamest superpower ever.”
“It’s fascinating!” Medic’s eyes lit up and he started pacing back and forth along the table. “Herr Spy if I may ask, can I borrow your tongue for experimentation? I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation for your skills. Perhaps I could try examining-”
He cut off the doctor before he could start rambling. “No.” The thought of him taking his tongue from him- when he still needed it- was not something he wanted to think about at the moment.
“What if I took it off your corpse instead during battle, then you wouldn’t have to-”
“No.”
“How about I duplicated you and then took-”
“No.”
He started walking towards the door, grabbing a cup of coffee on the way by. Medic followed behind him, asking an alarming number of questions.
“I could run tests on-”
“No.”
“What if I-”
“You do not have permission to use my tongue for experimentation purposes.” He cloaked, disappearing from view just to get him to stop asking about running tests for five seconds. He took a few extra turns in order to lose the doctor, taking a sip from his coffee. Too sweet. He glanced down at the mug, expecting to see the standard dark blue ceramic. Instead, white greeted his eyes. He held it up. “#2 Sniper” was written on the side in blue block letters. Oops. The bushman had like five of this exact mug, he probably wouldn't miss it. And he'd return it, secretly, never acknowledging the mix-up in the first place.
Spy glanced behind him. Thankfully he was not being followed by Medic anymore. Hopefully he wasn't waiting somewhere in the halls.
He snuck back the way he came, back to the first hallway, making a right turn instead of a left at first and going to his smoking room.
He stepped inside quietly and shut the door with a soft click. The lamps that he put in the corners cast a soft golden glow around the room. He sunk into a tall upholstered armchair, reaching for the magazine stack that lived on the small table next to it.
Spy had put down the magazine and was reading one of his many books when a knock at the door jarred him from his contemplation of the story.
“Yes?”
“Uh, hey Spy?”
Oh thank god it was only Scout.
“I was wondering… Would you be able to tell exactly where specific water was from?”
Not this again!
It would not be a wise move to punch a teammate. No matter how annoying they were about this specific topic. Spy probably shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. He took a deep breath before replying, “I could, yes. Why do you ask?”
“So you’d know where this water came from?” He slid a glass across the polished table next to Spy’s chair.
He eyed the glass suspiciously. It was very plain, a sharp contrast to most of Spy’s, which were cut so that the light passing through them scattered small rainbows everywhere. He observed the water inside. It certainly was water, and didn’t seem to be poisoned, at least. “Why do you want to know?”
“Me n’ Demo have a bet. He said that you’d be able to tell us exactly where the water came from, and I think that’s ridiculous.”
“Interesting. It may be a challenge, though.” He wasn't sure how much he could rely on those skills.
“I gotta know who’s right,” Scout pleaded.
Spy glanced at the normal-seeming water again. It would only take one sip to figure it out if he could. He raised the glass to his lips, immediately slamming it back down on the table the moment he tasted the water inside.
“This is just Teufort lead water from the medbay's sink!?” Absolutely not. He would not drink lead water.
“How?!? How did you know?!”
“Please, this is easy. At least try to make it a challenge.” Spy pushed the glass away from him, careful to not knock it off the table like a cat. He took a sip from a glass full of deep red wine, observing the color in the soft light of the lamps. “For one, the lead taste is extremely evident.” He'd probably have to talk to Medic about that concern at some point. “Two,” he adjusted his grip on the stem of the wineglass, “you can still taste traces of blood in it. It's impossible to get all the blood out of just about anything Medic spends too much time around. Including his doves.” And probably a health code violation or seven. Not that he cared.
“Wow.” Scout stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, before grabbing the container, groaning. “Great, now I owe Demo money.”
Out of the room he went, taking the horrible water with him. He desperately hoped that he would never have to taste that again. For now, he could read and hope that that helped him forget.
He did not forget the taste, but did forget how annoying his teammates could be at times. Another knock sounded at the door. However, no one called out. Sighing, he got up and walked over to the door, opening it.
“Herr Spy! I was wonderi-”
He closed the door.
“Spy!”
He turned the lock. Exactly who he did not want to see. Perhaps ever.
Spy went back to his reading, trying his best to ignore the continued knocks at the door. Thankfully, he only did that for a few more seconds before presumably leaving. Leaving Spy alone with his books once more. As he preferred it.
An unknown number of hours later, he heard yet another knock. Spy was already annoyed before he opened the door. Nobody should be here to ask him any questions about water or else- oh it was just Engineer.
“Pyro’s making cookies, they wanted me to let you know that they’ll be done in a few minutes.”
“Alright.” After a moment, Engineer turned away and disappeared down the hall. Finally, some good news that came to his smoking room door.
He went back to reading, but only for a few minutes. Knowing Pyro, they wouldn't have a problem with eating scorching-hot cookies that had been in the oven mere seconds ago, but the rest of the team preferred to have them cool off a little. Scorching off taste buds was not preferable, and Medic would probably frown in disapproval at their foolish actions and have about a 75% chance of not healing them to “teach them a lesson.” He usually healed major injuries, though.
Spy slid a bookmark in between the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth chapters. It was a decent place to stop. He placed it gently down on top of a short stack of magazines, and headed off to the common rooms of the BLU base.
The sweet smell of cookies wafted through the air, not burnt, not even a touch. Pyro, though they were extremely zealous in their usage of fire, knew how to bake things to perfection. Though they did have a habit of throwing a few too many m&ms into the batter when the recipe called for it.
Unfortunately, he was far from the only mercenary called to the base’s kitchen by either Engineer or the scent of Pyro’s cookies. In fact, everyone was here, including Sniper. Engineer must have walked all the way over to his camper to get him to join.
Spy activated his cloak, his form disappearing from view. Invisible. As he should be. He was careful to not collide with any of the other mercenaries in the kitchen, patiently waiting, slipping through the gaps in their unintentional fortress of flesh around the cookies. He managed to get close to the plate, waiting until no one was glancing in that direction before reaching out and taking one. There was a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Pyro, shoving through the other mercenaries and wrapping him in a hug. Not quite careful enough.
What could have possibly given him away? He glanced at his hand. Ah. The cookie. He returned the hug for a second and uncloaked, breaking free of their bone-crushing embrace. Now everyone would know that he was here. Mission: failed.
“Ah! Herr Spy! Just who I wanted to see! Have you rethought your decision on-”
Mission: even more failed. He shot a withering glare at the doctor, which surprisingly shut him up, until he saw Heavy also giving him a nonverbal warning.
Pyro launched into a muffled series of what seemed to be questions, their hands excitedly moving at the speed of light. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make out a word of what the arsonist was saying.
Engineer stepped over to the two of them. “Pyro wants to know what you think of the cookie.”
Spy glanced at the dessert in his hand, which had precisely zero bite marks in it. He simply hadn’t had a chance to taste it yet. Pyro waited intently as he bit into the treat. “Delicious, as always,” he replied, to which they seemed positively thrilled with the glowing review of their cookies. He grabbed another from the heaping pile and exited the kitchen, retreating to his usual corner of the BLU team’s common room. He picked up a newspaper, ink smudging slightly beneath his gloved fingers, attempting to read at least something. Or maybe he was actually trying to appear busy. Spy wasn’t sure himself.
“Hey Spy!” Scout jogged over to the corner of the room, holding a glass of water. It came to Spy’s attention that the second reason was definitely the reason why he picked up the paper.
“You said you wanted something that was a freakin’ challenge, so, boom, a challenge.” He set the plain glass of water down on the table. On top of the newspapers. “Plus there’s another bet.”
“You and Demo again?” Spy neatly folded up the paper and set it on the edge of the table, yet careful that it wouldn’t fall.
“Yeah, but Sniper and Soldier wanted in as well.” Great, even more people. He saw them enter the room and take seats on the floor in a semicircle, a medium plate of Pyro’s cookies in the center.
Scout flopped into the couch to the left of Spy’s chair and motioned to the glass. “Go on, taste it.”
Spy turned the glass before picking it up. Room temperature water. Tasted slightly like magnesium. No Australium this time. “It’s from Nevada,” he stated, to which he heard a groan from Sniper and Soldier and cheers from Demoman and Scout as he raced over to the trio.
“I freakin’ told you that he’d be able to identify it!”
“You bet against him last time, lad!”
“That was last time!”
“He must be a true American to be able to do that!”
“Sol, ya can’t taste the difference between grapes and a potato.”
“They both taste too round to tell apart.”
“Snipes, you haven’t paid up.”
“How the bloody hell’d he do that though?!” He heard the rustling of bills being sorted and counted out.
“No freakin clue. Magic, maybe? Did he get this from Merasmus?”
“Nah. He’d be more likely to curse his hands to detach themselves from his arms and walk away every halloween,” Demo replied.
“Have you seen that happen or somethin’?”
“Not yet.”
“Yet?!”
“I think it would be interesting to find out why Herr Spy has such an accurate sense of taste.”
Not again. He stood up from the chair and stalked across the room, saying, “I refuse to donate my tongue to science. Please cease asking.” Out the door Spy went. Away from the scientist who was way too interested in his superior sense of taste.
He did not return until it was time for dinner, and only then it was because Engineer had come by three times to tell him. Thankfully, it was completely normal. Well, as normal as it could be given that he lived with eight other people who murdered an identical team for a living. As normal as it could be given that the rest of the team consisted of a demolitions expert with a haunted eye socket, a runner who drank radioactive soda, an arsonist that could plausibly be three racoons in a fireproof suit, an engineer with an unnecessarily high number of PhDs, and of course whatever else was going on with the team.
Mostly, completely normal meant that it was a relief that nobody asked him about his ability to taste the minerals in the water again. Unlike nearly every other conversation in the past twenty-four hours. Only the usual topics were discussed, such as gun models, highly unethical experiments, the dangers of teleporting bread, and the invention of stairs.
In fact, nobody bothered him about it the next day. Or a couple days after that. At least so far.
Spy was alone, leaning against the sun-warmed concrete of the BLU base. A trail of cigarette smoke stretched high in the sky, a ribbon of wispy gray that weaved through the air. He’d prefer to be in his room again, however, smoking inside tended to envelop everything in the disgusting scent of cigarette smoke. He shuddered. It would take so long to get everything clean if he started doing that. Spy had already made that mistake once, he refused to fall prey to its claws again.
This was one of the few shady spots around the base, where the sand wouldn’t reflect the full force of the New Mexico sun straight into the eyes of whoever happened to be observing the tiny rock pieces at precisely the wrong angle. Where the rays of the sun wouldn’t threaten to burn everyone underneath it to a crisp like Pyro whenever they pick up the phlogistinator.
This moment of quiet was interrupted by the sound of footsteps and someone calling his class name. Someone? No, that was very obviously Scout. Spy briefly considered turning invisible so he wouldn’t be found but decided against it.
“Spy! There you are!” He skidded to a stop in the sand, sending a spray of the entirely too rough and annoying dirt into the air, some of which settled on his shoes. “We’ve got another bet,” Scout started, motioning for Spy to follow him as he jogged away. He begrudgingly trailed after the runner, who soon slowed down to a pace that matched Spy’s elegant strides.
“Who is in on it this time?”
“Everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Yeah, even Pyro!” He led Spy through the base to the dining room, where the entire rest of the team was clustered around the table.
“I found Spy!” Scout called out. Upon receiving this information the excited chatter of the other mercenaries quieted down to the occasional whisper. The crowd parted in order to allow him to observe the table. Several glasses of water were lined up in a row. If you could call it a row. It was extremely crooked, but there was clearly an attempt to herd them into a line. Each and every one of them was labeled with a dark black, bold number on a sparkly sticker, likely courtesy of Pyro. The highest number that he saw was fourteen, but there could have easily been a couple more than that.
He sighed. “I presume you want me to taste-test all of these waters and tell you where they are from?”
“Yep!” Scout replied, hopping over the arm of a chair at the other end of the table. “There’s uhhh…” He started counting. “Seventeen of ‘em! Even special ordered some for this!”
“Means he ordered the water as an excuse to flirt with Miss Pauling,” Demo replied, grinning at Scout.
“What?!” he sputtered, “No?! Not this time-”
“Ah! So you admit it, lad!”
“What- No- Wh-”
“You must not give up any information! You must resist his interrogation techniques! As an American, you must-”
Spy cleared his throat, which quieted the chatter that had been building between the rest of the mercenaries, but most importantly, the conflict at the other end of the table that would likely escalate to causing massive property damage. “Where is the first one?” He had been observing the very out of order line of glasses.
“Here,” Engineer took one that was much closer to Scout at the other end of the table than it was to him. A very surprising place for the glass labeled with one. Perhaps they were labeled randomly? Spy took the glass with a “thank you” and observed the water inside. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Medic start to write on a clipboard at a furious pace. Oh well. Maybe he’d finally stop asking to dissect his tongue if he got the information he wanted from this massive selection of water.
The handwriting for the number was oddly neat, the sticker on which it was written was of a sparkling, shimmering rainbow. Spy felt every eye in the room on him as he raised the glass to his lips.
“This one is from a spring in Colorado,” he stated, setting the glass down on the table with a light clink.
An immediate chorus of cheering and groaning erupted from the mercenaries at the table, everyone shuffling around as money exchanged hands from the losers to the winners, underscored by the furious scribbling of a pen.
“Two!” Soldier shouted, holding a beaten-up mug high above his head. The number was written backwards on the cloud sticker that labeled the beverage. He put it down on the table with a thunk, some of the water sloshing out of the container.
“Florida.”
Immediately an argument broke out between Scout and Soldier.
“You freakin’ said that he’d be able to tell exactly where in Florida it would be from!”
“I did NOT! Florida isn’t even real!”
“Herr Scout is right, you did say that he’d know exactly what part of Florida. And he did not specify. Unless Herr Spy would like to specify?” Medic turned to face Spy.
“The Everglades?” He wasn’t even entirely sure what was in Florida, other than mosquitos.
Medic glanced at the paper attached to the clipboard. “Incorrect.”
So that seemed settled.
The third glass was passed to him by Pyro, who had decorated it with a few extra stickers, one of which was a tiny fire-breathing dragon.
“Canada.”
The fourth was handed to him by Heavy, a wineglass, oddly enough.
“Japan.”
A bowl was slid across the table by Sniper, who retreated to the back of the group immediately afterwards. How could he forget the taste of this water?
“Paris, France.”
The sixth was a slightly chipped glass that was passed from Medic to Heavy to Spy. He rotated the glass in order to stay away from the broken glass. This was in fact a hazard, to have broken glass, but nobody really cared. Not with the medigun.
“Australia.” He paused. “It tastes very strongly of Australium.”
The seventh was right in front of him, a champagne glass decorated in glittery purple and orange star stickers.
“Brazil.”
The eighth was given to him by Scout, who passed it to Sniper to Engineer before it reached Spy’s hands. It was a vase. It was just a vase. It seemed that they had to get creative in order to find enough containers for all the different water varieties.
He gagged as soon as the water touched his tongue, nearly slamming the vase back down onto the table. “This,” Spy said in between coughs, “Is just Teufort water.”
“Fascinating!” Medic responded over the commotion of the other mercenaries winning and losing their bets. “How did you figure that out?”
“Dangerously high levels of lead. Someone,” he glared at the doctor, “Should take care of it.”
“Perhaps.”
The ninth was clearly one stolen from his stash of glasses. He would have to steal it back when this ordeal was over. And get rid of the residue from the shimmering thundercloud sticker that Pyro affixed to it.
“Russia.”
The tenth was a very tall glass. Completely normal, aside from how oddly tall it was.
“Italy.”
Glass number 11 was not a glass at all, which seemed to be the case with most of these containers. It seemed like a glass at first sight, but it was an impostor among its peers, made merely of plastic.
“Egypt. The Nile river, specifically.”
That was not a good one to taste. Too much sand.
Twelve was passed to him by Demo, a graduated cylinder that he hoped hadn't come into contact with any of whatever Medic happened to be experimenting with in his lab.
The taste of lead water hit his tongue. “Flint, Michigan.” It only had slightly less lead than Teufort's water. Terrible, horrible, awful.
Thirteen was in a normal glass, but it was so decorated with stickers that it seemed to be made of the glitter itself for a moment.
“Ohio.”
“Ohio doesn't freakin' exist!”
“Does exist. Is just water.” Heavy responded.
“It's just a lake?”
“Yes.”
The fourteenth glass was another one stolen from his smoking room stash. How did the team get their hands on these?!
“Canada again.”
Number fifteen was passed from Sniper to Demo to Spy. It seemed to be carved out of a block of wood. Surprising that it could successfully hold water.
“Idaho.”
The sixteenth sample was in a bucket. Quite possibly the same one that he tried to collect the dying wishes of his team in a long time ago.
“This is just seawater,” Spy tasted the sample again. “From the Pacific ocean.”
Way too salty, but nowhere near as horrible as the lead water. At least none of them took the cooling water from a nuclear reactor.
He tasted sample 17.
Dammit.
“This one,” Spy sighed, “Is from a nuclear reactor.” He hoped that the radiation didn’t destroy his superior sense of taste. But if it did then at least the rest of the team would stop betting and asking to experiment on him. Well, they still would, just not for that specific purpose.
“So Medic,” he began, “did you get enough information with this that you will stop asking to experiment on me?”
The doctor had never stopped writing during the entire time that Spy was taste-testing the team’s terrible selection of water. It was almost certain that his involvement was merely an excuse to try to do research without actually outright asking him to do research again. A clever, albeit mildly annoying course of action.
“Perhaps,” Medic replied with a grin that stated that he would probably be bothered about this again.
Spy thought about the terrible, horrible, awful water samples that he had to taste due to the horrendous selections of the rest of his team and shuddered.
“Good, because I am never doing that again.”
Off he went, back to his smoking room, quite possibly forever if he had his way.