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The thing was that it was all internal. It wasn't as if he had to stab an enemy Soldier in the back five times if he wanted the thoughts to stop. Instead, Spy had to think the right thoughts. The correct ones, the ones that would ensure that he would not have all of his secrets leaked to the rest of the team.
They were oftentimes ridiculous. Think of the word 'chocolate' ten times, lest Scout figures out that Spy was his dad. Nonsensical, illogical, beyond idiotic. 'Chocolate' and 'cigarette' have the same amount of syllables, and his smoking habit was almost ruined once due to this awful compulsion.
It even started to affect his performances at work -- When one is thinking a specific phrase sixteen times (it has to be even; thinking the thought fifteen times would be wrong), it gets rather difficult to maintain a disguise. He couldn't pretend to be a Pyro if he had to stop every two minutes to think.
It was when the compulsions became external (blink a certain number of times, light a cigarette for a specific amount of time, mutter his thoughts out loud until his brain shut up) that he decided to talk to Medic about the situation. Spy had his doubts that psychiatry was even remotely his forte, but desperate times called for desperate measures and all that.
"It is illogical," he explained to Medic after ensuring that no one else could overhear. "I doubt that anyone has the ability to peek into my brain unless I do these things."
"Well, actually," Medic began, then he paused for a moment. "... No. It is impossible. Believe me, I've tried."
"So you do have experience with mental illnesses?" Spy asked, for once not disgusted to hear of Medic's crimes against the medical world.
"In a way," Medic replied with a wave of his hand. "I can take apart your brain, of course, and --"
As Medic went on, describing the brains he had taken apart over the years with increasing enthusiasm, Spy wondered how desperate he was.
He blinked.
"-- and of course, that was before I lost my medical license, and I would have lost it then, but I surgically removed the memory of --"
He blinked again.
"-- Zwangsvorstellung, though if I just remove the part of your brain that --"
He blinked once more.
"... Herr Spy? Are you listening?"
Spy blinked one last time, then took out a cigarette and lit it. "You said something about removing a part of my brain," he said after a long inhale of tobacco. "Would that not just be a lobotomy?"
Medic shrugged. "Ja, but such things are easily reversible if you just keep the part of the brain you remove."
"Hmm." Spy took another long drag of his cigarette. Becoming one of Medic's test subjects was not appealing, but he didn't know how much longer he could live like this. "I'll think about it," he said after a while.
Medic, who was already gathering his brain surgery supplies, looked disappointed. "I hope you come to the right decision!" he said, his words sounding vaguely like a threat.
But Spy was already out the door, counting the steps he took and dividing them by two.
"I fathered Scout," Spy said to Sniper in the safety of the camper van. "I'm in love with someone on this team. I find your jars to be disgusting. I've been tempted to buy another suit. I--"
Sniper listened patiently, his eyes closed. Spy was confessing again, just listing out a bunch of stuff that he felt like he should not tell anyone. Sniper didn't really get why he did this, especially since he already knew most of these "confessions", but Spy went on and on as he sometimes did.
"I want to take my mask off around you. I find the scent of your cheap cigarettes appealing. I..."
"Stop," Sniper said after a while. "You've been going on for an hour, mate. Did Medic not cure you?"
Spy sighed. "I would rather not get a lobotomy."
Sniper lay back on his bed with a groan. "'Course that's his only idea. I'm sure that you'd do better stabbin' everyone on BLU if you lost half your brain."
"Well," Spy began, "I certainly couldn't do worse than I am now. Your counterpart's noticed that I pause too often."
"You have been dyin' by headshots more," Sniper noted. "Medic usin' you as a lab rat ain't gonna help much, though. Might help as much as your confessing sessions here."
Spy took a drag of his cigarette, and Sniper continued. "I mean, you confess the same shit every other night. I've heard you count under your breath. Is any of that helping?"
"If I don't take an even number of steps, everything you know about me will become common knowledge," Spy said, the look on his face making it apparent that he thought the words coming out of his own mouth were ridiculous. "I should not be doing this. It goes against my career."
Sniper didn't want to admit that he cared about Spy; it would hurt the pride of both of them. Still, he could admit that they were more than just coworkers who fucked, and it so happened that seeing this specific coworker succumb to obsessive-compulsion was depressing. "What's makin' you do this?" he asked eventually. "Can't you just... Not confess? Not count your steps? Not ruin your life?"
"Not worth the lack of relief," Spy replied. He smoked the rest of his cigarette down to the filter. "I can guarantee that my performance on the battlefield will worsen if I don't perform these rituals."
"Thought ya said you couldn't do worse than you are now." Sniper got up from his bed and walked over to Spy. "I'm just sayin', it's worth a shot. I don't like seeing you suffer like this."
"Hmm," said Spy, refusing (as always) to reply to any statements of affection. "Enduring mental torture may be better than what Medic has planned for me."
"Ain't ruining his day worth it? Bet he had plans for your brain. Picking it out and putting it in the BLU Spy's head," said Sniper, a grin forming on his face.
"Disgusting. Putting that imagery in my brain might be worse than the obsessions," said Spy, lighting another cigarette.
"Here, lemme," said Sniper, pulling out his own lighter and lighting Spy's cigarette. "There. Ya didn't even get to count."
"One second," said Spy, taking out the cigarette and putting it out on a wall of the camper.
"It was lit up either way, wasn't it?"
"It was lit up incorrectly," Spy said, his brows furrowing and his anger showing through his voice. "If you do not..." He paused. "Merde."
For a moment, all was silent. Spy eventually took out another cigarette and lit it, briefly and without thinking. "Fine. I will resolve to choose not to act on the thoughts, if only so as to not waste more cigarettes."
Somehow, Sniper didn't think it would be that easy. But hey, we all start somewhere and all that.
When Spy left the camper that night, clearly putting in effort to count his steps, Sniper didn't mention it.
When Spy walked out of the camper the next week at a normal pace, not bothering to ensure his steps were even, Sniper smiled to himself. Spy still counted his blinking, he still paused at seemingly random intervals, and Sniper kind of doubted that he'd ever be completely free. But it was better than nothing, and Spy was clearly suffering less.