Chapter Text
The New Mexico desert had a strange way of being loud and quiet at the same time. By sunrise, the cicadas were already humming, the wind dragging dry grass in long sighs across the hard-packed dirt, and the RED base sat under it all like a stranded battleship—hulking and stubborn, painted in peeling steel.
The sky that morning was a soft violet, fading to peach near the horizon, the kind of light that caught on rifle barrels and the edges of goggles. Odessa Van Acker moved like a ghost across the gravel lot, long black hair tied back, a thin strip of gauze wrapped around her right hand from the day before. She carried her knives in their usual place, one tucked at her thigh, one at her belt, the faintest outline of her pistol at her hip.
Jeremy was already there, because where else would he be.
He stood on the training field with his bat slung over his shoulder, jacket half-zipped against the dawn chill. His breath steamed in the air as he bounced on the balls of his feet, pretending he hadn’t been scanning the lot since five in the morning.
“Morning,” he said, voice cracking just enough to make him wince.
“Morning,” she replied, neutral as a blade edge.
She didn’t stop walking until she was at the rack, swapping her boots for a lighter pair, glancing once at him, then away. They had an agreement, unspoken but firm: here, in front of the others, they were just teammates. The team didn’t need to know—not yet. They were a loud, nosy bunch; one slip and the whole base would be on them like vultures.
Training began at six sharp. Spy barked orders with his usual silk-and-smoke precision, and the lot of them filed out—Sniper still half-asleep, Heavy carrying his minigun like a briefcase, Medic fussing over the new sand-resistant bandages he insisted they try.
The morning was sweat and grit. Odessa sparred with Pyro first—quick, close, almost playful—then with Engineer, then with Jeremy.
He came at her fast, too fast. Always too fast. It was his strength and his weakness: speed without patience, fire without aim. She let him drive her back two paces, then pivoted, caught his wrist, and sent him sprawling into the sand with a dull thud.
A groan, a wheeze, and a laugh that tried to mask both. “Guess that’s… two for you, zero for me.”
She pressed her boot lightly against his shoulder to keep him down—just enough pressure to remind him she was still there. “Three. You forgot yesterday.”
He squinted up at her, the sun catching in his hair, cheeks flushed not just from the heat. “That one doesn’t count, you distracted me.”
“Do you want me to keep counting or keep sparring?”
His grin split wider. “Sparrin’. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
The match ended the way it usually did—with her hand around his wrist, his breath hot against her cheek, the space between them too close for the time of day. Spy called the next pair, and they stepped apart like nothing had happened.
By noon, the desert had turned harsh, the sand bright enough to make the air waver. The team drifted into the hangar for a break, half-limping, half-laughing. Heavy commandeered the table with a plate of something unidentifiable, Demoman had already cracked a bottle despite the hour, and Engineer fiddled with the ventilation fan that refused to cooperate in the heat.
Jeremy dropped beside Odessa with the weight of a sack of grain, hair sticking to his forehead. He handed her a tin of peaches Medic had claimed were “essential for sodium balance.”
She took it without looking at him, pried the lid with her knife. Their elbows touched. Neither moved away.
Sniper eyed them from the corner, hat tipped low. “Bit cozy over there, ain’t it?”
Jeremy nearly choked on his own peach. “What? Nah. Just—uh—peaches, and, uh.. chair."
Odessa said nothing, expression calm as still water.
“Relax, mate,” Sniper muttered, waving a hand. “Ain’t accusin’ you of courtship. Yet.”
Jeremy sputtered. Heavy chuckled. Engineer muttered something about “young’uns and their nerves.”
The break stretched long and languid, the kind that made time feel slow in the desert. Someone brought out a deck of cards. Jeremy got roped into a hand, lost three rounds in a row, claimed sabotage. Odessa sat at the edge of it all, drinking her water, letting their noise fill the hollow space she used to mistake for quiet.
It was late when the day finally let them go. Dinner was served, showers taken, complaints aired and dulled by routine. The moon rose over the scrubland like a coin, pale and watchful.
Odessa slipped outside when the barracks got too loud—cards clattering, Heavy humming something off-key, Pyro trying to convince Medic to let her keep the welding torch in her room.
The night air bit cool against her damp hair. She sat on the concrete step, legs drawn up, watching the sand ghost across the open lot in pale ribbons. For a moment, she thought of the streets she’d run through as a child—narrow, crowded, loud—and the years after, when silence meant danger, not peace.
The door creaked behind her.
“Hey,” Jeremy said softly, stepping out, hair still damp, shirt half-tucked. “Couldn’t find you.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
He sat beside her. The step was wide enough for space, but he didn’t take it. Their shoulders brushed. She didn’t move away.
For a while, neither spoke. The wind tugged at her hair; he fiddled with his sleeve hem.
“You fought good today,” he said finally. “Real good. Not that you don’t always, but—y’know—today was…” He trailed off, grimaced. “I’m having a stroke or somethin’.”
“You sound like someone who needs to chill out,” she said, but her voice was softer than her words.
He laughed under his breath. “Fair. Can I say somethin’ though? Just—don’t, uh, throw me in the sand for it?”
She looked at him. His ears had gone red.
“Thanks for not killin’ me the second I opened my mouth, y’know, when we first met.” His cheeks burned even brighter as he looked out into the quickly darkening sky. “I’m just.. so happy you trust me..”
Scout turns to her with a shy expression, eyebrows slightly scrunched, matched with an unmistakable smile, one people barely get to see when compared to his usual bravado.
That caught her. She blinked, the desert breeze curling at her collar. “…I do.”
He looked at her then, really looked, and the quiet stretched taut between them—no barked orders, no team chatter, just the low hum of the night insects and the way his hand rested a breath away from hers on the step.
She moved first.
Just a tilt of her head, a soft brush of lips against his—quick, warm, deliberate.
He froze like a deer in a rifle scope, then let out the tiniest, most breathless laugh. “What—what was that?”
“Something to make you stop talking,” she murmured, almost smiling.
He grinned, full and boyish now, eyes wide as the desert sky. “You’re gonna kill me one of these days, y’know that?”
“Go to bed, Jeremy.”
He didn’t move for a long moment. Just sat there, grinning like a fool under the moonlight, watching the sand swirl silver at their feet, the weight of the secret sitting warm between them.