Chapter Text
It seemed like an eternity, a lifetime slowly passing through his visor, boring, with some fireworks of life and fun, but nothing worth the energy. When the battle ended, the Administrator’s voice declaring the RED team had won, he sighed unsatisfied, cleaning his sunglasses.
Sniper got quickly to his van, he wasn’t hungry, too tired to shower, even though he barely did a thing. Boredom could tire you out just as much. He took off his vest and boots, sat down on his bed and, with a rag he had laying around, he wiped down his gun, just to do something, but that something didn’t last long, as a dove flew through his window, a blue envelope on its beak. He looked at the dove with curiosity and, when Sniper approached it, the dove released the letter and flew away. Sniper quickly looked out the small window, following the dove with his eyes. It wasn’t Medic’s, because this one flew in the complete opposite direction of the RED base, where the BLU base was instead. Then, he looked down at the blue envelope on his bed and grabbed it with curiosity, an estranged look on his face. It had no sender, addressee or anything written on it.
“Who in the hell…” he sighed, already imagining some dumb threat from the BLU team. He didn’t even bother to think about the others, to read it in front of them in case it was a bomb or something. He just laid down on his bed and opened it.
It wasn’t a bomb.
Or a threat.
He skimmed over it: it was a poorly written letter, with an almost intelligible handwriting. But he read it.
“hi!
it was soooo kool!
what a great introduction too this letter, by kool i mean the battle. i saw you with your sniper, because your the sniper :P
you don’t know who i am, anonymous haha, but i send you this thanks to Pythagoras (medic wrote that) and too tell you i think your kool
bye!
-someone”
Sniper laughed out loud at how weird and awful it was and turned the paper around to see if it were a joke or something. Nothing. Not a damn clue.
“Must be a trap for sure.” A trust-manipulation thing, he thought, while giggling to himself. What a dumb tactic. And so, he instantly grabbed paper he had laying around, an almost out of ink pen and wrote a response.
“Hello.
What do you want to know about us? Who are you exactly, I know it’s not your Medic. Or maybe it’s all of you at the same time.
-Sniper”
With another paper and tape, he made an improvised envelope that fit the letter inside. And, like the mysterious sender, he didn’t write anything on it. He looked out the window again and realised he had no idea how to send the letter. He dragged a hand through his face in frustration. Ok, now he was the dumb one. He turned around and, not a second later, he heard and felt something on his shoulder. The dove, Pythagoras, he remembered.
Sniper looked at the dove over his shoulder and gave it the letter. Pythagoras grabbed the letter with its beak and flew away. Once again, Sniper followed its path through the sky. To the BLU base it flew away again. Then, Sniper just laid on his bed.
“Maybe I’m just delirious.” He thought and sighed again, maybe the good shower of the month would help wake him up from this fever dream-like moment he just had. A friendly letter from the team they just humiliated in battle? Not suspicious at all, no.
When he got to the base, with a change of clothes in hand, he flinched at the screams of Soldier and Scout, a very sudden and thunderous change from the lovely quiet of his camper van. Sniper didn’t even bother asking them a thing, since they were arm wrestling, so he continued his path and, just a few meters from the showers, he encountered Engineer.
“H-hey, Engineer, mate” Engie looked up at him and nodded in acknowledgement “. Have you by any chance received any letters?”
“Letters?” Engineer raised an eyebrow, exactly the same perplexed expression he himself had on his face just half an hour ago “. Not that I know of, no.” He chuckled and shook his head, Sniper broke eye contact for a sec and awkwardly smiled, not wanting to talk about the weird letter until he got more information. Another letter.
“Ok, then.” And he just walked past the Engineer, leaving the other even more confused, but he said nothing to the others. It was just a weird irrelevant conversation after all. Not an ounce of gossip value.
After closing the door of the showers, Sniper undressed, still thinking about the abnormal letter. He was overthinking it maybe, but what more can you do when a blank space dominates your mind? Maybe it was today, just today he felt odd.
After a cold shower, Sniper felt better, the once-a-month shower felt the most refreshing on his mind at the moment. He went to the laundry room and left his worn out and dirty clothes in the laundry bucket. On his way back to his camper van, he encountered Spy, and, even though he kinda hated the man, he still asked him if he had received any letters. He was a Spy, he should know.
“Why are you asking, bushman? Have you?” Sniper sighed, it was obvious Spy would’ve questioned him before he himself was subjected to questioning. It was a stupid thing to ask him.
Sniper rolled his eyes “Why do I even bother” He said out loud and left Spy with even more curiosity. Something the Frenchman wasn’t going to let go off so easily.
When he got back to his camper van, the dove was on the window, a white figure in the darkness, apparently waiting for him to return.
“How long have you been there, mate?” He approached Pythagoras, who had another blue envelope in its beak. He sat on the bed and took off his precious hat, placing it beside him. The dove didn’t fly away just yet, it waited. Sniper waited, feeling Pythagoras’ eyes over him and his hat, but the hesitant dove didn’t leave. Not until he took the blue envelope and read it, he guessed. The man brought his hand up to the dove and lightly petted its head, soft white feathers, and Pythagoras leaned into it. Sniper liked the dove, and it was nice petting one without Medic screaming at him to keep his unsanitized hands from his Archimedes. Then, he softly grabbed the letter from its beak and looked at Pythagoras suspiciously. Noticing that the dove didn’t leave until he opened the envelope he did just that, inside, another letter, with the same sloppy handwriting and bad orthography. This one was briefer, short, and Sniper was unconsciously disappointed at the length of the previous letter.
“hi!,
i only want too know about you! and i want ya to guess who am i (no, im not medic, ha)
bye!
-someone”
Sniper looked back at the dove, who, upon meeting his dark eyes, flew away instantly, without waiting for an answer, for another letter. For the first time in his life, the man wished that animals (especially doves) could talk, or that he could only talk to animals. Maybe Sniper should buy some envelopes. Red ones. He looked down at the letter again, re-read it again and then, Sniper felt an uncanny pressure on his stomach and he didn’t even know why.
It was dumb, stupid, but he trusted the sender and got to the driver's seat and drove off to the nearest store to buy envelopes, a black pen and a bunch of paper in good condition, as he felt this thing would go on and on for some time. Until he discovered if it was some BLU Spy shenanigans to get information and ways to humiliate the RED team back, his other guess was the BLU Scout, from the tone and spelling, he guessed, a combination of factors that reminded him of RED Scout. But, how much different could they be? BLU team are just a bunch of doppelgängers created by Builders League United, or that was what Miss Pauling told them. Apart from that, he didn’t know much, only that personality wise, they were slightly different, and he believed it, for it was a person's experience that which shaped your character. But being a copy did also give you those memories? Were they even real?
Sniper returned to the base, parked his van and got to writing his answer, expressing his doubts on paper, his deductions and questions. He made it brief, short like the sender’s. He made it enough, clear and concise.
“Hello.
Is this a trap?
You’re the BLU Scout, right? Tone is very telling, similar to our’s, but you can read and somewhat write, not like RED Scout. Am I right?
-Sniper”
And then, as if it were magic, Pythagoras appeared, its calm presence making itself known thanks to the soft beating of its wings. Sniper turned around, sealed envelope in hand and gave it to the dove.
“Kinda weird for a dove, are you? So omnipresent it scares me, mate.” Pythagoras took the envelope, biting down on it. “You smell every time I have a letter, right? Were you trained or something? Nah, BLU’s not that intelligent, are they?” He chuckled, maybe they were and he was falling for their trap.
Pythagoras listened to him ramble, and at the silence and weird looks, it flew away to the BLU base, to its addressee. Sniper just laid on his bed and waited for another blue envelope and the weird dove’s presence on his van’s window.