This post has been deleted.

Hi. I am now slightly less sleep-deprived. The chapter I posted this morning was fraught with typos and since there were not any comments yet, I decided to tear it down and edit it and repost. Please excuse the inconvenience. I was at Occupy Cal last night and things got a bit rough.

-----=-----

PART XXIV

Sniper felt as if he had lost his way at some point in the last forty minutes.

He approached the watchful boy as if he were wavering on a tightrope, one foot in front of the other, in concentrated unease. He was merely watching all of this play out, as if the doctor or the boy were laying down track for him--or the unseen spy. Remembering his purpose in this room was a shock--where was the masked man? His silent audience, his secret. It was almost as if he could turn his head and find the demon on his shoulder. But it was empty, and now he had arrived at the cold edge of the table.

Nothing about the Scout was lively, now. He was as static and pale, slightly bluish under the fierce operating light, vulnerable as a fresh autopsy. The powder, the wanton eyes and stained lips. That the slit in his panties had spilled all that pink flesh, just added to the sense of a disembowelment, an extrusion of secret organs, and Sniper felt as if he were trespassing in the burial preparations of a boy-king. The little prince was beginning to be a habit; it seemed he could not spend more than a few hours out of contact with that compact, livid body, and through no fault of his own. As he drew alongside the shifting ribs, he vividly recalled the taste of them. The sounds of anguish he had wrung out from this fluttering throat, and the way he and Spy had caged him between their long limbs, like some luminous ocean innocent in a lobster trap.

The steel table was so cold under his grip. His breathing had gotten away from him, and there were other, distant reminders that his body, his responses, were fighting him at the end of a long chain. He observed coolly as Scout bit his smeared lip when he felt Sniper’s hands start their kneading, smoothing, pawing gestures, taking in the white flesh like scything a harvest. Like brushing out a snow angel. And then there were the rough kisses, the bitten nipples, the worried ilia. Even the dry rubbing of his empty mouth along the tops of Scout’s stockinged feet, still curved into those dainty shoes, set into the stirrups.

He did not become aware that the doctor had been taking notes, until the scratch of the pencil ceased. He looked into the umbra outside the operating table, and saw the glinting spectacles, hovering disembodied above a yellow pad. The doctor approached.

“Allow me,” his voice was low and soft. It sent a stab of adrenaline into Sniper’s guts.

The scalpel appeared without fanfare, but Scout whimpered as it was set down behind the first incision. Medic, at one side of the table, leaned forward over the boy’s stomach, and made a small cut in the fabric over his cleft. Gloved fingers followed, the doctor entering his cut like any exploratory surgery and, finding what lay beneath satisfactory, he withdrew with a small smile.

“Please approach from the proper angle, and we will begin.” That little smile grew no larger, but deepened--the doctor’s dimples were rakish. Sniper swallowed, his pulse pounding in his ears. He moved to stand between the stirrups, and felt almost numb as his zipper was clinically parted, and a part of him he barely recognized was pulled into cool air.

Scout wrung himself back and forth on the table, mad with anticipation.

“I administered the preparatory treatments earlier today,” Medic assured the gunman. “She is clean, and slick. And while I would do this myself, I’m afraid my sense of hygiene is...over-acute. It is a personal failing. So you will understand how grateful I am, to have you here...” It was difficult to meet his eyes. In the way that some patients feel a compulsion to throw themselves from deadly heights, should they go too near the edge, Sniper looked into the distinguished, German face and felt he should kiss the man.

“Allow me,” the doctor said again. And his smile cracked into a grin as he pressed one open palm on Sniper’s coccyx, and with the other, took his straining erection. Guided through the slit in the fabric, the pressure on the base of his spine steady and insistent, Sniper found himself sinking with scientific precision into the boy on the table. It was impossible to tell whether the resultant moan was his, or the doctor’s.

Once he had found his stride, the medic stepped back. Notes were taken. Sniper felt himself assume angles and noble expressions for the benefit of the observations being made, resisting the instinct to crouch and rut and grunt. He fucked the young man, studiously, precisely, his sense of distance increasing as he watched himself do it. It was not long before the notepad was set down, the doctor approaching Scout’s head, which was thrown back and to one side, and it was with a feeling of completion that the gunman watched the physician’s straight, businesslike member being wantonly engulfed in stained lips.

“I know what little Fräulein likes,” the doctor breathed. “They do like their little toys, the sweet Mädchen. Mmh.” He reached beneath the table and brought forth an unfamiliar object--a sort of hand-held machine, bulbous on one end, the other tapering to a handle with dials, and finally a long electrical cord which trailed into the gloom. Medic flicked a switch, and the machine began to buzz. Scout tightened on Sniper in excitement, and when the blunt end was pressed to the head of his cock, pressing it into his abdomen, he began to writhe and buck with an enthusiasm muffled only by the doctor’s enjoyment of his mouth.

How long did they stay like this, the three of them? Sniper found himself in the most baffling and stimulating moment of his life, the seconds unrolling like long, plush carpets. Medic handled the instrument with all the grace of his profession, even as he rolled his head back and pressed into the soft, red mouth. When the gunman felt the cool leather gloves at his flanks, dipping beneath his pants to push them down, he simply could not muster any shock. Why not? he recalled thinking later, even days later. He was the only one that noticed the spy working behind him, although the others might have wondered why he chuckled and gasped at that particular moment. He had simply thought of a bad joke--that once again, he was being stabbed in the back.

But it was worth it. The soft breaths on his ear, the grip on his hips, the new kinetic urgency transferred to the prone boy, who in turn noticed only a greater power behind the gunman’s thrusts, and braced himself to match them, sliding his tongue along his doctor’s organ.

It would be over-wishful, to say there were four simultaneous climaxes in that strange, dark room, and indeed, it was more like the fall of a civilization--a clatter, more than a bang. Nor does it matter precisely when. But it ended in a tangle--a slick, sticky tangle of saltwater from strange oceans, of spare limbs, of spent ghosts clinging to the still-living. The little machine was switched off and set in a kidney pan to await sterilization. The doctor braved a delicate kiss with his patient, his heart full of rare elixirs until his clean, sensible blood sluiced them away. The gunman arched into an incubus, which was gone in the next breath, leaving its hot ectoplasm as a last curse.

And the boy, of course, the little prince--he was anointed as befit his royal blood.

Amazing chapter, very hot ;)

Holy crap.

Captcha: intimate, urprim.

I love this story so much.
With every chapter, it gets impossibly hotter, creepier and even more perfect than it already was. Your writing is so...wild, but at the same time really precise, like certain words aim straight for the subconsciousness.

I can't help but read each paragraph several times and let it sink in for a while before I can read further. So much that it forced me to adjust my screensaver settings :)

Hope everything is going well with you, Toxo.. anxiously awaiting updates ;)

Captcha: "publishing rsityftw". Yep.

So the occupation continues, and it turns out people don't pay you to be a revolutionary, so there's been a lot of scrambling for survival money over here, which prevents fanficking. And then of course, the was the unbelievable derail of Law & Order: BLU, which just wrapped up the second part of its two-part pilot episode, plus commercials, and even though Cat Detective is doing most of the work, it's still a very convenient excuse not to be writing SNUFF.

Enjoy.


=---------=

PART XXV

They say cats always land on their feet, but at that point, there really wasn't a floor.

When Sniper found himself dressed and sitting in the stifling cold of the office not long afterwards, the sense of freefall lingered like a hangover. The boy was gone, cleaned up and packed off to his room or simply elsewhere, it didn’t matter, both the Medic and his guest were tired of decadence and depravity, however wrapped up in medicine or romance it had been—who cared, Sniper thought dully, drinking his tea. How many decisions had he actually made in the last hour and a half; how many had been made for him? He couldn’t remember, and never would.

The doctor dropped primly into his desk chair, where he crossed one ankle to the other knee, and looked sidelong at the gunman. There was one moment of calm.

“My friend, it is a relief to have someone in this base that I know I can trust.”

Sniper’s words came reluctantly; he felt wrung out and estranged. “No worries, doc. It is what it is.” One of the white cats jumped into his lap and did a slow pirouette before tucking itself into a little loaf. Sniper smiled, and stroked the creature.

“There is more than that. Something has happened to me—I need an ally, and I believe you are the man for it.” Medic was solemn; his brow knitted as he fished under his desk blotter and brought out the photo of the boy. “Do you recognize this child?”

“No, I don’t.”

Medic sighed. “Many would not. He is…something of a son. A boy I am entrusted with. He has been taken from me.”

“Kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“Doc, I can’t leave this base any more than you can, even when the blizzard clears out. If you’re asking me to do something back in the world, I could maybe write someone a letter…”

“Nein, no, it is nothing like that. This was here.”

“I don’t understand. You brought your kid to the viaduct?”

Medic blew out his cheeks, exasperated in a general sense. He seemed to be struggling with something. “I am not sure how to explain this to someone who is not—to a man of wilderness, not of science. But I know you are educated, that you read books and attended proper schooling. It is difficult—he is my son, yes? But only in the sense that I caused him to be born.”

Sniper said nothing.

“The specifics are not important, and anyway, my notes are all in Deutsch.” Medic waved a hand irritably. “He was born here, with us, in the gravel pit facility several years ago. His physical maturity has been accelerated; a modification of the medigun technology—it is less accurate to say he was born, and more accurate to say he was respawned. ‘Spawned’, actually. Printed. If he is my son, he is as much anyone else’s here; the genetic structure is something like, eh, vas ist, ja, der ‘jigsaw’ puzzle. Do you understand?”

“I’m working on it.” Sniper’s cat was purring.

“I had to fill in the gaps somehow; the biological sample was somewhat damaged in the fire, and in the intervening time, and by however many hands it has passed through in twenty-odd years. Regardless, it is done. It took years of animal trials, but I did it. He is perfect. And they stole him from me.”

“Who did?”

“Those schiesse-sucking REDs!” his fist hammered the desk twice, three times. The cat flattened its ears, but stayed where it was.

Sniper leaned forward. “You’ve been keeping a child at this base? At the others, too? How did you transport him? Why didn’t any of us know about this?”

“We carry so much materiel from one location to another, no one questioned my extra crate here, extra drum there. And there are always basements, tunnels, caves sometimes. I just said I needed somewhere to dispose of medical waste, somewhere safe and distant from our water supply and living quarters. It is one of the benefits of being the only specialist in your field, I am sure you have noticed this—they do not question you, when it comes to your area of expertise. No one would second guess your assertions about rifle maintenance, or shooting blinds.”

“I guess not…”

“They have him. Right now, they have him. Gott knows what he must endure—I am positive their physician is taking his own samples so that he can make a counterfeit, a fake! Die schweine—drawing blood, running stress tests perhaps. Exploratory surgery, ach mein Gott…it is what I would do, and he has always been jealous of me! He knew I would be the first! He is ignorant; his science is flawed, and he only wishes he had thought of—”

“Doc,” Sniper interrupted, “What is it you want me to do about this?”

“They’re holding him hostage. They will keep him until they get what they want, and maybe if they get tired of him they will tell the company. That cannot happen.”

“What do they want?”

“They want our spy. They have his head; now they want his body.”

Ho-oooly shit.

Now, English may be my only language, but I am far from the understanding even the other commentators of this fic have- let alone YOU- but I just had to tell you how much I appreciate this. Just got done reading it for the first time; sat down and read the whole nine yards, and my mind, I can tell you, is completely blown. I feel like I've been through some kinda mental gymnastics here. You have no idea how many times I looked up words... Was breathless at multiple points throughout... Anyways.

I just feel like I've come out of this with an appreciation of language no teacher of mine has ever inspired in me, and I thank you kindly. Also the porn wasn't bad either.

I was wondering when we'd hear more about the boy! And you've left us with another exciting ending! Argh I just can't wait for more.

Little catloaf. A lovely touch. You speak feline as fluently as you do psycho mercenary.

154 All the English-as-a-second-language-speakers in this thread are so cool. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear from you, and it's really impressive to me that you go out of your way to read fanfic in a foreign language and look up the words. I should do that, damn it. How lazy am I?

Okay folks, it's that tiiiiime agaaaaaain...

=----------------------------------=

PART XXVI

It was a long, weird walk back to the bivouac.

Spy was there when he arrived, chain smoking on the bed, reading a comic book pilfered from Scout’s room. He let it fall onto his chest and smiled at Sniper.

“Did you have a pleasant doctor’s visit?”

Sniper didn’t answer right away, lowering himself into the desk chair instead. He looked at his hands. “Do you...” he began, “know anything about our spy?”

Spy sat up, shifting closer along the edge of the bed. “I do, cher. I did not want to get you mixed up in that mess. It is our docteur’s scheme, I’m afraid. An elaborate method of extracting some biological samples from his nemesis; some sort of cloning project that has turned into an arms race between them--” he swirled his finger beside his ear “--why do you ask?”

“I figured you had to have been involved.”

“I have no interest in their little science fiction spat.”

“Well, you’re the only man on this base that could even conceivably locate, and then steal, a secret child from the enemy.” Sniper looked up, catching the blue eyes. Spy handed him a freshly-lit cigarette, which he took automatically. His lover’s brand was sweeter than his own, and in this moment, it irritated him. He smoked anyway.

“You flatter me.”

“But I’m right.”

“You are.” Spy smiled a little lopsidedly. “You and I will have our little secrets. It is the damned reality of this war--Montagues and Capulets. I hope you trust me enough to know I’d never put you in harm’s way. You have...corrupted my loyalties somewhat, I am afraid.” Spy reached out, cupping the gunman’s rough jaw in one glove. Sniper smiled.

“So--the doctor told you all this?”

“Yeah. I thought you would have stayed for that, but I guess you let yourself out.”

“Stayed?” The spy looked confused. “Stayed where?”

“Medic’s office? You were there the whole time, I thought. Or did you leave right after...right after?”

“After what?”

Sniper’s guts chilled. “You were there,” he said firmly. “You came with me to the office. You were there, with Scout.”

Spy’s face shifted almost imperceptibly. He dropped his hand from Sniper’s chin, and leaned back. “‘With Scout’, is it. And the doctor saw fit to disclose his personal problems, I gather. What did you three do, exactly, to put him so at ease.” His affect was flat, his questions slamming shut on themselves.

“If this is a joke, it’s in bloody poor taste. You were there. You were with me; I felt your bloody hands all over me; you whispered in my ear! You told me to!”

“No. I have been here all afternoon. I did wonder what was taking you so long...” Spy looked at his knees. His mouth stretched over his teeth as he raised his eyes. “The three of you, eh? Our little tryst was just your training wheels, I take it. You were simply practicing for the main event--some sordid performance with the petit pute and his pet pharmacist. Or were you the pet, today? Perhaps they had you coming and going. Perhaps you borrowed some rouge from that tiny bitch, and made yourself pretty for your precious boyfriends. I trust everything went well? Plenty of filth spilt on my rangy gunman, then. My precious peroquette, lathered with German seed. Fantastico.” He sucked at his cigarette, lids lowered, the deadly monotone running out uselessly against the grey walls. He blinked once, twice. He looked away, then back at the stricken man at the desk.

“I apologize, I--I lost my temper. I don’t know why you would do such a thing, and then tell me about it, so perhaps you are telling the truth, and you really thought I was there through it all. You do not need to try and obscure your infidelities with tales of hallucination, my darling. It is enough to simply not mention them. It is what a gentleman would do.”

Sniper started upright, breathing shallowly, knocking the chair back. The agent looked up at him. “Bebe, you are positively sallow. I am sorry I said you were telling stories, but what did you expect me to think? Are you feeling well?” He rose and approached the frightened man, wrapped him in smoky limbs. “Shhh. Come here.”

They rocked together for a moment, Sniper muffling his breaths in the familiar throat. Yes, here was control. Here was sense. This man, that he could touch and lean upon and inhale so greedily, this man was real. The spy stroked his back, turning his head to take in the crux of the jaw, the soft droplet of the earlobe. Sniper began to breathe more easily. Perhaps it could be forgotten, set aside like anything else that was nonsensical, but ultimately meaningless--unseasonal weather, or a freak accident. Nothing to be done. Yes, already he could feel it leaving him, as if it were a rowboat he had kicked away from the dock. Goodbye, then.

“Ah, you smell of him. You smell of them both--and you smell of fucking, and of cheap perfume.” Spy’s voice was matter-of-fact. Sniper shook him off, stumbling away. The room was stifling, tiny. He couldn’t get away; even with one hand on the knob, there was nowhere else to go. The sense of freefall returned so abruptly he almost staggered, swaying against the shut door, his lungs squeezing him like a fist. Spy stood smoking, casually inserting one hand into a pocket.

“You are, perhaps, over-stressed. Sometimes battle fatigue only becomes apparent when there is no battle.”

“I’m not ill,” Sniper rasped.

Spy tilted his head forward, looking up past quirked brows. “Aren’t you?”

It's not fair how much you make me love your writing. Damn. Do you have anything else on the internet that I should be reading (Besides LAW & ORDER: BLU)?

Oh snap, son. Shit just got real.

That said, your writing is wonderful, as always. And I agree with the above Anon, I would absolutely love to read anything else you've written.

(there is an update under all this; the impatient may scroll down)

Hi folks. Long time no post. As for other writing, I contributed to a story a few days ago called The Queens; it is over on /fanfic/. My other writings were mostly for professional game blogs and don't make for very entertaining reading after the fact. There will absolutely be more actual writing from me very shortly.

In other news, I have two new drawings in the General Art Thread in /fanart/. I'm thinking it might be time to start my own thread over there.

=------------------------=

PART XXVII

The silk tie was already sogged with blood, wicking it down the front of the crisp dress shirt and into the lap of the corpse. Sniper stood well back from the gruesome tableaux, Medic beside him. Engineer gestured helplessly.

“It just keeps up, fellas. There isn’t a shutoff within reach, for obvious security reasons, so it’s not like we can just flip a switch until we figure out the god dang problem.” His face was drawn under the hardhat and goggles, days of confinement funneling his attention to this one project until it had become an obsession.

The raw neck continued to seep as the doctor approached it and crouched down.

“It is a relatively clean cut.”

“Does that make a difference, doc?”

“Who can say.”

The three men studied the dying body. Finally, some lingering vitality went out of it, and it went still--Sniper hadn’t realized it wasn’t already still--and respawn picked it up. They waited thirty seconds in awkward boredom before the strange, dry sounds of molecular assembly began, followed by a familiar tang of ozone, and the spy’s fresh linen and cologne. Another dapper decapitant crashed bonelessly forward and began to gush. The effect was unnerving.

“Horrible, ain’t it?”

No one answered. Engineer knocked his hat into his hands and rubbed his pate roughly. “If you think you can get it stabilized in a lab somewhere, I’m sure the machine will be better for it. Just a lil’ worried about what happens when Demo falls asleep in full kit next to the wood stove again, and she’s gotta bring us all back at once, after running hot for weeks, y’know?” Engineer laid one sympathetic hand on a wall, as if caressing the machine itself. “Anyway, I’m about fed up with this, gentlemen. I’ll leave y’all to it.” He let himself out.

Medic stood and brushed his hands on his coat, though he had touched nothing. “One minute is not enough time. Five may be.”

“We have to get this thing across that frozen wasteland without it being picked up by respawn.”

“And without being seen.”

“I don’t think even five minutes is going to cut it.”

“No, you are probably right.” Medic studied the thing intensely, banked fire in his eyes. A fascinating challenge. He pulled a medigun out of a locker and leveled it at the corpse in its wallow of blood. The beam hit home with a warm thrum, and Medic set it on the floor, still running. He approached the body again, flinching a little when it twitched. Sniper reluctantly joined him--the corpse aroused instinctual aversions; it was deeply uncanny, a life-size mannequin of flesh, oddly dissembled, the fresh-pressedness of it just making it all so much more vile. Medic leaned into the neck of the thing, watching intently. “Fascinating. See how the tissues begin to knit and clot.”

“Will it grow a new head?”

Medic snorted. “I would be very surprised.”

They watched. The thing twitched with vitality, seemed to be struggling for life, the gloves flexing mindlessly against the floorboards. And died. Medic frowned, rubbing his chin. “Ach,” he sighed, standing to clap Sniper on the arm. “I suppose it would not have been that easy, ja? Come with me, my friend. We will need equipment from the laboratory.”

I started a tumblr just for writing: http://toxofics.tumblr.com

I saw your update earlier this morning, before rushing out the door, and I’ve been itching all day to get back online so I could re-read your latest two instalments, having also missed the previous one because of work. I was not disappointed! I don’t understand why nobody else (as I’m typing this) has commented yet? I am tired and not as eloquent as I could be, but this deserves a response; please forgive any fatigue-induced foreign-language grammatical mishaps.

First things first, your second-to-last update: Wonderful! It quite chilled me. Sniper going half-mad was just perfectly written, and I very much sympathise with him; I can’t figure out if RED Spy is being an utter manipulative bastard or if there’s something else going on, and it thrills me no end! And those two last lines… I’m back to hating Spy now, I think. I don’t even know if he’s is just playing with Sniper, punishing him, or past half-mad himself. Love it!

And your newest update – plot! I’m really excited for this too, despite the lack of kinky porn. This small interlude really tickled my curiosity; I want to know what this is all about!

>>160
In other news, I have two new drawings in the General Art Thread in /fanart/. I'm thinking it might be time to start my own thread over there.
Your creativity shames me; wonderful writing and art?! I’m glad you’re part of this fandom, though, sharing your talents with the rest of us. Please, never stop!

>>157
All the English-as-a-second-language-speakers in this thread are so cool. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear from you, and it's really impressive to me that you go out of your way to read fanfic in a foreign language and look up the words. I should do that, damn it. How lazy am I?
Heh, it’s really not all that impressive, at least not in my case; English is almost first-language to me by now, after years of education and hundreds (thousands? I have lost count) of books. I think I read faster in English than in my first language, and certainly my English punctuation is better. Most of the time, the people I correspond with online can’t tell I’m not a native speaker. It’s really too bad that my spoken English is marred by an atrocious accent from lack of practise; I guess I should travel more.

>>161
I started a tumblr just for writing

Well, I did ask you for your tumblr earlier in this thread; I’ll go follow you there and finally de-anon myself to you. I hope that’s alright with you...

Changed the URL of the tumblr to reflect that my writing partner Quiz and I will both be posting there: http://fuckmarrysue.tumblr.com

>>162
Thanks again for reading and commenting, and I think people don't have a lot to say at this point that hasn't already been said. Plus, the most recent updates have been very much about plot and very little about boners, so I don't blame anyone for waiting for the good stuff.

Plot makes sexy times more fun. Just wanted to put that here.

I found I needed to read it some more, I am out of the loop, so to speak. So I will continue this on Tumblr. Makes things better

I have promptly followed your fic tumblr, good sir. And now I'm excited to read the revised version of this. Loving the plot as well. Ah, poor Blu Spy.

The creepy descriptions of the BLU Spy's decapitated corpse were delicious. Can't wait for more.

PART XXVIII

Sniper stood by with a stopwatch and clipboard while the Medic worked feverishly, calling out numbers, notes, and times of death as he tore through one spy after another, using the respawn countdown to gulp coffee and biscuits, or to check Sniper’s notes. For the gunman, it was by turns boring and nauseating. He would turn away, and back again only to find the doctor up to his armpit in the severed neck. At times there were sounds he preferred not to investigate at all, keeping his eyes locked firmly on his notes. The margins filled with doodles--interlocking crosshairs, a crude sketch of a crocodile.

The was a heavy, flopping splash as Medic, in exasperation, slit open the spy’s belly and pulled out the interiors, letting them fall where they may. Sniper looked steadily at his hands.

“Zwei--nein. No. Forget it. That one does not count.” Medic swore a hair-curling oath in his native tongue, stripped off his soiled gloves and hurled them down onto the steaming pile of offal. He stepped over the midden and made for the gunman, shaking his hands as if they were wet. Sniper jumped away when Medic patted his shoulder companionably, and the doctor laughed.

“Fear not, that is what the gloves are for.”

Sniper knocked his hat into his hands and rubbed his forehead roughly. “Doc, can we take a break--this is starting to get to me.”

“Of course, of course.” Medic led him to the far end of the respawn garage, where they both leaned against a wall, enjoying the relatively fresher air.

“Is medicine always like this?”

“No, no. That was not medicine. I wonder, though, if the proper inducements to keeping this man alive are necessary to motivate my success.”

“How d’you mean?”

Medic gestured at the far operation, already supporting a fresh body. “Well, he will be back in mere seconds, no matter my bunglings.”

“What about the boy?”

Medic cocked his head to one side. “Ja,” he said softly, “Of course. True. They have him, don’t they?” Sniper glanced at the physician, who was lost in his own thoughts. Presently they returned to work.

---

By late afternoon, Medic had developed a series of procedures that kept the body alive for four minutes and forty seconds, precisely. This was the limit of their progress, and after many more disappointing hours, he threw up his gory hands in surrender.

“No more! I cannot stand it. We cannot wheel the beast across a battleground in an iron lung, and I am at the end of my patience for this--this--this butchery! Better doctors, with better equipment, have tried, and failed, to do what everyone seems to expect me to--to--to conjure out of nothingness, with rags and scraps!” He dashed his tools to the ground, where they tinkled and danced. “I have only one brain, one set of hands! I cannot build an entire central nervous system out of”--he cast around for something to lavish his rage upon--”girly calendars! And expired ordnance!” Sniper stopped him before he could finish the kick he aimed at a pile of grenades.

“Doc. Doc, listen to me! Let’s get out of here; let’s do something else for a while. Jesus christ, we haven’t even eaten today--”

“Could you eat?!”

“No, but it’s been hours and hours! Let’s go, come on. Let’s just go.” He gripped the doctor’s arm as if he were steering an intransigent drunk out of a party. Medic seemed to lean into him, allowing himself to be brought into the hallway. Sniper shut the door behind them.

“Why are you helping me?”

The gunman slung his hands on his belt and took a breath. “I dunno, doc. Does it matter?”

Medic tilted his head back, leaning against the wall. His eyes were shut, and Sniper noticed a spatter of dark blood across one lens of the doctor’s glasses. “No, I suppose not. Scout, for all that he is dear to me, would not be able to stand still for something like this.”

“He wouldn’t. So you needed me, is all. That’s what mates are for.”

Medic smiled. “‘Mates’,” he pronounced.

“Well, sure.”

“That is very charming.”

Sniper looked at him askance, wondering if he was being made fun of. The doctor opened his eyes and regarded the other man seriously--blue, Sniper noticed, even behind the smeared lens.

“Schütze, I am not a sentimental man, and perhaps I am overtired, but--”

“No,” Sniper interrupted. “It’s okay. You don’t need to explain.”

Medic dropped his gaze and smiled. Sniper did the same.

Yep. This is good. Still enjoying mindless vivisection? I know I am!

... Words fail me. I ache to be half of the writer that you are, Toxo. This is the first post I have ever made here on TF2chan, and I just... I have nothing to say. Nothing and everything.

Found this a few days ago. I'm in love with it and I am dying to read the next part. You are an amazing writer Toxo.

170
Learn. To. Sage. Please.

171

Sorry about that.

PART XXIX

The room was dark and stale in the winter’s early twilight, and Sniper stumbled as he let himself into the room. He bent to grope for the interfering object--a gracefully discarded boot. The Spy shimmered into visibility, leaning against the far wall, and exhaled.

“I’m glad you aren’t taking any chances.” Sniper shut the door behind him, wading into the smoke and closeness of their nest.

“Given up for the day?”

“Yeah. Nothing more to be done.” He dropped to the bed in a boneless slouch.

“And the doctor?”

“Obsessed, of course. I left him there; he’d stopped speaking English hours ago.”

The Spy laughed, and it was light, musical. Sniper smiled at him, and noticed the near-beard prickling at the mask. His own scruff bothered him, catching the collar of his shirt, itchy when he let his jaw drop to his neck. He rubbed it, and the Spy mirrored him. “Disgusting, no? I think it flatters your rugged mien, but me? I am like a parachute dropped on a cropped cornfield.”

“Oh, it’s terrible,” Sniper leaned into the other man, “shameful. I wrote to the French consulate; they’re excommunicating you within the week.”

Spy grinned, accepting the weight of the gunman, leaning back on the mattress. “‘Excommunicated?’ Being French is not a religion.”

“Isn’t it?” Their mouths met in heat and roughness. Spy trailed over Sniper’s rough jaw, chewing the apex of his chin gently at first, then hard. Sniper yipped.

“Y’can’t do it with your teeth. Don’t they teach you to shave properly during Sunday school?”

“Abbé François was very firm on d'études de la chevelure. Once, I was even spanked.”

“Mhm. And how old were you?”

“A tender twelve. And so were my lashings.”

“Punished for improper shaving at twelve years old?”

“Mais oui. I was precocious. Very well developed.”

“Tell me more.” Sniper murmured into the heady fabric of the mask, working his fingers under the pinstriped jacket.

“Never. You are a lout and a pervert. I will call the gendarmes.”

“Do as I say, Tender Twelve, and I will go easy on your poor arse.”

“Help! No, Abbé, not the lash!”

They clasped each other in momentary joy, the static between them forgotten or wiped away completely, Sniper could not tell. He forbid himself from dwelling on it, forcing himself to grasp this moment of relief, to clutch at the hot, bony torso of his lover and lap at the pallid skin working itself free of the collar. Giddy laughter deepened, and stretched to moans.

Sniper moved languidly against the man under him, his tongue lazily touring the bony palate and soft red gums, fingers brushing the mask. When the Spy slipped a hand between them, he anticipated a more profane touch, and stiffened a little, biting his lip. but something harder shifted itself into the agent’s hand, and then a blade was against his cheek.

Geez, you are a mean one, toxo! Stop playing with our hearts

Awesome as always, cant wait for the next. Their dialogues are so well done and so sweet.

What is this? Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Wonderful update my friend.

I avoided this fic all this time because crossfaction sniper/spy is probably my least favorite pairing, but I heard it was one of the best fics on the chan ever, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

And hoo boy, am I glad I did.

I'm not very good with words, so I can't really express all the things I love about this fic (there are so many), but I will say that I'm very, very sorry that I didn't start reading this sooner.

Oh wow. Their banter is just wonderful.

And for the last sentence… hell, for all we know, Spy could just be like 'I'mma shave you now', but somehow, the whole mood suddenly shifted for me. From playful joy to aroused to… well, tense and still aroused, but definitly more cautionously so.
All in just a few words.

While it may not have been intended that way, I'm still impressed. Wonderful chapter, as usual!

PART XXX



“No. No no no no.”

Sniper was locked in place, his hands buried under Spy’s shirt, waiting. The blade patted him gently.

“No?”

“No. I’m not like the kid. I don’t want to play murder with you.”

“It is terrible, to be so misunderstood.” Spy’s voice was mincing and musical. Sniper had learned to fear that tone. He felt his palms becoming damp and sticky against the other man’s chest. “That was not what I was suggesting at all.”

“No?”

“No.”

The agent held his eyes for a long, strained moment. They sprung up at the same time, Sniper digging into the ribs for purchase, Spy yoking him with his free arm. They kicked and grunted, falling to the scrubby carpet, and Sniper waited for the knife to go in. He had nothing, his kukri and guns snowbound, and far, far away. He clenched, sure it was coming, preparing to bite down on his scream and bleed out with dignity. But he felt no steel, nothing but the dull bruising of the Spy’s limbs pressing him down, making him quiet. Like he was livestock. Run to ground in his own warren, staring into teeth and heat, waiting to be devoured. He was filled suddenly with an urgent need to look behind him, to make sure his mother wasn’t there in the corner, by some miracle, watching him give it all up, watching him be cut into long ribbons by a man who wore cologne, a man who owned a shoe tree, a man who, even now, was prickling him with a knife that a rangewoman like his mother would have laughed out of any pub, kitchen, or homestead. That wasn’t a knife.

So he didn’t turn, didn’t look behind him. He knew she wouldn’t be there, because he knew he was alone, in this strange little cell, with his own personal demon. And he didn’t want to see the look on her face.

“Shhhhh,” the agent said, breathing hard between clenched teeth, laughing raw and dry. It was almost a grin. “Don’t be stupid, cher—”

“Fuck you.”

“—If I had ever wanted you dead, I would have done you long ago. And if you really wanted to get out of this, you would already be screaming for the boy wonder. He could hear you, you know. Easily. I did.” Spy moistened his dry mouth, panting. He had bitten his tongue during their tussle, and his teeth were filmed with blood. His voice was thick with it.

Sniper searched the ceiling for a response. Spy watched him with bright, inquisitive eyes.

He felt as if a cloud had passed over the sun; a break in the overcast had opened, and then shut on him. His lover sensed him miss his cue, and rushed to fill the strange emptiness.

“Would he save you, do you think?” Spy relaxed his grip as he felt the gunman slacken under him. The knife tip slid between Sniper’s whiskers, wending its way across his jaw. “Would he do his job, do the right thing, and knock my brains out against the wall? Or would he want in?”

Sniper blinked slowly, concentrated on his breathing. It was a fantasy, a sex game, and these were just little lovetaps between the two of them. Yes. They had an understanding. Besides, he had bloodied the man’s teeth; he had played too rough. He was a lout, and now he was ruining their fun.

He smiled up at the musing spy. “Hey,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

The mask split into a dazzling, bloody smile.

—-

The leather was soft and warm on his teeth. Sniper opened his eyes and watched the glove gently slide away, running out the length between them, stopping at the buckle.

“You really think you can do this?”

He nodded, the animal scent of leather filling his mouth.

“My brave boy. Hold very, very still. If the strop goes limp, it will get damaged, and the edge will spoil, and then we will have to saw our beards away in chunks. Now—” He stopped, looking into Sniper’s face with bemused expression.

“Wha ish id?”

“Nothing, it is just...I want to make sure. Do you trust me?”

Sniper nodded instantly, hating the doubtful tilt of Spy’s mouth.

“We start with the canvas...”

The balisong twitched and shivered, and jumped at Sniper’s face, then back again, shiff, shiff, shiff. The strop pulled at his bite. “Canvas first, to make the blade hot, and more easily-shaped.” Spy lifted his eyes to Sniper’s, smirking at his joke. The knife never stopped moving, the rhythm soft and hypnotic. Spy hummed under his breath, keeping time.

“Yes. Good.” He tested the edge on his tongue. “Hot.” One glove nudged at Sniper’s lips, flipping the strop to its other side, wetting itself in his saliva. Now he could taste the canvas on his tongue—salt and dust. Spy smiled. “Almost done.”

The balisong lapped at the leather, and again there was the breathy song, even the knife singing something like slit, slit, slit. Sniper closed his eyes.

Presently it stopped. Spy delicately tested the edge on his thumb. “Ah.” Sniper felt the glove at his mouth again, and loosened his aching jaw. The strop slipped out. He opened his eyes to see Spy sliding his belt back through its loops.

“You’re like some sorta prancy prep school Batman.”

“Better, surely.”

“Better.” Sniper smiled and looked down. His hands were still braced on his thighs, kneeling on the hard carpet. He was stiff with the tension of his bite, and shook out his wrists as he rolled his neck.

“I have not done it this way in a long, long time.” Spy set the sharpened blade on the counter top, and let the water gush into the sink, biting off his gloves and tossing them onto the bed. Sniper crowded forward, making Spy laugh and toss his head as his naked hands were caught up and kissed.

“I believe you have some sort of fixation.”

“Fetish?”

“Yes. You are a pervert, certainly. Obsessed.”

Sniper examined the imprints of the gloves’ seams, rubbing them with his own calloused thumbs, then dipping his mouth to tongue the length of them, in and out of the webbing of fingers, circumnavigating the hot, salty palms. Spy let his head fall back against the wall.

“Mmh. Oui. Again, do that again with your tongue.”

“This why you wear those silly gloves all the time? Can’t keep it together when they’re being touched, I s’pose...”

“Oh, indeed. Any old brute could mangle them, and I would be in transports of joy.”

“Slut.”

“At least I don’t talk with my mouth full.”

Sniper plucked at the agent’s belt, thumbing it open, pulling the buckle undone.

“Y’know, I always wondered why you had toothprints on your belt.”

“Any theories?”

Sniper stopped sucking a finger long enough to reply.

“Oh sure, I took it to the guys, soon as I noticed.” He tongued the crux of the thumb, eliciting a hiss. “Demo always said you had a thing for amputees.”

“Go on.”

“Engineer reckoned you’d developed a taste for autoerotic asphyxiation, and Medic—” he stopped himself to bite first one palm, then the other. Spy writhed and bit his lip.

“Yes? Medic?”

“Medic said your doctor had developed a, what’s it called, neurotoxin. Some sort of paralytic you’d use to knock our guys loopy long enough to have your way with ‘em, gagged on your belt of course, before sending ‘em off to respawn. And no one ever remembered, because that was the nature of the thing.” Spy was looking at him blankly.

“Did you...really?”

Sniper smirked at him. “What iz zee mattah, you do not truzht moi?”

The grimace of horror that followed his little performance was absolutely worth the cold drenching from the sink that followed. Sniper snatched the giggling sneak to his cold, clingy chest in retaliation.

“Clammy monster! Of course I trust you, I just assumed you would have remembered all those times...down on your knees...in the north shed...” His jibe ran out uselessly against Sniper’s mouth, and they stayed like that until the water ran hot in the sink.

You guys are too smart for me. I was all "hehe, shaving is a good gimmick, they'll never see it coming" but nope. Felice got it right away. So I went with stropping.

Sorry for the long wait before the last two updates!

Toxo I'll wait forever to see yoru updates. Also curse you I have a horrable knife fetish and your not helping.

Haha, aww, I'm sorry toxo. Didn't mean to. Before I ever post any comment at all, I read it over like fiftythousand times to make sure I don't say anything stupid and it just occured to me… damn, I'd have liked to see some shaving. Adorable little domestic moments.
If I should do something like that again, just ignore me, alright? Even though that was interesting too. I have to admit that I never heard of stropping before, you really never stop learning.

Also, agreeing with >>180 in every aspect. Knives are wonderful, aren't they?

So much has happened to me since my last post, and tonight's. I am thrilled to announce that I have completed SNUFF. It's done. I will post the first of the last two chapters after this.

But first, a few announcements: Chapters XVII and XVIII have illustrations. They can be found in my thread in /fanart/, as well as here: http://fuckmarrysue.tumblr.com/post/26067845029/snuff-part-xvii and here: http://fuckmarrysue.tumblr.com/post/26137588104/snuff-part-xviii respectively.

That tumblr is the new home of the final version of SNUFF, with some minor edits that do not appear in this thread (because you can't edit your posts, etc). The link is: http://fuckmarrysue.tumblr.com/tagged/snuff

At some point I will make a page on that tumblr with a chapter listing and so on. I will probably continue to illustrate some or all of the finalized chapters that I post there, so if you want to keep an eye on them, you might want to follow fuckmarrysue.

Before we get down to business, I want to personally thank my TF2 cabal for their help, which (between all of them) included inspiration, pep talks, editing, submission to ceaseless interrogation about which versions of a chapter were better, and being my pocket while I played the actual game: AnnetheCatDetective, CosmicTuesdays, RN and W from the LCs, and everyone who ever posted in this thread to say anything, positive or negative. There is no friend like a reader.

PART XXXI

“It’s buggered, then.”

The German was slumped with exhaustion, nearly at a right angle to the locker doors he leaned on. Sniper’s comment followed a long and haggard silence. The doctor’s glove was steady on his coffee mug, an anchor. Sniper didn’t think the other man had been to bed at all. Surgical tubing, KritzKriegs and Mediguns, blunted scalpels and balled-up gloves littered the floor. Blood was tracked everywhere, and the physician’s spectacles were nearly opaque with grime. The idea of spending the night in that drafty shack, with only the endless procession of gentleman corpses to keep him company...Sniper squared himself against his horror and disgust, and started forward to pat the doctor’s shoulder--

The mug exploded against the wall like a gunshot. Those steady, bloody hands bunched in fists, tangling in the soiled labcoat. The doctor ranted, the language so thick with rage that Sniper couldn’t follow it, but the outburst was short, not even a sentence, just a blast of words, rattling off the walls like the cup’s shards. He recovered almost instantly, unclenching his hands in his pockets.

“I--can not---keep it alive.”

“Doc--”

Medic held up one stiff hand, his eyes shut. Sniper closed his mouth. He was touched by this crack in the German’s veneer, but embarrassed too--not just to see him so vulnerable, but that he’d not been here to share in the man’s failure. The doctor was his partner in this venture, however distasteful the venture was. But no, he’d been tangled in silk ties and leather strops and warm gloves all night--

“I can bring it back.”

“Say again?”

Medic looked pained, screwing up his mouth before launching into an explanation. “Heart rate, respiration, and so on--it does not matter if he is ‘dead’, you see--I could easily get him breathing again after five, even ten minutes after cardiac arrest. Especially in the cold. It is not as if brain death or damage is a concern, ha ha; we are merely concerned with transporting a fresh body.” His glove squeaked as he made a fist.

“But respawn keeps picking him up--”

“Genau! Precisely.”

They shared a glance.

“Perhaps we--”

“Maybe if--”

They stopped. Medic took a shaky breath, and continued. “It would be the simplest solution, of course. But I do not know anything about how the mechanism works--the uptake, or the output. And I would not dare touch it, even to shut it off temporarily.”

“Engineer?”

Medic made a gracious gesture. “Oh yes, I am sure he would listen carefully to our explanations about why we wished to compromise our own safety protocols in order to fulfill the hostage-swapping demands of the enemy.” Medic rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And I am sure he would waste no time securing us in the pantry, to await the burn notice.”

“If he even bothered.”

“Ja. Of course, I have physically examined him myself--he is quite capable of subduing either of us. And if he told the others, we would not have long before they threw us a little hands-on retirement party.”

“Would they, y’think?”

Medic shook his head at the floor, arms crossed. “I could not possibly say. No. Perhaps.”

Each man mentally ticked off his teammates--what loyalty existed was professional, not personal. Sniper remembered the loneliness, and was briefly, intensely grateful, thinking of his loving enemy, his friend, sleeping late in their tangled sheets even now.

“Gentlemen. There is a plan B.”

The spy was brazenly red and rumpled, peering in through the invisible barrier that kept him out of BLU’s spawn, even now. Medic started, and caught himself on the lockers. Sniper hoped he had better concealed his own shock.

“Und vas ist das, Herr Spion?” The doctor’s tone was venomous.

In reply, the agent tucked his cigarette into his mouth and opened his coat, retrieving the ugly mass of a sapper.

PART XXXII

“Is it done?”

“Ja.” The medics speak in tandem, hating each other for it.

Spy bends at the waist, dipping one glove to brush a rivulet of blood from the cold mouth. It soaks into the leather. A red corona stains the snow around the recapitant, and the spy goes to his knees in the slush, leaning in so close that his breath melts the flakes on the blue balaclava. The strange glow of the mediguns engulfs him, playing over both spies in a violet borealis.

“Why is he not breathing?” When he looks up at the doctors, his face is contorted with fear. Sniper cannot recognize him; he has never seen this man before. Spy snatches at the nearest medic, smearing blood on the white coat. “You have botched it somehow. You have killed him!” Both physicians retreat.

“No.”

“No. He is just cold, dummkopf. Hypothermia. Listen to his heartbeat.”

“Yes, listen.” The medics nod contemptuously. “Be patient.”

He presses his ear to the cold chest, and Sniper watches his anguish stretch thin, waiting. He must hear it, then--the Spy’s face melts into a muddle of expressions, none of which Sniper has seen before. It is with difficulty that he identifies the agent’s authentic relief, then his joy, and finally, finally--yes, there is no mistaking that--his love.

He bites the inside of his cheek, and tastes blood.

“Dieu merci...”

When the RED Spy is on his feet again, he is his old self. He fixes his beatific smile, looking waxy in the cold.

“Docteur.”

The RED Medic steps over the patient and joins his teammate, who murmurs something. The physician nods and turns, and Sniper sees the flash of a red laser on the doctor’s upraised glove as he makes a signal in the direction of the RED base. There is a pause, and the distant screech of a door. Sniper catches a pale leer in the interior, and then a tiny figure is thrust out. It staggers upright, like a fawn, and begins to run towards them. The door slams behind.

When Medic snatches the boy from the snow, they are sobbing. Medic pulls the ugly alpine sweater from his pocket and bundles the boy into it. It reaches his bare knees, and Medic lifts him off his feet and turns back towards Sniper. As the doctor draws near, Sniper hears him whispering in German, and sees the child nod once into his neck. Medic sets him on his feet, dwarfing the little hand in one huge glove.

“We are finished here, Herr Spion,” he calls out. “You do not need me here, nor the boy, nor my teammate. We are leaving.”

“Just a moment.”

The RED medic lifts his patient, his Spy lending an arm. They totter to the wooden fence and sit, the BLU spy beginning to shiver and blink, the bluish flesh of his head still jarring painfully with the bruised border of his neck. RED clutches him, chafing his arms to warm him up, speaking in low tones as color returns to his skin. His medic stands beside, keeping his medigun on his patient, his eyes on his opposite. There is hatred in the gaze between the doctors.

“What do you want, spook?” Sniper finally calls. He’s exhausted from this ordeal, and anxious to return to base, to get past the nuisance of repairing the respawn, of explaining to Engineer why it needs to be repaired at all. The spy looks up from ministering to his double, who parts his lips to accept one of two freshly-lit cigarettes. Sniper feels a vague nausea as the two share a vaporous kiss. The sight is eerie, and dully frightening.

“I want to give you a choice,” the agent calls out. “Something like the choice we all made, at the beginning. I will not insult your intelligence by asking if you understand what will happen to you if you refuse my offer; I think I have already insulted you enough to last us both a lifetime.” There is no trace of an apology, just a simple statement of fact. He pauses to slip his coat over the BLU spy’s shaking shoulders, and saunters towards the huddled group on the other side of the control point, stopping just short of harm’s way. “I was not lying to you, when I said you were valuable to me--in fact, I have lied to you very little. I did not have to. You were a good time. And a good friend. And a decent fuck. You got me everything I wanted--easy kills, a certain devotion, even a poem or two. New friends--the little scout; sweet little Scout and his eager mouth; I will miss him.” Spy smiles cordially at the doctor, who grimaces and put his hands over the child’s ears. “Your good physician and his fascinating method of psychoanalysis. I hope you will have me on your couch again soon, Docteur.” Spy’s little bow is sickening.

“Schwein.”

“...Your hearty Engineer, who was a study in brutish obstinacy until the very end, as good strong peasant stock tends to be. Marvellous man. Reliable. Do you know, I think he would have been able to repair your respawn, after all? One sapper has never presented him with much of a challenge, before. It would have worked--shut it down just long enough to get us here, then let ‘Truckie’ pull you out of the fire. I confess that I almost let him live,” Spy squints, pinching the air with one glove, “because, I think, a part of me will miss this.” He spreads his arms gracefully. “All of this. Our ‘War’.”

Long seconds drag by.

“This it, then?” Sniper replies, mouth drooping. “This your big monologue? Where y’tell everyone how you did it, how y’had a lend of us for a few months, then you stand there looking a smug bastard while everyone gets up and claps? You expect me to believe any of this? It’s horseshit.” He jerks his chin at the BLU Spy, soaking up the medigun on the point. “And all for that? So you could go fuck yourself?”

In a half dozen strides, the Spy is upon him, leathery talons bunched in his vest. Sniper blinks impassively at the agent, arms loose at his sides.

“You absolute idiot. Is that all you can see?” He tears the aviators off his captive’s face; hurls them away. Everything is blazing blue, painful in the snowglare. Spy shakes him viciously, and mad flecks of slaver chill on Sniper’s face. “I have done so much more than that--I have ended this fucking war. And what’s more--my side has won. I have fulfilled my mission to the most exacting degree, with only the tools provided.” Spy releases him, and Sniper stumbles backwards, Medic catching his shoulder.

“Oui, I used you to reunite my lover with his head--but I have also performed the most perfect act of espionage of the modern era, and it is, by the way, very much the modern era.”

“What?”

“How long do you think you’ve been here, you lanky halfwit? Eh? How long? Can you count it in days? Weeks? Years?”

“I don’t--”

“Shut up.” Something is thrust into his face. “Look. Use those perfect eyes for something useful.” Sniper takes the scrap. It is the torn corner of a magazine, and shows a date: June, 1992. The date is shocking; science-fictional. Sniper looks up; the spy is scanning him for a response. He flicks at the paper with one finger. “I found this myself, long ago. I do not know how long, because it is plain to me now that this farcical immortality of ours plays hell with our sense of time. Perhaps they gas us in our sleep, or keep us locked up in the machine for months or years at a time--we have no way of knowing!” He steps back, breathing hard, and lights a new cigarette. His hands shake.

“But it is over now. We have stopped it. And I am offering you a choice.” He squints from Sniper to Medic. “Both of you.”

Spy holds up one hand. “Before you say anything, know this: as I speak, I will signal my comrade--your match, actually--and he will start his stopwatch. BLU will have exactly twenty minutes to prepare in whatever way they see fit--” Spy ticks off on his fingers, “You may barricade yourselves inside, you may leave the mountain, you may even form up and charge at us, if you wish--but after your time is up, you are fair game. Any one of my teammates who wishes to settle old scores will do so; you will be his thing.” He lifts two fingers and then inclines them, as if in benediction. A bright red spot plays briefly over Sniper’s chest, signaling.

Medic speaks up, “And the others?”

“The offer does not extend to them. You do not know how hard I fought, just for you and the bushman. Never let it be said that we do not reward loyalty.”

The spy is tense as he sucks his cigarette. The other three do not move. Finally, he lifts one hand to Sniper’s face, and his fingers quiver as they settle themselves on the long jaw. Through the damp, filthy gloves, Sniper can feel that old burn begin to worm its way to his skin. He is sure the spy can feel his muscles creak and twang as he grits his teeth; he knows that calculations are being performed, likelihoods weighed; he knows that the agent will not be surprised at his answer, whatever it is. The Spy softens, and inclines his head, speaking low.

“Think of it, mon ami. There is no RED, no BLU anymore. No war. No ‘missions’, no empty orders. Your opposite; he is patient, intelligent--he is exactly like you, in every detail. He is a wonderful man.” The spy’s thumb travels his cheekbone, skating that old scar. There is a bit of the old tenderness, in the snow falling between them. “You could find happiness, there. As I have.”

Sniper smiles. “If he’s anything like me, he won’t be able to look himself in the face after this.”

Spy laughs softly. “Ah, well. What do you say?”

Sniper drops the magazine scrap. “I say you’re the Father of Lies.”

The spy’s gaze lingers on the gunman. He pockets his free hand quickly, as if it has been scalded. “It is better to be a slave in Heaven, mon petit canardeur.” His eyes glint, reflecting the snow.

Sniper stands very still, waiting it out. Spy’s expression collapses, becoming dully inscrutable, and the gunman watches him turn and step away. He is graceful, over the snow.

"Good luck, Herr Scharfschutze."

"Leaving?"

"Ja. They will not spare us, as you know." Medic glances down at the boy, who stares at the figures on the point. Medic gives the pale little fist a quick shake, affectionately, and the child looks up at him.

"We'll need you in there, doc."

Medic nods at his boots, mouth tightening. "Good luck," he says again, and picks up the tired child. Little wooly arms wrap tightly around his neck, dark eyes shining over his shoulder. Sniper watches them trudge towards the train tracks. The snow thickens, and blots them out.

"Fourteen minutes, perroquet!" The spies share an ugly laugh.

Sniper’s hands clench in his pockets, clawing at phantom weapons. This would be the perfect time for it, he knows--one last idiotic tantrum, spraying bullets, kicking up clotted snow. And then being put down like a sick animal, falling on his face in dirty slush, and dying there, his lover breezing away, arm in arm with a doppelganger. It is exactly the right thing to do--and is, of course, impossible. He takes a deep breath, and the icy wind makes his teeth ache.

Dawn seeps into the gully, so diffuse in the snowfall that his shadow is erased. He bends to retrieve his glasses, and walks back towards his buildings, alone.

FIN

As always, Toxo, your writing style is superb. I’ve been following ‘SNUFF’ since the first post and every instalment has been nothing short of mind-blowing, often breathtaking, sometimes chilling, even nauseating, but amazing for that, too.

Still, I must admit the ending was a let-down for me, considering how much you’ve built up to it. It’s the grand finale that never happened. The Big Reveal seems too abrupt, too out-of-the-blue, and I felt a lot of the plot lines were left dangling unfinished.

- If they’ve been the victims of an ‘endless respawn loop’ plot and the year is actually 1992 (or later), how could Scout receive post cards (and weed) from his mother and brothers? Did BLU fake it?

- If RED Spy’s plan was to reunite BLU Spy’s head with his body, why not just destroy his head and let him respawn, or return his head to the BLUs? If BLU Spy was RED Spy’s lover all along, and he does seem to be, the way he interacts with RED Spy, laughs with him at his own team’s misfortune, there would be no reason for the REDs to insist on getting his body; he could have respawned normally and just walked across the battlefield to them on his own.

- If BLU Spy is RED Spy’s lover, why does RED Spy snipe him so casually (and insult him to boot) in part 2? In fact, their relationship was never even hinted at before the last part. I had to read that paragraph twice, because it made no sense to me. It wasn’t a shock, a gut-punch like so many other revelations in this story, it was just ‘huh?’.

- In the flashback of their first meeting, we learnt that Sniper and Spy met a month ago. It seemed to me that there was already chemistry between them that first time. Yet, according to Engineer, BLU Spy has only been respawning headless for a week and a half by the time they get snowed in. Did RED Spy pursue a relationship with Sniper before losing his lover (in which case the whole plan to seduce Sniper and steal Medic’s clone-child to get him back seems, well, less of a plan)?

- If RED Spy has ‘lied very little’ to Sniper, why would he want the war to end, after all his talk about godhood and immortality? He has everything he could wish for, can live out every dark desire—and he decides to end it. For what? There’s no reward waiting for him after, nothing from the outside world he would want to return to—all his past lovers would be aged at least 25 years since he last saw them, any family members, parents, siblings, likely dead. The world has continued without any of them. Why would they, least of all RED Spy, want to leave? And his employer would not thank him for ending the war after all the effort of keeping it going for 25 years; surely, Spy is intelligent enough to reason that RED (and BLU) have their own reasons for continuing the charade. If the Companies are powerful enough to fool all of them into fighting an endless war, why would Spy think his team would just be released after wiping out the BLUs? Chances are, the BLUs would just be replaced by a new team and nothing would have changed. And RED Spy should know that cross-faction classcest will not be tolerated, after the WAR! between Demo and Soldier. What makes him think he’ll be allowed to keep his lover, or RED Sniper keep BLU Sniper?

- And finally, I was disappointed that Scout didn’t make an appearance in the final part. He has featured at least as much in the story as Medic, yet we’re cheated out of his reaction to Spy’s revelations. We never find out if he’s related to RED Spy, as Spy hinted at in part 19. In the end, he turns out to be nothing but a fucktoy—not only for the other characters, but for you as the author and us as the readers as well. It could be symbolic, I suppose, if this was hinted at being his purpose, having no purpose, in the story, but it isn’t. While I love Scout and the way you’ve written him, going by the Chekhov’s Gun principle, he shouldn’t have been in the story. He doesn’t contribute to the development of the plot at all; with Spy’s final revelation, everything we’ve learned about Spy through his interactions with Scout, everything Sniper has learned about himself, every part of Scout’s character that has been explored, is made pointless. There’s no deeper meaning to any of the characters. Spy was a bastard and a liar all along, Sniper was right to distrust him, and Scout’s involvement never really mattered, except as an object of literary (literally?) masturbation.

I think that’s what really bothers me about this ending: that this story has so. many. deep themes, and none of them are ultimately explored. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it was like, to kill one of your own?”; '“We are gods, bello mio. As long as that”—he threw one trembling finger in the direction of the respawn—“still churns, we are immortal. Olympians!—drinking, fighting, fucking, and eating each other alive.”’; Scout’s very complex psychology; Sniper and Spy’s equally complex relationship—it all just becomes... nothing, in light of the last part.

I understand that this has been a lengthy and time-consuming project for you, and that you probably just want to see it finished so you can turn your attention to other matters. This story will always remain one of the best I’ve ever read, in the TF2 fandom and outside. But, in all admiring, worshipful honesty, the ending didn’t live up to my expectations. I’m sorry.

One of the benefits of being a published author is that once your book is out, your readers have to ask these questions of themselves without expecting any answers. It forces them to use internal reasoning and critical thinking to get past issues that aren't arrayed for them on a buffet, sneeze guard included.

On the other hand, one of the benefits of fanfic is that readers sometimes get those answers. So, okay, I will be interrogated.

1. Yes. But it doesn't really matter. On the scale of "insane shit MannCo can do", forging letters from home (large swathes of which are redacted by company censors) isn't real high up there. Besides, why would you assume authenticity of a scrap of garbage RED Spy produces from seemingly nowhere?

2. a. Because they preferred to use the hostage swap as a reason to shut down BLU's spawn. That was the entire point of the exercise. They had a bargaining chip, and they used it. BLU had no idea the chip was rotten, and didn't need to--they had the carrot (RED Spy's seduction of Sniper, a confidence game) and the stick (we have two hostages; you have no idea one of them is a double agent). b. They had to use the body transport as the excuse to get RED to shut down respawn. You can't get into the other team's respawn--it's built into the game mechanics. There's a big red NO sign over all entrances. RED Spy needed someone to get that sapper in the door and onto the equipment, but he also needed a good reason for his patsy to do it in the first place. Why didn't they just let BLU Spy's head respawn, walk to RED base, get a sapper, and walk back? Because if the body is respawning separately, the head would have, too. There's no guarantee they'd ever get that spy back, or that the BLU Medic would be able to put it back together by himself, and so on. Far safer, for this precious person, this head, to be kept under RED custodianship, with a medic who clearly knows what the fuck he's doing when it comes to severed heads.

3. Good agents don't "hint at" their real relationships; that would be tipping his hand. But I shouldn't have to tell you that Spy loves himself. I doubt the two spies even met before BLU's head ended up in the fridge--how could they? Why would they bother? Sniper was a mark, the man on the team judged most useful as a contact and a target and a puppet. But of course, who does Spy love best, after all? Himself. Vanity and pride are his sins and his weaknesses. The tenets of Satanism are based largely on love of the self, and how many times did Sniper think of, and refer to, Spy as a devil? Spy can only love himself--can only conceive of loving himself. Everyone else is made uneasy by their mirror opposites on the other team, which is the natural response--the two Medics hating each other, even as they work to accomplish something so incredible. Sniper mentions that it is eerie to see the two spies together--a feeling hinted at again, earlier on, when the family resemblance between Scout and Spy is mentioned. The technical term for this is Westermarck Effect--people who are related to each other and/or grow up together develop a mutual sexual revulsion. It's the thing that keeps mammals from choosing close blood relatives as sexual partners except in bizarre circumstances. In opposition to Westermarck is something called GSA--Genetic Sexual Attraction. This is a documented phenomena you have probably heard of, where people who are related but did not know each other in childhood will sometimes fall violently in love due to their similarities.

4. First of all, when a liar tells you he hasn't lied to you much, I'm not sure believing him would be the best route. Secondly, RED still has their respawn. They are still gods. They have removed godhood from BLU. How powerful the company is, what they might do about something like this, is not clear--not even to RED Spy. Besides, what good is immortality when you're confined to a square mile of rickety outbuildings in the middle of the wilderness?

5. My view is that a character's existence is not rendered moot just because parts of his story are ambiguous. This wasn't Scout's story. It also wasn't Spy's. Or the other Spy's. Or Medic's.

6. I hate to have to say this nakedly, but Sniper found out exactly what it was like to kill one of his own. To kill seven of his own. To be incredibly blunt, he fucked up big time. He was manipulated, seduced, bullied, wheedled, drawn, pushed, and talked-into a series of decisions that ultimately ended in the destruction of not only his entire team, but his way of life as well. Fourteen minutes. Medic and his boy walking into a blizzard with a sweater and a medigun. Engineer dead, or so RED Spy asserts, and with him, any hope of repairing the respawn. It won't matter how hard they fight or how long they hold out. RED can wait forever.

7. The ultimate exploration of betrayal and consumption, of using other people, of being used, of being destroyed, of destroying, is death. Causing it, failing to stop it, and finally experiencing it. Our joy and our foil in the TF2 fandom is respawn--it gives us ultimate freedom to wrench open flesh and wallow in gore, because they'll be back in 15 seconds. The only way to raise the stakes is to threaten respawn itself. That's what this story is about.

All that said, your dissatisfaction is completely reasonable, and entirely understandable. I don't resent it in the least.

I am not a novelist and this is not genuine literature, and my efforts to address large themes will inevitably fall short, and for that I am incredibly regretful, and I offer my apologies. My greatest wish, with this and with other stories I post here, is that I am able to create a genuine response within the reader. I want them to have fun with the things I think are funny or clever, and I want them to get off on the porn, I want them to be repulsed by the horror. But the harder and stupider part of writing, is that I want them to have room within my stories to find their own way. This is what makes the TF2 fandom so wonderful, and what makes Valve storytelling so compelling--they don't tell us much at all.

The hardest instinct to muffle for new writers is the instinct to explain--exposition is just incredibly boring, and it's so difficult to write stories that allow the reader to read without becoming confused, but also without having to skim. My mistake with SNUFF was probably the lack of a "blind beta reader", someone to whom I never ever spoke of my plot background, ideas for plot solutions, character traits, and so on. I should have had someone reading this who knew absolutely nothing except when I put a chapter in front of them. But I just didn't plan for it.

SNUFF began as a one-off--Spy and Sniper were supposed to have a single tryst in the snow, with the threat of fratricide used as a seasoning to heighten the excitement. 36,000 words and eleven months later, my snowy little spite-fuck had become a full-blown orgy. At no point did I write an outline or make any of the other logical and recommended diagrams required for good storytelling--it was just a series of What Ifs that I did my best (and sometimes, not my best) to stitch together. Unfortunately, there isn't anything i can do about that other than offer a genuine apology for not providing you personally with a satisfactory conclusion. It is a cop-out to claim I never wanted to satisfy, that I wanted to torment, and that the lack of blatant and detailed wrap-ups was intentional because I felt it was more realistic and thus more affecting, because the entire point is to write a good story that makes you feel good about feeling bad in those ways. By way of explanation, I can tell you I love novelists who use my own ignorance as a tool. I crave mystery, and I love things like SCP which rely so much on a lack of information to create horror. I love it when I don't get spoon-fed a conclusion.

Case in point, Sniper has no idea what he's going to find back at BLU. Did the RED Spy murder everyone? If he got Engineer, how many others were there, standing in his way? What DID happen to Scout? Why did Spy mention him specifically, at the end? What if he was lying about Engineer, though? Will it matter?

I can tell you four things:

1. There's a fuck of a lot of backstory, enough for a retelling from the perspective of the RED Spy.

2. I was planning an epilogue.

3. I know what happens to Medic and his boy.

4. I don't know if I want to create an expanded universe, here, getting sucked into never-ending branching shorelines. But I might. Which is why I can't tell you anything else.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read, think, and type out a response. I really appreciate the time and thought.

It's been years since I wrote an essay for purposes of analysis or critique, and really, >>185 covered most of my issues with the story. That isn't to say I didn't like it; on the contrary, I enjoyed a lot of this story. The ending just seemed like a letdown, it came on so suddenly. (It was also pretty terrible for the BLUs, but that just comes down to taste. I was kind of hoping Sniper would get a little of his own back, but stories can't always have happy endings.)

Mind you, it's been months since the last update, and the plot might seem to come together better if I read through it all again in one sitting, like a novel. I realize that, like every long-running story here, this was posted episodically. I find that stories kind of take on a different flavour when you have days or weeks go by between chapters. I'm not sure if you intended this story to work more as a novel, than as a serial drama, or if it wasn't something you concerned yourself with. As it progressed, I kind of got the impression that it was originally planned as a one shot. I loved that first part where they fuck in the snow.

People always want more after something that good, though, and I don't think you were wrong to expand on it. I suppose I just get more picky when a story changes from beautifully written smut, to a drama with frequent sex. Honestly, there was so much more focus at first on the sex and emotional drama, than there was on the conspiracy with respawn and kidnapping, that when everything suddenly switched over to the decapitated spy, it was jarring to me. I was left wondering where the poetic, beautifully written encounters between lonely horny people went; I thought we'd get a few more hints about Scout's psychological issues and apparent drug addiction, and maybe see Sniper grow a little stronger, or at least work out one or two of his problems.

I guess in the end, I felt that Snuff might have worked better as related but separate stories, than as a single one. I'm hardly innocent of having too much crap going on in one story, mind you... and as I've said before, I enjoyed much of this one. Aspects of it just left me feeling unsatisfied.

I think one of the other problems with this story is that fanfic is supposed to, at its very base, satisfy. It's recreational reading. And I was approaching this like it was a book, not a fanfic, which lead to a disconnect in the goals of the reader and the narrative.

Also, the long pauses between updates really plays hell with our sense of momentum and expectations. Six months between stropping-and-fucking and Climactic Conlusion is too long to ask a reader to maintain the pacing of a story internally, even if it were better executed in the first place. In order for this climax to hit its pacing properly, I would have had to spend another few weeks posting smaller updates and building up to it. But read from the beginning in one go, it would have seemed even weirder to have redundant scenes padding out the end.

Probably the best way to tackle that issue is to never post anything until the whole thing is done. That way you can control the pacing manually. As it is, there will be a handful of people who read it in real time on the board, another handful who read it in a different pace on Tumblr, and then the "long tail" of people who read the entire thing in one sitting, on this board (with commentary from readers) or on Tumblr (without commentary). Of the four ways of reading it, I think I was planning more for the one-shot reader than the serial.

Here's a question for SNUFF readers: if I rewrote the end, would that be something you wanted, or would it be George Lucas-variety awful?

It's not like this is a formal book/author/reader setup. We can work on things.

Honestly, I'd rather you put your energy towards new stories than go back and redo anything. Recently, someone posted a long (and thoroughly valid) critique of my current ongoing story, where they complained it just had too many different things going on at once. I conceded that I'd stretched myself thin, but I also was/am nearing the end of the story, and if I had the energy to fix the issue by redoing the whole thing, I'd use that energy to write a new story instead.

Long fanfics aren't like a picture, where someone can say "you drew too many fingers on his hand" and you can go "d'oh, I'll go fix that now". Especially by the end of a fanfic, criticism is interesting, but not useful as applied to that particular story. Instead, it is useful in consideration of future works, where you can plan better, research more, or what have you.

So in my opinion at least, I'd rather see another story that expands on, say, unresolved aspects of this one, than have you change the end. That's my two cents.

Actually, if it really bothers you, I don't see why you couldn't just expand it / edit out small things as you see fit.

Can't say it made me horribly upset though, just slightly confused for about a minute.

Hi. I just spent the better part of two days reading (and rereading parts) of this on here after a recommendation I found on tumblr proclaimed it as a wonderful SniperSpy fic. This is one of the single greatest pieces of fanfiction (of any genre or fandom) I have ever read.

Your character interactions are so poetic, believable, and relatable to me, they are truly beautiful. Your description of Scout in particular is unlike any I have found before, the single closest I've ever found to my headcanon, and I think one of the highlights of this. This piece has moved me to the point of tears more than a few times.

I teared up for RED Spy's betrayal of Sniper in the ending of this (job well done), but I was confused about a number of points, the majority of which Anon 185 brought up rather effectively and you've already responded to.

The question that will nag me in the coming days is: Why does RED Spy think anyone would allow him to keep BLU Spy? The rest of BLU's been given a death sentence, what would make BLU Spy any different in the eyes of RED Spy's teammates? And wouldn't BLU Spy's possible death (without respawn) effectively render the entire use of Sniper pointless in the end?

The concept of BLU Sniper damning his entire team to death is an interesting and well thought-out one, but RED Spy's betrayal only to rescue what is probably an equally damned lover is something that will leave this ending (though by no means the rest of the story) somewhat of a disappointment to me.

I hope you do choose to write some manner of an epilogue, maybe even more chapters or a rewrite. I also look forward to anything else you might come up with (fic, art, or otherwise) and am following your tumblr. Please keep it up. Apologies for this being so long.

First of all, I'm sorry for the lack of constructive criticism in the upcoming comment.

Second of all, I LOVED the ending. I've been sort of slipping in and out of the TF2 fandom for the last year or so and I've liked this fic from the first chapter. Every time I came back and discovered new content, I re-read the whole thing. And every time I was stunned. This time was no exception.

Since the beginning, there was this vaguely dark atmosphere, these little moments where one just KNEW things wouldn't end well for Sniper. But holy shit, I didn't see this coming. I honestly thought Sniper and Spy's fucked up affair would spiral out of control, that they would end up willingly going to hell together in some terrible way, possibly taking Scout and/or Medic with them. I won't lie, that was a scenario I was looking forward to, so the actual ending hit me like a ton of bricks. But the more it sinks in, the more I love it.

When I read >>185 I thought they had some brilliant questions and felt really dumb for not noticing all these discrepancies. I also couldn't help but think that maybe the ending isn't really that good and maybe I just wanted to like it because I adore the rest of the fic. Then I read your explanations and I had to change my mind again. I hope it doesn't sound like I dislike >>185's comment, in fact I love it. Without the discussion it sparked, I wouldn't spend nearly as much time thinking about different aspects of the ending.

And really, it's almost like we are Sniper and you are Spy. You led us along, cruelly manipulated us with your devilish charm, made us think things were going in certain direction and in the end, you left us feeling betrayed and confused. But that's more than okay - it's genius. To show us how Sniper feels AND to make us feel that way as well, by, for example, the somewhat abrupt cut or by mostly only implying what actually happened in the meantime. I'm not sure if that was your exact intention but, well, that's how it worked on me and it was a very powerful reading experience. Thank you so much for writing this.

[Sorry if my English sucks]

This was a brillant ride, but the ending was pretty confusing to me. Spy's out-of-character simplicity in thinking that BLU and RED actually mattered/ not discovering the truth about the two organizations despite his plans throughout the entire story, is just one of the odd aspects of the end.

I didn't read any of the comments since anything explained after the story is over is irrelevant in my mind, but that's just my two cents.

>>192 In my opinion, RED Spy's masterminding of the RED "victory" means he got to (mostly) call the shots in terms of being able to offer BLU Medic + Sniper amnesty. The BLU Spy is already a traitor to his team, so there's no reason for RED to want him dead. In war, if someone defects to your side, generally you don't murder them just because it's time to mop up the rest of their (former, disavowed) comrades.

Thanks for all the followup comments, guys. I appreciate your thoughts and reactions a great deal. I have some plans for SNUFF so I will keep you all updated when there's new content.

I've followed this fic as one of the fics to read on the chan, and I still stand by that. That being said, a lot of the previous discussion made a lot of sense, too; namely, the fact that story could have worked better as a series of loosely related vignettes rather than chapters of a story. But I don't think further clarification or an epilogue would really enhance this story, in the same way many books or movies should have stopped at a certain point and not gone on any further, if you pardon my reference to pop culture. Yes, there are questions unanswered, motives that could have been explored or at least hinted at earlier, but I think the effect you created fit the mood of the piece just right. It may not make perfect sense, but the world the characters live in doesn't, and so I'm content with that. But that's just my opinion.