Author’s note: Warning for character death. (Not very Christmassy, but I felt like trying something a little more profound than my usual stuff. I’m not sure I managed, though. Sorry!) ----- Scout knew on the second day that the Spy didn’t. There were worse ways to die than a knife to the heart and Scout knew all of them, had tried almost all of them—getting in the way of the train at Well or caught by the big blades at Sawmill or pushed off the bridge at Double Cross or crushed by a van on Washington Street—but dying to that mocking laugh, dying slowly enough for the Spy to savour his kill, was maybe the second-worst way, because of how the Spy’s laugh stopped when their eyes met. Scout could tell the Spy didn’t know. He wondered, in the eternal moment before respawn, what the Spy saw in his eyes that made him stop laughing. On the fourth day, when the letter from the archdiocese came in the mail, he put it under his pillow so he could slip his hand under to touch it when he woke up in the morning, so he’d know it hadn’t been a bad dream. It took five days for Scout to realise he’d have to be the one to tell the Spy, and when he did, the Spy was waiting for him. In his dark red suit, against the dirty red wall, the RED Spy was almost invisible in the evening shadows without the glowing cherry of his cigarette to give him away, materialising through the Dustbowl downpour like a stain of blood on asphalt. He stood just inside the entrance of the main Cornwell building where the jutting overhang kept the worst of the rain and the red glow of a ‘resupply’ sign off him, unmoving and unmoved, but Scout could tell the Spy was watching his progress across the empty combat zone. The chilling rain was soaking Scout’s shirt, but he didn’t feel it. He felt like there was nothing left to feel at all. He was close enough to hear the soft sound the Spy made when their eyes met again. Not an off-cut laugh this time. A sigh? A sob? The sound of the rain masked it, and when the Spy spoke, his voice was as steady as Scout had ever heard it on the battlefield, a smoker’s-husky baritone, the accent velour over steel. “Come,†the Spy said, turning away. Scout followed him inside, out of the rain but still cold, never not cold anymore. He had never walked into RED Base. Run, feet pounding poured concrete, blood-churned mud, wormy, creaky floorboards, but never walked. It was quiet. That was maybe the freakiest part, how quiet it was, how not-loud, not-yelling, not-exploding, quiet enough to hear the damned rain outside. RED Base smelled differently when there wasn’t a war being fought in it, of smoky old wood, of dusty-sweet mouldy hay, of ancient socks and locker-room sweat and canned food cooking, food-stamp soup and goldfish crackers for dumping into it. Scout jumped when something touched his shoulder. It was the Spy’s hand, cool and gloved, and it was all that kept him from turning back at the memory of Campbell’s stews, of jostling at the dinner table, all eight of them and her. The Spy led him down a dark hall, past the ominously rumbling machines in the sacristy of RED respawn that made his teeth buzz, through a door with an electronic lock, 2-2-2-2, to another door, another lock. Scout could hear faint voices further in, someone laughing five rooms over. The Spy ignored them. He slipped something from inside his jacket, a key, Scout thought, but the lock on this door, marked ‘management’, didn’t fit a key. The Spy chose two wire-thin picklocks from the collection in the small pocket-sized etui instead and undid the door with casual ease, then stood aside to let Scout through first. Courtesy or caution, Scout didn’t know. He told himself it didn’t matter. The room had once been a small office, no bigger than the one Scout had claimed for himself on BLU’s side of the compound. A couple of red suits dangled on coathangers from a peg behind the door, matching trousers folded up neatly under them. There was a scuffed old desk and a chair and a pinboard, faded squares of paint on the wall where filing cabinets had been removed, a bed that was just a collapsible iron frame fitting a thin mattress. A single small photo was pinned to the board, two people hand in hand on a warm summer’s day. In the dwindling grey light from the room’s tiny window, it seemed impossibly bright. Scout winced and looked away. The Spy closed the door behind them. He didn’t turn around. “Tell me,†he said. For a moment, Scout didn’t think he could. Then he couldn’t believe he did. His own voice sounded alien to him, speaking nonsense. He told the Spy, hating the words that left his mouth, hating himself and hoping the Spy would slap him, would punch him hard enough to shut him up and call him a liar, wouldn’t stop hitting him until he was broken and bleeding, looking like he’d run through traffic and met 2.7 tons of navy-blue Chevy on bald BF Goodriches coming the other way. The Spy didn’t hit him. He just reached into his jacket for his cigarette case and shook one out, calm as ever. Scout could hear the soft click of the slim silver Zippo when he lit it. The lighter’s flame didn’t flicker. The Spy still didn’t turn around. “It was rainin’,†Scout said, watching the Spy’s back, wondering if the Spy hadn’t heard him. Scout’d had to ask the BMC nurse to repeat herself twice. Even then, it made no sense what she said until she’d handed the phone over to his brothers and he’d heard the truth in their voices. “The road was wet. There was an accident. It wasn’t no one’s fault.†The Spy took a drag of his cigarette, exhaling slowly. A stream of smoke licked the door and plumed towards the ceiling. The Spy watched it dissipate indifferently. “I see,†he said at last. “Thank you.†“’Thank you’?†Scout wasn’t sure he’d heard that right, couldn’t believe the Spy’s nonchalance. The Spy made a noncommittal gesture with the hand cradling the cigarette. “I called on the weekend, “ he said, as if that explained everything. “A stranger answered her phone.†“One ‘a my brothers. They’re stayin’ at her place until we get everythin’ sorted.†Scout frowned at the Spy’s back. He hadn’t expected anything like this. Disbelief, maybe, or anger, or sadness. But the Spy just stood there and smoked his cigarette and said nothing, as if there was nothing to say after what Scout had told him, just ‘thank you’ like Scout had done him some small favour not really worth mentioning. Like he didn’t care, except the only things in this room, the Spy’s room, belonging to him were two suits behind the door and a photo pinned to the wall. Spies meant masks, Scout knew, and maybe the masks in the Spy’s arsenal weren’t all the papery kind. “I thought they’d all laugh at me, y’know?†he tried. “My team, I mean. Like I’m some kinda homesick kid, not a real merc, ‘cause it ain’t like people don’t kick it every day out here. But Sniper, our Sniper, BLU’s, he was waiting for me to finish on the phone, he calls his folks every week and he’s always gettin’ into arguments with his dad and all but he’s still callin’ them, and he just looked at me, right, and I dunno how but he just knew. And I guess I didn’t expect him to care or even say somethin’, he’s not really the talkin’ type, but he was right outta that chair and puttin’ his arm round me. And the others, they didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout it either.†None of his teammates had. They’d all looked at him and said nothing, and the Spy wasn’t saying anything either, wasn’t even looking at him. Scout reached out to pat the Spy’s back like Sniper had awkwardly patted his, then changed his mind. “What I mean to say is,†he mumbled instead, “it’s okay to cry.†The Spy met this revelation with silence too. Scout sighed. “Fucks ya right up, dunnit? Spend enough time out here, ya start thinkin’ everybody’s immortal. Then it turns out they ain’t.†Maybe nobody was, not even the way she’d told him. Every Sunday she’d gone, on her own since he was old enough to make up excuses not to, with a small candle, slender and white and cheaper than the ones they sold after Mass, carefully wrapped in her purse. She’d died there, on the steps of the cathedral, her death hurling out of the rain on screaming tires. Maybe she’d screamed too. The letter, neatly typeset like the letters from BLU, offered the archbishop’s condolences in stilted clichés, and only because it’d happened right on his doorstep. The line copied out of Matthew gave Scout no comfort. If it was true, if there was somebody up there blessing the mourning, why hadn’t He saved her? If Medic’d been there, or Engineer with his machines, or even himself, radium-quick on soda pops, she’d be fine, but they hadn’t. He hadn’t. Not in the rain, not in the hospital after, where the doctors that weren’t Medic couldn’t do what Medic did and the machines that weren’t Engineer’s couldn’t bring her back. He looked at the photo on the board. The corners were creased and dotted with pinholes. Two people holding hands, walking away. “I didn’t get to say goodbye,†he whispered. “There are many things I did not get to say,†the Spy replied softly, though Scout hadn’t really meant for him to hear it. “I think ‘goodbye’ is really the least of them.†â€I never told her. That I knew about the two of you bein’ together, I mean. Didn’t wanna end up like Sniper and his dad.†The Spy turned and looked at him then, his expression undecipherable. “She talked about you, often,†he said. “Of course, for some time I did not know it was you she talked about. You were... an unexpected complication.†“Ain’t the first time.†Scout gave half a laugh, bitterness underlying it. “My dad left, y’know. Before I was born.†“Your father was an idiot.†“Yeah, I ain’t gonna argue ‘bout it, he was.†Scout shrugged, a wordless whatcha-gonna-do? becoming something else, arms wrapped around himself. “Still missed him, when I was little. Used to make up all these stories ‘bout him, pretendin’ he wasn’t just some deadbeat jerk who knocked up my ma and took off when she told ‘im. Kinda stupid, I guess. I had this box I borrowed outta ma’s purse that you could open and there was a tiny mirror inside, and I spent hours starin’ into it, tryin’ to see the part a’ me that was him. Made me feel like he was still there, y’know, like he never really left. I thought maybe if I did it right, he’d come back.†He looked at the photo of her, hand in hand with the Spy, walking away, and something clenched painfully in his chest. “She always said I looked like him.†A gloved hand brushed his chin. He didn’t resist its grip, nonplussed, letting himself be guided. It turned his head gently into the dying light, and in the dirty, rain-flecked windowpanes he saw a hint of his reflection, a silhouette of his face, her face, staring into her eyes, his own. “You look like her,†the Spy murmured behind him. Scout knocked the Spy’s hand away hard enough to unbalance them both. “She’s gone!†It was half a whisper, half a scream, and hearing himself say it, it was suddenly true. He could never take it back. The reality of it stabbed his heart more cruelly than any Milano stiletto. “She’s fuckin’ gone and she ain’t comin’ back either! My ma’s dead!†The window smashed under his fist, shards and blood on his gauze-wrapped hands, on the desk and floor, and then the Spy’s arms were around him. He struggled, hitting the Spy again and again, each punch depleting his strength until all he could do was fist his fingers around handfuls of rumbled silk and muffle himself against the Spy’s shoulder. The smell of the Spy under the smell of the rain and the coppery tang of blood was achingly familiar. Scout buried his face against the angle of the Spy’s neck, breathed in the ghost of her with each heaving sob. Probably the Spy had made a note of her favourite perfume and chosen a cologne he knew she would like, but all Scout could think was of her standing like this, with the Spy’s arms around her like they were around him, the scent of her rubbing off on him and clinging to silk and cotton and skin. He held on to the Spy like he was dying, drowning, choking on grief, and the Spy whispered a helpless, “shh, shh, petitâ€, stroking Scout’s hair like he was consoling a child, pressing tiny kisses to Scout’s ear, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, each gentle peck awkward because they were both the same height. She had done this for him when he was younger, before he learned to pretend it didn’t hurt when it did, kissed his tears away and wiped his face, and maybe Spy had done the same for her, the way he held Scout, not like a child but like someone loved. It was the easiest thing for Scout to turn his head the half-inch it took for their lips to meet, the Spy’s mouth tasting of salt from his tears, warm and soft and parting with a painful, desperate slowness. Scout could feel the Spy’s heart where they were pressed against each other, could feel the Spy’s chest rise and fall as they breathed together, no longer sobbing but still crying. It was only one kiss and a chaste one at that, the Spy whispering against his mouth, “cherie, je t’aime, je t’aime, laisse-moi t'aimerâ€, choked sotto voce ‘I love you’s, for what felt like forever until they drew apart and everything was different. For a while neither spoke. Scout rested his forehead against the Spy’s shoulder, arms looped loosely around him, feeling the cool smoothness of the silk woven into the suit, the slide of the fabric when the Spy moved, the way his own soaked t-shirt stuck wetly to his skin and made the hairs on his arm prickle. He felt the cold, the tears drying in his eyelashes, the Spy’s hands, one at the small of his back, the other at the base of his neck, thumbs rubbing soothing circles. He felt a bone-deep exhaustion. He felt. The crushing numbness of the shock was gone. The grief was still there, burning behind his eyes and threatening to spill more tears, but it was a sorrow shared. Remembering the Spy’s choked voice, knowing his ma had known that love, it was bearable. The Spy exhaled slowly. “I am sorry,†he said, sounding as weary as Scout felt. “It’s okay.†Scout pulled back from their embrace so he could see the Spy’s face, so the Spy could see the sincerity in his. “I ain’t mad or nothin’. I know it wasn’t... wasn’t really me.†“That is what I am sorry for. You are not—I don’t—“ The Spy floundered, apology and explanation tangled in an ineloquent mess until Scout took pity on him. “Look, there was somethin’ you needed to say. I get it.†He offered the Spy a small half-smile, surprised at how easy it came. “Maybe there was somethin’ I needed to hear.†The Spy fell silent, and it was fine. It was a different kind of silence, like the calm after a storm, when everything had been said that needed to. Even the rain had stopped tapping at the window, leaving the air wafting through the broken glass smelling fresh and new. There was only one more thing the Spy needed to be told. “The funeral’s on Saturday,†Scout said. “You gonna be there?†The Spy frowned, hesitant. “I don’t know if—“ “I wouldn’t mind if you were.†Scout look at the photo again, bright in the dark. Two people, hand in hand. “I never liked you. Still don’t. You’re a RED and a back-stabbin’ fuckin’ bastard and I never got what she saw in you. But, just so you know, I think you made her happy. After she met you, she was always smilin’. You could even hear it on the phone, y’know, you could just tell she was. She never said why, but I think it was ‘cause she was thinkin’ of you.†“Thank you,†the Spy said, and this time Scout could believe it. He’d never seen the Spy smile before, genuinely smile, and it was the same kind of smile he’d seen light up her face when she wouldn’t say why. It was a tiny smile, and brief, but he found himself returning it. He knew, the Spy knew, and he knew they’d both be okay. ----- Prompt: BLU Scout and RED Spy: Scout's ma dies, trying to cope.