Chapter Text
The refrigerator is dark, save the bright cherry of my cigarette—not really my cigarette, even, and not a very good one, but better than nothing. And after all, it is the only small pleasure I am allowed, in this nightmare world my life has become.
At least the RED Medic gives me that… it is the only thing which stops me from the awful smell of the mayonnaise, almost overpowering my first night in the refrigerator. I had never wanted to retch so badly, and been completely disconnected from my own digestive tract.
Then the door opens, and when my eyes adjust, I see not the Medic—with his empty promises of ‘later’—but the RED Sniper.
“Holy dooley!”
Ah. So he sees me as well. The Medecin has not prepared him for the contents of the refrigerator, clearly. But, he has never balked at ending my life before, he could be my salvation.
“… Kill me?” I ask—weak, I am hoarse from disuse, and from trying to smoke endless cigarettes where the smoke has no place to go but my throat.
Instead, he slams the door shut in my face. Well, perhaps I cannot blame him.
The door opens again, almost immediately, and that at least gives me some hope.
“Please, kill me,” I repeat.
“I can’t—I don’t—What are you? I—“ The Sniper sputters.
“Please?” I have no bargaining chip, beyond a prayer for basic human decency, or if that fails, a mindless want for vengeance, but I have not been there to kill him for so long that there is little hope of that.
“I can’t.” He insists. “I’m just here for a beer, if I mess with his stuff, the Doc’ll have my—erm, that is…”
“Please.” It’s all I have. I am not accustomed to being left with nothing but the truth and optimism for the actions of my fellow man, but all my usual weapons are gone. “I don’t want to live like this.”
For a moment, when his hand closes around the beer, I fear he will ignore me, perhaps try to drink me away, but then his hand flicks past my neck to unplug me from the battery I am hooked into.
“That might kill you.” He glances away, and the edges of my vision blur. “If it does, you did it yourself. If it doesn’t, and he asks, you did it yourself.”
“Thank you.” His meaning is clear, and I would honour it even if he had not made plain the wish. His medic was never to know of his complicity in my death. And I would die, I could feel it coming. Already I was beginning to feel the lack of lungs, already my blood was slowing…
Whether he watched me die or not, I cannot know. I wake in the same room as always, my body and my personal effects the same as always. I cannot help it—I laugh.
The next day, I stab the horrible RED medic in the back as many times as I can catch him, even disguising myself as the lumbering fat one to call for help, when I see him on his own, to make the betrayal sting the most. He grows wary of some of my disguises, but there is never a time he won’t run to help the Heavy, no matter how wary he might be. The off chance spurs him each time.
I know—I had seen enough, in the brief moments when my refrigerator had been open—to surmise. It has been a long time since I have needed to speak German, and back then, I never needed to know any tender words, but I have overheard enough as well. It is not difficult to take advantage.
When the good doctor is nowhere to be seen, I return to doing my job, sapping their Engineer’s little toys, taking out other targets as they present themselves to me, furthering our objectives, but…
I found the Sniper’s little temporary nest. It should have been the same as any other time, his focus on the battle below as he waited for a new victim, his back spread out like a gift to me. Instead, I could barely keep from dropping my knife, I ran in the other direction to get away from him, from the memory of him, from thoughts of him…
He was there, if not when I died, at least when I lost consciousness, he was there. He gave me my release, even though it might be seen as treason. And… and he is handsome. Of course he is handsome, he has always been. No film star, no, but… but my type, rugged and lean, his features pleasing enough. Close combat with him is electric, and yes, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but…
But now that he has given me my death—with it my life again— it is not combat I want from him. I want to feel him in my arms, yes, but not struggling to survive, not anymore. I want him to know what it meant to me, to be set free from that hell, and I want… I want to repay the kindness somehow.
I want to know him. I have never wanted to know anyone, not since I was a child. I feel as stupid as a child now, when I think of him, of his hand coming so near my face so that he could unhook the battery, I feel a perfect fool and yet I don’t want to give that stupid feeling up. Beau, beau, beau, et con a la fois… What else is there to say?
I try to put some small part of this on paper—the gratitude, at least, if nothing else. It takes me three drafts, and I burn the rejects in my waste paper basket, lest my communiqué fall into the wrong hands.
I place the final draft of the letter into an old basket, along with a book from the base’s ‘library’—calling it that is a joke, of course, but out here it is all we have, aside from any personal collections. This set of bases is a remote one, and there is no television, barely any radio. I have no reason to believe the other side has it better, it seems to me that a book he hasn’t yet read is as good a thank you gift as any, when it comes to combating the terrible boredom.
I include as well the last of the Red Shed—at least, the last as far as I know. Again, with the mounting boredom of the more remote locations, I hope that anything will be better than nothing. And… and if nothing else, it reminds me of the reason we met there to begin with.
Silly. Stupid. Sentimental. But true—he came looking for a beer, only for a beer, and found me, and freed me… So, now, I will grant him a beer without the additional unpleasant surprise of finding a human head.
It is risky making it onto RED’s base after hours, and there is a part of me deathly afraid of winding up inside that refrigerator again, but the Sniper lives in a van, I do not need to enter the building at all, merely sneak past, around back, to where he is parked.
I leave the basket, and make my exit before I can change my mind, before I can scatter the ashes of my foolish letter to the winds, stuff the book into my pocket hurl the beer at the fence, stomp the basket to pieces in a fury at how stupid I am, how stupid and foolish and…
I did not want to fall in love with the enemy Sniper. Perhaps there is yet time to convince myself that this is not what has happened. At least he has my thanks… I will just have to guard myself more carefully from now on, in thoughts of him, in dealings with him on the battlefield. I will just have to police myself, screw courage to the sticking point and do my job, forget about the way he appeared in the blinding light and took pity on me, the strange euphoria as death began to take me and the fact that he was the last image to burn itself on my brain. Forget all this, and I will be fine.
Oh, merde.