Today's Sniper update = :D :D :D

Now, hold on," you keep saying. "Aren't bows and arrows primitive and harmless?" Why don't you ask the dinosaurs? Except you can't, because the cavemen bow and arrowed them to death.

When Valve said they were going to give Snipers new unlockables, I was all >:C. Snipers are the worst class in the game- there's nothing more annoying than being instakilled from half-way across the map by someone you can't see, they travel in bloody packs, and they're the chosen class for srs bsns FPS types. But! They are actually fixing that! By making them fun and less douchebaggy!

I've played Sniper for like a minute before giving up at the unfun of it all, but as if I'd pass on a chance to pin Spies to walls. :D

Also the new bow is called The Huntsman, and I will not hear anyone saying that that is not awesome.

also also also sniper is like a zillion times hotter now how does that even workkkk



06. Mpreg:

It's all quiet on the RED front, and Engineer doesn't notice that anything's out of the ordinary at first. Spy's like the tomcats back home, in and out all day, pattering around where you least expect them, getting into things they shouldn't and disappearing for days on end. It's only when he hears Spy's trademark arrogant knock on his workshop door that he realises he hasn't seen the guy for-- a week, maybe? More?

He opens the door a crack, unsure of what he'll find. Spy, like the tomcats, has a habit of seeking him out only when something's hit the fan. There'd been the time that Spy had limped in with a leg tangled in razor-wire, demanding wire-cutters even as he bled all over the floor; another time, the man had spent too many days hiding in the sewers and had shown up with a fever, pneumonia, and a tendency to throw up on Engineer's boots. There's a big brown bottle smuggled away in the bottom of Engineer's toolbox, filled with the sort of stuff that would make even Demo's eyes water. It tends to get a lot lighter on the days when Spy comes knocking.

"I require your assistance," Spy says, blowing smoke into Engineer's face through the crack in the door. "You 'ave some skills with blueprints and designs, yes?"

"Son, if this is about the sappers, I already told you-"

Engineer pauses and stares. The baby in Spy's arms stares back, big blue eyes nearly hidden under an oversized balaclava.

"Do you think it is possible," Spy continues, unruffled, thrusting the baby in Engineer's general direction, "to fashion some sort of small suit?"

Engineer shuts the door, turns, and makes a beeline towards his toolbox.




08. Apocaylpse Fic:

Pyro is fine, of course, but the rest of them aren't lucky enough to have two-inch filters between them and the outside world. Pyro gives his spare one to Scout- everyone else has the sense to try not to breathe deeply outside, but even the strange black ash hanging in the air won't stop Scout from running his mouth- and everyone eventually relaxes a little (as much as they can ever relax now) after Scout eventually gets sick of not being understood and shuts up.

Medic hands his paper masks around as if they'll do any good, and everyone humours him until Heavy goes down on the outskirts of town. They ditch the masks on the burnt black ground with the vitamin tablets and antibiotic shots and the rest of the stupidly hopeful cures, and continue along the railroad tracks towards whatever used to be civilisation. The ash gets everywhere anyway, setting their skin to itching and their eyes to watering no matter what they do. Medic stays behind with Heavy when they move on, too furious to continue; in the dead air they can hear him for a long, long time, swearing in a language that none of them understand.

The town they reach is as empty as the desert, charred and warped. Engie tries to joke that it looks like the oven did the last time he ruined dinner, and gets a few weak laughs from those of them that haven't noticed the twisted black shapes slumped in doorways. Soldier blames the Japs and the Jews and the Nazis, but he's blamed them for everything from missing socks to weak coffee to the lack of hot water in the shower, so everyone continues to ignore him. He lines his helmet with a roll of tinfoil he manages to find in the mess that used to be the general store, but his skin blisters like the rest of theirs anyway.

Sniper stays optimistic the longest, in his own awkward way. He tells them stories of how harsh the outback is, stories of wide deadly spaces with names like Nullaboor and Kalgoorlie and Alice, about salt pans that sting your eyes and scree that cuts to the bone, about hearing the screams of devils and bunyips at night. Eventually, though, he stops. When Demo bothers him about it he just shrugs. A land that actively hates you is different from one that's dead.

They use whatever energy they have after the day's efforts to worry about RED Spy, the only RED to make it out with them. He's an outsider after all, a backstabber, one of them. The two Spies start out circling each other like strange cats, but the bitching over cigarettes stops after a while and the two of them start lagging back together in silence, leather shoes tapping on the cracked-up pavement. It takes a day or two before the rest of the group realises one day that the Spies have split and made off for somewhere else, partners in their shared indifference. Engineer complains for a time about having lost two more pairs of hands but everyone else shrugs and only feels a little guilty about their relief. Fewer knives at their backs, more water to go around. Soldier bellows threats in the general direction of the horizon until Demo tells everyone that that's just his way of wishing them well, and Soldier shuts up and goes back to grumbling under his helmet.

They keep following the bones of the railroad tracks, under the dead grey sky.