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fic:An Offer You Can't Refuse
Title: An Offer You Can't Refuse
Series: Team Fortress 2
Character/pairing: Spy, Administrator
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,068
Author's note: Comes after I'm Wild Again, Beguiled Again. Precedes Playing House. Last Call, Trace Did You Have to Let It Linger? and Haunted and The Ghost Family, In A Flash.
For Sarah.
cw: canon typical blood and gore
1947.
A dry wind blew across the arid lands. If hell was a place, this was surely it. The doors closed behind him, and two men led him forward through a series of metallic tunnels. They passed by many doors, and behind them were surely horrors that Spy knew all too well, having known war. Finally, they came to a room with a larger door with a split down the middle, and many beeping lights. One man put a key card in and covered the number pad with his cupped hand as he inputted the numbers.
The two men stepped back as the doors opened.
Spy went in alone. The doors closed behind him, and there was nothing but the seated figure, and the horrors of an endless war across the screens..
The scent of stale cigarettes filled the room. The chair turned around to slowly reveal a woman. She was a specter surrounded by flashing screens. Upon them, gruesome death after gruesome death played out, like a coliseum. And she was the empress calling for more blood and more destruction.
Her hair was flecked with gray, though he could not have guessed her age if asked at gunpoint. Her face was thin, skeletal, and harsh, yet with its own cold beauty, like winter. But her eyes--her eyes were ancient and unfathomably cold.
She took a long drag of her cigarette before she spoke. She breathed out the smoke. Behind her, on the many screens, countless men died violent, horrible deaths. "So you finally came to my door. You aren't an easy man to get ahold of."
"The dead usually aren't," he said.
She flicked ash from her cigarettes. "I know death intimately, and you are quite alive. For the moment, at least.
There was an untold, horrific promise in those unsaid words.
"We have no need for introductions; I already know you quite well. You were a member of the resistance. You took on the names of those you killed. The man of a thousand faces, the angel of death upon the battlefield. Entire German brigades were felled because of you. Some theorize that you changed the entire course of history with your utter bloodthirsty ways. Information wasn't enough for you. Those invaders had to pay. You left the streets filled with the bodies of German soldiers. You have much blood on your hands, indeed."
There was almost something like a smile on her ruby lips at this, but it was closer to a snarl.
"Quite a mythic tale you've spun there," he said.
His calm words belied his racing thoughts. Had he been quite so careless? This is what him playing house had done. He'd taken on one face for too long. A Boston widow had kissed him once, and he'd never been the same.
He'd allowed himself to dream of being tame and domestic, of a life with few deaths and even fatherhood. What a foolish delusion that had been. He should've known that one day, his past would catch up to him.
He'd forgotten the main tenent of his kind. To be a killer such as this, one could not have a family or friends. They could not be stationary, or have a home. Because one day, even decades later, the past would return and take its vengeance.
Ashes fell down from her cigarette. She smirked, triumphant. Behind her, more died in an endless show of violence. It was the very same horrors he had lived and dreamed played before him endlessly screen by screen.
"And entirely true. Don't try and deny it, LeCroix. I've done far too much work to track you down for mere lies to work."
His hand flinched. No one had said that name in decades. The saying came to mind as if someone had tread upon your grave.
"Henri LeCroix, a rather talented art student. Then, France fell. And the art student joined the resistance. I only hire the best, LeCroix. And I always get what I want. I think if you understand that, we can have a good partnership. You'll be paid sufficiently for your trouble. I'll certainly pay you more than any of these discount rate mafiosos."
"You're mistaken; he is long dead," Spy said.
"Spy, then. For that was what you were. But more than that, you were a killer at heart. Behind enemy lines, you starved with the prisoners, endured countless tortures to make them think you were helpless and then brutalized the guards before it was all over. You turned your artistry to murder. People in Germany have turned you into a story to tell the children to frighten them, just like the Krampus. Be good, or you might cross paths with the man with a thousand faces."
"I don't make a habit of killing children," he said.
Lights behind her flickered, and reflected off of her. She stared him down unwaveringly.
"A weakness, to be sure," she said. "Though you have surprising weaknesses. To think, the man with a thousand faces conquered by a simple widow. The strangest things fell monsters. Silver bullets, garlic, a stake, or a woman from Boston."
His hand tensed. He forced himself to be calm, and emotionless as he faced her down. He had lied in the face of soldiers who would gladly kill him, built up the trust and made them think he was helpless, only to know the satisfying feeling of his knife in their back.
But she was far worse than any mere soldier.
"Legends have a habit of getting out of hand," he said.
"And that is not the only thing. Rumor has it there's been people after your family."
His hand twitched again. He fought the rising mix of anger and panic and forced himself to slowly light a cigarette. He had the sudden feeling as if he were at the firing squad again right this moment.
He couldn't allow her to see a moment's weakness. This woman was the apex predator. He questioned if she was even human. There was something in her eyes like no solider he had ever seen. The coldness of a killer at heart. He knew that look from the mirror as he put on any of his thousands of faces. A businessman, a fisherman, a traveler. He had a dozen identities at hand at any given moment and could slip into them.
She knew his past, his present, and now his future. He had never met so terrible or vicious an oracle.
He held that cigarette in his hand and somehow managed to keep the trembling hidden, the burst of fear in his heart. The heart that should not even exist, a killer such as him.
"Is that so?"
For all he knew, she could be the origin of the men who threatened him, and his family. He thought someone else had caught up to him, yet he had spurned the attempts to hire him at first. Stuck in the wastelands of New Mexico was not his idea of paradise.
She pushed a photo towards him. "A lovely family, aren't they? It would be such a shame for any harm to fall to them... I suggest you reconsider your employment. They would be much less likely to be harmed if you worked here. At least, as long as you stay within the bounds and don't take to backstabbing, that is."
"Let me see the contract," he said brusquely.
He began to read the many complexities of it. Whatever lawyer they had hired was certainly hard at work. Much of it was so obtuse he could barely understand, and he was sure every clause solely made to benefit her.
"The clock is ticking," she said.
"I am still reading," he said.
"As you read, there is someone in Boston. Right now, they are on the Orange train. Can you guess where they are going? Make your choice, and I may be able to stop them."
Oh, how he wanted to sink his knife into her back and hear the sweet serenade of her death rattle. Knowing her, she wouldn't truly die. A woman like her would not be easy to kill. For all he knew, she might take over hell while she was there.
He was too far away, and he had no one to call. Even if he managed to find a payphone soon enough to dial the numbers, by then it would be too late.
With a shaking hand, he signed his life away in this contract with the devil. If it was to be a living hell, then so be it, if it meant his family would be safe. Even that was not completely assured, but he would take even that faint chance if it damned him eternally.
He wasn't the kind of man to ever go to heaven anyways.
"A good choice, Mr. Spy."
"Give your orders, madame, and I will follow. I have killed many men, and surely will kill many more before this life is over. But know this...go after my family and you will know a revenge that caused legends."
"Heh.... You're showing your cards already? And here I thought you were smart," she said.
"If we are to be honest with each other, it is best to know where we stand. Threaten those I love and I will burn down your empire, brick by brick."
"I should like to see you try. Then I tell you the same. You are a backstabber at heart. If you even think of trying to sell these secrets, I will show you a hell on earth you cannot fathom."
"Madame, I have been through war. I already know hell intimately."
"I could kill you now, this instant, torture you to death and then bring you back to do so again. In that war, you could only be killed once. I could kill you as many times as I desired. There are so many ways to kill humans. Flaying alive, burning alive, impaling...and they take so very long for death to come."
She pointed to the screen behind her, where a lanky man was killed with a bullet to the head. His bloody corpse fell to the ground as a rocket crashed in near him. She pointed to another television screen. On it, the very same man appeared in a very white room. He grabbed his gun and returned to the battlefield.
"I could spend years doing nothing but showing you the depth of pain one man could endure. Remember that, Spy."
"I see," he said.
She lifted up a video phone. Upon it, he saw a businessman sitting on a train. The train car about him was worn, and empty. He looked up, only long enough to see a man in a trench coat lift a gun. There was a television screen on his chest, and he saw all. The pool of blood that formed, the view slowly disappearing as the hired killer.
They were nothing but pawns to her in the end.
"There, the details of our deal are finished. There is a room waiting for you on the base. Sleep early, it will be an early morning tomorrow," she said.
Perhaps it was for the best that he was across the world from Colleen. She would be safe--safer, at least. He cursed himself for ever staying a moment longer with her. He'd been such a fool to ever think he could keep her safe, that he could live a normal, happy life.
But oh, what a heaven it had been to be near to her. Even if just for a mere moment's time.
He walked down that long corridor, with no sunlight in sight. The artificial light above him flickered. He was scanned in a room, his very DNA put on file.
In the end, immortality was a kind of hell, too.
Series: Team Fortress 2
Character/pairing: Spy, Administrator
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,068
Author's note: Comes after I'm Wild Again, Beguiled Again. Precedes Playing House. Last Call, Trace Did You Have to Let It Linger? and Haunted and The Ghost Family, In A Flash.
For Sarah.
cw: canon typical blood and gore
1947.
A dry wind blew across the arid lands. If hell was a place, this was surely it. The doors closed behind him, and two men led him forward through a series of metallic tunnels. They passed by many doors, and behind them were surely horrors that Spy knew all too well, having known war. Finally, they came to a room with a larger door with a split down the middle, and many beeping lights. One man put a key card in and covered the number pad with his cupped hand as he inputted the numbers.
The two men stepped back as the doors opened.
Spy went in alone. The doors closed behind him, and there was nothing but the seated figure, and the horrors of an endless war across the screens..
The scent of stale cigarettes filled the room. The chair turned around to slowly reveal a woman. She was a specter surrounded by flashing screens. Upon them, gruesome death after gruesome death played out, like a coliseum. And she was the empress calling for more blood and more destruction.
Her hair was flecked with gray, though he could not have guessed her age if asked at gunpoint. Her face was thin, skeletal, and harsh, yet with its own cold beauty, like winter. But her eyes--her eyes were ancient and unfathomably cold.
She took a long drag of her cigarette before she spoke. She breathed out the smoke. Behind her, on the many screens, countless men died violent, horrible deaths. "So you finally came to my door. You aren't an easy man to get ahold of."
"The dead usually aren't," he said.
She flicked ash from her cigarettes. "I know death intimately, and you are quite alive. For the moment, at least.
There was an untold, horrific promise in those unsaid words.
"We have no need for introductions; I already know you quite well. You were a member of the resistance. You took on the names of those you killed. The man of a thousand faces, the angel of death upon the battlefield. Entire German brigades were felled because of you. Some theorize that you changed the entire course of history with your utter bloodthirsty ways. Information wasn't enough for you. Those invaders had to pay. You left the streets filled with the bodies of German soldiers. You have much blood on your hands, indeed."
There was almost something like a smile on her ruby lips at this, but it was closer to a snarl.
"Quite a mythic tale you've spun there," he said.
His calm words belied his racing thoughts. Had he been quite so careless? This is what him playing house had done. He'd taken on one face for too long. A Boston widow had kissed him once, and he'd never been the same.
He'd allowed himself to dream of being tame and domestic, of a life with few deaths and even fatherhood. What a foolish delusion that had been. He should've known that one day, his past would catch up to him.
He'd forgotten the main tenent of his kind. To be a killer such as this, one could not have a family or friends. They could not be stationary, or have a home. Because one day, even decades later, the past would return and take its vengeance.
Ashes fell down from her cigarette. She smirked, triumphant. Behind her, more died in an endless show of violence. It was the very same horrors he had lived and dreamed played before him endlessly screen by screen.
"And entirely true. Don't try and deny it, LeCroix. I've done far too much work to track you down for mere lies to work."
His hand flinched. No one had said that name in decades. The saying came to mind as if someone had tread upon your grave.
"Henri LeCroix, a rather talented art student. Then, France fell. And the art student joined the resistance. I only hire the best, LeCroix. And I always get what I want. I think if you understand that, we can have a good partnership. You'll be paid sufficiently for your trouble. I'll certainly pay you more than any of these discount rate mafiosos."
"You're mistaken; he is long dead," Spy said.
"Spy, then. For that was what you were. But more than that, you were a killer at heart. Behind enemy lines, you starved with the prisoners, endured countless tortures to make them think you were helpless and then brutalized the guards before it was all over. You turned your artistry to murder. People in Germany have turned you into a story to tell the children to frighten them, just like the Krampus. Be good, or you might cross paths with the man with a thousand faces."
"I don't make a habit of killing children," he said.
Lights behind her flickered, and reflected off of her. She stared him down unwaveringly.
"A weakness, to be sure," she said. "Though you have surprising weaknesses. To think, the man with a thousand faces conquered by a simple widow. The strangest things fell monsters. Silver bullets, garlic, a stake, or a woman from Boston."
His hand tensed. He forced himself to be calm, and emotionless as he faced her down. He had lied in the face of soldiers who would gladly kill him, built up the trust and made them think he was helpless, only to know the satisfying feeling of his knife in their back.
But she was far worse than any mere soldier.
"Legends have a habit of getting out of hand," he said.
"And that is not the only thing. Rumor has it there's been people after your family."
His hand twitched again. He fought the rising mix of anger and panic and forced himself to slowly light a cigarette. He had the sudden feeling as if he were at the firing squad again right this moment.
He couldn't allow her to see a moment's weakness. This woman was the apex predator. He questioned if she was even human. There was something in her eyes like no solider he had ever seen. The coldness of a killer at heart. He knew that look from the mirror as he put on any of his thousands of faces. A businessman, a fisherman, a traveler. He had a dozen identities at hand at any given moment and could slip into them.
She knew his past, his present, and now his future. He had never met so terrible or vicious an oracle.
He held that cigarette in his hand and somehow managed to keep the trembling hidden, the burst of fear in his heart. The heart that should not even exist, a killer such as him.
"Is that so?"
For all he knew, she could be the origin of the men who threatened him, and his family. He thought someone else had caught up to him, yet he had spurned the attempts to hire him at first. Stuck in the wastelands of New Mexico was not his idea of paradise.
She pushed a photo towards him. "A lovely family, aren't they? It would be such a shame for any harm to fall to them... I suggest you reconsider your employment. They would be much less likely to be harmed if you worked here. At least, as long as you stay within the bounds and don't take to backstabbing, that is."
"Let me see the contract," he said brusquely.
He began to read the many complexities of it. Whatever lawyer they had hired was certainly hard at work. Much of it was so obtuse he could barely understand, and he was sure every clause solely made to benefit her.
"The clock is ticking," she said.
"I am still reading," he said.
"As you read, there is someone in Boston. Right now, they are on the Orange train. Can you guess where they are going? Make your choice, and I may be able to stop them."
Oh, how he wanted to sink his knife into her back and hear the sweet serenade of her death rattle. Knowing her, she wouldn't truly die. A woman like her would not be easy to kill. For all he knew, she might take over hell while she was there.
He was too far away, and he had no one to call. Even if he managed to find a payphone soon enough to dial the numbers, by then it would be too late.
With a shaking hand, he signed his life away in this contract with the devil. If it was to be a living hell, then so be it, if it meant his family would be safe. Even that was not completely assured, but he would take even that faint chance if it damned him eternally.
He wasn't the kind of man to ever go to heaven anyways.
"A good choice, Mr. Spy."
"Give your orders, madame, and I will follow. I have killed many men, and surely will kill many more before this life is over. But know this...go after my family and you will know a revenge that caused legends."
"Heh.... You're showing your cards already? And here I thought you were smart," she said.
"If we are to be honest with each other, it is best to know where we stand. Threaten those I love and I will burn down your empire, brick by brick."
"I should like to see you try. Then I tell you the same. You are a backstabber at heart. If you even think of trying to sell these secrets, I will show you a hell on earth you cannot fathom."
"Madame, I have been through war. I already know hell intimately."
"I could kill you now, this instant, torture you to death and then bring you back to do so again. In that war, you could only be killed once. I could kill you as many times as I desired. There are so many ways to kill humans. Flaying alive, burning alive, impaling...and they take so very long for death to come."
She pointed to the screen behind her, where a lanky man was killed with a bullet to the head. His bloody corpse fell to the ground as a rocket crashed in near him. She pointed to another television screen. On it, the very same man appeared in a very white room. He grabbed his gun and returned to the battlefield.
"I could spend years doing nothing but showing you the depth of pain one man could endure. Remember that, Spy."
"I see," he said.
She lifted up a video phone. Upon it, he saw a businessman sitting on a train. The train car about him was worn, and empty. He looked up, only long enough to see a man in a trench coat lift a gun. There was a television screen on his chest, and he saw all. The pool of blood that formed, the view slowly disappearing as the hired killer.
They were nothing but pawns to her in the end.
"There, the details of our deal are finished. There is a room waiting for you on the base. Sleep early, it will be an early morning tomorrow," she said.
Perhaps it was for the best that he was across the world from Colleen. She would be safe--safer, at least. He cursed himself for ever staying a moment longer with her. He'd been such a fool to ever think he could keep her safe, that he could live a normal, happy life.
But oh, what a heaven it had been to be near to her. Even if just for a mere moment's time.
He walked down that long corridor, with no sunlight in sight. The artificial light above him flickered. He was scanned in a room, his very DNA put on file.
In the end, immortality was a kind of hell, too.