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Description
Chapter 2 Title: Left On Base
Warning: Strong Language

He was blind. He was blind, and tired, and everything fucking hurt, and shit he wanted to scream but his voice wasn't fucking working and fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Nate cursed repeatedly in his mind at the blinding white and the pain pulsing through his leg. He must have been out for... well... shit, he wasn't sure, but despite having been unconscious, he was exhausted. His head lolled dazedly from side to side as he tried to wake himself. After a moment, everything came into focus, and he realized that he wasn't blind, but instead just seeing a lot of white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, white everything. The Scout furrowed his brow and tried to stand. Something held him down.

Shackles. He was held down at the ankles, torso and wrists by metal shackles that were attached to the hard chair in which he sat. The chair was melded to the ground.

Shit, how did he get into this? Where was he? Why was he here? He ducked his head as he tried to remember, noticing vaguely that he was missing his hat and earpiece.

Oh fuck, wait.

He'd been captured by BLU. Not killed. Captured. Well that would explain his missing earpiece and the restraints. They didn't kill him... they probably figured he'd make a good hostage or interrogation subject.

Well, it could be worse. He could be naked.

Nate grimaced as pain shot through his leg. It was more a throbbing pain than sharp and raw as it had been before. He tried to look down at his bullet wound, but his restraints prevented him from doing so. Judging from the lack of numbness and the way his pants and sock felt like they stuck to his calf with blood, he hadn't been treated. Cursing, he let it go. Instead he settled with looking around the room.

There were two doors, equally as white as everything else--one in front of him and one to his right. The room itself was about fifteen feet squared and had a ceiling at least eight feet high. ...Nothing else. Not even cameras. No clock. No windows.

Fantastic.

It took him two seconds. Two seconds and Nate was bored. Not angry anymore. Not frustrated. Not scared. Just... bored out of his fucking mind. Pain was the only thing keeping him conscious, or at least preventing him from drifting into mindless thought. He decided that the only thing that would keep his mind occupied was, well, focusing on the pain. He counted every throb and pulse, like counting seconds except without a clock, and fuck if he knew exactly how long a second was.

He was on his three-hundred-and-seventy-fourth-kind-of-second when the door in front of him creeked open. The other side was dark and empty, providing no draft. A closed off hallway of some sort? And what bothered him more was that no one was there. The door suddenly stopped its swing into the room, still for a moment, then swung back. It closed with a soft click.

Silence.

Nate sighed, waiting... waiting... waiting... and when nothing happened for a good minute or two, he spoke.

"Come out, ya fuckin' rat. Or are ya too scared ta-"

BLU Spy's invisible hand clasped over his mouth tightly, and Nate felt a sharp pressure against his throat. A butterfly knife. The fwoosh sound of uncloaking filled his ears, then hot breath on the back of his skull, ruffling his hair.

"Clever, petit lapin, but did you forget your... predicament?" His voice was menacing, terrifying, and that was enough to make Nate's eyes go wide with panic, but the same moment he spoke that last word, the knife pressed harder against his throat, and he could feel all too clearly how a bit of blood trickled out from the slight puncture and dripped onto his shirt. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

Nate had heard stories about the BLU's Spy. Tales. Myths. His team had told him that he'd been here for two years--much longer than his contract to the company. So why was he still here? Because he refused to leave. Because he chose to stay here. They told him that the Spy had slain at least one person in every Class--all of their deaths were slow and painful unless a quick one was necessary. The second that Nate had stepped onto RED's base, they'd explained in great detail how his predecessor had died--his throat slit, limbs removed and eyes gouged out, the parts strewn about their base like some sort of sick game of hide and go seek. They'd warned him about this Spy repeatedly, and now... now the same knife that had cut apart the former Scout was pressed against his jugular.

In that moment reality kicked in. He was trapped. He couldn't fight back. He was at BLU's mercy. He was helpless.

The Spy must have sensed his anxiety because he chuckled softly. "That's better," he grinned, removing the blade from Nate's throat and the hand from his mouth. The younger tried to keep his breathing steady and low, but the way his body was tensed gave him away. "Now," the BLU continued, "how to begin..."

"We're not startin' nothin', weasel," Nate hissed between gritted teeth as the Spy paced past him. His voice shook despite his effort to calm down. "I'm getting the fuck outta here."

"Oh?" The Spy turned on his heels, the butterfly knife a blur as he hid the blade within the handle with a few flips. "And how do you suppose you will go about that?"

"I... er..."

"Let me make this clear, enfant. You will not be going anywhere. You will sit here. You will be interrogated. You may even be an experimentation subject." He stepped closer then, flicking the knife open once more and pointing it threateningly at the Scout. The tip of the blade pressed against the left side of his face, right next to his left eye. Nate stayed absolutely still, even as he felt the sharp tip drag down and curve around the concave of his eye. There was no pain. The fear had made him numb. "And a suggestion..." the BLU continued, ending the slice so that it shaped a quarter-circle, "don't expect to see the sun again."

Nate wasn't even aware when the Spy left. He was numb all over. Numb of all feeling. All but the feeling of blood dripping like tears down his cheek. Vaguely he noted that the cut was deep enough that it would scar. Mark him for the rest of his life. Remind him of this place. That was, if he ever got out.

He missed the sun already.

----------------------------------------------

An hour or two later (Shit it was hard to tell time in this place), BLU's Medic walked through the door. For an instant, Nate was glad, because it was painful just sitting there and doing nothing but waiting for something to happen since sleep seemed impossible. But then he remembered the Spy saying 'experimentation subject,' and all of that relief became dread.

"RED," was the extent of his greeting, along with a stiff nod. He was taller than the Medic on his team by a few inches. The lenses of his glasses were thicker too, and Nate could see gray sprouting here and there from his otherwise pitch black hair. The slightest amount of wrinkles around his steel blue eyes and thin mouth marked him with age. He looked like a regular doctor--not insane at all. But looking normal and not being as such could be said about a lot of people in this place. Unlike the Spy, Nate had hardly heard anything about this man, and that worried him instead of the opposite.

"Fuck you." Really, he would have come up with something better to say, but he was distracted by what the Medic had hauled into the room. A small folded table, its surface not much bigger than a stool's. A clipboard with blank sheets of paper. Some kind of medical kit.

The doctor scoffed a bit at his words, unfolding the table and placing the kit on top of it. He clicked the lid open and lifted it, obscuring Nate's view of the kit's contents. He placed the clipboard in the wide pocket of his lab coat before digging his hands into the case. A second later he was holding up a syringe and a bottle of clear-looking liquid.

"Fuck no," Nate scowled, "keep that away from me, ya lunatic."

"Zen what would be ze point of mein being here?" he asked matter-of-factly, his heavy German accent grating on the Scout's ears. The BLU punctured the top of the bottle, pulling the end of the syringe until it was almost full. Placing the bottle back in the kit and taking a bit of alocohol-soaked cotton, he walked closer, now pushing until some of the contents of the syringe dripped from the tip of the needle. "Now hold still, bitte."

"No, screw off!" Nate struggled and writhed within his restraints, trying hopelessly to set himself free. "You're not even gonna tell me what the hell that shit is?"

"Of course not, dummkopf, zat is ze point of ze experiment." And without another word, he swiped the cotton over Nate's arm and plunged the syringe into his skin. He yelped from the sudden prick, followed by cringing at the weird feeling of cold liquid entering his bloodstream. Then the needle was gone, and a moment later the Medic was standing near his table, a pen hovering over the paper on his clipboard. "Now, tell me everysing zat you feel."

"How about angry? Or how much I want to beat your stupid face in?"

"I am not a therapist, frauline. How do you feel? Iz there pain or discomfort?"

Nate huffed but complied, figuring whatever this medicine was, it wasn't working. "Nothin'. Happy now? I don't feel- Ah! Shit!"

The bullet wound suddenly flared, searing hot pain running through his calf as though a hot knife was pressed against it. He could feel every shard of metal in his muscle as the heat engulfed the tissue. His leg started to shake and twitch, trying to move away from the invisible source that was causing him agony.

"You must tell me vat you are feeling, Scout." Medic's words were distant as the pain seemed to spread through him--the cut on his face was burning, along with the small slit on his throat. And then it was everywhere. His blood was on fire.

"I-It burns!" he screamed, his voice cracking, hardly able to control the volume or pitch.

"Vat burns?"

"E-Everything! Oh god, it hurts, it hurts--" His voice had trailed off into a cracking whimper as words began to fail him. He could feel every goddamn vein in his body as his heart pumped the fire through his chest, his limbs, his brain. He was shaking all over, the world a blur, and if the Medic was saying anything, he couldn't hear it. He was trying to speak, to beg for it to stop, but he wasn't even sure if sounds were coming out of him anymore. All the pain was making his heart pump faster, as though it didn't understand that it was the cause of the burning. His body was being scorched from the inside.

Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

And then it was gone. After what felt like hours, the pain started to fade. His vision started to return, his ears picking up the sounds of Medic grumbling, the feel of another needle leaving his skin. He was drenched in his own sweat, his body shaking from the trauma, tears rolling down his face without resistance. When the last bits of pain left his body, he leaned over as far as he could, convulsing, gagging. And then he threw up what little he'd had in his stomach.

"Disgusting," was the last thing Nate heard from the Medic before exhaustion completely engulfed him. His body still shaking, he fell into a fitfull sleep.

He dreamed of fire.

------------------------------------------

When Nate woke, he was alone. He was still shaking, eyes darting around the room, knuckles white as his fingers gripped the chair, hardly aware of the small amount of vomit in his lap.

Now he was truly afraid. Sure, he'd been afraid when the Spy had left, but his confidence had quickly overtaken that. He'd threatened him, yeah, but that's all he'd done. Threats. But they'd been more than threats. They were warnings. Warnings of what was going to happen to him. And what happened was the Medic, and that... that was all too real. He could still remember the fire licking at his wounds, telling him that this was just the beginning. Just the beginning...

The door opened.

His body tensed, eyes wide, a whine threatening to escape. Oh god, not again. No more pain. No more...

"You look like a piece of shit."

Brennan.

The fear drained out of him as if it had never been there, replaced solely by anger. Brennan. The reason he was here in the first place. Oh, and he fucking knew it. That shit-eating grin on his face said he knew it all too well.

"Fuck off." Nate tried to make his voice low and threatening, but he failed, pitch wavering. He wasn't sure if it was because he was still experiencing the after-effects of that medicine or because the BLU had his bat with him.

"Really?" Brennan raised a brow, questioning. Then he shrugged, "alright. Go ahead and piss your pants." He turned and made a motion to leave. His words kicked in. Were they... giving him a bathroom break? He must have made some kind of noise because the BLU Scout turned, a smirk replacing his grin. Nate was expecting some kind of smartass remark, but there was none. Instead he walked over, leaning his bat on his shoulder, and knelt in front of him.

"What the fuck?" Nate exclaimed, kind of an automatic reaction to the fact that Brennan was reaching between his legs.

"Calm your shit, I'm gettin' you outta this chair. And don't try anything funny." His hand was now beneath the chair, fingers probably looking for a lock of some sort. "Man," the BLU chuckled, "ya puked? 'Cause 'a some medicine?" A click resounded as the restraints came loose. "That's fuckin' sad. You-"

Nate didn't give him a chance to finish. He ignored the pain in his leg and kicked forward, but Brennan seemed to have expected that, because he stumbled back to keep Nate's foot from smashing him right in the face. The RED used BLU's delay of getting back up to pounce forward out of the chair. Brennan dodged to the left, but Nate managed to grab his bat, wrenching it from his grasp.

"Hey, I need some help in-Agh!" The earpiece Brennan had been speaking into along with the cap fell from his head as he was knocked to the floor, landing on his back with Nate's full weight pressing against his stomach, the bat laying uselessly on the ground too far for either of them to reach. Before the BLU had a chance to recuperate, RED punched him hard across his face, disorienting him even more.

"You wanna know what's sad?" Nate hissed, "What's sad is a stupid little fucker like you." He punched him again. "A fuckin' traitor. Why the fuck did you leave RED, huh? Why the fuck would you do that?" Another punch. "You were the best and you had to leave. Shit. They must 'a givin' you a lot. It better have been a fuckton."

"They..." Brennan's voice cracked as he tried to form words, his arms finally realizing they could be of use, "They didn't give me anything-"

"You bitch!" Nate screamed, raising his fist. All this time he thought they'd bribed him, but... to go willingly? No. No fucking way. He was about to punch him again, but Brennan's hand grasped his forearm.

"They said they'd protect my Ma."

... What? That made Nate freeze, eyes wide with confusion and disbelief. But when he looked into the BLU's eyes, he could see it. The sincerity. The shamelessness of his answer.

... He'd never really looked at Brennan before. He was just another face, really, so it didn't seem to matter. But as he sat there he noticed things he hadn't given a single thought--a face structure about the same as his own, with forest green eyes and brown hair so dark that it could be mistaken for black. He had a high and tight military haircut, but grown out, so the hair on the top of his head swooped a bit to the right, and his scalp was hardly visible on the sides of his head. And then there was his expression. Right now it was neutral. He looked... calm and collected, a look Nate could probably never pull off. Yet Brennan could, despite having a bloodied face and death literally looming over him.

The BLU's mouth set into a thin line, eyes darting away and back again. And then he spoke the words that seemed to break Nate's momentary spell of sympathy.

"Get off of me, Cody."

Nate grimaced. No. Not that name. He hated that fucking name.

"My name's not-" but before he could finish, he was lifted onto his feet by two large hands beneath his arms. A slew of military terms and 'maggots' filled the room as Nate struggled to escape the hard grip of the man, and reflecting on his own team, he could only guess that the BLU Soldier had been the one to interfere. He writhed and grit his teeth, trying to escape, refusing to be controlled, but the Soldier hardly seemed to notice, easily bringing the smaller around and shoving him into the entrance to the right of the chair. The door was shut behind him, hard, and he found himself standing in a bathroom.

He did his business rather mindlessly, panting, still on a bit of a high from what just happened. As he came back down, though, he could feel the consequences--the way his leg throbbed even harder, the sudden exhaustion, and maybe even a bit of regret.

Once Nate was finished, he opened the door. Brennan was gone, along with his bat and earpiece. The Soldier stood by his chair waiting for him. He was silent, at least.

Nate noticed that the other door was still open. His heart picked up for a moment, the thought of escape clear in his expression. He gave the thought up though as he saw the lethal glare that crossed the BLU's face. It made him reconsider. In his state, there was no way he could fight him off, let alone the entire team. So he walked over and sat down in the chair without a fight.

The Soldier closed his restraints manually, clamping them shut with his bare hands. Then he left, shutting the door with a loud slam.

The silence had never been so deafening.

Description
Chapter 2 Title: Left On Base
Warning: Strong Language

He was blind. He was blind, and tired, and everything fucking hurt, and shit he wanted to scream but his voice wasn't fucking working and fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Nate cursed repeatedly in his mind at the blinding white and the pain pulsing through his leg. He must have been out for... well... shit, he wasn't sure, but despite having been unconscious, he was exhausted. His head lolled dazedly from side to side as he tried to wake himself. After a moment, everything came into focus, and he realized that he wasn't blind, but instead just seeing a lot of white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, white everything. The Scout furrowed his brow and tried to stand. Something held him down.

Shackles. He was held down at the ankles, torso and wrists by metal shackles that were attached to the hard chair in which he sat. The chair was melded to the ground.

Shit, how did he get into this? Where was he? Why was he here? He ducked his head as he tried to remember, noticing vaguely that he was missing his hat and earpiece.

Oh fuck, wait.

He'd been captured by BLU. Not killed. Captured. Well that would explain his missing earpiece and the restraints. They didn't kill him... they probably figured he'd make a good hostage or interrogation subject.

Well, it could be worse. He could be naked.

Nate grimaced as pain shot through his leg. It was more a throbbing pain than sharp and raw as it had been before. He tried to look down at his bullet wound, but his restraints prevented him from doing so. Judging from the lack of numbness and the way his pants and sock felt like they stuck to his calf with blood, he hadn't been treated. Cursing, he let it go. Instead he settled with looking around the room.

There were two doors, equally as white as everything else--one in front of him and one to his right. The room itself was about fifteen feet squared and had a ceiling at least eight feet high. ...Nothing else. Not even cameras. No clock. No windows.

Fantastic.

It took him two seconds. Two seconds and Nate was bored. Not angry anymore. Not frustrated. Not scared. Just... bored out of his fucking mind. Pain was the only thing keeping him conscious, or at least preventing him from drifting into mindless thought. He decided that the only thing that would keep his mind occupied was, well, focusing on the pain. He counted every throb and pulse, like counting seconds except without a clock, and fuck if he knew exactly how long a second was.

He was on his three-hundred-and-seventy-fourth-kind-of-second when the door in front of him creeked open. The other side was dark and empty, providing no draft. A closed off hallway of some sort? And what bothered him more was that no one was there. The door suddenly stopped its swing into the room, still for a moment, then swung back. It closed with a soft click.

Silence.

Nate sighed, waiting... waiting... waiting... and when nothing happened for a good minute or two, he spoke.

"Come out, ya fuckin' rat. Or are ya too scared ta-"

BLU Spy's invisible hand clasped over his mouth tightly, and Nate felt a sharp pressure against his throat. A butterfly knife. The fwoosh sound of uncloaking filled his ears, then hot breath on the back of his skull, ruffling his hair.

"Clever, petit lapin, but did you forget your... predicament?" His voice was menacing, terrifying, and that was enough to make Nate's eyes go wide with panic, but the same moment he spoke that last word, the knife pressed harder against his throat, and he could feel all too clearly how a bit of blood trickled out from the slight puncture and dripped onto his shirt. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

Nate had heard stories about the BLU's Spy. Tales. Myths. His team had told him that he'd been here for two years--much longer than his contract to the company. So why was he still here? Because he refused to leave. Because he chose to stay here. They told him that the Spy had slain at least one person in every Class--all of their deaths were slow and painful unless a quick one was necessary. The second that Nate had stepped onto RED's base, they'd explained in great detail how his predecessor had died--his throat slit, limbs removed and eyes gouged out, the parts strewn about their base like some sort of sick game of hide and go seek. They'd warned him about this Spy repeatedly, and now... now the same knife that had cut apart the former Scout was pressed against his jugular.

In that moment reality kicked in. He was trapped. He couldn't fight back. He was at BLU's mercy. He was helpless.

The Spy must have sensed his anxiety because he chuckled softly. "That's better," he grinned, removing the blade from Nate's throat and the hand from his mouth. The younger tried to keep his breathing steady and low, but the way his body was tensed gave him away. "Now," the BLU continued, "how to begin..."

"We're not startin' nothin', weasel," Nate hissed between gritted teeth as the Spy paced past him. His voice shook despite his effort to calm down. "I'm getting the fuck outta here."

"Oh?" The Spy turned on his heels, the butterfly knife a blur as he hid the blade within the handle with a few flips. "And how do you suppose you will go about that?"

"I... er..."

"Let me make this clear, enfant. You will not be going anywhere. You will sit here. You will be interrogated. You may even be an experimentation subject." He stepped closer then, flicking the knife open once more and pointing it threateningly at the Scout. The tip of the blade pressed against the left side of his face, right next to his left eye. Nate stayed absolutely still, even as he felt the sharp tip drag down and curve around the concave of his eye. There was no pain. The fear had made him numb. "And a suggestion..." the BLU continued, ending the slice so that it shaped a quarter-circle, "don't expect to see the sun again."

Nate wasn't even aware when the Spy left. He was numb all over. Numb of all feeling. All but the feeling of blood dripping like tears down his cheek. Vaguely he noted that the cut was deep enough that it would scar. Mark him for the rest of his life. Remind him of this place. That was, if he ever got out.

He missed the sun already.

----------------------------------------------

An hour or two later (Shit it was hard to tell time in this place), BLU's Medic walked through the door. For an instant, Nate was glad, because it was painful just sitting there and doing nothing but waiting for something to happen since sleep seemed impossible. But then he remembered the Spy saying 'experimentation subject,' and all of that relief became dread.

"RED," was the extent of his greeting, along with a stiff nod. He was taller than the Medic on his team by a few inches. The lenses of his glasses were thicker too, and Nate could see gray sprouting here and there from his otherwise pitch black hair. The slightest amount of wrinkles around his steel blue eyes and thin mouth marked him with age. He looked like a regular doctor--not insane at all. But looking normal and not being as such could be said about a lot of people in this place. Unlike the Spy, Nate had hardly heard anything about this man, and that worried him instead of the opposite.

"Fuck you." Really, he would have come up with something better to say, but he was distracted by what the Medic had hauled into the room. A small folded table, its surface not much bigger than a stool's. A clipboard with blank sheets of paper. Some kind of medical kit.

The doctor scoffed a bit at his words, unfolding the table and placing the kit on top of it. He clicked the lid open and lifted it, obscuring Nate's view of the kit's contents. He placed the clipboard in the wide pocket of his lab coat before digging his hands into the case. A second later he was holding up a syringe and a bottle of clear-looking liquid.

"Fuck no," Nate scowled, "keep that away from me, ya lunatic."

"Zen what would be ze point of mein being here?" he asked matter-of-factly, his heavy German accent grating on the Scout's ears. The BLU punctured the top of the bottle, pulling the end of the syringe until it was almost full. Placing the bottle back in the kit and taking a bit of alocohol-soaked cotton, he walked closer, now pushing until some of the contents of the syringe dripped from the tip of the needle. "Now hold still, bitte."

"No, screw off!" Nate struggled and writhed within his restraints, trying hopelessly to set himself free. "You're not even gonna tell me what the hell that shit is?"

"Of course not, dummkopf, zat is ze point of ze experiment." And without another word, he swiped the cotton over Nate's arm and plunged the syringe into his skin. He yelped from the sudden prick, followed by cringing at the weird feeling of cold liquid entering his bloodstream. Then the needle was gone, and a moment later the Medic was standing near his table, a pen hovering over the paper on his clipboard. "Now, tell me everysing zat you feel."

"How about angry? Or how much I want to beat your stupid face in?"

"I am not a therapist, frauline. How do you feel? Iz there pain or discomfort?"

Nate huffed but complied, figuring whatever this medicine was, it wasn't working. "Nothin'. Happy now? I don't feel- Ah! Shit!"

The bullet wound suddenly flared, searing hot pain running through his calf as though a hot knife was pressed against it. He could feel every shard of metal in his muscle as the heat engulfed the tissue. His leg started to shake and twitch, trying to move away from the invisible source that was causing him agony.

"You must tell me vat you are feeling, Scout." Medic's words were distant as the pain seemed to spread through him--the cut on his face was burning, along with the small slit on his throat. And then it was everywhere. His blood was on fire.

"I-It burns!" he screamed, his voice cracking, hardly able to control the volume or pitch.

"Vat burns?"

"E-Everything! Oh god, it hurts, it hurts--" His voice had trailed off into a cracking whimper as words began to fail him. He could feel every goddamn vein in his body as his heart pumped the fire through his chest, his limbs, his brain. He was shaking all over, the world a blur, and if the Medic was saying anything, he couldn't hear it. He was trying to speak, to beg for it to stop, but he wasn't even sure if sounds were coming out of him anymore. All the pain was making his heart pump faster, as though it didn't understand that it was the cause of the burning. His body was being scorched from the inside.

Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

And then it was gone. After what felt like hours, the pain started to fade. His vision started to return, his ears picking up the sounds of Medic grumbling, the feel of another needle leaving his skin. He was drenched in his own sweat, his body shaking from the trauma, tears rolling down his face without resistance. When the last bits of pain left his body, he leaned over as far as he could, convulsing, gagging. And then he threw up what little he'd had in his stomach.

"Disgusting," was the last thing Nate heard from the Medic before exhaustion completely engulfed him. His body still shaking, he fell into a fitfull sleep.

He dreamed of fire.

------------------------------------------

When Nate woke, he was alone. He was still shaking, eyes darting around the room, knuckles white as his fingers gripped the chair, hardly aware of the small amount of vomit in his lap.

Now he was truly afraid. Sure, he'd been afraid when the Spy had left, but his confidence had quickly overtaken that. He'd threatened him, yeah, but that's all he'd done. Threats. But they'd been more than threats. They were warnings. Warnings of what was going to happen to him. And what happened was the Medic, and that... that was all too real. He could still remember the fire licking at his wounds, telling him that this was just the beginning. Just the beginning...

The door opened.

His body tensed, eyes wide, a whine threatening to escape. Oh god, not again. No more pain. No more...

"You look like a piece of shit."

Brennan.

The fear drained out of him as if it had never been there, replaced solely by anger. Brennan. The reason he was here in the first place. Oh, and he fucking knew it. That shit-eating grin on his face said he knew it all too well.

"Fuck off." Nate tried to make his voice low and threatening, but he failed, pitch wavering. He wasn't sure if it was because he was still experiencing the after-effects of that medicine or because the BLU had his bat with him.

"Really?" Brennan raised a brow, questioning. Then he shrugged, "alright. Go ahead and piss your pants." He turned and made a motion to leave. His words kicked in. Were they... giving him a bathroom break? He must have made some kind of noise because the BLU Scout turned, a smirk replacing his grin. Nate was expecting some kind of smartass remark, but there was none. Instead he walked over, leaning his bat on his shoulder, and knelt in front of him.

"What the fuck?" Nate exclaimed, kind of an automatic reaction to the fact that Brennan was reaching between his legs.

"Calm your shit, I'm gettin' you outta this chair. And don't try anything funny." His hand was now beneath the chair, fingers probably looking for a lock of some sort. "Man," the BLU chuckled, "ya puked? 'Cause 'a some medicine?" A click resounded as the restraints came loose. "That's fuckin' sad. You-"

Nate didn't give him a chance to finish. He ignored the pain in his leg and kicked forward, but Brennan seemed to have expected that, because he stumbled back to keep Nate's foot from smashing him right in the face. The RED used BLU's delay of getting back up to pounce forward out of the chair. Brennan dodged to the left, but Nate managed to grab his bat, wrenching it from his grasp.

"Hey, I need some help in-Agh!" The earpiece Brennan had been speaking into along with the cap fell from his head as he was knocked to the floor, landing on his back with Nate's full weight pressing against his stomach, the bat laying uselessly on the ground too far for either of them to reach. Before the BLU had a chance to recuperate, RED punched him hard across his face, disorienting him even more.

"You wanna know what's sad?" Nate hissed, "What's sad is a stupid little fucker like you." He punched him again. "A fuckin' traitor. Why the fuck did you leave RED, huh? Why the fuck would you do that?" Another punch. "You were the best and you had to leave. Shit. They must 'a givin' you a lot. It better have been a fuckton."

"They..." Brennan's voice cracked as he tried to form words, his arms finally realizing they could be of use, "They didn't give me anything-"

"You bitch!" Nate screamed, raising his fist. All this time he thought they'd bribed him, but... to go willingly? No. No fucking way. He was about to punch him again, but Brennan's hand grasped his forearm.

"They said they'd protect my Ma."

... What? That made Nate freeze, eyes wide with confusion and disbelief. But when he looked into the BLU's eyes, he could see it. The sincerity. The shamelessness of his answer.

... He'd never really looked at Brennan before. He was just another face, really, so it didn't seem to matter. But as he sat there he noticed things he hadn't given a single thought--a face structure about the same as his own, with forest green eyes and brown hair so dark that it could be mistaken for black. He had a high and tight military haircut, but grown out, so the hair on the top of his head swooped a bit to the right, and his scalp was hardly visible on the sides of his head. And then there was his expression. Right now it was neutral. He looked... calm and collected, a look Nate could probably never pull off. Yet Brennan could, despite having a bloodied face and death literally looming over him.

The BLU's mouth set into a thin line, eyes darting away and back again. And then he spoke the words that seemed to break Nate's momentary spell of sympathy.

"Get off of me, Cody."

Nate grimaced. No. Not that name. He hated that fucking name.

"My name's not-" but before he could finish, he was lifted onto his feet by two large hands beneath his arms. A slew of military terms and 'maggots' filled the room as Nate struggled to escape the hard grip of the man, and reflecting on his own team, he could only guess that the BLU Soldier had been the one to interfere. He writhed and grit his teeth, trying to escape, refusing to be controlled, but the Soldier hardly seemed to notice, easily bringing the smaller around and shoving him into the entrance to the right of the chair. The door was shut behind him, hard, and he found himself standing in a bathroom.

He did his business rather mindlessly, panting, still on a bit of a high from what just happened. As he came back down, though, he could feel the consequences--the way his leg throbbed even harder, the sudden exhaustion, and maybe even a bit of regret.

Once Nate was finished, he opened the door. Brennan was gone, along with his bat and earpiece. The Soldier stood by his chair waiting for him. He was silent, at least.

Nate noticed that the other door was still open. His heart picked up for a moment, the thought of escape clear in his expression. He gave the thought up though as he saw the lethal glare that crossed the BLU's face. It made him reconsider. In his state, there was no way he could fight him off, let alone the entire team. So he walked over and sat down in the chair without a fight.

The Soldier closed his restraints manually, clamping them shut with his bare hands. Then he left, shutting the door with a loud slam.

The silence had never been so deafening.