Work Text:
The thing about respawn is that it robs the war of a certain sorta grandeur, Engineer thinks.
They’re fighting an endless war over useless land and they can’t even die for it. There’s a tragedy to a pointless war, but not one where every man that dies comes back fifteen minutes later with a fresh pair of boots and a faint sense of ennui.
It’s enough to make a man start climbing up the walls.
Or blasting up them. Whatever works.
It’s a good job, Engineer thinks, shifting his weight from side to side. Can’t complain. He wets a finger and tests the breeze. He shuffles six inches to the left and one inch back. Pays well. More than well, really. Exorbitantly. It’d better, kind of shit he has to put up with.
Company makes killing and dying a 9 to 5 better damn well be generous with their paychecks.
He unclips his Wrangler from his belt.
“Hardhat, where the hell are you?” his earpiece shrieks. “We’re gettin’ frickin shredded out here!”
“Busy.” Engineer says. His sentry beeps affirmatively.
The earpiece morphs Scout’s indignant sputters into a flurry of static. “B-busy? With goddamned what? I haven’t seen you all damn day!”
“Busy.”
“Engie, please man, I--” a harsh crackle of what is undoubtedly gunfire and a yelp of pain and the line goes silent.
Engineer huffs through his nose.
“Told y’all I’d be busy all day.” He mutters. “Shouldn’t be countin on a man to be where he’s told you he ain’t gonna be. Damn fool brat.”
He aims the Wrangler at the ground at his feet, and braces himself for the blast.
Four rockets at close range blast the ground out from under his feet and near about burst his eardrums, but Medic’s made monsters of them all, and he remains intact and alert enough to surf the blast through the air.
He practically belly flops onto the rounded top of a sandstone spire, his breath driven out of him in a painful burst. He fumbles for the small canister of Medigun fluid strapped to his hip and huffs a great big lungful of the stuff through a mouthful of broken teeth.
Medic’s miracle cure works its magic, and in seconds Engie’s unslinging his toolkit from his back and planting it on the flattest part of the spire’s slim top.
With the push of a button, Engineer’s greatest creation unfurls.
“Ahh.” Engineer sighs, settling back on his Rancho Relaxo just as the tray of beers clicks into place.
He selects a cold one, frost still clinging to its surface from the miniature refrigerating device he’d cooked up this morning, and idly pops the top.
Down below, his Soldier finishes decapitating the enemy Demoman with his shovel, while the BLU Spy leisurely decloaks behind him. The BLU Scout is twisted nearabout in half from where he appears to have been shoved off a cliff. The RED Sniper is clutching at his guts, ropey coils of intestine slipping through his fingers and trailing along the ground.
Engineer takes a deep swig of his beer.
“Ahhh, life of Reilly. Mmm.”