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Spy lit his cigarette and listened to Heavy's... Well, they weren't ramblings. Monologues, Spy supposed. Heavy was talking about that gun he idiotically had a proper name for. Ridiculous, Spy thought as he took another drag of his cigarette. Sniper named his camper van (though what the name was escaped Spy at the moment), and Heavy named his mini-gun.
Imbeciles. Did they not know that revolvers were the only inanimate objects worthy of being named?
Heavy was still going on. Spy could think of thousands of better things he could be doing, but he was the only other one on base who knew Russian. Heavy lacked many opportunities to speak in his mother tongue to someone who would know exactly what he was saying, and Spy took pity on that enough to hear the man out. It wasn't as if he enjoyed his company, of course.
"The Scout appears to be under the impression that I take too much care of Sasha," said Heavy. He was more articulate in Russian; his shorter sentences and simple phrases had entirely disappeared.
"Every bullet costs thousands of dollars, correct?" asked Spy. He spoke the words slowly and carefully, not eager to mess up. He was fluent in Russian, sure, and these weekly discussions gave him an opportunity to practice, but French and English were the languages he knew best. "I doubt that it is possible to take too much care of a gun that expensive."
Spy wanted to point out that getting a bed for the thing was extravagant, but he wasn't terribly interested in going back to Respawn this late. Besides, Spy was more than willing to take any excuse he could find to disagree with and poke fun at his son.
As Heavy continued, Spy begrudgingly realized that he liked the company.
Medic had a penchant for messing with the team. Half of the German he incorporated into his sentences at random was blatantly incorrect, though Spy could attribute that to his general madness.
Either way, the travesties that befell the language whenever Medic spoke it decreased when he talked to Spy in German. They did not entirely go away, however, which lent some credence to the theory that Medic was just insane.
Then again, Spy thought as he took a drag from his cigarette, he could feel Medic's eyes bore into him whenever he took too long attempting to decipher a made-up word.
The thing about knowing multiple languages was that Spy had different modes, so to speak. He was in German mode right now, and it seemed like Medic was attempting to take him out.
Well. Two can play at that game.
"I doubt that one can remove mental illnesses via lobotomy, Doctor. Did you not learn that in your," Spy racked his head, trying to come up with a true insult to the German language, "schoolenfraude?"
Stupid enough.
Medic looked taken aback. "The word is Schule, you Dummk—" he began in English, cutting himself off when he noticed the game.
"You can't be the only one on the base allowed to butcher German words," said Spy, switching to English himself. "The laborer has been trying to understand you for months now. His German to English dictionary is failing him, and I believe he thinks that it's a flawed copy. Should I be the one to correct him?"
"Why do you care?" asked Medic. This question was so offensive to Spy, who did not enjoy the company of his teammates in the slightest, that he put out his cigarette and left.
He heard Medic cackling as he cloaked and ran off.
Spy and Engineer were stationed in Mexico for the time being. Engie, apparently, was fluent in Spanish. Spy supposed this made sense; Texas was rather close to the border. Of course, Engie was fluent in Mexican Spanish. The Spanish that they both needed to speak if they were to protect their client. Spy only knew Castilian Spanish, despite having been in New Mexico for some years now.
The language was not native to either of them, but Spy suspected that the laborer would blend in better than himself, the professional spy.
Spy lit a cigarette and scowled. This could not stand.
They were currently in a run-down and abandoned building, easy to sneak into and remain undetected. Engineer was tinkering with something, the infuriatingly repetitive sounds of metal against metal annoying Spy to no end. "You," said Spy, gesturing to Engie with a wave of his hand. Engineer coughed when the smoke hit his face, but he didn't react beyond that. Typical.
"You may have noticed that I've been letting you do most of the talking," Spy began as Engie put his tools down and gave him his full attention.
Engie chuckled and gave Spy a small hint of a smile. "Heh. Maybe I'm tryin' to be a Spy myself. Blendin' in and all that. You make your own sappers, right? Could be an Engineer. We could try tradin' someday." His tone was lighthearted, and it was clear that none of his ten PhDs were in recognizing that his teammate was pissed off.
"Let's compare," said Spy. He cleared his throat and switched to Spanish. "Surely you can tell what's wrong with the way I speak. The difference in words is one thing, but grammar is another." Engineer nodded, picking this up.
"They'll think you're a Spaniard, huh?" he asked in Spanish, his pronunciation better matching the country in which they were stationed — the country they were, as far as their client was concerned, raised in.
"I ought to have practiced this country's dialect before we were stationed here," Spy admitted. He switched back to English and continued, "I find it difficult to remember the pronunciation. To not use vosotros. You get the picture." It was, quite frankly, beyond embarrassing to admit.
Engie offered, "We can practice if you'd like. Miss out on sleepin', but I wasn't getting much sleep anyhow."
Spy didn't care for any of his teammates, and he did not enjoy being here with Engineer. At all. He was fully prepared to decline, but he surprised himself when he nodded instead. Goddamn it. "The dialects are similar enough," he found himself saying, "but the differences can risk my false identity being discovered. I can speak, and you can correct."
"Sure," said Engineer, as if this weren't the most humiliating experience that Spy could think of in recent memory. He cleared his throat and switched to Spanish. "How about we just have a conversation?"
"Fine," Spy replied, wondering why he didn't feel like cloaking and running away.
Why was he enjoying this?
Spy could no longer count how many times he had found himself inside that wretched van. Sniper was his coworker, and their sexual relationship was one of convenience. Spy was also unable to explain why he was translating horrible Italian literature and equally abysmal Japanese booklets. His fluency in either language was... not fantastic, to say the least, but it was bearable.
"Where did you even get these?" he asked after a while. "They're horrible, and quite unfitting for you."
"Nice of you to think that horrible things ain't fitting for me," said Sniper, his voice falling into that sardonic tone it often did when he talked to Spy. "Found 'em lying on the ground. Dunno where. Been collecting them, yeah? Mostly to get you to translate, if I'm bein' honest."
"Wonderful," said Spy, "that I am nothing more to you than a walking translator." He looked closer at some of the Japanese and scoffed when he noted that it was mostly kanji. "You're on your own with most of this. I haven't practiced that writing system in years." He passed the booklet over to Sniper, who glanced at it himself.
"Mate, how am I supposed to figure these characters out?" he asked.
Spy raised an eyebrow. "Find someone who can read kanji, presumably." Upon seeing Sniper's confused look, Spy sighed and explained. "There are several Japanese writing systems. The more complex characters are kanji, which I'm currently unable to read. Given that I speak Japanese better than I can read or write it, you are on your own."
It was times like these when Spy figured that he was overqualified for this job. Then again, it paid well.
"Fair enough," said Sniper, pushing the booklet away. "Wasn't terribly interested in figurin' out what it said anyway."
"Then why, pray tell, did you ask me to read it?" Spy asked.
"Ain't it obvious?" said Sniper with a laugh. "Wanted to hear ya speak other languages. You're right sexy when you do that, you know."
"You could have just asked me, you idiot," said Spy, his voice failing to incorporate the necessary frustration. "You did not have to pick up books from, I assume, the burning wreckage of the nearest library."
Sniper scoffed and said, "Nah, mate. Too simple. Everything's a game with you, n'est-ce pas?" Spy glared at him after that, racking his brain for how to approach this. Was Sniper fluent? How long had he been practicing? He went over everything he said in (what he assumed and hoped) was coded French, spoken in part to swear and insult as his teammates were none the wiser. Sniper was grinning now; he could clearly see the gears turning in Spy's head.
"I only know basic phrases," said Sniper, reaching into one of his pockets and handing Spy a pamphlet once he found it. "Got me a guide, yeah?"
It was a simple guide to phrases anyone should know if they were to go to France. Spy flipped through it and rolled his eyes. "This would be almost completely worthless if you were to visit France," he said.
"Guess you'll just have to teach me better phrases, huh?" asked Sniper. "Ain't plannin' to go anytime soon, but best to be prepared, yeah?"
This was his plan from the beginning, wasn't it. "Fine," said Spy, hating that he was even humoring Sniper. "Let us begin with phrases that are actually useful. Insults, for one. We shall start with..."
And they continued their lesson into the night. Spy sighed, realizing that Sniper was utterly horrible at pronouncing anything in French. Merde, he hated this. And his team. And everything. And everyone. He didn't even realize that he was complaining out loud until Sniper responded.
Sniper only laughed, unbothered and a complete bastard about it. "C'mon, mate, ya don't hate it that much," he said, leaning back against the van's wall.
Spy meant to scoff, to dismiss the claim outright—but the words never came. Because, if he were honest, he didn't hate it. Not entirely. The van was cramped, everything was dreadful, and Sniper was impossible, but there was something almost comfortable about it. About him. About all of them, really — his idiotic teammates were pleasant to be around, given that he actually enjoyed talking to them. He was in deeper trouble than he thought.
Spy clicked his tongue, shaking his head as if to dispel the thought. "You are insufferable."
"Yeah, yeah," Sniper said with a grin, "but ya ain't leavin'."
Spy exhaled sharply — almost a laugh. "No. I suppose I am not."