His fingers slide slippery on each other, groping over his blind face and bleeding scalp. He drops to his knees in the smooth pebbles, not daring to wipe the stinging ooze from his eyes, not when it’s full of glass. How much is blood and how much is rainwater? Sniper blindly pats the river stones until he finds the water’s edge. It begins to rain again, and he hears the pool spattering in front of him, even over the soft roar of the waterfall. Fat raindrops sting his scalp where there are bruises and cuts, and he dips his face into the shallow water again and again, shaking it gently, ruffling his floating hair with his fingers. The slivers and shards come unstuck and fall to the bottom; the sticky substance dissolves. After a time, he opens his eyes. Glass glitters on the rocks under the murky water, swirling with whatever he’d washed off his face. Blood? No. He examines his soiled hands. Darker. Black, like crude oil--reddish when he smears it thin. The wet waft of oceans. The water swirls, already carrying the violet cloud away downstream. A golden ring glints at his feet as the rain fitfully washes it clean. A mason jar lid, corroded with rust. He kicks it across the pool; it skips once before vanishing. --- “Quite a laceration, Herr Scharfschutze.†“Mm.†Sniper sits under the doctor’s hands as they busily stitch his scalp. It is very quiet in the surgery, with only the faint strains of Wagner from the gramophone in the office. Medic tugs and snips and works his needle, his patient wincing but stoic. “Gonna ask how it happened?†The doctor exhales sharply, his fingers pausing only a for a moment before resuming their work. --- “Ha ha, mate.†“What?†“It’s alright, I get it--harass the new guy; get him nice and annoyed, trial by fire kinda thing. Been through enough transfers to know the drill.†Scout startles, dropping his toothbrush into the sink and stumbling back. He looks at Sniper, toothpaste foaming down his chin. “Man, I dunno what the fuck but I didn’t do nothin’ to your toothpaste.†He spits. Sniper is holding up a flattened tube, the paste long gone, grimy and crumpled. He attempts a reassuring smile. “Easy, kid. Not mad atcha.†Sniper claps him on the shoulder and the runner nods, wiping his mouth on a towel. “Didn’t think they even made this brand anymore.†The spy’s long face appears in the mirror over their shoulders, on his way past the sinks. “They don’t.†Sniper wets his toothbrush and helps himself to a blob of Scout’s paste. “Well, where’d you--†His teammates are already gone. --- It’s the end of his first working week at Sawmill, and it’s felt like a long one, the way the rain and cold seeps into his bones, not like the comforting warmth of the deserts, the dryness he’s long-accustomed to. He finds a little overhang, far enough out from the base, just to get a little privacy, and in that relatively dry spot, he reaches into his vest pocket with hands tired of not shaking. It’s a good job, but it’s an immense toll, to be still and steady all the time, and ready for whatever trouble comes. The rain makes it worse, harder to leap out of a crouch held hours. He has an old half-rusted coffee can up against the building’s side where it won’t fill with water, and a match he strikes against his bootheel, and the cigarette tapped out into his waiting hand... a hand that feels like it’s been waiting too long for that smoke. He doesn’t go through many a day. Doesn’t chain-smoke on the field like the spies do, doesn’t always join in late night poker games with wreaths of grey-blue hanging in the air overhead. But at the end of a long day he’ll go through one or two, just until the stress ebbs away a bit, and maybe half another if things have been specially trying. He’s wondering if he wants to be out long enough to finish this one off-- doesn’t like to smoke too heavily in his van; no room, and he’d hate to set the bed on fire, but he feels like he needs it, has to weigh that itch for more against the chill and the rain. When he turns back for the half a cigarette he’s left perched on the edge of the coffee can, the whole kit and caboodle’s gone, with no trace of any thief. --- For a long moment, he just stares. As practical jokes go, the Sniper reckons, this one beats the toothpaste tube by a long-shot. It’s certainly nicer than that jar to the head. But it’s weird. It’s beyond weird. Who on earth managed to sneak away from the battle and leave a fish on his bonnet? Where did they get it? The fish is long, eely, with ill-developed little fins and gaping blind eyes, round and pink, bulging from its little skull. The milky scales are damaged in places, blood etched into the patterns of the scales. When he bends to inspect it, things feel weirder still. A mouthful of needle teeth, translucent and strange, an awkward crimp halfway down the body as if it had been caught and crushed in some tight place... no damage to the mouth from a hook. A net, then? Or some kind of trap? It was already dead when the Sniper got back to his van, no longer writhing and gasping, but he could see the pattern of its death throes in the way the water gathered. Why the hell had someone left a live fish on the bonnet of his van? Buying or ordering one was one thing, but going to all the trouble of, of what? Of finding and catching such a thing nearby, just to inconvenience the new guy? He didn’t even know when they’d had the time... He took the fish back into the base, those questions and more swirling through the forefront of his thoughts. Someone had to know something. Hadn’t be been doing his job long enough for that? For a straight answer about just one thing? It all seemed so beyond the pale. --- Unlike all the offerings that appeared around his camper, the little etched stone was a chance find. Like the other objects, it scared the living hell out of him. It seemed to be the work of a lunatic-- the work of a lunatic at best. It was a creature born of imagination, that or madness. A chip of shale carved with writhing tentacles, attached to something that looked like half a man. It wasn’t the work of a sane person, which bothered him; he’d seen plenty of rock paintings back home, beautiful work by the aboriginal people, but this was something else. Even if it wasn’t the work of his own, probably unbalanced, secret admirer, it seemed solid proof that someone on the base was off his meds or trying to get a rise out of him. In the end, the Sniper took it to the Medic. It seemed to fall under his purview more than it did any of the others, and if he wasn’t much mistaken, the Medic had been there longer than most. “Doc. Y’ever seen anything like this?†He tossed it to the other man. The Medic snatched the river pebble out of the air, pushing his glasses up and down his nose as he examined the etching. He frowned and pressed it into the Sniper’s hand once more. “I am sorry, my friend.†The Medic shook his head, and in his eyes, Sniper thought he glimpsed a terrible understanding, or a distant sadness. ----- It’s the Scout who asks him if he’s seen the cave yet, before the others shut him up, with reproachful glares, and low murmurs that the Sniper doesn’t understand, murmurs that stop as soon as he turns around. “What cave?†But they have hurried on to the next subject, pretending he asked something else. He goes out, of course. He has to. The sky is full of the wet moon and scudding cloudscraps, the grass spongy under his boots. He heads for the shushing of the waterfall, the only place he can think to find a cave, and wades in shivering. He leaves his boots on, letting them fill with water, preferring to be soaked than vulnerable to whatever scuttles along the smooth river stones, invisible in the wan light. He finds it, behind the waterfall. He has to skirt along a narrow ledge, to avoid the surprisingly deep cenote beyond the roaring curtain, but with a flashlight in his teeth, palms flat to the wall and a prayer echoing in his skull, he makes it there. He doesn’t know what to think. For long moments, he loses the capacity completely. Rational thought holds no purchase in this place. At first, he thinks he’s looking at the things he’s lost, but like the glasses, they are all too old. Corroded, rotting, otherwise identical to his own missing hat, his own aviators, things that had gone missing from his weapons locker, his pockets, or his van. He starts forward to reclaim some lost button or truant sock, but once he lays hands on them, they aren’t quite right--a pair of glasses with scratches that don’t match his own battles; books with the wrong pages dogeared, the wrong passages underlined. The hat is in the best condition, and for a moment he thinks it really is his, but a closer inspection proves differently. Too old, just... waterlogged, eaten away. There are shell casings from his rifle; he accidentally scatters them out of their careful arrangement on the floor. There is a small hutch, warped from all the damp, where more jars, presumed lost, are set in rows. Full. The large, pallid, bundled object that at first he takes for a discarded hamper proves, on closer inspection, to be a life-size marble statue. No, not marble...the material is softer, spotted with odd green stains, embedded in the white. The scent is familar--lemon? Soap, the last slivers of soap, when it gets too small to use, too slender to pinch in slippery baths, small enough to slip down drains--molded and carved, and molded again. The figure is huddled, sleeping or cowering or worshipping, maybe, he cannot tell, but it’s him, that much is obvious as his light hits the bowed face. The fact that it’s nude is disturbing enough, the fact that it’s accurate, down to the last scar and weal, is something that he is not prepared to digest. He turns away, seeking purchase for his thoughts elsewhere. He feels as if he has forgotten something. The walls pluck at him, pull him away from himself like taffy, stretch him out into the gloom. Even the roar of the water is tamped down as his ears start to pound with his accelerating pulse. It is then that he notices them--the crosshairs. Hundreds, thousands of them. Blanketing every surface of the cave. Every stalactite and nook, every facet of quartz, every patch of lichen, all whittled and scraped and etched and inked with the symbol, his symbol, interlocking in chains and clusters and moires that make him think of swarming things, clutches of secret larvae, swathes of barnacles or boils. They bulge from the walls, making him sick and dizzy, the crashing water drowning out thought. He looks at the floor but they are there too, writhing under his soles. Words. When he tries to focus his eyes, he sees them, weaving through the crosshairs, hard to make out. An eccentric and beautiful cursive, organic as the trail of a slug. He’s not sure he wants to let the flashlight linger long enough to read them. Before he can turn the beam away, he is scalded with desperate fragments: ‘I waited’. ‘Pour vous’. ‘I can only’. He turns the light off, covers his face in the instant black. He doesn’t need to know what it’s about, in this place, to know he does not want the rest of it. Knows that too much of that swirling writing will make him mad. After a moment, when his breath returns to him, he clicks the flashlight on once more, careful not to let his eyes rest on any words. There is only one thing that isn’t his, tucked into a crevice, blunted and deformed from scraping the walls and god knows what else--a butterfly knife, rusted to uselessness. Something sick and wet rolls over in his stomach. He closes the knife with difficulty, and shoves it into his pocket. If their Spy doesn’t know anything about it, then he’ll take it out on the enemy Spy in the morning. --- “You should leave, now.†“Not before you answer the fucking question, spook.†“I do not mean you should leave here, this room, this little patch of carpet. I mean you should go. You are an outdoorsman, yes? You could walk right off this mountain, and back to the world.†“Why so hung up on my location? You scared someone caught you being creepier than usual? Someone might rat you out; write you up?†Sniper crowds into him a little. “You would not do any of these things, even if I had the time or energy or inclination to build this ‘shrine behind a waterfall’.†He pauses to mouth a new cigarette, to brush Sniper’s cheek preemptorily with the back of a glove. Sniper catches the long hand, feeling the bones shifting under the leather, leaning into the agent’s ambience, inhaling the rich scent of him, sandalwood and hair oil, leather, cool cloth, rain. Spy brings his free hand to his face and lights his cigarette, settling back against the wall, basking in the Sniper’s nearness. “I like your style, but we will be late to work.†“We have a few minutes.†“Very few. I don’t work that quickly.†“Little late, to be coy with me.†“I regret that I must disappoint--I am emphatically not the author of your strange, sub-aqueous ode. And besides, I prefer the inlaid handle.†He offers his own knife from his pocket, clean and well-oiled, an entirely different model than the one the gunman showed him. Sniper drops the wrist, which lingers in mid-air, regretting the lost grip. Spy massages the bruise. “A shame. I cannot tempt you with a diversion more terrestrial? Tonight, picnic for two, that eastern roof with the overhang? It is dry, at least.†Sniper lets his gaze linger on the contours of the mask, the mouth tucking in warm smoke, but he does not accept the invitation. A smile. “Are you so vain, that your admirers must become obsessed with you before you show any interest?†“It’s not that,†he replies at last, stepping back. “It’s just that I know when I’m being hunted.†“Are you incapable of doing more than one thing at a time?†But the gunman is already walking away. --- “I wish you would reconsider.†The Spy appears in his latest perch, a man emerging from a devilish haze of smoke. His coquetry has dropped away. Now he seems to droop, almost, and Sniper notes that he has seen very few such authentic expressions on a spy. It reminds him of how the Medic looked, handing him back that little carving. It disturbs him now, as it did then. Not that he would be surprised, to find the two expressions related. He breaks their gaze, not wanting to encourage this inscrutable pity. “Not really interested, mate. Not even sure you are, now.†“I could be.†“But that’s not why you’re bothering me.†“No. It is not.†The Spy looks out over the sopping complex, following the gunman’s beam as it catches the drizzle. “Mon perroquet, you may know when you are being hunted. Perhaps you even guess at why. But there are more important questions, and you will not find the answers in time. Don’t look for them. Don’t look for anything, in this place.†He can tell by the Spy’s voice that he is being stared at again, but keeps his eye to his scope. “Not sure I care to stroll down that wordy little labyrinth, but if you’re telling me to walk away from my contract, the answer is no.†The butt of his rifle nuzzles his shoulder, the only caress he wants on this battlefield. He lines up his shot, the enemy Heavy drops, brain all but atomized. The Sniper grins and slinks along his ledge, shifting to a new vantage point. The Spy follows, unbidden. “You could ask for a transfer, then, instead. I could write to them, on your behalf. I could--†“You’re like a bad penny, mate.†“I am only giving you fair warning. None of the others will interfere, except through accident.†Sniper looks up, interest piqued. “The Scout? What does he--†The Spy shakes his head and vanishes with a soft buzz. “You have my warning. But if you stay, if you do not accept the offer I have made you... then I must cut my ties as well. Even in our strange little war, there are points from which no man returns. You are heading there fast. Faster than the last sniper.†He fights off a shudder as the spy fades away, and reminds himself that the spook could be toying with him, that they always are, even the ones in the proper colors. --- I’m done being terrified. By the time I first see it--see him--it’s like the world’s gone so mad around me, it hardly matters what he is. Besides... I already know. He’s been waiting. I am surprised to find I have been waiting, too. And I laugh at myself for waiting so long, when he was always here. I know that now. It happens fast and feels slow. Or I think it does. Hard to say, hard to say about anything anymore. The musty taste of lakewater flavours the kiss, when he surges up for me, and even that doesn’t surprise me. Of course he’d want to kiss me, he’s... he’s been waiting. Lakewater, and blood, and hunger, different sorts of hunger, all rolling up to the shore, overtaking the little wavelets and bursting, bursting on the smooth stones in a froth, skin like pearls, shining in the rain, and when he ebbs, he pulls me in with him. I let him. The rain’s soaked through me already; the lake won’t hurt. He wraps around me tight, his touch moving over me in some secret language, words traced on my back and into my soul and I can’t read them through my skin. It seems like an eternity before I know I’ll never be able to. I breathe in and out of him through the kiss as he drags me away from the shore, away from my clothes, all the useless objects that stood between me and the water, between me and this worship There is a ritual. I feel him swarm on my skin, I am surrounded with him; the water rushes past. The cenote behind the waterfall and the deep black waters. His body hitches and clings and I only struggle for a moment, before it’s fine. We’re going down... Me and him. I cannot see, though the water is soft on my open eyes. Cool, and soft, and I wonder at never having felt pleasure on my eyes before, and I lift my hands to my face but he is there, in my mouth, and I skate over his skin, and he blooms at my touch, and now I can see, I see starlight picked out along his pale shapes, far lights on a roiling moon, and he glows and pulses around me, but this is what the ritual is, and he plucks at me like he has spent more time in my body than I have, and I hold my breath as the kiss breaks, as his teeth sink deep in the side of my neck and I hold on... I just hold on... The shock of pleasure and pain makes me gasp, a mistake I’d make anyway, sooner or later. We’re going down. I had to breathe sometime. Anyway, it’s only frightening for a moment. It’s only fair. He’s been waiting, see... He’s been waiting for me. The water gets darker, further down. I feel him, and then I do not feel the water anymore, I only feel him, and... Nothing else. --- It seems like I wait so long for you, my darling, every time. Remember when we made love on land, my darling? A long time ago. I don’t mind, you know that I don’t. You always come back to me. The funny little game we play, my darling, remember how it began? Long ago as well… after the first time that you disappeared. I remember. Even when I forget myself, I forget myself… I remember that. I listened in as they talked about you like you were dead. They said you would never come back. They wanted to replace you. They had no faith. I did. I waited and watched for you, your van climbing the long mountain road to reach me. You seemed unsure. We never spoke about what happened when you were away, to make things change. You were away so long, the first time. You were so understanding, darling, when you came back. I… I forgot, how to say all those things I once did. Sometimes even I forget how to… to think, like before… there is sometimes a blackness when it is just the water and me. and sometimes, just the water. When you didn’t come back to me right away, I admit my faith was shaken. You must forgive me, darling, if it seems that I was silly. I was foolish and I was scared, because you didn’t run to me, but I soon deciphered our new language. When I thought that you were angry with me, when you put me from your mind, I left you my little tokens. And I took some of my own; I hoped you wouldn’t miss them. I know now it was part of the game, I know now that you wanted me to have these things. A little exchange, a proper wooing. Am I not a romantic, my darling, remember? The drawn-out courtship, each time, brings its own little thrills. Like a new love, every time. You mustn’t think I mind it, my love, my darling, you mustn’t think I mind. I only wish that you stayed with me for more than one night at a time… But you came back to me. You always do. Sometimes you are naughty, love, sometimes you make me wait a long time but you come. You come to me and then there are no words. I wrap myself around you, and every kiss is rubies. Every touch is golden. You come in to me, and you writhe, and you twist, and you burn me with your hot skin, and you wreathe yourself in all my arms. You are like some wild animal, my darling, when we make love. You claw at me, and buck, and stiffen, and I do all that I can to hold you safe through sweet pleasures… I miss you terribly, when you go away. But it is worth it, knowing you will always come to me. You sleep like a stone, when I take you down with me, after. You slumber sweet heavy in my arms, first hot then warm then cool and sweet, and languid, like me. This is when you are most like me, my love, when we are one Thing, a soft creature, drifting in clean black under-sky. You are my pillow, and I am your blanket, and we roll cold and light in my silent home. I cannot help but kiss you then, my darling. I know you do not mind it; you never push me away. You sleep on, while I kiss and cling. Your hands open to the smooth stones, and the little blind fish dart through them. You are so patient with the little fish, so gentle. We float through afterglow together that way and you always wake up before me. You leave your clothes behind. In time they disintegrate… every token that I take from you does, in time. That is why you leave them for me, I know. You wish for me to have something. Remember, darling, the first gift you gave me? I keep it safe. I keep it dry. As dry as I can. I have it still. Everything else falls apart. I know why you always leave them. So I can have your smell for as long as the poor fabric lasts. I am only sorry, my darling, my love, that in my haste it seems I always tear them. I am only so eager to reach you. When you leave, I know it will be some time before I see you again… but I am used to the game by now, we have played it so long. You will go… to wherever it is that you go. Then you will return, and I will court you again, leaving my shy trinkets where they will surprise and delight you. Sometimes you make me wait, my darling, but I am never angry. Because I am so happy to see you. But sometimes you cannot wait, to see me, too. Those times when you rush to me are the sweetest, knowing that you can hardly keep up the pretense, knowing that you need me so. I am already thinking of how to gain your attention this time… Will I romance you with little gifts? Will I tease you, pretend that we are old enemies instead of old lovers, until you come around again? Perhaps both… whatever it is you want, I will find it. You will come to me. You always do. Your visits are brief, my darling, but so wonderful. As though making love to you gives me the strength to live on, as though love is my only sustenance, while I wait to see you again. You would worry, my darling, if you knew… but I do not feel weak, I promise! And I never hunger and sometimes it is days after your visit, before I need to hunt again. I am only sorry, darling, that your visits are so brief… not because it is not enough for me, for it is. But I am sorry that you have never met the children.
http://tf2chan.net/fanart/src/134112985426.jpg Illustration by Toxo here.
The best word I can think of to describe this is titdal - how it pulls away, and back, and away, and back, and how it finally pushes over and pulls you under. It's gradual, and not gentle, and I like that very much. When you collaborate on this subject, it always turns out very soft, very dreamlike, and I love that. It really is like getting pulled under the waves.
Oh wow. Oh WOW. This is so...so beautiful, and creepy, and extremely sad, and just...I have no words. No intelligent ones, at least. I do hope there is more of this, although this by itself is a treasure already. Wow. WOW.
Stunning. Literally stunning in that I'm sitting here blinking at the screen with my head full of all this imagery and I realize I have been for several minutes now without moving. Wow.
I always find it hard to suspend my disbelief for anything involving tentaspy. The writing was beautiful, though, and the descriptions of lurking anxiety and strange, dark places were pretty compelling. It was reminiscent (to me, anyhow) of Lovecraft's better work.
I honestly didn't like it. Felt like it was trying too hard to sound surreal. The writing style grated on me. It didn't feel like it matched up with Sniper, it doesn't feel like anything was coming from the Sniper. He's not a surreal or floaty guy. And it was difficult to tell what exactly was going on in a scene sometimes. It was like the descriptions were too zoomed in to provide a good portrayal of the scenes. And the end I guess the tentaspy keeps screwing and drowning the Snipers whenever they replace the last one he drowned? I don't know, maybe I didn't come into the story with the right mindset. I guess I wasn't prepared. It felt like something R.L. Stine wrote, and maybe that's why I found it so annoying. Sorry.
Many thanks, everyone, for the comments and critique. We really appreciate you taking the time to write them out and post them, both positive and negative opinions. It's great to have all kinds of feedback, and this will be really excellent input to have, going forward.
All I can think of currently is how the lyrics to "Spies" By Coldplay are drifting around in my mind. This is very errie and I do like it. My only complaint is the very end the writing goes off a bit in a strange choppy style which is a bit distracting but I do see what you were trying to do at the end. All and all I give it a 8 out of 10. Hope to see more things like this in the future.
I awake to find no peace of mind I said how do you live as a fugitive Down here where I cannot see so clear I said, what do I know Show me the right way to go And the spies came out of the water But you're feeling so bad 'cause you know But the spies hide out in every corner You can't touch them no, 'cause they're all spies They're all spies I awake to see that no one is free We're all fugitives Look at the way we live Down here, I cannot sleep from fear no I said, which way do I turn Oh I forget everything I learn But the spies came out of the water But you're feeling so bad 'cause you know The spies hide out in every corner But you can't touch them no 'Cause they're all spies They're all spies And if we all hide here They're going to find us If we don't hide now They're going to catch us where we sleep And if we don't hide here They're going to find us And spies came out of the water But you're feeling so good 'cause you know Though spies hide out in every corner They can't touch you no 'Cause they're just spies They're just spies --- You're right! How odd that I have forgotten all about this song. I used to love it.
I may or may not be misty-eyed right now. That was beautifully written, the sweet, sad desperation and loyalty of love. It was eerie, haunting to read and it left me feeling an odd, melancholy sort of combination of nagging loneliness and fulfillment. While I did truly enjoy this I am the sort of person who likes solidity and I have so many questions stewing in my mind but what I'm most wondering about is that in this 'verse is there no respawn? Is that why the tentaspy must wait over and over again? And I'm not looking for an answer in story per say but simply by author's comment. I really look forward to reading more of this! (if there's going to be more of this?) p.s. I'm totally not listening to "spies" on repeat right now.
>>12 I've been wondering about the respawn question as well. When the tentaspy first said that the Sniper always wakes up first, I thought that was respawn picking him up, but then there was that bit about not being hungry for a long time afterwards, which made me suspect that perhaps our tentacled friend indulges in a bit of sleep-eating. However, my personal theory is that respawn does exist, but the Sniper keeps getting his memory modified and treated by the rest of the team like a new person. There are little hints--the statue is "accurate, down to the last scar and weal," and when he goes into the cave, "He feels as if he has forgotten something." Then there's that whole bit about the Sniper realizing that the Tentaspy has been waiting for him all this time, and that he, the Sniper, has been waiting too. Also, something about the times that the Tentaspy mentions when the Sniper rushes to him make me think that perhaps he'll occasionally go to the lake more than once before his teammates find out and he gets shipped out to get his memory modified once again--that's just total speculation, though. It may very well be a different Sniper each time. But I can't help but suspect that it's the same one...
The last line made me cry. Beautiful.
Argh, captcha eating my post. Anyway, so what we forgot to mention when we posted this, is that Pearl Diving is the second part in a trilogy of stories: 1. The Swimming Lesson: http://tf2chan.net/afanfic/res/10730.html 2. Pearl Diving (you are here) 3. Breaking the Surface (working title) When we wrote and posted Swimming Lesson, we did not know we were writing an arc. The setpiece cues in that story are not really specific to Sawmill, and we probably are going to have to give these three bits a once-over before we release them as a bundle with their illustrations.
I went to all the trouble of retyping that post the captcha ate, and still forgot to address the actual relevant thing, WHICH IS: that the respawn issue is something I cannot comment on. You're going to have to wait for Breaking the Surface. (-__- ;;)
Oh good lord...This is a sequel to The Swimming Lesson? If you hadn't said it, I never would have thought...Wow. I'll never look at that fic the same way again. It always seemed fairly light, but now I'm noticing all these new things that are making me sad. I'm glad to hear there's going to be a part three, and I can't wait. Wow. WOW.
I...honestly didn't like this. It was well written, the characters were well fleshed out...but they didn't make sense in the world they were written into. If Respawn is broken, then it makes no sense for each new Sniper to fall for the Tentaspy. If Respawn is working slowly, it doesn't make sense for Sniper to forget. Disregarding Respawn entirely, it doesn't make sense at all for the team to keep Sniper in the dark. If it's happening so many times, it would make sense for them to pipe up IMMEDIATELY or deal with the situation instead of being mysterious and shady about it. And that Medic can't possibly be the same one. If he knew about the Tentaspy he would track it down, or at least understand that it needed to die. He wouldn't be acting just as weird as the rest of the team when he was the one behind the whole thing. The Sniper also seemed very worldly, and very inexperienced. He declares that he knows he's being hunted, but immediately dives right in and lets the Tentaspy kill him without a second thought because it feels good. This just feels like a sappy attempt at a tragic love story. Idly mentioning children, too, only intensifies that feeling. I really enjoyed The Swimming Lesson, but this turn in the story is extremely off putting. I'm just finding way too many problems with everything to want to continue reading.
I'm not sure I agree with your conception of Medic as the kind of guy who'd charge into a damp cave with a bonesaw, but I appreciate your feedback very much. Thank you!
>>19 I don't mean that he would dive right in. I mean that he was very eager to go find his experiment before, and loved to talk about it. Him suddenly being quiet and broody is so bizarre. Medic's a cheerful mad scientist, not a gloomy Gus.
"Eager to go find his experiment"? I guess I don't know what you're referencing. Possibly you're thinking of a different fic than this one?
Perhaps this Anon is thinking of The Dustbowl Horror? Because The Swimming Lesson just did not have a Medic in it, unless you count the extremely brief mention of the doctor teaching the Sniper the word "hectocotylus"...Hmm.. Also, we can't really criticize what's going on with the respawn yet, because we don't know what it is. And the Sniper doesn't just dive in because it feels good--at least, that's not what I got from any of my five or six read-throughs so far. He shows up at the shore because he's done living in fear of whatever is hunting him, and when the Tentaspy shows up he realizes...something. Something that seems to be a memory, but again, is left intentionally vague. But at no point does it say, "I had no idea what that fucking tentacle thing was, but it looked like a sexy ride, so I went for it." I just think you're really confusing this with another fic....
I think I might be, considering that The Dustbowl Horror really seemed to fit with what happened in The Swimming Lesson (ie, how the Tentaspy got there). If they're completely separate and it was just a bizarre coincidence that both Tentaspies ended up safe and free in a lake, then I apologize. But it really seemed like they fit together. So that would clear that up. Still doesn't rub me the right way, though. I don't know, I'm just sick of gloomy, serious characters I suppose.