Respawn Errors Teaser/WIP

Anniversary Teaser/WIP

Summary: The Aussie and the Frenchman don't come to the little diner in town very often, but Dana always appreciates the break from backshift monotony that they provide.

——

Anniversary

[...]

The night shift, though, was when the Frenchman and the Aussie came in.

They were Dana’s favourite regulars, though “regulars” might have been a bit of a stretch: their visits were sporadic, and she’d only really seen them maybe seven or eight times since their first appearance almost a year back. They were some kind of contractors, part of the group working out of the old train depot in the desert, but while their fellows who frequented the town had garnered something of a… reputation in town, the Frenchman and the Aussie were never anything but friendly and courteous, if maybe a little aloof. They weren’t too hard on the eyes, either, which was always a pleasant treat during a long shift.

Their visits, infrequent as they were, followed a by-now familiar routine, so when the slightly janky glow of the dusty camper’s headlights pulled into the parking lot, Dana perked up from where she’d been leaning on the counter in a haze of stupefied boredom. The night so far had been even more quiet than usual, with not even the usual drunks staggering in. Any diversion would have been welcome, and this one was definitely more welcome than most.

She poured out two glasses of water, no ice, and two mugs of coffee from the good pot to the rumbling and squeaking of the camper rolling into its accustomed space. The engine chuffed to a halt, and she heard the muffled mutter of voices from outside as she set the drinks on a serving tray. The words burst into sudden clarity as the door swung open.

“-etter things to spend my money on.” The Aussie was the first to enter, holding the door open for his companion and tipping his wide-brimmed hat at Dana in greeting. “It still runs fine, and it’s not like I’ve got plans t’do any drag-racin’ out here.”

“It sounds like a wounded animal begging to be put out of its misery,” the Frenchman said, offering Dana a nod and small smile as he made his way to the booth in the smoking section with the least-scarred table, taking his usual seat in the bunkette with a view of the door. “Even the convict’s van doesn’t sound ’alf as bad, and it ’as made acquaintance with every ditch within twenty kilometres of the base. Even Engineer thinks it’s time to retire the poor beast, and ’e’s put as much work into keeping it alive as you.”

[...]

“Yer not worried ’bout Twinkle Toes gettin’ jealous?” the Aussie said, a smirk clear in his voice. The Frenchman snorted, and Dana returned to her place behind the counter just in time to see him rolling his eyes as he stirred three creamers and a sugar packet into his coffee.

“’Ardly. Even if ’e gets in that kind of mood, I only need ask ’oo it was that Wrenches punched in the face, and why, and ’e shuts up quickly enough.” He sipped his coffee and stirred in another half a sugar pack. He took a second sip, hummed in satisfaction, and set down his spoon.

There was a long moment of comfortable silence. The Aussie sipped his coffee and the Frenchman lit a cigarette. Dana was hanging the order ticket up for the kitchen when the Frenchman spoke again.

“’E told me ’is name, a few months ago. Not long after ’is… little tryst with the RED Scout.”

“No shit?” The Aussie blinked, his mug halfway to his lips. “How’d ya manage ta squeeze that out of him?”

“As if you could bear to ’ear the gory details, mon ami,” the Frenchman said with a chuckle, shaking his head. “I’ll ’ave you know, it was freely offered. Completely out of nowhere, and in French, no less. I’ll admit, I was surprised, and impressed.” He chuckled again, but Dana thought there was a sad quality to it. “It says a lot about us, non? A simple introduction is seen as the epitome of friendship, or romance.”

“Mm.” The Aussie took another sip of his coffee. “You tell ’im yours?”

Dana started wiping down the counter, keeping half an eye on the pair. She saw the Frenchman frown slightly, a more uncomfortable look than she had expected to see on his face. He took a sip of his own coffee, gazing into the mug for a long moment afterward.

“Non. Not yet,” he said, sighing as he set his mug back down. He took a drag from his cigarette and tapped ash off into the ashtray at the end of the table. The Aussie’s brow went up when his friend didn’t continue.

“He’s gonna start wonderin’ ’bout that, if ya don’t soon. Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t started buggin’ ya for it already, if it’s been a few months. Y’know how he is,” he said.

The Frenchman shook his head. “Better than you do, ami. I just play the ‘I’m a Spy’ card if he starts trying to pry. There is still enough mystique in’erent in my profession to allow me to keep ’im in the dark when I wish.”

“Uh huh.” The Aussie’s eyebrow stayed up, disbelief as clear in those two syllables as it was on his face. “And keepin’ him in the dark is still yer plan? Can’t say that’s what I was expectin’.”

The Frenchman raised an eyebrow of his own. “Oh? ’Ow so?”

“Just thought y’were a li’l more open with them as got their hooks fixed in ya, based on past experience. Kid’s practically got ya wrapped ’round his little finger.” The Frenchman stiffened visibly, shooting the Aussie a dark look, and the Aussie smirked widely. “Mate, eleven years is a long bloody time. I can read ya like a book, fancy-arse Spy nonsense and all. We both know, if that scrawny mongrel says ‘jump’, you ask ‘how high?’” He laughed and poked the other man in the shoulder. “You really are smitten, aren’tcha? With Scout, of all the bloody people. Fuck me dead!”

“Oh, wipe the grin off your face, bushman,” the Frenchman said, smoothing his suit jacket where the Aussie had poked. “You are acting like a twittering ’igh school girl.”

“Oh, this is worth twitterin’ over if anythin’ is, mate.” The Aussie’s grin only grew and he leaned forward. “Yer blushin’!”

“Ta yeule! I am no such thing!”

“You are!” The Aussie laughed again, and, even from behind the counter, Dana could see the flush rising in the Frenchman’s cheeks. “Ha! Gremlin’s got you twisted up like one a’yer own bloody ties! Christ on a bike, how the Hell did that happen?”

“You think I do not also want to know? Esti de câlice de tabarnak!” the Frenchman said, rubbing at his temples. Dana thought she heard him growl as he tapped ash from his cigarette a little harder than necessary. “’E is not at all up to my usual standards. Everything about ’im should be utterly repellent! ’E is loud, and crass. Not only uneducated, but seemingly willfully ignorant as well. ’Opelessly juvenile. Thoughtless, careless, infuriatingly sure of ’imself especially when ’e ’as no reason to be. Uncultured, ’yperactive to the point of trying even my patience, stubborn, rude-”

“And…” The Aussie still wore a smirk. The Frenchman gave him a dry look.

“And…” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Tabarnache… ’E is surprisingly sensitive, even kind, when ’e puts ’is mind to it. More selfless than ’e will ever admit, and more unsure than ’e lets on, to the point that it really is endearing, in a way. Startlingly naïve in surprising ways. Almost painfully eager to prove ’imself, and so determined.” A small smile twitched his lips before it grew into a nasty grin of his own. “’E’s incredible in bed, too.”

The Aussie’s smile collapsed into a sullen grimace. “Ahh, and y’just had ta bring that up…”

“Hon hon hon. I can tease too, bushman.” The Frenchman chuckled. “Though, I must admit, it is not nearly as easy as it used to be.”

“Eh, I’ve put up with yer poncy ass long enough; I’m almost used to yer bizzo by now, scary as that is t’think about.” The Aussie shrugged, smile returning. “Don’t mean I like hearin’ the bloody details, mind you, but I’m not gonna lose my head. Consentin’ adults, and all that.” The Aussie paused and narrowed his eyes. “Scout is consentin’, right?”

The Frenchman gave his friend another flat look, pointedly ashing his cigarette. “Do I look like the convict to you?”

“Well, sometimes. What with yer disguise kit an’ all.”

“’Ow ’ave I not murdered you yet?”

“You have. Nine times by my count. Wait, ten. Forgot last week.” Dana saw the Aussie kick the Frenchman in the shin, and fought back a laugh. She had no idea what they were talking about, but their easy camaraderie and banter was really sweet to see. “It wasn’t my fault he figured it out, by the way; ya had no call stabbin’ me.”

“Oh, please. You could not ’ave pointed it out more clearly if you’d been ’olding a map. Thanks to your thoughtful guidance, ’e ’as started referring to me as ‘Poutine’, on occasion, rather than just ‘French Fry’. I am still trying to decide whether it is worth killing  ’im over or not…”

The Aussie laughed again, a rich belly laugh that wasn’t interrupted by a kick to his own leg or the rude gesture the Frenchman directed at him when the kick drew no response.

“Order up.”

Dana turned to the kitchen window and saw the collection of steaming dishes on the ledge. She gathered them up on her serving tray, throwing Chuck a quick thanks, and brought them out the Aussie and Frenchman’s table. The Aussie was still chuckling behind a hand and the Frenchman was finishing off his cigarette a little too nonchalantly.

[...]

Tales of Well Basics

What it says on the can. Basic background/world info on my TF2 shorts.

Maybe TMI before even posting any of the shorts, but I'm terrible at summaries, so I'd rather just throw up some basic info, to help keep any important setting/mechanics details in one place.

Also see: BLU team bare bones info! RED team bare bones info!

[Taken from ff.net summary] Primarily slice-of-life, romance, and cozy-fiction, with a smattering of action, drama and even, occasionally, glimpses of a larger overarching plot.

Entirely OC cast. Sorry.

Primary focus on the BLU team, particularly Scout, Spy, Pyro, and Sniper, though the RED Scout will also be taking a larger role as the shorts go on.

Pairings (not necessarily all at once): BLU Spy/Scout (not related!), BLU Red Oktoberfest (background), RED Speeding Bullet, RED Texas Two-Step, Scoutcest, cross-faction Flash Fire, Scoutcest-Flash Fire combo (is there a name for that?). [Apologies, but RED Scout is turning into a little bit of a manwhore :P]

Takes place at CP Well in the early 1990s (first short in the timeline takes place March 6, 1993), after the BLU and RED teams (Garrison and Rampart, respectively) transfer from a multi-year stint at Teufort. The majority of both teams worked with (or against) each other at Sawmill for several years before that as well.

One member of each class on each team.

Despite being on a Capture Point map, and participating in Capture Point matches, the teams also frequently partake in Capture the Flag battles, and there are the occasional King of the Hill days and Team Deathmatches thrown in for spice.

There are not fights every day, but the mercs will usually put in at least thirty to thirty-five hours a week on the field. Weekends are usually ceasefire time, but scheduling is erratic: the mercs can fight for nine days straight, then not at all for another five. Matches can last up to eight hours if victory conditions are not met, but stalemates/time-outs of this kind are rare.

Friendly fire is disabled during battle, but teammates can still make physical contact with one another. Friendly fire IS enabled during ceasefire.

Respawn exists, of the "reconstruction from a digital template" variety.

Respawn is enabled during fights, and enabled on a delay during ceasefire. Wounds taken in battle (or during ceasefire) remain until healed or respawned. If killed during ceasefire, but within the respawn area bounds, the deceased will remain in the “respawn void” until the beginning of the next match.

Respawning too often during a single match, or spending too much time in the respawn void, can lead to respawn errors, which can range in seriousness from scarring and minor memory loss to misplaced limbs and organs. Most respawn errors can be corrected by medigun/dispenser healing, a subsequent respawn, or simply the passage of time (respawn errors that fade this way [amnesia, phantom pain, or intense paranoia, for example] usually last no longer than ten minutes, though more severe ones can last for hours), but other errors can prove permanent, or permanently fatal. Usually, respawn errors will begin to appear after fifteen or so respawns in a single match, or more than eighteen hours spent in the respawn void, and the severity of the errors will, in general, be proportional to the number of deaths or time spent in the void.

Before their initial deployment, each merc receives a full medical physical examination from RED/BLU, where they are given injections that grant them increased endurance and pain tolerance, and generally increase their physical hardiness (as well as help to facilitate respawn). These injections also allow for Übercharge, and some classes also receive other abilities (Scouts’ double-jump, for example).

Supply deliveries come once a month, and shipments of improved weapons and gear usually arrive two or three times a year. Not every class will receive gear in each special shipment, though there is rarely equipment for less than three (though “equipment” might be a little generous; hats and other “cosmetic items” are included by this category).

Engineers can set up three sentries, one of each level. However, they are still limited to one dispenser and teleporter at a time.

And there we go. Again, probably way more info than anyone needs, but I'm a world-builder at heart; working out the background details like this is my catnip.

Munchies Run Teaser/WIP

(In most of the shorts where both Scouts are present, they're going to be referred to in narration as Red and Blue, just FYI.) If anyone who can actually speak Spanish reads this, please let me know if Pyro's Spanish dialogue is wrong in any way! I'm an English-only girl and I try to get my translations as accurate as I can, but, especially for the longer bits, I'm sure I probably screwed something up D:

Warning: this one's got excessive f-bombs and f-slurs (courtesy of Blue). Proceed with caution if that kind of language bothers you! Also marijuana use *shrugs*

Summary: Pyro and the Scouts get some of Spy's weed for their hangout session, and the munchies inevitably strike.

——

Munchies Run

[...]

“¡Eyyy, Rojo! ¡Ese! ¿Qué pasa, hombre?”

Red’s shock stole away any greeting he might have been prepared to offer, leaving his mouth hanging dumbly open. He had heard maybe five un-mask-muffled words out of Pyro in the weeks they’d hung out, and those only in moments of extreme surprise or excitement. Hearing as many words again, all at once, in that surprisingly deep, hoarse voice brought Red’s brain to a stuttering halt.

His silence didn’t go unnoticed: Pyro started laughing after a few seconds without a greeting in return, and Blue snorted, grinning up at Red.

“I know, right?” he said, giving Pyro a light shove. “He gets right fuckin’ chatty when he’s high, compared t’usual anyway, but most a’what he says is in fuckin’ Mexican.”

“Español, pendejo,” Pyro said, shoving him in return. “Es-pa-ñol.”

“Yeah, Mex-i-can,” Blue said, rolling his eyes and attempting to take a puff from the joint he held. He grunted when he realized it had gone out. “Roll another one, now Red’s here.”

[...]

Pyro’s face lit up. “¿Tu hablas Español?”

“Un poco,” Red said, grinning when Pyro made a gleeful sound. “I’m from Brooklyn, man, c’mon. I’m multicultural as shit, for a freckly blond white dude. Spanish was my language class in school, and there was this Puerto Rican family that lived next door; their oldest daughter was hot as shit. One a’my brothers dated a Mexican chick for a while, too. She made the best fuckin’ fajitas, man; really got my ma to step up her game on taco night.”

“Wait, hold on! This ain’t fuckin’ fair! You two can talk in Mexican to each other and I’m not gonna have a fuckin’ idea what yer sayin’!” Blue threw up his hands, and Red turned his grin on him.

“Español, pendejo,” he said, and Pyro cackled.

[...]

“¿La camioneta de Engie?” Pyro suggested, pointing over his shoulder. Red knew, from warnings on his previous visits, that the BLU Engineer was protective of his beat-up green Ford pickup, but he was less likely to murder them for borrowing it than the BLU Sniper would be if they took his camper. Blue glanced over at the vehicle and grunted in a vaguely frustrated manner.

“No keys,” he said, drumming his fingers against his cheek, narrowing his reddened eyes as he thought.

Red, coughing into a hand as he passed the joint on to Pyro, said in a tight voice, “Y’serious, man? Don’t need fuckin’ keys.”

He coughed again and staggered to his feet. He felt both Blues’ eyes on him as he swayed for a second, wobbling a step backward before steadying himself. He took a deep breath and carefully weaved his way across the courtyard to the truck. He wasn’t dizzy or anything unfortunate like that, but his limbs felt as if they were working a few seconds ahead of, or maybe behind, his brain. That, and his head seemed to want to float along independent from the rest of his body. Spy had some good shit.

Pyro and Blue followed him as he tugged off his shoulder bag and fished through it, withdrawing his still-gleaming new slim jim. He knew it wasn’t usually the most useful piece of equipment out here, but he liked having it with him; it made him feel closer to home. He’d made it with a little help from Wrenches not long after Dickface had told him to fuck off. The price for the materials and aid had been a promise to drive the asshole Australian’s camper into the fence at least once. Red had gleefully driven it through the fence and into a ditch (or ravine, or side of a butte) on multiple occasions since.

Pyro made a soft sound of approval, and Blue stared in open fascination. He started to lean in, and Red had to push him out of the way so he could actually get the slim metal rod into position and start working at the truck door’s internal mechanisms.

“You can boost cars?” Blue said in undisguised awe, squatting as if that would get him a better view of what Red was doing. Red grinned, jiggling the slim jim until he heard, and felt, the familiar heavy clunk from inside the door, and pulled it open.

“Ty, my brother, taught me,” he said, tucking the tool back into his bag and retrieving a screwdriver, before tossing the bag into the bed of the truck and wriggling in under the dash panel. “Breakin’ in when I was eleven, hot-wirin’ a year after. I can bust my way out of a locked trunk, too. Ty’s doin’ six years for a bunch a’grand theft autos right now, but he’s- Ow! Fuckin’ wires… He’s still my best brother, taught me loads a’shit. He just likes cars.”

“My brother Joey likes cars, but he never stole ’em,” Blue said in a reproachful tone, though it was diminished somewhat by his blatant interest in Red’s activities, especially when the lights on the dash panel flickered and then began to glow steadily. “S’kinda cool, though.”

“Es bueno saberlo,” Pyro said, leaning back against the truck bed. “Por si acaso.”

“That’s what Ty always said. ‘Just in case,’” Red said. The truck rumbled to sudden life as if in response and Red slid out of the cab, beaming. “I dunno if he was thinkin’ munchies when he said that, but still applies, right?”

“Fuck yes!”

It was unclear whether Blue was agreeing or just happy that the truck was running. Either way, he bolted past Red and hopped into the driver’s seat, slapping his hands on the wheel with a whoop.

Then he froze. When he hadn’t moved for a couple seconds, staring out the front windshield with wide eyes, Red gave him an experimental poke, making him jerk as if shocked. He shook himself and looked between Pyro and his fellow Scout, dismay painting his features to an almost comical degree.

“Can anyone drive high?” he said in a whine. Red blinked and frowned—he hadn’t thought of that—but Pyro rolled his eyes with a snort.

“Mueve tu trasero, pendejo,” he said, jerking a thumb. Blue stumbled out of the truck with significantly less grace than when he’d entered, and Pyro took his place behind the wheel. His eyes roved briefly over the dash and center console before he set his foot on the gas. He revved the engine experimentally a couple of times, and seemed pleased, nodding to himself with a small smile. He switched his foot to the brake and set the truck in gear.

He then noticed the two Scouts still standing next to him, staring. Blue’s mouth was hanging open as if he had just witnessed something magical. Red looked less impressed, though he still stared slightly wondering at Pyro’s apparent competence. That putting a truck in gear indicated competence must have said something about their current collective state, but Pyro didn’t seem in the mood to figure out what. He raised an eyebrow, and gestured to the passenger seat and truck bed.

“¿Nosotros vamos?” he said. Blue continued to gape until Red jostled him in his rush to jump into the truck bed.

“I wanna ride in the back!” Red said, bouncing with his hands on the roof of the cab. Blue blinked, then snorted and weaved his way to the passenger seat.

“We’re not stoppin’ if ya fall out,” he said as he slammed the door shut and, after a second’s thought, buckled his seatbelt. Pyro rolled his eyes again and opened the cab’s rear window after closing his own door.

“Él no es el que conduce,” he said over his shoulder. “Aunque deberías sentarte.”

Red chuckled, but did sit, leaning back against the cab as the truck gave a lurch before creeping steadily forward, gaining speed as they passed the fence and started toward the vague, distant lights of town.

——

“Augh, my God, take them away, somebody, before I fuckin’ die.”

Red snorted, but grabbed the flailing bag of cheese puffs as Blue waved it in his direction, more to prevent any more from being flung from the bag than to sate his own hunger. He still popped a few of the vibrantly orange snacks into his mouth before setting the bag down beside him, with the myriad other packages of half-finished junk food. He hummed happily. He hadn’t had cheese puffs in so long; even without the munchies, they would’ve tasted awesome.

Pyro sighed from the other side of the truck bed, crumpling his latest chocolate bar wrapper and flicking it lazily at Blue, who was sprawled like a well-sated rug on the roof of the truck’s cab. He smirked when Blue’s only response was to grunt and weakly flap a hand at him.

“Munchies achieved,” Pyro said, stretching his legs out, careful not to crush any of the bags of chips, cookies, and various other snacks scattered through the truck bed that still actually had anything in them. There were still plenty of empty wrappers and bags to provide percussive accompaniment to his movement, though. Red had to laugh.

“Fuck, man, we are fuckin’ pigs,” he said, flicking away an empty flaky pastry wrapper, still with smears of icing clinging to it. When the squat, balding man who’d owned the desert town’s sole convenience store had seen them strolling up to the counter with at least half of his stock of snack foods in both the salty and sweet varieties, Red had thought he’d been on the verge of fainting, or having a heart attack. They’d paid a pretty penny for the inevitable victims of their cannabis-enhanced appetites, more than the little store probably saw in a month.

The munchies’ grip on all three of them had been complete and unwavering, though. The drive into town had been uneventful, if a little bumpy—Pyro was an exceptionally careful driver when stoned, apparently, keeping the truck going no more than twenty even on the straighter stretches of pot-holed road—so Red had rolled another joint for them to smoke on the way in. They had all been giggling and half-starved by the time Pyro had very carefully managed to manoeuvre the truck into a space in the middle of the otherwise empty lot, and their extravagant paychecks had left little room for self-restraint in their intoxicated state once they’d laid eyes on the shelves filled with processed sugar, salt, and fat.

A short drive to the edge of town later, and the three mercenaries had spent the better part of the next hour and a half gorging on candies sweet and sour, chips ranging across almost every flavour and brand, various mass-produced and hand-made baked goods, jerky and Slim Jims (of the edible variety, though Blue had taken five thoroughly bewildering minutes to ponder the similarities between the processed meat snack and the car-jacking tool in Red’s bag), and multiple large bottles of every kind of pop the store had on hand. Both Blue and Pyro had expressed amazement at the amount of food Red had packed away—for someone so small, he had a seemingly bottomless stomach—and the trio had spent a good ten laughter-filled minutes bouncing cheese puffs and gummies off each other’s faces as they tried (and more often failed) to make a toss into waiting mouths.

Now, though, the feast was complete, the wreckage strewn about Red and Pyro’s legs in the bed of the truck. Despite his protestations of near-death, Blue rolled over onto his stomach and groaned, reaching vainly for one of the discarded bags.

“Nnnnh, fuckin’ Skittles’re too far away,” he grunted, slithering ponderously off of the truck’s roof and into the bed, brushing aside bags empty and half-full alike as he cleared a spot for himself near Pyro and, more importantly, the large bag of Skittles that had been resting by his knee. He echoed Pyro’s earlier sigh as he tossed a few of the brightly coloured candies into his mouth.

“If this is how pigs fuckin’ feel, man, then pin a curly tail t’my ass and call me Bacon,” he said. “Fuck, I haven’t had Skittles in so fuckin’ long.”

“Oink oink,” Red said, chuckling and barely resisting the urge to find that bag of pork rinds; he couldn’t remember if they’d finished them off or not. “Ugh, man, I’m so fuckin’ glad we don’t hafta fight tomorrow. I’m gonna be rollin’ ’round the base for days.”

Pyro nudged Red’s leg with his foot. “I still can’t believe you ate four whole cans of Pringles by yourself.”

As the high from the drive had faded, Pyro’s chattiness had diminished somewhat, but he had started using more English often when he did speak up. Red was kind of glad he didn’t have to mentally translate everything Pyro was saying anymore, especially while he was high. And there was still enough Spanish peppered into Pyro’s speech to confuse Blue, which would never not be funny.

“Pringles are fuckin’ delicious, bro,” Red said with broad grin, folding his hands over his stomach and nodding at the heap of used cling-wrap sitting next to Pyro. “How many fuckin’ cookies did you eat, anyway? Ya cleared out that whole shelf a’home-baked shit, and I only got one.”

“Me gustan las galletas,” Pyro said, glowering sullenly at Red. “I knew I was missing one.”

“Wait, so you ate all of ’em?” Blue said, staring. “Dude, that was, like, thirty cookies, plus those brownies, and most a’the Oreos. And ya took the last Oreo! Dude!”

“Like you didn’t keep all the candy for yourself,” Pyro said, giving the Skittles a significant glance; Blue clutched the bag tighter and hastily popped a few more into his mouth as Red laughed. “It’s a miracle you still have any teeth, hombre. Between Bonk and…” He looked over the scattered wrappers. “At least five of those chocolate bar wrappers are yours, and that whole bag of sour gummies. You’ve gotta have tantas caries.”

“I don’t got… whatever Mexican shit ya said,” Blue said, flapping a hand when Pyro rolled his eyes. “My teeth’re fine. Not like fuckin’ Bucky over here.”

He tossed a Skittle at Red, who caught and ate it despite the glare he leveled at Blue. “There’s nothin’ wrong with my fuckin’ teeth, assface.” He ran his tongue over them self-consciously and muttered, half under his breath, “They ain’t that big.”

Pyro smiled at him and nudged him again with his foot. “Es lindo. Ellos, y las pecas. Me gusta la mirada pecosa, y chicos blancos que se sonrojan.”

Blue stared at Pyro in utter bafflement, but Red could feel a flush rising in his neck and cheeks. Not that he didn’t stare as well. He was far from fluent in Spanish—even if he did know a not inconsiderable amount—but he thought he’d gotten the gist of what Pyro had said. He thought, but if he had… Pyro was ignoring Blue’s puzzled gaze, instead smiling warmly at Red. There was something in that smile, something more than friendly, and it only got stronger when Pyro’s eyebrow quirked up. Red swallowed hard, and jumped with a bitten off yelp when Blue suddenly spoke:

“What’s with that look?”

The elder Scout was looking between Red and Pyro, though he seemed mainly focused on the latter. He gestured vaguely, pointing between the other two with eyes narrowed. Pyro turned his raised brow on him, though it became a decidedly less suggestive expression as he did; Red’s face was a credit to his name. Blue squinted at both of them for a moment longer, then wagged a finger at Pyro.

“You got the hots for Red. Like, y’actually think he’s cute ’n’ shit,” he said. Red made a choked sound, but Pyro only gave a nonchalant shrug, leaning more comfortably back against the edge of the truck bed. Blue continued his intense scrutiny of him, a thoughtful grimace tugging his lips down. 

“Ya fucked old Red, too, back at Teufort,” he said, gaze going distant with remembrance without leaving Pyro’s indifferent face. Red was silently wondering if it was possible for someone to blush to death. “I mean, halfa the dudes there fuckin’ did, but I remember, he barely hadta pester you at all. He said some shit… You woulda barely been with the team a few months…”

He blinked, and fixed Pyro with a wide-eyed, disbelieving stare. “Dude, are you, like, actually a fag?”

Pyro growled sharply and punched Blue hard in the arm. “I’m fucking gay, cabrón,” he said, giving Blue another punch high on the shoulder for good measure. “Call me ‘fag’ again y te freiré los huevos.”

“Ow! Fuck, man, Jesus!” Blue yelped, deflecting another punch. “Shit! I won’t say it!” He hesitated in lowering his hands from their defensive position. “But you’re, like… Y’actually like dudes? To fuck? No chicks?”

Red had to laugh despite the heat still tickling his cheeks, and Pyro crossed his arms over his chest, still glowering as he settled back. “Sí, pendejo. I ‘like dudes, to fuck, no chicks’. That a problem?”

“No!” Blue said quickly, flinching. “Fuckin’- It ain’t a fuckin’ problem. I just… never realized before, and I never really met someone who’s actually… y’know. Queer. At least, I don’t think so.” A thoughtful frown flitted back across Blue’s face. “I guess Spy is, kinda, and Heavy, maybe. And I know Doc’s a faaaa- gay. He’s gay, too,” he said, shying away again from Pyro’s dark glare.

“Nice save, bro,” Red said, smirking.

“Fuck off, assfag- ah, dammit! Stop lookin’ at me like yer gonna fuckin’ hit me!” Blue threw up his hands again and gave Pyro a pleading look. Pyro’s glare didn’t falter, but he shook his head.

“I won’t hit you any more,” he said, “for now, but I don’t like esa maldita palabra. That word,” he clarified with a sigh when Blue gave him a blank look. Blue looked uncertain for a moment, but soon sighed as well and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Fuck, man, fine. I’ll try not t’say it,” he said, “but ya can’t get pissed if I screw up, a’right? S’just… It’s just what ya fuckin' say, y’know.”

Pyro nodded in a surprisingly patient way, given that he’d likely just left two good bruises on Blue’s arm. “Good. And if you call me that again, I still get to fucking murder you. Pausadamente. Con fuego.”

He held Blue’s gaze for a long moment, long enough to make Blue shrink back, but jumped when a joint bounced off his cheek and landed in his lap. He looked over at Red, who was tucking the weed box back through the truck window into the cab. He smiled when he saw Pyro blinking at him.

“I didn’t wanna ruin the moment,” he said, “but I figured one more to wind down before we head back? It’s the indica this time, should keep it mellow.”

“Issat what ‘indica’ means?” Blue said, watching as Pyro baptized and lit the joint with no further prompting. “I saw that on most a’the containers Spy’s got, so I guess it’d make sense. I’ve never actually caught him stoned, but he’s pretty fuckin’ chill most a’the time anyway, so it might be tough to tell.”

“I don’t think Spy actually smokes enough to get stoned. No como nosotros,” Pyro said. He puffed and passed the joint to Red before continuing. “Some people use it to help with stress, sabes, just a hit every now and then. Pain relief. Apetito. Depresión también, y… uh…” He looked to Red, frowning. “Ansiedad. ¿Cómo lo dices?”

“Anxiety?” Red said after a second’s thought. He passed the joint on to Blue, who was listening to Pyro with such rapt attention that Red had to shove him before he took the weed.

Pyro nodded. “Sí, sí. Anxiety. Puede ayudar con el, ah… panic attacks, y cosas así.”

“Spy doesn’t have those, I don’t think,” Blue said, coughing a little. “He might use it for pain, though. His knees bug him sometimes.”

Red’s smirk returned. “Oh yeah, I forgot yer fuckin’ an old man. Gotta watch out for grandpa’s knees.”

“Oh, like Wrenches wasn’t a dirty old man, fuckin’ you,” Blue shot back. “He’s not that much younger’n Spy, and yer still a fuckin’ kid.”

“I’m not a kid, fuckface, and Wrenches is only, like, thirty-four,” Red said. “Spy’s gotta be forty. At least.”

“He is not. He’s late thirties, max. Py, back me up here,” Blue said, turning to his teammate. Instead of bolstering his argument, however, Pyro cast a meaningful glance at the joint, still barely smouldering between Blue’s fingers, forgotten. Blue blinked, then cursed and took a few frantic puffs to keep the joint alive. He started hacking, trying vainly to stifle the vicious coughs that resulted in his elbow, and Pyro managed to pluck the joint from his weaving and bobbing hand with a smirk of his own.

“Me preguntaba cuánto tiempo ibas a bogart eso,” he said, taking a contented drag. 

[...]

“So, ya don’t like tits? Like, at all?”

The idea seemed completely baffling to Blue; he was pretty damn high, but Red figured it wasn’t that hard a concept to grasp. Pyro shook his head and made a face as he passed the joint on to Red.

“Son solo… sacos de grasa con pezones. Nada especial,” he said, gesturing and shrugging. “Quiero decir… Heavy’s got tits.”

Blue blinked, looking stunned for a few silent seconds. Then he groaned and scrubbed viciously at his face. “Aw, fuck, man! Now I got th’image a’Doc motorboatin’ Heavy stuck in my head! Thanks a fuckin’ lot!”

Red choked on his latest inhale and started hacking out laughter, his face quickly becoming, once again, near as crimson as his t-shirt. Pyro rescued the joint when Red lost his grip on it, chuckling at Blue’s continued groans of disgust as he took another puff for himself.

“Sabes que probablemente lo hace,” he said, his smile becoming conspiratorial. “Nunca le digas… but I saw something, ahhh, lacy in Heavy’s size in the Infirmary closet, una vez. No pude verlo bien, pero creo que Doc es un poco… kinky…”

Red was still laughing, clutching his gut as tears leaked down his cheeks, but he managed to get out a revolted groan. “Eugh, fuck. At least that’s one thing I don’t hafta worry about with my team. Imagine walkin’ in on that.”

Red jumped when Pyro burst out with a hearty laugh of his own, and Blue went beet red from shirt collar to hairline. Red looked between the two, then made a face and exclaimed in a combination of amusement and disgust.

“Aw, shit! You already walked in on ’em? Fuck, dude!”

“I needed some fuckin’ Tylenol!” Blue said, the picture of indignant, horrified distaste. “I had a fuckin’ headache ’n’ all I wanted was some fuckin’ Tylenol, but those assfucks wouldn’t answer the fuckin’ door, so…”

“Acabas de entrar, con Doc montando a Heavy como un caballo,” Pyro said with a vicious grin. Blue scrubbed his face again, making inarticulate sounds of revulsion. “You’re lucky I was just listening to music when you busted into my room, pendejo. Pudo haber sido mucho peor.”

“Dude, don’t even,” Blue said, groaning. “Ugh. Just… ugh.”

Red shook his head with a few final chuckles, wiping the last traces of moisture from his cheeks, and said, “Man, I don’t get it. Ya fuck Spy up th’ass and ya suck his dick, but yer still all squeamish ’n’ shit. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna see yer Heavy gettin’ nasty with anyone-” He shuddered theatrically and Pyro snorted back another laugh. “-but, I mean, for the rest it’s just… dudes fuckin’. S’no big deal.”

“No big deal? It fucked! It’s- It just-” Blue ran a hand through his hair, half shoving off his hat, then stopped. He blinked slowly before turning a suspicious, red-eyed glare on Red. “Waaaait a minute. I thought you said when we talked before that you wasn’t a fag.”

Pyro growled, but Red’s indignant yelp held Blue’s attention. “I’m not! I ain’t a fuckin’ fag! Sorry,” he added when Pyro hissed at him. “But I’m not fuckin’ gay, man.”

“Y’let Wrenches fuck ya, though,” Blue said, “and y’were gettin’ fucked by yer Sniper in, like, a week. And y’practically fuckin’ begged me to blow and fuck ya, too!”

“I didn’t beg, asshole; I was drunk, and I’m fuckin’ horny! I’m only nineteen, ya fuckin’ geezer! Jackin’ off don’t fuckin’ cut it, and there ain’t no chicks ’round here, in case ya haven’t noticed!”

“I’m only twenty-four, cockfag! I get horny, too, and it was still more’n a fuckin’ year before I got desperate enough t’actually fuck a dude, even when old Red was throwin’ himself at everythin’ with a dick and a pulse! And I still don’t take it up th’ass!”

“Hey, we already agreed suckin’ dick is way gayer than gettin’ fucked, so-”

“We did not fuckin’ agree, ya little assfag! You said that so I wouldn’t think you was fuckin’ queer, and I think it’s pretty fuckin’ obvious ya are! ‘It’s just dudes fuckin’.’ The fuck is that? Admit it! Yer a fuckin’ fag!”

“Fuck you! Just ’cause I don’t turn into a pussy-ass little bitch any time someone mentions two guys together don’t make me fuckin’ gay!”

“You getcher ass! Fucked! How can you not be a fuckin’ faggot if you-”

A heavy, echoing thud made both Scouts start. Unnoticed by either of them, Pyro—with a great deal of eye rolling, head shaking, and disgruntled muttering—had extinguished the joint, slipped out of the truck bed, and started collecting the various empty chip bags and snack wrappers within easy reach. He had built up an impressive pile as Red and Blue had argued, and the thud had come from him dropping a sizable chunk of scrap wood on top of it to keep it from being blown away by the light night breeze.

Noticing the Scouts’ attention, he shrugged. “Necesidad de deshacerse de la basura,” he said, “y no quería interrumpir la pelea de tu pequeño amante.”

Red flushed and sputtered, but Blue vaulted out of the truck bed to examine Pyro’s garbage pile, curiosity shoving his and Red’s disagreement firmly from his mind.

“Yer gonna burn it?” he said. Pyro nodded, arranging the heap more to his liking and adding a few more pieces of wood. Where they’d come from, neither Scout had any idea; Pyro always just seemed to have something flammable at hand.

“How’re we gonna light it, though?” Blue said, frowning. “Y’don’t got yer flamethrower.”

Pyro gave his teammate an unimpressed look, pulling out the book of matches they’d been using to light their joints. “¿De verdad crees que no puedo iniciar un incendio sin mi lanzallamas, pendejo? ¿Lo dice en serio?”

Blue opened his mouth, but his retort turned into a yelp when Pyro lit the entire matchbook, a ball of fire coming to life at his fingertips with a faint whoof. Blue jerked back, cursing, but Pyro just watched the little ball of flame for a moment before calmly setting it into the garbage-tinder nest he’d created for it.

[...]

“What in the sweet blue Hell did you boys do to my truck!”

[...]

Little Moments: A Ticklish Situation Teaser/WIP

Another Little Moment that's mostly done, this one even more so than the others. Why are a few opening sentences so hard? D:

Summary: Pyro and Blue make a very important discovery about Freckles.

——

Little Moments: A Ticklish Situation

[...]

“Ozzie! Oz, save me! Oz!”

Sniper stopped in his tracks at the desperate, pleading cry behind him, and looked back into the rec room. He blinked slowly. Freckles, face bright pink and horrified, seemed to be trying to climb over one of the arms of the couch, his chest pulled up onto it and hands desperately clutching for anything he could use to pull himself further. Pyro and Scout were rather effectively preventing his escape attempt, though. Pyro was seated squarely on the small of Freckles’s back, one of the younger man’s legs bent in his hold so he could trap it under his arm, and Scout had the other leg by the ankle while sitting on the back of his knee. Freckles’s boots and socks had been haphazardly tossed in the vague direction of the rec room door; Sniper nudged the nearer of the discarded shoes with a toe.

He raised an eyebrow at his two teammates, who’d frozen guiltily in place at his appearance. 

“Interrogatin’ the enemy, then, are we?”

The shift in the three young men’s faces was priceless. Pyro and Scout shared a truly evil grin, and poor Freckles, who’d started to look hopeful when Sniper stopped in the doorway, now wore the expression of a man seeing salvation snatched away from right in front of his nose. His eyes went huge and he renewed his frantic escape attempts, panting curses when the two Blues atop him remained unmoved. Pyro, his grin almost feral in its intensity, drew a finger down the arch of the foot he had trapped, resulting in a panicked yelp. Scout firmed his hold on Freckles’s other ankle and turned his grin on Sniper.

“Exactly,” he said. “Interrogatin’ the enemy. Gotta torture him, figure out what he knows.”

“No no no no no-!”

Sniper shook his head, giving Freckles an apologetic smile, and pointed a warning finger at Scout.

“He pisses ’imself, you two are cleanin’ it up.”

And he continued on his way toward the kitchen, not fully able to contain his chuckles at the frantic shouts rising behind him.

“Nononono nooooo! Ozzie, come back, come baaack! Save meEEEEeeheeheehee! Fuck shit! AHHHhahahahahahaha!”

Tales of Well Timeline/Masterpost

[Updated April 26, 2025]

Putting everything in one place for easy access and reference :) Timeline includes all of the one-shots (and other fics in the "Tales" timeline) that I have planned/started.

Bolded titles are complete (at least tentatively), italicized titles aren't significantly started yet (either just ideas or under 250 words), and everything else is a WIP (most are sitting at 1.5k+ words so far). Also, the ones titled with "Little Moments" are more drabbles than full shorts, usually more light-hearted and goofy, and the ones with "Inner Workings" switch to first-person for little internal monologues. There are also likely to be more shorts added as inspiration strikes me (still got some time to fill between the main body of shorts and the longfics that follow [see bottom of timeline]).

Also now on AO3! ToW on AO3!

INFO POSTS

Tales of Well Basics Team Garrison (BLU) Bare Bones Basics Team Rampart (RED) Bare Bones Basics Main Character Bios & Info Post-ToW Longfics Basic Info Tales of Sawmill Main Character Basics

Timeline under the cut :)

——

Prologue

Tales of Sawmill [1983-1988; will (eventually) become its own series] Tales of Teufort [1988-1993; may become its own series as well]

Tales of Well (Start Date: March 6, 1993)

Moving Day

First Day

Privacy

A Special Cigarette

Art Therapy

Untitled (RED Speeding Bullet [smut; *RED Speeding Bullet begins])

Gentle Hands

For the Birds

In Vino Veritas [smut; *BLU Spy/Scout begins]

Untitled (BLU Scout/Spy [smut])

Scout Vs Scout [tent title]

Respawn Errors

Little Moments: Arson Face

Deathmatch

Going Public

Little Moments: Supply Day

Southern Comfort [smut? maybe? still on the fence; *RED Speeding Bullet ends, RED Texas Two-Step begins]

Bloody Suit [tent title]

Untitled (first Trio [Scout/Pyro/Scout] hangout)

Toys [PWP]

Desert Rain

Little Moments: Respawn Errors 2

Proving Oneself

Sick Scout

Heart-to-Heart

Life, Death, and Respawn [tent title]

Little Moments: Long Jump

Check-Up [Six-month mark]

A Bad Idea [smut; *(occasional) Scoutcest begins]

“The Gayest Fuckin’ Conversation of My Life” [*RED Texas Two-Step ends]

Pillow Talk

Munchies Run

Little Moments: Laundry Day

Spawn Camping

Little Moments: BONK!

Line in the Sand

Heat [smut? maybe? *cross-faction Flash Fire begins]

Shave and a Haircut [tent title]

Check-Up 2

Inner Workings: RED Scout - Who Am I?

Little Moments: Story Time

Town Fair

Parle Salement A Moi [PWP]

Little Moments: Spy’s Secret

Anniversary

Strange Feeling

Good Morning [PWP]

Breakfast

A Breach of Trust

Spell-Check  [One year mark]

Inner Workings: BLU Spy - Expressions

Grocery Run

Camping [smut; *Flash Fire/Scoutcest-combo begins]

Inner Workings: BLU Scout - I’m Not A Fag

Little Moments: Twinkie

Sick Scout 2

Little Moments: Respawn Errors?

Cockblocked

Dance Lessons

Happy Birthday

I See You

Untitled (RED Sniper tortures Scout)

The Other Side of the Fence

Untitled (Pyro/Spy trapped)

Accessorizing [PWP]

Little Moments: A Ticklish Situation

Float Like a Butterfly

Sting Like a Bee

“Charge Me Doktor!” [PWP]

Lover’s Quarrel

Inner Workings: BLU Pyro - Mine

Night Terrors

Little Moments: Respawn Errors 3

Little Moments: Feliz Cumpleaños

Campfire Songs

Old Dogs

Scout Hunt

Brotherly Love

Those Words

Little Moments: Noise Complaint

Kindred Spirit

Reaper at Your Back

Little Moments: Fishsticks

Little Moments: Brownies [...]

Fast Car

Ink

Our Third [PWP] [...]

(End Date: June 10, 1995)

Into the Future

Tales of Well: On the Run [longfic] Great White North [longfic]

Team Garrison (BLU) Bare Bones Basics

What it says on the can! Some details about my BLU boys. Eventually might put up proper bios for everyone, but for now, just some very basics about who they are. Scout, Pyro, Sniper, and Spy are the primary focus on the BLU team, so they've got a little more info. I'll throw up the RED one soon, once I've actually got it done (it won't be as long, though).

BLU - Team Garrison

Scout

Age: 23 Nationality: American (Massachusetts [Boston]) Time w/ BLU: 13 months Height: 5’11 Hair: Light brown, crew cut Eye Colour: Hazel Build: Slim, broad-shouldered, well-defined legs Distinguishing Features: N/A

[Technically the main character? At least in the beginning.]

The prototypical Scout. An arrogant, loud-mouthed, hard-brawling boy from Boston, with a single ma, eight older brothers, and enough energy (even without his monthly supply of Bonk) to drive even the most patient of his teammates up the wall.

The biggest pain in everyone’s ass. General levels of tolerance for him and his antics range from Engie and Sniper’s resigned acceptance to Soldier and Medic’s near-homicidal antipathy.

Unapologetically offensive (though racism is generally off the table. Homophobia is fair game, though). Curses constantly, insults everyone he meets, and loves to push people’s buttons to see how much of a rise he can get out of them.

Pyro

Age: 20 Nationality: Mexican (Santa Ana) Time w/ BLU: 12 months Height: 5’9 Hair: Black, chin length, long bangs Eye Colour: Brown Build: Underweight, defined arms Distinguishing Features: Third-degree burn scar: left arm, elbow to shoulder; left side, mid-ribs to armpit; back, left side, mid-back to upper shoulder; neck, left side; left cheek from jaw to cheekbone (primarily hypertrophic scarring, some contracture on left shoulder)

Almost never seen out of his suit and mask, and rarely spends time with the rest of the team. He showers and eats on his own, and barely leaves his room during ceasefire, usually only emerging for the occasional visits with Engie in his workshop, or to burn things.

He was “convinced” to show his face by Scout several months ago at Teufort (during a very long weekend of Bonk-induced harassment), and hasn’t really forgiven him for it yet.

Is only really comfortable around Engie and Medic. He will only speak to the two of them willingly without his mask, and if he’s not in his room, Engie’s workshop is the next best place to look for him.

Sniper

Age: 38 Nationality: Australian (Northern Territory [primarily Outback]) Time w/ BLU: 11 years, 3 months [longest-serving merc] Height: 6’5 Hair: Dark brown, short, messy, long sideburns Eye Colour: Dark blue Build: Thin, broad-shouldered Distinguishing Features: “Sniper scar”: left cheekbone and side of left nostril, perpetual five o'clock shadow

Team Garrison’s unofficial leader.

He and Spy have been on the same team since Spy was recruited at Sawmill a decade ago. He considers Spy to be his best friend and they give off major “old married couple” energy, despite their relationship being entirely platonic. 100% heterosexual life partners.

More friendly than a lot of Snipers, and is seen around base more often during ceasefire. He has a camper van, but it’s more a means of transport than a home. He actually sleeps in his provided room in the barracks most nights, and is usually the first one up in the morning (he makes the coffee).

Spy

Age: 41 Nationality: (Assumed) French Time w/ BLU: 10 years, 1 month Height: 5’8 Hair: Wouldn't you like to know? Eye Colour: Light grey Build: Slender Distinguishing Features: N/A

Like Sniper, more friendly and less reserved than one might expect of a typical member of his class. He’s been at this “war” long enough to not take things too seriously any more, and he’s grown to have at least some degree of affection for the rest of the team over the years.

Incredibly nosy, and a shameless gossip. Knows more about the rest of the team than they would ever expect.

Surprising absolutely everyone (including himself), he’s found himself on unexpectedly friendly terms with Scout. He’s one of the few that Scout will actually sit down with long enough to have an actual conversation with.

The Rest

Soldier: Utterly devoted to the cause, and expects the best from the rest of the men, to an often infuriating degree.

Demoman: An alcoholic, one-eyed, Black Scotsman. Suspiciously similar to the Team Fortress Demoman, Tavish DeGroot. The “fun older brother” of the team; one of the few members of Team Garrison that tolerates, and even sometimes enjoys, Scout’s particular brand of obnoxious, hyperactive jackassery.

Heavy: Uncle Heavy. Laid-back and easy-going, more than willing to sit and chill with the guys, drinking a few beers and shooting the shit. Very protective of his team, especially Medic (his “husband”).

Engineer: The team dad. Quiet, friendly, and down-to-earth. Always willing to sit and listen to any of the guys’ problems and try to help them sort through them. The only married merc, and the only parent: he has two young daughters (nine and eleven years old) back home that he will gladly talk anyone’s ear off about.

Medic: The chronically exasperated mother-hen of Team Garrison. Austrian, despite Soldier’s unwavering belief that he must be German (due to German being his mother tongue). Oldest merc at 58 years old, a fact which Scout never lets him forget. Has a pet turtle dove named Rokitansky (after the Austrian physician and pathologist [not anything to do with rockets in spite of, again, Soldier’s certainty that this is the case]) who lives in the Infirmary. Has been in a loving relationship with Heavy since their days at Sawmill.

Main Character Bios & Info

Bios for the main focus characters (BLU Scout, Pyro, Sniper, and Spy, and RED Scout, Engineer, and Sniper), with some extra random info for each! This is all info from the beginning of the series (unless otherwise noted), so some things are likely to change over the course of the shorts, but this is a little look at who the guys are when we first meet them :) Looong infodump under the cut! Enjoy!

——

BLU Scout (“Blue”)

Name: Aiden Marcus Knight Age: 23 Nationality: American (Massachusetts [Boston]) Time w/ BLU: 13 months

Height: 5’11 Hair: Light brown, crew cut Eye Colour: Hazel Skin Tone: Tanned Caucasian Build: Slim, broad-shouldered, defined legs Scars: Respawn error: axe wound (left side, abdomen, and back; inward to navel/spine [lowest two ribs are artificial]), bonesaw wound (right pectoral), kukri wound (left collarbone), gunshot wound (center sternum), gunshot wound (back, right shoulder), appendectomy, childhood injury (left calf) Other Distinguishing Features: N/A

Uniform Cosmetics: Ball-Kicking Boots, Track Terrorizer (After Eight), Backwards Ballcap (Air of Debonair) Typical Weapon Loadout: Scattergun, Bonk! (when available) or Pistol, Sandman

Likes: Sketching, painting (esp. graffiti/tagging), running, brawling, baseball (Red Sox fan), comic books (primarily Marvel, esp. Spider-Man), cartoons (esp. Looney Tunes and TMNT) Dislikes: Doctors, being ignored, being called stupid, being called gay Fears: Merinthophobia (fear of being bound/tied up, esp. his limbs [severe enough to induce debilitating panic attacks]), mild claustrophobia Habits: Fidgets, chews nails Disorders/Medical Conditions: Dyslexia, potential (very-probable) ADHD

Extra Facts:

Has eight older brothers, and he’s used to having to be the loudest—and most obnoxiously tactless and offensive—person in the room in order to make himself heard. It’s a habit he still hasn’t shed after over a year working as a mercenary, much to his teammates’ chagrin.

Generally, the only time he’ll willingly sit still for any stretch is when he’s drawing, whether it’s in a sketchbook or when he’s making a graffiti stencil. If forced to sit still and there’s any paper in reach, he’ll doodle to keep himself entertained (he always has at least a stubby pencil in his pocket) until the paper runs out. Then he starts getting annoying.

Surprisingly naïve for his age, and willfully ignorant of any topic that doesn’t catch his interest; if something doesn’t immediately hook him, he’s not going to engage. This, combined with his general lack of “book-smarts” (he dropped out of high school at sixteen instead of having to repeat grade ten; Ma was not happy), tends to lead to him being a colossal dumbass sometimes most of the time [he wasn’t supposed to be as stupid as he is, honest…].

Brawler. Prefers close combat to gunplay nine times out of ten; his Sandman is his favourite weapon, though if he gets really carried away, he’ll just start going at it with his fists. He loves the adrenaline rush of getting in a good punch to the face, or getting clocked himself.

Has an ungodly amount of energy, and puts most of it to work pestering and pissing off his teammates. Anything he can say or do to push someone’s buttons, he’ll say or do without hesitation. Aside from his general motor-mouthed offensiveness, he’s a big fan of pranking the team to the point that even Engie will have steam coming from his ears, and when he gets his monthly supply of Bonk, it gets easily a million times worse.

Really does care about (most of) his teammates, even if he is a complete jackass more often than not, and the affection is (mostly) returned, though he may not believe it so much. In the Team Garrison “family”, he’s definitely the annoying little brother, or unruly child, to the rest of the men.

Surprisingly friendly with Spy, to absolutely everyone’s shock; Spy is actually likely his closest friend on the team. Even though Spy spends a lot of his time “sitting around being boring”, Blue likes talking with him and tends to actively harass him less than the others.

Heavily repressed bisexual. Everyone else knows he’s at least a little into guys (he’s not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is), but he will loudly and vehemently—and sometimes violently—deny it if confronted.

——

BLU Pyro

Name: Guillermo “Billy” José Soto Age: 20 Nationality: Mexican (Santa Ana) Time w/ BLU: 12 months

Height: 5’9 Hair: Black, chin length, long bangs Eye Colour: Brown Skin Tone: Pale tan Build: Underweight, defined arms Scars: Third-degree burn (left arm, elbow to shoulder; left side, mid-ribs to armpit; back, left side, mid-back to upper shoulder; neck, left side; left cheek from jaw to cheekbone [primarily hypertrophic scarring, some contracture on left shoulder]) Other Distinguishing Features: N/A

Uniform Cosmetics: Pin-on button (“Born to Fry Spies”), Scorched Earth Stompers, Pyromancer’s Hood [received “Little Moments: Supply Day”], Firebrand [received around “Breakfast”] Typical Weapon Loadout: Flame Thrower, Flare Gun, Fire Axe

Likes: Fire, rock music (esp. Pink Floyd, Queen, and Santana), playing guitar, animals (esp. birds and reptiles), privacy, being alone Dislikes: His scar, his voice, Spies, being cold, the f-slur (and the various derivatives Blue comes up with) Fears: Suffocation, drowning Habits: Playing with lighters/lighting matches Disorders/Medical Conditions: Mild pyromania

Extra Facts:

Received his scar when he was fifteen, when he was trapped (along with his cousin and some friends) in a garage that was set on fire by some gangsters his cousin owed money to. A burning piece of the roof fell on his back and shoulder, and the scarring there is deeper; he has next to no sensation there and he’s lost some of his shoulder flexibility due to the tightness of the scarring. When he was nineteen, he set the house of one of the gangsters on fire, with the gangster and his family inside. They all managed to get out, but Billy was arrested for arson and attempted murder, and picked up by BLU while on trial.

Due to damage to his throat when he was burned, his voice sounds like he’s been smoking a pack a day since he was five: it is very deep, and gravelly. He hates how it sounds, and, along with his scar, it’s a major reason he keeps his mask on so much.

Major introvert. Spends most of his free time in his room, or out in the backyard burning things. He does make fairly regular visits to Engie in his workshop, but he rarely spends time with anyone else on the team. Even on the rare occasions that he hangs out in the rec room instead of his bedroom, he’ll usually rebuff attempts at conversation unless it’s about something important (or especially interesting).

Fluent in English, but can have trouble with vocabulary sometimes, especially if it’s not a word he comes across often. Part of the reason he enjoys spending so much time with Engie is that Engie can understand Spanish, as well as speak it a little, so he’s able to talk to someone in his mother tongue.

Has a massive collection of records, cassette tapes, and CDs; he’s almost always listening to something when he’s in his room. He also has a big box of mix-tapes that he’s created over the past year; he’s made a few for Engie and Medic, too.

Openly gay, though not everyone’s realized, so far. It’s not a topic that tends to come up a lot on the rare occasions anyone can corner him for a chat. Engie is aware—and doesn’t care, so long as it’s not being shoved in his face—as are Medic and Heavy. Spy also knows, though not because Pyro told him; Spy just sussed it out on his own.

——

BLU Sniper

Name: Peter Michael Allen Age: 38 Nationality: Australian (Northern Territory [primarily Outback]) Time w/ BLU: 11 years, 3 months [Sawmill vet; longest-serving merc]

Height: 6’5 Hair: Dark brown, short, messy, long sideburns Eye Colour: Dark blue Skin Tone: Well-tanned Caucasian Build: Thin, broad-shouldered Scars: Respawn error: knife wound (“Sniper scar”: left cheekbone and side of left nostril), kukri wound (upper right abdomen), knife wound (back of neck, spine), dingo bite (right calf) Other Distinguishing Features: Perpetual five-o’clock shadow

Uniform Cosmetics: Itsy Bitsy Spyer (blue doll), Triggerman’s Tacticals Typical Weapon Loadout: Sniper Rifle, Razorback, Machete

Likes: The outdoors, wildlife (esp. lizards and birds of prey), spiders, barbecuing, old movies (Golden Age), “oldies” music (esp. ’40s-’50s) Dislikes: Weak coffee, being cold, the dark, short doorways and low ceilings Fears: Blindness, canines (dogs, wolves, coyotes, etc) Habits: Smoker Disorders/Medical Conditions: N/A

Extra Facts:

Has been at this “war” a long time, almost since the initial reformation of TF Industries. Still tries to take things as seriously and to remain as professional as he can, but it’s been getting harder and harder to do. He’s not even really sure why he’s doing it any more, aside from maybe affection for his teammates, and not having any idea of what else he would want to do with his life.

Team Garrison’s unofficial leader, mostly due to seniority but also due to the other members of the team respecting him a great deal. He’s not exactly the “leader” type, in his mind, so he’s not likely to be giving orders or trying to tell the others what to do, but everyone listens to him when he speaks and he’s the one that they’ll come to with most issues they can’t handle themselves.

Spy’s “work husband”. The two of them have worked together since Spy was recruited at Sawmill, and have been friends for nearly as long. They know each other’s real names [*though it’s not required by their contracts, the mercs are strongly encouraged to keep their names to themselves], and are as close as two people can platonically be (there was an attempt to initiate a… deeper relationship on Spy’s part, years ago, but Sniper is asexual, so they remain heterosexual life partners). He received his Itsy Bitsy Spyer from Spy back at Sawmill, after they first told each other their names, and he gave Spy a Spycrab in return (Spy keeps it on his night table).

Not the typical loner hired by RED and BLU for his class. While he does enjoy his alone time, he’s more than happy to hang out with the rest of the team, spends most of his free time around the base rather than off on his own, and actually sleeps in his provided room in the barracks most nights, rather than in his camper. He’s also usually the first up and about in the morning; he lets Engie or Medic make breakfast (he can’t cook for shit), but he always makes the coffee.

Frequently “makes friends” with the wildlife and spiders around base. He fed and looked after a succession of squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, crows, snakes, and one great horned owl at Sawmill, and a gila monster, a red-tailed hawk, and several generations of wolf spiders at Teufort. He lets them stay wild and doesn’t try to domesticate them, but he inevitably ends up with at least a few critters in the vicinity that know his camper van and common sniping perches are safe places to chill and get a snack.

——

BLU Spy

Name: [REDACTED] Age: 41 Nationality: (Assumed) French Time w/ BLU: 10 years, 1 month [Sawmill vet]

Height: 5’8 Hair: Light brown, short side part (right), widow’s peak Eye Colour: Light grey Skin Tone: Pale Caucasian Scars: Gunshot wound (lower left abdomen), kukri wound (upper back, top of right shoulder blade to bottom of left shoulder blade) Other Distinguishing Features: N/A

Uniform Cosmetics: Blood Banker Typical Weapon Loadout: L’Etranger, Balisong, Disguise Kit, Cloak and Dagger, Sapper

Likes: Scotch, spy novels, cleanliness and organization (in himself, others, and his environment), swing music, crooner music (esp. Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra), privacy Dislikes: Uncleanliness, disorganization, chaos, ignorance (himself and others), surprises (even good ones), [hates] the RED Sniper Fears: [REDACTED] Habits: Chain smoker Disorders/Medical Conditions: [REDACTED]

Extra Facts:

Like Sniper, he’s been at this long enough to not take it too seriously any more, and as a result is much more open and friendly with his teammates than the majority of Spies. He still tries to maintain some degree of distance and intrigue (he is a Spy, after all), but he knows there’s no real harm in opening up a little and being on friendly terms with his co-workers. Most of the time. He has become… overly attached to certain teammates over the years, and when he has, it has led to near universally tragic results.

Nosy and gossipy; he loves to know everything that’s going on with everyone, as much as he can. He’s gathered more “intel” on both his teammates and opponents over the years than BLU and RED likely have, and knows more about everyone else than they realize (or would probably be comfortable with him knowing).

Was involved in a brief sexual relationship with the RED Sniper at Sawmill, shortly after the RED Sniper was first recruited. It ended poorly, to put it extremely mildly, and they’ve hated each other with a passion ever since. They will gladly take any opportunity to harm (or kill) each other, even during ceasefire, which has led to multiple unfortunate incidents over the years, several of which have spilled over to involve other mercs (usually members of the BLU team, unfortunately; Spy tries to keep their animosity strictly between him and the RED Sniper, but the RED Sniper isn’t as restrained).

Hates getting himself dirty in the course of his work. Tries to make most of his kills as bloodless as possible, or to keep himself at a safe distance if he needs to get… messy. While not as vain as his RED counterpart, he does take great pride in maintaining his immaculate appearance, even in the heat of battle.

Recently renewed his contract, despite being almost entirely disillusioned with the “war” at this point. He’s harboured a growing disquiet over the RED/BLU conflict for years, and he’s not quite ready to lose the “inside insight” he has on it as a mercenary in BLU’s employ.

——

RED Scout (“Red”/“Freckles”)

Name: Cooper Patrick O’Hare Age: 18 (almost 19) Nationality: American (New York [Brooklyn]) Time w/ RED: N/A [begins “First Day”]

Height: 5’4 Hair: Strawberry-blond, fade Eye Colour: Light brown Skin Tone: Lightly-tanned Caucasian Build: Thin, defined legs Scars: N/A Other Distinguishing Features: Buck teeth, freckles (literally everywhere: face [particularly over nose and cheekbones], neck, shoulders, back, legs, and arms)

Uniform Cosmetics: [*Acquired over the course of the shorts] Brooklyn Booties, Imp’s Imprint, Bonk Batter’s Backup Typical Weapon Loadout: Scattergun, Pistol, Bat

Likes: Dancing, cooking, baseball (Yankees fan), “classic” rock music (’60s-early ’80s), pop music, “kids’ movies” (Disney animated movies, G/PG-rated movies), animals Dislikes: Being short, his buck teeth, being treated like a kid, silence, being alone Fears: Deafness Habits: Chatters excessively Disorders/Medical Conditions: Asthma [mostly negated by injections provided before deployment]

Extra Facts:

A happy, bubbly extrovert. Will almost always seek out company rather than spend time alone, even if he usually just ends up chattering away at someone while he’s doing whatever he’s doing rather than chatting with them. He tends to not have much of a filter between his thoughts and his mouth, and he speaks without thinking a lot, but he’s easygoing enough that he’s not nearly as offensive to be around as his BLU counterpart. Overwhelmingly friendly, too; he’s willing, and will try, to make friends with anyone, unless they actively give him a reason not to.

Total babyface. Combined with his height, it makes him look like he’s fifteen years old at most, and it drives him crazy. He hates being underestimated and looked down on because of how he looks, and is quick to correct (with violence, if necessary) anyone who assumes his youthful appearance and general friendliness mean he’s easy to mess with. He is, however, objectively adorable, no matter how much it pisses him off.

Extremely flexible and acrobatic. Has been into dancing and gymnastics since he was a kid and, with the pre-deployment injections given to him by RED, he’s unbelievably nimble, even by Scout standards.

Quick learner, and not as unworldly as one might expect from someone his age. He’s still finding his feet in this odd situation he’s gotten himself involved in, but he chose mercenary work after taking a year off after high school, and it wasn’t just for the money.

He’s pretty sure he’s bi, but he’s never been in a same-sex relationship before. He’s definitely curious, though, and open to experimenting and figuring things out.

——

RED Engineer (“Wrenches”)

Name: Thomas William Harris Age: 34 Nationality: American (Georgia [Savannah]) Time w/ RED: 5 years, 3 months [Sawmill vet]

Height: 5’8 Hair: Dirty blond, buzz cut Eye Colour: Dark brown Skin Tone: Tanned Caucasian Build: Stout, broad-shouldered and -chested Scars: Knife wound (back of neck, spine), electrical burn (left wrist) Other Distinguishing Features: Robotic right hand (self-upgraded Gunslinger model), perpetual five o’clock shadow

Uniform Cosmetics: Builder’s Blueprints, Trencher’s Tunic, Packable Provisions, Hazard Handler Typical Weapon Loadout: Shotgun, Wrangler, Gunslinger, Wrench

Likes: Robots/robotics, machines, science fiction (TV, movies, and books), space/astronomy, working, bourbon Dislikes: Country music, crowds, shoddy workmanship, cruelty Fears: (Permanent) death Habits: Fidgets with Gunslinger Disorders/Medical Conditions: Insomnia

Extra Facts:

Tends to be quite reserved and distant with his teammates, though he’s easygoing and friendly enough with anyone who makes the effort to get to know him. He’s an amazing listener, and is the perfect guy to vent to with no fear of judgement. He has a fairly limited social battery, though; he’s more comfortable spending time with his machines than with other people most of the time, and can only take so much human interaction before he gets uncomfortable. He is actually on fairly genial terms with more members of the BLU team than of his own.

Has always been fascinated by machines and robots, to a near unhealthy degree, and is constantly coming up with new designs for gadgets, improvements to his existing gear, and potential mechanical implants, usually to the detriment of his eating and sleeping schedules. He hasn’t regretted cutting off his hand for his Gunslinger for even a second, and he would not be at all opposed to being the world’s first cyborg, if the opportunity ever presented itself. He also has a great deal of interest in the mechanics behind respawn and Mann Co’s other “developments”; he’s been officially reprimanded by the Administration for both trying to reverse-engineer various pieces of equipment and weaponry, and trying to crack open the intel more than once. [*The intel briefcases are specially sealed so the mercs can’t open them, even with all the weaponry at their disposal. Actually managing to open the intel briefcases is one of the few offenses in the mercs’ contracts that will result in immediate termination (read: permanent death).]

Strongly dislikes the RED Sniper. He’s disgusted by Sniper’s particular brand of cruelty, and hates to see him manipulating other members of the team. He’ll go out of his way to put a stop to it if he catches Sniper in a lie or manipulation, which has led to no little amount of animosity between them.

Has a veritable library of science-fiction media, from books to movies to homemade VHS recordings of Star Trek (original series and TNG, of course). He has also successfully made his own (briefly) working lightsaber and phaser, and has Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics engraved in the side of his toolbox. He’s not very conspicuous in his sci-fi fandom, but it’s obvious to anyone who cares to take even a cursory look.

——

RED Sniper

Name: Hollis Jacob Colling Age: 31 Nationality: Australian Time w/ RED: 8 years, 6 months [Sawmill vet]

Height: 6’2 Hair: Brown, short, messy Eye Colour: Brown Skin Tone: Well-tanned Caucasian Build: Thin, broad-shouldered Scars: Respawn error: knife wound (“Sniper scar”: left cheekbone and side of left nostril), knife wound (back, right shoulder), knife wound (torso, left pectoral to navel) Other Distinguishing Features: N/A

Uniform Cosmetics: Villain’s Veil, Crocodile Smile, Brim-Full of Bullets Typical Weapon Loadout: Huntsman, SMG, Kukri

Likes: Hunting, archery, the outdoors, being alone, violence, killing Dislikes: People in general, cities, being told what to do, not getting what he wants, the BLU Spy Fears: [Unknown] Habits: Smoker, stares Disorders/Medical Conditions: N/A

Extra Facts:

Gives off very intense vibes. Can be very charismatic when he puts his mind to it, but spending any significant time with him can be overwhelming in a very unsettling way.

Not a nice guy [honestly the closest thing close to an antagonist character in the shorts]. Enjoys violence for violence’s sake and seeing others in pain gives him that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. He was a professional hitman for most of his adult life before being hired by RED, and more than a few innocents that crossed his path met… unfortunate ends for his amusement. He spent a little over a year in prison after being caught “enjoying” one such innocent, and was picked up by RED while on the lam after escaping.

Will do anything he deems necessary to get what he wants, regardless of who it hurts and how much. He will lie, cheat, steal, and kill without remorse if he feels like it’ll benefit him.

Sadistically cruel to the Blues on the battlefield (and during ceasefire, though he exercises it less often off the field). He will try to make each kill as painful and drawn-out as possible, and if he can inflict a little lasting trauma (either emotional or physical) in the process, even better. He likes getting up close and getting his hands dirty, too; most of the Blues have at least one scar from his kukri.

A loner. He’s rarely seen around the base during ceasefire and on days off, preferring to spend his time in his nest or going out hunting. It’s not uncommon for him to disappear for a few days at a time if he knows there are no fights coming up. He’s always come back, (so far) so RED hasn’t had a problem with it, or at least not enough of one to tell him to stop [*like with revealing names, while it’s not strictly disallowed by their contracts, RED and BLU strongly discourage overnight trips off-base].

First Day

The first finished short, though not the first chronologically. There's one more that comes before this one, but this was the first one I actually completed to some degree of satisfaction, and it's only the second one, so I figure it's not too far into the plot- and character-development to be posted. I might even end up expanding it, since it's pretty short, but, eh. I'll throw it up for now.

If anyone actually ends up reading through it, any critique is greatly appreciated; it's completely unbeta'd and I haven't posted any of my writing anywhere in years, so feedback is very, very good.

Also, warning for profanity and brief homophobic language. It's a short primarily about the Scouts, so there's no way the script's gonna be clean.

Summary: It's the new RED Scout's first day.

——

First Day

“Anyone get a good look at RED’s new Scout over the last few days?” Engineer asked, slipping the last shell into his shotgun and tucking the weapon into its loop on his belt. The BLU respawn room was quiet, and had been near silent before the question; they were always a fairly subdued bunch in the minutes before the buzzer. Sniper shrugged, digging a near miniscule crumb of dirt from under one of the tiny screws of his rifle’s scope.

“Younger’n ours, hard as that might be to believe,” he said, drawing a flipped bird from the young man in question and chuckles from the others. “Green as spring grass and jumpy as a toad on a hot rock. The Reds’ll probably break him before the fighting gets a chance.”

“Is it really all that surprisin’ if they do? Those guys are fuckin’ nuts,” Scout said as he finished wrapping his hands in their customary bandages and drew his heavy wooden baseball bat. “Lookin’ forward to bashin’ in some a’those psychos’ knees and heads today. Especially that fuckin’ Soldier,” he added in a low growl, swinging his bat in a whistling arc before him; Scout’s encounters with the particularly psychotic Red during the last fight had not gone well. Spy patted him on the shoulder and lit a cigarette.

“I’m sure you’ll get the chance, petit. When ’ave you ever known that ’elmeted madman to remain quietly on the rear lines?” he said. Sniper nodded, lighting a cigarette of his own and settling his rifle in his hands.

“Here’s hopin’, but don’t push too hard.” He looked around the room, catching each man’s eyes for a second as he pushed his aviators up the bridge of his nose. “Everyone keep your heads down today. We dunno what their new Scout’s capable of, and, small as he is, we don’t want him scoopin’ our case because we underestimate him. And their Engie seems to’ve taken a likin’ to the west alcove of their warehouse, second floor.” He looked meaningfully to Scout and Soldier, the latter of whom saluted sharply. “Don’t let it throw you. I wanna see low respawn numbers at the end of the day.”

Nods rippled around the room, and there was a chorus of rattling metal as weapons were hefted. The timer above the door ticked down, a high electronic beep marking each passing second. 16… 15… 14…

——

3… 2... 1…

The starting buzzer blared and the metal shutter rolled up, releasing a raging torrent of Reds. Scout jumped as a jet of flame washed harmlessly over him before Pyro charged past, howling behind his gas mask. Despite his very short training and the briefing on the train in, Scout still expected to feel his shirt burning off his back, but all he felt was the rough shove as Heavy pushed past him.

“Move, little boy-man!” he roared, and Scout jumped again, bolting out the open door and into chaos. He winced as one of Demo’s bombs exploded a few feet from him and one of Soldier’s rockets detonated not much further away. The Blues weren’t even in sight yet, but already Scout’s ears were filled with gunshots and explosions and battlecries. His teammates were bloodthirsty. He was beginning to realize that he was not prepared for this, not at all, but it was too fucking late to back out now.

He caught up to and passed Pyro as they exited the intel room, and saw flames gust out around him again—without feeling them—as he left the other man’s range. He heard muffled, guttural laughter behind him as he weaved his way through the warehouse, and clearer bursts of chuckling receded with the footsteps clattering up the ramps to the second floor. Pyro was messing with him, and the others were thoroughly enjoying it. Scout shook his head. He’d expected some hazing—he was the short, freckly, buck-toothed new kid; he’d have been surprised if people hadn’t fucked with him to some degree—but the apparent glee most of his teammates had taken in harassing him since his arrival unnerved him. He was honestly starting to look forward to encountering the enemy team.

The whizz of a bullet passing far too close to his head made him reconsider that thought as he sped out the wide warehouse doors. With a yelp, he dove behind a shipping container next to the train tracks, clutching his scattergun to his chest as his heart thundered.

Rockets started flying out the RED warehouse doors toward the train station in the centre of the field, and they were answered by a rocket barrage in return. Chipped concrete from their detonations pecked Scout’s cheek before he covered his head with an arm. He could feel warmth starting to trickle down from one of the more painful impact spots, and wiped his cheek, staring at the blood that came away on his fingers. The first blood he’d shed on the battlefield. He swallowed hard and peeked around the edge of the container.

Another whizz, followed by the pinging p-tew of a ricochet. Scout cursed and, questioning his sanity, he ran toward the moat instead of retreating back into cover. He wasn’t gonna just sit back and be a pussy for his whole first battle. He’d recognized from his training, short and disorganized as it had been, that the shots coming at him were sniper fire. He needed to get too close for the BLU Sniper to get a clear shot. To do that, he had to get over the moat.

There was a bridge a few yards away, but he didn’t want to be out in the open that long. It had to be straight over. No big: just ten or so feet of freezing, probably septic water. Right. Gritting his teeth, he took a deep breath and flung himself across the wide watery trench separating the RED base from the train station.

He grunted, his sneakers skidding on concrete, as he cleared the moat by at least six feet. He stumbled as he came to a stop and stared back at the distance he’d covered. Damn! Whatever RED had given him during his pre-deployment physical really did the fucking trick!

He hadn’t recovered enough to gather his bearings before something solid slammed into his gut, hard enough to double him up over it. He choked, eyes bulging at the sudden pain and breathlessness. He staggered back and stopped himself from going to his knees, if barely. He tried to raise his scattergun for a shot at his attacker, lifting his wide eyes to aim. This time he saw the heavy hardwood baseball bat coming at him. Straight toward his head.

He ducked with a hoarse yell, overbalancing and landing flat on his ass. He finally managed to lift both his gun and gaze to catch a glimpse of the enemy Scout’s blue-clad back whirling away from him with the momentum of his swing. For half a second, he could only stare at his enemy counterpart—the other man easily could have passed for one of his older brothers, in bad light—and that half-second was enough for the Blue to turn back, bat raised for another swing. Just in time for a load of scattershot to take him squarely in the chest.

He looked as shocked by the shot as Scout, finger still hovering over the trigger, felt. A hand rose to the gory mess of the BLU Scout’s front, absently fingering the bloody, pulverized meat and exposed edges of bone. Scout could only meet his opposite’s stunned stare with one of his own. Blood quickly stained the front of the Blue’s shirt, some dripping onto the concrete. He swayed, and blinked slowly, a glassy look coming into his eyes.

“You little fucker,” he mumbled, more incredulity than venom in his voice, and he toppled forward at Scout’s feet.

Scout’s eyes didn’t leave the corpse, and he didn’t move until, like a movie effect, the body started to fade. It grew steadily more transparent and then just disappeared, the blood fading with it, except for a few spatters on Scout’s shoes and pants. He scrambled to his feet, one arm folded over his aching gut, and frantically looked about him.

He saw Heavy emerge from the moat, his vest and shirt more than a little singed, and he saw the BLU Soldier explode into a shower of blood and meat chunks when one of Demo’s grenades hit him head on. His own team’s Soldier was coming his way, jogging along the edge of the moat, and Medic was taking swings at the BLU Demoman with his bonesaw and a maniacal, almost psychotic, grin on his face. Men were screaming, bullets and bombs were flying all around him… Scout swallowed hard. He had to keep moving, get into the BLU base, and grab their intel before he ended up getting blown away. He could take the time to process all of this once the battle was-

“Rule one of being a Scout, lapin.” He gasped as an arm wrapped around his neck from behind and something sharp jabbed lightly into his spine. “Do not stand still.”

The call of “Spy!” was still building in his throat when the knife slid home.

Then the cold white walls of the respawn room surrounded him and he stumbled, eyes goggling and hands shaking. Had he just… died? One of his hands flew around to his back, feeling for where the BLU Spy’s knife had entered, but there was no pain, no wound, not even a tear in his shirt. But he remembered feeling the cold steel splitting skin, the sharp dart of pain before he’d opened his eyes here.

He made it to the garbage can in the corner before he puked, but it was a very near thing. Yeah… he was definitely going to need some time to process this.

——

It had been a long day by the time the end-of-match siren blew. The Administrator loudly berated them all for failures, RED and BLU alike, but no one really paid her any mind. They were all too relieved to depart the field after hours of frenzy and pain for no reward. Still, despite the relief, the stalemate was painful. They had nothing really to gain from winning—a couple extra grand on their already exorbitant paycheques and a few congratulatory special supply vouchers—but losing was never a fun experience, and today they were all losers. Some were taking it harder than others.

“That little fucker!”

The BLU Scout growled, pitching his bat at the back wall of the respawn room as hard as he could. It rebounded a good four feet before bouncing a few more and slowly rolling to a stop at Spy’s feet. Spy picked up the weapon, and took a quick step back as Scout stomped across the patch of tile he’d just occupied.

They were the only ones left in the respawn room, the others having retreated deeper into the base to seek healing or relaxation as required. Spy had stayed behind when Scout did, wanting to make sure the younger man eventually did go to have his myriad bruises and cuts seen to once he’d worked through his anger. Knowing Scout, left alone, he’d fume and rant until he got tired or hungry, and leave the wounds festering until the next fight’s first respawn.

The young man’s headset had suffered the same fate as his bat in the course of his rage, though it had come to rest much closer to its original impact point against the wall, and he was in the process of wringing his hat in bruised-knuckled hands as if he blamed it for the embarrassments of the day. Spy had to pity him; there had been quite a few.

“That little shit! Six fuckin’ times! I died eighteen times today, and that…” Scout made inarticulate sounds of fury, strangling his hat more violently and then sending it flying into a bank of lockers. It hit with a resounding clang, echoed as Scout marched over to give the locker a hearty kick as well. “That fuckin’ shitbag cocksucker is gonna eat my fuckin’ bat tomorrow. Gonna shove it down his throat, out his ass, and fuckin’ floss him with it! Then I’ll shove my scattergun up his ass and blast away! Then shove my fuckin’ pistol up there and-”

“Scout, mon petit voyou, it was not that bad,” Spy said as he set the bat on one of the benches. He turned, meeting the younger man’s glare with a dry look of his own. “That look does not work on me. Stop it. You know I am right.” He lit a cigarette and took a seat next to the bat. “It was a long day, but we all ’ave days when our counterparts seem to single us out. Remember that week the ’Eavies were at each other’s throats?”

“This ain’t the same and you know it,” Scout said, shoving his hands into his pockets and giving the lockers another, more sullen kick. “It was his first fuckin’ fight, and I don’t even think he was tryin’ to run into me. I’d come ’round a corner and baby fucknuts is just standin’ there lookin’ clueless. Then he sees me and bam! I get one hit off, maybe two, then he blows me to shit!” He shoved his hands back through his hair, his anger returned in full force. “He blew my fuckin’ head off twice! That fuckin’… Rrrrgh! I’m gonna twist his head off that scrawny fuckin’ pencil neck!”

“Per’aps it was just beginner’s luck?” Spy suggested, shrugging and watching as Scout started to pace, shoulders hunched. “You are taking this too ’ard, petit. We all ’ave bad days, some worse than others. Today was bad for all of us, both sides. The new Scout threw everyone off.” He grunted and took a drag off his cigarette, puffing out as he grumbled, “’E certainly is speedier than expected, even for a Scout… and I don’t believe any of us anticipated that ’e’d adapt so quickly.”

Scout snorted and flopped down on the bench beside Spy, leaning forward with elbows on his knees; deep gouges packed with dirt and gravel were visible through a tear in the right knee of his pants. “Yeah, no kiddin’ there. Sniper was sayin’ how he almost didn’t make it up to the balcony in time to take his first shot at him. And you see how quick he got back across our moat after that one kill Demo got on him? I saw his bits fade out, and I was still pinned behind the train cars by their fuckin’ Soldier when he comes flyin’ back. He can move quick for havin’ such tiny legs.”

“’E is very small, isn’t ’e?” Spy said, chuckling, glad to see Scout calming down. “I wasn’t aware RED ’ad become so desperate as to start robbing the cradle to pad out their teams.”

“Really though!” Scout hooted, a grin splitting his face. “What is he, fuckin’ twelve? The Reds are gonna eat him alive.”

Spy smirked. “If their dégoûtant convict of a Sniper isn’t doing so already.”

“Augh, gross, Spy. I don’t wanna be thinkin’ a’that,” Scout said, wrinkling his nose in distaste. Spy raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.

“So prudish, petit! I never would ’ave expected it.”

“Hey, I just ain’t no fuckin’ cocksucker.”

“Tsk, typical American vulgarity. There is nothing wrong with exploring the pleasures that come from a more… masculine touch.”

“Sure, yeah, of course you’d say that, ya fancy candy-ass froggy fa- Ow! The fuck was’at for?”

“Oh, would you look at that! Your knee is bleeding again! We should get you to Medic before you say something else that you regret.”

“Aw, what, did I hurt yer feelin’s? Big scary Spy doesn’t like bein’ called a fag- Ow! Fuck, fuck, fine, I’m shuttin’ up! Christ, talk about sensit- OW! Dammit!”

——

The RED Scout still hadn’t left the showers. Somewhere in the bowels of the base was a monstrous water heater, which meant the water jetting from the showerhead was still steaming after over an hour, and Scout’s blazing skin could have served as a team banner. He’d stopped really feeling the heat a while ago, not long after he’d finished scrubbing himself almost raw with the near-caustic soap RED provided. It had taken longer than he’d expected to clean off all the gore and grime that had caked him at the end of the battle; there had been a surprising amount of it.

By the time the ceasefire siren had blown, he’d been on one of his longest “living streaks”, which meant he was one of those still cut, bruised, and shot up at the end of the day. Medic had been there, freshly respawned himself only a few minutes before the siren, when Scout had tottered back into the base behind Soldier, who had been bellowing at the top of his lungs and gesturing violently with his own severed arm. The doctor had proved more eager to examine their injuries, as thoroughly and at as great length as possible, than to provide healing, so Scout had added a not-insubstantial amount of his own blood to his outer layer of grime before being given a lick of healing from the medigun, just enough to heal the worst of his injuries, and told the rest was unlikely to kill him before his next respawn.

The partial healing of the wounds had not removed the evidence of them, though, so Scout had been left with smears of dried and drying blood caked onto his skin even under his clothes. That, on top of all the sweat and dust. There had been clods of disgustingly reddish mud in his hair and under his nails, and he’d almost puked again when he’d found a chunk of… something lodged behind his ear. He didn’t want to know where, or who, it had come from, or how it had ended up there. He’d just flicked it down the wide drain and scrubbed himself as if his life depended on it.

Actual cleaning had only taken up fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of his shower, though. Since he’d set the soap back on its shelf, he’d stood, and then sat, in the stream of hot water, watching the droplets trail across his reddened skin and the gleaming white shower tiles. Some of the others had come and gone in that time, but they had paid him no mind, save for Heavy’s malicious chuckles over “little boy-man’s sensitive stomach”. Scout had ignored them in return, staring blankly beyond the tile walls and into his frenzied memories of the day.

What horrified and sickened him the most about everything, he thought, was how little everything he’d seen and done did horrify and sicken him. He’d killed people, repeatedly in some cases, and seen others die in more horrific ways than he’d thought possible. The BLU Scout kept showing up wherever he went, it seemed, and he couldn’t deny the intense triumph he’d felt each time he’d killed the other man, after that first stunned kill. And the burst of savage satisfaction after he’d crushed that stupid BLU Pyro’s mask right into his face, seeing blood squirt out around his bat, through the crumpled filters and shattered lenses…

Scout hugged his knees tighter, resting his forehead against them and watching the thin stream of water falling from the end of his nose. He hadn’t thought that he’d enjoy killing so much. He knew it wasn’t… real, not during a battle with respawn waiting to snatch them all back from the jaws of “true” death, but it was still killing. Someone didn’t survive having their head shot off, or exploding into chunks, or being literally cut in half by minigun fire. There had been a definite rush in watching blood and body parts fly, and it had only grown more intense when he was its cause. He’d been in fights back home, beaten some guys real bad (if not quite to RED and BLU standards), but the adrenaline rush of a good fight was nothing against the pure, animal satisfaction he got blowing away Blues.

He liked it, but it felt wrong. Especially after seeing how his teammates had responded to the battle. They had been vicious, some of them, most of them, animals more than men. Heavy had been horrifying, bellowing laughter as that massive gun tore the Blues to shreds, and Pyro had been… monstrous. An alien, pyromaniac beast with a voice like nothing human. Scout had even seen Engineer chuckling darkly over the mangled corpse of the BLU Spy, his wrench and gloves dripping blood.

He knew he hadn’t been much better, after his third or fourth death and respawn. By then, the cycle of kill, be killed, respawn, repeat had settled with him, and he’d gotten a second kill on his BLU counterpart without the same feeling of shocked horror that had stymied him after his first. Instead there’d been a heady rush of feral exhilaration, and, from the moment the Blue’s corpse had faded after that second encounter, he’d sought more of it with a desperation that scared him, now that he had a chance to look back. The BLU intel had always been his true goal, somewhere in the back of his mind, but he’d been reckless in choosing his paths to it, more interested in how many kills he could get before his next respawn than finding the safest route. It had resulted in more than a few deaths of his own.

He sighed, folding his hands over the back of his head. There was that, too. The deaths. Respawn was nothing short of miraculous, bringing them back in perfect shape even after being dismembered or pulped or whatever else might happen to them, but they still died. He’d died more than twenty times, according to the board in the respawn room at the end of the day. And dying hurt. Some of his deaths had been like the first, instant and near painless, but others…

The BLU Scout had seemed to take special pleasure in tormenting him, drawing out every death that he could. Despite only being responsible for five of Scout’s deaths, he’d broken his legs, shattered his hands, broken his back, and only seen fit to actually end Scout’s life when the flow of the battle drew him onward. At least he had ended it, though. Scout had seen Demo after an unfortunate run-in with the BLU Pyro, where the sloppy-drunk Irishman had been granted no such mercy. Scout felt his gorge rising and swallowed thickly.

Why had he gotten himself involved in all this? Yeah, the money was fucking astounding, but this was only his first battle and he’d already seen men burned alive and blown to smithereens, and been riddled with bullets and beaten painfully to death himself. Was six figures worth turning into the kind of lunatic he saw in Medic and Soldier and Pyro? Was it worth all the pain? What would Ma say? He shivered in spite of the hot water. She’d always talked about the “dangerous men” she’d known in her younger years, but how could she approve of a son who enjoyed killing so thoroughly?

Scout lifted his face and scrubbed his hands over it with a groan. He wasn’t built for thinking about this kind of shit. He realized for the first time just how wrinkly his toes and fingertips had become and grimaced. He hated wrinkling up; it was why he never took baths. He got to his feet with another groan, trying to rub the sleep out of his leg and ignore a deep ache still settled in his ribs, and turned off the taps.

In the sudden absence of hissing water, Scout heard the tak tak of bootheels on the tile and he looked up sharply. The room was still filled with thick steam—how long had he been showering?—but he could make out a lanky, hatted silhouette near the sinks at the other end of the room.

“Y’finally finished up in there, Speedy?” There was no mistaking Sniper’s throaty drawl. “Was startin’ t’worry ya might’ve melted.”

Scout snorted, smiling in spite of the melancholy that had kept him under the shower’s spray so long. “I know I’m pretty fuckin’ sweet, but I’m not made a’sugar, Snipes.”

Sniper’s chuckle was a low rumble through the slowly dissipating steam. Scout liked him. He and Engie were the only ones on the team who had treated him like, well, a teammate since his arrival a few days ago, and Sniper had gone out of his way to help show Scout around before his first “official” day. He’d even fed him his first night, when Demo and Pyro had thought it would be hilarious to incinerate his dinner.

Sniper had brought Scout, still nervous and more than a little put-out by the hazing, to his “nest” (a small room, barely bigger than a closet, at the top of a very tall ladder that offered a view all the way across the battlefield) and offered him a bowl of hearty rabbit stew. “Caught the li’l buggers just outside the fence,” Sniper had said with pride. Scout had been reluctant to try rabbit, thinking of the twitchy-nosed little bunnies he’d seen on his train ride in, but in the end he’d emptied three bowls over the course of a nearly two hour long chat. Sniper was quiet and more than a little intense, but Scout couldn’t help but feel comforted by his unflappable presence in the midst of the rest of the team’s madness.

A fluffy towel smacked Scout in the face and he caught it as it tumbled down toward his chest. Sniper was grinning at him. “Better dry off and cover up before ya shrivel any more, Squirt.”

“I ain’t shrivellin’,” Scout said, though he did cast a self-conscious glance downward before he started drying himself. “Yer the one who’s peepin’ on my junk, ya dirty old perv, so…”

“So what?”

Scout blinked and paused as he was wrapping the towel around his waist. He gaped at Sniper for a moment, who was now clearly visible past the last lingering wisps of fog. He didn’t have his aviators on, and there was a fierce, hungry gleam visible in his eyes even from across the room. It was almost enough to make Scout nervous. He shrugged and cleared his throat, feeling a flush spreading up his neck and cheeks.

Then Sniper laughed. “Oh, relax, kid. Christ, the look on yer face!” He crossed the room and clapped his arm around the boy’s bare shoulders. “Let’s getcha somethin’ t’eat and maybe y’can tell me a little about those dark clouds y’were lost in when I walked up, eh?”

Scout blinked again, and then a broad grin stole across his lips. Intense, but comforting. After today, that might be just what he needed. “That actually sounds awesome; I’m fuckin’ starved.”

Ta-Da!

Breakfast Teaser/WIP

The BLU team (except for Soldier) is pretty tolerant of Red/Freckles whenever he comes around to visit Pyro and Scout by this point. He's not nearly as much of a jackass as their own Scout, during ceasefire at least.

Summary: Freckles decides to thank the Blues for not shooting him on sight every time he drops by.

——

Breakfast (tent. title)

[...]

Freckles was not who [Sniper] expected to see, humming to himself as he shimmied and slid through the kitchen on bare feet, pulling dishes and utensils from various cabinets and drawers. The kid was wearing one of Pyro’s t-shirts (Sniper recognized it instantly as one of the ones Scout had defaced; that lurid shade of pink was certainly distinctive) and Sniper was fairly sure he was wearing a pair of Pyro’s sweatpants as well, the cuffs rolled up several times to keep from dragging on the floor. He’d assembled a fair collection of food on the counter: a mound of potatoes and two onions, already peeled; the brick of cheddar from the fridge; several peppers of various colours and sizes; two packs of breakfast sausages; and two cartons of eggs. Aside from the potatoes and cheese, Sniper knew that none of it had come from their actual supplies; they’d used up the last eggs a few days ago, and they hadn’t had any vegetables (aside from the potatoes, if they could even really be considered vegetables) shipped to them in longer than he liked to think about. Freckles must have made a grocery run on his own.

Sniper stayed just outside the doorway, far enough back for Freckles to not see him as he puttered around the kitchen, setting bowls and other dishes on the counter, and once checking the oven, opening the door a couple inches and nodding in satisfaction at whatever he found. Something seemed to be eluding him, though. After placing a spatula on the counter, he started searching more intently through cupboards and drawers, muttering to himself. Sniper had to stifle a laugh when, after a minute or so of hunting, he pulled a chair over to one of the counters and stood on it, so he could see onto the higher shelves. Freckles had such a big attitude, it was sometimes easy to forget just how short he really was. He saw what he wanted, apparently, because he cursed softly and started trying to get something from the top shelf that, even with the chair, he was hard-pressed to reach.

As Sniper watched, the chair started slowly skidding along the floor, scooting quarter-inch by quarter-inch further and further from the counter as Freckles tried desperately for whatever he was looking for on the top shelf. Freckles didn’t seem to notice: he was standing on tip-toe at the chair’s edge, his tongue poked between his teeth and eyes half-squinted shut as he tried to jam most of his arm into the cupboard. Sniper stepped forward just as the chair gave an almighty screech and shot back a few inches all at once.

“Wha- Huuk!”

Sniper caught Freckles by the collar of his shirt, keeping him from crashing full-on into the counter, and steadied him as he stumbled a step. Freckles’s eyes were wide when they locked onto him, and he froze with one hand rubbing at where his shirt had dug into his throat and the other gripping the counter. Sniper let go of the back of his shirt and looked down at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Somethin’ just outta your reach there, Freckles?” he said, not unkindly. For a second, Freckles only stared at him, wary as a rabbit under a coyote’s eye. Then, slowly, he straightened and gave a nervous little cough.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah,” he said, pointing to the shelf he’d been searching and dropping his eyes. “The cheese grater.”

Sniper walked over to the cabinet and looked in. He had to pop up onto the balls of his feet to catch sight of the grater, tucked toward the back of the top shelf, but he extracted it without stretching too much and held it out. Freckles took it with a mumbled word of thanks, but he didn’t look up. When Sniper didn’t move or say anything further, he backed up a slow step, then another and another, until his back bumped up against the countertop next to the stove.

“I’m, uh… I’m just makin’ breakfast,” he said, with a weak gesture at the food on the counter, “if that’s cool?”

Sniper smiled. As much as part of him wanted to tease, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Freckles really looked like the kid he was, standing there in too-big sweatpants, clutching the cheese grater and staring at his bare feet. Sniper had to admire his balls, too, for all his present nervousness. Spending the night at the enemy base and staying to make breakfast in the morning? Sniper wasn’t sure if he’d do the same, put in the kid’s shoes.

“No wukkas, mate. Don’t let me interrupt,” he said, pulling over the chair Freckles had been using as a step-stool and taking a seat at the table. He nodded at the heaps of food. “Feelin’ a bit peckish, eh?”

Freckles snorted and Sniper saw the beginnings of a relieved smile forming on his lips before he turned to the cutting board.

“It’s not all for me. I’m not that much of a pig ’less I’m totally baked off my ass. I, uh-” He shrugged and started grating the cheese into a large bowl. “I just figured I’d say thanks, y’know. For all you guys not murderin’ me whenever I come over. ’Cept Helmet-Dick, but he’s not here, so…” He stopped grating and looked over his shoulder. “There’s coffee, if ya want. The second pot’s got some a’Spy’s fancy hazelnut shit in it.”

“Stealin’ Spy’s coffee? That’s a bold move, mate,” Sniper said with a smirk. He got up and poured himself a cup of regular coffee, taking it back to his seat. Freckles flashed him a buck-toothed grin.

“Ah, I already steal his weed and his booze,” he said, popping a piece of cheese into his mouth. “Well, Blue steals it for me, but same difference. ’Sides, he can still get some, s’long as he gets up b’fore I drink it all.”

Sniper snorted out a laugh and took a sip of his coffee. It was good and strong. He hummed and leaned back in his seat, watching as Freckles finished with the cheese—the bowl was filled with a heaping mound of cheddar almost as tall again as it was—and started chopping the potatoes into roughly square chunks. His motions had the ease and speed of long practice, and when Sniper continued to stay silent, he started humming to himself again, just on the edge of hearing. Sniper thought he recognized a Beatles tune. Taking another thoughtful sip, Sniper popped his feet up to rest on one of the other empty chairs around the table, one ankle crossed over the other.

“Gotta say, yer one a’the last ones I woulda expected t’see in here first thing in the mornin’,” he said, startling Freckles into stillness. “You bein’ RED aside, I’ve been at this nonsense a dozen years, and I can count on one hand the Scouts I’ve known who’d willin’ly be outta bed before noon on a day off. And I can’t think of any who’d’ve cooked breakfast for the whole team. The whole enemy team, at that.”

He saw Freckles blink. “Oh. Uh, yeah. Well, Ma always told me to be a good houseguest.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I just never expected t’get- I guess it hasn’t really been a warm welcome, but, all things considered, the fact that none a’you guys have tried blowin’ me away just for bein’ here deserves some kinda ‘thank you’, right?”

“If it means a free, home-cooked meal, I’m not gonna disagree,” Sniper said with a smile, lifting his coffee cup to the boy in salute. Freckles shot him another brief grin before focusing back on the potatoes. “So, y’do this often?” Sniper said, nodding again to the food when Freckles looked back over his shoulder at him. “Cookin’. Most blokes out here can’t even cut a sandwich in half without cuttin’ themselves, or use any appliance but the microwave without settin’ the whole bloody place ablaze.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, I like cookin’,” Freckles said, drawing an onion over to the cutting board and shoving the chopped potatoes into two large casserole dishes (Sniper hadn’t even known they had a single casserole dish, let alone two). “Ma worked a lotta nights, and it gets pretty borin’ just eatin’ McDonald’s and TV dinners, ya know? Chicks love it, too. I told Blue—yer Scout, I mean—but he don’t believe me: if you can dance ’n’ you can cook, you can drop any chick’s panties halfway to China without even tryin’.”

“Really?” Sniper said, surprised. “No offense, mate, but given yer track record since ya’ve been here…”

Freckles stopped chopping for a moment, and Sniper could see the back of his neck and tips of his ears flushing red. He cleared his throat and returned to the onion after giving himself a shake, his shoulders a little more hunched than before. The silence stretched, leaving Sniper’s prompt unanswered, and Sniper smiled a little.

“Look, no judgment, kid. I’ve been around Heavy and Medic for ages, and I saw more shit back at Sawmill than I ever wanna think about sober. Or drunk, for that matter. It’s just a surprise, that’s all,” he said. “Given how happy y’seemed with Wrenches and seem with Pyro, and how quick y’got to business once y’got here, I figured the sheilas just didn’t really get ya goin’.”

“Nah, nah, they totally do!” Freckles said quickly. “Chicks are awesome, man! I love boobs! S’just, uh…” He shuffled uncomfortably. “S’just… y’know…”

“Actually, I don’t,” Sniper said, a smile coming back to his lips. “Not even a little bit.”

“What, seriously?” Freckles stared at him. “Y’said it yerself, ya been doin’ this shit for-fuckin’-ever.” He scowled slightly and added, “And everyone loves to keep tellin’ me that the last RED Scout was the fuckin’ Teufort bicycle, throwin’ himself at everyone he could, fuckin’ twenty-four seven…”

“Never did learn t’ride a bike,” Sniper said musingly, recrossing his ankles more comfortably. “Wasn’t much use on walkabout; th’Outback’s too rough, ’less you’re willin’ to put in an ungodly amount a’work and carry an ungodly amount a’shit. Easier t’just run with a van.” He shook his head and huffed. “Last RED Scout was a loony little root rat. Ask anyone. Even if I was inclined t’ward blokes, I wouldn’ta stuck my business anywhere near that mess.”

“And Spy never tried for nothin’?” Freckles said, onion chopping entirely forgotten. “I find that kinda fuckin’ hard t’believe. Y’been on the same team with him for years, right? And he ain’t exactly… the straightest ruler in the drawer.”

Sniper snorted and said, “Oh, you better believe the damn frog bloody well tried. His first few months at Sawmill, he tried cozyin’ up to me and th’other Sniper on the team near every other day. Persistent git.” He shook his head and shrugged, taking another mouthful of coffee. “He gave it a rest after the piss jars, though.”

“Piss jars?”

“Yup,” Sniper said. “When y’find the perfect perch, y’don’t wanna miss the shot just ’cause ya gotta answer the call a’nature. By the time Shades and I got sick a’Spy’s pesterin’ ’n’ innuendos, between the two of us we musta had, eh, three or four dozen jars.” He chuckled, remembering the look on Spy’s face when the nest’s trapdoor had swung open, and he’d seen what came of pushing Snipers too far. “Never knew the frog could scream that high.”

Freckles stared at him for a few seconds more in stunned silence, but he was soon clutching his gut, guffawing loud enough to wake the entire base. Sniper sipped his coffee, watching as Freckles’s face grew more and more red and he had to grip the counter to keep himself upright. Tears followed soon after, and before long he was gasping between desperate, snorting “hee hee!”s. By the time he wound down, wiping his cheeks and still letting out the occasional breathless giggle, Sniper had finished off his coffee, poured himself a new cup, and returned to his chair with his feet kicked up again.

“Hoo. Hoooo. Holy shit, my sides hurt. Ah, fuck me, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so fuckin’ hard. Jesus.” Freckles turned back to the cutting board and resumed dicing the onions, his shoulders still quaking with mirth. “Fuckin’ piss jars… Jesus fuckin’ Christ…” He snickered again.

Then he froze. Sniper frowned as, stock still, Freckles sniffed at the air, like a dog. To Sniper’s shock, he turned sharply to his left, growling and hefting the knife in his hand as if he meant to use it on someone, rather than just the vegetables.

“Spy, I swear to God, if you get even a single fuckin’ flake of ash on the food, I’m shovin’ this knife straight up yer fuckin’ ass.”

Sniper blinked as Spy shimmered into view at the corner of the counter, one arm crossed over his chest and the other hand holding a cigarette to his lips. Sniper shook his head, impressed. There was another point to Freckles’s card. Sniper had been at this long enough that he could usually tell when Spy was coming and going, even cloaked, but the kid had caught him while Sniper hadn’t even had a clue.

Spy was giving Freckles a thoroughly unimpressed look, not at all swayed by the rather large chopping implement in his hand, despite the threat. He blew out a puff of smoke and deliberately ashed his cigarette into the sink.

“I am shaking in my wingtips,” he said drily, pushing the knife away with the tip of a finger. “You ’ave quite the nose, lapin.”

“And those things fuckin’ stink,” Freckles shot back, jabbing the knife at the cigarette before turning back to the cutting board with a huff. “It’s a miracle y’can sneak up on anyone at all. Ya really gotta smoke that shit in here while I’m cookin’?”

“I am a Spy; I always smoke,” Spy said, pouring himself some coffee—and giving Freckles a dark look when he smelled the hazelnut—before mixing in some cream and sugar and taking a seat across the table from Sniper. Freckles rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, but ya don’t hafta smoke here,” he said. “Y’could just fuck off and not be a total fuckin’ prick. Shockin’, I know, but it is an option.”

Sniper coughed out a brief laugh and Spy cut him a look before he said, in a too-sweet voice, “It is, but why bother when being a ‘total prick’ is so much more entertaining? Besides, I can’t ’elp but be a little suspicious of the RED Scout ’elping ’imself to our kitchen. You could be trying to poison us, for all I know.”

“For all you know. Right. Sneaky, back-stabbin’ fuck,” Freckles muttered, finishing chopping the onions and putting them into the casserole dishes with the potatoes. He jiggled the dishes a little so everything sat evenly, drizzled them with oil, salt, and pepper, and slid them into the oven. “Just stay outta the way, assface. And I meant it about the fuckin’ ash, too.”

He tossed an ashtray onto the table, and Spy glowered at him, very pointedly tapping ash into it. Sniper hid his growing smile behind another sip of coffee. As much as he considered Spy to be his best mate, it was still pretty damn funny, watching him being stood up to by the diminutive Red.

Spy took another drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke toward Freckles as he exhaled, and said, “Well, well. Someone ’as certainly grown a backbone lately. I can remember, not so long ago, that even being in the same room as one of us in our own base would ’ave ’ad you running like the little rabbit you are.”

“Yeah, but that was before I really got to know the guy y’let fuck ya,” Freckles said flippantly. He had leaned back against the counter and was cracking eggs with one hand into another large bowl held in the crook of his other arm. He gave Spy a mocking grin. “I mean, if ya let Blue up yer ass, how scary can ya be? I could kick his ass with my eyes closed and my hands tied.” He shrugged as he cracked another egg. “Besides, if ya fuck with me too much, I know Py’ll barbeque ya for me. He’s good like that.”

Another small chuckle escaped Sniper and he could only shrug as well when Spy leveled a glare at him. “Sorry, mate, but he’s got a point. Pyro’d slow-roast any of our asses if we mess around too far with his beau off the field, and you know it.”

Spy let out a huff and took a sip of coffee. “It would be just my luck that it is the pyromaniac ’oo despises me that decides to fraternize with the most easily ’arassed member of the enemy team…”

“I dunno ’bout easily harassed,” Sniper said, sharing a smile with Freckles. “Y’saw what he did to his own team when they kept pushin’ him.”

“Damn right,” Freckles said. He was viciously churning the eggs in the bowl with a fork, turning them a goopy golden yellow. “Just ’cause I’m short and freckly-”

“And buck-toothed,” Spy put in maliciously, “and young enough to be most of ours’ son.”

“-don’t mean I’m easy to push around,” Freckles finished, flicking a stray piece of onion at Spy. He set the bowl down on the counter and prepared a cup of coffee for himself—Spy’s coffee, with enough cream and sugar in it to disgust any true coffee drinker—as Sniper laughed and Spy wiped at the spot the onion had impacted his balaclava with a grimace of distaste. Freckles hopped up to sit on the counter beside the cooking supplies, swinging his legs slightly so his heels bumped out a light beat on the cabinets, and smiled at the two Blues. He swallowed a mouthful of his coffee and gestured with his mug.

“Even with Py outta the picture, I could still kick yer ass,” he said. “Bein’ nervous before was just ’cause I wasn’t sure how shit worked yet. I thought it was just ‘rahr rahr, kill the other team’ all the fuckin’ time, ceasefire or no. I mean, yer Soldier’s kind of a dick that way, but the rest a’ya ain’t so bad. Not bad enough for me t’be jumpin’ outta my skin every five seconds, anyway.”

“Ahh, we’re all old hands at this point,” Sniper said. “Except for Pyro and Scout, of course, and Soldier’s a… special case. The rest of us, though?” He flapped a hand. “For me, plain and simple, it’s not worth the effort if I’m not gettin’ paid for it, and you’re not doin’ anythin’ I’d wanna kill ya for. Most of the time, anyway.”

“It does feel like a waste of effort. Not that it takes very much, but still,” Spy grunted, returning Freckles’s stuck out tongue with a sneer of his own, ignoring Sniper’s returning amusement. “I ’ave better things to spend my time doing.”

“Yeah, ’cause smokin’ and drinkin’ and sneakin’ around watchin’ people are sooo important. Who would constantly invade our privacy and give us all fuckin’ cancer if we didn’t have you?” Freckles said, rolling his eyes and sipping more coffee. “Ya do gotta get Blue off, I guess. I mean, he’s already a total fuckin’ shithead. I don’t wanna know what he’s like when he’s pent up. That’s kinda important.”

“Rosso is right. You are a truly monumental pest,” Spy grumbled, giving Sniper’s chair a kick when he couldn’t keep his snickers contained. “What are you giggling at, bushman? Where is your espirit de corps? You should be defending my honour against this miserable RED interloper.”

“I make it a policy not t’piss off anyone makin’ me food, and this is good fun,” Sniper said, then paused. “Nah, hold on. Watchin’ ya bein’ taken down a peg is ‘good fun’; watchin’ Freckles do it to ya is bloody hilarious.”

“Ha!”

[...]