Chapter One - The Beginning

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"You failed."

It had been a long, shitty Thursday, and the RED team had lost once again, a failure at Payload Upward. What a way to live your life, defending a cart with possibly a corpse in it by killing the people pushing it. And failing.

Once the members of RED had put their weapons and other miscellaneous battle supplies away, they went back to the base.

The entire team. Except Sniper.

Others found this unusual; some plain weird. Heavy had before questioned him about why he chose to be alone when he could be with his friends. No clear answer came out of it, and never again did someone try asking the bushman.

There would always be things that Scout wouldn't understand, like math, but this one irked him the most. He decided to let it rest yet again this time - he had many times before - but he promised that he'd confront him one day. For now, he would go up to his room before dinner, an event where he likely wouldn't see Sniper again.

Not that he minded his absence.

Lying again?

Scout had secretly admired the Sniper from afar for such a long time, too many months to count by now. His concentration made him look so attractive, so right and so perfect.

It pained his heart when Sniper refused to go inside with them. It made him feel like he wasn't good enough for him to do an act as simple as that. These things always made him feel absolutely worthless. Especially when the person who made him feel like that was his favorite person on the planet.

Nothing particularly awful happened that night.

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It was never easy. Being hired to fight a war halfway across the country, not easy. At least he didn't have it quite as bad as the Russian fat ass. That was halfway across the world, though everyone suspected Pyro to be from halfway across the galaxy. Yet Boston to New Mexico was still a long way. Still, the Scout liked to be away from home. It wasn't that he didn't love his ma and his seven brothers. But there was something about knowing no one could barge into your room at midnight and ask why you're still awake.

That being said, Scout wished he was home.

The base didn't feel like home to him, even though he knew it has been and still will be for years. They all knew the war wasn't ending anytime soon.

Scout was the youngest mercenary. Twenty seven. More than anything, even more than the pain of respawn, he hated being called a kid. His teammates called him that so often (Well, Soldier called him "son," which wasn't much better), yet he never got used to it. He hated it that much.

Somehow, Scout didn't feel bad for being such a prick to the other mercs. With his fake confidence, you wouldn't know how much he really hated himself. He didn't have to be nice to any of them either way. They all took the job to get paid, nothing more. None of them owed each other anything.

Today, the teams were going to Upward. It was one of the closest maps to the base, being a desert and all, but they still took a train thing. Train isn't really the right word since there were no tracks, but it was still bigger than a car.

No one talked on the way there. They didn't understand the point. How was repeatedly going to kill a bunch of guys who would just respawn in a few seconds war? How was it going to prove anything? But the mercenaries still got a fuck ton of money, so they weren't complaining about it.

Today hadn't started off as a very good day for the Scout. In the past four missions, the REDs have lost every time. And of course, Scout was constantly blamed.

"Why didn't you even make it to the intelligence room?" yelled Soldier after losing terribly at Turbine.

"Not a single kill, you disappointment," said the Spy. Spy was possibly his only teammate that was harder to deal with than Scout found himself to be.

Scout spent the short ride mentally preparing himself for the day at Upward. He had gotten used to the scoldings from his colleagues, yet there was something particularly bad about Payload. More often than not, RED was defending, something they all know the Scout was not built for, but still blame him for their losses.

It wasn't an exception to the shitty week they'd been having. Saturdays and Sundays would never have fights, so he had that to look forward to on this absolutely splendid Friday.

He'd always hide behind rocks in the front, to ambush the BLUs. He was back to back with Pyro, who he was actually friends with. They acted the same outside of battle, all childish and immature. But RED respected Pyro more still, probably because they didn't know who exactly Pyro was. Hell, Pyro could be a girl for all they knew.

The administrator's voice sounded all around Upward.

"Mission begins in 10 seconds...5, 4, 3," Pyro and Scout nodded at each other. "2, 1, FIGHT!"

The Pyro ran with their flamethrower towards the BLU respawn, killing the enemy Soldier who was previously weakened by the RED Heavy. He watched as Spy, disguised as the enemy Medic, rushed in to kill the BLU Demoman. BLU Heavy destoryed the friendly enemy Sniper had his weapon aimed at Scout, but right as he was about to shoot, he fell to the ground, bleeding from the head. Scout had no time to think about Sniper saving him. Rushing in to avenge Pyro, he bonked the BLU Heavy on the head, but didn't see the Medic so close behind him. A saw through his stomach killed him instantly.

Respawn wasn't exactly fun. Depending on how you were killed, it could be painful, or extremely painful. If you've been headshotted by a Sniper, it would fix itself quickly, and only really hurt your head. But if you got blown to bits by Soldier or Demo, pain would radiate throughout your entire being until you respawned a few moments later.

Seeing as his entire lower body was blood covered, it was painful as hell, but he had most definitely been through worse. Upon respawn, he rushed back out to the battlefield, only this time, the enemy Sniper did manage to get him. Right as he got back to the action. The administrator could be heard, telling them that the first point had been captured. Damn, that was quicker than usual. Discouraged, he rushed back again and again, but just kept getting killed. Sometime around his seventh respawn, Soldier stopped him.

"That's enough, son," he said, pushing him back with his shovel. "You've been of no help today. Go think about what you've done, you sorry excuse for a mercenary."

Scout didn't break easily, but he was so overwhelmed by the past week, he couldn't find the strength to fight back. He was just outside the respawn, so instead of continuing towards the BLUs, he went backwards.

And he cried.

Scout hated showing weakness in front of anyone, but he was in a part of the map where he knew no one would be yet, as everyone was much closer to the mine, where the cart was.

He couldn't explain why he was so weak today. Well, he didn't have any motivation. No one on the team cared about him enough to make sure he was helping. No one noticed his absence.

His crying turned into panic. It wasn't his first, but it was a bad one. With each passing second, it became more difficult to breathe. Scout picked up an old beer bottle off of the ground and smashed it into a wall, crunching the glass with his hands. He thought he was alone since he didn't hear the nearly silent footsteps.

"Scout? Oh my God, mate," said the quiet, familiar voice of Sniper. The Australian wasn't used to physical contact with anyone, but he tried to put that awkwardness aside. Scout needed it. "Hey, uh, it's okay, Scout." Seeing Sniper filled Scout with regret. Panicking wasn't something he could just put aside, but he wished he could've been stronger, at least until the mission was over.

Sniper stood there awkwardly while Scout sat with his back to a wall, head down. At least he had stopped hurting his hands. Sniper awkwardly touched Scout's shoulder, but removed his hand upon seeing that it wasn't very helpful.

"Sniper...I'm," he tried to speak in between sobs, "I'm sorry...that you have to see me..." Scout couldn't think of a more embarrassing situation that he's ever been in. His admiration for Sniper made it even worse.

"Mate, what's wrong?" he asked.

It wasn't as if there really was something wrong, Scout was just so weak.

"I-I don't know...I'm so...so sorry."

"It's nothing to be sorry about. Are you okay now?"

"Y-yeah, I'm okay." Scout stood up, unable to make eye contact with Sniper.

"Let's get this cleaned up then." Sniper spoke very gently and softly, the way autumn wind sounded against the trees when all else was silent. He led the Scout to the respawn further back in the map, where no one was spawning yet, and helped change his bloodied grip tape and clean his hands.

One thing the Sniper noticed was just how soft Scout's hands were, especially compared to his rough ones.

"You ready?" Sniper said, half grinning.

"Yeah. Thanks a lot for your help, man. I don't know what got into me." Scout took off, running with his bat while Sniper climbed up high to take out the BLUs. Little did either of them know how much this would change everything.

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I don't know what this is, but maybe someone will like it?