The road exiting Sawmill to the other areas of the New Mexican desert was, for the most part, deserted. The almost never-ending rain persisted to a fair way off, the rain giving sprout to dense forests that enclosed the road. After a long day of fighting the bots of Gray, the team set out to parts unknown, while Ms. Pauling operated the radio in the back of the van to keep updated on the war.
While Ms. Pauling had state of the art headphones that kept her concentrated on her task, the rest of the team weren't as lucky.
"CAUSE WE GOT A LITTLE CONVOY!"
"ROCKIN THROUGH THE NIGHT!"
Engineer, Demo, and Solider were joyfully singing along to the radio. Pyro was attempting with his Hums, and a slightly drunken Scout joined in after futile attempts to interact with Ms. Pauling.
Medic and Heavy were near the back of the van where Ms. Pauling was, talking to each other while Spy and Sniper awkwardly stared at each other, the others, and back at each other, trying to not go insane while listening to the other's terrible singing.
Spy eventually shut the door between the cab and the rest of the van, somewhat muffling the singing. Ms. Pauling took down notes of novel like proportions on a notepad.
As Medic droned on and on about new experiments to Heavy, whose limited knowledge of the English language prohibited him from understanding literally anything the man was saying, Ms. Pauling abruptly flicked the Radio off and stuffed the notepad into her bag.
As soon as she took off her headphones that were partially undoing the bun her hair was being kept in, she glanced towards the Cabin, then at Medic.
"Is that Scout singing?" she said with a confused look.
Medic looked from Heavy to Ms. Pauling, then to the cabin, and then back to Pauling in a few short seconds. "Vhell I think so, either that or Engineer needs an operation!" he laughed at his own joke.
Ms. Pauling shot an eyebrow to Heavy.
"What did I tell you about giving alcohol to Scout?"
Heavy's eyes widened. Heavy could tear bears into little tiny pieces, and use the bodily fluids from tiny baby men to grease the treads of tanks. But Ms. Pauling?
Ms. Pauling terrified him.
It wasn't that she was generally mean to anyone at all, but just the kindness and energy and hard working from the tiny woman was unlike anything he had seen, and it more than likely contained a lot of pent up aggression, something only Heavy seemed to see.
He would hate for some of that to be released one day.
"Uhh… No habla engles."
"Heavy, you do realize I know the difference between Spanish and Russian, right?"
Heavy sighed. "It's just so- English is not best. Doktor?"
"The word is funny, Herr Heavy."
"Yes! Funny to me when seeing tiny man act different. So fascinating when his tiny man body does when he is given either a motive, or alcohol."
Ms. Pauling didn't release her gaze. "You're forgetting the last time we gave Scout alcohol."
Heavy stopped, "Oh. Right."
Sniper became more interested in this conversation. "Aye, what he'd do? This should be good."
Ms. Pauling gave Medic a look, and Medic rolled his eyes.
"Vhell, the last time Scout got drunk Solider and YOU decided to give him "relationship advice", and you want to know what that advice was, Sharpshutze?"
Sniper seemed confused, but he knew when Medic started using German, he was about to deal a devastating blow.
"Your, "advice", was to say, "demand what you want" from her."
Medic gestured to Ms. Pauling, whose face held seriousness, but inside barely containing her laughter from the look on Sniper's face.
"Ah piss."
Heavy chimed in with laughter, "Tiny man walked into Tiny woman office, and-"his sentence was interrupted by boisterous laughter of his own.
Pauling finished for him, "I want sex lady!" she said in a pretty spot on Bostonian impression.
Sniper hung his head in shame as Spy hon hon honed his way to the bank, with Medic chiming in. "You encouraged him too!" the doctor said.
"Well of course doctor, but at least I knew it was a bad idea from the start."
Sniper sat up from his chair and adjusted his hat, "You think I should apologize to Scout?" he said after a long sigh from him.
"He wouldn't have any idea Sniper, he was too drunk, remember?" Medic said. "Vhe agreed that we should probably forgive Scout for it and blame heavy to carelessly giving him vodka."
"Tiny man was very funny that day!"
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day…."
Scout picked up on the lyrics of Engineer's favorite songs, most of which included Marty Robbins.
"Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn't have too much to say,"
The others let Scout take the song away, as the door to the back opened the his voice filled the cold night.
"No one dared to ask his business, No one dared to make a slip."
Ms. Pauling leaned against the door to the cabin, laughing along with the others at the slight buzz in his voice, and how much of an idiot he looked.
"The stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip."
The rest of the team joined in chorus.
"Big Iron of his hip"
As the song went on, the road became a little, darker. The moon was shrouded by thick clouds and the woods became denser and denser. Still, the chorus continued with the lyrics, and the eventual "Big iron on his hip" at the end of every stanza.
Unbeknownst to them, there was something watching them they could not see.
"Big Iron, Big Iron!" the chorus sang, ignorant.
It watched them through fires and pains of hell itself, darkness shrouding them, sealing them into a small cup that was to be drank by it.
"When he tried to match the ranger with the Big Iron on his hip!"
Before the final lyric could be sang and the guitar in the radio would be faded out, the van was thrown into the air by forces unknown. Pieces of it we disputed over the railing of the road and into the forest.
The radio fell silent.