By the way, thanks to Fattey Waffey for his kind review. It made my day :-)
Pretty Mercs (walkin' down the street)
Sniper parked his van and cut off the engine.
"Righ', he were are. We'll meet here again in two hours."
"Yeah, yeah." Scout cannonballed out of the van almost before it had stopped moving, leaving the doors swinging. Sniper yelled after him.
"Oi! What did I say about the doors!" Scout acknowledged the angry shout with a cheerily raised middle finger and ran off. Engineer and Heavy jumped down at a more leisurely pace – the van rocked as Heavy stepped out of it – and strolled towards the town, chatting. Spy came out next and padded off in a different direction. Sniper climbed out last, muttering sourly, and tenderly closed and locked the doors before following.
Scout raced ahead, his bag bouncing on his hip. He dashed down the main street without slowing once, leaving scandalised stares in his wake. He dodged a teenager on a skateboard, shot sideways through two pushchairs, skipped to avoid an old lady, ran along a bench and jumped over a surprised child. He reached a corner, grabbed a lampost and swung into an alleyway.
"Glk!" A hand had snapped out and grabbed his collar, making Scout's body snap back like an elastic band. The young man was brought to an abrupt halt, choking and rubbing his neck. Beside him, Spy uncloaked.
"Scout, I would like to speak to you for a moment." The Frenchman tugged on his silk glove, smoothing out the folds that catching Scout had created. He looked, as always when he had to talk to Scout, like someone was holding a handful of dung under his nose. Scout sputtered indignantly, red in the face. He wanted to shout something along the lines of "fuck off", but it felt like someone had karate chopped him in the windpipe and he couldn't do much more than squeak.
"As I know zat your head is about as full and busy as ze average whistle - " Scout raised a finger indignantly, but Spy cut him off, "I came to give you – zis." The Frenchman reached inside his suit and pulled out a crystal-clear perfume bottle. It shaped like a cut diamond, and its front bore the inscription "Divine: Eau de Déesse" in lacy black letters. Its shiny black top was adorned with a pink silk ribbon.
Spy held it out to Scout.
Scout stared at the monstrosity, bug-eyed. Spy shook it impatiently.
"Come on, I don't have all day. And please don't break it, it cost me a small fortune."
Sheer shock drove Scout to regain his power of speech. He laughed weakly.
"Ha. Ha, ha ha... Aha. Good one, Spy, I almost thought you were serious for a seeeec... Oh wait you are serious." Spy raised a sardonic eyebrow. Scout backed away.
"Uuuuh... Hey, Spy buddy, you feelin' all right?" Spy rolled his eyes.
"Yes, sanks for asking. Take it, I have urgent matters to attend to. Go on."
"What, am I missing something? Why de hell would I want dat?" Spy sniffed.
"I would seenk it's obvious. Take it and zen remove your offensive smell from my vicinity."
"No way. I ain't goin' near dat thing." A pause. They stood, locked in a stubborness contest. Spy cocked his head.
"Take it."
"I ain't taking it."
"Yes you are, because I paid for zis."
"Nuh-uh."
"Yes. You. Are." Spy shoved the bottle towards Scout, who pushed it away and leapt aside.
"I said no! I don't want it! It's... girly! You keep it, and squirt it on your fancy French ass, 'cos I am so outta here."
Scout galloped away as fast as he could with a haunted look in his eyes. Spy stared after him scornfully. He made a clipped sigh, shook his head and stowed the perfume in his inside pocket again. The idiot would no doubt be back for it later, when his brain finally caught up with his mouth.
Scout resumed his walk – or rather, run – through town. He spared only a fleeting thought and a muttered insult to his encounter with Spy, then put it out of his mind. Occasionally he would dash into a shop like someone who's been waiting for the loo for three hours, rummage through the shelves, then leave as quickly as he had come, but mostly he raced through streets repurposing benches and lamp-posts as climbing frames and ramps. He finished what was in his humble opinion a particularly cool and epic parkour session and came to a stop to catch his breath, pleased with himself. Ain't nobody got nuthin' on me. He was about to walk nonchalantly off when he noticed two girls watching him. Even better. He opened his mouth to beam them a winning smile, finely calculated to show off his looks while exuding maximum awesomeness, but then a fly flew down his throat and he gagged.
Scout staggered into a musty-smelling antiques shop, retching. He leaned on a statue and shuddered. He had coughed for five minutes straight, had got absolutely nowhere with the girls, and even worse, the stupid fly hadn't come out. He didn't want to think about what had happened to it.
"Water," he wheezed and stumbled into what felt like the trunk of an oak tree. He jumped as it shouted at him.
"Scout! What are you doing - "
"Oh, Heavy. Hey dere. Mister, got any water?" His voice felt squeaky. The shopkeeper barely glanced at him.
"One moment, sir." Scout's opened his mouth in outrage. He was about to shout that this was an emergency when he noticed what he and Heavy were looking at: a large kitchen knife with a furry handle.
"Authentic, sir. Real wolf-fur, straight from Medieval Britain," the shopkeeper was telling him.
"Heavy, why de heck would you want to buy dat? Dat hideous... thing!" Heavy ignored him. He had his massive arms crossed and was frowning thoughtfully. Then he nodded.
"Yes! She will like this." Heavy grinned as he paid for the knife and put it in a plastic bag.
"Uh, what kind of a chick would like... " Scout stopped in his tracks. He stared at his teammate.
"Hey, wait a sec. She?Heavy, you got a... You... You?" Heavy didn't answer. Scout stared up at him with an open mouth, fly all but forgotten, before shaking himself.
"No way. I gotta tell the others." Scout sprinted out of the shop just as the shopkeeper approached him with a glass of water.
He'd heard Engineer say he was going to the china shop, hadn't he? Scout scanned the line of buildings to his right as he ran and spotted the bright window. He swerved right and burst through the doors.
"Engie!"
"Excuse me, sir - "
"Sorry no time. My friend over dere can listen and he'll tell me later," said Scout as he pointed out a complete stranger in the street. The shopkeeper marched towards the poor bystander and Scout legged it. Running through the shop, he soon spotted Engineer's distinctive yellow hat.
"Yo! Hardhat! Engie, Heavy's got a – Engie?" The Texan was pondering over a rack of... flowery teapots.
"Hm. Oh hello, Scout. Now... Whaddya reckon, pink or blue?"
"Uuhh... What – okay, it don't matter. Listen, I got somethin' to tell ya. So, y'see, I was runnin' through town. Like, dodging dis old lady and all dose other people, and some kids tried to race me and like dey don't got no chance, ya know, so I run along the side and den cut across like right in front of 'em, you should've seen deir faces. It was friggin' sweet, especially when I jumped over that bench – are you even listenin'?"
"Sorry, I'm busy right now. Could you, maybe, hurry it up a bit?"
"All right, fine, but man are you missin' out, I mean dere were dose girls afterwards – "
"Scout."
"Okay, okay. Right. So, listen, I saw Heavy in some ugly shop earlier and – He. Has. A frickin' girlfriend!" Scout hissed this in the horrified tone that, in a film, would warrant a dramatic tun-tun-tuuun! noise. He waited confidently for Engineer to gape and stagger.
"Uh-huh. Maybe I should go for purple..."
"Wait, you're not even a little surprised? Heavy? Our Heavy, seeing a chick? How can you be so cool about it? Heavy, has, a girlfriend!" Scout whined.
"Well, lots of people do. On reflexion, I think ah'll stick to pink."
"And you, with your teapots! You know what, I give up. I'm goin' to find one sane person on dis team."
"You do that."
Scout speedwalked out of the shop, brushing off the indignant shopkeeper and the indignant bystander who had by that time worked things out, and bumped into Sniper, who dropped what he was carrying.
"Watch it!"
"Aw sorry – listen, I found out somethin' -" Scout stopped when he noticed that what Sniper, red-faced and embarrassed, was picking up off the pavement was a pretty necklace.
Medic and Demoman were seated at the coffee table, in the base. They had refused Sniper's offer to drive everyone to town, for different reasons. Demoman because he wanted to write a letter to his mother, a painstaking and time-consuming business where Demoman was concerned, and Medic because he had just acquired a fascinating new book entitled "Make Your Own Frankenstein in Ten Easy Steps", although he was starting to find it a bit standard and pedantic.
Demoman frowned and chewed his pencil.
"Say, would you spell "anticlimactically" with a c, or a k, or both?" Medic sighed. Here he was, a German, teaching a Scot how to spell.
"Only "c"s."
"Thanks." A pause. Demoman's pencil scratched on the paper. Medic eyed the flowers and the box of chocolates on the table in front of Demo. Dull, he thought.
"Is zat vat you are giving yours?"
"Yes. What did you get?"
"An umbrella-stand," said the doctor brightly.
"Oh," said Demo, surprised. For Medic, who had been known to present Sniper with a collection of diseased fingernails for his birthday, this was suspiciously ordinary. "Where'd you get it?"
"Vell, I had a few spare severed legs hanging around, and it was nice to be rid of one of zem. Scooping out ze marrow of ze femur vas fun too. I even invented a new kind of scoop, designed specifically for zis purpose." Demoman stared.
"Ye can't be serious." Medic looked genuinely baffled and Demo was forced to clarify. "You'll be lucky if she doesn't faint," he objected.
"Nonsense, she loves modern art."
"Bloody hell, doc..." Demoman shook his head and went back to his letter. A few minutes later, just as he triumphantly remembered how to spell "manoeuvre", they heard the van pulling up in front of the base. The doors slid open and Scout, Heavy, Engineer, Spy and Sniper walked in.
Scout took one look at the flowers and chocolates in Demo's hands and ran screaming to his room.
There was a pause.
"Should we tell him it's Mother's Day soon?"
Another pause. Then:
"Nah."