de·lir·i·um |diˈli(ə)rēəm|
1. an acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by anxiety, disorientation, hallucinations, delusions, and incoherent speech.
2. a state of violent excitement or emotion.
Run run run through the snow. When things weren't fast but usually they were fast but when they weren't fast the Pyro liked to go through the sno-cone piles slow and let her dragon bite into the cold. Shark would reach out its teeth and snap and breathe and puff and the snow would cascade down into diamonds around her boots and jump when she stomped.
But right now things were fast and Medic was faster than her anyway. If it was Heavy she might have been able to let Shark eat the snow but Medic wasn't Heavy and Medic was fast. He lead her through the snow quick as a jackrabbit and if she squinted and looked through the lenses right she could maybe see rabbit ears on his head. Medic said he had to go first because he was a Priority Target and the Pyro was just the Pyro and the redmask was around, so Medic needed his back protected. She didn't really understand about Priority Targets but Medic was usually right about these things.
The Pyro was thinking about before, back by the shouting where things were going really fast except they weren't around Engineer because usually things didn't when they were around Engineer. Engineer did things slower and she liked that, she liked that he took his time and would make sure she understood what was happening. If Engineer needed her to be around his metal stuff and have Shark guard it from the redmask and the redbear and all the other redthings he would say Pyro, I need you to watch these, or Pyro, I need you to keep the stickybombs away, and she was good at those things even if she didn't know why he called them stickybombs when they were gumdrops. She was very good at those things. Shark was just as good as the big bad wolf when it came to blowing things away or eating them up.
Run run run. At the fast place she had seen Heavy and Soldier playing with the redthings. She looked but she hadn't seen the redmask and that was good because she didn't like the redmask, all the other redthings were fun and fine but it was the redmask that really made her mad. She knew it was because he broke Engineer's metal stuff, or she thought that was it, but there was some other reason there, too, underneath. Sometimes she could almost remember.
That wasn't what she had been thinking about, what had she been thinking about? Engie and his metal stuff and Medic. She had come back from home after she woke up again (she had been with her friends and things were real loud and she showed the redthings Shark and then she woke up), and Medic and Engie had been there in the cold. She didn't like the cold, it made her suit stiff and she was supposed to be wearing more underneath it but she kept forgetting and she didn't really have any clothes with long sleeves or legs anyway.
She had come back with Shark all by herself because the sun was in the middle of the sky and that was when everyone went and playedfought, except when they didn't. She had found Engie and Medic and Medic wanted her to go with him back to the base and that was why she was going with him now. Except Engie had said something and Medic had stopped and then Engie was pointing his gun at Medic and that didn't make sense, she didn't like that, Engie only pointed his gun at redthings. Not at teammates, not at Medic, not at the Pyro either.
Why are you doing that, she had wanted to say, but talking was sort of hard for her, it was hard to make her words get out of her mouth right and even when they did she kind of thought other people didn't always hear them. Her face got in the way. Her rubber face, not the other one. But she couldn't take it off to say things because it was her face, she didn't like other people seeing her face. Not her rubber face, the other one. She didn't even like Engineer seeing it but Engie was better than someone else because Engie was her friend.
Engie was Medic's friend too because they were all friends (but Engineer was her good friend) and that's why he put the gun down before the Pyro could say anything and she was really relieved. He must have thought Medic was redmask, sometimes redmask pretended he was Medic and he was really good at pretending. The Pyro had tried pretending that hard and it hadn't really worked, but she could almost always tell when one of her friends wasn't one of her friends and was just redmask pretending. But Medic wasn't redmask this time, she'd checked after, he was just Medic, and Engie had said Pyro get and they got.
Now her and Medic were almost back home because he needed another healgun because redmask stabbed his. They were almost there when Medic said something. "What?" the Pyro said.
"I mean, to be frank I don't quite understand what his issue is." He hadn't heard her. He kept talking anyway, though, so that was okay. "I remember when you first joined us. You were an amateur! Jumping at everything. I bet you had never set foot on the battlefield in your life."
"Huh?"
"It was embarrassing. Do you remember?" he asked and looked over his shoulder at her. She stared, tilting her head to one side. "No, you don't. Just as well. Huh! Our friend Engineer should be thanking me for improving you, not trying to restore you."
"Fix me?"
"Either way I think the change is for the better. Don't you agree?"
The Pyro nodded even though she still wasn't sure what he was talking about. Medic mostly didn't want answers from anyone, she had learned that, and Medic was usually right about these things anyway. So she just nodded. Medic seemed pleased. "Now you are a truly excellent specimen of a firebug," he said.
Firebug.
Firebug?
The word echoed around and around in her head and it didn't quit even when she smacked into Medic's back when he stopped in the hall on their way to the resupply place. Medic said something to someone as they passed back from the wakeup place and they were walking again and the Pyro didn't really want to be with Medic anymore all of a sudden. She pulled up short, staring at her boots.
"Fi-yer-bug," she said to herself, sounding out the syllables. Her stomach sort of hurt. She looked down at Shark and he just looked like a big hunk of metal instead of a dragon. That wasn't right. Shark was a dragon even if his name was Shark, he wasn't just an ugly collection of metal. She squinted at it and looked it over, trying to figure out where her friend had disappeared to.
By the time she decided Shark must have just gone to sleep, Medic had left her. The Pyro stood alone in the base. She looked around, and all the colors seemed a little less bright.
