Chapter 4: Throat Feels Tight, The Beat's Still Strong, and Engie's Are the Embodiment of Compassion

Sometimes the touch of metal on his throat was soothing. He'd play around with his dog tags, reminded of his home, and all would be well. Other days the very thought left him choking and gagging, and he was forced to remove it from his person. But he always kept them near, tucked into his pocket usually, or lazily tied around his wrist or upper arm.

It was always important, to keep them near. . . A sort of security blanket, if you will.

On the other hand, he hated the very thought of having anything impede his breathing, and had a tendency to avoid any such things that did at all costs. He preferred to forgo scarfs whenever it got cold enough for it, fearful that the end would get caught on something and leave him gasping for breath when the end caught and pulled the fabric taut against his throat.

Hell, he could hardly touched his own throat without freaking out, preferring to use the back to wipe off mud or gently scratch an itch.

One can imagine his complete and utter dismay when, ten seconds into his first close-combat encounter with the RED Scout, He was smacked in the throat with a baseball bat. The blow itself wasn't nearly enough to kill him, but despite the existence-less restoration abilities of RESPAWN that took over him shortly thereafter, BLU Scout still felt like he was being choked the rest of the day.

Sometimes, when rough-housing with the other mercs, Demo or Snipes would grab him in a chokehold and give him a rough noogie, and he'd end up fighting back, demanding they let him go.

He couldn't get mad at them, not really, for only laughing and asking "or what?". He could only blame himself for panicking that one time when Snipes tightened his hold for a moment. He'd wound up letting out a rather harsh cough and twisting aroudn enough to bite the Aussie, who cursed and thankfully, /thankfully/ releasing him.

Scout hadn't even stayed to explain, he'd taken off running, panicked at the choked feeling in his throat and admittedly frightened at what the others would do or say. After locking himself in his room, he'd gotten too anxious and thrown the window open, throwing himself out into the storm that had kept them all inside to begin with.

The lashing rain and roaring wind, the feral, thrashing nature of the storm worked its way into his very bones and for a blessed hour he forgot why he'd ran off to begin with.

Screaming. Screaming out into the void. It could be very cathartic, all things considered. Or completely pathetic and useless.

Scout was feeling the latter end of that spectrum, kicking and squirming in the enemy RED Heavy's grasp. He'd even resorted to biting him, but that brooked little more than a wince. That didn't stop Scout from continuing to fight back, struggling to slip free.

He wound up in their common room, and the moment he was set down he tried to slip past him, only to slip and fall on his backside with a yelp.

"Calm down there, Pardner. We ain't gonna hurt'cha." The RED Engineer tried to soothe, holding out his hands placatingly. "Just calm down there. Y'all are gonna be just fine. Hey, 'Ro, have any spare clothes our. . . Guest could borrow?"

The RED Pyro gave a muffled reply and darted off, deeper into the base.

"Now . . . What were ya doin' out in a storm like this?"

"None of your fucking business!"

Scout huddled in on himself, peeking over his knees suspiciously, uncertain what exactly to expect but refusing to beleive their intentions were at all friendly.

The RED Engineer sighed a little and shook his head. Couldn't blame the boy for being wary, but at this rate he was gonna catch a cold. Finally, he reached up and removed his goggles, resting them on his forehead, and slowly reached out his hand with a slight smile. He hoped more direct eye contact would help. . .

"We ain't gonna hurtcha, promise. And none'a us want anyone sick durin' the battles, neither. . . If we give ya the towels an' things will ya dry yerself off, at least? We can try an' get in contact with yer team the momet the storm let's up a little."

The Scout glared at him, eyes flicking to his hands, then back up to his face. He was shivering minutely, the poor mite, but finally, finally he nodded a little, slowly reaching out to take the Engineer's hand.

Pyro burst back in just then with a muffled shout, startling the BLU Scout so badly he temporarily forgot he was injured; immediately bolting to his feet he yelped and fell over again, cursing profusely.

Pyro flinched and hunched their shoulders, mumbling apologetically as they held out a pair of fluffy gray pajama's with little pink unicorns and rainbows scattered all over them.

"Jeezus! . . . You alright?"

Their 'guest' slowly nodded, gritting his teeth as he felt over his ankle. At the reassurance, Engineer gestured for Pyro to follow after him and hauled the Scout to his feet, dodging a sharp blow the younger immediately sent his way.

"It's alright," He assured him, cutting off apologies before they could leave the younger mouth. "Let's go to my workshop, I can keep an eye on you there, get ya a little privacy outside the common room."

The BLU Scout only nodded in reply, allowing the enemy Engineer to help him as he hobbled along, followed after by Pyro.

Well, so far so good. . . Now to see how long this shaky truce would last.

Music had always had an interesting on Scout. It could brighten and invigorate him or it could drag his mood even lower than before. Often enough he found himself digging out his beatup hand-me-down MP3 and some headphones from the bottom of his drawers and plugging it in, forcing himself to calm down or get all charged up.

It helped him focus on certain tasks, like writing letters home or reading over some new book one of his brothers had sent, and subsequently writing up some kind of "review" for it. Other times when he had to much energy for either of these tasks he'd get up and dance, sometimes twirling and spinning about like an idiot and others heavy stomps and sharp swings, pushing off of walls and grabbing onto his bed or desk whenever he swung too low or felt off-balanced. (Sometimes this happened at night when he couldn't sleep. The other mercs often yelled at him for it the next day. He tried not to care and assure himself that they weren't trying to hate upon one of his coping methods, they simply didn't know and he didn't want to be called out on making "excuses".)

Despite his general hatred of anything and everything that inhibited his breathing, he found the best anology was that he liked to drown himself in music from time to time. Allow the rhythm and the beat, the drums and bass or softer, lighter notes wash over him, pulling him down one wave at a time, until he was so fully submerged that nothing outside himself could touch him or affect him.

It was soothing in it's own right, allowed him to unwind and lay back without any troubles. He had to force himself to be still sometimes for it to have the full affect, and was to date the only time he tolerated holding still of his own volition for long periods of time. (Especially helpful on rainy days, when it was too muddy to get any traction. . . That and the others had practically forbid him from running around during storms since they didn't want him to get sick anymore from it.)

And thus the music moved him.

Engie knocked at Scout's door, calling out his teammates class name. Pyro was just behind him, clutching their favorite Balloonicorn plush.

There was no reply.

"Scout?" Engineer tried again, knocking a little harder. "We just wanted to check in on ya, Pardner. Been stayin' in yer room more'n more of'en. It ain't like ya."

Still no response.

He tried the door handle and found it was unlocked. Slowly easing open the door, he called out, "Scout. . .?" Only to be greeted with an empty room and open window that let in the wind and rain.

". . . Oh, sweet jeezus."

"Mm's mmne!" Pyro began to poke around the room immediately, looking in every corner, the closest, peering under the bed, while Engineer closed the window, knowing the kid wouldn't want his bed to get soaked, grim with realization.

Isolating himself from the team followed by an empty room and open window usually meant a full-on vanishing act.

Which meant Scout was out there, running alone in the storm. This wasn't good, not good at all! They could go looking for him, but it would be nearly impossible to see a thing in this damned weather and he could be halfway to the enemy base. The best they could hope for was that he'd found shelter and would return once things had cleared up.

At worst. . .

He was hurt, somewhere out in this godforsaken storm. And they'd have to go track him down the next day, rain or shine.

They'd find him and get him back to base, safe and sound.