Recovery's a Gift
Scout blinked, opening his eyes fully, and yawned. He sat up and stretched. He gave a violent shudder at the cold air hanging over his bed and immediately darted back under the blankets, hardly daring to stray from the warm spots his sleeping body had left. He closed his eyes again and felt like going through hibernation until it was a little warmer outside. He curled himself up in a c-shape, wincing at the cold sheets, and closed his eyes. He let his body relax and had almost drifted off to sleep, but he suddenly realized something.
"It's almost Christmas!" He hollered, grinning. He sprang out of bed, immediately being reminded it was freezing, and hurriedly got dressed. In addition to his normal red shirt, he put on a brilliantly red and slightly battered jacket. It was, indeed, almost Christmas. Snow had gathered across Sawmill and cold bit the air ferociously, both there and in the base. Despite the cold, holiday cheer seemed to hang in the air and the regularly depressive Medic and Spy were putting in extra work and enthusiasm to make everything seem more festive. Spy had even played practical jokes on the other mercs, most involving using his invisi-watch. Spy had even shoveled a handful of snow down the back of the Scout's jacket. It'd left Scout stunned, and Spy had laughed his ass off for the duration of the Scout's surprise. That was, of course, until Scout had attempted to beat the Spy's head in with the Sandman.
Scout didn't want to make any special notice of it, but even he understood the reason for their festivity and high spirits were because they were recovering. Or attempting to recover, at any rate. Slowly, steadily, the two mercs dragged themselves out of their depressive states and into a much more pleasant and cheerful way of acting. To Scout, the reason for Medic's depression was much more easy to understand than Spy's: He'd been kidnapped, drugged, dissected, and almost burned alive. Spy's was a little harder to understand, because Scout didn't know why he was depressed. The old French bastard had been acting all anti-social ever since six or seven months ago. He'd left for a little while, maybe that was it? Because when he'd returned, he shut himself in his room and refused to have open conversations with anyone but Sniper.
Scout shivered despite the jacket he wore. Damn, it was cold. Extra clothes were a necessity now, unless you were Medic or Heavy, who'd spent most of their lives in freezing climates. He dug around for some more clothes and found a battered-looking scarf. He slung it around his neck and Bonker came darting over from beneath the Scout's bed. He sprung onto Scout's waist and scrambled up his body to perch on the Scout's shoulder. He stroked the top of Bonker's head with one finger and headed downstairs. He was pleased to smell the Engineer and Pyro cooking something, and headed directly for the kitchen to see just what they were preparing. Their puppy was darting at their heels, whimpering for scraps although he'd already been fed a generous amount. The Texan and Pyro had spoiled Sentry with food and affection; and as a result it had a distinctly round stomach.
"G'mornin, Scout," The Engineer gave a brief nod of greeting. He was wearing his normal attire and Scout shuddered internally. If the kitchen hadn't been warm from all of the food cooking, Engie'd be freezing. Bacon and sausages sizzled on his left loudly and Pyro looked up. "Mhhpph!" He called, and gave Scout a wave. Scout greeted back and headed to the dining room and sat down patiently.
The Medic and Spy strolled in not too long after, Sniper between them. They were arguing rather loudly.
"-Oy told you tha' decoratin's for kids!" Sniper finished in frustration. "Oy don't want any part offit!"
"Und I told you," The Medic snapped, "Zat it's Christmas." He was holding the Sniper tightly by his upper arm, dragging him along to the table. Spy was doing the same with Sniper's other arm. "Ve haven't properly celebrated in nearly seven years."
"An' tha's because there wasn't a reason t-" The Australian started to complain before being roughly stuffed into a seat. The Spy gave a tiny exhalation of anger.
"Bushman, if you don't stop complaining I am going to zrow zat stupid lizard of yours into ze nearest canyon."
"I think y' might find yer Christmas cheer down there, Spy." Scout teased. The Medic gave a snort of amusement and sat down besides the Sniper.
"Shut up, Scout," Spy drawled, but his tone was good-natured.
"Vill you be joining us for breakfast, Herr Spy?" The Medic asked absently. "I can't help but notice zat you're still here ven you usually lurk in some dark corner of ze room." The Spy considered for a moment, then he nodded. He took a seat on the other side of Sniper, directly across from Scout.
Scout gave a tiny grin and leaned forward. "Okay. Question. You guys up for a snowball fight? I haven't had one ever since I was a kid, an' there's plenty 'a snow in Sawmill now."
"You're still a kid." The Spy murmured quietly, but the three shot eachother looks. "Let's wait for ze ozzer's answers before we agree to anyzing."
Not long after, Soldier, Demo, and Heavy headed to their table.
"Snowball fight?" Scout asked immediately as they entered. Before anyone could say anything Bites jumped off of Soldier, onto the table, and waddled over to Scout and Bonker to sniff them.
"Of course!" Soldier said a split second after Scout's offer. "It will be fun! Right, maggots?" Heads bobbed. Unless it was likely to get them killed, it was a common practice to agree with the Soldier.
"No neck-breakin', though." Scout piped up in concern, remembering the last time he and Soldier had a mock fight. Soldier had bashed Scout's head in with his fists and finished him off by snapping his neck. He shuddered, shook his head, and moved away from the memory.
"Damn." Soldier grumbled.
The Engineer and Pyro strode in, trays laden with food. Scout had to resist grabbing food as soon as he saw it. It looked really good and he was starving. Hungry mercs dug into their food, eating and drinking everything the two brought with great speed. The animals were left to eat the scraps the RED team hadn't quite eaten properly. Bites, Bonker, and Sentry ate like kings.
As soon as the mad struggle for food had ceased and every last crumb had been devoured, the Engineer and Pyro cleared the table. The animals were collected and put in their proper places. Bites abandoned his tooth-hold at soldier's waist and snuggled up inside his jacket. Only his pointed muzzle and scrunched up, contented eyes were visible.
The RED team trooped to the teleporter in good spirits, boasting about how they were going to win the snowball fight. Soldier insisted it was a team-building exercise and nobody bothered to correct him. It was going to be fun, no matter what anyone called it. Once they all were in Sawmill, they stood more or less in a group. Engineer was left to divide the teams into what he considered a fair split, despite the fact that no matter how he divvied it up it would be five on four. He carefully sized each person up and came up with teams. He took some left-over fabric from one of his oversized pockets and tied blackish-green bands around his team's upper arm.
It was himself, Pyro, Demo, and Scout on one team; with Spy, Medic, Heavy, Soldier, and Sniper on the other. The round would go on until at least half the team said they'd had enough. The teams darted away from each other to begin building their forts; one outside RED's spawn, the other outside BLU's. If any of Blutarch's hires were around, they didn't show themselves.
They had five or so minutes, to be counted down by Engineer. The Medic's team (which he thought of as the RED team, with Engineer's as some kind of green team because of the hue of the bands on their upper arms) scrambled to build a proper fort. Most of them hadn't any experience, with the exception of Soldier. The result was a sloppy, crappy thing that would probably collapse with a few well-aimed hits. Mostly it was just he and Soldier building it. Sniper was busy getting into a good position, whereas Heavy and Spy were readying snowballs to be used as ammunition. A similar practice was happening with Engineer's team.
Presumably five minutes had passed, because a bright red flare whistled through the sky and into the forest. The people on the Medic's team looked up at it to see when it finally burst into a brilliant explosion of hot red light. Soldier gave their fort a once-over and nodded to Sniper, who rolled his eyes and knocked an arrow. It had a light bulb at its tip instead of an arrowhead. He fired the arrow and it flashed a brilliant gold in the sky before landing in the forest on the other side. The Soldier sounded a war call on his trumpet and the battle began.
Scout sprinted past the Heavy and Soldier, kicking up a shower of snow as he went. He didn't stop running when he scooped up snow from the ground and formed it into a lumpy sphere. The Scout vaulted over their fort with ease and tossed his snowball directly at the Medic's head. The result was a faceful of snow and muffled German cursing. The Scout landed awkwardly behind their fort and he realized that what was beneath his feet was ice, not snow. He skidded and slid away from the RED doctor in some sort of bizarre grace, letting out a yelp as he went. The Medic laughed in delight and got to his feet. The Scout regained his balance and turned to the Teutonic man and the both of them readied for combat. He and the Medic exchanged fire, the Medic's pre-made snowballs whizzing past the Scout's head as he dodged. It seemed as though the Medic would win until a squeaky bubble of a growl right next to his ear startled him.
The Scout's snowball splattered against his chest and the Bostonian gave a shout of triumph, racing over to pick up Sentry and destroy the Medic's pre-made ammunition and fort. He'd destroyed about half of it before the Medic flung a fistful of loose snow into the Scout's eyes. The Scout stumbled away, rubbing his face to rid it of the white flakes. He started to run away but was flung to the side by a well-aimed snowball in the side of the head. The Medic and Sniper exchanged a brief high-five, which was interrupted by a cloud of snow being slung into the air. The Medic gave a strangled shout of alarm before being thrown to the ground and half-buried. He floundered for a minute, only sinking himself deeper into the snow that'd settled. The Sniper let out a muffled curse and kneeled beside him, trying to dig him out.
Meanwhile, the Soldier and Heavy charged for their fort, pelting the Demo with snow on their merry way. They turned the corner from the control point, heading for the BLU spawn, and were shocked to find a modified sentry shooting perfectly shaped snowballs.
The Engineer waved and grinned as they ducked behind a wall, shooting each other nervous looks, wondering how to take the sentry down. A disoriented, shivering Demoman stumbled over to the Engineer and laid down behind the effectively crafted snow fort before getting up and charging back into the fight. Spy appeared behind the Demo moments later and stuffed a handful of snow down the back of the Scot's jacket.
The Demo gave a startled yelp. Spy kicked him to the ground and vanished into smoke, his snorting laughter giving him away as he dashed off. The Demo got back up and shook snow from his back. "Back-pokin' snake," He muttered to himself. Soldier, never one to show mercy, took advantage of the Demo's distraction and let loose a barrage of snow. Demo gave a muffled curse before grunting from the impact. Scout zipped by, letting two snowballs fly. They found their target at the Soldier and Heavy's faces. Sentry was nestled in his left arm, letting out squeaky yaps of happiness. Scout helped Demo up while the two members of the enemy team wiped snow from their faces. The Scout and Demo prepared another charge before a precisely thrown snowball slammed into the side of his head. He was knocked to the ground and Sniper gave a chuckle of amusement from where he perched on a building, waving to Scout's fallen form.
Spy decloaked in front of Soldier and Heavy, gathering them into a sport's huddle. "I'll take out the sentry," He said quietly, his eyes glittering with anticipation. "You get Dell and Pyro." He cloaked again and headed for the sentry, carefully stepping where others had already stepped to keep his footprints disguised. The other mercs could see the faint outline of a sapper in his translucent fingers.
The Engineer noticed him just before he placed the sapper. He tossed a handful of snow in the Spy's face and the Frenchman gave a muffled exclamation of surprise and anger, pawing at his eyes with one hand and slapping the sapper on the sentry with the other. The Engineer stared at the sentry helplessly as it was slowly destroyed; he hadn't brought a wrench.
"Dammit," He grumbled, turning to the Spy, one hand clenched around a tightly packed ball of snow. The Spy had already cleverly slipped away from both he and Pyro, and was nearly invisible now that he'd shaken the snow from himself.
The Soldier gave a ferocious scream and lunged for the Pyro, shoving snow into the Pyro's gasmask. The Pyro gave a cry of alarm, managing to not be carried backwards by the force of the Soldier's lunge but blinded by the snow in his visage. The Engineer gave an angry shout and slapped the Soldier hard, the ball of snow still in his hand. The Soldier was knocked to the ground by the blow and the Heavy interrupted by picking up the Engineer and tossing him into a giant snowdrift. The Engineer landed with a grunt and tried to rise after a few moments, only to find his legs caught in compressed snow. Struggling only sunk his boots deeper in. In the end, his solution was to yank his feet out, then pull his boots out with his hands.
Poor Pyro struggled to fend off both the Soldier and Heavy, but the Heavy repeated what he'd done with the Engineer. Heavy and Soldier grinned at each other in triumph and prepared for a high-five. At that moment, Scout and Demo came sprinting back to their fort, metaphorical guns a blazing. Snow splattered against clothing and flesh; shrieks of triumph and anger rang through the Sawmill. The Engineer and Pyro, who'd dug themselves free, joined the fray and for a moment it looked as though the Heavy and Soldier would lose.
Sniper and Medic came to their rescue, flanking the enemy team. They were swiftly forced back, hiding with the rest of their team behind the enemy fort. Spy decloaked and created havoc, throwing snow in either direction and slipping fistfuls of it down the back of both team's jackets and coats. Chaos reigned as both teams fought furiously to gain ground, snow flying and hitting, grunts and yelps splitting the air. Eventually the Engineer's team destroyed his well-built defense and advanced, forcing them back to the gates. The Spy interrupted by smoothly slipping thin sheets of ice down the Demo and Scout's backs simultaneously. The Medic's team reorganized and drove them back, surging forward and fighting furiously to push them towards BLU's base.
Scout was the first to say he'd had enough; the Medic had knocked him to the ground and placed a boot on his chest, pinning him, and had prepared a snowball to throw at the Bostonian's face. He was swiftly joined by Demo, who was surrounded by the Soldier and Heavy and didn't want to get brutally attacked again. Since half their team had given up, the other team had won.
The Medic's team celebrated loudly as they gathered their beaten enemy into a circle and herded them back to the base, taunting and bragging loudly. Their team got to go through the teleporter first and was the first to warm up back inside.
The Medic carefully checked the other mercs for frost bite or other dangerous inflictions brought on by cold. When he was confident there was nothing several blankets and hot chocolate couldn't fix, they group headed to the kitchen. The Engineer made the other mercs an adequately large amount of hot chocolate and sat beside his cold, damp coworkers. Everyone, including Spy, took a cup and drank. The Heavy took one large gulp and downed it all, then politely requested more. The Engineer quickly obliged him. Sentry, who was wiggling happily the Pyro's arms, gave a yip of desire and tried to get a taste from Pyro's cup. The Engineer sternly pushed him away, fully aware that chocolate had the potential to be deadly to dogs and cats.
"Back to decorations," The Medic said abruptly, looking up from his mug. "We need a tree; und the land outside of our current location is full of spruce trees. Pyro, you have an axe, vould you like to help me get vone?"
"I'll go as well!" Soldier volunteered loudly. "I'm going to get an American tree, not some Nazi crap. Christmas is an American holiday, after all." He stretched, nearly falling back in his chair, and drank the remainder of his cocoa. "See you in the break room, privates." He sauntered out.
"I will put up ze lights." The Spy said distantly, his stare vacant; perhaps he was thinking of just how to arrange them. He set down his mug, which he'd just emptied, and headed out.
"When ya'll get back, Pyro, I'll read ya somethin' Christmassy." The Engineer bustled around and collected emptied mugs. Pyro looked up from his drink excitedly, which was somehow half-empty, and offered it to the Engineer. The Engineer swigged the last of it. Pyro raced out afterwards, assumedly to the break room.
The Medic headed down to the infirmary to get Archimedes and to feed his other doves. Archimedes loved coming outside with him, and it was only fair since the Medic hadn't brought him outside in a while. He fed the birds and Archimedes flapped up to his shoulder, wingbeats steady and strong.
"Wait," The Spy's head started, voice somewhat muffled. "It's Christmas, non?"
The Medic blinked and turned to him. "Yes, it is."
"Take me outside." The BLU's voice was full of longing. "I haven't been outside in daylight for nearly seven years."
"Zat's all?" The Medic looked surprised. "I zought you vould ask me to kill you. You begged nonstop ze first year I had you."
"I'm fine where I am now. I've long since accepted it. I am a head. Nothing. I've been replaced by a clone of myself and I suspect if I die now I'll stay dead." He paused for a moment, almost thoughtfully. "You're looking much better than you were a month ago, docteur. The Yuletide season has done you well."
"Vell- yes, I suppose." The Medic paused. He hadn't even considered the reason for all the cheer in his heart. "If you vant to go outside I'll have to keep you hidden."
The Spy's head winced audibly, but the Medic chose to ignore it.
The Medic slung a backpack over his shoulder. Not the über backpack, a regular one. He carefully set the Spy's head in and cut a horizontal slash in it. The Medic adjusted the backpack's straps and stretched. He headed swiftly for the breakroom and was surprised to find it decorated and cleaned. The ancient fireplace in the corner had a blazing fire, fueled by wood from old crates. Warm flames swirled and the wood let out occasional snaps and crackles as it burned.
Spy was loudly commanding Sniper to move a string of lights up higher and the Sniper responded with something vulgar. The Spy tsked and wagged his finger disapprovingly.
The Soldier had cleared a space in one of the corners for the tree, and was grinning hugely under his helmet. The Pyro let out a tiny "mph!" from where he sat and stopped poking the flames.
"Ready, mein friends?" The Medic asked the Pyro and Soldier promptly, shooting them both grins. Archimedes bobbed his head rhythmically on the Medic's shoulder and the three (plus the head) headed out to Sawmill to find the perfect tree.
(I am so, so, so very sorry this took so long. Over a fortnight on this one thing! Also, for those of you who were patiently waiting for a Demo chapter… It's coming, I promise! The next one. Spoiler alert: There will be birds.)