Scout sat on a bench by the exit of the base, idly looking out the open door.
It had been the first sunny day in a considerable while - and several of his team members had gone out to town during the day, enjoying their brief respite from the constant battles. The air was cooler than Scout was used to in the daytime of the badlands - thanks to the heavy downpour of rain that had continued relentlessly since the beginning of the ceasefire. The construction on their building wasn't set to end any time soon - but details in their contracts binded the mercenaries to their station in Teufort. Many of the BLU team treated this as an 'unofficial' holiday off work - and certain people, namely Sniper, who had his own truck at hand, went off on small, daily vacations to the nearby wildlands to relax (often promising to the rest of the team that he'd return with some fresh alligator meat for everyone to share).
Most of his teammates had somewhere to go to during the day - some gathering around the small neighbouring town's bars, taverns, and the others exploring the desert and wild (waste)lands that surrounded them. Sure, the Teufort base wasn't exactly situated on a no-man's land - but without any movie theatres, live music spaces, or even bookstores that actually handled and sold comic books, Scout didn't really see the difference between the small towns he was surrounded with, and the middle-of-fucking-nowhere.
Although many of his teammates had left the base to go exploring in the nearby areas - Scout, and a few number of others chose to remain inside. And of the people who liked to stay inside - much to Scout's aggravation, was the Medic.
Scout sighed, casting his gaze down to the white, tiled floor, and the running shoes he had put on like two hours ago. He'd been sitting on that same damn bench for several hours by now, trying to avoid his teammates as much as he could. It had been… a weird, few days for him, to say the least.
~oOo~
He didn't know what the hell had happened, when he first awoke on the infirmary bed. From the window, he could see the first few rays of the morning sun, and hear the chirps of some wild heavy gray clouds of the previous day had parted, and it seemed like the worst of the storm had finally passed.
All he remembered from yesterday was drinking in Demo's room for a bit, then blacking out. Whatever he drank that night - he did not want to drink again. He could almost be certain that this hangover was even more painful than getting shot repeatedly by a mini-sentry - and that shit hurt.
Eventually Scout found the will to sit up, groggily cupping his ringing head in his hands.
"Ugh...Medic?" He said in the loudest voice he could physically muster. "Jesus doc...what happened?"
From the small side door that Scout now fondly recognized as the door to Medic's quarters, Medic stepped out, fully dressed in his usual crisp lab coat. "Guten morgen, Scout."
Still unable to raise his head from the comfort of his hands, Scout groaned painfully. "What happened yesterday? Was I here the whole night?"
"Ja." The Medic replied flatly. "The Demoman immediately brought you into the infirmary after you blacked out on some Scrumpy."
Scout couldn't see the Doctor's expression - but something about the tone of his voice felt - off. Each word seemed to have an edge in them, a forced, cold neutrality to the Medic's usually playful tone. Somehow, the warm, comforting voice that he had grown accustomed to over the past few nights - felt very unnatural.
Slowly, hesitantly, Scout looked up from where he rest his head, finally looking into the face of the good Doctor he had come to grow fond of over the last week.
"...Doc?"
Whatever emotion Medic was currently feeling - the Scout couldn't read it. With a cold, hard gaze, the Medic looked straight towards the confused young man.
"Vith this incident I hope you have learned your lesson, Scout." He sighed as he turned to the sink, preparing a lukewarm glass of water for his patient. "Do not trust a drink from a Demoman."
When he returned to the Scout with his filled glass of water, the Scout set his gaze down - somehow afraid to look at the older man in the eyes. "...Uh, thanks, Doc."
As Scout reached for the glass in the Medic's hands, his fingers brushed lightly over Medic's own.
Had his eyes not been trained on the glass of water - had he not been staring so intently at the glass to escape from the Medic's cold gaze - he just might not have noticed it.
A small, but noticeable ripple ran through the water - a tiny, but clear jolt of movement in the glass of liquid.
He barely felt it as he his fingers overlapped the Medic's own to take the water - but the Medic had flinched.
He flinched because the Scout touched him.
It barely took a moment for it to register. Barely a second for the Scout's heart to drop.
Something happened while he had blacked out. Something bad. A large part of his gut was twisting, tying itself into painful knots as it yelled at the Scout that somehow, somewhere, he fucked up. He didn't even know what he did - but this had to be his fault.
And Scout, of all people, knew that his gut was never wrong.
Unable to look the Medic in the eyes - or even muster the courage to look up at the older man's expression - the Scout trained his gaze on the cup of water that was now in his hands.
After what felt like an agonizing hour of awkward silence between the two, the Medic spoke quietly, a strain of discomfort apparent in his cold voice.
"...Feel free to use zhe infirmary beds from tonight onwards. I vill no longer force you to sleep beside me until zhe construction of your quarters are completed."
As the Medic turned to walk away, back into his own living space - Scout clenched his jaw, forcing every eon in his body to just shut up. Forcing himself - for what felt like the first time in a very long time - to simply keep his mouth shut.
And as the Scout heard the door to the Doctor's quarters swing quietly shut - the young man let out a quiet breath he didn't know he had been holding in - and blamed any feelings of pain that followed, on the ringing headache that just never seemed to end.
~oOo~
He had been avoiding his teammates since then. Not just the Medic - but all of them.
As much as possible - he would walk away from any place he could see one of his teammates approaching. To a majority of his team - he knew very well, that his silence was a rare and favorable treat. Nobody would ask him why he was quiet - after all, why would they? They had no reason to care about him. Nobody actually, really listened, to what he had to say, anyways.
For a few days now, he had refused to say a word to anyone.
Despite what the Scout had anticipated, most of the BLU team met the Scout's unexpected silence with apprehension - and some, with outright and genuine concern for the boy. But of his teammates that murmured over Scout's sudden vow of silence - one person did not partake in any conversation relating to the Scout.
Medic, standing alone in the infirmary room, flipped absentmindedly through the files of his team members.
Mulling over dull tasks such as paperwork and deadlines released his mind from any form of introspection - even though the focus on work was often short lived. It was almost that time of the year to send over the new batch of bi-yearly paperwork to the Administrator - mostly physical reports, including a short section of any physical or behavioural abnormalities that the Medic had consistently observed amongst his team members.
As he flipped through the profiles of his team members on file - he paused, almost automatically, on one familiar picture.
On a poorly printed black and white image that the Doctor had - time and time again avoided to even look at - the blank face of the Scout stared at him.
Fighting his immediate urge to set the whole document aside and forget about work yet again - the Medic closed his eyes tightly, took a deep breath - and trained his eyes on the young man's profile.
As the Medic forced himself to focus on the document - skimming over the same damn paragraph of words that somehow refused to register in his brain - a now familiar feeling had begun settling in the back of his brain.
The quiet, and heavy sensation of disgust.
The Medic clenched his already tight jaw, once again fighting against the urge to escape his paperwork.
Thoughts, memories, physical sensations - each filtered aimlessly through the Medic's body as he stood there, still clutching the Scout's document in an unwavering silence.
Despite having not seen the boy since the incident in the infirmary - despite having been quiet on the matter - the Medic knew of the Scout's sudden vow of silence.
The Medic knew exactly what the Scout had seen that morning.
He sighed, finally giving up on getting any work done as he put away the documents.
As he massaged his aching temples - the doctor mulled over what had happened across the past few days.
Surprisingly, it didn't take long for the BLU team to notice the Scout's silence. In fact, it only took a matter of hours. Sniper was the first to bring it up with the team - despite being solitary in nature, he had a particular fondness for the boy, who was just a few years younger than he was.
Spy (being Spy) initially made light of the situation, sarcastically joking that this unexpected silence was better than his constant yammering. But when several hours had turned to two days - even the Spy had to admit that something was wrong.
Heavy, ever the moodmaker of the team, advised against directly asking the Scout what was wrong. If something serious was happening in the boy's life - it was best that he handle it alone. He knew the boy - and he knew how much he valued his own pride.
The Demoman…was surprisingly silent on the matter. Other than some obvious looks of discomfort, and downcast gazes - the Medic hadn't observed him say a word of the drinking incident with the rest of the team - although he did share his sentiments of concern.
Thoughts were shared throughout the team, some of the members voting towards trying to reach out to the Scout directly - while others refused that sentiment, saying that it was cruel, to coddle Scout as if he couldn't handle his own problems . In the end - no conclusions were made to help him, because despite their concern, and their genuine worry for him - nobody really knew the boy.
In spite of the astounding volume the boy spoke - almost none of what he said on a daily basis revealed any useful information about him. Other than being cocky, insensitive, and self-assured, nobody really knew what he was actually like. No one, until that moment in time, had even thought of sitting down with the boy to have an actual conversation with him.
Most of the members in BLU didn't even know that Scout had hobbies outside of baseball and running. When the Demoman piped up that he had heard that the Scout liked to draw - heads were turned in disbelief - Spy even going as far to accusing the Demo of making things up, and having no evidence.
It was a surprising fact to all of them - that despite seeming like an open book, the Scout had kept his cards remarkably close to his chest. They all knew only what the Scout wanted them to know. The fact that he grew up in the bronx, the fact that he was raised with eight older brothers. The fact that he could run - and that he liked running.
It was an odd, uncomfortable idea for them to accept - that the boy they had often trusted with their life in battle - the youngest member on the team they had all generally interacted with and liked to some degree - didn't completely trust them.
Behind a mountain of words and useless information - the Scout was a blank slate. And now that he had gone completely silent - nobody knew how to get a word out of him.
The Medic sighed.
During the time he had spent the nights in the same room as him - the Medic felt like he had seen glimpses of trust in the boy - an actual, genuine show of emotion that the Scout didn't bother to hide in front of the Medic. As the days passed and the two got used to each other's presence being shared in the same room - their interactions had slowly become more genuine with each other.
It was not an uncommon sight to see the boy curled up in blankets with a mound of comics by his side - and while the Medic initially complained about the mess he was making on the bed, and joked about the 'record-breaking lack of noise' that came out of the Scout's mouth as he read - he didn't dislike these several hours of peace and quiet. In fact - he quite enjoyed it.
As it turned out, both him and the Scout enjoyed staying within their rooms when they could - as long as neither party was making too much noise, they had made a mutual pact to tolerate each other's presence.
The doctor, still deep in his own thoughts - let out a soft, almost inaudible chuckle.
~oOo~
He remembered the day he stumbled on one of Scout's many comic books - a superhero with a weird purple cape taking front and center of the flimsy magazine. Scout sat, engrossed in another comic on the corner of his bed, as the Medic flipped absentmindedly through the pages of the particular comic he found.
Eventually he stumbled on several pages that illustrated the scene of what he recognized all too well as a hospital - the character on the cover wearing a sharp, white, lab coat like his own.
"Vat is this?" The Doctor had questioned the boy at the time, bemused by the depiction of his (decidedly mundane) workplace in a comic book scene.
He remembered the boy's face as he ripped his own gaze off the comic he was holding - his expression flipping quickly through annoyance at being interrupted, and then confusion, when he realized what the Medic was holding.
"That's uh...Dr. SuperWeird. What about it?"
"Vhat is it about?"
The Scout maintained his confused expression at the time - somewhat incredulous that the fancy-shmancy Doctor was inquiring about any of this at all.
"It's a superhero comic." He deadpanned.
"I can see zhat, Junge." The Medic jokingly rolled his eyes. "I am asking vhat zhe story is about."
The Scout's face now flipping through obvious expressions of surprise and distrust at the Doctor's motives - he remained silent for a while.
"...You're not gonna like it anyway." The Scout shrugged. "You're probably gonna think it's stupid."
For a brief moment, Medic considered dropping the book entirely - this reaction of obvious distrust was unlike anything he'd ever encountered from the boy at that time. But barely a second later he pushed on - the Scout's surprisingly negative reaction sparking his interest in the comic just as much as it discouraged him.
"Is zis superhero a medical professional?" The Medic asked, pointing to the character in the panel.
"Yeah -" The Scout paused, as if immediately regretting his instinct to respond. "...Dr. SuperWeird is about this brain surgeon who gets magical superpowers. And he saves people. I guess." The Scout's gaze cast down, the tinge of embarrassment in his voice betraying his cool act.
The Medic nodded, his eyes following the text as he flipped to the next page. "Zhat sounds interesting."
Although he had not been paying attention to the Scout's features at the time - the surprise in his voice was enough to tell him what the Scout was thinking.
"You're...you're actually reading it?"
"Vell I picked it up - I might as well." The Medic shrugged. "It seems like a fun concept."
Some silence passed between the two as the Medic continued with the story on the book - eventually finishing the chapter he was on. As he looked up from the book for the first time in that hour - he finally noticed that the Scout had laid his own book down - and was staring at the Medic incredulously.
"...Vhat?" The Medic eventually asked, grinning humorously at the Scout's odd reaction.
His face flushing red with the immediate embarrassment of getting caught staring at him read - the Scout ripped his gaze away, training his eyes on the crumpled blankets before him.
"I - I just didn't think ya'd actually read it, is all." He scratched nervously at his face.
In a quiet, almost eager tone of voice that the Medic had never heard Scout use before, the boy asked hesitantly.
"...Well, did ya like it?"
The Medic, now thoroughly amused by this whole situation, gave his honest opinion - a slight, cheeky smile still hanging on his features.
"Actually, yes." He said nonchalantly. "It was a light, fun read."
The Scout, still refusing to meet the Doctor in the eyes, remained silent.
"Although I vould like more context on zhis character." The Medic said as he let his eyes float back onto the next page. "Zhis is clearly not zhe first book - and it vould be nice to have some explanation on his powers."
There was another beat of silence before anyone said anything. Medic, now engrossed in the story, didn't particularly mind the silence.
"...I got the full collection." The Scout replied, rather softly. "I can lend you some, if ya want."
"Ja, ja. Zhat vould be nice." The Medic nodded, still focused on reading.
Silence befell the two once again, and by the time the Medic had finished with the volume, and finally look up at the Scout, he was already engrossed in another comic.
~oOo~
As the two bonded over several particular interests (it turned out the Scout was trying to get a better hang of his art and wanted to use some of Medic's anatomy books for reference) it was then that he noticed the boy had slowly started warming up to him.
The Medic had observed, time and time again, that there were several things that made the Scout genuinely happy when he spoke. And he expressed them, not with the boisterous, overzealous voice that he usually boasted his achievements to others - but in a quiet, almost shy, tone.
The amount of words that flew out of his mouth never changed - but the Medic had often caught the boy smiling as he spoke. Not the usual overly-animated, expressive grin that he seemed to permanently wear in front of the others - but often a barely noticeable, sheepish smile.
For the first time since the Medic began to know him, the Scout was slowly taking off his mask. And it was around then, when he had noticed something different -
"Uh.. Doc?"
The Medic's gaze snapped up from where they were unfocused on the ground - immediately making contact with the source of the voice. Donning his usual scowl - the Medic kicked himself for not having even noticed anyone go through the infirmary doors.
In front of his desk stood Sniper and Demo - unusual expressions of concern etched on both of their faces.
The scowl on Medic's face slowly faltered as he sensed what was coming - his mind filling with a terrible sense of dread.
As the the fading light of the evening sunset marked the otherwise unlit infirmary room with heavy shadows - the Demoman nodded to the Sniper, signalling for him to speak.
"We need to talk to you. It's about Scout."