Nearly the entire base had been put on red alert.
Medic was waiting in the infirmary, rolling bandages and prepping the morphine drips (Even if they were not needed, hey, at least it would make for a hell of a party afterwards.) Dispenser after dispenser lined the walls of the RED base, with the Engineer tapping thoughtfully at his palm as he surveyed them, second-guessing, always ticking over the numbers. And the Scout- muscles tensed, mind buzzing, waiting at the door as ever- was simultaneously more alert and more awed than he had ever been in his life. He patted the stoic Soldier on the shoulder.
"I just wanted to say, man." he wavered. "Whatever happens, I... I'm proud of you."
"Thank you son, but your girlish well wishing is unnecessary: A good soldier always comes back alive and with the full compliment of limbs. I intend to be back here tomorrow at 08:00 sharp for a full de-briefing. Also, bacon. I would like there to be bacon tomorrow." His right hand shot out. The boy jumped slightly backwards, but realised, and turned to the dresser. With a certain degree of reverence, he picked up the rose-red helmet, and buffed it with his wrist. He handed it to the soldier. The soldier slammed it home, studied his face in the mirror, adjusted the strap, and saw that it was good.
"Door!" he snapped. The Scout jumped again, but hurriedly turned it into jumping to attention. He hauled open the door of the Soldier's room. Outside...
Was the Spy, a salute held rigidly in place.
"I know we 'ave not been the closest of team-mates." he said. "Nevertheless... for this act, I salute you." He locked his wrist in place with a snap.
The soldier's eyes narrowed.
"Thank you, Private. Stand down."
The Spy nodded, and vanished.
The soldier accepted a half-a-packet of cigarettes from the Sniper ("I know you burn through your rollies right quick; here's halfa my ration for luck...")- before a ruckus sounded further down the corridor.
"Nein!"
The RED Medic had escaped the Heavy's restraining grip. He slammed into the Soldier's chest as others rushed to hold him back.
"Nein!" he said. "Soldier, as your Medic unt you team-mate, I forbid zis!" As the Heavy's meaty forearm wrapped around him: "Listen to me- please, consider your health! I cannot in good conscience allow it! Nein! Die angebliche Mädchen ist männlich, um Gottes willen!..." He was dragged away.
The soldier looked at the Scout, who shrugged.
"Germans, man." What are you going to do?"
This logic seemed acceptable to the Soldier, who nodded. At the door he paused; passed a spit-covered thumb across the medal glinting on his chest. He studied his reflection in the glass of the supply room window.
"Well, I do believe I'm ready."
He snapped his fingers at the Scout. "Flowers!"
A bunch of rather bedraggled-looking petunias (gathered personally by the Demoman this morning, feeling rather foolish as he did) were maturing in a jam-jar by the door. These were thrust into his left hand.
"Letter!" A carefully-inscribed card was placed in the same hand.
"Shotgun!" he snapped. With a certain awe, the Scout handed a double-aught Hand-Of-God type shotgun to the Soldier.
The Soldier strode out, stiff-legged, into the sunshine.
"Private!" he hollered, shouldering the shotgun. "Wish me luck!"
The Scout, with the suspicion of a proud tear in his eye, ripped off a salute that made up for lack of technical expertise by having lots of enthusiasm instead.
With much ceremony, and many "hup-two-threes", the soldier made his regimental way to the message box, located at the point where the dirt trail that was the Fort's driveway connected to the dirt trail that was allegedly the road.
With much precision turning, advancing, retreating and presenting of arms, the soldier dropped the card into the letterbox.
With that, he promptly turned about face and headed back indoors.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," said the Soldier, to the group who had gathered to watch this rather odd display, "I must engage in the mental preparation that I learned from the high Obdalong Monks of Tibet. I warn you all; any interruption in this delicate procedure may result in a PSYCHIC EXPLOSION that would rip the base from its very hinges and possibly from the astral plane!" with that, he exited, slamming the door behind him.
"There goes," said the Scout to the Engineer, who had come out to see what all the fuss was about, "like, the coolest guy I know."
"Why, what's he doing?"
"Going to get hisself a date," said the Scout with satisfaction, "for tonight."
"Really? Well, I'll be damned," said the Engineer reflectively, tipping back the rim of his hat. "Coulda never sworn he had it in him."
"No, you really don't expect it from zeh likes of him, do you?" said the Spy, materialising behind them. "I for one would have sworn all zat masculine shouting and aggression was;- well, compensating for somezing."
"Man that's how you do it!" said the Scout excitedly, "Just walk right up to some chick and be all like 'Hey Baby, wanna get wid dis?' "
"And that approach has worked for you in the past, has it?"
"Uuhhhh... yeah, sure?"
The Spy snorted. "Pffft. Putain de vierge."
"Yep, that'll be a mighty good trick he's going to pull off", said the Sniper, leaning back on the red wall of the fort, "Seeing as how there's not a woman for hundred miles around here."
"A hunderd-thirty-four," said the Engineer, chewing on a thumbnail; "I did the math."
"You did the math?"
"Twice."
"God help you, you must be really suffering with it."
The engineer was sweating "Everyday, Snipes, I swear to god almighty. Everyday I get half-an inch closer to just greasing up the Sentry's exhaust port and just going hog-wild."
" 'Half-an-inch?' That's very- precise..."
"I did the math."
(The Sniper edged slightly away from the pink-faced Engineer.)
"So where do you think Solly found the poor dumb broad?"
"In a ditch somewhere."
"Pfft. A ditch'd be good. Ten dollars says she's just a broom with eyes and lipstick painted on."
"Twenty bucks sez it's just his Shovel; no lipstick, no nothing."
"You're on."
"Hey you guys, can anybody hear a noise a little "tension-building" noise out here? Kinda like a kettle boiling over?"
"WHAT are you RED TEAM waffle-wasters saying about my intended sweetheart?" bawled the soldier from behind them.
"Hey WHOA!" said the Scout, leaping roughly a vertical foot. "I thought you were doing the Tibetan Monk thing!"
"Turns out that the door I went through does not lead to my room! In fact, it leads to a broom cupboard! A simple mistake that anyone could make in the heat of battle!"
"But we're not fighting." said the Spy.
"Oh yeah? Then why don't you impugn my little buttercup again," he growled, rolling up his sleeves, "and we'll just see where we get to."
"Solly, come on, it's just simple curiosity. How did you find any female company in the middle of a desert?"
The soldier chuckled, evilly. "Aaaah! Simple jealousy is what it is! So! I will allow it for now, provided none of you try to steal my baby away from me!" He stood to attention in front of them, and cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, let this be a lesson never to neglect your mind! The brain is a muscle, and must be exercised, or it will wither! I for one, maintain a regime of thinking very hard about push-ups for one hour every day and I have never felt better! You, gentlemen did not think to look in the obvious place; what the Australians call "the Moustache Zone"; that is, right under your nose! There is a delicate and lovely flower hidden away on this very base and it is tonight that I intend to ask her to dinner, a movie and perhaps a reasonably-priced sock-hop!"
"Where will you get zese things on zeh base?"
"LOVE WILL FIND A WAY!"
"So who is she?"
"Aha!" the soldier's eyes, as much as they were visible, softened. "Surely you've noticed, private! Those dainty hands, those mincing steps!" He leaned contentedly on the windowsill, facing onto the graceful twilight horizon. "Our own lovely and delicate Pyrotechnician!"
"Really?"
"Ah, she's a shy and retiring wallflower, but these soldier's eyes do not lie! I can spot a shy and retiring wallflower like her from a mile away! And break her neck like a twig! But I won't be doing that today, obviously. But I can if it is required! AND GODDAMIT, THAT IS WHAT COUNTS!"
The Scout was trying desperately not to giggle. The Spy was creased double, weeping gently into his handkerchief. The Engineer, to the untrained eye, remained as taciturn as ever; the only give away was the toe-end of the right foot, which was knocking frantically against the concrete as he restrained himself from breaking into a merry, merry jig. And the Sniper, already too far gone, was now basically a series of long, vibrating lines.
"The signs were subtle, but many! Have you ever seen that woman bake? She makes an apple pie to die for! Many men have!" His eyes narrowed. "Wait- is that the issue? Gentlemen, you may be my team-mates but I tell you here and now I would break each and every one of your yellow cheese-eating spines if I thought you were impugning that good lady's bakeware!"
"Oh, no" gasped the Scout, "it's- it's not that."
"Yeah," guffawed the Sniper, "I'm sure- I'm sure "she's" (CENSORED FOR REASONS OF COMMON HUMAN DECENCY) with a rolling pin."
The four of them howled like jackals and the Soldier looked on, confused.
"Will you bunch of mincing daisies get to going? I'm meeting the lady," said the Soldier, with massive dignity, "here, in less-than ten minutes, and I don't want her to think I just brought you guys here for bragging rights. Be off! Everything's got to go with Military Precision! This will be what you call a tactical love strike! This is the end result years of practical training that you could not begin to- MY PETUNIAS!" He clomped heavily off back inside the base.
The Sniper turned abruptly. "My scope. In the watchtower. Ten horizontal yards East and thirty vertical yards up. Pyro arriving: ten minutes."
Let us draw the veil of charity over quite how much dirty fighting there was, as all four men struggled to be first up the ladder.
The Pyro, kicking up great clouds of dust, arrived eight minutes later, just as the four men in the tower had brawled their way into some kind of rotational order. The Pyro squinted uncertainly at a small card, at the surroundings; clearly unsure if this was the right place, time or even circumstance. That is, until a noise like distant thunder announced the red-faced Soldier, running at full pelt.
("Late," said the Spy, comparing time between his two watches.)
("The broom cupboard again", responded the Engineer. "Gits him every time.")
"Here!" said the Soldier, thrusting the flower stems towards the Pyro with the desperation of a man falling on an unexploded bomb.
The pyro...
swooned.
"Oh, Jhnnn, thrrr lullhly!" said the Pyro, graciously swooping them up. The Soldier turned a pleased sort of pinkish-mauve as the Pyro took a deep sniff at the blooms.
"Hrr Thrrtfll!" A deep sniff- "Oh, thy smll jrr lrr Asbssstss- mur favorrrr!"
"Uh, actually, I think that's just your mask," said the soldier sheepishly, twirling the steel-clad toe of his boot in the dirt. "So- are you ready to go?"
"Unn sk- lurr murr guh geh muuuur bg." The Pyro skipped away daintily.
Atop the watchtower, four jaws hung down in mute astonishment. The Scout was the first to break the silence.
"So...? I mean, is he...?"
"I... I honestly don't know."
"But... but the Medic said..."
"Shutupshutupshutup!" hissed the Spy, eye to the scope. "I want to watch this."
The pyro skipped back, carrying a small, rather adorable pink bag, embroidered with a large white flower. "Rrrrdy."
"Walk this way, my dear," said the Soldier, chest now so over-inflated he was in danger of bursting. "I want to keep a pretty thing like you away from the other men!"
"Oh, yuh flrrr."
( A pause, as they walked. "Uh, dear, what are you doing behind the mask?")
("U'm bttng muh uhlsshes ah yuh adringluh, drr.")
"Oh. Oh! Okay!")
They walked, arm-in arm, into the sunset, and Scout was left only with one question:
"So...?"
"Mate," said the Sniper gently, "I honestly think only the Pyro will ever know for sure."