The door opened immediately, silently, as if it were merely a leaf skirting across smooth ground. The lack of delay took me by surprise; they had been waiting for me. The light spilling from the room was sudden and intense, threatening to blind me. But I walked in anyway. I figured that if I couldn't see, I wouldn't be able to pick out any dangers that might be coming my way. So I stepped inside, and the door closed behind me. Someone was breathing heavily behind my back, in a strange, distorted kind of way, but I wasn't looking back. I was looking forward.
Seven pairs of hard male eyes bombarded me with their stares the second I'd stepped into the light. They were all sitting around a large, metal military-style table, facing the same direction; mine. I had barely made out two faces before one voice rung out through the uncomfortable silence.
"A chick?!" The voice was a young one, a teenager around my age. I picked him out easily enough; he was the only adolescent within the room. Clad in what looked like a baseball uniform, the youth had stood up and was gawking at me with shock in his eyes. "No way," he stuttered, leaning across the table as if to get a better look, "they sent us a girl."
"Yes Herr Scout," another, older, voice sounded out, exasperated. "We hav discussed zis already." It didn't take me long to match the voice to the body. It was a dark-haired man wearing spectacles and donning what looked like a medical coat. He was seated at the very centre of the table, his gloved hands under his chin as he looked at me. "Our new teammate is eine junge dame."
"Wha?" The teen said in disbelief, "nobody told ME!"
"Oui Scout, we did. Clearly, and frequently," a masked man chided in a heavy French accent. "Per'aps if you weren't such a pretentious little imbécile you would ave picked up on ze gender of our newest recruit." His eyes met mine only once throughout the entire outbreak, and the look he gave me was none too sweet. I had bowed my head in embarrassment then, my cheeks going just the slightest shade of delicate pink. Thick silence filled the room once more as the boy huffed at the chiding. I could feel the pressure of the men's gazes as they fell on me. I suddenly felt so insignificant.
"Ah lads, we've been cooped up in here far too long. We've frightened da poor lassie." A different voice spoke up now, gentler and softer, and in an accent I was much more accustomed to than the rest. "Look how she's shakin." I wouldn't even have noticed the tremor in my hands if the scottsman hadn't pointed it out. I fought to control it, but I couldn't help it; I was scared.
I heard a chair being scraped back. "Ah fishsticks," another gentle voice remarked, his footsteps getting closer, "don't worry child, we ain't gonna hurt you." The reassurance came with a soft hand on my shoulder. Without meaning to, I looked up, straight into the eyes of a gentle-faced man wearing a hard hat. "There see, that's better," he said with a smile. "We're sorry to frighten you kid, we didn't mean nothing by it." He moved to extend his right hand in my direction. "Pleased to meet your acquaintance, I'm your Engineer." I felt better in the presence of this man, he seemed like a gentle soul. So it wouldn't be an outright lie if I said it felt good to shake his hand.
"Katie," I said, somewhat shakily "I'm your new Aid."
"Nice to meet you Miss Katie," the Engineer smiled. "I'm sure we'll get along just fine," he promised, and I felt inclined to believe him. There was just no doubting that honey-glazed voice. "I apologize for that spot of rudeness jus' now, but I'm afraid we don't get out much."
"Excuse you," the youth said, suddenly by the Engineer's side. He had stood and ran around the table so fast he was nearly a blur. I had only caught it out of the corner of my eye and already I could tell this boy moved at dizzying speeds. "You don't get out much," he corrected with a chummy hand on the older man's shoulder. "I on the other hand, am the life of the party. Hey toots, howsit goin?" he asked with a wink and a heart-stopping smile, "Scout here."
"Hello," I said shyly. He really was standing rather close. I could almost smell the fabric softener on his light blue shirt, all I had to do was inhale. I made the mistake of looking up and found a pair of startling eyes gazing down at me with gleeful intent. From this angle, I could pretty much confirm that the Scout was the type of boy they talked about back home. He had that sort of cute, cocky grin that seemed to get you into a trance, and he was so tall. Like his body was all arms and legs. He had a headset on as well, though unlike mine, his was two-way. "I'm Katie."
"By 'Get out', do you mean that rinky-dink pub down the dirt-road full of bleedin old geysers?" A new voice asked of the Scout. I hadn't even seen the man approach before he was standing two feet away. "G'day Sheila," he said to me in a bone-softening Australian accent. "I'm your Sniper."
"H-hi," I stuttered. The man had appeared out of nowhere, giving me a bit of a shock. I had been so engrossed staring at the Scout that I'd forgot there were other men waiting to introduce themselves to me. I could see them now, getting up from around the table to walk towards me. In between a glance at the Scout, who was pouting childishly at the Australian, and the bushman himself, my vision was suddenly completely occupied by some sort of blue wall.
"Leetle Aid is so tiny!"
Wait. The wall talked? I looked up. Holy shit. It was a man. Not a wall, a giant, lumbering man standing just in front of me. How had I only just seen him? How could I even miss a person like that? You have to understand, this man wasn't just big, he was huge. He was the sort of person that caught your eye no matter where you were. So how hadn't I seen him when I'd come in. More importantly, how where those chairs around the table supporting his weight?
"Um, hello to you too," I said, taking a step back. Or at least I tried. I found my path blocked by the man in the medical coat. He too was standing a tad too close for comfort, especially considering the mad glint in his eyes. It was slightly unhinging.
"Leetle baby girl will get hurt on battlefield," the giant insisted, crouching down so that he was eyelevel with me. That too, was scary. "Tiny Aid, even smaller than baby man Scout!" he remarked with a bellow of laughter.
"Oi, watch it fatty," the boy snapped. But the giant ignored him and held out one book-sized hand to me. I assumed he wanted to shake mine, so I warily placed my right hand in his.
"Is nice meeting you leetle Aid, I am Heavy weapons guy," he introduced himself, shaking my hand so vigorously I thought my arm just might pop out of its socket. But he seemed genuinely happy as he did so, so I said nothing all throughout the process. "And man in coat is Medic." Ah. The nutjob was our doctor. How reassuring.
"If you don't mind me asking, vat is it zat you do?" Medic inquired as soon as I'd reclaimed control over my wobbly limb. I was cradling it against my chest, afraid that if I let go, Heavy might take it as cue to start shaking it again. "Vat exactly are your special skills?"
I furrowed my brow. Truth be told, the administrator hadn't been very elaborate on my role in the Blu team. She'd simply said: Help everyone out. So that's what I said now. "I help everyone out."
"What, like an assistant?" the Scout asked incrediously.
"Well yes, my class is called Aid, you see," I mocked him with a cocky smile "I think that's the general idea."
"Looks like we've got a smart-mouth ere laddies!" the dark-skinned scott chuckled as he slapped my shoulder in amusement. "Welcome to the team lassie," he said with a wide, lopsided smile, "I'm Demo. And before you freak out, that guy in rubber is our Pyro." It was almost like he'd timed it right down to the second. The last word had barely left his mouth before the man slipped into my line of vision, and if it weren't for the Demo's warning, I'd have made a right fool of myself and jumped a mile. The Pyro was like something that crawled straight out from one of my nightmares; demonic voice and all. Despite the heads up, I still backed away a few millimetres, against Demoman's chest. "Aye lassie, I warned ye," he said with a chuckle. I could feel his chest vibrating with the laughter, and it made me smile.
"Hi," I tried. I was looking for the man's eyes, but instead, I found two dark glass panels looming down at me like black holes.
"Mphhhhfmphhhemm."
"Excuse me?" That was literally all I heard. Nothing coherent, just mumbles. "I didn't quite catch that."
"Didn't expect you would Sheila," the Sniper said. "I've spent near four years with the bleedin' bugger an I still have no clue what he's on about half the time. But I'm going to guess he said something along the lines of 'Hello'." The Pyro nodded in accordance. "I must be getting better," he remarked jokingly.
"Ya ya, enough chitchat," the Medic interrupted with a wave of his gloved hand, "ve need to get down to business."
"Ah, does it have to be tonight Doc? I'm beat," the Scout complained as he scratched his head under the baseball cap. "Can't we do this tomorrow?"
"Nein Dumkopf, we have to take care of zis today."
"I think what we needa do," the Engineer cut in before the boy could retaliate, "is find the girl somewhere to sleep. It's gettin late Doc," he said, putting a calming hand on the Medic's shoulder, "we all wanna go to bed." He was right of course, it had been well into the evening when I'd caught the train already. It was probably past midnight now and I wasn't really in the mood to discuss vitals.
"Ugh," the Medic sighed, but he seemed won over. "Fine, fine, but first thing tomorrow, ve cover everything, no excuses."
"Sounds good to me doc," the Scout replied. He seemed a bit perkier now that I looked at him. "So, where's she gonna sleep?"
Even though it was Engineer himself who had brought up the subject, he seemed just about as lost as the rest did. "Do we have any spare bedrooms Doc?" he asked uncertainly. I'd assumed this was the sort of thing they'd have thought of in advance, but apparently not.
"Ve did, before Demoman blew it sky-high last year," he replied with a frown. I saw the Demoman roll one eye at that. "Vat about the Medical bay?"
"You honestly think the Sheila will be comfortable sleeping on those blood-stained gurneys mate?" the Sniper chimed in with a quizzical look on his face. "Besides, that place reeks of bleach, she'll never get any shut-eye there."
"Vell, wat do you suggest?" the Medic asked, "she can hardly sleep on ze dining hall tables can she?"
"Leetle baby girl can have Sasha's bed for one night," the Heavy offered.
It seemed to me as if the men had completely forgotten I was in the room with them, and had shuffled back out of the way to let them argue. I found myself standing idly between Scout and Pyro, who were both giving me sideway glances. I heard the name Sasha, and turned to the Scout. "Who's Sasha?" I asked in a whisper.
"His minigun." He replied with a barely supressed laugh. "Sad innit? Guy loves his gun so much, got a little bed for it." I didn't know whether to laugh or feel honoured. The giant had offered me the bed of his beloved gun. It was a nice, if somewhat unusual gesture, but I decided to keep out of the conversation. Besides, I wouldn't fit in the bed anyway. The gun couldn't be that big. Could it?
"Hey," the Scout said after a few seconds of heated arguing about whether or not the Common Room couch was an appropriate place for a lady to spend the night. "Some of us have bunk beds, ya' know." The men all turned to look at him, as if they'd only just realised we were still there. I saw the Sniper lift one eyebrow quirkily at the Scout's next words. "She could always take the top bunk in my room."
I felt my heart summersault. Share a room with a boy? After that? But no, no… The Scout wasn't him. I can't be paranoid all my life.
"Hmm, not a bad idea," the Medic nodded.
"What d'ya think about that kiddo?" Engineer asked, "Would you mind sharing rooms with Scout?"
I was trying very, very hard to keep the blush off my face and the quiver out of my voice. "Um no, that would be fine with me," I said, deliberately avoiding the teenager's gaze, "I'll share a room with Scout."
"Sweet!" the boy said with a face-wide grin, "I have a roomie!" His eagerness was already rubbing off on me. The boy didn't seem half bad. Maybe it would be nice to actually have a friend for a change.
"I suppose there's no other alternative," the Medic reasoned as he rubbed his chin. "The only other person with room for two is…"
"Spy." And it was only then that I noticed the lack of the man's presence in the conversation. We had been so caught up making introductions and planning sleeping arrangements that I'd completely forgot about the Frenchman that had got me unnerved in the first place. My new teammates parted now, all turning to look at him where they're left him; sitting at the table with a cigarette hanging from his lips. He looked at ease, as if this was something he was used to repeatedly. When he felt our eyes on him, he sighed and rolled his eyes, taking the fag out of his mouth and tapping the buds out onto the floor.
"I do not ave bunk beds mes amis, I ave a double bed," he said, looking at his male teammates. Then suddenly, he shifted his attention to me. His blue eyes pierced mine as he spoke. "She is welcome to share it with me if she so wishes, but I dare say, she vould not enjoy it nearly as much as I vould." That last sentence was a promise, laced with what I was not quite sure was a threat. His voice was like a cello; deep, slow, and precise without a single falter in his words. I could still feel the syllables vibrating in my chest as I shuddered slightly. I knew absolutely nothing about this man other than his class name, and already I knew he was a person I would do best to avoid. Just the look in his eye was enough to give me a taste of the intention behind his words. No, I had no desire to spend my nights pressed up against this strange man. Unsurprisingly enough, neither did the Scout.
"No chance Frenchie," he said in a much darker voice than I'd heard him use before. "Aid's bunkin' with me." From under my lashes, I saw the lean muscles in his arm tense as he closed his fingers into fists. Something told me these two didn't exactly get along. I could see the same look of hatred in the Spy's eye. Only in him, it carried with it a sense of mockery and amusement.
"Why, you offend me mon ami," he said in an over-exaggerated show of surprise, "I assure you, my intentions were nothing but honourable." He had stood up now in a perfect display of his feline grace and walked over to us with ghostly hushed steps. "It shocks me zat you would think I would be capable of 'urting zis petite delicacy." His last sentence he spoke with a low, husky tone, just inches from my face after he'd bent down to level with me. My entire body erupted in gooseflesh as his vanilla-scented breath brushed against my skin in the most unpleasant of ways. If I didn't know better, I would insist he could hear my heart thrumming furiously against my ribcage as my brain unearthed memories I was constantly trying to bury. He of course, had noticed my discomfort, and gave me a dagger smile in response.
"Well that's quite enough of that," the Engineer piped in, breaking the tension that had mounted. He still seemed to be smiling, but I didn't miss the way his hand tightened around my arm as he steered me away from the masked man. I suspect he did it for the Scout's sake as much as mine, especially seeing as his other hand had a deadlock grip on the boy's upper arm. "Why don't you get her settled in to her bed for the night boy, and we'll clean up round here," he suggested gently, but even I didn't miss the authority hidden in his speech.
"Yeh, whatever you say Engie," the Scout said darkly, still glaring at the Spy. It didn't escape my notice that the boy wasn't the only one giving the man strange looks. The Sniper and the Demo too had their eyes fixed firmly on him. The Pyro might have been looking as well, but there was just no way to confirm with that eerie mask hiding his features. "Come on," he said to me, taking over the Engineer's grip on my arm as he pulled me behind him. "Night fellas."
"Goodnight," several voices replied in unsion. And then, a lone "pleasant dreams" in a French accent rang in my ears after the other voices had died down. But by then, Scout and I were already out of the door and walking in the corridor.
"Ah man, this is gonna be great!" He'd already perked up, and as soon as we'd rounded a corner, that cocky grin was back on his face. "Never had a roomie before!"
"Me neither," I admitted, a small smile playing on my lips. His attitude was infectious, and I found myself forgetting the earlier incident with the Spy, and focusing on the boy leading me to his room instead. He'd let go of my arm now, and I had to walk at a brisk pace to keep up with him, or risk getting lost in the maze of endless corridors.
"You're gonna love it," he insisted, "I am great company."
I laughed at his ridiculously large ego as we bolted up some stairs. "I'm sure I will Scout," I humoured him. "Hey, can you slow down a bit? I can't keep up all that well," I admitted as I saw him pick up the pace.
"No need!" he said, resting his bandaged hand on a doorknob. "We're here." I hadn't even seen the door until he'd pushed it open. And I do mean pushed, as in, he put all his weight against it and forced it open. As soon as I walked in behind him, it wasn't hard to see why. The room was a mess. The lower bunk was undone, with sheets hanging off the mattress in knots. Clothes were strewn all across the room, and I graciously averted my gaze from what was clearly a pair of boxers lying on his bedside table. Baseballs lay strewn in every corner, along with a couple of bats here and there. But most notably were the cans of some energy drink occupying literally every corner. The stuff was everywhere. Under the bed, on the windowsill, piled around the door to create a barricade, and even high up on the wardrobe top.
"Damn."
"I know, great huh?" he beamed. But then he seemed to catch the look on my face as I took in the sheer number of empty cans, and hesitated. "I mean, yeh it could use some cleaning up," he admitted. "But hey, your bed's completely clean," he assured me, "I've never even so much as sat on it. Well I did, once, but I'd accidentally tossed a ball up there and I had to get it back, y'know?"
I laughed at his attempt to justify the apocalyptic scenario before us. Seeing as the rest of the room looked like a bomb had just gone off, crumpled bed sheets were the least of my concerns. "It's fine Scout, really," I assured him with an amused shake of the head. "A little mess never killed anyone. Though, that's stretching the term 'little' a bit too far…"
"You work with what you got toots," he said, closing the door behind me. "Besides, if I knew you were comin over, I'd have cleaned up a bit. I thought you were gonna be another middle aged guy, so I didn't really bother."
"Nice to know you're such the hospitable type Scout," I joked, warming up to the boy.
"Not my style sweetcheeks," he said with a wink. "Speakin of which, dontcha have any luggage?" he asked, staring at my empty hands.
"They told me my luggage would arrive here sometime after I did."
"An who told you that?" he asked, kicking a few cans out of the way until he'd cleared a path to the bed.
"The Administrator."
"You aint seeing your stuff for a week then," he joked. "They probably already have it, they just need time to sift through it. Or stick trackers in them or whatever those crazy creeps at Mann Co do when they're not looking at us beatin each other to death."
I assumed he was kidding. Sure, the whole company struck me as odd, even when I'd gone in for the briefing, but they couldn't possibly be that paranoid about their employees, could they? "Is that what they did to you?" I asked, my curiosity winning out despite my better judgement.
"Could be, I never asked. My luggage just showed up with the rest of the mail one morning, and when I opened it, my clothes were in a worse state than my room is now. Sick fuckers probably had a real laugh groping my underwear." He walked over to his bed and sat on the mattress with a muffled Thunk. "Anyways, you can borrow some of my shirts for a while if you want toots, can't have you running about in your bra with that spook around." I didn't miss the way his voice darkened when he spoke about Spy. "Speakin of which, you might wanna lock the door tonight. I usually just leave it open, but then I don't usually have a dame with me. And that guy, he's a bit messed up in the head, y'know?"
I shuddered a bit as I slid the bolt in place on the door, fighting the rising wave of nausea that came with thinking about the masked man. If its state of disrepair was anything to go by, the lock hadn't been used in ages. I noted with some distaste that if the Spy really wanted to get in, the mediocre bolt would do nothing to block his path. But still, I felt better knowing it was there, if only to alert me to someone trying to break in. I had gotten very paranoid like that. I surprised the Scout (and myself) by sitting down next to him on the bed as soon as I'd locked the door. "So," I said, looking at the way he played with the bandages on his hand as I spoke, "How do things work around here?"
"Whaddaya mean?" he asked uncertainly. I could see the way his eyes fought to stay open as he spoke, and soon enough, his mouth stretched open into a soundless yawn. The boy was obviously tired, but he wasn't going to tell me himself out of some pride thing, so I decided to keep it short.
"Ok, well, um," I mentally flipped through the enormous amounts of queries I had, and decided on the most immediate one. "What time do we wake up tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's a ceasefire day, so we can sleep in 'till nine," he beamed happily. He stole a glance at the clock that was hanging crookedly atop his dresser. "Well, today actually. It's almost one."
"We should probably get some sleep then," I suggested with a soft smile. His face erupted in a goofy smile, obviously eager to get to bed. I sat up, and accidentally kicked away one of the cans. As I walked away from the boy, I saw the name printed on the label: Bonk! Atomic Punch. I turned and the boy was lazily pulling off his shirt to reveal smooth, faintly scarred skin. "You shouldn't drink all this soda you know," I said, tugging my own shirt up, "it's bad for you."
"You sound so much like my Ma, it hur- Aw jeez!" The Scout interrupted his own sentence when he'd turned his eyes back on me. He was now looking away, an adorable blush playing on his cheeks.
I had no idea what had caused this sudden show of bashfulness until I looked down at myself. My undershirt had hiched up along with my shirt to bare my pale stomach and the faintest trace of my black bra. I supressed an inner laugh and pulled down the undergarment before proceeding to take off my shirt and headset. And I thought I was sensitive about this stuff. I decided to leave my trousers on and wriggle out of them as soon as I was up in my bunk. I walked to the boy. "It's alright Scout, I've got a vest on," I reassured him with a chuckle. "Nothing to see."
He turned his head slowly, as if he didn't quite believe me. But when he saw that yes, I actually was clothed, he turned all the way and gave me a goofy grin. "Thought you were one of the eager types for a second there Aid."
"Me? Nah," I said with a playful punch to his arm and a somewhat sad smile. "Takes a lot more than that to get me in my underwear mate," I assured him.
He cocked an eyebrow. "Oh Yeah?" he challenged.
"Certainly," I said, realising that I had gone back to the formal speech I had grown accustomed to using whenever I got uncomfortable. But I liked this boy already, so I lightened my mood by teasing him and sticking out my tongue childishly before walking to the bunk beds. "Pleasant dreams Scout."
"Nighty night sweetcheeks!" he called up to me as I climbed the wooden ladder. I heard him land on his bed a few seconds after I sat down on mine.
I smiled to myself, maybe this place wouldn't be so bad. I went to lay my head on the untouched pillow, and found a hard lump pressing into my cheeks. Startled, I reached my hand underneath, and my fingers curled around something round and solid.
"Hey Scout?"
"Yeh toots?"
"Found your baseball."