The Soldier kicked open the door to the canteen, blasting a trumpet, badly. No one noticed. It was the seventh time in two days.
The Pyro had not looked at a calendar for far back as her memory went. Admittedly, that was only about ten, eleven months. She was surprised she remembered the concept of one, either way. So when Soldier had begun belting out things like "O Say Can You See" and "The Star Spangled Banner" at all hours a week ago, she just assumed it was another one of his things and ignored it. Engineer assured her later that it was, in fact, just one of his things, but that the upped frequency meant it was almost the fourth. "The fourth what?" she'd said.
"Of July," Engineer answered. He had gotten better at interpreting her. "Y'know, parades, fireworks, barbeques. Soldier's favorite holiday."
"Oh," she said, trying to swallow down the bile that had jumped up her throat while he was talking. That had been happening more and more often, lately. "Right."
But she was less concerned with Soldier's celebrations than she was with the Scout, who was currently sitting as far away from her as was physically possible with the canteen's cramped table.
When he thought she wasn't looking, he would stare at her. For the last few days he'd been doing that, things like that, like he was studying her. He'd gotten quieter, too, enough that the rest of the team had been commenting on his lack of commentary.
But it had gotten worse the longer it went on. His gaze had evolved from the kind of stare she was used to, the "what the fuck am I looking at here" one, to something sharper, and darker.
Today, it was outright poisonous.
Her thoughts were disrupted when Soldier slammed the bell of the trumpet down on the table. "HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, BOYS," he roared, grinning. "Today is our nation's day of victory! Today we rejoice in the birth of our glorious country!"
No one was listening, but the Pyro had learned very quickly that that never deterred Soldier in his speeches. "Today," he went on, grandly, "we celebrate!"
"Sure thing, mate," Sniper said around a mouthful of toast, turning a page in his newspaper.
Late afternoon. The New Mexico sun was starting to sink down toward the horizon. The BLU team was milling around outside by Engineer's truck and Sniper's van, waiting for Soldier to finish his patriotic pre-celebration speeches. Well, most of the team. The Pyro was missing, and the Scout was leaning on the doorframe, arms folded, quiet and uncharacteristically pensive. Soldier had just begun urging everyone into the vehicles when Scout spoke up.
"I ain't comin'."
"What!" barked Soldier, stopping dead from where he was re-enacting Washington crossing the river on Engineer's truckbed. He swiveled, fell over, and then scrambled back up to scowl at Scout from under his helmet. "Unacceptable behavior! Gross insubordination! You will get your skinny ass inside this truck, and you will—"
"Uh-huh," Scout said, "no I ain't." That was all. He turned and went back inside the base.
From the driver's side of his truck, where he had been picking through an ancient issue of Automatons Monthly, Engineer watched as Soldier charged after the youngest member of the team, only to have Heavy catch him by the collar. "Scout ain't comin' along?"
"It would seem so," said Spy, dropping the butt of his cigarette to the ground and snuffing it out with his heel. "A blessing, really. This is going to be a trying enough ordeal without him as it stands."
Well, that was Spy for you. Engineer studied the struggling Soldier for a moment, then lay his magazine down on the hood of the truck. "Don't seem like him, missin' out on a shindig. I'm gonna go talk to him."
"Grand," Spy sighed, and lit another cigarette.
Scout was as predictable as any other young man who wanted to be alone. Engineer found him with a beer and a cigarette on the back porch, staring down at something in his hand. He looked downright … morose was the word that came to mind. On his life he had never seen Scout at anything like it.
"Hey," he called through the cracked door. Scout jumped, fingers closing over what he held, and jerked around to glare at him.
"I said I ain't comin'!"
"Scout, you're a grown man, I don't care what you do," Engineer said, pushing the door open. "Mind me joinin' you?"
If looks could kill, Scout would have sent him to respawn in an instant. "Fine," he said at last, "whatever, I don't care, what do you even want?"
"Just thought I'd see if you wanted me to pick you up anythin' in town."
"Oh." Scout's shoulders slackened. He slipped whatever it was he was holding into his pocket, something metal by the sound of it. A length of beaded chain spilled out as he drew his hand away. He wasn't wearing his dog tags, Engineer realized. "No I'm, I'm good, uh, thanks."
Engineer stepped outside, leaning against the doorframe. Scout was a dark silhouette against the fading sky, the Badlands sun drenching everything in blacks and brilliants as it went down. "Sure? I was thinkin' of gettin' some of those little fireworks, like. Y'know, cherry bombs, sparklers, all tha—"
"I don't like fireworks," Scout snapped, turning away.
"…That so?" That might explain a few things. Scout was wound up, that was obvious, but he hadn't been able to figure out why. "Scout," he said after a while, "this got somethin' to do with the holiday?"
"This, what's 'this', there ain't nothin' an' even if there was would it be any of your friggin' business, hell no, screw off, old man, who even asked you."
Well then. "All right," said Engineer. "Just thought I'd ask. I'll let you be."
"Wow, thanks."
"… Don't do anything you'll regret tonight, hear?"
Scout snorted.
The Pyro had slunk away the moment Soldier announced he was taking everyone out drinking that night. She had been down to Teufort just once in her time on the team, and she hadn't liked it then. It was hotter than the base, and loud, and by comparison to her new home, stuffed with people. Couldn't imagine liking it any better on a holiday.
So when Soldier started rounding the team up to go, close to sundown, she circled around the buildings and climbed up the old watchtower she had seen Sniper disappear to sometimes. It was high enough she could see over all the shorter buildings, and even make out the shapes on the horizon that made up Teufort. The tower itself was simple enough, a ten by ten wooden platform with guard rails and a sliding trap door and a slanted roof, and she amused herself for a while by counting the rivets holding it together. Once, looking down, she saw the team trickling one by one out to Engineer's and Sniper's idling vehicles. As she watched something made Soldier leap off his perch on the truck and rush for the building, but Heavy stopped him, and she watched the two of them argue for a while before she got bored.
Her fingers itched. Out came the lighter, and by the time she looked up from it again, the trucks were gone, and the sun was setting. Soon it was dark, and little lights had buzzed to life all over the base. She blinked when one mounted on the roof of the tower hummed awake; it only lit up half of the platform, missing one bulb.
She had just been thinking about going back down and finding something else to do—investigating Medic's infirmary while he was gone, maybe—when a sound like a gunshot rang out over the desert. In an instant she was on high alert, reaching for the weapons she hadn't brought with her. Was RED attacking at night?
It came again, and then more, until it was ringing in her ears. She turned, and went perfectly still when she saw sky over Teufort.
Brilliant light painted the air in huge blooms of color, rising up with a far-off shriek to explode over the town. They came up in spirals and arcs, bursting in complex patterns, then cascaded back down to earth, disappearing as they went. Fire, she realized—fireworks, brilliantly twisted and formed into something new. Before she realized it she was leaning over the edge of the guard rail, her lighter pocketed and forgotten, trying to catch every new color and explosion.
She was transfixed.
They seemed to go on without end. She could have been there for five minutes or an hour when the trapdoor behind her squeaked open and banged shut again. The sound made her jump; hadn't she been alone?
Tearing herself away, she turned, and found the Scout.
She almost didn't recognize him. The weak yellow light above them drained the color out of him, darkening the circles under his eyes and highlighting the patches of his jawline he'd missed shaving. His mouth was a flat line, and his bat hung from one hand. The Pyro put her head to one side and waved, a little.
Scout didn't say anything.
His eyes shot up past her shoulder as another round of rainbow fireworks thundered over Teufort. She turned to look, too, and as she did she saw the Scout move in the corner of her lens, hoisting his bat over his shoulder.
Scout swung, slamming his bat directly into the side of his teammate's head.
The Pyro staggered sideways, thumping against the tower's side. Stunned, it slumped against the corner, a thick, wet noise filtering out of the mask as it did. He swung into it again, felt something crack, felt a vicious seething grin rip at his mouth and turn into a snarl instead. The Pyro hit the floor.
He wasn't sure what he was doing, really. He had known a moment ago, but somewhere between the fireworks and the Pyro he had lost all rational thought, he was just motion now, barrelling forward on inertia. The Pyro was stirring where it had fallen. He drove his foot into its side, once, twice, until it wailed. The sound was like a victory horn to Scout's ears.
"Hey," he said, voice higher than he was used to hearing it, shriller. He dropped to one knee beside the freak, leaning into its face. "Hey, yo, buddy, let's, let's talk, youse know how'ta talk, don'tcha?"
It didn't answer, still and barely breathing. The blood was pounding in his ears, it was hard to even see straight, and before he knew it he was fumbling for its ammo pouch. He ripped it straight off its belt, snapped it open, and dumped it onto the boards at their feet without ceremony. A handful of matchbooks fell out, and some shotgun shells, and a small square of rusting metal.
The lighter.
Scout dropped the bat and snatched it up, focus diverted from the Pyro for the moment. It was cool to the touch, all the edges worn down smooth, and he rubbed his thumb over the engraving he had seen just days ago. (There were probably a thousand Zippos with Bible verses on them, he'd reasoned at first. It didn't mean nothing. But Engineer's words had wormed into his skull and stayed there, keeping him up at night, keeping him thinking in circles until he was sick and almost shaking and holy God, what if…?)
In a jerky motion he lurched down closer to his teammate and wrapped his fist in its collar. "Where'd you get this?" he said, voice hoarse. "H, hey, you listenin' to me, the fuck did you get this?! Answer me. Answer me!"
It stared at him—or seemed like it was—then it shrugged.
Scout felt something snap in his head.
"You little liar!" he snarled, slamming it backwards into the guard rail. The Pyro squalled, wrapping its gloved fingers around his forearms with all the strength of a gnat. "It, it was you, wasn't it, you fuckin' stole it, didn't you? Is that why you killed him? To, to get your hands on his fucking lighter?!" He didn't even realize he'd slugged the fucking monster until he was shaking out his hand, knuckles bleeding from catching on the filters. The Pyro's head snapped sideways, and as it turned back to look at him again he dimly became aware of the long, feral growl coming from its mask.
They stared at one another, motionless, while miles away the sky was set on fire.
Then, Scout said, "Okay. Okay, you wanna do this, sure, fine," and let go of it long enough to drop the lighter into his pocket. He wrapped both hands around the filters of its mask, and pulled.
The Pyro started screaming. It was a hideous, enraged sound, startling enough that he almost let go. He tightened his grip just in time to not lose his hold when it began thrashing, trying to get away. He hauled it upright, toward him and into the light, stronger and more determined by leagues.
White-knuckled, white-faced, he ripped the mask off of its head.
It staggered back when the mask pulled free, hitting the guardrail with a thump. Its fingers curled around the bar to steady itself, and he could hear it gulping air in huge, panicked pants.
Then, slowly, it raised its head.
Sprawled back against the edge of the tower was the woman he had seared into his memory a year ago. Even in the faint light the old lamp in the tower gave off, he could tell. Her hair had been cropped short, the shadows beneath her eyes gone practically pitch and a dull red burn scar swooped down one side of her forehead, but it was the exact same face that had peered out at him from behind the door of that rundown house on the edge of town.
He'd spent a year wishing he'd just beat her head in then and there.
Scout's skull throbbed. Something was rising up in him, something that scalded and shocked and drove him into blacker depths of rage than he had yet known. She opened her mouth and covered her face, started screaming at him, but all he could hear was his brother's voice.
She's just somethin' else, man, I dunno what it is, an' between you an' me I think she's a little crazy but shit, I can't stop thinkin' about her. Gonna go down to her place tonight, maybe light us some fireworks, heh, know what I mean? Hey, don't you guys go havin' too much fun without me, got me?
Yeah, Tobias, sure, whatever, get outta here, Scout had said. Go see your girl.
Go see your girl.
"You," Scout said, and the floodgates opened.
He called her something that his ma would have slapped him for, lunging. "You, you fucking monster, y, you—I'll kill you, I am going to kill you do you hear me—"
"Scout," she said, spitting out teeth, "—Scout, d—"
He slammed her into the side of the tower so hard he felt it creak. "—snap your skinny neck, you fucking psychopath do you remember me, did, did you—" His gun, why hadn't he brought his fucking gun? "—you shoulda run back to wherever the flying fuck you disappeared to the minute you saw me, you really think you can just get off scott-fuckin'-free like that you think you can run from me?!"
She brought her knee up hard into his gut, and when he keeled over she shoved him away and scrambled to the far corner of the tower. "Scout," she snarled, "what the fuck, you piece of fucking shit, what're you talking about?"
Scout told her.
He screamed a name at her like it was a bullet. It tore into her, tore her apart. That was how it started. The name settled in the base of her skull, dissolving and turning to acid that flooded through her. It spread like a fire, consuming every thought. It echoed through her bones and set her ears ringing.
The air was dead silent but for their ragged breathing, and then another booming wave of fireworks lit up the sky over Teufort. Her vision went fuzzy. She tried to step back, hit the guard rail, felt her breath catch in her throat.
When her eyes refocused, she was on her knees. She looked up, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from vomiting.
Someone was staring at her, someone tall and narrow and horribly real. Something in his eyes blazed like a solar flare. And his face—
—his face was exactly what she had seen in every mirror, over and over, for the last year. The blood and pus, the unhealing wounds, all of it. On impulse she lifted her hand to her cheek. Where she remembered raw flesh she found smooth skin.
"Hey," he said, his voice one she knew but wrong on a level she could not comprehend. There was another beneath it, higher, younger, going too quickly for her to understand. "Hey, firebug."
Agony.
Images clipped before her eyes like bolts of lightning, and with them came sounds, smells. A towering inferno against the black sky. The boom of an orchestra beneath the raging flames and the scream of a thousand fireworks. The scent of burning hair and blood. A name, just out of reach, Scout had said it just seconds ago, how had she forgotten already—
She was shaking. Her chest hurt. She said something in a voice that splintered. He stepped toward her, and she scrambled to her feet.
"Been a long time," he said through bleeding lips and shattered teeth.
"I, wait, please, I didn't, I—"
"You what?" he barked, the voice beneath his growing louder. "You're sorry? You didn't mean to? Shut up."
She didn't see how he closed the gap between them; all she knew was that suddenly he was upon her, hands tight around her throat, his face inches from hers. As she stared, struggled, his wounds worsened, healed, disappeared, came back. "You left me like that," he hissed, "You didn't even try to save me. You didn't even have the decency to remember me."
You were dead, she wanted to say. You were already dead. She couldn't breathe. She was doing something with her hands, but she couldn't tell what. Was she pulling at his fingers? Clawing at his face?
"Then you ran, didn't you?" the ghost was saying. "You ran and set more fires, yeah, that's right. Hockey stadiums, bus stops, car impounds? It wasn't enough you killed me, you had to kill everything that even reminded you of me!"
Something swelled up inside her, thrashing to the surface. It bubbled at the top for what felt like eons, then spilled out of her as a horrific cry.
For just a few seconds, everything was sharp and clear. Like broken glass.
It happened because of the chemsuit. It was crippling her. She put more into every movement just to get through the thick rubber. The Pyro kicked him and he stumbled, still latched onto her neck. She went down with him, and they landed in a riot of snarls and growls. Spittle hit her face as they grappled, fighting like dogs, kicking and howling. She drove her boot into his hip, kicked him off so hard he was thrown backwards.
She didn't mean for him to step on his own bat as he staggered back. She didn't mean for him to slip, slam square into the narrowest, rustiest part of the guardrail, or for the air to wrench with a grating crack as it snapped under his weight. She didn't mean to sit there, staring, as his interia carried him right over the edge.
The Pyro leapt to her feet, staggered to the side of the tower. Her thoughts had turned to radio static, getting denser and louder as she looked over the side to see Scout getting smaller and smaller.
She blinked, and it was the ghost, looking up at her in betrayal and shock. She blinked again and it was Scout, shrieking curses even as he hurtled down well over a hundred feet.
Then his screams were very suddenly silenced.
His body was gone by the time she got down the ladder. When her feet touched the earth, she collapsed, shaking.
The mask fell into her lap. The Pyro stared at it, deaf and dumb, having no memory of bringing it down with her. Why wasn't she wearing it? What if someone saw—?
Her eyes flicked up and saw the still-wet bloodstain on the gravel and dirt. Oh, she thought, and touched where the wounds on her face had been for so long. Pain snapped at her, she felt warm, wet blood, but her hand came away dry and clean. She looked at the wet dirt again, and something else caught her eye: a glint of tarnished metal.
Still too weak to stand, she crawled. The thing lying in the muddying earth was silver, two little pieces of metal on a snapped chain. Scout's dog tags, she realized as she picked them up. Respawn hadn't caught it. She pocketed it without thinking.
Slowly, she pulled the rubber back over her head and got up. She pointed herself at the BLU living quarters, and began walking.
The rust and fog on her brain seemed to shake off with every step. Clips of her life before … before everything played through her mind like a jittery slideshow, mismatched with sounds and voices. Her kiln, her house, a soft, constant prattle in a voice she barely remembered as they walked through dark scrubland past midnight with the bright glow of her brand-new flamethrower leading the way. The memories burned into her as brightly as the sun. They were blinding.
Before she knew it she was trudging through the base again, with no recollection of the trip there. She stood now in the doorway of the common area, swaying on her feet. Her palms itched, she ached, desperately. She needed to burn something, she needed to. Maybe she could just … light the whole base up.
She reached for her lighter. It wasn't there.
It wasn't her lighter.
It could have been five minutes or an hour that passed before anything happened, she didn't know. One way or another she found herself slumped onto the couch, weak and useless. But eventually she saw movement on the peripheral of her lenses, and jerked upright to look.
There was Scout, hanging by the door and watching her. Just watching.
Neither of them said anything, and she couldn't tell, between blinks, how much of who she was looking at was Scout and how much was the ghost. Finally he pushed off of the doorframe and stepped toward her. As he moved she saw the light glint off the Zippo in his hand.
"Scout," she said.
He didn't let her get futher than that. "Why'd I just wake up in respawn?"
"…What?"
He sneered. "Don't screw with me, Pyro. What killed me? You push me off the tower?"
She stared. "You don't—remember."
"Look, mush-mouth, I don't have a freakin' clue what you're sayin' so either speak up or take that stupid thing off your stupid face."
Relief swept through her. He didn't remember. Maybe—maybe she could push all of this out of her mind, forget it had ever happened, maybe she could go back to blissful ignorance.
She looked at his face again. The same disfigured horror she had seen in the mirror for months looked back.
The Pyro pulled her gaze away, forcing down the burst of nausea filling her throat, and reluctantly popped the mask's filter with a shaking hand. "You … came up to talk to me about something in the tower."
"Yeah, yeah, I knew all that, and?"
"… I guess there was a weak spot on the guard rail. You were leaning against it and it just … it snapped."
When she glanced up at him again his face was back to normal. Now he was just scowling down at her, eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened around the lighter.
For a split second she was convinced he was going to attack her again. The muscles of his arms and neck had wound up into terse coils. She thought she saw something moving among them, under his skin—blood was running out of his eyes and his ears and nose and mouth, soaking into his shirt, he was awash with it, she felt so dizzy, she couldn't do this, she couldn't.
She was about to abandon all hope and lunge at him when from outside the common room came footsteps. They both turned to look, and found Sniper watching them. He was alone, leaning against the doorway, signature mug in hand. He looked first from Scout to her, and then back. "M'I interrupting something?"
The room was so quiet that the Pyro could hear the fireworks, still going off miles away. A few seconds more and Scout turned on his heel, knuckles white around the lighter. "Guess not," he muttered, and shouldered past Sniper.
Dazed, the Pyro quietly snapped her filter closed and looked at Sniper. He met her gaze, or approximated it, and glanced after where Scout had gone. Then he left, too, and after his footsteps faded it became utterly silent. He must have come back on his own.
Later, she wouldn't remember dragging herself back to her room. She wouldn't remember the obsessive examination of her face in the streaky reflection of her window, or the way the unhealing wounds that part of her still swore were real would waver and move.
What the Pyro would remember, after she stripped off the suit and buried herself in the sheets, was the nightmares; the shrieking fire that for the first time in her life scared instead of comforted her, the howl of fireworks against a far-off orchestra, and the nameless ghost that hunted and mocked and chased her until she could run no more.