Being badly injured equals having to lie in bed all day.

Having to lie in bed all day equals not being able to do anything.

Not being able to do anything equals boredom.

Conclusion: Scout was bored.

He'd never been this bored before. Once, while he still was going to school, he had taken a test and left the classroom because it was so boring. But this was even more boring, and he was unable to leave the room.

Scout sat up, causing his back to hurt a bit. He wondered what was wrong with it, has he hadn't paid any attention at all when Medic had explained it. Maybe he should ask again? Meh, he was not very enthusiastic to hear another speech about medicine and bones and whatever. He groaned. Something inside him made him miss having Sniper there. Sure, the guy was a freakin' moron and traitor, but at least he had been here, and that's more than you could say about everybody else, except Heavy.

He looked at the iPod he had received. It was one of the first gifts he had ever gotten, and the most expensive. The only problem was, there wasn't any music on it, so it wasn't much help to chase away the restlessness. It was a nice gift, though; he should ask Sniper if he could help him getting any music on it. Or not, as he hated asking people for help. It made him feel stupid and helpless. He somehow managed to put the iPod back to on the tiny table on his side without twisting his back too much.

An inpatient sound slipped through his lips. He hit the bed with his good arm, causing nothing at all to happen. How could it be possible to be this unimaginably bored? He'd been quite bored the past week, but at least he had had Sniper there most of the time, and when he wasn't there, Scout had slept. It had been a nice routine, sleeping when Sniper was out shooting people, and ignoring the shit out of him when he was here. In the start, that was. He hadn't liked the older man very much after the tower accident, but the latest days he'd been pretty cool. In fact, he'd been cool enough to deserve hearing Scout's awesome stories. But he wasn't here now, so it didn't help much.

An idea popped up in his mind. Medic had told him if he needed anything, he could just pull that red thread right next to him. Right now he needed attention and entertainment. He reached for the thread, but hesitated right before pulling it. Medic would probably flip totally out at him, and that'd be pretty uncool. But on the other hand, entertainment is entertainment.

Scout pulled the thread and waited a couple of minutes before Medic came rushing into his room, almost covered in blood. He hoped it wasn't Sniper's, but who knew? Maybe some Spy had discovered the sharpshooter's location, cloaked and backstabbed him. Or maybe a Soldier had blasted him to pieces with one of his big rockets?

Why was he even thinking of that? A knot of dread and fright filled his stomach.

"Whas wrong?" He was breathing heavily, as he'd probably been out healing someone on the battlefield when he'd gotten the call from the thread. How did that even work, how could he just know when somebody needed him when he was so far away from them?

"'ey, doctor," Scout said, crossing his arms and smiling a crooked smile. "How're ya 'dis beautiful day?"

"I asked whas wrong." The German seemed annoyed.

"Ah, right." Scout was cool. Very cool. "The thing is, I'm frickin' bored."

"Bored? You called me because you were BORED?"

"Yeah, I did." Even though he was getting yelled at, he managed to keep cool and keep his smile in place.

"I was in zee middle of a war, Scout." Medic's face was two inches away from Scout's. Scout could feel the tiny drops of spit hitting him as the doctor was yelling straight in his face, wiping away his handsome smile. "I still am! They need me out zhere!"

"Well, I need something to entertain me in zhere," Scout said, imitating Medic's accent. "And get out of my face, you ugl-" For a change, he stopped talking before he said something he would regret later on.

Medic left the room without any explanations. A moment later he was back, carrying some paper and a bunch of crayons, which he threw down at Scout's lap.

"If you ever call me wizhout a good reason again," the angry man threatened, "I'll make sure you won't be able to do it ever again." He left the room, slamming the door violently behind him.

"Jeez, dude," Scout said lowly, rolling his eyes. He picked up a crayon. It was red, one of the few red things in the room, a nice contrast to all the blueness. He had no pleasant memories connected to that colour, though, nothing but blood and death. And that damn RED team, of course. The crayon crumbled a bit when he put it down, colouring a bit of the blanket light red. The next crayon he picked up was green, almost like Sniper's eyes.

…Almost like what? That was a weird comparison, out of nowhere. Scout frowned, studying the green crayon. Grass green. Wow, that was as original and creative as orange juice or something. They should make some new colours with better names, like vomit green and toenail grey. In fact, they should just put him as the new boss in the crayon industry, as he had much better names for the colours than the lame wannabe names that already was.

Using the green crayon, he scribbled down some neat crayon colour names.

Snot yellow
Vomit Green
Toenail Grey
Bruise purple
I'm-so-tired-of-hospitals blue
Extraordinary green white
Scout blue
Emo black
Kvlt black
RED red
BLU blue
Midget orange

The last one made him chuckle. Midget orange. It was brilliant. He couldn't wait to show and tell Sniper about this.

Sniper. For some reason the image of him sitting right next to the bed was popped up in Scout's mind, making him smile. He put away the crayons and paper, and closed his eyes, imagining the Australian's green eyes. For some reason, it made his stomach tingle like crazy. Almost like he was in love-

Oh, no. No. Nonono. Nope. Absolutely not. He opened his eyes. What the fuck was he doing? What the fuck was he thinking? He wasn't gay or anything, so there was no reason for him to get this attracted to Sniper. At all. Besides, he was, like, old enough to be his father or something. It would be messed up if he fell in love with him for some reason. It was probably just some sort of mistake. A bio-whatever-it-was-called mistake. He laughed lowly, suddenly finding this entire thing funny for some reason. Yeah, it was just a mistake. There was this really hot chick in his neighbourhood back in Boston, and she was not a mistake. Not at all. Or maybe she was, Scout didn't really know, but in his eyes, she was not.

He closed his eyes, thinking of the time the girl, whose name was impossible to remember at the moment, had run past his house, hair flowing beautifully in the wind.

He approached her, finally working up the courage to talk to her. Moments seemed like hours as he waited for her reaction, until she finally turned to him. It was the moment Scout had waited for all his life, and it was finally happening. Although, the face he saw was not that of the girl. Scout froze in fear as the masculine features of the "girl" were revealed to him. Again, minutes felt like hours to the mercenary, before the being before him finally spoke. With a seemingly endless cry of "WANKA", Scout was snapped out of his fantasy.

…What the hell? Couldn't just Sniper leave his thoughts alone?

He tried again, thinking of this pretty girl, but it didn't really go better this time.
Scout finally fell asleep, thinking of Sniper's beautiful, green eyes.

Something warm was lying on Scout's right hand. He slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, so it was probably in the middle of the night. Sniper was most likely done with the mission, as he was sleeping soundly in the chair right next to him, snoring lowly. Scout looked at his hand, not surprised to see the older man's hand lying on the top of it. If it had belonged to anybody else than Sniper, he'd probably yell "faggot" or something, and hit him in the face.

But this was Sniper, making it feel so right. The skin on his hand was rough, unlike the skin on Scout's, which was, well, not soft, but not really rough either, as they usually were wrapped up in the bondages which were now lying on a shelf on the other side of the room. It was impossible not to smile, lying there, looking at the Aussie. He didn't look half bad, after all. Not as good as Scout, though, but that was as good as impossible. A part of his brain tried to stop him from thinking like this, stop him from thinking of Sniper in this way, but he didn't want to stop. It was what felt right at the moment, and he always did what felt right.

He wanted to turn his hand around and hold Sniper's, but it'd most likely wake up the sleeping man, and that'd probably be pretty awkward. Instead, he moved a tiny bit closer him, close enough to hear his breath, and fell asleep again.

When Scout woke up again in the morning, Sniper was sitting next to the open window, smoking a cigarette. The curtains wooshed as the wind blew through the window, sending a cold chill through the room. A temptation to yell at Sniper, making him shut the damn window, suddenly appeared. Instead of doing that, he decided to lie completely still, pretending to still be asleep and see what Sniper was doing. Right now, he was sitting and looking out of the window, a dark silhouette against the bright light from the sun. The smoke didn't really get pulled out the window; it was hanging in the air like a grey cloud around the smoker. He moved a bit, making Scout quickly close his eyes in case he was going to walk over to the bed. Which he did. The shoes on the Australian's feet made a clacking sound against the floor when he walked over to the boy who was pretending to be asleep. Scout took deep breaths, trying to copy what he thought he was doing when he was asleep.

He felt a light touch on his left cheek, over his wound, sending chills down his spine. It was difficult to keep his eyes closed, he wanted to open them and look at Sniper, but he had to keep quiet and still. How could Sniper think he would sleep through this? Like, seriously? He was planning on opening his eyes and scare the living shit out of him when he felt the other man's head closing up to his. What was he doing?

Scout almost forgot how to breathe when he felt the touch of lips against his forehead. He didn't, but instead he forgot to lie still. Sniper quickly hurried away when the boy moved a bit, but not more than a sleeping person would have done. Luckily, Sniper hadn't understood that he was just pretending.

Sniper had kissed his forehead. Scout's stomach was going crazy, sending fuzzy feelings and happiness through his entire body. He wanted to laugh, smile and run around or something, just do anything, as his body was filled with energy. Anything!

What if he had just turned his head against where he thought Sniper was, opened his eyes and said "hey" in the chillest way ever? It'd be awesome to see his reaction, his heart would probably stop for a split second, and he'd fall of his chair, and then they'd both laugh. Or Sniper would have left the room and not come back. It was probably best to lie still for a bit longer before he "woke up", so he somehow managed to lie still for five minutes, before he was unable to do it anymore. He slowly opened his eyes, yawned and stretched, like he was waking up.

"G'mornin', Snipes." Keeping calm was the biggest problem while talking. His body was filled with energy, both from what had just happened, and the fact that he'd been lying in bed for a goddamn week. "How're ya 'dis fine mornin'?"

"I'm fine." Grumpy as always. Jeez, it wasn't like it was impossible to smile, even if it was pretty early. To show how easy it was, Scout did it himself, not a wide smile, but the same self-sure smile he'd smiled to Medic yesterday.

"You won't believe what I dreamed tonight," he said, a brilliant plan emerging in his mind.

"Won't I?"

"No, it was some of the weirdest shit ever. Like, seriously."

"You're gonna tell it, or what?"

"Yeah, I am." Scout cleared his throat. This was the best thing he'd ever thought of. "Okay, so I was, like, runnin' around outdoors, like I usually – I mean, used to – do, when I saw this really cute chick, right, and I walked over to her, just like that."

"You walked over to her, and…?"

"I walked over to her, and she turned to me, almost as hot as me, and then…" He took a dramatic pause.

"And…?"

"She kissed me on the forehead. It felt so real, almost like someone was kissing it in real life." It was difficult not chuckling while telling this story, as Sniper's look was indescribable.
"But that's just ridiculous, right," he continued, putting up a pondering look, "I mean, who the hell could kiss me just like that without you noticing? Unless…" He looked with suspicion at the other mercenary.

"Unless…?" He had the straightest poker face Scout had ever seen.

"Nah, nothing, I was just thinking loudly." Scout bit his lip to prevent laughing at the look at the other man's face.

"Ai'ght, then, so you slept well?" How could anyone have a so expressionless face like this?

"Yeah, I did. Oh, and Sniper, I have something to show you!"

"What?"

Scout picked up the paper where he'd written the colour names the past day. It was always fun to show off things he'd done or made, this being no exception. He cleared his throat to make the whole thing sound even cooler.

"All right, so I was soooo bored yesterday, right, so I called Medic, who got really mad at me, I don't really see why, I mean Jesus Christ, he told me to call if I needed anything and that was exactly what I did, I was so bored and-"

"Scout."

"Oh, right. Okay, anyway, I got some crayons, right, and I saw how horribly boring the names they had, so I made some new ones."

Sniper raised a brow. "New ones."

"Yeah! My names are so much better than the old ones, I mean grass green? Who the hell calls a colour grass green? I think the world needs colours like Snot Yellow. Or Bruise Purple."

"Snot Yellow?" Sniper laughed sarcastically. "You're kidding, right?"

"Uh, no, I'm not." He sent Sniper a hurt look just to make him feel a bit guilty before he continued. "Emo Black and Kvlt Black."

"What's the difference? Aren't both… Black?"
"Yeah, that's the awesome thing! You see, one of them is, well, emo, and the other one is kvlt."

"Uh… Huh."

"What about this? Extraordinary Green White. It'll confuse the shit out of everybody." He smiled widely before he continued. Sniper seemed bored, but he didn't care, this was some of the most entertaining things he'd done lately, and he really felt like talking. "RED red, BLU blue."

"Wow. Original."

"Shut up, I'm almost done. Midget Orange."

"Midget Orange. I think that's enough thinking for you for a long time. It doesn't look healthy for you."

"It ain't. That's why I try to avoid doing it." He hit himself in his head to prove the point. "Anyway, how did the mission go?" Scout put away the paper and looked interested at Sniper.

"We lost." He didn't really seem to care.

"Yeah, no big surprise, really, as I wasn't there."

Sniper looked at him with a very serious face. "You're right," he said, frowning. "We need you at the team. We've been talking about healing you."

Oh, so now they wanted him back. Because they lost their missions? Because they lost their fucking missions?

"So you wan' me back 'cuz you keep losin'?" He sat up, and raised his voice. "Too bad. I ain't comin' back before I've healed completely, by my fucking self."

To his surprise, Sniper was smiling. "Pretty much as I thought."

"As you thought?!" It was some time he'd been able to yell at someone, and it felt pretty good at the moment. "AS YOU THOUGHT?! Wow, dude, you, like, know me soooo damn well! Whoooaaaa!"

"There's no need to be upset," the Australian said calmly, "we aren't going to heal you if you don't want to."

"Whoa, thanks, man, I appreciate it." Scout's voice was floating in sarcasm. The bed made a squeaking noise as he leant back again. "If they wanted me to heal myself, I am frickin' going to heal myself."

Sniper was going to say something, but got interrupted by a knock on the door, so he went and opened it instead. Scout tried to see who it was, but it was difficult as he was lying in a stupid angle for seeing what was on the other side of the door, as the door itself was blocking the view. The blanket and the pain in his back made it hard to turn so he could see, too, as the blanket was just plain out retarded and kept wrapping around him. It wasn't really tempting to throw it away, though, as the hospital patient dress thing he was forced to wear was horrible and showed a bit more than he wanted to.

Finally, the person on the other side of the door was let into the room. Scout's mouth was transformed to a smile from ear to ear when he saw who it was.