Work Text:
Scout was not sick.
On the contrary, he’d been feeling great for the past few days—the scorching desert heat had been put on pause as uncharacteristically cool weather had rolled in. For almost a week the sky had been gray and overcast; a welcome relief after months and months and months of unbearable swelter. Scout had relished in it. It wasn’t often the temperatures dropped to something bearable during the long summer months.
The heat was coming back though. Which is why it made no sense that he would get sick now. So, logically, he wasn’t sick.
Sure, maybe he’d been sneezing a little more than what would be considered normal, but that didn’t mean anything. It hadn’t even been a problem at first—only happening every now and then—but as the week progressed it became more frequent. To the point where it was throwing off his rhythm during fights.
And, again, it was nothing more but an inconvenience. Yeah, his scores had taken a bit of a dip ever since his body decided that going an hour without sneezing was absolutely unacceptable. And maybe he was a little worried about the boss lady chewing him out for it (she was terrifying, which only made him respect Miss Pauling more), but as long as this didn’t become a regular thing, it wouldn’t be a problem.
He expected this whole thing to pass in a day or two. Over and done with, nothing to worry about. Except the days came and went and he only seemed to get worse.
On Thursday, after dying for the dozenth time from something that should have been an easy victory on his end, he finally decided to admit that something might be wrong. Not that he was sick, per se. Just that something was wrong. Luckily for him, pretty soon after that admission the voice of the Administrator had echoed across the field, announcing the end of the battle.
An unusually early time to end the fighting, but Scout didn’t question it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. Free time was free time. At dinner that night he learned the reason for the significantly shorter work day—a sticky bomb had detonated at a bad angle on one of the capture points. With the metal carcass being about a hundred years old, it had cracked and the resulting debris had fucked up the inner motors. At least that’s what Scout had taken away from the combined rambling of Engie and Demo.
Bottom line was, they were in a ceasefire until the point got fixed.
Which was great. Scout had been looking forward to some extra free time, though he hadn’t expected to actually get some. The only days off they got were during major holidays, and since it was still August, those were a few months away. Even one free day would be a blessing.
But because the universe hated him, it turned out to be anything but that.
On Friday morning Scout woke up feeling like—for lack of a better word—shit. Ever since the robot war, mornings like this one weren’t uncommon; sometimes he just woke up feeling bad for no real reason. And there was no way to deal with it other than forcing himself to get out of bed and start moving. This happening on the one extra day off did put Scout in a significantly worse mood.
He didn’t let that deter him though. Instead, he got up after only about five minutes of rolling around the bed (an almost record-breakingly short amount of time) and decided to go for a run. Going on a run always made him feel better. Except today it seemed. He would have to re-examine his definition of always, because this time running didn’t make him feel better at all. If anything, it only made him feel worse.
Early mornings in the desert tended to be cold, especially before the sun was up, but it had never been a problem for him. Winters in Boston always brought freezing temperatures and since Scout spent most of his teen years running around in the streets, he’d quickly become accustomed to the cold. Despite all of that he found the early morning chill particularly annoying that day. The cool air scraped against his throat, every breath he took feeling worse than the last. Combine that with the steadily building headache that pulsed behind his eyes and he was done with running only fifteen minutes later.
Despite the cold, a layer of sweat clung to his skin, clammy and gross. With small tremors still wracking his frame, he headed to the kitchen, hoping someone else was already up and making some food. The smell of something baking greeted him as he walked into the room. Soft humming danced in the air. A second later he noticed the person responsible for the noise.
“Hey Engie!” Scout rasped, voice surprisingly rough.
Engie startled and whipped around to face him, one hand resting on his chest. “Jesus Scout! You damn near gave me a heart attack!” He turned back to the waffle pan that sat on the kitchen counter, wisps of steam rolling off of it. “You’re almost as bad as Spy when ya ain’t talking like your life depends on it.”
Scout cleared his throat before speaking. “Sorry,” he said, walking to the fridge, voice much less raspy. “Didn’t mean ta scare you.”
Engie waved a dismissing hand in his direction. “Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it,” he said, moving a fresh batch of waffles onto a plate already piled high with them.
Scout opened the fridge, hand reaching for a can of Bonk!, only to pause as a shiver poured down his back. Maybe something warm would be better. He let the fridge door fall shut and instead turned on the electric kettle; he’d settle for tea today.
Normally he didn’t drink tea—it just didn’t taste right. He had no idea how some of the guys could enjoy the stuff. The only way he could get it down was if he added a bunch of sugar. Then it just tasted like, well, sugar, and at least that was better than the weird tea taste he disliked. Plus, all the sugar gave him a half-decent energy boost. Something he desperately needed right then.
The kettle clicked off and he grabbed the closest package of tea and put it in a cup, not even bothering to read the label. Engie gave him a sideways glance as he poured half a cups worth of sugar into his tea and Scout was expecting the usual exasperated comment about the ungodly amount of sugar he consumed. What Engie said instead was, “You’re drinkin’ tea? In this sort of heat no less?”
Scout didn’t know how to answer, because even he could agree it was weird. While the early mornings were certainly cold, once the sun had been up for a while the usual swelter set in quickly. By now he should have been feeling at least a bit hot. Instead the base, much like the outside, felt uncomfortably chilly.
Engie was still giving him a weird look and Scout shrugged in response, clutching the cup of hot tea between his hands. “I dunno, I just feel a bit cold, is all.” At Engie’s concerned look, he hastily added, “But it’s fine, don’t worry. I feel better already!”
Whatever God was watching over him obviously loved making him contradict himself, because right after he said that, a cough bubbled past his lips. He tried to play it off, pretend he was just clearing his throat. Judging from the look on Engie’s face, he didn’t buy it.
“Son, I think you might be getting sick,” he stated, as if it was the obvious explanation.
“Me? Sick? Pfff, no way. I’m a horse. Healthy and all that—definitely not sick.” Scout stopped by the dinner table and sat down, still clutching his cup of tea. “It’s just the dust and, ya know”—he waved his free hand through the air—“the dryness of the air or whatever. It’s making my throat itchy, that’s all.”
Engie looked at him like he was spewing absolute nonsense—which he was not—and then turned back to his waffles. “If you’re sure,” was all he said, and that was that.
And Scout was sure. He did not get sick just like that. He’d spent three hours sitting out in the snow once when he’d been thirteen, because he had forgotten his house keys and his Ma had been at work, and apparently his brothers had been off doing something else. By the time his Ma finally showed up he’d been practically frozen solid. She’d fussed over him the entire evening, scared he would get seriously ill. But beyond a runny nose nothing had happened. Scout had been perfectly fine.
All that was to say he didn’t get sick easily. He could count on one hand the amount of times he’d been sick. Half of those were a case of the sniffles, which were gone within a day or two. So the chances of him catching anything way out here in the desert were slim to none.
And that’s what he stuck by, even as his headache became more and more noticeable; even as the shivers increased in strength—you’d think they were in the middle of an earthquake with how hard he was shaking. His nose began feeling stuffy, which made him sniffle a lot. That, in turn, annoyed Spy enough to make him leave the rec room, which Scout totally counted as a win.
When evening came, Scout had been reduced to a quivering, sniffling mess. On the bright side, the sneezing was gone. It was instead replaced by an awful, dry cough that made his chest rattle; so actually not better. But Scout was nothing if not stubborn, so even while sitting in his room, buried in a pile of blankets—which solved one problem and created about a dozen new ones—he still wasn’t willing to admit this was anything more than a one day thing. An allergy suddenly acting up (even if the only thing he was allergic to was Spy’s bullshit; also peas) or something along those lines. It would work itself out by morning.
That turned out to be nothing but wishful thinking. He didn’t sleep well that night at all. His plugged nose meant he had to breathe through his mouth, which was a) uncomfortable and b) meant he got drool all over his pillow, which—gross. Heat pulsed beneath his skin, hot and uncomfortable. Made him feel like a bug beneath a magnifying glass on a hot summer day. Whenever he managed to fall asleep, he woke what felt like minutes later, as dry, heaving coughs tore up his throat and forced the breath from his lungs.
When the first hints of dawn appeared across the horizon Scout finally decided to face the facts and admit defeat.
He was sick.
With that out of the way, he dragged himself out of bed and down to Medic’s office. He didn’t expect him to be there yet (or maybe still), but Medic was nothing if not a man completely devoted to his work, so when Scout knocked on his door a reply came only a second later.
A few doves fluttered overhead as Scout pushed the door open a crack. Medic sat in his usual spot by the desk, signing papers. He turned his head towards the door, motioned with his hand when he saw Scout peeking through the doorway. “Herr Scout, come on in.”
Scout shuffled through the door, easing it shut behind him. Medic turned back towards the papers, as if Scout wasn’t standing just a few feet away. Nothing but the scratching of the pen filled the silence of the room. Scout reached for his dog tags, rolled them between his fingers, while he waited for Medic to finally acknowledge his presence. It was exactly like the doctor visits back home. He wondered if making patients wait awkwardly was common practice for all doctors.
Finally, after a good two minutes of waiting, Medic turned back to Scout. “I presume you’re here because of the cold?”
“How—“
“An educated guess. I’m only a few doors down from you and the walls are thin. Sounded like you had a rough night,” Medic swept his gaze over him. “Looks that way too.”
“Oh, sorry,” Scout said, voice like sandpaper.
Medic waved his hand in dismissal. “I was planning to get up early anyway. It’s Spy you should be worried about.” Scout grimaced, already picturing all the ways Spy could get back at him for ruining his sleep (however unintentional). “Now then, would you please take a seat here,” Medic gestured towards the examination table, “I want to check you’re temperature, just to be safe.”
Scout complied, hopped onto the table, fingers drumming against the cool metal as Medic went to rummage through his equipment. After a few moments he turned back around, holding a thermometer in his hand. He handed it to Scout, who obligingly put it in his mouth.
“Is this necessary?” Scout asked around the thermometer in his mouth. “Can’t you jus’ use your medi gun and, I dunno, make the sickness go away or something.”
Medic barked a laugh. “Make the sickness go away, ha. Now that’s a good one.” His smile faltered at Scout’s blank look. “Oh, you weren’t joking… Well, that’s simply not how it works. The gun was designed to heal physical injuries, such as bullet wounds or broken bones. Something like a cold is caused by a virus, which infects your cells. The medi gun would help with the infection and alleviate the symptoms, but it won’t be able to get rid of the virus itself. Your body has to do that on its own.”
Scout still didn’t completely get why the medi gun couldn’t heal him, but he doubted a more detailed explanation would help him understand the science behind the gun and its healing properties any better, so he just nodded. “So what you’re saying is, you can’t heal me.”
“Not in the way you are used to, no.” Medic plucked the thermometer from Scout’s mouth and spent a few seconds carefully studying it, before dropping it on his desk. “Alright, well, you have a small fever. Nothing much to be done there, your body will work through it on its own. You just have to let it rest. I can get you some medicine for the cough if you want. Drinking something warm will help too. Do not drink anything cold.” He looked at Scout pointedly. “That means no refrigerated energy drinks.”
Scout nodded. “Nothing cold, got it.”
“Let your body do the work for you. The fever should go down in a few hours. If it gets worse, you need to come to me immediately. Do you understand?”
Scout nodded again.
“Alright then, get out of here. And try not to infect anyone else.”
“Got it,” Scout said, hopping off the table and heading for the door. “See ya later.” There was no reply as Medic sat down at his desk, head already buried in a stacks of papers.
Scout spent the whole day cooped up in his room, trying and failing to catch up on missed sleep. He skipped breakfast as well as lunch, appetite completely gone, along with his energy and ability to concentrate on anything for more than five minutes. The latter meant his plan to sit in bed and read comics all day stayed as just that—a plan. That, Scout had decided, was the worst part about the whole being sick thing. The cold wouldn’t kill him, but boredom might.
Heavy had peeked through his door sometime during the day and brought him tea. Scout had taken a sip, realized that no sugar had been added to the drink, and left it to cool on the bedside table. He appreciated the gesture, he did, but there was no way in hell he’d force himself to drink it.
Medic had been right about the fever—it was gone by the second half of the day. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the cough that refused to let up throughout the entire day. It was scratchy and deep; felt as if his soul was trying to claw its way out of his sickness riddled body. Despite the horrible noises coming from his room, Pyro showed up around dinner time to keep him company. They played a few rounds of cards, until Scout could no longer focus on the numbers and symbols in his hands. At that point he wanted to do nothing more than sleep until the cold passed, body riddled with fatigue despite having spent the whole day in his bed.
So sleep he did. When he woke the next morning he was surprised to find himself well rested. While he definitely didn’t feel like one hundred percent yet, it was a major improvement compared to the previous days. That alone put him in a good mood. Things were finally looking up.
He actually went down to breakfast, though he didn’t eat much. He was just happy to feel well enough to spend some time with the rest of the team. He even volunteered to go with Soldier and Engie into town, being sick (ha) and tired of spending all his time cooped up inside of the base. Medic had looked like he wanted to argue about him going, but Scout quickly removed himself from the conversation with a promise to take it easy.
And he meant it. He just wanted to spend some time outside, do something other than roll round his bed all day. There was only so much staring at the same four walls a guy could take.
The day passed relatively calmly (except for when Soldier almost got into a full blown fight over a carton of milk) and Scout enjoyed the trip into town. An occasional cough slipped past his lips, but those were few and far between. He still felt drained by the time they got back, like he had done way more than just walk around and help collect groceries.
After dinner he stopped by Medic’s office to check in. The doctor took his temperature, listened to him breathe, before confirming that everything looked good and Scout should be back to full health in a few days.
It was a good thing too because the fights were back on on Monday and Scout was sure the Administrator wouldn’t take too kindly to him skipping work because of a small cold. So with a promise to take it easy for the next few days he left Medic to his experiments and went off to his room, ready to enjoy a full night of uninterrupted, blissful sleep.
Monday morning came and went without much incident. Small remnants of the previous days exhaustion still clung to his bones, but that quickly slid from the forefront of his mind as the day progressed. The battle passed like any other day—he killed a few BLU’s, died a few times, helped capture the enemy intelligence. There were a few moments when he was hit by a wave of dizziness, but he wrote it off as a post-sickness side effect that would go away on its own.
It was nothing major for sure.
At the end of the day he definitely felt tired (more than usually), but again—he’d just been sick, so feeling a bit tired was perfectly normal. He decided to just go to sleep earlier and let his body get some extra rest. Medic had said to take it easy for a few days. Sleeping would definitely be considered as taking it easy. Sure, maybe Medic had been referring to the actual fights, but he couldn’t slack off on those.
So yeah, going to sleep earlier would have to do. A few extra hours of sleep would definitely do him some good. Or that would be the logical assumption. Except apparently not, because the next morning came out of nowhere and hit Scout like a ton of bricks.
Upon opening his eyes he realized he felt like he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, despite turning in early the previous night. Nothing had bothered him during the night, he hadn’t woken up once. All evidence pointed to Scout having the sleep of the ages. He didn’t feel like it though. The same exhaustion he had felt yesterday still clung to his bones, except now it was ten times worse.
That made no sense.
Medic had checked him over, had said he was good. He should have been fine. Hell, he had felt better on Sunday, and he’d definitely still been a little sick then. So why did he feel like absolute shit now, when, by all accounts, the sickness had passed. Unless Medic had missed something.
Scout shook his head. No way.
Medic knew his stuff—he was a doctor, medical license or no medical license. If he had said Scout was fine, then he was fine. He’d probably just overworked himself yesterday. That made sense to him. Satisfied with his own reasoning, Scout got up, only to be immediately greeted by various twinges and aches. He felt sore all over, like he had spent the previous day doing nothing but mindless exercise under Soldier’s supervision.
But it wasn’t uncommon to feel sore after a full day of intense fighting. To add to that, he hadn’t exercised for three whole days. Pretty much all he’d done the entire time was lie in bed. So it was no surprise he felt achy. He couldn’t blame anything else but his own carelessness.
Breakfast passed as it usually did—with Scout chattering everyones ears off, and general ruckus between Soldier and whichever poor soul he had decided to terrorize over one obscure thing or another. The misfortune had fallen on Spy, but before the situation could escalate Spy had extracted himself from the unwanted interaction by simply cloaking and walking away.
Once everyone started getting up from the table and heading towards the teleporter that would take them to the field, Scout realized he had barely eaten anything. But the thought of eating right then made his stomach twist uncomfortably. Scout absolutely knew how important breakfast was, especially for him and his lightning fast metabolism, but he just couldn’t force himself to eat. Besides, skipping a meal for one day wouldn’t be that bad.
Throwing one last glance at the food still sitting on the table, Scout took off after everyone else. He didn’t want to miss the start of the fight and he still had to wrap his hands and check over his guns.
Thankfully he managed to get everything done just in time and he was only a few steps behind everyone else when the gate opened. It ended up being a good thing that he’d been at the back, because as soon as he stepped through the gate and the wooden roof gave way to blue skies he stopped in his tracks, eyes tightly squeezed shut.
The light pierced through his eyes and into his skull, sent a sharp pain down his spine, intense enough to make him stumble. With it came a wave of dizziness. He stood there for a while, breathing harshly, while he waited for the nausea to pass. Once the pain had dissipated he slowly uncovered his eyes, squinting at the brightness of the field. The glare of the sun still felt unusually intense, but this time it was somewhat bearable, now that he knew to expect it.
He blinked a few times and, pointedly looking at the ground, finally began moving. He couldn’t stand around by respawn forever. Someone was bound to die soon and when they came running out they would surely have question about why exactly Scout was just standing around instead of helping in the fight.
So off he went, gaze glued to the ground and a slowly building headache pounding behind his eyes. He somehow managed to kill the Medic he literally bumped into, but once he came across someone who could do a lot of damage, he was stumbling out of respawn within seconds.
The exhaustion he had felt in the morning had grown exponentially in the last hour, to the point where he could barely stand, legs unsteady. The slightest breeze could probably knock him over. His hands wouldn’t stop trembling and the headache had grown from a dull throb into an intense pounding.
Something was definitely wrong.
He felt bad. Like, really fucking bad. The only other time when he had felt this bad was when he’d pissed off one of the bigger kid’s at school and three or four of his friends had decided to teach him a lesson. His memory of the incident was foggy on account of having had the crap beat out of him. Compared to now, the pain then might have been worse, but that had been an actual physical fight.
Him feeling as bad as he was now, without any physical injuries was maybe a bit concerning.
Not that he could do anything about it. They were in the middle of a fight—essentially in the middle of doing their job—so Scout couldn’t just walk out. He’d have to power through it.
He leaned against the wall to help himself get up from the floor (when had he sat down?) and once he was in a somewhat upright position he took several deep breaths in an attempt to make the general feeling of sickness go away. It helped. A little.
When he was sure he wouldn’t fall over as soon as he tried to walk, he was off again, eyes entirely too unfocused to really hit anything.
Having been out in the desert for several years now he was used to the heat, but it had never felt anything like how it did now. It felt like molten rubber had been poured over him and now it clung to him like a second layer of skin. The heat, trapped between his body and an invisible forcefield, clogged up his throat. Made breathing a task instead of something that came naturally.
He kept to the shadows as much as possible once he found they brought at least some kind of respite. It also technically helped him ambush the enemy team (this he realized later). They didn’t notice nor did they expect him to be sitting in some dark corner, unusually still and quiet. Normally he was jumping all over the place, yelling insults and crude remarks in an attempt to irritate the other team. Right now even the thought of moving that much made his stomach churn uncomfortably.
For a while he did pretty well, all things considered, and though he still felt like absolute shit, it wasn’t getting worse. Or at least it didn’t feel like it. With the state he was in, he couldn’t really trust his own judgement.
Sooner than Scout would have liked the BLU team caught on to his ‘strategy’. Once that happened the enemy Pyro made sure any place dim enough to hide in, didn’t contain one sick-out-of-his-mind Scout. When they had managed to kill him three times in a row without him being able to get a single shot off, he realized he had to change tactics.
Except there wasn’t anything else he could do, really. He couldn’t attack from a distance, the gun he used meant for close combat, not sniping from halfway across the field. His usual strategy involved him being up close and personal with the enemy, but he had a feeling that pulling his usual stunts wouldn’t work with the condition he was in right now.
He didn’t really have a choice though.
So off he went, feet pounding into the sandy ground unsteadily, the scorching heat beating down on him from above. Any time he took a turn too sharply nausea rose up his throat, made his vision swim, as if he was on a boat in the middle of the ocean. It was overwhelming—the loud gunshots, people yelling, the blinding light—all of it. His senses were dialed up to eleven. A few times he found himself at the opposite end of where the fight was, only realizing he was in the wrong place when he noticed how quiet and bearable everything felt.
Thankfully no-one saw him make that mistake.
He tried to keep away from his teammates as much as possible, but with the general chaos around him, and how little attention he payed to his surroundings he wasn’t sure he managed. At one point he’d been running towards—who he’d thought was—the enemy Medic, only to have him turn around and start healing him. For a few seconds a pleasant coolness had enveloped him, washing away the aches and the nausea like they were nothing but pictures in the sand. He felt almost fine, mind clear for the first time in hours. Only now did he realize how much of his focus was being spent on blocking out the pain. As soon as it had come, the relief disappeared as Medic turned away, and everything slammed back into him so hard it felt like a physical blow.
A bit later he discovered that the dispenser provided a similar effect. After that he spent a lot of time glued to the machine, chasing the feeling of relief it brought. He stopped when Engie started sending worried glances his way, looking like he wanted to ask questions Scout didn’t want to answer.
Thankfully the effects of the healing fumes didn’t disappear immediately and for a while he felt half-alright, if alright meant getting black spots in his vision whenever he moved too fast. It actually seemed like he might be able to get through the entire day.
Then he ran into the enemy Soldier.
It looked like he had caught him at a bad moment because he’d been quickly trying to reload his shotgun, rocket launcher cast off to the side. Scout had grinned, figured it would be an easy win—he was definitely better with his scattergun than the Soldier with a shotgun. But (and there was always a but) in his excitement he didn’t notice the third weapon strapped to the Soldier’s back. As soon as Scout was within hitting distance, the man pulled out a shovel and whacked him in the head hard.
The hit knocked him down on his back, forced all the air right out of his lungs. Unbidden tears sprang to his eyes as he gaped, trying and failing to suck in a breath. All the aches he had learned to tune out came back full force, accompanied by overwhelming nausea. As the Soldier walked up to him to finish him off, all he could think was do not throw up, for the love of god don’t throw up.
He didn’t throw up.
Or he didn’t throw up there, by the feet of the enemy Soldier. He did throw up once he staggered out of respawn, the room spinning around him. He stumbled to the ground, had half a mind left to steer away from the puddle of vomit he’d left on the floor, and once he went down he realized he would not be getting up.
The room still spun, made him feel like he was on the worlds worst merry-go-round. Colors swirled in front of his eyes. Any other time it might have been pretty; now it just made him sick. Despite the cool floor at his back all he could feel was the intense heat coursing through his body, like pure fire had been injected straight into his veins. An overheated car battery—that’s what he felt like. A little longer and he was sure smoke would start rising from his body.
He rattled out a breath. Tried to pull in air, only for it to get caught halfway down his throat. Just like a beginning of a panic attack. But this was no panic attack. He knew those well enough to be able to tell the difference.
His eyes roamed across the room until they landed on the clock hanging on the wall. It tick-tick-ticked away, a steady rhythm. Nothing like the beating of his heart—all fast and erratic. Like it would beat out of his chest at any moment. His vision blurred, focused and unfocused, like a broken camera lens. Blobs of color danced across the ceiling. His head throbbed in time with his pulse, a steady pressure building behind his eyes. He glanced at the lamp and there was a burst of sharp pain. For a second he saw dozens of stars. Then everything went dark.
Maybe he passed out or maybe he just closed his eyes out of reflex, but everything that came after was one big blur. He didn’t know how long he lay on the floor before someone found him. He could recall hearing a voice, but not the words it had said. It’d been like he was underwater or behind a thick glass wall. Everything was muted.
Seconds or maybe hours later more voices had joined the first—all of them frantic. Scout got the faint impression they were worried. About what, he didn’t know, nor did he care. The sun had taken residence in his chest—that was all he could think about.
And then the heat disappeared, replaced by an agonizing cold. Water splashed around him, the freezing temperature burning across his skin. He wanted out. Hands held him down, buried him in ice. Someone was shouting, loud and distraught and there was a murmur of voices, quieter but still frenzied.
Scout stopped struggling.
Every last drop of energy drained out of him and he went limp; let darkness claim him. The pain disappeared and with it, everything else. For a while he floated through a black abyss, void of anything but a faint impression of warmth. Nothing like the angry fire that had consumed his mind.
He felt sunlight on his cheeks, a soft blanket around his shoulders. Steady hands rocked him back and forth. A fain smell of smoke tickled his nose. Someone was humming. It felt safe, familiar. Like home.
Then the darkness was receding, the memory falling away from him. He reached out his arms, tried to clutch at something, anything, as long as he could keep a piece of the warmth with him. There was nothing to grab though, and down, down, down he fell.
Scout lurched upright with the feeling of falling, limbs flailing every which way, only for strong arms to quickly push him back down.
“Calm down, everything is fine,” said the presumed owner of said arms.
Whose voice was that? Medic’s? Why was Medic in his room?
He blinked open his eyes only to immediately shut them against the harsh light. He held them closed for a moment, then eased them open bit by bit, adjusting to the brightness of the room.
First he noticed the thin, white blanket draped over him. The blanket in his room was teapot blue (the team had had a kick out of that) which meant he was not in his room. After that he noticed the medi gun positioned to his right, aimed right at him. And only then did he recognize the familiar feeling of being healed. Which was when he realized he actually felt good. Better than he’d felt in days.
“Good to see you awake.”
Scout glanced towards the voice and sure enough, there was Medic, standing by his bedside, hands clasped behind his back. There were specks of blood on his shirt. He was in Medic’s office.
A cough slipped past his lips when he opened his mouth to speak. His throat was really sore, as if he’d eaten glass shards for breakfast. He swallowed a few times in an attempt to clear it, before he croaked out, “Hey, Doc.”
“I had to put you on the ventilator,” Medic said, answering the unspoken question. The ventilator—there had been a tube stuck down his throat. Scout grimaced at the thought of that.
He sat up in a more comfortable position. “How long was I out?”
“About a day. It’s Wednesday right now. I had to sedate you.” Medic looked at him hard. “Any particular reason why you didn’t tell anyone you weren’t feeling good?”
Scout reached for his dog tags, only to realize they weren’t around his neck. Instead he settled his hands on the blanket, fiddling with the hem. He was pointedly not looking at Medic. “I-I dunno. It wasn’t that bad at first,” he shrugged. “You said I was good, so I thought—“
“You thought you couldn’t get sick again?” Medic sat in a chair by his desk, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. “Scout, just because I said you were fine, doesn’t mean you should keep acting as if you’re fine when you are clearly not. What happened to taking it easy?”
“Oh, you know me. The only time I’m going to be taking it easy is when I’m dead,” Scout joked, trying to lighten the mood. Medic gave him a flat look.
“You almost did die. You are lucky we have respawn. On top of the fever coming back you also got heatstroke. The system can bring you back only so many times and by the time we found you, your organs were already beginning to fail.”
Scout’s face fell, the gravity of the situation sinking in. His mouth felt dry. “Oh. Well then, thanks for, ya know, not letting me die.” He tried for a smile. It ended up coming out as more of a grimace.
Medic raised an eyebrow. For a second it looked like he was going to say more, but then he just shook his head and turned towards his desk. “Get some rest. Almost dying doesn’t excuse you from work tomorrow.”
“Yeah, alright,” he said, maybe a little too casually, and settled back against the pillows.
He almost died. What a foreign concept–dying seemed so insignificant when he only ever experienced it in a mock sort of way. A few seconds of darkness and then he was back, walking it off as if nothing had happened. Even now, after almost dying permanently, he felt nothing but a distant sort of unease. He decided to not linger on his almost-death for too long—it wouldn’t do him any good anyway. A different thought popped into his head. “Wait, what happened after I passed out yesterday? We were still in the middle of a fight.”
“Ja, we were. We lost on account of having to deal with your whole situation. The Administrator is docking your pay.”
Scout groaned. The universe really did hate him.