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It has been approximately a month since the Scout had joined the fortress, and since then, he hasn’t made a single acquaintance. They all BARELY tolerate him as it is, with his “ annoying ” rambling and all, he wants to make friends or at least get to know the people he’s going to be spending the majority of his time on the base with, but they all ignore and disregard him.
The closest he’s gotten to any sort of friendship with is the Sniper, you’d think a desolate man such as him would walk away from Scout as soon as he started talking about his wild stories, but, Sniper has just learned to tune him out and respond with affirmative grunts now and then. He’d like the guy to actually pipe in here and there for once, but he’ll take anybody who’ll put up with him in any shape or form.
Apart from forming relationships with his teammates, he’s learning how to adjust to the merc life fairly well, he’d say. The only problem is that because his main form of melee is a bat, it’s started to chafe and irritate his skin from swinging it so much. He never ran into this problem back in Boston because he never had to swing a bat this frequently, but the chafing is really starting to affect his performance from the itchiness and the blood coming from the wounds making his bat slip away sometimes and results in missing the target head on.
While putting away his belongings, he was confronted by the Soldier from a sudden loud screeching in his ears.
“ MAGGOT! DO YOU CARE TO EXPLAIN YOUR LOUSY WORK ON THE FIELD TODAY!!”
“ JESUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST- ” Scout yelled out while jumping back into the locker and falling flat onto his ass.
Scout looked up to see the Soldiers bulky frame standing over him, unmoving like a plank.
“What’s your fuckin’ problem, pal? Why’d ya jump on me like ‘dat?” Scout retaliated while slowly rising up from the floor to sit back on the bench to continue putting his stuff away.
“MY PROBLEM IS THAT WE BARELY SCRAPED OUT A WIN TODAY OUT THERE BECAUSE OF YOUR PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR FIGHTING!!” He continued his blaring voice into Scouts poor ear drums.
“Dude you’ve gotta be fuckin’ tone deaf man, pipe the hell down before I smack your ass, my ears are on friggin’ fire..” Scout said before placing his bat back into his locker and moving to walk away from Soldiers torment. Before he could, a large hand clad in a rubber glove descended onto his forearm to stop him from moving.
“ Soldier I swear ta freakin’ god, let me go before I- ” Scout started saying while moving to hit the person preventing him from leaving the locker room.
“ Oh.. Hey ‘dere Doc..” Scout finally turned around seeing his aggressor, the team Medic.
Scout hasn’t interacted with the guy much yet because of the horror stories his teammates have already divulged to him. The stories were bad enough to avoid interacting with the guy, but the way the dude acted on field, laughing maniacally with a grin plastered onto his face while cutting down his enemies with a bonesaw kinda sealed the deal to avoid interacting with him as much as Scout could.
“ Hello, Herr Scout. I am also quite curious to know why your performance has been dropping lately, it has been perfectly fine thus far, until a week ago.” Medic divulged.
Well, Scouts dodging of the Medic had to come to an end at some point, and as he saw it, Medic was kinda the only guy who could help him with his whole problem of his bat constantly rubbing his skin raw on field.
“ U-um, well Doc.. I’m kinda havin’ dis problem with my bat.. It’s constantly freakin’ hurting my hands and leavin’ it red.” Scout lifted his hands up for the Medic to inspect. He took both of the Scouts hands into his own and brought them to his face to scrutinize the wounds. Scout could feel the rubber latex gloves pushing down on his own trying to gauge the seriousness of his injuries.
Feels kinda weird..
“ Hmm.. I see you have quite the troubling issue. But do not worry, I have the perfect solution, please follow me to my Infirmary.” He said, letting Scouts hands drop from his own so he could take hold of his Medi-Gun to put away properly. Scout stood stock still for a second before Demoman rounded the corner to whisper something into his ear.
“Good luck laddie.. I wouldn’t wish visiting tha’ infirmary for even my greatest enemies.. He’ll drag you into some kinda experiment someway, somehow .” Demo then promptly walked away with his bottle of alcohol already in his hands. Seriously, how does the guy always have that stuff on hand?
“ Thanks for the heads up pal. ” Scout retaliated sarcastically.
Medic then appeared in front of him to prompt Scout to follow Medic to his workspace.
“ Come along meine freunde, this won’t take very long at all! ” Medic shouted while leading Scout away from the locker room to his office.
Pacing fairly quickly with his hands clasped behind his back, he led Scout down the hallways of the base to the Infirmary, finally arriving in front of a large set of double doors. Opening them to the Infirmary immediately chilled Scout to the bone, not just because of the frigid cold encapsulating the area, but because there were huge splotches of blood adorning every surface, even the ceiling. Now how on earth could one get blood on the ceiling? Medic then led Scout to sit on his examination table to wait for him while he gathered everything.
Scout suddenly started feeling incredibly anxious waiting on the cold surface of the table. This Medic guy is seriously a piece of work, those horror stories had to have been right.. Even if he was experimenting here, the blood should AT LEAST be cleaned somewhat.. But no trace of cleaning equipment, even touching the bloody mess, adorned the walls.
Scout had started biting and picking his lip out of habit, something that happened when he needed something to distract himself or got anxious. The biting and picking at his lips continued while Medic was searching for his things around his mess of an office.
“ Scheiße.. I really need to start cleaning up a bit around here. This is a rats nest..” Medic muttered to himself in a low voice.
The assault on Scouts lips continued until eventually..
“ Shit.. ” Scout exclaimed, wiping his lips with the back of his hand to discover blood had started to form from a particular hard bite to his lips. He then also started licking his lips to stop getting blood on himself, mouth filling with coppery tangy taste. Medic finally finishes rifling around in his desk to pull his rolling chair up to Scout to start helping him.
“Alright! Let’s get this problem fixed, shall we?” He lifted his face with a soft smile on his face. He then noticed Scouts bleeding lip and his eyes widened.
“Oh my, are you okay Scout?” Medic questioned while putting his supplies down next to him, lifting his hands to cradle scouts face staring intently at his wound. Scout became immediately flustered at this sudden action Medic pulled, staring wide eyed down at the Medics spectacled face, currently fixated on his lips. Then something he never thought would happen when he entered the wack doctors office, happened. The medic pulled off his rubber gloves and took Scouts face back into his hands, thumbs pressing on his lips to find where the wound was to get a closer look at it.
Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!! A guy’s touching my fuckin’ lips!!
Now Scout wasn’t remotely gay, not in any sense, sure he found the male complexion nice to look at, but he was straight, 100%, no doubt. But holy fuck.. was this not messing with him in some way. Now the Medic, although his personality from his knowledge wasn’t much to write home about, was a seriously handsome guy now that he thought about it more. Standing above his stature by a little bit, certainly more beefy than himself, chiseled, and very, very, well aged. Even though you could see the indents of wrinkles and eyebags, along with gray hair starting to streak his jet black strands. Was Scout seriously finding someone double his age, attractive?
This couldn’t be right.. he was interested in Miss Pauling.. like he seriously liked the gal.. but the Medic was seriously not terrible to look at.
The hands then left his face, breaking Scout of his troubling thoughts about his fellow teammate.
“Scout, could you tell me what happened to your lips while I was across the room?” He said lifting a handkerchief from his pocket to compress the wound and stop the bleeding, asking Scout to hold the object while he was waiting for his answer to the question prompted.
“ U-uh.. I got ‘dis habit of bitin’ and pickin’ my lips when I get anxious I ‘uppose..” Scout finally answering back to the Medics question. Staring at the handkerchief the Medic gave him, it was a beige color with a red cross and dove adorning the corner of it.
“I see.. from the look I got at your lips, I assume this habit happens quite often, am I correct?” He was talking about the several areas of Scouts lips being chapped and with several areas of peeled skin on it.
“Mhm.. I get anxious a lot, I guess..” Turning away from the Medic in some sort of shame.
“Although this isn’t the problem we were trying to fix when you entered my office, this is certainly troubling. That habit is incredibly unhealthy for your lips to go through. I suggest another way to distract yourself, instead of this lip picking.”
“Maybe something like tapping your foot on the floor, or tracing lines on your skin, maybe a bracelet to mess with around your wrist. Just some suggestions.”
Okay.. maybe Medic ISN’T as bad as people have warned me about. He really cares about my health and habits, actually helping me with something so small.
“Thanks Doc, I appreciate the consideration, I’ll try to find somethin’ else ta distract myself with If I can.” Scout smiled back, a big grin with a prominent tooth gap and buck teeth, dimples forming at the ends of his lips.
“Continuing on to our original problem, I believe the problem you have with your hands is being caused by the constant swinging of that bat of yours, chafing and irritating the skin holding it. Now that’s a serious problem for your current and future health, these wounds could very easily get infected with some dirt picked up by the wind or just the general dirtiness on the field.” Medic then picked up the item that was sat next to Scout at the beginning of this so-called appointment. It was some kinda bandage thingy.
“Here I have some athletic tape, very appropriately named, for it helps with situations such as this. If you wrap it around yourself everyday, I guarantee you it’ll stop the chafing you’re faced with. Give it a try.” Medic then handed Scout the wrap of it he was holding.
Scout then haphazardly started undoing the tape and continued with wrapping it around his knuckles very messily. By the end of the wrist, the taping was too tight and he couldn’t clench his hand correctly, along with several places on his hand missing the wrap.
“Is ‘dat how ya do it Doc?” Scout held his arm out for Medic to look at. Medic quickly assessed his inaccuracies and the reddening of his skin due to his circulation being semi-cutoff, and starting undoing the tape from around his hand.
“Huh? Why’ya undoin’ it?” Scout questioned the doctor.
“It’s very poor work, to be blunt.”
At least he was honest about it I guess..
“Well maybe ya should’a helped me first, dont’cha think?” Scout rolled his eyes.
“I really should’ve.” He chuckled softly.
“Here, let me have your hand again.” Medic reached out his hand for Scout to place his own hand onto. Medic then held his hand steady and spread so he could reach all the bases.
Skins pretty soft.. Scout thought.
Medic then began wrapping his hand with practiced finesse. By the end, the wrapping had covered every place on his wrist and hand without cutting off any blood flow.
“Try clenching and unclenching your hand for me, Hase.” Medic asked him.
Not questioning that endearment.. Scout started clenching and unclenching his knuckles and found that despite the fitness of the wraps, he could still make his fist into a ball.
“Oh man, thanks a ton for this, Doc! I seriously owe ya one, they’re super comfy!” Scout started testing his full range of motion with the wrapping secured onto his hand. He found he could very easily move his hand in all the ways he would need to.
“That’s good to hear! Here, let me do the other hand for you so you can test how they feel.” Medic then started wrapping the other hand for Scout, with the same efficiency and finesse he had with the previous one. Soon enough, he was done and had let go of the hand he was wrapping.
Scout started to touch his covered palm with his fingers, feeling the tape on his fingertips. He started clasping his hands together and doing other activities that involved the use of both his hands. He found that he was able to use his hands pretty easily.
“Here, let’s go test the new wrapping. Follow me to the training room, bitte.”
Training room? Why’re we going to the training room?
“Uh, yeah, whateva’ you say Doc.” Scout hopped off from the table and followed the Medic to the doors. Medic held out his arms and pushed the doors open, they walked through them and Scout looked behind, to see them still swinging from the force of the push.
“By the way, what does that ‘haste’ word mean? Why’dya call me dat?” Scout put his hands in his pockets while they hastily made their way to the other side of the base to the training room.
“ Hase.”
“It means rabbit or bunny, often given to someone who fits the term quick, or fast on their feet, very fitting for you, no?” Medic turned his head to face scout and gave out a small smile.
“Ey!! I ain’t no bunny Doc!!” Scout piped up to battle the Medics statement. Quickly catching up to the doctor in front of him to start walking alongside.
Eventually they reached the door to the training area, while Scout grabbed his Sandman bat from out of his personal locket, the Medic went to grab a training dummy for him.
“Let’s start, shall we?” Medic sauntered over to the bench area to observe Scouts swinging arms.
“Watch dis Doc, you’re gonna be blown the fuck away.” Scout stepped up to bat, getting in position with Sandman wound up behind him.
After 15 minutes of the continuous swinging, Scout was getting particularly flushed and starting sweating.
“.. Hah ..hah.. H-hey Doc? We uh, we done here?” Scout slouched over onto his bat and then promptly fell back to the ground, winded.
“ Hm? Oh, yes, that should be quite enough.” Medic then walked over to Scouts laying body, looking up, you could see his bulking body blocking out some of the light coming from the flourescents.
Medic offered out his arm for Scout to grab onto so he could get into a sitting position.
Once back into a sitting state, Medic grabbed his hands so he could unwrap them and see if the wrapping had helped with the chafing. After unwrapping both hands, he started observing the reddened areas, rubbing out circles on his palms.
“Does this hurt?” He questioned Scout.
“Ehh.. I mean a little bit, but dats only cuz’ of the rubbin’ from before I started swinging with dat tape on. Didn’t hurt one bit when I wuz’ swinging that bat, first time in awhile for dat!” Scout started laughing loudly.
“Well, I’m very glad I could help you out Scout. Now, follow me back to the infirmary so I can get you some ointment for your previous injuries.” Medic started dragging the training dummy back to its place in the room, and Scout picked his Sandman back up to place into his personal locker.
After leaving the training room, they sped walked back to the other side of the base to finish up their little meeting.
Once back to the infirmary, Scout sat back onto the examination table while Medic was rummaging through his medicine cabinet to find the ointment he needed. While Scout waited for the doctor to return, he raised his hand back to his lips to start picking at it again. But, before he could get any progress of picking at the newly healed skin again, the Medic had returned back to his side.
“Here we are, some tape for your hands tomorrow, and salve for your chafing, rub it on before you go to sleep tonight, ja?” Medic placed the salve into the Scouts hand for him to hold onto.
“ Oh, and , before you go, I grabbed a rubber band from my desk for you.” Medic then put the rubber band onto the young mans wrist.
“Uh, thanks for tha’ ointment an’ shit Doc, but, what do I use the rubber band for?” Scout started lifting the rubber band from his wrist and watched it smack back into place.
“Your whole lip picking problem, it’s unhealthy, the rubber band I gave you is one way to deter you from lip picking. Whenever you feel the urge to pick or bite your lips, please try playing with the rubber band. You can also use any of the other methods I suggested to you earlier.”
“I appreciate tha’ kindness dude, dis is seriously the most anyones done fa’ me.” Scout then wrapped the Medic into a sort of side hug to show his appreciation for the older mans thoughtfulness.
After a few seconds of initial shock, the Medic wrapped his arms around the Scout aswell and closed his eyes in the peacefulness of the moment. Getting Scout to be this kind to his fellow teammates was pretty hard work, but his Mom showed Scout proper manners for situations like these, and he intended to use them. He wasn’t so brash all the time afterall.
After a few seconds of embrace, they let go of each other, although pretty unwillingly.
“Alright hase, you go on and get out of here, that’s all I needed you for today. You are free to come into my quarters anytime you want to, though.” Medic shined a soft smile at Scout.
“Thanks Doc, tha’ others were making ya seem like an emotionless monster or somethin’. I’ll come visit you again soon tho’, I promise.” Scout hopped up from the exam table and made his way over to the large set of double doors to exit. Before he opened the door though, he made sure to turn around and offer a small wave to the doctor.
Medic looked back up from his desk and offered a small wave back to the young man, watching him leave the infirmary for the rest of the day. Eventually the Scout made it back to his room and put the salve onto his desk and looked at the clock. Almost dinner time, he must’ve been with Medic for awhile.
Taking off his hat and headset, throwing them onto the bed, and shaking his shoes off. After getting his accessories off, he hurried to dinner, hoping there was something good for tonight.
After making it to the dining room, he surveyed the area. As expected, Sniper opted to stay in his van and make his own dinner instead of joining the team. He looked at what was served for tonight, looked like a tray of lasagna, Engineer must’ve been the cook for today, he often was when possible, he was the best cook on the team with a variety of dishes in his catalog.
Scout quickly filled up his plate with as much as possible and grabbed a Bonk! soda from the fridge to drink alongside it. He found a seat next to the Demoman and Heavy and started digging into his meal.
“ Laddie, Medic ain’t do no experimentin on ya, did he?” The Demo asked Scout.
Scout paused from his messy eating and took a sip of his soda to make the food go down.
“ Mmf . He didn’t do nuthin, dunno what y’all were so scared about.” Scout started digging back into his meal looking across from him to see the Heavy and Medic chatting about something.
“Lad, he’s the most frightening thing on this team!” Demo shook Scout by his shoulders.
“ Yo! Quit that shit out man, he was seriously fine, literally one of ‘da most kindest moments I’ve shared wit’ someone on this base so far. I dunno how yous treatin’ him to make him so scary for y’all, but, I had a pretty good time with tha’ dude.” Scout grabbed the hands assaulting his shoulders and threw them off.
“ You serious? He always looks at us with such boredom on his face, dragging us in there for some wacky experiment and dismissing us as soon as he’s able to, what’s so special about you lad?”
“You’re talkin’ to THE Scout dude, of course I’m special, I’m special ta’ everyone, Gods Gift ya might say.” Scout gave an ignorant smirk back to the Demo.
Done with conversing with each other, Demo grabbed his empty plate and cup and delivered them to the sink for people on dish duty to clean up. After wolfing down the rest of his meal, Scout got up and put his dishes in the sink, luckily not on cleaning duty today.
“Thanks for the meal Engie!” Scout yelled his thanks across the dining room.
“Ain’t nothin’ to it, son.” Engineer waved him back.
Scout then jogged back to his room to go to sleep early, the day had been full of running around the base with Medic. He arrived to the front of his door, a big sign hanging on it saying, ‘SCOUTS ROOM, STAY OUT DORKS!!’ with a little angry face with its tongue sticking out, taunting whoever read it. He opened the door and walked into his room, locking it behind him, navigating the mess of a floor, he flopped onto his bed, throwing off the accessories he had laid on the bed earlier. Taking off his socks and belt, finally fully freeing himself fully.
He reached over to his night stand and turned on the lamp, taking the salve he placed on it earlier. He uncapped the container and took some of the viscous ointment into his palms to rub it into them. After getting them sufficiently covered, he put the cap back onto the container and returned it to the side of his bed.
He then turned off his lamp and laid back into his thin mattress, ready to end the day early.
Scout jolted out of his bed at the the sound of loud clanging coming from outside the room.
“ COME ON MAGGOTS!! GET READY FOR ANOTHER BEAUTY OF A DAY!! ” Soldier started screeching at the top of his lungs, the clanging noise coming from two pots being hit together. Scout rolled over on his bed and looked at the clock, 6 fuckin’ AM sharp, how is the Soldier able to do this every damn day?
Finally getting out of bed, Scout started taking off the rest of yesterdays uniform and threw the old clothing somewhere onto his floor. He picked up another set of clothing from his hamper for todays battle. He realized he neglected to shower the other day because of the Medics sudden appointment, one sniff of himself made him realize he should probably skip out on breakfast and go for a morning shower instead.
He grabbed the hand wraps from the nightstand, put a towel around his waist, and finally grabbed his uniform and equipment, ready to hurry up and take a quick shower before the battle started.
Hurrying down the halls, he finally reached the locker room, putting all his belongings on the bench, he headed to a shower stall. Luckily, since it was so early in the morning, nobody had showered yet so there was a ton of hot water for Scout to bathe in. After quickly making sure all the bases of his body were clean, he exited the shower and went back to the locker room to get ready for battle.
After getting dressed, the other teammates came funneling into the locker room. Scout saw Medic approaching him from the corner of his eyes, looking to ask a question.
“Scout, why weren’t you at breakfast this morning? It’s important for someone like you to get enough nutrients to run around the battlefield all day.” Medic asked.
“Had ta’ take a shower, forgot to afta’ our meeting, wuz’ too tried after dinner so I jus’ went ta’ sleep.” He answered.
“Ah, I see. I apologize for keeping you from your essentials.” Medic grabbed his Medi-Gun out of his locker and started putting it onto his back.
“You’re good Doc, don’t you worry ‘bout nothin’.” Scout patted the Medic on his shoulder.
“ Uhm.. by the way, could ya help me put on these wrappin’ things.” Scout asked, embarrassment clear as day shown on his face.
“Why of course hase, give me your hands and the wrapping.” Medic moved down to sit next to the Scout. Scout turned to face the Medic so he could help with his wrappings.
Taking both of Scouts hands into his, he started wrapping them as quickly and nicely as he did the other day. “You know, you’re going to have to learn how to do this eventually, I can’t always be there to help you with them.” He finished with the taping and allowed Scout to test his hand movement.
“Of course I know Doc, dis stuff is jus’ new to me, dat’s all.” Scout playfully pushed back.
“Mhm, good luck on the field today Scout. I’d be happy to hang out with you again sometime, just let me know.” Medic got up from the bench and offered a hand for the Scout to get up.
“Of course man, you’re a great guy.” Scout took his hand and pulled himself up with Medics help. After standing up, he watched the Medic get into position by the Heavy, ready to heal the big guy for the majority of the match.
Scout grabbed his bat from beside his locker and got into a batting position in front of the gate. He looked across from everyone else to wish the Medic good luck on the field aswell.
Five..
“Good luck today Doc!”
Four..
“See you on the field Scout!”
Three..
Scout turned back to the gate and got into fighting position once again.
Two..
Today was going to be a good day, he could feel it in his guts, he was excited to visit the Medic again after the battle.
One.
Here we go.
..FIGHT!!
After the final count from the Administrator, the gate had opened, and they all rushed out onto the battlefield.