Work Text:
The New Mexico summer heat was not in Scout’s favor today. Fine, whatever.
Scout had to change out his binder for a sports bra halfway through the match because he couldn’t breathe. Fine, whatever.
The locker room was cramped, so Scout had to stand in the corner with his arms crossed, desperately hiding his unbound chest from his teammates. Fine, whatever!
All he would have to do is pray his teammates were too exhausted from today’s humiliating loss to question his silence, wait for them to leave, then shower and change into his comfortable clothes (and a compression tank top or two). Simple plan. Nobody would see the subtle curve of his chest beneath his work shirt; nobody would catch onto what he was.
Huffing, Scout forced his eyes shut as his leg impatiently bounced. God, could the guys move any slower? If he didn’t know any better, he’d guess that they were all trying to piss him off! Eventually, the low chatter of his friends began to fade away with their footsteps, off to lick their wounds and forget about the match as quickly as possible.
But when Scout still felt a pair of eyes on him despite the locker room supposedly being empty, he tentatively opened his own. As soon as he did, he was met with two dark, hollow circles staring back at him. Letting out a very un-manly squeak of terror, Scout pressed himself against the wall he was already leaning on, taking a defensive pose as he glared at his teammate.
“Jesus, Mumbles! You ever heard ‘bout personal space?!”
The teammate in question did not respond; typical. Scout grimaced as he slowly inched to the side, away from Pyro’s unwavering stare. Its head followed his movement while the rest of its body remained motionless. Despite their affinity for fire, Scout felt a chill run up his spine as he looked into Pyro’s mask.
A beat of silence passed between the two until Scout realized he wasn’t crossing his arms anymore and quickly remedied that, attempting to take on an air of nonchalance as he cleared his throat.
“W- well? You got somethin’ to say? Or are ya just gonna keep standin’ there like a creep?”
More silence. Scout scowled; there was no getting through to this guy... gal? Whatever! There was no getting through to it, no matter what Scout did or said. Despite that, Scout was ready to spout something snarky before Pyro cut him off without saying a word. The pyromaniac stepped toward Scout just as he opened his mouth. Then they took another step, then another. It wasn’t until they were face-to-mask with Scout that they stopped moving.
Scout felt his heart jump into his throat as Pyro brought one hand up and... poked Scout’s chest with its index finger.
“Wh-”
Scout was confused for no more than a few seconds, then his face paled as his mind came to a chilling realization. Pyro knew. He didn’t know when it happened, let alone how, but Pyro found out what he was. Their finger poked Scout’s chest again; he swore he could feel the hatred pouring from it.
Oh God. Oh God. Pyro knew. Pyro knew that Scout was transsexual, and it was going to tell everybody. It would find a way to expose Scout’s secret to the rest of the team. Scout would be ostracized from his teammates — his friends. They’d all know that he was just a girl amongst a group of men, pretending to be one of them. He’d be kicked off RED. He’d be sent back to Boston a failure.
A part of Scout wanted to immediately begin begging for mercy, try to appeal to whatever morals the maniac in front of him had. Maybe if he told it that he’d do anything for it to keep this a secret, it would agree.
But as Scout’s brows furrowed and he steeled himself, he shoved that part back into the deep crevices of his mind and smacked Pyro’s hand away.
“Alright, listen here, you- you- just listen!”
Mimicking their previous action, Scout poked his finger into Pyro’s chest. He ignored how fast his heart was beating, how he felt like he could faint at any moment as he stepped forward into Pyro’s space.
“I dunno what ya think you saw, but it wasn’t there, you got that?!”
Too caught up in his moment of bravery, Scout hadn’t realized how loud his voice had gotten as he took another step toward Pyro after they took a step away from him. Screw being rational, screw potentially poking the bear in front of him. This wasn’t leaving the locker room, and Scout was going to make sure of that.
“You ain’t gonna say anythingto anyone! If you do, I’ll- I’ll-” Scout fumbled around for a fitting threat. He didn’t have a clue what would scare the freak in front of him, if anything at all. When he couldn’t think of one, he went with ol’ reliable as he lowered his voice, trying to sound as threatening as possible.
“You don’t wanna know what I’ll do to you.”
Did Scout feel a little bit bad about threatening someone he sorta considered to be his friend? Maybe. But this wasn’t something he could play around with. Once he realized that Pyro had yet to respond, or do anything for that matter, Scout stepped away from them with a huff, clenching his fists, letting the locker room fall into another strained bout of silence.
Without a single sound, Pyro turned from Scout and left the locker room, its suit quietly squeaking with every step. Once he knew he was finally alone, Scout let out a sigh of relief and ignored the guilt swirling around in his stomach. He had to do that. There was no other way to ensure that Pyro wouldn’t have gone around spilling his secret to everyone they came across.
Shaking his head, Scout shoved all thoughts about Pyro away as he approached his locker. Take a shower, get into comfy clothes, hide his chest. That’s all he had to do, and then he could forget any of this ever happened.
Hopefully, Pyro would, too.
They had never seen Scout that angry before.
Of course, they had seen Scout being mad, like when the team is losing what should be an easy match, or when his teammates are acting like ‘freakin’ morons,’ as he would put it. But the anger he had toward Pyro was something it had never seen in him.
The door to its bedroom shut with a soft click, leaving it alone in the dark. Most days, they preferred to keep their lights off, but they decided to turn them on for this occasion. They had to do something important.
Clearly, Scout had gotten the wrong idea from Pyro pressing its finger against his chest. Pyro had expected some miscommunication, but not enough that it would result in Scout vaguely threatening them in the locker room (not that they were particularly scared of him, but the thought still counted). Something had gone wrong. Pyro wasn’t sure if it was because of what they did or what Scout was thinking; it was likely a combination of the two.
Either way, something had to be done. Pyro didn’t want Scout thinking that they were some creep or that they wanted to out him to their team. All it wanted to do was let Scout know that it knew that he was transsexual, and that his secret was safe with them because they were as well.
Walking over to their desk, Pyro picked up a few crayons and a piece of paper. Words weren’t their strong suit, they never had been, but drawing was. Scout needed to know their true intentions; they didn’t know what they’d do if they could hang out with him anymore.
Determined not to lose its best friend, Pyro began furiously scribbling and drawing.
Yeah, great work, Jeremy, Scout scolded himself as he got settled into his room, shutting the door behind him and plopping onto his beanbag.Bitch and yell at one person here who doesn’t find you annoying, that’ll really work out in your favor, smartass.Snatching a chewed-up pencil and sketchbook off the floor, Scout began to mindlessly sketch, letting his hand do the work as his brain continued to mock him.
They prolly didn’t even mean anything when they poked you! They’re just... weird like that! Scout’s hand sped up, graphite beginning to crumble under the pressure he was unknowingly applying to it.
Now they’re never gonna wanna talk to you again, and you’ll be back to square one! Nobody here who would want to listen to ya talk at them, nobody here who would want to hang out with ya, nobody here who would want to- A sudden snap caught Scout’s attention, forcing him out of the never-ending loop of self-beration as he looked down at the paper.
The graphite had snapped while he was practically trying to stab it through the paper, resulting in a gray mess all over his drawing, not that it was good anyway. Without realizing it, Scout had drawn himself yelling at Pyro in the locker room. Sighing, Scout threw the now-useless pencil back onto the floor and let his sketchbook slip out of his hands with it.
God, I’m such a dick.
Right when he was about to go back to self-loathing, a new sound caught Scout’s attention: soft knocking at his door. A pattern he had heard and come up with months ago.
Two knocks, then a tap with the side of their hand, and a final single knock.
Scout wanted to pretend he wasn’t there, shrink back into his beanbag until he was nothing but a piece of dust. Of course Pyro had to come see him now of all times. It was probably here to finalize the end of their friendship, maybe with a good punch to the face, maybe with a written message telling Scout how horrible he was.
Pyro hadn’t even done anything besides knock at the door yet, and Scout was already prepared to begin mourning the loss of his only sorta-friendship with any of his teammates. Maybe he could go try getting through to Sniper again? Honestly, talking with — well, it’s more akin to talking at him — seemed like it was a lost cause most days. Still, if Scout could just-
Two knocks, side-of-the-hand tap, one knock.
Right. Reluctantly, Scout got up from his beanbag and shuffled to his bedroom door. This was it. As he opened the door to Pyro on the other side, he shut his eyes and braced for impact.
And then promptly opened them again when he heard nothing but the shuffling of papers.
He was met with the sight of Pyro going through about four papers in their hands, clearly trying to decide which one to show him first. Desperate for the silence to end, Scout cleared his throat and spoke in a murmur.
“Uh, Py, I-”
When his friend held up its index finger before he could say anything meaningful, he snapped his mouth shut and stood there awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Yeesh, they’re real pissed at me... didn’t even let me say anything. It only took a few more seconds of silence until Pyro settled on an order to show their papers and held up the first one:
A drawing of themself with the text: ‘im very sorry, scout!’ followed by a frowny face.
Scout’s brows furrowed. It was apologizing to him?
“But-”
Pyro held up another picture: this time, a drawing of themselves with Scout by their side. At the top of the paper, ‘i didnt mean to scare you!’ was written. Now Scout was even more confused, but he knew better than to try to speak again when Pyro pulled up its third paper.
A drawing of it and Scout hugging with a heart and rainbow in the background. ‘your secret is safe with me, scout!’ and a smiley face written on the rainbow. Something in Scout’s chest ached, and although he was a grown man who killed for a living, he felt tears threatening to well up at the silly little drawing. He forced them away with a shake of his head and watched Pyro pull up the last picture.
It was just the drawn version of Pyro pointing at the viewer, at Scout, with one hand and themselves with the other hand; the sentence ‘im like you!’ was written above them.
Scout’s eyes widened as he looked from the paper to Pyro, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, struggling to come up with something to say. For what felt like the hundredth time today, Pyro stopped Scout from saying anything while making zero noise, simply leaning forward and pulling him into an embrace.
It took him a few seconds, but Scout eventually wrapped his arms around his friend. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been hugged by someone who wasn’t his mom, and despite the weird texture of Pyro’s suit, Scout would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the hug.
“Aw, jeez, Mumbles, I’m... I’m sorry, too, y’know,” Scout mumbled into their suit, holding on to them as if they were about to disappear any second.
“You said you’re- are you a guy who used to be a girl, too, or...?”
Pyro shook its head.
“Uh... a girl who used to be a guy?”
They shook their head again. Scout was at a loss for words to describe what Pyro could potentially be, so he settled on-
“You... you’re just whatever?”
That guess elicited a giggle from Pyro, the sound muffled behind their mask, and they nodded. Maybe that wasn’t the exact word it used, but it liked Scout’s word better than anything it had called itself before. Just whatever. Scout chuckled along with them, shaking his head and squeezing them tighter.
“I guess that makes sense. You seem like you’ve never really cared ‘bout all that crap...”
He let his voice trail off so he could appreciate the hug for a little longer. After a few more minutes of silence, Pyro pulled away from the hug and grabbed Scout’s hand instead. Now that they were sure that he was their friend, they could go back to drawing and hanging out with him!
As Pyro dragged Scout in the direction of its room, Scout found himself letting it take him. Sure, Pyro was weird and scary at times, but they also understood Scout in a way that nobody else on the team could. It’s like the drawing said.
They’re like Scout.
They’re fine with being a whatever.