>>135 Alright, here it is then. I wrote this for Christmas two years ago, so if anyone reads it and finds it familiar, that would be why. This was beta'd by PAPAYADRANK, also. -- Another month passes, another letter comes. Scout rifles around under his bed past his porno, stacks of baseball cards, and the odd piece of dirty laundry. Eventually, he pulls out a dirty red shirt, underneath which is a shoebox. He takes ahold of it and yanks it out, sitting back off his knees. He plops down on his rump and crosses his legs, tugging the lid off this box. The sides of the box bulge out with the amount of things inside. Scout dumps the box on its side and the bulk of its contents fall out in one big clump. Scout peeled it apart carefully, bits sticking in places where grubby fingers of children touched them. It was all sheets of paper, with photographs and crude drawings scattered in-between. The text on the sheets was of a somewhat messy cursive scrawl, and every letter ended in a flowery signature and several rows on x’s and o’s. Scout ripped open his newest envelope, the one he has just received today. He unfolded the paper clumsily, tossing the torn mess that used to be the envelope on the floor. No pictures this time, but several pages of text instead. He began the process of glaring down at the paper, and it hadn’t been five minutes of this before he sighed in frustration and folded the letter back up. A sharp tap at the door snapped Scout out of his silent trance he had been in. He shoved the letters back into the box and forced he lid shut, then stood and kicked the box back under the bed. He rushed to the door and yanked it open. A grinning Texan greeted him and he threw on a grin in return. He had been impatient to read his letter, but it could wait until Engie said whatever he needed to say. Much to his dismay, though, right as he had begun his ‘sup, Engie?’ the man grabbed him – not like a violent grab or anything, just playfully – and tugged him out into the hall. “Where’s yer holiday spirit, boah?! C’mon down! We’re barbequin’ that bird that HQ sent us!†“Naw, Engie, I don’t think that’s such good plan.†Scout took a step back from Engie, but didn’t get very far with the man still holding onto his arm. The Texan was a sturdy fellow, after all, and Scout was just a skinny kid. Scout gave another feeble tug. “Not feelin’ too hot, y’know?†“Aw, c’mon, Scout. This’ll just be fer a lil’ bit! Ya can come back up here’n rest once we get done with dinner.†As much as he wanted to head back into his room and finish reading his letter, he knew he couldn’t. It would be too suspicious. He didn’t want any of the guys on his team to know that there was something in his room important enough to distract him like this. They might think it was something valuable enough to steal. And well... he’d rather avoid having his team read the letters his ma wrote him. All the endearments his ma used would only result in him getting called a momma’s boy. He wasn’t no wuss, so nobody was allowed to know about these letters, lest they get the misconception that he is. So instead of going back into his room to read his letter, he grinned and clapped Engineer playfully on the back. He reached back to pull his door shut. “Let’s go, big guy! I think I can stave off these crappy guts till after I get me some’a dat turkey!†-- After the turkey, Scout got in on some poker. Then he sat with everyone around Engie and his guitar to sing Christmas carols. Then they all had a piece of Heavy’s cardiac-arrest-inducingly rich chocolate cake. Then Sniper got out the stash of beer that he’d been hiding and shared it around. One turned into eight for Scout and soon enough he and Engie were stumbling back to his room. After he’d gotten a couple of beers into him, he had begun bragging to his team about his impressive baseball card collection. Engie had seemed mildly interested, and so Scout decided that he absolutely needed to see this magnificent selection of the cards. He figured the Texan could die happy once he had seen these cards. Engie was still fairly sober at this time, so he just gave a few low chuckles and went along with Scout’s enthusiastic baseball card babbling. He made sure to nod and laugh and ‘mhm’ in all the right places. He had nothing better to do, after all. He was fairly good friends with his team, Sniper and Soldier in particular, but they were both busy. Soldier was off on drunken rant to the almost-unconscious Demoman about the good ol’ days of wars he never fought in. Sniper, too, was having some drunken fun, only he wasn’t the drunk one in his case. Spy, who had been known to be sleeping with Sniper, was heavily intoxicated to the point where he was curled up in Sniper’s lap like some kind of girl, and was actively kissing the man. The only unusual part about this was that had Soldier been sober he would have already physically separated the two. He would not have any of the homo-sex nonsense in his base. His men would use physical discipline and learn to ignore the primal urges and ignore the temptation to find release through dirty sodomy. With his two closest friends inebriated or otherwise occupied, he went for the next best thing: Scout and his baseball cards. He was more a football type of guy himself, but on occasion he enjoyed going to watch a live baseball game back home. He had nothing on Scout of course, with his extreme love for the game. He was more interested in making sure Scout was safe than seeing this supposedly impressive stack of cards. Scout had been the only one to wander off on his own while drunk, and he had stated earlier that he wasn’t feeling well. Engineer would have felt bad if he hadn’t gone with the boy. Finally, they reached Scout’s room. The boy pushed the door open and almost fell on his ass when the weight he had put on the door was no longer supported by the door he had been leading against. Once he’d straightened up, he laughed loudly a few times. He took three steps forward and fell to his knees. He disregarded that his baseball cards were still out on the floor from earlier. Still, he dug around under his bed fruitlessly. In his efforts he sent the box from earlier skidding out into the middle of the room, where it stopped at Engie’s feet. The man took one look at Scout, now cussing and wiggling his way down under his bed, still searching for his baseball cards, which were in a pile beside his bed. He highly doubted that the boy would notice if he were to take a quick look in the box. The kid was drunk anyways... if Engie asked him about this tomorrow morning, he’d probably have no idea what he was talking about. He kneeled on the floor, shifting a bit on his kneepads and leaning forward to lift the lid off the box. He found what he considered to be quite a wealth of importance. This was Scout’s life. Letters from his mother and brothers. Photos of kids grinning and swinging bats, wearing oversized batting helmets and missing their front teeth. A small herd of Scout clones of various ages crowded around a woman. Scout’s mother, who looked fantastic for a mother of eight who had to at least be in her late forties or early fifties. By the time Engie looked up again from the photos, Scout was sitting across from him with his legs crossed and staring up at him expectantly. He half expected the boy to start yelling and swearing and punching him. The last thing he expected was for Scout to poke through the pile for a moment, selected folded-up few sheets of paper and hold it out to him. The confused Texan stayed down at the somewhat worn sheets in Scout’s hand, then up into the boy’s eyes. Just as he was about to ask Scout what in tarnation he wanted, the kid answered his unanswered question for him. “Read this ta me, Hardhat.†“... are ya sure, Scout? I did just into yer stuff without askin’ an’-“ “Naw, man. Quit with the apologizin’. I ain’t mad or nothin’. Just read it ta me.†Scout’s cheeks were a bit red by this point, but if you had asked, he’d have said it was the beer. He wasn’t blushing. No way. “... kid, ah’m sorry, I jus’-“ “Don’t Engie. Just read it ta me.†Engie paused a moment, threw Scout another guiltily apologetic glance, then took the letter from him and opened it. He placed it on the floor and smoothed it out a bit. Picking it back up and taking a deep breath, he was about to start reading. Instead, he snapped his head up to look Scout in the eyes again. “Why do you want me to do this for ya, boah?†Scout met Engie’s eyes for a moment then suddenly became very interested in something on the floor. He mumbled his response, which prompted Engineer to repeat himself. Scout muttered his answer again, and suddenly Engie’s brain was alive with the possibilities. Was Scout going to say ‘I like the sound of your voice,’ or ‘you talk all smart and I wanna hear you read it’? His own face warmed substantially, and he was glad that Scout wasn’t looking up when he asked his question again. Finally, Scout spoke up, and this time he met Engie’s eyes again. His cheeks were as red as his shirt. “’Cuz I can’t read too good.†Silence, then, “...you’re illiterate?†“Naw, man!†Scout was on the defensive now. This was getting bad. He was drunk and now he was going to get loud and violent. “Naw, I just can’t read big words’n I was havin’ trouble readin’ it eahliah, so just read it ta me so I can write my ma back.†Engie straightened out the paper again, and took a moment to clear his throat. He was feeling unbearably awkward about this... but the kid just wanted his help, right? What harm was there in that? Yeah, Engie decided. Scout’s not being weird, he’s just drunk. He probably won’t even remember this. Engie straightened up again, and took another deep breath. Just as he had gotten the first syllable of ‘dear’ out, he was interrupted by Scout grabbing onto his wrist and holding on. He regarded the boy, and after a moment he spoke. “Can ya help me write’er back, too? All’a my old letter were jus’ retarded, y’know? Like all short n’stuff. Can ya help me write’er a decent one?†Blinking for a moment, Engineer nodded very slowly, and before he even managed to start his verbal reply, he let out a yelp of surprise. His back met the floor as the boy tackled him and clung to his chest like he was his only lifeline. “Uh... Scout?†“Thanks, man.†Scout mumbled, voice muffled by his face being buried in Engie’s chest. Engie froze for a moment, then brought his arms up to give Scout an awkward hug, patting him on the back a couple of times. This isn’t weird. Scout’s drunk. Tonight will just be a blur to him when he wakes up tomorrow morning. Scout blinks into Engie’s red uniform shirt, then shuts his eyes and nuzzles his cheek in closer to the man’s warm chest. Engie can just keep it at ‘Scout’s drunk, ignore him,’ so long as it doesn’t make this awkward. What he doesn’t know is that Scout has only had half a beer. The rest he fed to Spy. He had made a deal with Sniper during dinner, and as long he was getting what he wanted, he was willing to make deals with even the creepiest, dirtiest, lankiest Australians. What Engie don’t know won’t hurt ‘im.