1 . Name: Roja @ 2011-11-29 13:29

Delurking with this thing. Part one of god knows how many. I started writing it a couple months back, and then I stumbled across a prompt on one of the request threads about Pyro being ashamed of his appearance because maybe he was kinda "feminine." It caught my eye, and it kind of jived with what I already had plotted out for this story anyway, so I ran with it.

Smut is forthcoming. Also I am shit with accents, so I didn't even bother. Not much, anyway. Sorry. Writing nonsensical pyrobabble is hard enough, man.

~

WALKING THE LINE

~

Engineer's machines have always fascinated the RED Pyro. Their intricacies, their complexities. The way they whirr and hum, the sounds steady and comforting between sporadic bursts of gunfire from their other teammates.

He sometimes watches RED Engineer's hands as he tinkers, but only when he's sure the man is so immersed in mental schematics and circuitry that he doesn't notice the additional presence. Though Engineer only wears one glove, Pyro imagines both hands are rough, with calloused palms and dexterous fingers that can repair a sentry and break a Spy's nose with a wrench and flick of the wrist. Those hands belie his scholarly nature, save for when they graze the strings of his Gibson.

Pyro is very protective of Engineer's things, though he's reluctant to admit it. It's a practical protectiveness, of course. He sweeps away grenades and bombs with the sort of meticulousness that would otherwise be reserved for Soldier and his pristine medal collection. Perhaps that is why he is so annoyed when, during a BLU push for RED's intelligence, an errant sticky bomb detonates and blows pieces of dispenser and sentry in a hundred different directions.

Mending the sentry keeps Engineer too engrossed to be aware of the danger. Pyro barely has time to notice, barely manages to grip Engineer by the harness of his coveralls and yank him out of the way before the blast sends them both over a ledge of 2fort's second story. They crash into the dirt, and Pyro sees black.

When he awakens, he is not in the respawn room. He writhes as searing pain grips the left side of his body. Engineer presses Pyro to him with an arm, drags them out of the hail of bullets, into a corner where they slump against the wall. Pyro leaves behind a trail of blood.

"Dammit." Engineer's voice wavers between frustration and apprehension. "I didn't ask you for no heroics."

Engineer touches Pyro's chest. No, wait, that's not right. He touches something on Pyro's chest. Something in him that's pierced his suit. A piece of shrapnel is lodged between his sternum and collarbone. He can feel another somewhere in his left thigh. Engineer's fingers graze the tender spot, and Pyro howls. Beneath the sound of artillery and the filter of the fire mask, his cries sound like pathetic mewls, but the pain eclipses the embarrassment.

He tries to smack Engineer's hand away, but nothing happens.

"Uhr khrnt mhhv," he says. "Urh khrnt..."

Engineer shushes him sharply. "No need for talkin'. I got you now, you hear? We're gonna get you fixed up real quick."

Pyro murmurs, tries to tell the man to go away and let the respawn system do its work, but his eyelids feel so heavy. He listens to Engineer holler for the Medic and slowly sinks back into unconsciousness.

~

Later, Pyro finds himself in the infirmary, laid out on the Medic's only patient bed. Orange light filters in through the small infirmary window and reflects on the tile floor as the sun slips below the horizon. How long has it been?

Gooseflesh crawls along his skin from the cold kiss of metal rails on either side of him, but he's so so hot. It's an eerily familiar feeling, and for a moment he chokes, thinking himself ten years old again and wracked with gasps and coughs that have confined him to bed, until the sound of his breath filtering through the respirator snaps him back to reality.

He can pull his arm away - that's good. He flexes willowy fingers, tests them as best he can without dislodging the IV line in his hand, then realizes with panic coiling in his gut that his gloves are gone. The top half of his suit has been peeled down to the waist, and he is bare-chested, wrapped in a small amount of bandages and medical dressing and not much else.

He brings a hand to his cheek to confirm his mask is still in place. Even now, he's so hot. Not like the heat he feels from the flames that dance and lap at his flesh. This is a different kind of hot. This warmth makes him want to kick off the blankets, but he's not so foolish.

"Do not worry," Medic says as he appears in Pyro's view. "I only removed what was necessary to treat the injuries." His eyes are steeled, mostly unreadable behind his glasses, but it still feels like he's scrutinizing, making mental notes to file away for later use in some experimental procedure. "The medigun has taken care of your internal damage, but there is a pesky little infection here." He indicates Pyro's chest, where a large patch of gauze beneath his collarbone is tinged with blood. "Most unfortunately, it is not very effective against sepsis. We must let this one heal on its own."

He leans in to check the dressing, but Pyro recoils from his touch and jerks the blankets up to his chin.

"Herr Pyro, I understand your concern, but you must allow me to check your sutures. You must not let the infection get worse."

Pyro shakes his head.

"Come now," Medic says, mouth a grim line, "do not be childish. You have nothing I haven't seen before, I assure you."

"Drrn hudda. Urh krrn dhrr ut mhudda."

The doctor closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Fine, fine." He waves a hand in dismissal. "If you must." Removing a syringe from his medical tray, he draws liquid from a small vial and pushes it into Pyro's IV line. "This is a mild sedative. It will control your agitation. We cannot have you reopening your wound, Herr Pyro. I suggest you take this time to rest."

"Urhm nhht trrrrd, dhk. Uhr wrrrt mnph khrrrs nhuh."

"Don't be stubborn." Medic puts a hand uncomfortably close to Pyro's neck, no doubt feeling the pulse thundering beneath the delicate skin. "You are still feverish. I will take your axillary body temperature again in one hour. If I do not find you resting when I come back, then perhaps the thermometer will be finding a new home further below the belt, ja?"

"Nhhr," he whines.

Medic removes his hand and presses a cold, damp towel in its place. "There is someone who wishes to see you, if that would help you relax."

Pyro's beginning to feel a bit sleepy, a bit fuzzy headed. He must not have heard Medic correctly. "Mph?"

"Ja," Medic says. "I will send him in later."

Not like this, he won't. Pyro wiggles, tries to shimmy an arm back into his chemsuit, but Medic seizes him by the bicep and waves the thermometer menacingly.

"Relax."

~

Pyro spends the next few hours slipping in and out of consciousness. His dreams are more vivid and wild than ever, thanks to his heart, which pumps the medical concoction through his veins at an almost violent rate. In the dream world, he sees a fireball engulf Engineer, watches the flesh melt off his hands until there's nothing left but sinew and bone. He tries to reach for the man, tries to shield him, tries to do anything other than howl in powerlessness.

What the hell is wrong with him? RED team and BLU team, they die and respawn over and over again in a single day. Seeing any one of his teammates in a puddle of blood is very sad, but whenever Pyro comes upon Engineer's body in pieces or riddled with bullets, he feels an unusual loneliness. And sometimes when he finds Engineer prostrate with a knife in his back, it's like someone's taken their shotgun and fired it point blank into Pyro's chest.

Why didn't Engineer just let him die and respawn? He hates being in this place. He has not felt this way since he was a child, long before the burns and the smoke inhalation had first landed him in a hospital bed. It's a desperate sense of powerlessness, like the hand of his mother petting his soft hair, heavy on his back, fingers tracing the bones of his spinal column as another fit of coughs seizes his lungs.

It's a feeling he's been fighting back his whole life, forcing it into submission first with his father's zippo lighter, and later with hands wrapped tightly around the barrel of a flamethrower, finger squeezing the ignition in desperation.

Destruction has always been his strength, his means to shut out the ones who think him wimpish. Feeble. Defective.

Since he came to RED, it has been different. The urge to protect has been overpowering his urge to destroy, but sometimes it still slips out.

He must destroy this feeling of impotence.

Sometime during the night, he wakes to find someone at his bedside. It's Engineer, slumped forward in a chair, his helmet and goggles abandoned to the floor. Pyro's hand is in the other man's one-gloved grasp. It's not until Pyro tries to yank it away that he realizes Engineer is asleep. The sudden movement jolts the other man awake, and fingers involuntarily tighten around his wrist.

The sensation of another person's skin against his hand is foreign. It's been that way for decades, since his mother's passing, and maybe even before that. Rugged, ungloved fingers trail slowly up Pyro's arm, over the hairless skin - any that's ever grown there has been singed away permanently - and the glossy pink burn scars that snake their way beneath the blankets. He tries to suppress the involuntary shudders and is thankful for the mask that hides his reddening cheeks. His arm is sturdy but slender, his skin sallow from years hidden away in a fire-retardant suit.

Ashamed, he pulls away and jerks the covers further over himself, trying to hide any trace of naked flesh. His arm had been the only thing bared to the other man, but even that was more than he could handle. He itches for the heavy comfort of the chemsuit.

"'m sorry," Engineer says. "I always suspected you were a little thing, but, heh."

Pyro huffs, indignant. He can't help the way his chest puffs out, shoulders squared beneath the blankets, until he feels nearly as broad as the other man. "Shtll tlrrrn yrr."

Engineer snickers. "I forgot to say thank you before. Was so shook up back there, I just..." His dark eyes are still heavy with sleep, but the smile he gives Pyro is genuine. "Thanks, partner."

Something wells up in the back of Pyro's throat. He can't think of anything to say.

"Someone as fine as yourself shouldn't have to end up here because of my carelessness. I'm made of sterner stuff than that."

The towel Medic left around his neck is now tepid. It tumbles to the floor as Pyro tries to sit up without dropping the blankets. This is stupid, he thinks. Engineer is his closest, if not his only friend on all of RED team. He should be able to let his guard down just a little bit. Engineer won't laugh or scoff at the sight of him. At least, not to his face he won't.

But... Over the course of their time working for RED, Engineer and Pyro have formed a comfortable bond. If Engineer were to catch a real glimpse of his strangeness...

No, he won't let that happen.

"Sorry 'bout what I said earlier. Team's lucky to have a firecracker like you," Engineer says. "Seein' you giddyap all over the base in that ol' suit of yours, sometimes it makes me tired just watchin'. Hardly ever get a glimpse of what's inside. It's easy to forget there's something..." He shifts. "Well, you know, more."

Something more what? Something weaker? More fragile? That's how he must appear to Engineer right now, bruised, bandaged, covered only by his mask and the blankets he clutches to his chin like a shield.

"But now I think I know," Engineer says with a drowsy chuckle. "You don't have to cover up, darlin'. I promise I won't tell nobody. It can be our secret, OK?"

He gives Pyro a little grin, like the sleepy cat that's just devoured the charred canary, and puts a finger to his lips. Pyro's extremities go numb as a cold dread slithers down his spine. Engineer has always respected Pyro's privacy. He can't fathom that the other man would have peeked at him while he was asleep.

Did he? Did he see?

Pyro spends the rest of the night trying to sink as far as he can into the cheap foam mattress. He can't find it in him to tell Engineer to leave him alone, so he lets the man stick around and doze in the bedside chair. Lying as still as possible with his eyes closed, he anxiously anticipates... well, something. A curious touch, perhaps? An examination? The threat of whatever it is keeps sleep fleeting.

~

In the morning, Pyro finds he has kept himself awake anticipating something that never occurs, but it doesn't stave off the paranoia. Medic steps into the infirmary an hour after dawn and huffs upon noticing the Engineer still dozing by Pyro's side. He shakes the man awake and shoos him away.

"Visiting hours were over last night, Herr Engineer," he says. "You may continue to be a nuisance to the patient later."

Still exhausted from his ridiculous all-night vigil, Pyro is not so put off when Medic forbids him from participating in any more RED missions until he's achieved a full recovery. But after he tucks himself back into his suit and garners a few more hours of sleep, he begins to regret not putting up more of a resistance to the quarantine. Like the rest of the team's living area, the infirmary is sectioned off from the rest of 2fort, so the attacking team cannot access it. But Pyro can sure hear the ruckus they make. The small window is much too high up for him to see out of it. The events of the battle are beyond him. Luckily the Administrator's boom of "YOU FAILED" over the loud speakers can be heard at a great distance.

Engineer visits him again that night, helmet removed and goggles perched on his forehead. He sits next to Pyro in the bedside chair and talks with him about the day's happenings while clutching two magazines in both hands - the first of which Pyro mistakes for a copy of Highlights, much to his vexation. Upon further inspection, it turns out to be the March issue of Popular Science Monthly, but honestly, that isn't much of an improvement.

Cheeks red, Engineer slips his goggles over his eyes and scratches at his face with a guilty little smile. "My folks mail me packages every couple 'a months. Letters, newspapers, magazines, stuff from home. RED tears through 'em first, so I only get the leftovers." He chuckles. "I got stacks of them things. Don't really care for 'em. Use 'em for kindling, mostly. Still, I figured you had to be bored outta' your skull in here, all by your lonesome, and... Well, the rest of my material isn't what you'd call 'light readin'."

Pyro shrugs, unsure whether he feels touched or slightly insulted.

"I got some physics textbooks I could spare, but I figured you'd appreciate somethin' more... ah, stimulating."

The second publication, which Pyro glimpses after Engineer sets Popular Science aside, is Galaxy. A delighted noise bubbles up in his throat, and he makes grabby hands at the magazine before Engineer can even relinquish it.

"Yrr lrrk shrrns furkshhn?" Pyro asks him.

"Reckon some of it's not bad. There's this essay about teleportation I thought might be worth perusin', but half of it's about psionics and ESP and all that. Not really up my alley. Man did his research, though, gotta hand it to him."

They don't sell Galaxy or anything remotely similar in the local little shops at Teufort, and there's no one at home who would forward Pyro a copy, so it's been many months since he's been able to read for pleasure. He thumbs through the digest carefully, as though examining a precious relic. He's not a big fan of Banks, but he likes Aldiss all right, and he loves what little he's read of Tiptree. Most exciting is the feature story by McCaffrey, which his fingers automatically seek out, but he can't bring himself to read it or even allow his eyes to scan it for fear it will spoil the novelty.

He clutches the magazine to his chest and shrinks back, flustered by Engineer's intensely amused gaze. "Thnnnk yrr," he mumbles quietly.

"You like it?" Engineer asks, and when Pyro gives him a quick nod, he says, "Keep it. Back home, I got a whole heap 'a pulp mags Momma's been sendin' me for years. Don't got the heart to tell her to quit. My ex-wife, it used to piss her off somethin' fierce seein' all them silly things pile up in the garage."

Struck with an inability to speak, Pyro puts his head down and grips the pages tighter. Through the mask, his face burns, and he's not certain it's from the fever. Some niggling emotion in the pit of his stomach leaves him feeling stripped and naked despite the safety of the chemsuit. How much has Engineer truly seen of him? Is this gift genuine? Or is it a token of pity for a damaged and awkward man?

"Dammit, I been keepin' you too long. You're probably sick of me, huh?"

Engineer rises from the chair, but Pyro's gloved hand grips his sleeve. He worries. He can't stop worrying. Even if Engineer hasn't seen all of him physically, sharing this intimate part of himself is just as dangerous. But that doesn't stop Pyro from wanting it.

"Yrr hudda rhdda trr?" He holds the magazine out to the other man.

"What? Like readin' it together?" Engineer asks, lifting his goggles beyond his arched brow. He snorts a little at the childishly endearing thought, then settles back into the chair with what Pyro thinks must be a big Texas grin. "Shucks, why not?"

~

(RIP Anne McCaffrey. We lost a good one.)