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A bead of sweat rolled down Scout’s face and his breathing was fast and ragged as he watched Demo at work between his legs. The normally cheery demoman had a look of intense focus as he worked his hands with delicate precision, moving them along thin blue lines. Demo’s pink tongue quickly flicked out across his lips, and he frowned just a little. Scout swallowed, and tried to keep watching but it was getting increasingly difficult to fight the pressure building inside of him. He rolled his head back, shut his eyes, and held in a groan, sending his mind to greener pastures instead.
“How’s it going over there, CD?” asked Dead-Eye Detective, snapping Scout out of his terrier-filled happy place and ruining everything. Scout, still with his eyes shut, laughed, and then there was no fighting it anymore:
“How’s it going?” he repeated, his voice strained through the tightness in his throat. He laughed again, short and dangerously close to hysterical.
“How’s it going?! Well shit, I’m only sitting through the longest fucking defuse of all time!” he exclaimed, jerking his chin towards the time bomb strapped across his stomach since his hands were a little too cuffed behind him to take care of the gesture.
Not that it mattered, since Detective was in the exact same position sitting directly behind Scout. Detective closed his eyes and patiently waited for Scout to finish:
“How do you fucking think it is going?!”
“Hold still, boss!” Demo cut in, and Scout, for once, listened completely and perfectly to the little guy and froze.
“Demo?” Detective tried again when he was sure Scout was done his breakdown.
It took sixteen seconds (Scout was all-too-aware of the time now), but Demo shook his head.
“Ah, sorry DD, I’m just kind of focused on this!”
Scout whined but held back whatever biting and useless comment he was going to make. Detective nodded.
“That’s fine. How’s your progress?”
Demo puffed air through his lips, failing once again to whistle.
“Uh, it’s kind of screwy down here, guys,” which was a phrase high on the list of things Scout really didn’t want to hear when explosives are involved, especially when he had a front row seat to Demo pointing at the tangle of wires deciding if his funeral would be open casket or not. He still couldn’t look away while Demo flicked at them, though.
“See, normally, it’d be pretty easy stuff, like follow the red wires, mark the negative one, find the green one, disconnect it at its base, check the fixing on the doohicky port and the blahdeebloo charges and find the third wire of the bluh bluh sequence and recorrect the shnng duuhrg lines, but it looks like they reversed the hernawed series, used the wrong colours for the detoblahb lines, and blurahgded the anti-blurahg switch!”
Actually Demo might have said things that were real words, but even if Scout knew what the wires meant he wasn’t really in a state of mind to follow complex instructions. He could feel Detective’s head shift behind him.
“I mean the configuration looks mostly right, but I dunno where the ports line up. I think there’s even extra ones here!” Demo shook his head grimly, “Whoever did this musta been some kind of mastermind!”
-
There was a bee on the wall.
He had been watching that bee for the last two minutes and forty seconds now as it buzzed around this little hall of the warehouse, and Pernicious Innovator kind of wondered how she even got into the building. Did someone let her in, or had she made it in on her own? Or was she lost? There weren’t any kind of sweets or flowers stocked here, only standard, boring goods and the pallets of expensive things they had Delinquent hauling before the Meddlesome Company intervened. Or at least the ones that hadn’t been staking out the place, yes…
“Right, Innovator?”
Innovator nodded, though he hadn’t paid any attention to what Scofflaw was saying. It was usually better to just agree with him when he asked for it, not for any fear of retribution, just that Scofflaw just tended to sulk when his team wouldn’t play along. Scofflaw smirked and continued, and Innovator remembered what they had been doing here.
The Cheerful Demoman had run off looking for Detective and Scout, and Scofflaw told them to let him go, they’d be preoccupied enough the way they left their hostages. Maybe that line was supposed to send their Heavy Brawler after Demo, but instead he remained where he was standing, arms spread and blocking their exit out. Angry Delinquent was happy to step up, but he had to put the pallets down first and that made Scofflaw flinch.
It was hard to tell now, though, since he was leaning against the crates on their pallet and grinning as he watched Delinquent and Brawler fight.
“Yeah, if I were as loving and caring as you, I’d be out there helping my endangered pals.”
Heavy Brawler did not stop grappling with Delinquent as he answered - “I - hrrgh! - I ain’t the bomb expert but — I think I’m doin’ fine holdin’ you back.”
The corner of Scofflaw’s grin twitched, but it otherwise stayed in place as he shrugged.
“Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night,” he said.
As an aside, he said to Innovator: “Boy, I wish AD could take a hint. I’d love to just shoot the big guy up and get outta here.”
But Innovator was lost again, this time fondly regarding the patterns in some nearby cobwebs.
-
Detective angled his hips slightly to check his timer, and started a few calculations.
“Demo, how much longer do you think you will take?”
Demo hummed, frowning. He had cut two wires since the last status report, but didn’t look any more confident than before, and that did absolutely nothing for Scout’s nerves.
“I dunno, I think maybe another minute?”
Detective compared how long Demo had taken so far, how quickly he could perform now that he had a ‘practice run’ (factored against his attention span and short term memory capacity), and how much time they had left. The result wasn’t favourable, but there was slight margin for success and that had worked well enough for them in the past.
“You have two,” he stated.
Scout tried looking over his shoulder again.
“Two? Two minutes? Until what, until you’re fucked or until we’re both fucked?”
Scout had thought losing the little clock mocking him from his waist would have made him feel better, but it just made him even more paranoid.
“Two minutes before he doesn’t have the time for me,” Detective said coldly.
Scout narrowed his eyes, and anger started to poke in while his terror took a smoke break.
“Are you lying? Are you lying to me like I’m a fucking child and you’re telling me it’ll-” Scout hesitated, then gave up on witty metaphors and continued, “that it’ll be fine and everything will be sunshine and roses?”
Detective didn’t even sigh, just deadpanned: “You got me, Scout, I am trying to falsely reassure you by stating the certainty of my own demise.”
“Oh don’t give me your sarcasm bullshit too, I’m a fucking adult, you can skip the fairy tale shit and just say-”
“Guys!” Demo shouted. The two fell silent.
“… So which is it?” Scout asked, quietly.
“… Both.”
Scout nodded. He wanted to ask how long their spat took, but he knew from the incessant fucking ticking it was thirty-six seconds. There was nothing after that but the counting of the clock as Demo kept trying to squeeze in a rescue.
A minute to, Detective said, “Demo, you may want to take cover.”
“Fuck that, get me outta here,” Scout countered immediately. As an afterthought, he added, “Sorry, Dead-Eye.”
Instead of just gracefully fucking accepting it and the respectful use of part of his name, though, Detective pulled his right wrist, rattling the chains linking him to Scout’s left wrist. The arrangement was mirrored with the other hands, forming an x between their chairs and one extra obstacle they didn’t need.
Demo shook his head.
“No - I think I - I can get it,” he mumbled, fiddling with the wires. To his credit, his pace hadn’t become frantic and his hands were steady as ever.
The same couldn’t be said for Scout.
“Demo come on just cut the wires, we literally have nothing to lose at this point-”
“Take cover now.”
“Don’t fucking listen to him, he’s a defeatist, you have got this, little buddy, now come on-”
“Just a suggestion-”
“Fuck your suggestions, it’s just my life so why don’t you-”
“SHADDUP!” Demo snapped, and furiously yanked out a wire. He waved it angrily at Scout.
“You two are always like this all the goddamn time, and then ya wonder why I can’t concentrate on nothin’ when you two are just sayin’ these dumb things and yeah it’s a little more serious this time, sure, but how’s anyone supposed ta get any goddamn work done around here with your yellin,” he pointed at Scout, then to Detective, “and you givin’ us orders when you ain’t even interested in us half the time!”
“Demo,” Detective interjected, still looking down.
“What?!”
“Ten seconds.”
Scout’s eyes went wide. Demo’s narrowed and he dove back at the wires with gusto.
In another part of the warehouse, Scofflaw frowned lopsidedly at his watch. He’d kind of hoped Demo would be good enough to defuse the bombs; he was sort of aiming for the whole ‘distress’ thing to be more of a distraction, truth be told, but then again, his aim was pretty awful half the time. He dismissed it, shrugging. Oh well. He’d miss those two, but at least they wouldn’t ruin their crime-shenanigans again. It was a win/boring win situation.
Ten, nine, eight
“I’m gonna kill Scofflaw I’m gonna kill Scofflaw,” Scout began muttering, his eyes shut and his fists clenched.
Seven, six, five
Detective was completely still. So was Demo, except for his hands, which were working faster now. Scout’s voice was rising.
four, three, two
Scout’s vowing had reached a crescendo:
“I’M GONNA KILL SCOFFLAW! I’M GONNA KILL SCOFFLAW! I’M GONNA FUCKING DO IT I SWEAR! FUUUU—”
Detective shut his eyes and took a breath.
“One!” Scofflaw exclaimed cheerily and made a big show of covering his ears.
Even Innovator snapped out of his daze when Scout’s screams suddenly stopped. Or… Tapered off?
Scofflaw had also noticed the strange lack of messy explosion, and raised his head, frowning. No explosion, but there was faint laughter starting to echo through the warehouse, quiet at first but becoming louder.
“Hahahaha, okay wow, I thought it looked like complete bullshit!” Demo guffawed, bracing against his knees, “I mean I wasn’t sure, but it looked kinda like a dud!”
Scout was sitting rigid, trembling and breathing rapidly, and his eyes were wide and staring somewhere through Demo.
“Y’think you coulda mentioned that earlier?” he said through the corner of his clenched jaw.
Still chuckling, Demo waved his hand.
“Well I didn’t wanna be wrong about that. Gosh, I’d feel awful if I got your hopes up and it turned out y’both went splat anyway!”
Slowly, Scout slumped against the ropes, wires, and duct tape binding him to his chair. Detective cleared his throat.
“Demo, now that your… Expertise isn’t needed, you might want to give Brawler a hand,” Detective said, his voice as even and steady as ever.
Demo stood up straight and nodded.
“Right, gotcha DD, we’ll be back in no time!”
Calm as he sounded, Demo was still almost out of the room when Detective thought to add, “Hold on, can you give us our decks first?”
“Sure thing!”
With Demo’s laughter mostly inaudible now, Scofflaw slowly turned back to Innovator, who was tapping his chin and looking somewhere on the wall behind and to the left of Scofflaw’s head.
“Oh, dear, not again,” Innovator mumbled, “I thought I had it right this time, I really did.”
He suddenly produced some cards with dotted patterns on them flashed them at Scofflaw.
“Here, do you see a twelve? I see a twelve, but maybe it’s supposed to be an eight? I think I’m getting my wires mixed up but I don’t know if it’s dyslexia or colour-blindness or—”
Scofflaw stepped away from Innovator, crossing his arms posing dramatically.
“Hah! Hahah!”
Innovator tilted his head and was probably the only one who really took notice of Scofflaw’s outburst.
“PSYCHE! Sure got you good there, didn’t we?!” Scofflaw shouted over his shoulder, and started laughing again. He elbowed Innovator in the ribs; Innovator obliged him with a polite smile.
“Hahaha! Hah! Ahaha! Ahah. Ha okay let’s go,” he finished quickly, and Innovator nodded and started fumbling through his pockets.
“Hold it right there, assholes!”
Scofflaw leaned around Innovator and waved at Scout as he came charging down the hall.
“Hey Scout! We’re just leaving, sorry to miss out.”
With a coy smirk, he snapped his fingers and pointed at Scout, or rather, that Scout was shirtless under his jacket.
“That’s a great look for you, by the way.”
To his delight, that succeeded in turning Scout into a snapping, snarling mess of violent threats and poorly thrown knives. Scofflaw laughed, but he honestly didn’t want to stick around for Scout to get into close-range with those things. Fortunately, Innovator found his shadow-smoke bombs just then, so all Scofflaw had to do was get Delinquent’s attention.
He whistled sharply, “Hey, lardass!”
“The hell did you just call me?!” Delinquent growled, whirling around to face down Scofflaw, and whirling away from Brawler.
Brawler, of course, used this chance to sucker-punch the hell out of Delinquent, sending him flying into Innovator, which knocked the smoke bombs out of his hands. Scofflaw contemplated the outcome for a moment before shrugging it off as good enough.
Scout finally made it to their part of the hall as the smokeballs detonated, and while he was coughing on the cloying magical smoke, Scofflaw just waved at him again and slung his arms around Innovator and Delinquent’s dazed forms.
“Ciao Scout, see you next time!”
Despite how hard it was to breathe in the dark cloud, Scout snarled and made a lunge for Scofflaw anyway. However, the smoke had billowed just high enough to obscure him, and that was all the time they needed to pull their disappearing act. Scout slashed at the air anyway just in case, but between the obvious futility and the air quality he had to call it quits.
The air cleared eventually, though there was still the faint scent of smoke, though not of the supernatural variety. Scout sighed, pocketed his cards, and turned to meet Detective.
“Fuckin’ assholes got away a-whaaaat the fucking christ?!”
Detective raised his eyebrow.
“What?”
“What d’you mean, what,” Scout snapped, gesturing at Detective, “you’re still wearin’ that!”
Detective glanced at the bomb still stuck to his shirt, and shrugged, “Didn’t feel like undressing when there was a fight going on.”
“Sure took your sweet fucking time getting here!”
Detective was going to say something that was no doubt biting, but Brawler cut in, pointing at the two.
“What the fuck happened to you guys?”
“Long fucking story,” Scout said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“What was all the screamin’ ab-”
“Long. Fucking. Story.”
After a moment, he looked up, glanced around, and added, “Anyone see Demo?”
Brawler frowned, “He’s not with you?”
Scout’s eyes twitched and he threw his hands up in the air.
“How the fuck did we lose him when it’s a straight run from here to storage, FUCK.”
“Calm down,” Detective said and had the audacity to look annoyed.
Scout rounded back on Detective and opened his mouth to chew him out, but he was drowned out by the horn of their van. Brawler was laughing, and even Detective had a bit of a smirk on his face. Scout glared at them.
“Or, he’s bringing the van around. That’s good,” Scout grumbled, and headed for the way out.
Detective followed, pausing long enough to hand Brawler a camera and the remains of Scout’s bomb-shirt, with ‘evidence’ as his only explanation.
-
Of course, the car they had been using for the stake out was smashed, so Detective and Scout had a few minutes alone as they waited for Brawler and Demo to check the remains and bring the van back to them. The silence could only last so long:
“How do you fucking do it?”
Neither of them looked away from the expanse of pavement and maze of parked trucks and shipping containers in the dim pre-sunrise light. Detective waited for Scout to clarify, which he sort of did:
“You are like a soulless goddamn robot, what’s your secret?”
Detective shrugged and reached into his jacket as he answered: “A pack a day and a drinking problem.”
“… Good idea,” Scout said, nodding starting the search for his hip flask.
Of fucking course, that’s when the van finally appeared around the corner. Scout sighed and put his hands in his pockets, though he paused when he heard the flick of a lighter.
Shivering in the early (early) morning air, Scout glanced at Detective, who was of course lighting up a smoke right there while still wearing a bomb. As the van pulled up, Detective caught him staring again and Scout just shook his head.
“And they call me the crazy one,” he muttered, heading for the side door. Detective shrugged and followed.
“It’s a stable explosive,” he explained, taking a seat beside Scout, “I could shoot it or even set it on fire and it wouldn’t go off.”
As he said that, he flicked the ash off his cigarette.
BANG
It took a few seconds for Scout’s hearing to return to him, not from the volume of the noise but from the shock and surprise that he wasn’t dead. Brawler was guffawing it up in the driver’s seat, and Demo’s giggling was squeaking out behind him. Sure enough, Demo climbed over the back seat between Scout and Detective and slid down it, leaving the burst paper bag behind as he hopped over to the passenger side and buckled up.
Well. Scout could at least hand it to them for getting Detective to finally fucking react in a reasonable way to the bomb-thing. Namely, he looked like his heart just about blew out of his chest - his eyes were wide, his mouth was hanging open a little, and he was frozen in that ash-flicking pose, though he’d dropped his cigarette. After another second, the look of terror washed away and Detective sighed, shut his eyes, and ran his hand through his hair. Scout nodded, and leaned back in the cushioned, not duct-taped-at-all seat of the van.
“I’m gonna kill ‘em,” he said flatly.
“Good, I’ll help,” Detective said.
Scout smirked, and they drove away into the sunrise.