Chapter Text
Remembering was a new thing for them.
Everything had been a blurred dream sequence for so long, their mind addled by drugs that they knew that the Administrator was pumping into their room and lacing into their food. They knew that she was doing it, to make them complacent and willing to do her bidding and fight her war. They knew. The drugs made it hard to remember, made it hard to focus, made it hard to do anything other than mechanical movements programmed into their hindbrain.
So they knew when they were off the drugs. They knew because they could remember what they had for breakfast that morning. Toast, salty ham steak, sausages and bacon because Soldier was cooking and his cooking was always grease, meat or something so god awful American that they swore that they could hear fireworks going off outside. They could remember shovelling mouthfuls of salty and greasy meat into their mouth, their mask rolled up over their nose as they sat in the corner of the mess to avoid eyes on their face. They remembered the banter as their loud and obnoxious coworkers went about their mornings, Scout being the loudest and most grating of them all if only because Soldier was eating, the argument over the jar of jelly that had been in the fridge that Demo and Sniper decided needed to be solved with fists, remembered the bitter tang of Spy’s strong coffee as he sat far away enough to avoid the chaos.
They fucking remembered.
They remembered the battle that day, remembered the thunk of their axe hitting bone through flesh and the sizzle of bodies as they used their flamethrower. Remembered the dry rasp that left them when the enemy Sniper had shot them through the chest and they had to limp their way to their Medic after getting a fresh coat of red on their suit. They remembered getting shot to death by the enemy Heavy and then cooking the enemy Pyro to death. They remembered using their ax so much because the thought that they were burning people was stirring something in the tar pit in their head where the other memories were and made them sick to their stomach.
They remembered it all in vivid detail because their brain was so used to swimming in a toxic cesspool of drugs meant to keep them docile and obedient.
But the drugs were not there and they could not help but fear the question: Why?
“Py?”
They jumped, so caught up in their spiralling thoughts that they had missed the match being over. Okay, maybe not remembering as well as they thought… When did the match end? Did they win? They turned to look at Sniper. Their sniper. Not that nasty little shit that had shot them in the lung, denying them the professional courtesy of a clean death and making them endure that painful limp to Medic.
Their sniper also jumped at their sudden action, blinking owlishly behind his aviators before coughing and smoothing his clothing out.
“Um, sorry. Just… you okay, firebug? You were actin’ kinda strange out there,” Sniper muttered, shoving up his glasses and seeming to labour to find their gaze through the lens of their mask. They realised that they were shaking, standing there and probably striking a terrifying sight. “Not like you to uh… be a butcher more than a barbeque-er. Somethin’ got you all worked up?”
Were they friendly with the sniper? They could not remember. He seemed to be friendly with them. Enough that he would ask about them after a fight. Had they used their ax more than their flamethrower? Shit, their memory was still terrible. Grasping at literal fragments in a blind bid to put events into sequence to try and make sense of too many things happening at once.
They shrugged, unsure of how to answer.
“They did fantastic!” Demo yelled, making Sniper and themself wince. Them from the sensory overload and Sniper likely out of possible fear reaction towards them and their possible reaction to the loud noise and Demo coming up to clasp them roughly on the shoulder. They did not lash out. They did wish they were inside and away from the noisy Irishman though. “Won the fuckin’ match, they did!”
Oh, so they had won. They did not remember that.
“Well yeah, but still worried about the lil’ firebug--”
“YOU MAGGOTS BETTER NOT BE TRYING TO SKIP OUT ON AFTER MISSION MAINTENANCE!” Soldier yelled as he stormed past them and into the building, likely to march all the way to the locker room. They winced as needle sharp pain wracked along their brain, making a noise of pain that their mask muffled and making Sniper look worried and Demo look annoyed from the noise and because it was Soldier.
“Now listen here you gobshite--” Demo started, dropping his hand and going after Soldier, leaving Sniper and themself. And then Engineer, who stepped up and looked about as worried as Sniper, dark lens aimed at them.
“Uh, Py, you good partner?” Engineer asked.
They groaned. They had a headache now and it was just slowly getting worse, elevating itself into the sharp knife in the brain agony of a potent migraine. They wanted out of their heavy fire-retardant suit, feeling the weight of the dense and protective material pulling on their battle exhausted body and their still tender chest from the earlier bullet wound. They were hungry and thirsty and tired and sore. They wanted away from the noise and somewhere dark and quiet. Their head throbbed from memories actually sticking in their head, prickling their tortured grey matter. They were not 'okay'.
Sniper and Engineer looked at one another, clearly still worried and not quite willing to drop it. They wished the two would drop it.
"Well… if you need a quiet place…" Sniper started, rubbing the back of his neck.
"You know where to find either of us," Engineer finished.
… They did?
But they did not voice that and the two were already reluctantly heading inside, leaving them to just as reluctantly follow into the base. Though they did quickly bypass the locker room unlike Engineer and Sniper and the absolute cacophony of noise in there, several men packed into a too small room while taking off their heavy equipment and loudly grousing about the day's battle. No one said anything to them as they unwittingly took their ax and flamethrower with them, but they had a sinking suspicion that in general people were too scared of them to say much at all in the way of reprehension.
Also thankfully no one was even there to say anything, either about their equipment or the fact that it took nearly ten minutes to find their room, denoted by a large orange circle with a cartoonish and styled flame in dark orange that could only belong to them hanging on the door. All the other unmarked doors were almost always locked, empty or common rooms anyway. This room was unlocked, and when they pushed the door open, the lingering stench of ashes assailed them even through their gasmask. Their nose wrinkled as they examined the room from within the open doorway. Basic and spartan in every way, with a single shut window caked in dust, a basic bed that was sloppily made, a desk with hastily organized art supplies, an uncomfortable looking chair and the doors to what they assumed was a closet and adjacent bathroom. However, the walls were peppered thickly with what looked like childish drawings.
Cautiously stepping into the foreign room, they stepped up to a wall to look at some of them. Childish in skill, most of them appeared to be crayon renditions of the men that they had fought with. There was an even more oddly proportioned Heavy, there was a grumpy faced spy wreathed in flames, there was a smiling Engineer with an oversized wrench, there was a scowling Scout with his baseball bat. The only clues that these drawings gave them were vague impressions on how they liked or disliked from their team downstairs and glimpses of mundane snippets of battle that did not at all seem helpful.
Scowling, they put their axe on the floor and propped up against the desk before putting their flamethrower right next to it. Weapons out of the way, they eagerly started taking their heavy suit off next, tackling their mask first with glee. It took some pulling before realising that it felt attached to something with the collar of their suit and then fighting the fastenings that they found there, but they managed to pull their mask off and almost triumphantly throw it to the ground before sucking in blissfully cool air. The stench of ash was thicker without the filter, but they relished the coolness on their sweat damp face.
The suit was next and that took ten increasingly frantic minutes of finding hidden zippers, fastenings, buttons and other things seemingly meant to keep them contained in their suit. That was a terrifying thought, but it made them all the more eager to get out of the damned thing, and made the first rush of fresh air inside of it all the sweeter and cooler. They shoved at the material once they could finally start escaping it, worming and wriggling their way out and getting more and more of that wonderfully clean and cooler air on their skin, material scrapping against them as they tore their way out like a snake from a shedskin that had been on far too long and had grown tight. But they did finally escape it, kicking it free from their legs and accidentally kicking it and their boots across the room in their haste to escape the vile thing. Not even the chill settling on their filthy skin could hamper the victory that they felt having managed to get free, not hamper the smile on their face that cracked their dry lips as they stared at the crumpled mess of flame resistant sitting sadly on the floor.
Soon the feeling of their sweat sticky skin did make them turn hard on their heels to address the two doors in a quick attempt to find a bathroom. The door closest to the actual door to the room was a closet, bearing several suits like the one lying on the floor now and one plain black shirt and a faded grey pair of cargo pants. Did… they really have no other clothing? Did they really only have the cursed suits? There was no wardrobe or dresser in the room, so… no. What the fuck? They grabbed the shirt and pants for lack of options, and was only slightly happy to see the small set of drawers shoved to one side in the closet that yielded clean underwear and socks. Taking their finds, they went to the other door to ease it open and peer inside.
It was a bathroom, thank fuck. A single stall shower, sink and toilet. Clean enough, with a towel hanging from the shower stall door. So they removed the cotton coveralls that they had been wearing underneath the suit, underwear and their woollen socks, placed the new clothing on the toilet tank and stepped into the shower and got the water running very hot. And then a little hotter still when they saw a three in one bottle and nothing else. Seriously, what the fuck? With no choice, they viciously scrubbed at their skin with the stuff, trying to scrape the still sticky layer of sweat off. At least they felt cleaner as the suds ran from them and down the drain, only slightly, and the smell of ash, cooking flesh and burnt FR material was lesser as they stepped out to dry off and pull on their clean clothing.
At this point, their migraine had settled into a dull, occasional throb behind their eyes that they could manage. Food and water would likely remove even that dull pain, so they pulled on socks and their boots again before going back out into the base.
Surprisingly they did not manage to bump into anyone. They heard quite a bit of noise from the direction of the locker room and a few voices from the rooms where the doors had been previously locked, so it seemed that most everyone was still cleaning up after the fight. Suited them just fine, as they took another handful of minutes just looking around before stumbling into the communal dining room that they only slightly remembered from that morning. The attached kitchen looked clean enough as they stepped inside, though their eyes were drawn to a clipboard hanging just by the doorless door frame that let one come and go from the dining room. Peering at the grubby paper that the clipboard was holding from where it was hanging from a tiny hook on the wall, they saw it looked like a list of who was cooking and when, and for some reason they got the ghost sensation of heartburn when they on the day after the last one crossed out, that ‘Scout’ was written next to the dinner slot after ‘Soldier’ for the breakfast one. Despite their destroyed memory, whatever fucking awful things that Scout cooked was so ingrained into their memory that the ghosts of memories were telling them that Scout cooking was a bad idea. Which was saying something given just how shitty their memory was at the moment and they were having a hard time even bringing up their own fucking name.
Well… they were hungry. If they were going to go ahead and cook for themself, then why not the rest? This way they could check everything and find out where the drugs were coming from, because surely the Administrator was not drugging everyone? Drugging the mercs enough to adle them was just asking for hell with what kind of work that well… most of them did. Putting Medic into a stupor would just get the team killed at the very least.
Grunting, they went looking through what the kitchen offered. The staples were there and a few other things as well, nothing fancy, mostly functional and all the dietary needs of a handful of crazy ass mercs. They poked around a few things before deciding that spaghetti would allow them to check a number of the containers without seeming like they were crazy. Because maybe they were, but they were absolutely fucking sure that they were being drugged, how else could they explain the dream sequence of their mind before this morning and their sudden bout of clarity?
They pulled out several pots, a box of pasta, a few jars of things to make into a sauce and then scoured the fridge for some decent looking meat. They made sure to pull everything out and smell and look it over, and sure they might have been crazy, but they had no other way of knowing otherwise how the drugs was getting into their system. Not that they knew whatever drug had been turning the brain to mush smelled like, nor what it looked like, and they doubted that it was just be dusted along the sticks of stiff pasta or in swirled obviously in the tomato sauce that they cracked open, nor follow a different colour out of the tap when they got water to boil the pasta. Nothing seemed off, even with the package of chuck they pulled out, making sure to rip the plastic off and give the meat a whiff. It smelled… like ground chuck, but that was about it. Nothing seemed off about it when they took a fork and pried through the dark pink and red shreds of churned and ground beef. Shit… where were they getting the drugs into their system?
Tired of checking, and at least mollified that if somehow the drugs were still in this food then they were about to feed it to all their coworkers and the Administrator would just have to deal or intervene, they started cooking. The actual act of cooking at least soothed their frayed nerves and gave them something to focus on other then the mess inside of their skull, and brought a sense of comfort that they obviously knew how to cook based on how easily they moved while they cooked and how they only paused when they were trying to figure out just what they could do with a limited spice rack and what basics they had. They even knew how to make bread, when they saw that they had the ingredients for it and started easily making it and then a garlic sauce to spread on it. Knowing how to cook seemed… normal. Domestic. Relaxing. Not at all like what the fuck they did on the battlefield, that was for sure.
Unsure of how much time passed, they completely forgot that the base was inhabited by other people until they went out to set out the freshly done garlic bread on the table and very nearly gave Sniper and Engineer duel heart attacks as they had come inspecting what good smells were coming out of the kitchen and dining room. They only slowly blinked as the two recovered from their start, before looking at them as though they were an oddity.
“...Who are… you?” Sniper asked, going for a blade at his hip slowly.
“Ah! Guten abend, Pyro,” Medic said as he briskly walked into the dining room, eyeing the laid out bread appreciatively before giving a delicate sniff to the air and sighing contently at the smell of the almost finished sauce in the kitchen. “Hmm, so Scout isn’t cooking tonight. Good.”
“Pyro?!” Sniper and Engineer yelped together.
They winced. Why was everyone so fucking loud?
“Ja,” Medic said, raising an eyebrow at the two as though to say ‘you doubt me?’. “True, it is very strange to see them out of their suit, but that is them.”
Engineer and Sniper seemed at a complete loss of words, so they went out into the kitchen to stir sauce and finish wringing the water from the done noodles. They took plates and silverware out to the dining room, Medic coming in to help grab the pot of noodles for them and together they grabbed the two pots of sauce to carry out and place on the tables as well. By then several other mercs had joined the kitchen, likely to cook themselves because no one was keen on Scout cooking, but all too distracted by the laid out meal and getting plates to notice them. It was not until they had taken their far seat away from anyone that Scout in all of his obnoxiously loud glory, glanced about and noticed them and made a loud enough noise to cut the idle chatter of the room and draw attention to him.
“Who the fuck is that?” Scout asked, then pointing at them.
All eyes turned to them, glowering at everyone else as they started shovelling pasta into their mouth. Was their being out of that cursed FR suit so fucking rare that they had absolutely no idea who they were? How long had they worked here? Their mind snapped to ‘years’ but not how many, but even still. Years working here and none of them had seen their face? What the fuck…
“Pyro,” Medic said, eagerly sitting down with a full plate.
“That’s Pyro?!” Scout yelped.
There was a pregnant pause as the collective mercs stared at them.
After that pause, however, Demo reached over and smacked Heavy hard.
“They ain't white, pay me my twenty,” Demo demanded.
Heavy grumbled as he pulled out his wallet from his pants, navigating the strip of leather that was comically small in his massive hands to finish out a twenty dollar bill to give to a smug Demo. Scout looked ready to say something, only to have Soldier come in barking out what first seemed like orders to get out of his damn way so that he could make a ‘proper’ meal, saw that a ‘’proper’’ meal was already done, and then promptly turned hard on a dime and started barking orders for everyone to ‘get their damn plates and to sit down’.
“Who made this damn fine meal?” Soldier called out once everyone had taken their seats just to shut him up.
“Pyro,” Scout muttered, pointing at them as they were still more focused on eating than anyone staring at them.
“Pyro! You’re out of uniform, soldier!” Soldier barked, before frowning thoughtfully, “But I suppose it wouldn’t have been easy to cook in all that gear… and this smells good…”
Now everyone was staring dumbstruck as Soldier piled up a plate and went dead silent to eat happily. Fine by them, they hated people staring at them. Though, it would seem, just because people were not looking at them, did not mean that people would not talk about them.
“Wait so… is the fire freak over there a…?” Scout said, attempting to be quiet, though Scout’s volume level just seemed to be naturally higher and his ‘whisper’ was more ‘above average inside voice’ and thus, they could hear the little shit plain as day.
“Nonbinary,” Medic said, neatly coiling noodles around a fork before lifting it to his mouth, taking his time to chew, savor and swallow before addressing Scout once again, almost lazily. “Yes, I know what was ‘written on their birth certificate’. No, I will not share it. Yes, I will hurt you if you ask or go prying through my office trying to find out. And yes, end of discussion.”
They had to remember to do something nice for the Medic later, when Scout quickly shut up and several interested listeners quickly found other conversations to throw themselves into. They had a good feeling about Medic, they hoped that they had liked him before. If not, they certainly did now.
They had wanted to wash dishes to get more alone time and to try and sort through the fractured pieces of their mind, try and remember something or sort through their growing theories on why they were suddenly coherent and where the Administrator could have possibly gotten the drugs into them. Because it was not the food, they knew that, they had checked.
But several teammates, apparently very happy with the meal, had quickly volunteered to take over washing dishes and had jumped up before they could make up their mind to stand and started clearing away plates and silverware. Or maybe it was the quiet remarks about the leftovers that they were eager to get put into containers and put away for consumption the next day. Which was… fine. Whatever. That just meant that they could go look through their room, though the idea that it was being pumped in through the air was falling apart the more they thought about it. The door was not air tight, there was a visible but not large gap between the floor and the bottom, and again they were pretty sure that the Administrator was not keen on accidentally drugging anyone else. They still wanted to check.
So they left, hurrying back to their room, opening the door and leaving it open just in case there were drugs in the air and whoever was poisoning them was just waiting to blast them with a new dose, before looking around for vents and openings.
There was a vent above their bed, and the grating was easy to pry off and easy to peer inside. There was just the duct, and the light from another room from a grating further down on either side. And besides some cobwebs, the duct was completely free of anything that might be ‘abnormal’ or might even remotely be the cause. So… no way it was the air then?
Scowling, they replaced the grating, turning in a means of addressing the rest of the room, but found that they had company standing in their open doorway. Scout and Demo, who were looking around their room like it was exciting and new. Just how closed off had they been before this point? Just how afraid were their coworkers before this that they did not even bother prying? What had they been like on the drugs?
“Ya know… expected somethin’ totally different,” Scout muttered.
“Cleaner than yer room, lad,” Demo laughed.
“Shut up,” Scout scowled at the Scotsman.
They got down off their bed and cocked their head at the two.
“I don’t know what the lil gobshite’s doin’ here, but I got asked to tell you to go see the medic when ya had a chance, firebug,” Demo said.
They grunted. Maybe the Medic could help them? Yes, the Medic would be able to help them. He at least would know more about this than them. And if he was the one that had been managing to get the drugs into them, they would burn him. They were not afraid of the doctor like the others. And there would be hell to pay for clouding their mind.
Demo and Scout gladly got out of their way when they stalked towards the doors, letting them close it before walking with purpose towards the good doctor’s office. Thankfully no other annoying coworkers in the way and they easily cleared the distance to the Medic’s office, out of the way so that no one was bothered by the screaming or lingering stench of someone trying to overpower the smell of old blood with cleaning products. They still wrinkled their nose before knocking on the door, waiting for the muffled sound of Doctor’s voice before slipping inside to see the good doctor at his desk.
“Ah, Pyro, mein freud, I was hoping to see you tonight,” Medic said, standing up from his desk and shoving his glasses further up his nose, stepping around the desk to meet them. “You are acting strange. Not only for finally allowing us to see you out of your suit, but also your behaviour in general. You barely used your flamethrower in battle, you did not trail after Engineer or Sniper after the fight, you cooked and it was not something you barbequed with your flamethrower. You have also been quiet distant since this morning, not making your usual attempts to hug Spy or putting Scout in a headlock.”
Medic paused to look over them critically, as though he could guess what was wrong with them by just looking at them.
“Is everything alright, feuerteufel?” He asked.
They shook their head, before parting their lips, meaning to speak--
A rough aborted noise escaped them. They frowned, attempting again, only to let out another rough noise and feeling a painful, hot prickle along the inside of their lungs and throat. They gagged, full stomach churning as panic set in and they lifted their hands in an instinctual movement. It caused Medic to frown at them.
“My ASL is terrible, you need to either slow down or ‘stupid’ it down for me,” Medic frowned.
ASL? Were they mute? Why had the drugs taken that particular detail from them? How hard had their brain been scrambled by the drugs? They let instinct guide their hands as they ‘spoke’, hands jerking and abrupt as impeccable muscle memory hit their failing brain memory.
“Drugs?” Medic asked, frowning again, “You… think you are on drugs?”
They frowned, made another rough noise that set their breathing hot from pain.
A knock brought their attention to the door of the office, Medic calling out that they were welcome in and seeing Engineer poke his head in.
“Sorry to disturb ya doc-- Oh, heya firebug,” Engineer said, stepping in and removing the helmet before holding it in his hands all gentlemanly like. It brought a familiar sense of fondness over them that made them think that they liked Engineer before their brain was scrambled.
“Engineer, how can I help you?” Medic asked almost tiredly, before straightening up, “Do you know ASL?”
“Sorry mister. Heavy was wonderin’ if he could borrow you? Something about a leg injury ‘Doktor will know’. Also yes I do,” Engineer said.
“Excellent. While I get the brace and ice pack-- Pyro? Please repeat what you said to Engineer?” Medic said, already moving to grab what he needed.
Del. They blinked.
“Right so… you speak ASL, partner?” Engineer-- Del asked, almost sounding baffled. “Strange, always seemed like you were tryin’ to speak before, just the gas mask and suit and… ya know.”
They grunted and moved their hands again, making their mind go blank so that their hands could speak freely for them. Allow them to try and convey what they thought was wrong with them. Del seemed to follow along, not saying anything but nodding along to show that he was listening intently. When they were finished, they paused and lamely let their arms fall, hoping and praying that they were understood.
“They’re sayin’ they were on drugs, but weren’t as of this mornin’,” Del said, turning to Medic as he came over with a brace, medical ice pack and a small bottle, all of which he handed over to Engineer. “Said that their memory is all funny. Can’t seem to recall much before this mornin’.”
“How strange,” Medic mused, “I will run a few blood tests.”
“They gonna be okay, doc?” Engineer asked.
“If they were on drugs that altered their mindset and behaviour and now suddenly aren’t?” Medic-- Ludwig. Were they remembering things? “Well… I don’t know. We will just have to see what happens.”
Pyro did know where to find Del or Mundy. Because they were friends despite their strange behaviour.
Pyro still could not remember much, but after two hours of poking, prodding and even just getting blasted with the medi-gun by Medic, they had a few fragments back. Ludwig was nice to them, because they burned the enemy Spy and Scout when they tried to single him out. Pyro also kept the enemy Spy off of Del and his machines, as well as keeping the enemy from thinking twice about just rushing him. Pyro would also guard Mundy when he had a good nest and was making life hell for the other team, standing there and love tapping anyway with flame to make sure that the Spy was not being an annoying ass. They remembered drawing things for the three, and a few of their coworkers that they also liked, but those three were apparently the ones that they were friendliest with.
Enough that Pyro knew where Mundy liked to nest during off hours and that Del liked to sleep in his workshop.
They desired fresh air, so they went to Mundy’s nest.
Mundy’s little off hours sniper nest was out of the way and hard to find. They had no doubt that Spy likely knew where it was, but also probably did not care, leaving just Mundy and those he trusted with the location to use to find it when they wanted to. Like they did, it being dark out when they glanced out any window, as they navigated the tight spaces and little offshots and hard to see passages, until they slipped through a very narrow hallway and into the little room with tightly shuttered windows that Mundy could poke the tip of his rifle out without being spotted by the enemy base that he spied on when he found it hard to sleep.
He was there, looking down his rifle as he stared out at the enemy base, sitting in the dark with his sunglasses clipped into the collar of his shirt and his hat pushed back. He looked up when they stepped into the room, looking visibly startled for a moment before calming down.
“Firebug,” He greeted.
They grunted and then just waved as a means of greeting before casting an eye around the dark room.
Bare, slightly dusty, like he was purposefully trying to make this room look uninhabited except near the spot he sat. The chair had been ducted taped in several places, Mundy unwilling to let it go because he liked how it supported his back. There were several paper mags stashed in the corner when he got bored, because it was not like he needed to watch the enemy base. Also there were two of their drawings taped to the wall by his chair. Both childish in skill and done with crayon, one depicted a grinning Sniper standing on a bunch of bullet ridden corpses with a just as happy suited Pyro lifting their flamethrower above their head and clearly cheering him on. They did not remember the battle. The other was of Sniper and Pyro’s head sticking out of something that looked like a treehouse, both of them looking out at something that looked like a jumbled mass of burning red at the corner of the paper. They also did not remember what had inspired them to draw that.
They did have a vague feeling about laying on their stomach and drawing on the floor, but they had not brought anything to draw with and ambled over before sitting on the floor near his chair. He did not go back to looking at the enemy base, instead turning to look at them fully.
“So… firebug… you been… actin’ weird…”
They shrugged.
“Any idea why?”
They shook their head.
“Well…” He reached into a box that was damn near lost to the darkness near his feet. Opening it, he pulled out two beers, ‘We call ‘em stubbies, firebug’ tickled along their brain, and he handed them one. In the darkness, it brought out how pale he was compared to them, their dark fingers brushing his to take the beer. He used a flip knife from his pocket to pop the top of his own beer, before offering it for them to do the same to toss back the beer without fanfare. “Here’s to yer health, mate.”
And whatever the hell that meant, they thought grimly.
Maybe tomorrow would yield some answers, if they kept their mind. They really wanted to know what the fuck was going on.