Chapter Text
Most of the mercenaries never knew of a life before the Carnis. A life before the Crawl climbed over every surface, infiltrating the wildlife and inching its way up buildings, like a sinister, blood-red vine. It was harmless, the people said, the Crawl can’t hurt you. And they were right. It just grew everywhere and stayed there, merely a meat replacement for the plants that would otherwise do so. No, the Crawl wasn’t the danger.
Neither were the Trimmings, the little flesh bugs that simply showed up soon after the Crawl had covered most of the earth. One day a little meat creature dropped off the vine and soon integrated into most of society. They were pets, though their screams in the night were grating.
Soon other skinless creatures were discovered. A giant flesh bulb with tentacles that reached far underneath the ground known as the Harvester. The Host, a stationary humanoid creature whose spores had a mind control effect on their victims. The Mimic, a tall, humanlike being which had unmatched patience in hunting its prey. The Meat Snake, a serpentine creature that was often found feeding on corpses.
None of them knew a life before the gravel war, which had been going on long before the Carnis were discovered. Or rather, the Carnis discovered them. It started long, long ago, sometime around 1850, when two brothers inherited land full of gravel and went to war over it. It continued on for decades, until the threat of the Carnis was too much. The battles were put on hold for months, a wait that stretched into years, until the scare was over. The creatures were still there, the fear was not. Humanity had found ways to deal with them, they said, we can coexist, they said.
One day, all eighteen men (and pyros) received a message from the mysterious entity known as the Administrator. It was typed on a clean sheet of paper, stating that they were to return to their respective RED and BLU bases in New Mexico before the end of the week.
Scout started sprinting through the airport the moment his feet hit the ground. The plane was always too cramped for him, especially when he was squished like sardines in the middle seat. Not enough movement.
He tried to talk with his seatmates in order to take his mind off of how much he needed to be able to walk around, but it didn’t work out the way that he planned. The man to his right wouldn’t say a word to him and kept glaring at him every time that he tried to do anything, even tap his fingers on the arms of the seat. The woman to his left eagerly took his attempts at conversation as an opportunity to aggressively try to recruit him into some sort of pyramid scheme. He couldn’t do it anyway even if he wanted to, he had to make what he had from his mercenary job last.
Most of it was invested in cubic yards of Tom Jones memorabilia. The value of most of it spiked after it was discovered that he was dead, making him some sort of millionaire. He didn’t want to part with most of it though, only selling off the occasional duplicate figure or poster when he was in danger of losing his apartment. His kinda bad one-bedroom apartment. At least he had it to himself.
Scout’s mom had called regularly, asking him if he needed anything. “No,” was his reply without fail. He didn’t want to put more financial strain on her. She had already spent most of her life working three jobs to support him and his six older brothers. He could sell more of the Tom Jones merch, but he didn’t want to part with it.
The sound of his footsteps on the tile was lost in the echo of a thousand other people all milling around the airport. The rumble of plastic wheels on a suitcase, the roar of the planes as they took off, the occasional announcement on the intercom piercing through the clamor, a hundred conversations all overlapping until their respective words were lost in the vague shape of voices.
Scout weaved through the crowd, adjusting his baseball cap so that it wouldn’t fall off of his head. Excitement was the only emotion that he could feel, an electric buzz that flowed through his veins. His job was back! He brought nearly nothing with him, only the carry-on that thumped heavily against his back with every stride that he took. It was surprising that the airport let people bring metal baseball bats on the plane. But then again, Miss Pauling probably bribed the airport employees into letting him through beforehand.
The letter that he received had a second note in it, handwritten, stating that his weapons were back at the base and his flight was already paid for. He wanted to bring the baseball bat anyways, a new addition to his collection of things to bash people with. What harm could more weapons do? Well a lot, but what harm to him could more weapons do? A better variety for better situations!
He missed the base, he missed his scattergun and collection of baseball bats. And surprisingly enough, he realized that he kind of missed his teammates. Scout found himself searching through phonebooks to try to find the phone numbers of his teammates, especially Sniper, though it seemed like he never had any sort of phone at all. It was as if he had died or something. He managed to find Demo, who had maybe a 50/50 chance of picking up the phone, but that was better than never.
Somehow, in his thinking, he had exited the airport. Something in the back of his brain nagged him, telling him that he forgot something critical. It wouldn’t say what though. So Scout stood there, not far in front of one of the many sets of airport doors, forcing the crowd to go around him like a river surrounds and flows around a rock. A river of people and Scout the rock, Scout who couldn’t remember what he was missing. A river of people that flowed both in and out of the airport, through the doors, from the planes to the cars, from the cars to the- oh. He forgot to get the rental car.
No longer a rock parting the crowd, he flowed with the river of people back into the airport. Man, he did not miss the scorching heat of New Mexico. Even in the couple minutes that he was outside, he felt that the sun was already trying to burn him. Scout got the rental car keys and headed to where it was parked.
The keys glinted in the afternoon sun, feeling cool in the palm of his hand. Scout jogged over to the parking lot where the rentals were. He walked down the row, staying under the shade of the few small trees planted near the sidewalk. Fourteen… Fifteen… Sixteen! There it was, parked in the second to last spot designated to the rentals.
It was a small car, painted blue. He felt weird getting into the driver's seat. Even years after the gravel wars were put on pause, he still associated blue with “the enemy.”
The engine started smoothly. At least the car seemed to work fine. Despite his love of running, he would rather not have to run all the way to the RED base.
He backed out of the spot and drove out of the airport parking lot. Down the highway as the sun sank deeper into the sky, casting long purple shadows across the empty expanse of desert. Down the roads that he knew by heart.