Stray Fellowship - a TF2 fanfic: Chapter 1
Warnings: pyromania, canon-typical violence
This fic is centred around the Red Pyro, though the rest of the mercenaries and miss Pauling are there too. Pyro is nonbinary. Also, there's implied French Toast (Red Spy x Red Pyro)! Enjoy :)
It wasn't a particularly fun day.
Pyro had fought hard, very hard, against the BLU Team, like they always did. And yet, all their (Blu) Spy checks? Failed. How many kills did they get? 3. Deaths? 20! They were really getting off their groove, for reasons they could neither find nor be able to explain if they had found them anyways (they shuddered as they realised how similar in progress they were to the Scout).
They needed a vacation.
Two-- no, three weeks of unadulterated, constant fun and free choice. Perfect! They'd stay up late every single night and watch movies, they'd light every single one of their various scented candles and melt them to their very stumps, they'd bake (well, 'bake' was a loosely used term, for they tended to burn most of the things they cooked - once they set the whole kitchen on fire, it was beautiful!)... And do all the fun things that they enjoyed doing, always have enjoyed doing, even before they joined the team.
So, you can imagine Pyro's surprise when they were told that, yep, everyone suddenly had a 3 week vacation.
They didn't believe in gods, but they're fairly certain that there was a hint of magic sprinkled into whatever must have taken place for this to happen (+ their Red Spy... Really, how they ever bagged such a prince was still a mystery to them). Mann Co. even gave Miss Pauling the same amount of time, and she almost fell over at the news. Pyro would have too, if they were her. She didn't rest. Like, ever.
They went up to her once and asked her what kept her awake, as they had burnt out all their matchsticks and were bored, and upon seeing her pretty face, the question had sprung to mind. The woman had a sheepish expression on her face at the question and laughed a bit.
"Well, I'd say that the risk of me losing my job is one thing!" Miss Pauling joked as she speed-walked to wherever she was going. Pyro followed her in long easy strides, resisting the temptation to giggle at how easy it was to follow the quick woman - she was clearly in a rush to finish up the last of her tasks so that she could really start her vacation. "But also, uh... Don't tell anyone, all right? Uh--
"I, I watch cat videos. Just... An endless stream, right, of cute, adorable kitten videos on YouTube. The cuteness aggression I get from seeing them gives me a healthy boost of adrenaline!... And also the fact that I'm staring at an electrical light for so long definitely busies my brain too much-- ok good talk Pyro but I have to go now, bye!"
Pyro waved with an enthusiastic 'huddaah!', nearly throwing their precious Fire Axe into the air with the force of the swing as they watched Miss Pauling run in high heels (how impressive a feat!). Though, now that they'd had this conversation...
Cats, huh? They didn't really think that much about non-Pyroland animals. They'd never gotten close enough to one to see the true appeal. They've heard that they're cute and adorable, but from what they'd heard, it wasn't their cute and adorable. How could it possibly be cute if it wasn't pink, sparkly and magical?! It was very strange to think about, and when they tried to imagine a non-pink, non-sparkly and non-magical cute thing... They drew a blank.
Literally. At present, to try and take their mind off of the terrible match, they had locked themselves in their room and settled down with their notepad and pens. Usually, their creativity was so through the roof that the entire structure (of... Their... Mind??) would have collapsed. But today, the elevator just wasn't working; there was an art block in the way of its path! How bothersome. They poked the sheet of paper with their orange crayon, yawning from underneath their mask before rolling over to lay on their back. They stared with dim, glassy lens at the dimly-lit lightbulb hanging by a thready wire high above them, their eyes not even stinging in the slightest as their pupils fixed firmly on the electric glow.
Their Pyromania, it wasn't limited just to fires. After all, to truly appreciate the beauty of the flame, you must love every - and Pyro means every - part of it: the luminescence it emits, the heat that it bleeds into its surroundings, the charred remains and ashes left behind, the heavy smoke that makes people cough... They could probably name more traits of its beauty, but they've just gotten an idea for their new drawing!
They ought to thank Miss Pauling later.
They spent the next 2 hours in their room, drawing cats like a shirtless mathematician desperate to really feel and connect with the numbers he was working with (except Pyro would never take off their suit just for drawing... Even if it was drawing...) and drawing friends for those cats. They didn't keep a consistent style, which they thought would have been a rather boring decision - they thought this often, in fact, hence why if you ever got the permission to sneak a peek at their precious sketchbook, each page would look vastly different to its brethren. So each cat was different: some were red, some were fat, some were rectangular. Pyro drew a slender cat that looked like the Red Spy and blushed at how cute it was.
They left the window open. Usually they liked to close it, because they didn't like having even the slightest of breezes slithering into their toasty sauna of a room. Pyro doesn't really sweat, so to them it's... Well, let's see, how did their Spy put it?... Golly, he always had such an accurate and poetic way with words!... It's the same sort of warmth you get when you're back home from a late shift on a snowy Christmas, and you put up your fedora and kick off your shoes, and you walk to your quiet room in the back end of your house - you take a seat opposite the fireplace, have a few puffs of your smoking pipe, cross one leg over the other and pretend you're listening to the Christmas jams blaring on the radio while you bask in the fire's orange glow...
... But anyways, they forgot to close the window. That's probably how the cat got in, huh?
Pyro almost threw their crayons at the ceiling when they suddenly heard a meow to the left of their head. They didn't startle or jump about like a... What was it that Engie said, actually, he had something perfect for this, didn't he?-- like an angry cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Instead, they slowly turned their head to look at the creature which decided ever so rudely to interrupt their precious art time (it was, as many of us would agree, very hard to find art time amongst all the other times they had to collect - work time, food time, etc). They were met with the sight of a Calico Persian cat.
...
They don't really... Know what to do at first. Though they supposed that drinking in the sight of the feline sat a few metres away from them was a good first step. It was quite a cosy, homely looking thing it was, like cinder and ashes and the flames of fire, gently contained within tufts of fur and a beating heart. A white fluffy chest, a pink button nose - and bright orange eyes, ones that weren't too vibrant but weren't so pale either. The more they looked at it, the more they began to feel a swelling of fondness in their breast.
Pyro recognised almost straight away that what they were feeling was not the same sort of thing they felt for what they usually found cute. They looked at pink, glittery, vibrantly coloured objects and animals and unicorns and wanted to squeal, to squeeze, to laugh hysterically. But looking at this cat was something else. They felt incredibly calm. Peaceful. It was quite a new thing, and it shook them to the core. They felt almost paralysed - but when the silent cat started bounding over towards them, they were quick to sit up, cross their legs and pat their thighs, inviting the heart-stealing thief to come and sit on their hopefully comfortable lap.
Whilst they aren't exactly an expert on cats, they do have the knowledge to understand that this cat's friendliness and willingness to immediately crawl onto their lap and curl up in it like a nest... Was nothing short of uncharacteristic. Perhaps not impossible, but still very unlikely. Were they complaining? You'd be a fool to think so. They didn't usually do this, but they were so scared of touching the cat and finding that it wasn't real that they didn't just take off their gloves (their hands, disgusting big things they knew, scarred and burned and calloused) - Pyro removed their mask as well. Because cats didn't look at humans with the same judging standards that humans had. Cats probably thought all humans were just as ugly as each other, to be fair. A mop of orange locks fell free from their mask, curtaining their scorched head. A white grin peeked amongst the damaged, coffee skin cells, stretching their face and crinkling basil-coloured eyes as they reached down and pet the kitty.
It purred like a fuzzy... Little... Motor engine.
Wow.
... What would they name it, they wondered?
