#the worst thing about getting into tf2 is having to draw the equipment man

[quixoticprince]

"I LOVE THIS DOCTOR," "We go together, Doctor," etc, etc They're in love

Heavy's big into Medic, we get it, b-b-b- but where's the evidence that he's just as much into Heavy?? I give you:

[thetriggeredhappy]

if ur still taking them... 28 pyroscout 🥺

pyro tf2 said trans rights and scout tf2 said disaster bi rights and the team said queer rights and that’s what’s up, sis. (warning for discussion of past transphobia and other queer issues)

#28: First kiss.

It wasn’t that Scout was all that surprised to have Pyro end up as basically his best friend. He’d secretly been hoping that he’d get to be friends with a few of his coworkers when he’d taken the job, and Pyro was pretty close to him in age and shared a few of the same interests as him so it wasn’t unreasonable to expect to get along. It was just…

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it was a little bit of an honor.

They hung out in plenty of places—watching TV or playing card games in the common room, hopping into a car and heading into town to watch the latest movie once or twice (or like eight times if they both really liked it), sometimes out back to start a bonfire or something for the hell of it.

But Pyro’s room tended to be his favorite hangout location of theirs, because that was the only place where they were okay with taking off their mask and suit.

Pyro had tried very hard not to make a big deal out of it the first time they’d unmasked in front of Scout. He’d been confused about what they were doing unclasping the bottom of it, since they didn’t have any food with them or anything and that was the only reason they usually did that—to sneak bites of food beneath. But then they shucked the whole thing up and over their head, shaking their head to re-orient themselves, sending their hair—he’d never thought about what Pyro’s hair had to be like before, how had he never thought of that?—bouncing around their face loosely, half-flattened but clearly very naturally curly. Pyro had to take a moment to fish something else out of their mask, a cap of some kind, probably to hold their hair down, and they clearly were trying very hard to avoid eye contact, nervous.

Scout, for once, was at a loss for words, mouth flapping in a way that was probably pretty similar to a fish for something like thirty seconds straight.

“Hey,” he finally managed, pointing at his own face where assorted freckles dotted his cheeks. “We match.”

Pyro glanced up at him, a little startled, then barked a laugh, and it sounded so much better when it wasn’t muffled. They hesitated a few more moments before they pulled off their gloves as well and set all of the newly-shed pieces of uniform down on their cluttered desk, fidgeting severely. “I guess so,” Pyro confirmed, and Scout had never noticed before that they had a very slight accent, too light for him to pick out what it had to be. “I’d never, I couldn’t tell before. With the…”

They pantomimed something up near their eyes, words stalling on them. It took Scout a few seconds to get what they meant. “With the mask?” he asked for confirmation. They nodded. “Oh. Huh. So it’s kinda like your first time seeing me too, huh?”

Pyro laughed. “I guess so,” they repeated, scratching at their stubble self-consciously, or maybe just because they finally could, and then Scout made an effort to both just move on with the rest of what all they were planning on doing when they hung out and also with not staring too much.

The jump to stripping off their suit as far as the tank top and thick-but-tight sweatpants they wore underneath was done a few weeks later when Scout had demonstrated that he wasn’t planning on saying anything, and he was only a little surprised by the plethora of burn marks and scars dotting their skin. He’d noticed an awful lot of scars all over Pyro, and he figured it was probably from when Pyro had been working as a mercenary before Mann Co., something he was aware had happened but hadn’t been able to coax Pyro into talking about. But it was nothing heinous, nothing that he figured warranted a full-body suit to hide it.

He tried to work out how exactly to ask Pyro why they wore the suit without being weird or rude. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

“I appreciate it, you know,” Pyro said one day unprompted, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. They were sat a foot or so apart on Pyro’s bed and drawing, Scout sketching out a dramatic rendition of a particularly funny pose he’d seen the enemy Sniper land in when he died and Pyro apparently drawing yet another unrealistically bright technicolor landscape.

“What?” Scout asked, glancing over at them, more obviously than he’d been occasionally doing the whole time they’d been drawing together. They tended to do this really adorable thing where they stuck their tongue out a little bit when they were concentrating, and Scout had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling every time he saw it.

“That you don’t…” They hesitated. “…I dunno. That you don’t try and guess, now that you’ve seen me.”

Scout tilted his head. “Huh?”

Pyro’s gaze flickered to him and back down again almost too quickly to see. “You keep… not calling me anything,” they said. “Except for dude sometimes, but, you call everyone that anyways. That you still try and use “pal” or “buddy” instead of “man” or “lady” or whatever.”

Scout blinked.

Admittedly, there had been a good month or two right after he joined the team where he didn’t know how to refer to Pyro, and had just gone with using “he”, figuring it would be the less offensive assumption for someone in a mercenary career. Then at some point Engie finally sat him down and explained things to him, and after about a week of stumbling he finally got in the practice of using “they” and other words that weren’t particularly for a guy or girl. He couldn’t say that he really got it in a lot of ways, but he’d worked hard to learn the rules on how to be polite, because he figured he owed them that at the very minimum, if nothing else.

“What do you mean?” he asked after a second.

Pyro turned the marker in their hand over and over again. “Back before I started wearing the suit,” they started to explain, gesturing loosely at the suit in question, laid down on the chair at their desk like a deflated second Pyro (and admittedly sometimes scaring the shit out of Scout when he forgot it was there and noticed it in his periphery). “I would try and tell people I worked with that I wasn’t a guy or a girl, and they’d say sure, whatever, who cares, as long as you can kill people. But they’d look at me and start referring to me as a guy anyways. Sometimes a girl, but not usually. And only as… as neither, or both, or whatever, when I corrected them and maybe for a little while after.” They scratched at their stubble again. It was getting longer, and they’d probably shave pretty soon, if Scout knew them. “And it’s just… I always wondered what it was. I’d try and go clean-shaven all the time, wax, I wore makeup once or twice even to try and balance it out, but all that did was make them refer to me as a girl more, or look at me weird. I couldn’t seem to find the middle. So eventually I just put on the suit so nobody would… get hints anymore.”

Scout frowned, but didn’t know exactly what to say. “That’s the fuckin’ worst,” he decided on.

“I know, right?!” Pyro gushed, as if the dam had broken and they were finally allowed to feel mad about it. They sighed hard, pushing their hair out of their eyes, even if they just bounced right back into place a moment later. “They always respected me professionally, but what’s it take for a person to get called the right name, y’know!? Did they want me to wear a stupid t-shirt with instructions on it!?” Another sigh, then they looked up at Scout with those deep brown eyes of theirs, the ones that flooded Scout with an inexplicable sense of comfort. “And I guess I just wanted to say thanks. For not… I dunno. Being weird.”

Scout nodded, hesitated. “So I’ve been doin’ that right?” he asked suddenly, unable to stop himself.

Pyro smiled at him warmly. “You’ve been doing great, probably the best job anyone’s ever done,” they assured, and Scout knew his own smile was probably goofy and stupid looking, but he couldn’t bite it back.

“Thanks,” he said, having to look away, and Pyro laughed.

“And, I dunno. There was also this weird thing where I tried to date for a while and people kept not taking me seriously, then one day someone finally gave me a shot but got all weird and just straight up asked me what equipment I had on the second date and it was the worst.”

“I mean, none’a their fuckin’ business is what unless they’re asking if they should pack a condom,” Scout scoffed.

“Right!? It just sucked because most people would say “oh, I’m just into girls” or try and like, swing it as if I’m a guy and therefore it was totally cool, and only twice did I find someone who would go for whoever and one got weird about it and the other one is the person I took on two dates. Only person who ever gave me any real respect about it could only go on one date with me, and she was only cool because she kind of had some special circumstances going on too, then she had a contract abroad and we had to cut things off. And I just—I dunno. I wish people who went either way would… I dunno.”

“Hey, I fit that bill, and I’d totally date you,” Scout said, and then realized what he’d just said out loud.

Pyro was staring at him openly, mouth a little agape. They tried to start talking twice without success before finally managing it on the third attempt. “You’re bisexual?” they asked, a little surprised.

Scout immediately began backtracking. “I mean, I, I dunno,” he said quickly, looking away, face on fire, “I, it isn’t like I’ve ever really even gotten to date any, anyone but a couple girls and stuff, and, I, thinking and doing are kinda two different things, and y’know, labels and, and…”

They raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, yeah, I think I’m bi,” he finally admitted. “But you can’t fuckin’ tell anyone, got it? The guys already get all up in my grill about callin’ me gay all the time and, and Medic asking when the coming out party is and, and Sniper going all “what’s with the pride meeting?” and shit like that, I just, I don’t need any more of that fuckin’ nonsense, okay?”

“You know half of them do those jokes because they’re not straight either, right?” Pyro asked flatly.

Scout blinked. “The Doc and Snipes are gay?” he asked, surprised.

Pyro gave him a look.

“…Okay, I guess that’s, that tracks,” he admitted. “But—how many, who all’s…?”

“Far as I know, just Medic, Sniper, Heavy, and Spy, and those last two are also bi or something like that, and I think Demo doesn’t really swing any way,” Pyro said. “You really didn’t know? I thought they were pretty out about it.”

“Nobody tells me anything!” Scout said defensively.

“That’s fair. But… I dunno, I’m obviously not gonna go out and break out the news with confetti and streamers for you, but… I think they wouldn’t really care,” Pyro shrugged. “If anything they’d just try and wingman for you more.”

Scout thought about that for a while. “Man, what are the odds that we’d get a goddamn queer collective out in the middle of a fuckin’ desert?” he asked suddenly.

“Have you maybe considered that the people who’d go out into a desert away from civilization might be queer people trying to be more themselves where they can’t get as much backlash?” Pyro suggested.

“…Shit. That makes a lot of sense actually,” he admitted.

Quiet for a few seconds. “Let’s circle back around to that part where you said you’d totally go for someone like me,” Pyro said suddenly.

Scout pulled his hat down over his face, feeling it go red again. “Shut the fuck up, dude,” he protested, annoyed at how whiny it came out. “I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”

“Do you think about making out with me a lot?” Pyro asked, tone clearly teasing now, and Scout groaned.

“Oh my god, shut up,” he muttered. “I come out to you and you just start fuckin’ bullying me? That’s the play?”

“Duh,” Pyro laughed, and pinched his cheek, making him flush further as he batted their hand away.

“I’m just sayin’ that you’re good-looking and funny and anyone would be lucky to date you, okay?” Scout finally said, trying not to let more embarrassment flood through his voice.

That got Pyro to grin sheepishly, picking up their drawing again. “You’re sweet,” was all they managed to reply with, quieter now.

“The sweetest guy on the planet,” Scout agreed, picking up his own drawing as well, and Pyro elbowed him in the ribs, making him squawk.

He ended up coming out to Engie offhandedly during their lunch break about a week later, and he only even managed it because Pyro was sitting and eating next to him, their knee pressing into his own and bringing him enough comfort to broach the topic. Engie was immediately supportive, and ended the conversation with a pat on his shoulder and by saying he was proud of him for having to courage to say something.

That gave Scout a burst of confidence, and he ended up dragging Pyro around for the rest of the day as he came out to other teammates as well, first Demo and Soldier right after battle (Soldier needed an additional few moments of explanation but overall they were both glad to hear the news), then Medic and Heavy where they were sitting playing chess in the common room (once Heavy got past the language barrier, he offered Scout a solemn high-five in solidarity, which he accepted gratefully). Sniper was reserved for the next day, outside where he was setting up the grill to take his turn making the team dinner (he was a little awkward for a moment, clearly a bit confused and not having expected anyone to come talk to him, but once he caught on to what Scout was saying he offered one of his rare smiles and a few supportive words). 

Oddly enough, Spy was the one that made him the most nervous for reasons he couldn’t pin down, maybe partially because he didn’t bring Pyro along, but he probably handled it the most easily, treating it as no big deal at all, simply pausing for a moment before giving a flippant “Alright. Was that all, mon ami?” and shooing him back out of his smoking room shortly after.

“Look at you,” Pyro said appraisingly when he showed up to hang out in their room, clapping him on the shoulder, clearly noticing the fact that he was practically glowing.

“Didn’t even get beat up or shoved in a locker,” he said cheerfully.

Pyro looked at him for another second or two before they finally just swept him up in a hug, squeezing him almost too-tight in their excitement. “I’m so proud of you!” they exclaimed softly, and he returned the hug, burying his face in their hair when he became sure that he wouldn’t get in trouble for it, surprised and delighted by how very nice it smelled. Vanilla-y and a little coconut-y, warm like everything else about them.

It was only through the combination of circumstances—riding the nervous high from being newly-out for the first time in his life, and being all wrapped up in a hug with his best friend, and his nose being greeted by the smell of the very appealing shampoo they apparently used—that he got the exact level of confidence to do what he did next. They pulled away from the hug finally to look up at him with that same proud smile, and he leaned down and kissed them square on the mouth.

It was three or four seconds before he pulled away again with a tiny, almost-inaudible little smeck. He smiled down at them, feeling the wildly spinning combination of euphoria and fear and excitement and apprehension and thrill and terror swirling around in his chest. Their lips were slightly parted, and they stared up at him with wonder. If he ever drew the moment, he would probably draw Pyro’s pupils in the shape of little hearts, the way they were looking at him just then.

“Oh,” they said breathlessly, and laughed a little. “So you were serious when you said you’d go for someone like me, then?”

Scout laughed, couldn’t stifle it, rising up through his chest alongside his heart. “Yeah, duh,” he said, voice tinted a little higher than usual.

“Well shit, then get back down here,” Pyro said, and tugged on his shirt, and he readily obliged.