As our dear friend Lennon would say (that's LennON, Heavy);

Instant karma's going to get Scout.

Instant karma is going to bonk Scout right on the head.

Scout had better get himself together.

That's because the poor kid isn't going to be a man anytime soon.

See, whenever the barely-post-pubescent young boy tries to be a man, it doesn't turn out for the best.

Here's a good example of such a situation.

If one were a Scout residing in the RED portion of the base during a very prolonged ceasefire, one's days would come and go fairly quickly.

Although the depths and catacombs of a normal RED's bedroom lacked a daily planner – Medic, who spent more time scribbling down his plan of activities than actually completing them, was constantly trying to peer-pressure his team to join in on his useful hobby (to no avail) – Scout's morning was already nearly planned out for him.

First he would open his eyes to sunlight pouring into his room like warm syrup. Beyond that window glass was a whole world of adventure; he had all the rights to leap out of bed and start the first day of the rest of his youthful life. In the back of his ears he'd hear the birds outside flying and chirping with carefree glee...

Then he would tell them to shut the fuck up. Because everyone hates birds.

With a yawn, already-gauze-wrapped hands would toss the blankets across his bed, revealing green-and-orange striped cotton footie pajamas which was undoubtedly one of the more childish color schemes of the nightly outfits in his dresser. The cheap interior of his bed would groan like a constipated camel as Scout would jump out. Although no one cared, a shout rang out; "I'm up, bitches!"

Usually, by then he would waltz over to his mirror that rested atop a baseball-stickered dresser. A convenient little comb would sit there on the wood, right beside his Bucky Brandon-signed ball. Its comb-teeth nearly shivered with anticipation as it wordlessly pleaded to be run through the strings of his greasy brown hair that seemingly did not lose its disgusting texture even after a violent lather. Scout would comb his hair until he could nearly feel his medulla being teared out of his flesh, at which point he would throw the comb back onto the dresser with an eye on the mirror. "How's it goin', beautiful?"

The entire team could probably hear the non-graceful steps of the Bostonian ballerina thumping over to the kitchen. They were, however, busy sleeping because that is simply what one does if it is six in the morning.

A midsummer morning's dream was soon to be interrupted.

This was the cue for the Scout's own original lyrics of Reveille. The middle of the tile kitchen floor was the epicenter of the explosion of noise that was due to be sung; "DURR-DURR-DURR-DURR-DURR! WAKE UP FAGGOT GUYS! WAKEY-WAKEY WAKE! WAKE-EEE!"

Of course, no one would arise at this time, mostly because of the fact that their ears were momentarily disabled. Scout decides that this means there could be no eyewitnesses of him chowing down the entire hidden platter of Medic's cookies. Golden opportunities meant a caloric stomach for the young man. Perhaps the top of the refrigerator was a bad idea to place a dozen sugary treats. In turn, there was not a single chocolate-chipped survivor.

The day got pretty boring at the moment for Scout, who longed for a buddy to annoy. Normally, he would go into their bedrooms and spread their eyelids open with his fingers until they would let out bloodcurdling screams, but they had all signed a petition worded professionally by Spy that basically put out a restraining order against the molestation of their room's privacy. If Scout were not to abide by these laws, the team would assist in a torturous headlock and have Heavy give him various forms of Russian noogies. This has been done before and thus traumatized Scout. This stress disorder messed up Scout's psychological state enough to leave the doorknobs of his teammates be.

Scout had already worked out a just-as-evil system by that time, however. He discreetly got out Demoman's pan and wooden spoon from the kitchen cupboard and began to march out into the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs while clanging the barbaric instrument as if it were producing the best music that all the world just had to hear.

Perhaps the voice was an attempt to imitate Soldier, but it was not done well enough for one to understand where the strange impersonation was getting at. "I DON' KNOW BUT I BEEN TOLD!" Clangs to the beat enhanced the army mental image. "THAT ALL YOU GUYS IS SUPER OLD!"

"Shut up!" It was a first victim.

This did not matter to Scout, whose sole ass-piration in life was annoying the hell out of anyone. "SOUND OFF!" Clang, clang! "SOUND OFF!"

The first door slammed open. Spy appeared at his door with a purple bathrobe slung over his shoulders and a grimace peering out of his mask. "Did you not 'ear me? I said...SHUT UP!"

Scout clanged repeatedly in ear-breaking applause. "Good morning ta you too, Mr. Frenchy-french!"

Front pockets of bathrobes are most likely not intended to hold emergency cigarettes, but Spy found the easily-accessible tobacco to be a huge relief. He popped the non-lit cig between his frown. "Thanks for getting me up for nozhing, you energetic little bastard."

"You're welcome!" A final clang was the last straw.

Spy growled at the put-together volume of the pan and spoon. "Give me zhat!"

Scout shook his head as he hid the instruments behind his back. "Too late! Dey're mine!"

"No!" Gloves nearly tore the young man's hands off. "Give zhem!"

"I CALLED THEM!" cried Scout, keeping his iron grip.

This argument did not cease the Spy's highly irritable hair-trigger French nerves. The wooden spoon's grip soon gave way, and the cutlery was nabbed by Spy with a snorty on-hon-hon. It was then thrown through Spy's doorway and far into his no-Scout-allowed territory.

"HEY, NO FAIR! YA CAN'T JUST TOSS IT OFF-GROUNDS! CHEEEEATER! CHEEEEATER! WIEEEENER EEEEATER! "

"NO FAIR? I WAS IN ZHE MIDDLE OF MY SLEEPING!"

"OOH HOO HOO, BIG FUCKIN' DEAL! WOW, HE'S SLEEPING, WHAT A BADASS!"

Concentration on dissing-lines made his Scout's premature blood flow out of his hands and into his brain. The pan was tossed as well and off-limits in a matter of miliseconds.

Spy huffed. "Zhere." He dusted his gloves against each other as if he had just taken out an enormous bag of the RED's trash out to the dumpsters out front. "Zhat should teach you."

"Yeah, only..." Scout did not find anything to say. "Yeah, only...uh, you have no dick!"

"You wish," was the simple nonsensical reply. "Don't try zhis again, or I'm calling Heavy."

These words could have been taken quite seriously. Due to Scout's mental suffering when recalling the incident, they were taken more seriously than one could have imagined possible.

"Fine!" Scout could huff just as well. "Psh. Whatever. No-dick. You're a tit."

This final comeback was not heard because Spy had already trudged into his room and slammed the door.

"Ha ha! I could still – " began an opportunistic Scout.

A click signified a lock of the door.

"God damnit."

Although most mornings were boring and bland in this way, Scout decided that simply raiding for cookies or banging pots and pans was far too simple of a way to spend one's days. He needed something to make him grow and be a man, just like his Ma always said to. That one special morning, before he cursed out the birds, he would think of a way to prove to himself that he was a big boy and just because he cried at the end of Romeo and Juliet didn't mean that he was a stupid little kid.

Today, Scout would do something he would not soon forget.

Today, Scout would become a man.

Today, Scout would shave.

He raised a hand up to his cheeks under the covers, and he felt the tiniest hint of bristles sprouting out onto his cheeks. Although a normal teenage girl would have a hairier chin than he, Scout decided that he was getting far too hairy for a man of his age.

"I need to shave, motherfuckers!" he announced to the birds instead.

The birds did not pay him any mind. Scout assumed maybe they got startled due to his very low voice and gigantic Viking beard.

He thought about his manly whim. His older brothers didn't ever teach him how to shave, but he had seen how men shave in the beginning of movies and he supposed that it was fairly easy. However, 99% of war-themed baseball-enthusiast Bostonians have the memory of a half-dead goldfish, so he could simply not recall how one shaved. He would imagine it was a knife of sorts, so one would go side-to-side...no, wait, that's not right because Scout might cut himself and his team would ridicule him to no end if he had a shaving mishap.

Scout began to give birth to a deformed idea-baby in the uterus of his mind. Perhaps if he would watch someone on his team shave then he would know how to do it himself, and he could later borrow his shaver and cream for a similar purpose.

He then hopped out of bed and dashed to the bathroom to look for a good hiding spot – whoops, the comb routine was forgotten due to goldfish memory – but one must get creative with such a small room. Scout had been a master hider at his prime hiding age. In fact, he had been so good at hiding that his brothers gave up altogether and resumed to go outside and play baseball to leave him crouching there in the closet. His mother found him four hours later under a pile of shoes. It took a fair amount of convincing to tell him that it was already bedtime and his brothers had forgotten of his existence.

The bathroom had a scraggly toilet that was a sickly off-white with scratches staining its porcelain and a just-as-cheap towel slung over its top box that did not seem clean at all. A counter with a sink stood beside the excuse for an excrement dump, brown with two doors that led into a bottom storage that – Scout had creaked it open to nearly send it toppling off of its hinges – appeared to already be filled to the brim with various sponges and dusty detergents. A mirror set above the sink reflected Scout's puzzled expression as he realized there was nowhere he could hide. His eyes darted up to cupboards above that mirror, but inside was simply pills and a large box labeled Wilkinson, and there was far from an available inch for a young man to crouch in.

As he turned around, he found that the answer to his problem was right under his nose. (Figuratively, for the smell of wrinkle cream was the scent that nearly injured his nostrils.)

Although it took a while for him to cram up into the laundry basket, his evil plan turned out to work just as he had expected. In fact, this hiding spot proved to be very strategic. A small clump of dirty clothes at the bottom would muffle the sounds that Scout was bound to make when he'd jitter in anticipation. The sides of the box were cross-hatched with a wood-like material – good for peeking but not being seen. An entrance that lacked a lock and simply was opened with a lighthearted fling made escape easy and perhaps made discreetly peering a much simpler task as well.

Huddled up inside of the dirty clothes hamper, Scout began the first second of the eternity it would take to wake up his RED team members without his doing. His team was, as he had mentioned a few mornings before, 'super old' so it would take them ages to rise from their bed and go shave their beards off. Scout considered if they were men due to the fact that they shaved. This notion concluded in the fact that Spy had no dick and neither did anyone else, which made Scout the true-'n-only man of RED.

As his own breath began to set onto him in the damp darkness, he realized that it was beginning to get very stuffy in there. Feeble lungs called out to him pleadingly, begging him to screw this whole shaving thing and go bang a different set of pans and spoons. Scout told himself that he was turning into a man either right now or never. He did not care if his lungs shriveled up into lumpy oxygen-sprinkled wrinkles.

Ages and ages of the agony and despair inside that hiding spot told Scout that if it were a normal day everyone would be already scampering around to yell at him in the kitchen. With a sigh, Scout realized they will probably sleep for another twelve hours.

When one wants to pass the time but cannot, they must make the most out of what they have.

"Dirty clothes haaaaampeeeers!" This song appeared to be about Scout's current environment. "It smells like an old-aaaaasssss towel, and it doesn't feel good in here 'cause I'm hyperventilaaaaaatiiiiiiin'..." Scout's Dirty Clothes Hamper song gradually turned into a whine. "...and I wanna get oooouuut so I can annoy my FRIEEENDS!" The hamper shook with Scout's anger. The volume reached a crescendo; "LA LA LA LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Scout then realized he was giving away his territory because singing at the top of his lungs was not helping his secret spying time. He supposed it was because his technique was rusty due to the fact that he had not played Hide-and-Seek in ages. "I won't scream anymore," he promised himself in a whisper. "'Cause if I did I wouldn't be a good hider no more, dat's why."

Scout sat in the hamper quietly for forever. In reality, he had stayed motionless for about fifteen minutes.

Good moods can really change the way a morning can begin. Sniper's mornings usually began as Scout throwing rocks at his window at noon after a so-close-to-being-sleepless night. This time the van kept a silent, peaceful atmosphere as Sniper arose from his creaky bed with a satisfied yawn. The Australian reflection in the camper's windows did not illustrate permanent marker doodles; he saw a normal mature man with a white tank top and brown slouch-looking pajamas. For some odd reason, they were not cut up or mingled with by a pair of the Scout's scissors. Sniper's eyebrows were raised due to the strangeness.

There was something strange going on. Sniper was...happy.

The stroll over to the RED base was surprisingly quiet and pleasant, almost as if he were in some sort of war-era heaven. No Scout-shouts echoed across the county. Sniper, who had never felt more ecstatic, worked up a grin and decided he could cut back on coffee today.

He appeared to be the first one up, due to the morning light pouring into the emptiness of the hallways. In a word; still. In two words; quietly perfect. In three words; what the hell? No shouts and no quarrels. No Demoman burping all over the place. No Soldier marching around and assigning everyone to their daily duties. No Scout throwing toilet paper at people.

Sniper led himself into the bathroom, glad such a perfect day was meant to begin. Of course, first came teeth brushing, so he shut the door for the sake of his sleeping teammates.

He hummed a particularly catchy tune as the toothpaste was squeezed onto his mattered brush that had always been nothing but a red plastic hassle. Today, even this small activity seemed delightful. Sniper eyed the mirror and noted how neatly-trimmed and not-gray his hair appeared that day and how his usual Australian smirk-salute did not appear unattractive. This was, obviously, another illusion caused by his great mood.

Scout rolled his eyes in the basket. When was Sniper going to shave already? He didn't come here to see ten hours of Sniper peering into a mirror and repeatedly placing hands on his face as if he were making sure it was his head he was staring at.

Sniper raised up the brush after examining to make sure that the wrinkles that disappeared were really gone for good. He cheered up even more so when he began to brush his teeth and there was a significant lack of his regular ferocity-of-a-child-rapist mirror stare.

The Monkees received a tooth-brushing tribute. "Cheer up sleepy Jee-eeeeean, oh, whot can it mean to a..." He hacked and spit into the sink.

"Daydream believeh an' a..." The brush plopped back into the cup from which it had been drawn. "...homecomin' queeeeeee-ee-ee-EEEEN..."

Scout nearly felt himself vomit at the terrible singing voice he did not know Sniper possessed. Scout compared his singing voice to the Sniper's and decided that perhaps a man loses singing ability as he grows.

The bel-canto-bass continued on with the song, improvising on the lyrics as best he could whilst shuffling a bit to the right. "Y'once thought a' me...da da somethin'...da da dee..."

Scout was confused. What the hell was this? Don't men shave every morning after brushing their teeth? Maybe he was right about Sniper not really being a man. Though his troubling thoughts kept him bubbly with curiousity, Scout was too dim-witted to realize what he was about to see.

Sniper simply stood with his back facing Scout. "Now ya know how happy Oi can be..." Because the Sniper had such good aim, lifting up the toilet seat was not obligatory. Instead, Sniper simply opened his sleepwear-trousers with an undoing of the two front buttons.

Scout squinted. What in the hell was he doing?

"An' our good time starts again," was the lame attempt at an ad-lib that probably would have upset any Mrs.-Davy-Jones fangirl whose pet peeve is a lyric mishap. Sniper yawned once more, interrupting his song and instead freeing the inner brewing of his triple-sized Jarate-master kidneys with a slight tinkling sound and a relieved sigh. "...aaah yeah...that's good..."

"HOLY FUCKIN' CRAPDOGS! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" screeched Scout like a preteen girl in the presence of a cockroach, popping out of the dirty clothes hamper.

Heart attack galore. Sniper whirled around, exposed in the least favorable area, and caught sight of a Scout. "AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGH! WHOT IN THE FUCK!"

Scout's mind would never pass go of this horrid mental image that had already lodged itself between his most traumatized portions of his brain; the Heavy-gives-Scout-a-gratuitous-noogie section and the seeing-Engineer-make-a-midnight-dash-down-the-hallway-in-his-boxers section. It was going to take hours and hours of therapy for Scout to regain his ability of coherent speech. "AAAAAAA OH MY GOD I DID NOT WANNA SEE YOU PEE OH MY GOD OH EW OH NO OH AM I A GAY NOW OH JESUS WHY DID I HIDE HERE I THOUGHT YOU WERE A PUSSY AND HAD NO DICK SO YOU CAN'T PEE, 'CAUSE ALL I EVAH WANTED TA DO WAS SEE YOU SHAVE BUT NOW I REGRET EVERYTHING! I REGRET EVERYTHIN' I'VE EVAH DONE!"

Two hands flying to shield his crotch from poor Scout's virgin eyes, Sniper had no idea what to respond to the nonsensical Bostonian babbling that spurred out of the young man's mouth. Instead he simply cried out of embarrassed rage, "WHYYYYY AAAAAAARE YOUUUUUUUU SECRETLY WATCHIN' ON ME WHEN OI'M PIIIIIIISSSSSSSING?"

Scout began to feel tears welling up. "I didn't wanna see your weenie! Now I saw it! Just now I saw your WEENIE! I ain't evah gonna sleep nevah evah again!" He bawled. "N-NOW I'M GAAAAY AND I DON'T WANNA BE GAAAAA-AY-HAY-HAAAAAAY!"

The Australian, whose face was unnaturally red and whose bladder had been scared off for good, decided the best thing to do was to calm down little Scout crying in the laundry basket. Sparing Scout any more sight, he turned around and zipped his pants up. Making an excuse up on the go, he muttered, "Now, y'ain't gay, s-see...yer gay if ya touch it, okay?"

Scout sniffed. This appeared to make him feel a bit better, but his eyes were still glossy with the lack of long-term memory loss. "...are ya triple-dog SURE?"

This was a question that made Sniper think back to the crap he'd just said. Turning around to the Scout still peeking out from the top of the hamper, he tried his best to keep a straight face to add to the solemnity of the matter. "Um, yeah. Fair dinkum. Yer not gay."

Scout cheered with a shriek of "YAYYYYYYY!" His one-track mind raced back to the sole purpose of why he was in the bathroom in the first place. Casual conversation sounded strange whilst one man was in a laundry basket and another stood in a greasy tank top before the toilet. "So, speakin' a' which. Can you teach me how ta shave now?"

"I'm not yer bloody dad," spat Sniper, mood returning to its sour state as usual.

Two doe eyes that pleaded to him from the laundry basket did not help in Scout's argument. "Yeah, only, I wanna shave and I nevah even saw my dad, so you bettah teach me, asswipe." His boyish pout illustrated a vast array of self-pity.

A very impolite show of sarcasm made Sniper gain all his wrinkles back with a faux frown. "Aw, boo-hoo. That's too bad."

With this remark hitting his ears, the laundry basket emptied itself of a hopping Bostonian with a shrill cry of "TEACH ME HOW TO SHAVE!"

"How are you gonna shave anyway?" retorted Sniper with a chuckle. "Yer chin's smooth as a baby's bottom, and I doubt anythin' else isn't."

Scout stomped the right foot of the footie pajamas onto the floor in a fit of agression. "MY FACE BUT ONLY I'M A MAN SO I'M HAIRY ALL OVAH DA PLACE, I BET!"

This false statement was not taken account of by the Australian due to its ridiculousness. He pointed at his own messy stubble that resembled that of a dog whose fur had been torn off by a horde of wild goats. "Nah this..." His finger tapped a portion of his cheek as he grinned. "...heh, nah this is one sexy husky beard roight here."

Scout realized something. "Oooh. THAT'S how come you don't get laid."

A facial hair aficionado paused, wide eyed. "'Scuse me?"

"Yer ratty old stubble," Scout replied. "It looks like monkey balls. It's like, da ugliest thing ever. I get why Miss Paulin' won't talk to you."

Things needed to be cleared up a bit as his confidence dropped from all to nothing. "YOU THINK MOI BEARD IS UGLY!"

He nodded. "Yeah, only too bad 'cause it's not even a real beard."

Sniper glanced back into the mirror with a doubtful glance to discover that the thing on his cheeks had been nothing but a botched-up shave. Convincing himself against his post-mid-life crisis had been useless. "Damn, yer right." He sighed and turned away from the disgrace. "It's ugly as hell."

There was a sudden ill feeling in Scout's stomach, almost as if he felt bad for the man. "Yer not dat ugly. Yer like...in da middle of pretty an' ugly. Like...pretty-ugly."

Sniper turned around with the most injured face of all time, almost on the verge of tears. "You...you think I'm pretty ugly?"

"In da middle," Scout assured.

Sniper looked back into the mirror, hoping that strange way of putting it meant he was still attractive in some form. "Oi s'pose...s'pose Oi really should get a shave, then?"

Scout clapped as he burst into happiness as he would finally learn how to be a man. "SHAVE! SHAVE! Also, show me how. Make it like a step-by-step thingy that they do in those shows sometimes."

"Oh, all roight." Sniper walked back over to the cabinets above the toilet.

Scout screamed, pressing his hands to his palms in an attempt to go blind. "OH MY GOD, NO, NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! DON'T! DON'T!"

A very excessive eye-roll from Sniper showed that he knew exactly what Scout was expecting. Instead he simply reached to open the cupboard and snatch his Wilkinson set. "Relax, I'm getting moi razor an' all."

"Oh, okay!" Scout piped. "So, how da ya start?"

Sniper plunked a cascade of shaving items onto the small space before the sink. "So first o' all..." He brought two hands to the sink and turned it running. "Ya gotta put some really hot water on your face."

"How come ya gotta do dat?" asked Scout.

"Because shut up," Sniper snapped. He splashed the scalding sinkwater onto his cheeks.

"Dat makes no sense," scoffed a very displeased Scout. "Me shuttin' up got nothin' ta do wit hot water, last time I checked."

It was a wise choice to ignore this remark. Sniper squeaked the sink off and dug his face into a nearby towel slung over the toilet basin.

Scout watched as Sniper threw the off-white towel back onto the toilet. "Yeah...I really don't think that was clean, man."

"ANYWAY," hissed the very pestered Sniper. He raised up a tiny bottle. "Step two. This is shavin' oil. Ya put it on your beard...well, in my case anyway."

The bottle was slowly tipped over with massive precision and a drop of the orange oil made a miniscule pool in the older man's palm. Sniper felt concentrated eyes staring intently deep into his cheek-flesh as he applied the oil onto his ratty stubble.

"Are you sure yer supposed to make dat weird-ass face?"

He whirled his head around. "Whot weird face?"

Scout puckered his lips. "Like dis. Why are you doin' dat?"

Sniper noticed his expression and straightened his lips in less than half of a second. "'Twas just yer imagination," quickly slurred the Aussie to save face, not once in his life noticing his odd shaving habit. "So, er, continuin' on."

With an elongated spritz of the can of shaving cream, white puffs surrounded his face like a huge white beard.

"HEY-HEY! YA LOOK LIKE SANTY CLAUS!" Scout shouted. "JINGLE BELLS, BLU TEAM SMELLS, SNIPER'S FROM DA AUSTRALIA – "

"Oi thought ya wonted ta learn how ta shave," grumbled Sniper at the show of immaturity.

"YEAH, AND, LIKE, SO INSTEAD A' REINDEER YA GONNA HAVE KANGAROOS OR SOME SHIT," continued Scout, quite loud with excitement of his teammate being a well-known holiday star.

The untrue spirit of Smissmas just shut his eyes in defeat. "You almost done?"

Scout was clearly not. "WAIT, I FORGOT THE PART ABOUT HOW YER ELVES ARE KOALAS! HAW HAW HAW! AND THEN YA FLY IN A SLEIGH EXCEPT THE SLEIGH ISN'T A SLEIGH AND IT'S REALLY YER VAN ONLY IT – "

"...foive...four...three..." began a Sniper in a voice like that of a very abusive father that had mentally got out his belt.

Scout immediately froze.

Starting anew and with a brief grin, Sniper continued on in the tutorial. "So then...ya take the razor..."

"OH BOY, DIS IS DA FUN PART!" announced Scout.

A glare threatened Scout to be quiet, or else. It worked.

"Ya take the razor, an' ya start off real slow down yer cheek." The metal bristles started off on a first streak down his face. The Santa beard was gradually brought down in a clump to his neck. Then the white disappeared somewhere into the razor without a warning to say goodbye to jolly old Saint Rick. Not a spot of the cream was visible and his stubble had been removed as well.

Sniper was a new person.

"JESUS CHRYSLER!" gasped Scout. "You suddenly look like 10 THOUSAN' MILLION years younger! Like, it's sorta like anti-agin' magic, like in dose commercials. To be honest, ya look so different dat it's kinda creepy."

The new teammate was somewhat unsure of how his assassin-atmosphere had differed. "Well, Oi'll be stuffed! Oi reckoned it was going to look loike complete shit..." Sniper's cheekbones did still stand out and his side burns remained put, but for some odd reason he lost a good 40-year-old-pedophile factor off the charts and left a middle-aged-man-who-didn't-get-laid-for-who-knows-how-long margin shooting up to the roof. "It ain't half bad, truth ta be told."

Scout nodded simply, for the fact that he would soon shave was not making him able to think straight. "Yeah, sure, uh, the ladies will be all over you, now can I have da razo – "

"The ladies will be...?" echoed a Sniper whose eyes widened with a very illegal imagination. "Wow...y-ya really think so, mate?" It appeared that Sniper had taken those words all too seriously as the sentence made its way deep into his hypertensive heart. Across his face spread a smile of true friendship. "Hey...y'know...thanks a heap. Means a lot comin' from a bloke loike you."

The sincere reaction caught a dissy Bostonian completely off-guard. "Uh...yer welcome. So...can I have da razor now?"

Sniper chuckled and handed the razor over to the young man in footie pajamas. "Here ya go, bud. Have fun an' good luck."

"YAY! I GET TA BE A MAN!" declared an overexcited Scout, hurrying over to shove Sniper aside and get to work.

A very rough ruffle of his hair startled him. "Ow! Whadda hell was DAT for?"

Sniper had never looked happier to have a friend, though the Aussie seemed a bit inexperienced due to his difficulty of talking in a polite manner instead of just smirking at people all day as the man usually does. The hand on Scout's hair hovered lightly, somewhat awkward for the young man but Sniper not sensing the problem due to his severe lack of friendships. "Nah, yer jus'...yer jus' a real noice bloke fer sayin' that..." Sniper sighed at the miserable time-waste that was his life. "That's the first toime someone had complimented me wit'out bein' sarcastic, just like – "

"Yeah, whatever, I don't care about yer dumb life story," retorted Scout, anxious to shave off his invisible stubble. He jerked to the side to get the arm plunking back to Sniper's side. "Lay off me."

Apparently, nothing offended Sniper now that someone had actually spoken positively of his pretty-ugly appearance. Instead of the customary 'wanker' or 'piss off' or perhaps even 'go screw yourself, Scout', the Bostonian received a very lighthearted chuckle. "Seeya, mate!" The Australianness in the room disappeared out the door with another badly-sung one-man choir of "Cheer up sleepy Jee-eeeeean, oh, whot can it mean..."

Scout slammed the door in hope of saving his damaged eardrums.

"Now dat da idiot douche is gone," began Scout to himself, solely for the purpose of sorting out his thoughts, "I can finally be a man and all that junk, only I hope dat I'll look better den him, 'cause he is oooone ugly mofo."

He racked his brain to remember which step came first in the consequent order of man. "Uh...wattah...oil...Santa...razor. 'Kay, got it." Scout dropped the razor to an unused portion of the sink and pulled the hot water lever.

He raised a hand under the mechanical waterfall to break out in a bloodcurdling scream. The burning flesh was flailed about as Scout hopped around the bathroom. "OOOOOOOOH, MYYYYYYYYY FUUUUUCKIN' HAAAAAAAAAAND! AH AH AH AH AH IT HURTS!"

Pretty soon the third-degree burn was degraded back to a bachelor. Though his hand was feeling quite better, but Scout decided that, for his own personal well-being, he should most likely avoid any face-washing.

"Onto da oil!" declared a Scout, still determined with every last inch of his beard-less body to be a man. A waiting guaze-enshrouded palm jutted out before the sink and he nabbed the shaving oil in a very eager completion of the start of Step Two.

He tipped the bottle with such rigor that it brimmed far over his palm and created an orange lake out of the sink. Just like that and half the bottle was empty and, sadly, so was his palm, for the oil had seeped into the increasingly useless bandages wrapped around his cupped hand. It was quite obvious that REDs whose point of life is to run faster than any speeding Heavy boolet should take more time in pouring shaving oil and not just jerk their elbow about with the bottle in a firm grip and hope for the best. It was most likely Sniper's guardian angel's doing that the bottle's contents had not exploded around the room and streaked the wall orange. However, a very oblivious Scout found the shaving oil mishap to be none of his fault. "Wow, dis oil is fuckin' retarded. I can't even, like, pour it into my hand. Yeah, whatever. Screw it."

Scout's I'm-turning-into-a-man-today mood had diminished to an angered shaving time. "Fuckin' cream wit da fuckin' shit. Fuckin' spray like a fuckin' Fuh-breeze marshmallow crap. Fuckin' gotta fuckin' spray it – " As the white puffs set onto his cheeks, happiness soared back to him all the way from Shaving-Mishap-Timbuktu, population: male society. "OH MY GOD IT'S FUCKIN' SANTY SCOUT!

"HO HO HO, HOES!" Scout pretended there was a Medic standing next to him and he pointed at the imaginary sadist.

"Yo vhat as up, Har Scout Zanty!" greeted Medic in a very inaccurate imitation. "I get the present, yah?"

"Uh, NO!" replied Scout. "Even though yer a big Nazi and ya killed the kids who don't believe in me, I hate you. 'Cause I wanted dat fuckin' chocolate last week and guess what you said? You said 'no'.

"And den ya ate it! Ya fuckin' ate da last fuckin' chocolate and it wasn't even yours! It was Engineer's! And before, he even said I could have seven! So, sorry, pally. You are on the naughty list and y'are getting coal just like ya deserve."

Medic started crying. Then a blast of vomit shot out of his mouth, making the walls and ceiling barfy with Heavy semen, and then he raised up a huge bonesaw and he cut his own head off.

Scout laughed at the blood exploding all over the room. "Haw haw! Yer never gonna have my chocolate ever again! Boo, you whore!"

The Santa look was slowly diminished as the foam dripped down his neck and began making a tiny wetness in the neck seam of his footie and the entire beard melted down his face as if he were a zombie messily eating vanilla pudding. Once Scout became aware of this, it was time to shave.

"OH BOY, DIS IS DA FUN PART!" announced Scout. (Again.)

He grabbed Sniper's razor and, tongue out in concentration, slid the razor down his face with ease. A stripe of the Santa beard was transformed back into his fleshy pinkish tone.

This event was in dire need of a formal declaration. "SCOUT IS 'FFICIALLY A MAN, EVERYONE!"

Then the act of becoming manly became repetetive somewhere along the third stripe down. "Wow, being a man is booo-riiiing." A solution he deemed fit was shaving in differing directions which was sure to spice things up a bit.

First he erased the entire Santa with the razor going up, its handle up to the ceiling.

After that, he swiped the razor over his lips with its handle to the side. The beard was gone, other than a white poof still left below his grin.

And then Scout made the biggest mistake of his life.

He horizontally sliced the tiny portion of the beard off of his chin.

The wound burned like boiling water. At first he was confused, thinking perhaps this time he'd done something wrong. Confusion, of course, was the first part of the realization. "...ah..." That was when Scout spotted a trickle of blood streaming down his chin. "AH...!" The poor boy went into a panic. "AH AH AH AH AH AH AH OH OH OH AH AH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

An unsuspecting razor flung across the room, clunking against the toilet. "BLOOD! BLOOD! I'M BLEEDIN'! I'M BLEEDIN'! OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!"

With the final drop of Christmas flinging out into the air, he dashed out the door and out into the hallway with a scream; "HEEEELP! HEEEEEEEELP! HEEEEEEEEEEEELP! IT HURRRRRTS!"

Sniper, who would have taken great excitement in actually helping a friend, was off to eat granola bars in his van and thus couldn't hear a thing through the porcelain vehicle, even if the base was immersed in lava. The bootleg Monkees vinyl he blasted through his cheap record player did not aid in saving the poor Scout.

Thus the bare feet scampered up the steel-plated hallway, a loud scream accompanying the sudden blast of spastic activity. "SOMEONE GOTTA HELP ME, I'M BLEEDIN'! I AIN'T EVEN SANTA NO MORE!"

"Would ya please be more quiet, I'm tryin' ta concentrate in here," muttered a muffled voice behind Engineer's closed door.

Scout had acquired a source of help. He banged both fists on the wooden frame. "ENGINEER! 'GINNY, YA GOTTA HELP ME! I DID IT WRONG AND NOW MY CHIN IS ALL BLEEDING AND I THINK IT'S 'CAUSE IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT HORIZONTAL WAYS ONLY TOO LATE AND NOW IT HURTS!" This explanation, of course, could be taken in any way, shape, or form.

Engineer apparently took his friend's run-on statement in quiet confusion. "Uh..." There was a slight pause as Scout waited for any word-format sort of reply. "Real sorry, but I'm busy, boy."

"OPEN DA DOOR! OPEN DA DOOR! OPEN DA DOOR!" screamed Scout like Sniper's broken record, drumming on the wood as if it were a slap-happy bongo.

Engineer was not able to take any more of the shouting. With a sigh, he dropped his pencil on the blueprints and shuffled over to the door. As it squeaked to reveal a Texan in an oversized Longhorns tee and plaid boxers.

As soon as Scout's eyes met the boxers, he froze. Eyes bulging out of his head like a scared animal, Engineer watched with confusion as he shuddered endlessly as if he were ready to implode.

"What?" softly asked a very lost Engineer. "Yer not a Longhorns fan?"

Scout finally burst into even more of a nervous spasm. The not-long-enough ends of the shorts and the hair stemming from his Texan pal's legs was the final straw to his recollection of sanity. His previous memory-trauma was returned back to him at full speed. "OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD-WHY-THE-FUCK-ARE-YOU-IN-YOUR-BOXERS-OH-MY-GOD-IT'S-LIKE-THAT-ONE-TIME-OH-GOD-OH-GGGGGODDDD!"

Of course, no human with regular ears can understand a Bostonian babbling with a coherency factor equal to that of an obese cow's death scream.

"Boy! Yer chin! You...yer bleedin'!" squeaked Engineer, pointing at the shaving scar across Scout's face and not even attempting to decode the words of his fellow teammate.

"OH FUCK I TOTALLY FORGOT OH SHIT!" replied a Scout that was brought back to reality.

Engineer shook his head, always on the side of his pained RED. "This ain't nothin' ta neglect! This is serious!" He took Scout by his wet oily hand and motioned with a glove over to Medic's office. "We are gettin' you a band-aid right this secon', mister!"

Scout grinned. "Gee, thanks, man!"

Engineer chuckled as he jogged with a running Scout over to the Medical office. "No problem, son! And anyway, Medic would be darn happy to – "

"WHAT!" screamed Scout at the monstrosity of being healed by the thieving chocolate-eater, skidding on his heels to stop as if he had just run into a faulty street and a pickup truck had nearly toppled over his toes.

This immediately led into the insecure Texan believing he had made some sort of offensive statement. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Did I say somethin'?"

"MEDIC IS A FAGGOT AND I HATE HIM!" screeched Scout.

Engineer gasped, his face suddenly flushing red. "That is not a reason to hate someone, mister!"

"I DON'T HATE HIM BECAUSE HE'S A FAGGOT," Scout began, blood dripping onto his chest. "I HATE THAT OLD DUDE BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GIVE ME IT AND THEN HE ATE THE LAST CHOCOLATE."

"Oh, er, well, that ain't no reason ta hate no one neither," muttered Engineer. "You done gotta forgive...wait a secon' here! Weren't those MY chocolates?"

"Yeah," replied a Scout. Then the words were regretted slightly. "I mean, no. I mean, sorta."

A door squeaked open and the REDs circled their head around to a Medic leaning out of the doorway, only head visible with a pajama-Phrygian cap slung over his tousled black hair. "I haf heard my name, com-eh-rades?"

"Yeah, 'cause we was just talking about how much of a FAG YOU ARE!" screamed Scout.

Medic simply blinked, apparently too sleepy to form a coherent response to the insult. "Vha...?"

Somewhere behind them rang out a small voice belonging a Texan peacemaker trying to solve conflicts as he always does. "Scout's just upset 'cause ya didn't let him have th' last choc'late, Doc."

"Wow, seriously? Zat vas, like, a veek ago," replied Medic, not attempting to leave the safety of his bedroom. Even without his glasses the blood on Scout's chin was apparent. "Er...vhy is he bleeding?"

Engineer shrugged.

"I CUT MYSELF WHEN I BECAME A MAN!" It was impossible to tell if Scout was hurt or proud.

Medic squinted in confusion. "Zat's great. Vant a bandage or somezing?"

A nod came from Engineer. "That's what we were actually goin' fer."

"Yeah right! Real men don't need band-aids!" huffed a Scout.

"Real men can get an infection and die like zat," said Medic.

Scout's eyes rolled to the back of his head, though his fear made his heart nearly drown itself in sudden fear. "O-oh, right. Pff. Yeah, fine. Okay. Jeez. Asshole."

Engineer found that he was useless in the conversation. "I'm goin' back to the blueprints..." No one heard him, for the panic of plaster lack was all too loud in the atmosphere.

Medic, not noticing Engineer's lost presence, thought for a moment. "You know vere my office is, right? Ja, so you take za left until you see zis white box zat says 'first aid' on it. Zere should be a spare one in zere, if I am correct."

Before Scout could agree to go into the office, he had to inquire a certain set of knowledge beforehand. "Do you have 'em in different colors?"

"Zey're all elastoplast and..." Medic stopped mid-sentence to answer the useless question. "Oh, colors? Ah, I haven't za slightest idea. It doesn't matter, but if you care zat much, go see for yahself."

"Yeah but I ain't goin' unless you have a green one," declared Scout with a frown. "Green is the pimpest color."

"Green is za color of za infection you vill get unless you go get a band-aid right now," replied Medic. "Go, go, get vun."

Scout stomped on the ground in hope of getting his way. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TA DO, YOU WHACK-JOB!" Perhaps Medic's exact sentence was be the straw that broke the Bostonian camel's back, because Scout suddenly turned pale and screamed for at least a minute. "YOU ARE A BIG FAT HOMO AND YOU EAT SHIT FER A LIVING AND I DON'T EVEN LIKE YOU! NO ONE LIKES YOU! I HATE YOU! EVEN IF I'M FULLY HEALED BY YOU I'M ALWAYS GONNA CALL MEDIC JUST TO PISS YOU OFF BECAUSE I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I'LL ALWAYS HATE YOU!"

Medic's eyes widened not due to the words but instead due to the sickly color Scout was turning. "...Herr Scout! Herr Scout, you ah running out of breath! You ah going to faint and..."

"FAINT MY ASS!" screamed the Smurf-colored bloody mess in striped footies. "I AIN'T GONNA FAINT 'CAUSE I HATE YOU SO MUCH I WANT TO EXPLODE AND MY HEAD HURTS AND I'M STILL BLEEDIN'!" With every sentence that was slobbered on by, his pitch increased as if he were squeezing a packet of helium out of his lungs. "I-FEEL-HORRIBLE-AND-IT'S-ALL-THANKS-TA-YOU-'CAUSE-I-WISH-YOU-WERE-FREAKIN'-DEAD!"

The German rushed out of the room, two-piece dotted pajamas that matched his hat making him look all too silly. Though his fluffy flip-flops slowed him down, he managed to accompany Scout's side in seconds shouting, "BREATHE, YOU IDIOT! YOU AH GOING TO FAINT!"

Scout attempted to let out a breath, but his hatred did not let him. "I SAID YA CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TA DO! YA-CAN'T-TELL-ME-WHAT-TA-DO! YACAN'TTELLMEWHATTADO!YACAT'LMEWAT'DO!"

"WHATEVAH, JUST BREATHE!" screamed Medic, taking the young man by the shoulders and shaking him until the blood trail formed a silly thundery pattern.

Scout's eyes rolled up to the ceiling with a gasp, and then the boy's arms flopped to his sides, and as soon as Medic let go of him he thumped onto the floor almost lifelessly.

"Ah, he'll vake up some time or anozah," figured Medic, shuffling to the office for a bland skin-colored band-aid.

Hours later Scout awoke in the center of the hallway, with footies sweaty and aching arms. "Ow...what da fuck?" When he talked, it seemed as if he had a band-aid under his mouth that made opening his jaw more difficult than it usually was. "Uh...some help over here?"

"Scout ees already wake?" asked a distant voice.

"Wha' else d'ya think them voice wa' in th' hallwae, lad? A bloody ghoost?"

"I do concur zhat our best ceasefire day 'as transformed back into a normal one, friends."

"Oh crap...he's probably pissed off ta hell wit me, he is."

"Scout baby ees always peessed off to everyone."

"Mmmh mmh mmmh mh mh mmhh mhmh, rhmm thmmm mm fhmmm. Mmrh ghrmm mhhm hmm hmmmrm mrmm fmm hrmmm mfmr mmfmr ghmmmrh! Hmm mrm mrmmph mmmrh ghmr mmmfh mmrfh thmmm thmrmngh, mrmmngh shmmmhs mhhrnn mmffrhm! RRRRRHMMM mmr mprgh mmhr mrm mmr...mprgh thmmm'sh mmrh mmrhg!

"Shrmmmsmmr, smmmr, mmrph, mmmr mmhuhm mhhm mhd-mhd-mdh mmmd mdmmd mrph mmmrgh mrgh mmh mrrh...mrrhg mmmmrth, MMRH! Mrhhm mhhmm'sh mhhrrm mrmmr mmhh mrmrmh mmhrm mhhhm mhrrhhm mrgh mmrmm phtmmm thmmm rghmmmr mmhrm mhhrmm mm. Thmm mmdh."

"SON of SAM HILL, Pyro! THAT is the WORST THING I have EVER heard, and I DOUBT I will look at that MAGGOT the same way EVER AGAIN."

"That just ain't right. But th' saddest part is I betcha we ain't gonna have 'nother silent mornin' in another ten years now. It was good while it lasted, wasn' it, fellers?"

"Ja, it vas probably healthy for all of us! Stress-relief day. Should be a national holiday! Ooh hoo hoo."

"Mark it in yer stupid planner, Doc! Ha ha ha ha!"

"I dunnae aboot e'ryone else, but ae say we should call't 'Wee Little Lassie Shuts Up Fer Longer Than a Bloody Minute' day!"

Everyone began to laugh lightheartedly in agreement.

Scout grunted and leaped up from the floor. "I CAN HEAR YOU DUMBASSES GAYIN' IT UP AND NOW I HATE ALL OF YOU. ESPECIALLY YOU, MEDICKHEAD!" Whispered voices only made Scout angrier when together the entire RED remnants burst into laughter.

As our dear friend Lennon would say (the ARTIST, Heavy, not the MARXIST);

Well, we all shave on!

Like Sniper, and the Spy, and...basically everyone else on RED, really.

Sadly, though, the poor kid wasn't going to be shaving anytime soon.
(He didn't even need to. He just had daddy issues or something of the sort.)

The barely-post-pubescent young boy tried to be a man and...well, you saw for yourself. He sliced his fucking chin open.
Additionally, this story is a good example of why Scout isn't a very good hider.

Last remark; if one were anyone but Scout residing in the RED portion of the base during a very prolonged ceasefire, they'd hope Scout would pass out again sometime soon.