Author's Note:

Firstly, I don't have permission to get into the imaginary heads of these characters and the world they live in, so all I can do is hope that Valve, Steam, TF2 and all its creators don't have a problem with it! (If they do, this'll be taken down in a flash!)

Secondly, although this is a story which revolves around a relationship between the Scout and the Sniper, this is not going to be one of those horribly mushy yaoi fics where the guys' cheeks blush with burning desire every 5 seconds. Those kinds of fics really aren't my thing – they're not based on how the world works and it's my intention to keep things as realistic as possible! (Even in the TF2 world!)

Thirdly, I do have the whole story mapped out in my head, and (although it may take a while – I work full time) I do plan on finishing this! (I've always hated it when stories I was reading were uploaded a chapter at a time/as the writer was going, but now I see why it's done!)

Fourthly (I swear this is the last one), although I would really love and appreciate constructive comments on what you think/how I could do better, etc, I will not tolerate trolls for the sake of trolling. There's a place for that, and it's called 4chan! Go there to insult others and make yourself feel better if you really need to, but leave me out of it.

Finally, enjoy!

Chapter 1 - 'Meet The Scout'

"Meet the Scout."

Shh! Ya crazy lady... I'm tryin' ta concentrate here!

Another explosion hit, much nearer than the last.

"He is your new team-mate."

Woah! Nice try, buddy... Take dis!

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

"He is here because your last Scout failed."

...Failed, huh?.. What a chump. Dis is easy!

"Hey, over there! He's got the intelligence! AFTER HIM!"

"He will be trained and will join you on the battlefield in exactly one week's time."

Pfft... Wha'do I need trainin' for? I am ownin' dese guys!.. Oh shi-! No! WAIT!

Impact.

Then darkness.

"YOU HAVE BEEN KILLED. YOU HAVE FAILED." The harsh sound of the Announcer's voice rung through the training room, echoing off its invisible walls.

The surroundings vanished, as a deafening alarm sounded and the Scout looked up to find himself back in the supply room.

"Aww, fuck, man! Dat wasn' even fair!" He spun around angrily, yelling at the upper left-hand corner of the sterile, grey room. "Dat guy appeared out of freakin' no-where!" He shouted to the tannoy on the wall.

"TODAY'S TRAINING HAS BEEN COMPLETED. RETURN TO BASE."

"Shit..." The Scout muttered to himself, turning away from the tannoy. He walked over to the only bench in the room and began picking up his things; a white towel, which he slung over his shoulder, a fake bat and a fake gun, both provided to him at the beginning of the session. He held the bat in his right hand and tucked the gun into the front of his trousers. He didn't worry about checking if the safety was on; it wasn't loaded. It wasn't even made of metal. He reckoned it was some kind of weighted silicone, or plastic, as it was heavy enough to be a gun, but didn't quite feel right when he gripped it.

He left the supply room, which he still thought looked a lot like the communal changing rooms they'd had in his high school, and made his way down the corridor to the right, back to where everyone would be congregated for the evening.

Pro'ly finished eatin' by now. He thought, wondering briefly what the time was. Training seemed to have lasted a lot longer than usual today.

Mus' be 'cause it's da last day... He mused to himself. Maybe today was like... An assessment? He wondered, with a slight grimace. It wasn't a problem if he had been assessed, he just wasn't sure if the last few minutes would have exactly gone in his favour. He'd gotten gradually more and more cocky and self-assured as the day had gone on, and had ended up letting himself get distracted. He hadn't even seen his final attacker until it was too late, causing him to not only be killed in the simulation, but also to fail the mission.

He winced at the thought, and suddenly realised that he was wringing his towel slightly with his free hand. Quickly letting it go, he dropped his hand to his side.

"Whatevah." He said out-loud to no-one, putting his now idle hand in his pocket. I aced da rest of it, no question 'bout dat.

He turned a corner and, hearing voices suddenly, slowed down. Still so pumped full of adrenaline from the recent physical activity, it was difficult for him to stop his body from doing anything, even walking, but he didn't want to burst into the nearby room and announce to his team-mates that he'd finished his last day's training by being killed. He didn't know everyone that well yet, but he was sure such a failure would not be particularly well received.

As he got closer to the slightly ajar door where the voices were coming from, he strained his ears, trying to hear what was being said. He hoped it wasn't about him; he didn't want to make any enemies here. This was just a job to him, nothing more, nothing less. He didn't want to get messed up in any kind of "office politics".

He reached the door and stopped. Leaning forward slightly, he could hear a man with a loud Texan accent telling a story about what he assumed must have happened earlier in the day. The man was bragging about the amount of kills his "buildings" (or "stupid-freakin'-automated-guns" as the Scout called them) had got that day.

He remembered back to his previous day's training and how he'd been killed by one of the simulated Engineer's same automated guns. He'd been confident he'd had a clear run back to his base, with the other team's top secret intelligence under one arm, and his own trusty (yet not-real) bat in the other. He'd almost made it, but on the last stretch he'd been gunned down by a sentry, positioned up high where he'd had no chance of seeing it.

After re-materialising back in the supply room, he'd made it his mission to get his revenge on both the sentry and it's maker. He'd done so with the enemy Engineer, and done so well. He snickered quietly at the memory. He'd pounded the Engineer's face 'til his goggles had snapped off and flown past them both, landing somewhere several feet behind him. The sentry had already been destroyed by one of his back-up, simulated team-mates. He'd guessed the Demoman was responsible, being the bomb-expert that he was. He couldn't imagine the Medic causing so much damage with his "healing-gun", and they'd been the only other classes assigned to his team that day.

The Scout suddenly realised he was still hovering behind the door to the common room, and a seconds' more eavesdropping told him that the conversation had long since moved on from the Engineer's kill-streak bragging.

He breathed in deeply and pushed the door inwards. As he stepped into the room he quickly scanned it to see who was there. As far as he could see (and remember) everyone from his team appeared to be there. In the centre of the room were three men sitting round a table together, two of them drinking heartily and talking very loudly.

The first person he saw was his team's Soldier. They were, of course, all hired mercenaries here, but this man seemed to have taken it upon himself to not only be the team's self-appointed leader (to which no-one but himself seemed to acknowledge) but also to give himself the title of a 'Soldier', as if they were all fighting in some epic war.

The Scout remembered speaking with the Demoman earlier in the week, one night when the others had all but gone to bed, and he was left alone with the rather large, but surprisingly friendly, Scot.

"I mean, I know we're fightin' agains' an enemy an' all, but would ya really call it a 'war'?" He'd asked, as he cracked open a bottle of beer he'd got from the base's kitchen earlier that evening.

"Aye. 'T can be, laddy." The one-eyed man had answered drunkenly, taking yet another swig of his home-made moonshine. "When ya think aboot it, tha's basically why we're all here." The Scout had smiled at that, then swigged his non-home-made American beer. He didn't know about the others, but he was here for the money, not a war.

As the Scout's attention returned to the room he was standing in, he realised that everyone had quietened down. Most eyes were on him now, or at least that's how it felt.

He glanced around nervously, trying to figure out why everyone was looking at him, without actually making eye contact with anyone.

In the corner of the room his saw the extremely large and bald, heavy-set Russian man (the team's "Heavy Weapons Guy" or, just "Heavy" as everyone called him) and his comrade in arms; a disagreeable looking, black-haired German man (the team's questionably-trained "Medic", or "Doc" as the Scout had already nicknamed him, much to his annoyance).

In the centre of the room with the Soldier, who was still clad in his battle-gear, sat the 5-foot-something Texan he'd been listening to moments before (otherwise known as the "Engineer"). He was goggle-less and minus the dungarees the Scout was already used to seeing him in.

Opposite from him sat a much taller, actually rather lanky, Australian man, who had side-burns that could rival the X-Men's Wolverine. He was the team's Sniper. The Scout wasn't even sure if he'd heard him speak since he'd arrived almost a week ago, apart from to tell him what his job-classification was on the day he'd started.

Behind him he saw the team's "Pyro"; a man who carried a flame-thrower and wore a gas-mask at all times (so far, anyway). The Scout had yet to see his face, or even hear his voice properly, as it was always muffled by the mask.

Next to the Pyro was the team's Demolition Man (or "Demo", for short) who the Scout'd had the most interactions with so far. He was fairly normal looking... Apart from the fact that he only had one eye, of course.

The Scout remembered thinking how dumb it was for a company to hire a mercenary with such a big handicap like that when he was first introduced to him, but he hadn't mentioned it. Maybe if he got to know him a bit better, he might ask him about it.

The Scout finished his sweep of the room and, seeing no-one else, realised they were missing one person; their Spy. He'd only seen him a couple of times since he'd got there, mainly brief passings in the corridors. Now he came to think of it, he wasn't sure if he'd ever seen him in the common room. He wondered if the Spy was some kind of recluse, or if he just had better things to do with his time.

Either way, the Scout's attention was dragged back to the present as he noticed that everyone was most-definitely staring at him now. He stood there in the doorway, feeling like there was an elephant in the room, and he was the elephant.

"Uhh..." The Scout started, clearing his throat awkwardly.

He noticed the Engineer looking at his bat and then his gun, and saw him smirk. The Scout frowned slightly.

What's he got to look so smug about? He thought, annoyed.

The Soldier seemed to be thinking the same as the Engineer however, as he then stood up and pointed at the Scout's weapons.

"That training equipment belongs in the main supply closet, Private." He stated sharply, pointing at the Scout's waist.

"Oh, yea'." The Scout replied in his strong Boston accent, looking down at his gun which was still sticking out of his trousers' waistband. "Yea', sorry about dat, uhh... 'Sarge?" His frown deepened. "I'll put 'em away now."

He turned to face the corridor again, catching Demo's sympathetic eye as he did so, and he felt strangely embarrassed all of a sudden. Why did he feel embarrassed? He'd only just come out of the training area and he hadn't had a chance to get the supply closet yet. Was that considered a massive faux-pas here? He couldn't see how it could be...

As he closed the door behind him, he could hear everyone starting to talk again. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard the Engineer make a remark that caused the Soldier to burst into a raucous laugh. He felt uneasy. Did he say something about him? Was he a laughing stock already?

Fuck dat shit! He thought angrily. If dey wanna think I'm some kinda pussy, dey've got anutha thing comin' to 'em. I'll show 'em what I'm made of tomorrow! He vowed as he turned the corner at speed, crashing straight into the Spy.

"Woah!" He held up his hands straight away, not knowing how the Spy was going to react. "Sorry, dude. Didn't see ya there..."

The Spy was quite a tall man and, judging by the simulated representations of his class in the training exercises, the Scout wouldn't trust him as far as he could throw him. However, the Spy simply straightened his pin-stripe suit-jacket and replied, in his thick French accent, "It iz not a problem."

Without another word he continued along the corridor and turned down the way the Scout had just come from. The Scout just stared after him, still in shock from the collision.

Weird-o… The young Bostonian thought after a few more moments. Then, remembering that he hadn't eaten dinner yet, he turned and started jogging in the direction of the supply closet the Soldier had mentioned, thinking that the sooner he put his things away, the sooner he could eat. The sooner he'd eaten, the sooner this day would be over and then he'd be able to show his team-mates just how useful he could be on a battlefield.

His heart sped up at the thought. He wasn't into hurting people... Well, maybe a little... To the people who reeeeally deserve it. He snickered to himself. But he did get a rush out of competition, of any kind, and he knew that not one of the other men on his team would have anything on him, in terms of speed. He was the fastest there was. He'd won every race he'd ever been in and in his school's baseball team he could reach home plate before the ball had even hit the ground. He was, incidentally, also very good at baseball, but that wasn't the point.

He started thinking about the next day, and what it would be like. As he understood his job so far, there was some land that two companies were fighting over, and it was him and his team-mates' jobs to reclaim, and keep, as much of it as possible. They did this in the usual ways; by killing the enemy, capturing their intelligence and stealing or breaking their equipment. Oh, and there was something about a cart, but he hadn't been paying attention by that point; he'd figure it all out soon enough. Plus he knew there were briefings before every mission, so he was confident he'd pick things up quickly.

He reached the supply room, entered the pass-code and flung his bat, gun and unused towel in the corner of the room with all the other "Scout" equipment. He shut the door firmly behind him, waited for the beeping sound that confirmed it had locked and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

Right. I'll get me some eats, then head off ta bed. Got a bright and early start tomorrow and I don't wanna disappoint! He grinned; ideas of how he was going to show off to his team-mates already flying around his head.

-End Chapter-

Update 12/02/2012 - Chapter 2 is coming along nicely. If you're checking this/keeping up to date with it I'd like to thank you for the support! As a teaser, I can tell you the next chapter is called, "Respawn". (Not much of a teaser, I know! But thanks again if you do come back to read more, I hope you won't be disappointed!)