fic: Savvy
Jan. 17th, 2016 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bonnefoisTitle: Savvy
Series: TF2
Character/Pairing: Scout/Miss Pauling
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2623
Author's note: Here I was, ignoring this update when low and behold this postcard comes around.
Well, Hazmad, how about a late gift? (She betaed it too).
"Eyy, come and get your Tom Jones memorabilia. Rare, mint condition Tom Jones memorabilia! Everythin' must go, I got rent to pay!"
The New Mexico sun was so bright that she had to shield her eyes with one hand, bent at an angle to act like a makeshift visor. A small wooden stand was crudely put together, with several figures. Tom Jones Museum 2$ was written in white paint across the top. Across the sign, little white drips cascaded off the front. Beneath the figures, white splatters could be seen through the dust.
She was half-surprised he hadn't embellished the booth, like he was prone to doing. All his forms tended to come back with extras. It used to be little things like stick-figure Spies dying in various ways, but now all the forms were covered in hearts at the edges. He'd even edited all the I's in her name to have little heart dots.
A mountain of dozens of boxes and luggage were spread out behind him. Scout wore a blue letterman jacket, with enough bloodstains on it to guess that he'd stolen it off someone else's back, and then probably left their body in the gutter.
Knowing him, he probably had.
She paused at the edge of the booth, shifting her weight from foot to foot. He'd become noticeably more buff recently. It might've had something to do with the all the aerobics classes he'd been leading. She'd actually been penning a thank you card, considering that Teufort hadn't been blown up in weeks, when the men were too busy sweating to the oldies to get drunk and cause vast amounts of chaos. But, she'd dropped the idea because it was Scout, and who knew where a thank you card with little birds and flowers would lead.
A second glance made her realize it was the same as the stack of jackets for sale on the booth. That still didn't explain the blood, but she was used to finding the mercenaries covered in their own, and other's blood. She'd even made a chart to see who was the most likely to be drenched in someone else's blood on a daily basis.
Medic won by a mile.
Well, that was one of her realizations. The other was that all that exercise had done quite a few things other than keep other men out of trouble. He definitely was no longer that scrawny boy with such a babyface that he got mistaken for a teenager on a regular basis. Miss Pauling squared her shoulders and tried to focus on his neck, only to find that his Adam's apple was just as distractingly lickable as he rest of him.
Really, this wouldn't do. She cleared her throat. "Scout, I've got something for you--"
Scout's brightened into a big smile when he saw her. He moved so fast to come out from behind the booth that he nearly tripped. She reached out, startled, but he found his footing before he fell.
"Nah, I got it, I got it! Thanks for the thought, though!" He noticed the phone still to her ear. The dial-tone was a jarring. She switched the phone off.
"Hey, Miss Pauling! You interested in some mint condition Tom Jones stuff? It's great stuff, I promise! In fact, free for you. Take whatever you want, just seein' you is payment enough." Scout gestured back to his entire stock.
Her cheeks turned rosy. She cursed that due to the heat, she couldn't pull up her collar, or tug up her scarf, and blame it on the weather.
Maybe sunburns. She could work with that.
"Ahem...I've got a--job for you," Miss Pauling said. She clutched the phone a bit harder.
"Oh, you got work for me? Sure, Miss Pauling, I'll kill whoever you want, just lemme put away my goods. I don't want anyone takin' off with these," Scout said.
"Actually, before I send you off---about those goods--"
Scout gave her a look of surprise, then one of pure happiness. Really, she was almost surprised what a lovely smile he had. She was too used to seeing him smirking, bragging about himself, and sounding like a construction worker whistling at passing ladies.
He hadn't done that in quite a while, come to think of it.
"You want the whole bunch? I mean, it's a hard bargain, I put my entire savings into these, but for you, it's totally worth it, because you're just that priceless. Plus, glad to see you're into the man, too. I have all his albums, we could go listen to them---"
She held her hand up and cut him off.
"You put your whole savings into these? You could be making millions," she said.
"So, what you're sayin' is that I should increase the price to $2.50?" Scout said.
"Egh! No, not that at all! You should---" Miss Pauling clutched her phone so hard she thought it might snap. With a grimace, she sifted through her things, until she located the piece of paper she'd been looking for. "Look, take this down and take the job. I'll arrange for some private buyers, and then wire your money to a private bank offshores. You have a private account, right?"
Scout scratched the side of his cheek. "Ehh, no, I had mine in with Mann co. I got some special deal. Some Bid-guy set me up. He gave me a great deal, I wouldn't have to worry about nothin'..until I had nothin'," Scout said. He shrugged. "Guess that's the breaks of the game, huh?"
"Ugh, you're hopeless! Putting your money in the company you worked for was the last thing you should do. That was just Mr. Hale trying to get suckers!"
Scout put his hand to his chest, so much that she couldn't tell if he was trying to tell something dramatic, feeling his own heartbeat--perhaps to even show her, or both. "Yeah, I'm hopeless! Hopelessly in love with you!"
Scout high-fived himself. Of course he counted it as a victory. Miss Pauling tugged at her collar. Her face was tomato red now. She wanted to turtle down into an oversized sweater, but considering this was New Mexico, a lightweight purple cotton dress was all she could manage. Trying to hide her flushed face would only draw attention to her completely inappropriate embarrassment--and feelings--and probably end up flashing him in the process.
"I---um--that is---Moving on---Just follow the instructions on this paper. You should know the drill by now," she said.
She pulled out a quick kill list she had scrawled on the back of her diner receipt.
"Oh, you like this place? Me too! We should go sometime... Anyways, Movin' these will take a bit, but you can count on me, Miss P! Maybe I'll just...ask Demo to watch 'em for me, that'll work!"
Miss Pauling shook her head and sighed. There was a reason why she was in charge of most of the plans.
"He's going to fall asleep and blow it all up...which would be good if you had it all insured, but you didn't, did you? Of course you didn't, I'll do that immediately before I find a buyer..." Miss Pauling reached for her notepad.
"Whoa, you sure are somethin', Miss Pauling! I didn't even think of stuff like that."
"You haven't sold anything yet have you?"
"What, I ain't stupid, I'm chargin' to see the goods, then chargin' more to buy the goods. This is high quality stuff. The real stuff has more zeros behind it, but I ran out of paint. I told ol' smokey to go get me some, but he never returned. I gave him my ring pop for that trip, too." Scout puffed out his cheeks, a petulant moment's irritation.
"Okay, phew---for a minute there, I thought you really were trying to---never mind," she said.
"Hey, I'm not that much of a dumbass. But, that bank stuff. You'd really do that for me?"
"Of course. Just imagine the bullshit you could get into with that much debt and desperation to pay the rent? Probably some big mafia loan where I'd have to go save you from having your kneecaps broken," Miss Pauling said. She pushed her glasses up. A trickle of sweat slid down her back, between her shoulder blades.
"Nawww, I don't touch the mafia crap. Ma always said if she saw me goin' and bein' one of the boys, she'd drag me home by my ear and turn me over her knee. But, good to hear you got my back. It really means a lot to me. I mean, it really means a lot. Tons and tons. So, you could be my manager? You can take big cuts. Really! As big as you want, I know you're worth the money."
"While I'm always on the lookout for a good investment, I'm hardly desperate for money. I'm not going to make your family starve anytime soon," she said.
"So--you're doin' it out of the kindness of your heart, huh?" Scout pulled down his cap, so that his eyes were obscured. He smiled like he'd found a secret no one else knew, and he couldn't wait to tell the world. "You totally are sweet on me!"
"Scout---we're doing business here," Miss Pauling said, as sternly as she could manage.
"Mmhmm, workin' with you is pretty great, I gotta say. I'd be glad to have you as my boss, or manager, or girlfriend, or hey, all of the above!"
She mentally wondered if she could die from blushing too much. Would her head explode, her glasses cracking in the mid-day heat? She'd ask Medic, but he'd probably just try and make a clinical trial out of it.
I'm----Scout----Just, look. Back to the--the thing at hand. We're on a tight schedule here, so I'll take care of it. We can talk the fees later. This--this job is important, and I need you to take care of it as soon as possible. I just need to call someone, and get a hauling truck--" She began to count off on her hands, full as they were. She really needed to get a duffel bag of her own, like Scout's.
"Pauling Hauling!" Scout snickered. "It's great, a perfect rhyme. I love it already--you could even say that works double time, because that ain't all I love---" Scout chuckled to himself as he spread out the receipt. Before he could finish the last word, his calm evaporated into a look of panic.
"Wait...the job starts at what was that--three? That's in like, fifteen minutes. I gotta haul ass if I wanna get there. Of course, with how incredibly handsome and fast, I could get their in half the time, but I still gotta get goin'!"
"And with how long winded you are, you'll miss your target by five hours," Miss Pauling said.
"You got me there, and also other places, but seriously, I gotta get out of here. Thanks for handlin' stuff, and bein' generally awesome, Miss P! I'll owe you one, so say, maybe repay you with dinner? Call me on it, we'll figure out a place! Even grabbin' hot dogs at the corner is fine with me!" He winked and made a call me gesture with his hand. After that quick final flirtation, he rushed off before she could respond, which was for the best, she supposed. Considering it was technically her vacation, she was running out of handy excuses to keep this complicated issue in its balanced state.
First a vacation, then what? Tons of wonderful and adorable dates with her co-worker, falling in love with her co-worker, floating on some dreamy cloud of happiness because her co-worker brought her flowers again, having to kill her co-worker and their happy life together because the Administrator decided it was time for a more advanced performance review than simply sending men to kill her this time, or being forced break up and face her ex-boyfriend every day, and having to watch him go date someone else after their messy end, getting invitations to a wedding, one that should've been hers--
"Yes, that, that's something I surely wouldn't want to..." She looked around to the empty booth. "Ah, Pauling, talking to yourself is just going to get people saying you've lost it."
Her phone made a snapping noise. She hadn't even realized that she'd been squeezing it that tight. Oh, jeez. It'd take quite a bit of duct tape to fix this one.
She studied the mountain of boxes. They were almost the same color as the desert around them, and could've been passed off as a landmark with some appropriate tarps and holograms. But with something this priceless, it wouldn't do to leave any possibility of having them stolen.
She turned her phone back on and dialed a familiar number. He picked up at the first ring.
"Heavy, this is Pauling. I've got a job, but for once, it's not killing people. I need you to haul a lot of boxes. Yes, there's pay. I've got--"
She flipped through her notebook.
"--Something good. It's a surprise! And by surprise, I mean it's a gun, but the print is a surprise."
Then there would be truck to be loaded, of course she'd have to subtract that amount, but with the guns she'd gotten, it should be enough. They loved to shoot things, and cause her all kinds of headaches.
She could've given them more money, but the mercenaries would just buy bigger things to shoot with and cause more explosions she had to clean up. With these, well at least they were attractive guns she could smile at when they invariably ruined everything again.
"It's a favor for someone...not someone high up this time, and you won't even have to get your hands dirty! Or bloody, at least. Anyways, I'll give you directions. Yes, it's that way, look for the booth that says 'Tom Jones Museum' and a big ol' stack of boxes. You can't miss it, at least not unless you're Demoman...which you're not. Ahem, clearly not."
"You are very kind to help out a friend like this," Heavy said. There was just this faint subtlety, this undertone to his voice that made her think he was smiling--even laughing at her, just a little. He was almost as bad as Spy for realizing things that he wasn't suppose to. Like company secrets, or personal things she was shoving into a corner and refusing to acknowledge that they existed.
At least he didn't use them to blackmail and kill the other team for kicks when the work got slow.
"Sweet? Ah, I have my moments. Anyways, you like guns? I have guns," she said.
"Yes, Miss Pauling. Guns are a good thing. I will come, and move your boxes," Heavy said.
"Well, they aren't really mine--"
"Knowing him, they are now," Heavy said. She heard the cut of a dial tone. Heavy never was much for pleasantries.
Miss Pauling pushed her bangs out of her face. The touch against her forehead reminded her that her face was still fever hot. If he asked, she was going to go with sunburn as her excuse. Because she was still having a hard time explaining the real reason to herself, let alone somebody else.
Series: TF2
Character/Pairing: Scout/Miss Pauling
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2623
Author's note: Here I was, ignoring this update when low and behold this postcard comes around.
Well, Hazmad, how about a late gift? (She betaed it too).
"Eyy, come and get your Tom Jones memorabilia. Rare, mint condition Tom Jones memorabilia! Everythin' must go, I got rent to pay!"
The New Mexico sun was so bright that she had to shield her eyes with one hand, bent at an angle to act like a makeshift visor. A small wooden stand was crudely put together, with several figures. Tom Jones Museum 2$ was written in white paint across the top. Across the sign, little white drips cascaded off the front. Beneath the figures, white splatters could be seen through the dust.
She was half-surprised he hadn't embellished the booth, like he was prone to doing. All his forms tended to come back with extras. It used to be little things like stick-figure Spies dying in various ways, but now all the forms were covered in hearts at the edges. He'd even edited all the I's in her name to have little heart dots.
A mountain of dozens of boxes and luggage were spread out behind him. Scout wore a blue letterman jacket, with enough bloodstains on it to guess that he'd stolen it off someone else's back, and then probably left their body in the gutter.
Knowing him, he probably had.
She paused at the edge of the booth, shifting her weight from foot to foot. He'd become noticeably more buff recently. It might've had something to do with the all the aerobics classes he'd been leading. She'd actually been penning a thank you card, considering that Teufort hadn't been blown up in weeks, when the men were too busy sweating to the oldies to get drunk and cause vast amounts of chaos. But, she'd dropped the idea because it was Scout, and who knew where a thank you card with little birds and flowers would lead.
A second glance made her realize it was the same as the stack of jackets for sale on the booth. That still didn't explain the blood, but she was used to finding the mercenaries covered in their own, and other's blood. She'd even made a chart to see who was the most likely to be drenched in someone else's blood on a daily basis.
Medic won by a mile.
Well, that was one of her realizations. The other was that all that exercise had done quite a few things other than keep other men out of trouble. He definitely was no longer that scrawny boy with such a babyface that he got mistaken for a teenager on a regular basis. Miss Pauling squared her shoulders and tried to focus on his neck, only to find that his Adam's apple was just as distractingly lickable as he rest of him.
Really, this wouldn't do. She cleared her throat. "Scout, I've got something for you--"
Scout's brightened into a big smile when he saw her. He moved so fast to come out from behind the booth that he nearly tripped. She reached out, startled, but he found his footing before he fell.
"Nah, I got it, I got it! Thanks for the thought, though!" He noticed the phone still to her ear. The dial-tone was a jarring. She switched the phone off.
"Hey, Miss Pauling! You interested in some mint condition Tom Jones stuff? It's great stuff, I promise! In fact, free for you. Take whatever you want, just seein' you is payment enough." Scout gestured back to his entire stock.
Her cheeks turned rosy. She cursed that due to the heat, she couldn't pull up her collar, or tug up her scarf, and blame it on the weather.
Maybe sunburns. She could work with that.
"Ahem...I've got a--job for you," Miss Pauling said. She clutched the phone a bit harder.
"Oh, you got work for me? Sure, Miss Pauling, I'll kill whoever you want, just lemme put away my goods. I don't want anyone takin' off with these," Scout said.
"Actually, before I send you off---about those goods--"
Scout gave her a look of surprise, then one of pure happiness. Really, she was almost surprised what a lovely smile he had. She was too used to seeing him smirking, bragging about himself, and sounding like a construction worker whistling at passing ladies.
He hadn't done that in quite a while, come to think of it.
"You want the whole bunch? I mean, it's a hard bargain, I put my entire savings into these, but for you, it's totally worth it, because you're just that priceless. Plus, glad to see you're into the man, too. I have all his albums, we could go listen to them---"
She held her hand up and cut him off.
"You put your whole savings into these? You could be making millions," she said.
"So, what you're sayin' is that I should increase the price to $2.50?" Scout said.
"Egh! No, not that at all! You should---" Miss Pauling clutched her phone so hard she thought it might snap. With a grimace, she sifted through her things, until she located the piece of paper she'd been looking for. "Look, take this down and take the job. I'll arrange for some private buyers, and then wire your money to a private bank offshores. You have a private account, right?"
Scout scratched the side of his cheek. "Ehh, no, I had mine in with Mann co. I got some special deal. Some Bid-guy set me up. He gave me a great deal, I wouldn't have to worry about nothin'..until I had nothin'," Scout said. He shrugged. "Guess that's the breaks of the game, huh?"
"Ugh, you're hopeless! Putting your money in the company you worked for was the last thing you should do. That was just Mr. Hale trying to get suckers!"
Scout put his hand to his chest, so much that she couldn't tell if he was trying to tell something dramatic, feeling his own heartbeat--perhaps to even show her, or both. "Yeah, I'm hopeless! Hopelessly in love with you!"
Scout high-fived himself. Of course he counted it as a victory. Miss Pauling tugged at her collar. Her face was tomato red now. She wanted to turtle down into an oversized sweater, but considering this was New Mexico, a lightweight purple cotton dress was all she could manage. Trying to hide her flushed face would only draw attention to her completely inappropriate embarrassment--and feelings--and probably end up flashing him in the process.
"I---um--that is---Moving on---Just follow the instructions on this paper. You should know the drill by now," she said.
She pulled out a quick kill list she had scrawled on the back of her diner receipt.
"Oh, you like this place? Me too! We should go sometime... Anyways, Movin' these will take a bit, but you can count on me, Miss P! Maybe I'll just...ask Demo to watch 'em for me, that'll work!"
Miss Pauling shook her head and sighed. There was a reason why she was in charge of most of the plans.
"He's going to fall asleep and blow it all up...which would be good if you had it all insured, but you didn't, did you? Of course you didn't, I'll do that immediately before I find a buyer..." Miss Pauling reached for her notepad.
"Whoa, you sure are somethin', Miss Pauling! I didn't even think of stuff like that."
"You haven't sold anything yet have you?"
"What, I ain't stupid, I'm chargin' to see the goods, then chargin' more to buy the goods. This is high quality stuff. The real stuff has more zeros behind it, but I ran out of paint. I told ol' smokey to go get me some, but he never returned. I gave him my ring pop for that trip, too." Scout puffed out his cheeks, a petulant moment's irritation.
"Okay, phew---for a minute there, I thought you really were trying to---never mind," she said.
"Hey, I'm not that much of a dumbass. But, that bank stuff. You'd really do that for me?"
"Of course. Just imagine the bullshit you could get into with that much debt and desperation to pay the rent? Probably some big mafia loan where I'd have to go save you from having your kneecaps broken," Miss Pauling said. She pushed her glasses up. A trickle of sweat slid down her back, between her shoulder blades.
"Nawww, I don't touch the mafia crap. Ma always said if she saw me goin' and bein' one of the boys, she'd drag me home by my ear and turn me over her knee. But, good to hear you got my back. It really means a lot to me. I mean, it really means a lot. Tons and tons. So, you could be my manager? You can take big cuts. Really! As big as you want, I know you're worth the money."
"While I'm always on the lookout for a good investment, I'm hardly desperate for money. I'm not going to make your family starve anytime soon," she said.
"So--you're doin' it out of the kindness of your heart, huh?" Scout pulled down his cap, so that his eyes were obscured. He smiled like he'd found a secret no one else knew, and he couldn't wait to tell the world. "You totally are sweet on me!"
"Scout---we're doing business here," Miss Pauling said, as sternly as she could manage.
"Mmhmm, workin' with you is pretty great, I gotta say. I'd be glad to have you as my boss, or manager, or girlfriend, or hey, all of the above!"
She mentally wondered if she could die from blushing too much. Would her head explode, her glasses cracking in the mid-day heat? She'd ask Medic, but he'd probably just try and make a clinical trial out of it.
I'm----Scout----Just, look. Back to the--the thing at hand. We're on a tight schedule here, so I'll take care of it. We can talk the fees later. This--this job is important, and I need you to take care of it as soon as possible. I just need to call someone, and get a hauling truck--" She began to count off on her hands, full as they were. She really needed to get a duffel bag of her own, like Scout's.
"Pauling Hauling!" Scout snickered. "It's great, a perfect rhyme. I love it already--you could even say that works double time, because that ain't all I love---" Scout chuckled to himself as he spread out the receipt. Before he could finish the last word, his calm evaporated into a look of panic.
"Wait...the job starts at what was that--three? That's in like, fifteen minutes. I gotta haul ass if I wanna get there. Of course, with how incredibly handsome and fast, I could get their in half the time, but I still gotta get goin'!"
"And with how long winded you are, you'll miss your target by five hours," Miss Pauling said.
"You got me there, and also other places, but seriously, I gotta get out of here. Thanks for handlin' stuff, and bein' generally awesome, Miss P! I'll owe you one, so say, maybe repay you with dinner? Call me on it, we'll figure out a place! Even grabbin' hot dogs at the corner is fine with me!" He winked and made a call me gesture with his hand. After that quick final flirtation, he rushed off before she could respond, which was for the best, she supposed. Considering it was technically her vacation, she was running out of handy excuses to keep this complicated issue in its balanced state.
First a vacation, then what? Tons of wonderful and adorable dates with her co-worker, falling in love with her co-worker, floating on some dreamy cloud of happiness because her co-worker brought her flowers again, having to kill her co-worker and their happy life together because the Administrator decided it was time for a more advanced performance review than simply sending men to kill her this time, or being forced break up and face her ex-boyfriend every day, and having to watch him go date someone else after their messy end, getting invitations to a wedding, one that should've been hers--
"Yes, that, that's something I surely wouldn't want to..." She looked around to the empty booth. "Ah, Pauling, talking to yourself is just going to get people saying you've lost it."
Her phone made a snapping noise. She hadn't even realized that she'd been squeezing it that tight. Oh, jeez. It'd take quite a bit of duct tape to fix this one.
She studied the mountain of boxes. They were almost the same color as the desert around them, and could've been passed off as a landmark with some appropriate tarps and holograms. But with something this priceless, it wouldn't do to leave any possibility of having them stolen.
She turned her phone back on and dialed a familiar number. He picked up at the first ring.
"Heavy, this is Pauling. I've got a job, but for once, it's not killing people. I need you to haul a lot of boxes. Yes, there's pay. I've got--"
She flipped through her notebook.
"--Something good. It's a surprise! And by surprise, I mean it's a gun, but the print is a surprise."
Then there would be truck to be loaded, of course she'd have to subtract that amount, but with the guns she'd gotten, it should be enough. They loved to shoot things, and cause her all kinds of headaches.
She could've given them more money, but the mercenaries would just buy bigger things to shoot with and cause more explosions she had to clean up. With these, well at least they were attractive guns she could smile at when they invariably ruined everything again.
"It's a favor for someone...not someone high up this time, and you won't even have to get your hands dirty! Or bloody, at least. Anyways, I'll give you directions. Yes, it's that way, look for the booth that says 'Tom Jones Museum' and a big ol' stack of boxes. You can't miss it, at least not unless you're Demoman...which you're not. Ahem, clearly not."
"You are very kind to help out a friend like this," Heavy said. There was just this faint subtlety, this undertone to his voice that made her think he was smiling--even laughing at her, just a little. He was almost as bad as Spy for realizing things that he wasn't suppose to. Like company secrets, or personal things she was shoving into a corner and refusing to acknowledge that they existed.
At least he didn't use them to blackmail and kill the other team for kicks when the work got slow.
"Sweet? Ah, I have my moments. Anyways, you like guns? I have guns," she said.
"Yes, Miss Pauling. Guns are a good thing. I will come, and move your boxes," Heavy said.
"Well, they aren't really mine--"
"Knowing him, they are now," Heavy said. She heard the cut of a dial tone. Heavy never was much for pleasantries.
Miss Pauling pushed her bangs out of her face. The touch against her forehead reminded her that her face was still fever hot. If he asked, she was going to go with sunburn as her excuse. Because she was still having a hard time explaining the real reason to herself, let alone somebody else.
