Somedays you like to look around the empty road of the desert wasteland from your box with wheels and ask yourself the same question your parents asked aloud when the GPS malfunctioned and they kept trying to recalculate it - "How did we get here?"
You knew the answer to that, of course. You were hired as a mailman in Teufort to keep yourself afloat, delivered to the strangest place every day, got to know the guys inside, got drugged and dumped in an unknown location, wound up with Australium in your system, the weirdos you delivered to saved you, brought you back, there was a deal with the devil (but Medic insists it wasn't really that, since he's made 8 of them? You're a little worried-) All of those long, wild steps to say, that's how you got here. Driving back to the RED Base in the same, but hella modified box mobile.
Your pay was definitely higher. Significantly. When you got your first paycheck, you were almost certain they added too many zeros and were gonna ask you to return the money in a package like a Class A scammer. But that never happened...
Maybe you could finally look for somewhere nicer to move. Not too far of course since your work had to be done here. Or you could at least quit your mailman position- the one with Teufort. You were betting if you quit, they wouldn't even notice, even if you continued running around in what was technically their company mail truck (it was yours now; personalized and everything).
It had only been a couple of weeks since all of this happened, and just like a student off of school for the summer after harsh finals, you were really dragging your feet on making much of any of that mentioned change on your end, if only because you were tired and wanted time for yourself...Glorious lounge-on-the-old-couch-with-snacks and TV time after a short delivery shift. Oh, and sleeping-in-as-much-as-you-wanted (maybe a bit much) kind of time.
It sort of felt like how things normally were: you'd wake up, get ready, hop on your route, head to RED Base last, and then drop off their mail, hang out for a bit, and see if you had any instruction awaiting you. Some mornings you would wake to see a mysterious manila folder slid under your door, marked with a little something signifying the RED team and 'classified,' with instructions on specific deliveries and drop-offs. You usually just got those done before the rest of the mail. But aside from that and the paycheck, it hadn't felt like much changed.
Yet. You knew more chaos was in-bound.
This was probably the quiet before the storm, as some called it.
No more time for thinking- You gradually came to a stop at the end of the rocky pavement, parking next to the familiar truck right outside what you could call your second home. "Second" because there was no way you were actually going to live in that building with them all. Maybe you'll crash on the couch if your mail mobile ever sputters to death before leaving again, but given how Engineer patched it up, that wasn't likely to happen in a long time.
You didn't even get to the doorstep without the happy muffled greetings coming from Pyro. And then a leaping hug- For a while after the Australium was in your system, you were able to catch them with ease, but you could tell it was slowly exiting your system as you couldn't really spin with them much anymore. You still caught them though (thank goodness).
"Ello, best of the best mailmix above the rest...of...the mailmens- uh, yeah!" Scout was leaning in the doorway and beaming with the delivery of that...well, you could tell he was trying to create some sort of personalized pick-up line. Still needed some working out.
"You gotta special delivery for me? The delivery being a kiss, right here-?" He pointed at his cheek.
Pyro tilted their head in...it was either confusion or disgust. Maybe both.
You chuckled, walking by him. "It wasn't just you who helped me out of there. Besides, it's been weeks- let it go, man."
Actually, he really just hit you with a bat, but you weren't going to say that.
Instead, you opted to give him a quick pat on the top of his cap. And as he exclaimed out loud- he'll take that.
YOU ARE READING
The Gold of the Firepines
FanfictionYou didn't think that a simple job as a postal carrier would someday land you stranded in the middle of a mysterious forest, but this is just one of many consequences of getting too familiar with the odd nine mercenaries (who were most definitely en...
