In Need of Assistance? (TF2)

Ten: Low-Stakes Questionnaire

        "You seriously can't be switching sides!" Scout drops the shovel and steps up to both Medic and Engie. He scoffs and gives them a soured look.

"I can assure you we aren't," Medic sounds as though he's talking down to him. He's stern and has a hard look on his face.

"You're parading around here without raising an alarm and huntin' us, you must be!" Scout argues and motions to their clothing, the same from three days ago. We must stink or something.

"Miss Fredrickson is wearing blue, but you're not makin' much of a fuss," Engie adds and motions to me. "What we're trying to do is work the system a bit."

"Explain yourselves, maggots," Soldier points at the two of them with his demand being known.

"There's a lot of it to be done so give us a place to start," Engie tugs on his glove.

I replace the chair to the door and join. "Give us an overview. Why aren't you guys being chaperoned?"

"Your explanation on your clothing might be a bit shorter than ours. But first--" Medic steps up to me with his hands out, brushing my fluffy hair out of the way, and places one on each of my cheeks- yawing, pitching, and rolling my head. I flatten my lips and glance over to the other guys as he continues to do these movements with an amused smile on his face, a squint about his eyes. "Everything looks to be in order here... Hast Du Schmerzen?"

"Huh?" I put my hands over his to have him stop.

"Sorry, uhm- Does it hurt?"

I attempt to shake my head as a response but am restricted. He laughs lightly and uses his thumbs to squish my cheeks. I pat his hands and peel his fingers off. "Stop being weird."

"Yeah, hi, hello. Still wanna know what's happening here?" Scout redirects us to our current predicament.

"This chick, Maeve, wouldn't talk to me until I changed clothes, so I did. She still wouldn't tell me anything," I quickly tell my tale.

Engie groans and rubs the top of his hard hat. "Listen up good, all of ya. Don't harm Maeve. She looks and sounds like a bumbling bimbo and an easy target- both of which are true. Her father is the leader of this team, though, and you don't want to get on his bad side. I know you're sharing her room with her, Miss Fredrickson, and there's not much I can do about that. For right now, though, we're going to have to surrender y'all."

"Wait, you can't what?" I scoff and shake my head, "you guys a--" both Engie and Medic shift their body language in a very unsettling way. "What the hell did you two do? What do you mean 'surrender?'"

"It's more of a question of what didn't we do." Medic turns to Soldier and snatches his shovel away. "For my safety before I tell you. Engineer and I worked for Vanguard before we switched to Fortress. They've brought us back here to work for them again and-"

"And you decided to just accept?" Scout protests in anger, deciding to try and intimidate Engie in particular because of his height advantage. "You that easy to bribe, overalls? You're just going to rat us out so you can stay easy living?"

"You're getting a little big for your britches there, boy," Engie beefs up to him just the same. "We're trying to help you."

I sigh and rub my palm against my forehead. Once again, too many things are happening at one time. "Tell us that story later. All I want to know is whether or not you're still on our side."

Engie turns to me and disregards Scout. "Of course, one-hundred percent. We'll just have to play nice for a while until we can figure something out."