The sound of the Engineer's guitar was the only light tune the dense air was carrying. Pyro sat by the window as they had been doing for nearly half the day already and the day previously. Spy was in the corner smoking, making the already hot air smoky, and filling it with a tobacco scented dread. Scout tapped his bat on the ground and was continuously walking from the pantry to the fridge and was the only thing keeping Demoman awake as his eye traveled with Scout's pacing. Soldier would be contributing to some noise, but was on the roof doing push-ups, insisting the height from the ground to the roof was what made them "elevated." Sniper walked in originally going to sharpen his hand crafted blade, but halted in the doorway as he ran into the wall of low hanging tensity.
Eventually there was complete silence; everyone save for Pyro glanced to Engie as he stopped to tune his guitar. The elephant in the room would have to be addressed at some point...and even if they all knew it, no one was going to be the one to say it.
Until Heavy walked in, finishing his afternoon cardio. After a few seconds of being in the miserable environment he had to ask, "What is wrong with all of you?"
And like that, an avalanche of discussion was loose. Comments flew left and right; Pyro wailing their hands in distress, Scout trying to say 'nothing was wrong' and being offended that Heavy would imply something was wrong, Spy's scoffing and justifications, Demoman claiming he didn't do anything, Engie wanting them to pipe down, and Soldier rolling off the roof and crashing to the dirt. Sniper was the only one not saying anything, covering his ears and looking between Spy or Heavy to see if one of them would get things in order with a loud noise, but no one seemed to be doing anything. Taking action to shut everyone up, he tossed his knife harshly, nearly hitting Scout, and punctured the fridge.
"Ey! That was uncalled for..!" Scout shouted to cover up the shriek he made only moments before. But just as intended, the room was again silent and filling with sighs.
"I want to know where my all-American ads are!" Soldier hopped up off the ground and took a moment to speak as things settled down.
"There is a noticeable lack of mailman." Spy stated next, crossing his arms and tossing his cigarette aside. "Facteur should have been here...but then again, they were never supposed to be here. It is best they have le-"
"Don't you dare even finish that sentence!" Scout pointed his bat angrily. "Y/n has a place here!" Everyone was looking at Scout's defending sentence with a raised brow so he lowered his bat, trying to play off his sudden defensive nature for you. "...It's what you're all thinkin' ain't it? Sure, they aren't onna us, but they...uh..."
Pyro mumbled something like 'became one.' What they said could have been taken in other ways, but the majority of heads either bobbed and followed with a bout of silence.
"Aye, but who's sayin' they're gone?" Demoman pitched in and chuckled with an edge of nervousness. "It's not like any of us told Ms. Pauling or verified anything or...any of that for some uh... booze, ya know?"
"They're probably mighty busy." Engineer followed up and to Demoman's relief swept the guilty statement he had made under the rug...
However, Heavy did not. "You did what?" He turned his head slowly in Demoman's direction. Heavy's addressing it seemed to suddenly bring everyone on the same page and their heads turned in Demo's direction as well.
"I said it's not like that happened...!" Demoman quickly defended himself.
"Maybe so, but that is a particularly specific example." Spy followed with a raised brow. "What kind of booze?"
"...A really good lookin' one..." He answered hesitantly, and launched the landslide of chatter back up; most of the words being said contained curses.
Sniper sighed and raised his voice, since his knife was still in the fridge. "The Mailman said they were thinking of leaving for a bit..!" He managed to shout over the ruckus.
There were still some arguments and hisses, but Pyro looked over to Sniper with unbelieving upset eyes.
"There ain't no way, y/n would do that..." Scout said as if to give word to Pyro's expressions. "Not without givin' some sort of goodbye...right?"
"Ye don't know em..!" Demoman shouted over to Scout, butting out of the curses he was getting. "None of us really do; plus, ye used a double negative!"
"Oh, and like you're some grammar genius-!" Scout huffed.
"Well, you did use a double negative..." Spy followed up and tossed out his cigarette. "But that is beyond the point."
Sniper sighed, relieved that at least someone could generally stay on track. He muttered a 'thank you' under his breath.
"Facteur was going to...take an extended break, and Demoman threw them under the bus despite everyone's effort to keep quiet, is this what we have established?" Spy asked.
There were more head nods, Demoman giving a scoff and slugging back a new bottle of liquid addiction to drown out any guilt.
"I reckon that's what we've gathered." Engineer spoke and looked at the strings of his guitar. "And, keepin' my more distasteful comments aside, how do we know where the Mailmix really is? Could be safe in their lil nest on break, but if someone may or may not have ratted 'em out..."
"Ms. Pauling couldn't have found them. We took plenty of measures." Heavy said, hand on his chin in a manner of false assurance. Considering they all knew how keen Ms. Pauling was, it wasn't that convincing a statement to anyone.
"We're talking about the Mailman?" A new voice arrived, more chipper and upbeat, moving past Sniper. Now, everyone's eyes were trained on the Medic. "They said they were going on a break, you know."
"We have established that fact, affirmative!" Soldier replied, doing hanging curls now from the doorway.
"They asked me to let you all know, but I've been caught up in so much work!" Medic laughed a little and took out fresh rhubarb from the fridge. "Birds, you know?"
"Don't you think that would have been a nice thing to let some of us know before if you knew?" Sniper asked flatly with a raised brow and highly unamused expression.
"Well..." Medic said, making a popping noise. "See, I was going to mention it, but between work and watching Ms. Pauling shoot the Mailman with a dart and drag them off, I have been trying to find ways to break news."
To say that everyone's brain felt like white noise would be misleading. White noise is often used to calm people's nerves sometimes and makes a great background for sleep, however, the screaming inferno of confusion and worry in particular mercenaries' minds could not quite be described as "relaxing." Despite Medic's smile, it was cracking with some disturbance too, as he took a bite from the raw rhubarb leaves. "Oh, silly me! Rhubarb leaves are poisonous!" He laughed but continued to chew.
Pyro was the first to start really panicking, jumping up and suddenly ran to the back in a mixture of shouts and possibly tears.
"OH HELL NO!" Scout shrieked and held the sides of his face, nearly hitting his head with his bat which was still in-hand. Instead, the bat hit Soldier and he promptly dropped to the ground.
Spy inhaled too sharply and began coughing a little less than elegantly and had to remove himself from the room to wave and try to stop his smoky gagging. He almost ran into Engineer, who had stood up and stomped over to Medic. "You saw what now?! And ya didn't do anythin' bout it?!"
Medic held up his hands and the rhubarb. "Hang on there, pard-ner..!" He said jokingly and in a mock-Texan accent before coughing and realizing that wasn't a good idea. "I was running after the Mailman because I wanted to tell them to make the right choice - not the correct one! Even though the correct thing to do is correct, it wouldn't be the right thing!" Engineer furrowed his brow in confusion so Medic just waved his hands as if to dismiss that which only him and the Mailman would understand. "When I got there, I saw Ms. Pauling carrying Mailman away- I couldn't interfere because...well, we all know not to interfere with Ms. Pauling...And they weren't supposed to be here to begin with so..." He let it trail off and shrugged.
"I can't believe it..." Demoman said, sounding so distant and nearly dropping the bottle in his hand. "I did that to them-"
"Yes you did!" Soldier pointed a finger up from his place on the ground, belittling Demoman's slap of regret.
"Aye, we gotta do somethin...!" Demoman spoke up.
"Maybe." Heavy nodded. "If Ms. Pauling hasn't already...taken care of it."
"Aw, don't say that, don't say that, I'm already freakin' out...!" Scout snapped at Heavy, flailing his bat.
Suddenly, Pyro ran back in, muffling curses and waving an axe as if they were ready to confront Ms. Pauling about this. Heavy held out his arm and caught Pyro, taking their axe out of their grip and holding them in one spot like a tired parent trying to contain a toddler. "This is not how we will approach." Heavy added firmly.
Engineer nodded and took some steps back. "If ya'll do anythin,' ya'll need a plan...so let's make a mighty good one. For the Mailman."
"For the Mailman!" Soldier cheered and bounced up in a burpee.
"Wait...we're gonna get 'em back?" Scout looked up with wide eyes.
"No decent person should just stay on the sidelines on this matter." Sniper said and walked to get his knife out of the fridge. It was a bit deeper than he had meant for it to go so he had to wiggle it out. "Even if they wanted time off - this ain't the time they signed up for."
Medic slowly began to slide to the side and gave a sharp hum. "Okay, well, you lot have some planning to do and I am going to go over here and pretend I did not hear any of it so I don't get in trouble with the Administrator if this goes to a larger scale- okay? Okay!"
Pyro waved to Medic, calming down a little bit. Medic waved back and paused in their steps. "Oh, and could someone bring me to my lab? The rhubarb is catching up with me now." He said and then as if on cue, fell over with a thump.
"Not it." Scout promptly raised his hands.