Chapter Text
Morning light strewn over the blankets of Dell Conagher’s bed. The BLU Engineer slept, lightly snoring, one leg hanging off the bed out from under the covers. Smiling in his sleep, Dell was dreaming of walking under the moon, arm in arm with Jane, as a little furry helicopter followed them, green light spilling on the ground from it. Floating in the stars.
“I love you, Dell...I’ve always loved you, and ever since I met you, I knew you were for me…”
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEE-SMACK! Dell knocked his alarm clock off the desk next to his little twin bed. It hit the floor and ceased its noise. Dell let out an exasperated breath. It was such a beauty of a dream….
He sat up, and rubbed his eyes with his non-mechanical hand. It was a nice morning. The window was hanging open, and a light puff of wind stirred his curtain. Dell smiled again. It was another great day in Hoodoo on the prairie. He saw the sunlight spilling onto the floor of his toolshed, and since it was springtime, he could smell the desert flowers on the wind. He took a deep breath and decided it was time to get out of bed.
It was a shame to be sleeping alone, but he had decided to take it slow in getting into a relationship with Jane. As far as Dell knew, only his closest friends knew he had fallen hard for Soldier, and that Soldier loved him back. For the most part, everyone was accepting of it, and didn’t even give it a second thought. Dell was grateful for this and it made him feel lucky to have such understanding friends.
As it was his first serious relationship, Dell was suddenly feeling less than sure of himself. He didn’t want to screw this up. He never wanted anything more in his life than to be with Jane. The man meant everything in the world to him.
After taking a shower, shaving, and putting on some cologne, he threw on underclothes and tucked everything into his overalls as he pulled on his blue shirt. “Damn, Dell Conagher, you are one good-lookin’ man,” he said to himself, and smiled in the mirror. He took a certain pride in his looks, and even if his workshop was a mite cluttered, he was always clean. At least before battle, anyway. He threw his jacket on over the top, and grabbed his boots and brown cowboy hat as he headed out the door.
Breakfast time in the mess hall was usually quiet, until the guys got their coffee in them. Dell wasn’t any different mostly, but nowadays everyone noticed a happier Engineer.
They guessed that it had to do with his luck on the draw, his skill with his guns, and his dependability as Team Engineer. He must have had a heck of a winning streak. Dell didn’t even care about that anymore.
He had Jane’s heart, now. Through a mess of unfortunate circumstances that he and his friends overcame together, he managed to help Jane overcome the death (and rebirth) of his pet raccoon, the former Lieutenant Bites. Now the cybernetic clone Lieutenant Butler, a robot of Dell’s own creation with a unique battery, titanium design and rebuilt DNA structure by the Team Medic, was Jane’s constant companion and his anchor in reality.
Dell whistled as he strode into the mess and walked up to the serving bar in front of the prep room. He reached over to grab the electric percolator to pour a cup, but it was empty.
“Hey, boys? There’s’ no coffee in th’ pot…”
“MRRPH MRRRPH MRRPH!” Pyro ran around the side of the table as Scout threw a sack of flour at him, the Pyro ducked, and the flour hit Dell square in the chest, exploding on impact. White powder sifted down as Scout and Pyro guffawed laughter at each other and Dell.
“What-! Gosh darn it all to heck! You boys know y’aint supposed to clown around in th’ kitchen!”
“Oh, ha ha ha! Are you all “white” Engie? Haw! You look like a spook!” The Scout was dying of laughter. The Pyro wasn’t any help either, his respirator mask blowing out puffs of flour as he hooted.
“Oh I’ll show you a spook, boy!” Dell growled. “Hombre, I’m gonna make you inta’ one!” and he set his jaw. He started after Scout, but he lost traction in the flour and fell on his butt. Pyro leapfrogged off of Dell’s back in a puff of flour and chased the Scout through the kitchen with a whisk.
“Mrph! Mryrrph mrph!”
“Pancakes, yeah!”
They disappeared back into the prep room.
“Y’all can’t make hotcakes without flour, dag-nabbit,” Dell fumed. He stood up and started to brush the flour off of his jacket and took off his hat to beat the powder off of it. Suddenly, he heard the familiar bootfalls of a certain mercenary, and his back stiffened and he felt a hot flush rise from his neck to his ears.
“Good morning, Engie! Jane said cheerfully. His raccoon was perched on his shoulder, but as soon as Lieutenant Butler saw the Texan he jumped from Jane’s shoulder and launched his rotors, and flew over to Dell, chirruping excitedly.
“Aww, heck, Jane! Y’all caught me playing in the mess hall,” Dell said, grinning through the flour. He could feel his ears burning, but the flour kept his blush from showing. He kept wiping at it though, and the Lieutenant began dusting Dell off with his tail as he hovered around the flustered Engineer.
“You are out of uniform, soldier!” Jane said, smiling, looking at Dell. He reached out and pulled Dell close to him.
“Uh, excuse me, Jane. I’m terribly sorry, I need to get changed out of these duds and ready for work. It’ll just be a secon’” Dell was flustered and embarrassed. It was hard to be smooth with five pounds of flour sifting off of your clothes. Dell hurried out of the room. The raccoon hovered back over to Jane and landed on his shoulder whistling. Jane looked confused. All he wanted was to touch Dell again.
Dell stormed back into his toolshed and ripped his jacket off over his head, kicking his boots to the side. His vacuum robot came out of hiding and started cleaning up the powder, even as Dell was kicking off his overalls and heading for his private shower.
He was so mad and flustered after running into Jane that he wished he had Scout and Pyro here to kick squarely in the ass. Turning on the water, Dell hissed as the water came out cold as ice, then hot as coffee (which he still hadn’t had yet). He certainly did not want Jane to see him looking like a fool. Those darn kids and their stupid games…
“Dell?” There was a knock at the bathroom door. Dell hollered back.
“Gimme me a minute, please!” He hurried to rinse off the mess.
The door opened. Dell’s eyes widened. “Hey! I said gimme a minute! I’m tryin’ ta get cleaned up now!”
Jane poked his head in the curtain.
“Hello again!”
Dell screeched at him. “GIT OUT O’ HERE GOD-DAMNIT!”
“Lieutenant Butler let me in,” Jane said, defensively.
“”Ya mean you had him pick the locks! I know damn well what that critter is capable of!”
“All I just wanted to say was good morning…” Jane said, sulking and pulling his head back through the curtains. He certainly didn’t mind seeing Dell naked in the shower. Why was Dell being so frugal with himself? Jane felt ashamed to have caused the engineer discomfort.
Dell heard the door close.
He hurried and finished his shower, grabbed his towel and opened the bathroom door. The only sign of anyone being in the toolshed was the white boot prints that Jane had tracked to the door. The floor robot was vacuuming up each one. Dell let out a sigh with a smile.
There was a big cup of hot black coffee on the table, with a daisy next to it. Dell went to the table and took a sip. Ah, two sugars from his soldier. Dell blew out over the cup, picked up the white flower, and went back to the little bedroom to get a new outfit.
“I sure hope he didn’t take it th’ wrong way,” Dell said to himself. Before he left for the second time, he put the daisy in a little tin can of water in the window.
……………………………………….
“I don’t understand, Lieutenant Butler!” Jane sat on an oil drum next to one of the many sheds in the Hoodoo Map. The raccoon looked up at him, green eyes shining. “I keep trying to be with him, but he always seems to find something he’d rather be doing. I don’t know what to do.”
The little raccoon robot blinked at the Soldier. He cocked his head and looked curiously at Jane.
“I wish there was some way I could show him how much he means to me.” Jane frowned down at his boots. Lieutenant Butler put his little paws on Jane’s knee and continued to watch Jane’s face.
“Some way to hold him again. I want to hold him close, and squeeze him, just like I squeeze you,”
The raccoon smiled at Jane. “oo,” he said.
Jane did a double take. “Lieutenant Butler! You can talk!”
“oo! oo cayn talk!” The robotic raccoon smiled at Jane.
“Wow! Hah hah! Just wait until I show you to Dell! He will be so surprised to see you talk! You can help me break the ice! Let’s go, Lieutenant! We have a wall to break down!” Jane laughed, and he jumped off the barrel and ran back to Engie’s toolshed, the raccoon hovering right behind him.
When he got to the shed though, he realized that Dell wasn’t in there. He looked in the window, and saw the mess had been cleaned up. The flower he picked was in the can though, and Jane smiled. Dell did care, after all! Jane turned around, searching the ground for more flowers. Lieutenant Butler was already ahead of Jane and held up two more daisies, one in each paw. “Thanks again, soldier!” Jane put the two other daisies in the can.
“oo!”
He picked up the Lieutenant and then headed for the Respawn room. The day’s battle was about to begin.
……………………………..
Dell knew he was avoiding Jane, but he didn’t realize it was confusing him. He had been so cool and collected when pursuing the man, but once he had him, he didn’t know what to do with him. Dell sighed. He never thought he’d say it, but when Jane was having a mental breakdown, the Engineer at least had a problem to tackle. Now that there wasn’t one, Dell was unsure of where he fit in. He loved the man dearly, but how do you express said emotion?
At the Supply, the BLU’s were getting ready to push the bomb. Hoodoo was a pain in the ass to fight, as the RED team defended against the bomb advancing. Dell was packing up his equipment when Jane finally caught up with him.
“Engie!”
“Oh, hey, Solly!” Dell smiled at the Soldier. The rest of the team started to file in, collecting their weapons and hats.
Dell tried to stay in the back. As defense he was usually last out the door, to set up teleporters and level one sentries to cover the Supply. Jane stayed in the back too, to continue his story.
“Guess what? Lieutenant Butler can talk now!” Jane said, smiling.
“Oh, yeah? I was wonderin’ when that lil’ critter would be getting his speech recognition workin’. Where is the lil guy?”
“I keep him in the Respawn, he waits for me there during battle now,” Jane said. After the late Lieutenant Bites was stolen from Jane, he wasn’t taking any chances with his little Butler.
“Well, that’s nice,” Dell said. There was an awkward silence.
“Engie?”
“Yes Solly?”
The Soldier got closer to Dell. Really, really close to Dell. Dell’s heart jumped up into his throat, and he started to sweat.
“I sure wish we could hold each other,” Jane said, under his breath.
“Um…”Dell was so flustered. Why had he suddenly lost his cool? It was so much easier when Jane was distracted, and Dell could be there by his side, giving thoughtful, loving advice and saying the right thing.
“We could hold each other like we did that night. Under the stars,” Jane had a pleading note in his voice. Dell was shaking nervously. He wanted that too, so badly. It was his most magical moment, it haunted every thought.
“START FIGHTING NOW!” the Announcer gave voice to the opening bell, and the game was on. Dell grabbed his equipment and yelled, “Giddyup! Yeeee Haww!!”
Jane watched the engineer take off out into the map. He followed him.