Work Text:
When Merasmus found a raccoon in his kitchen for the fifth time that week, he decided that he’d had enough and sat down to write a curse that would truly teach Soldier a lesson once and for all—and while he was at it, all of Soldier’s nasty and petty little friends, who weren’t willing to help out a wizard when he needed them!
He was going to teach them a thing or two about maturity, and acting their age—he was going to teach them about learning from their mistakes and respecting their elders. Adding the weight of some years onto them would do the trick—after all, Merasmus was six thousand years old, twenty or thirty years was nothing, even to mere mortals!
When he finally placed down his pen, he looked upon his work and found that it was a masterpiece. It was world shattering. It was absolutely diabolical. When he spoke the words of it the earth shook with the weight of his conviction.
And as Merasmus left his workshop, he failed to realise that he had forgotten his glasses and misspelt a crucial word.
Ah well. It probably wasn’t important.
**
As usual in the desert, the day had dawned sunny. The sunrise had unleashed a beautiful splash of colour across the horizon; pinks and oranges and yellows and reds melding together into a beautiful watercolour in the sky. As the day had progressed through the morning and into the afternoon, the deep azure of the sky had created an ocean through which the sun swam lazily, shining merrily down upon scorched earth and rocks.
And for some reason, there were no mercenaries.
Pauling blinked, looking away from the monitors for the Teufort bases cams and lifting her glasses to rub her eyes.
This was weird.
On such a beautiful Saturday there normally would have been explosions and yelling and gunshots and general mayhem, as nine mercenaries with time to themselves were wont to do.
Pauling readjusted her glasses, placing her hands at her lower back and wringing a few cracks out of it before returning to her cams—and it was then she saw it.
A kid, no older than ten and wearing Scout’s uniform—which was far too big, and had both pantlegs rolled up and no shoes—came skittering around the corner with a baseball bat nearly as tall as he was. Grasped tightly in his other hand like a threat was a baseball, and he was chasing a gangly pre-teen who was sprinting for the only tree near the base that had survived being nearby regularly detonated explosives.
As she watched, the gangly pre-teen—wearing more clothes that were too big but looked much like Sniper’s brown trousers and red button up—launched himself expertly up into the tree, pausing for a moment to turn and extend a hand to the smaller boy, who was too short to grab the first branch. The smaller boy looked down at the baseball bat and ball he was holding, then up at the gangly boy, clearly having a crisis—then from around the corner burst two more kids, looking a bit bigger and tougher than the two at the tree, one wearing a helmet so big it was rattling around on their skull, and the other with darker skin and a makeshift eyepatch made of a piece of red fabric.
These two were grinning maniacally, tossing one of Demo’s stickybombs between them—and as he saw them, the smaller boy made a choice, shoving the baseball into his friends hand, then slipping the bat down the back of his shirt and into the hem of his pants. The taller boy in the tree slipped the baseball into a pocket and grabbed onto the outstretched arm of the smaller boy, hoisting him up the trunk. Together, they clambered up into the bare branches of the tree just as the other two started to get close, and the gangly boy reached deep into his other pocket and grabbed a handful of something—and as Pauling watched, he pelted two pebbles down at the pursuers, hitting them both squarely in the forehead with enough speed to look like it packed a punch.
At the efficient strike, pebble having hit him right between the eyes, Helmet-head let go of the stickybomb in shock, it starting to flash as it hurtled towards the ground, only to be intercepted by the foot of Eyepatch, who expertly kicked it into the distance before it detonated in midair with a plume of smoke.
Helmet-head and Eyepatch threw their hands up in delight, giving each other a double high five and bumping chests before sprinting back towards the base. Baseball Bat and Gangly Pebbles waited a moment before seeming to both sag in relief, Baseball Bat looking like he was about to start climbing down—before stopping as Gangly Pebbles put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
Pauling sighed, feeling that headache coming on a bit sooner than she’d like.
What the hell had the mercs got themselves into now?
**
“So, are there any other kids around here?”
Baseball Bat—who had introduced himself as Jeremy and confirmed Pauling’s weird suspicion that fuckery was afoot—nodded without looking up from the rock he was kicking along as they walked back towards the base.
“Yeah, when I woke up I could hear a bunch of big kids around—they were loud and like… a lot older than me, more like my big brother Jeffrey, who’s seventeen and says… y’know, that he has no time for kids like me, so I left, and then I found Rick hiding out in this cool treehouse with a big ladder—”
“I told you, it’s a cubbyhouse.”
Gangly Pebbles—who Jeremy had introduced as Rick and had a much thicker accent than the Rick Mundy Pauling was familiar with—was walking along behind them, seeming to be made up entirely of elbows and knees, talking as little as possible. Not much had changed with age… or the lack of, in his case.
Jeremy rolled his eyes at Rick’s interjection.
“Nuh uh, that’s a weird made-up word, I told you! Anyway, then those other guys started chasing us with that weird ball, so we ran away and climbed the tree. And then you showed up!”
Pauling nodded. Not much more information than she’d already gathered, other than the fact that possibly all of the mercs had been affected by whatever it was that had happened.
She desperately hoped Spy hadn’t been, as he was usually the only voice of reason she could rely on, even if he was catty as hell. If only he wasn’t so damn hard to find at the best of times.
Pauling was pulled from her thoughts by an explosion forcing its way through the wall to their left, and a thrumming plasma blast screaming across the corridor to explode on the opposite wall, missing them by only about two feet.
Jeremy shrieked, launching himself onto Rick’s back, who nearly buckled over with the sudden addition.
“WHAT DA HECK WAS DAT!”
Dust slowly started to settle, and as it did, Pauling heard two voices in accents that sounded familiar.
“Whew, that packs a dang punch! Wonder how far it goes?”
“Ja, and also how far it would send a blood spatter… let me get the beakers from the fridge, you reload it!
Slightly in fear for what she was about to see, Pauling tentatively poked her head through the hole to see another two kids, also wearing the clothes of what she assumed were their adult counterparts.
These two were… different, though.
To start with, these kids were older than Rick or Jeremy, looking to be more around their mid teens than pre-teens. In addition, they were a little different from who Pauling assumed were their adult counterparts—on one, underneath a haphazardly applied hardhat, instead of a bald head, was a blonde bob that curled under their ears, squished in by the band of a pair of goggles that were a bit too big. The kid turned around, and Pauling was able to see a rounder face and softer features than she remembered on Engie.
In addition, the other figure—wearing a dramatic white labcoat that was too long and dragging along the floor—was similarly strange, with two short and uneven braids poking out from the head of a kid who otherwise looked exactly like a young Medic, complete with unhinged toothy grin and glasses.
Somewhere in the back of her mind Pauling had known that both Engie and Medic were trans, but it had honestly been their own business that had no impact on their usefulness to Mann Co, so it had never been an issue. She hadn’t even known if they’d had any different names prior to the ones they registered with Mann Co.—Medic took care of the mercs’ personal health, so any surgeries or hormone adjustments were his to deal with.
Looks like this was Pauling’s problem to deal with now.
Mustering her most authoritative face—a little worried at having to deal with teenagers—she clambered into the medbay through the new hole in the wall, standing up straight and crossing her arms once inside.
“And what are you two up to?”
Both the teens in the medbay spun around like they’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar—which, in some way, she supposed they were.
Lab Coat—Medic—tucked the newly grabbed beaker of blood behind his back, schooling his face into careful neutrality, and Hard Hat—Engie—quickly slapped down the mess of metal and wires he’d been playing with and took his hands away. Pauling realised belatedly that it was the Gunslinger, and that this kid had two functional flesh hands.
Interesting.
“We weren’t causin’ any trouble, promise! Just a little experiment on this here gun-hand thing, and I know how to handle mechanics since my daddy taught me!”
Medic nodded in agreement with Engie, who was shrinking back behind Medic’s big billowing coat a bit, likely for some cover from the glowering adult in the room.
“Ja, we are only, erm… spielen … ah, playing! This blood is from the cow as well according to the label, so is it acceptable?”
This accent was also far thicker than Pauling remembered, and had a lot more pauses between words—it sounded as though Medic had only had high school experience of English, perhaps just from reading extra-curricular English medical journals.
Pauling squinted at the beaker of blood in Medic’s hands—who had red gloves that were barely staying on, they were so big—and sighed.
“Well, do you know who owns this lab?”
The two teens looked at each other quizzically, then looked back to Pauling and shook their heads. Pauling nodded.
“There’s two big scary guys that own this lab, two scientists who conduct lots of big important experiments all the time. Maybe you guys should come with me and help me round up the other kids to make sure you don’t get into trouble with those two scientists when they come back.”
Medic looked at her quizzically, the braids on the back of his head flopping as he tilted his face.
“I’m not a child, don’t act all high on your horse with me.”
Pauling was caught by surprise at the response, not sure how to respond—before the tiny Engie stepped out from behind his new friend and took his hardhat off, holding it in front of him with both hands on the rim.
“We won’t cause any trouble, ma’am. We just want to look. If… if there are two scientists who own this lab, we’d love to watch them work, take some notes. Would that be ok?”
Engie’s tiny little voice was so earnest that Pauling felt something weird happen in her chest, and she sighed.
The idea that your future is what your child self always dreamed about was… well, really nice. She didn’t really want to deny it to these two teens, who seemed like they hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to pursue their respective career interests yet. Besides, their adult selves had to put up with regular explosions and other setbacks sending their various workspaces into absolute disarray on the daily. Whatever mess their littler selves caused wouldn’t be unfixable, she was fairly sure.
Perhaps… she could give them this. She sighed.
“Alright. For now.”
The two almost didn’t even let her finish, dashing deeper into the lab and chattering excitedly to each other.
She really hoped they didn’t take out the structural integrity of the building.
**
The rest of the base was fairly silent, apart from the occasional sticky bomb explosion from outside.
It was eery, honestly, and Pauling found herself examining each shadow carefully, hoping it contained a wry and smoking Frenchman. But alas, shit sucked.
Jeremy and Rick were sticking close together, an unlikely duo with Rick slouching in such an unlikely way that you almost couldn’t tell that Jeremy was only just over half his height. She could hear Jeremy muttering constantly about this or that, and every now and again there would be a quiet “mm” from Rick to indicate that he was still listening. It balanced out miraculously into an entire conversation.
Pauling was snapped out of her thoughts upon a smell she wasn’t expecting reaching her nostrils—cooking meat? And spices?
Frowning in confusion—she hoped that wasn’t the smell of someone having set the kitchen on fire—she briskly walked towards the door of the rec room, fingers crossed to not find a disaster inside.
Instead, the first thing she came face to face with upon opening the door was a very tiny Pyro. With not a single trace of fire in sight.
They were laying on their belly on the floor, feet kicked up behind them, reams of paper stretched out before them and covered in brightly coloured crayon drawings. Pyro’s palette tended towards warm colours, and as she looked, she noticed the tiny nub of what was left of a red crayon grasped in their gloved hand.
As she stepped inside the door they looked up and waved with a cheery “mmphmmm!” before swapping out the red crayon for an orange one—it looked like their latest masterpiece was a portrait of their first and possibly only love, fire.
Well, that was 7 out of 9 accounted for.
Pauling stepped past Pyro and further into the rec room, noting that while it was warm in here, and despite the presence of Pyro, there didn’t seem to be any fire—and in fact, at the tiny kitchenette at the side of the room, there was someone… cooking.
Someone very tall and wide, even for being much younger than how Pauling had known them; someone who she had never seen with hair before.
The teenager turned around, holding a pot of something, and revealed a slightly smaller, slightly more gangly, much hairier Heavy Weapons Guy, and he was smiling.
Pauling stood there in a state of shock, hearing Jeremy flop down on the floor behind her—“hey, watcha drawin’?… Can I draw too?”—and Rick coming up beside her, his voice quiet.
“Who’s that?”
Pauling blinked, starting to make her way across the room.
“If I’m right, someone who shouldn’t speak much English.”
The large teenager put the pot he was carrying on the table and looked across to her, standing up tall and still managing to look incredibly threatening despite his age. His voice wasn’t quite as deep as Pauling remembered it, but still a rumbling command.
“…making food for little one… hungry.”
Good thing she’d picked up a little bit of Russian along the way. She couldn’t decode all of the words, but she knew enough to make sense of it.
Heavy leaned around Pauling and whistled, and Pyro came bounding off the floor and over to the pot, Heavy producing a bowl and spoon and ladling out a generous helping of… something that smelled good?
“What did you make?”
She could tell from his expression that her accent was horrible, but he simply shrugged, seeming to have found an answer to a question of his own in her words.
He gestured to the pot in front of him.
“Pilaf.”
She leaned over, spying a dish made with what looked like cut up bits of Soldier’s beef jerky and that one bag of rice that had been in the cupboard for what seemed like years. Whatever spices Heavy had added made it smell fantastic however, and she didn’t doubt it’d taste good.
Pyro seemed happy enough with it, having lifted up their mask just enough to reveal a smiling brown lipped mouth and the ends of curly dark hair framing their jaw as they shovelled it into their face.
Then Heavy spoke again, and Pauling was once more only able to grab a few words out of what he said.
“This place… safe? My family… here?”
She considered for a moment, not really sure she had the vocabulary to respond—there was a lot to communicate and she wasn’t sure she could.
She eventually decided on the best simplification she could think of.
“Your family is safe, Mikhail. Um… there was a mixup. Fixed soon. You’re safe.”
Heavy fixed her with a critical eye at hearing his name, clearly trying to see if she was being untruthful. Feeling like her soul was being weighed, she sighed in relief when he nodded and broke eye contact, clearly accepting what she’d said.
From behind her, Rick had also stepped up to look in the pot, grunting and nodding at Heavy—who responded similarly. They seemed to share a moment that Paling couldn’t parse, and an understanding seemed to be quickly reached with no words.
Rick turned to Pauling with a nod.
“He’s just looking out for uh… little red witchetty grub over here. He doesn’t know what’s going on but they seemed upset earlier and he wanted to calm ‘em down. Seems like a decent bloke.”
Pauling turned back towards Pyro—who’d taken their bowl back over to the art station on the floor—and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by an especially large explosion from outside, followed by an explosion of raucous teenage laughter.
Rick got a haunted look to his eyes, like the threat of having to deal with two extroverts and explosions would be too much for him, and Jeremy let out a dramatic cry of frustration and flopped back on the carpet. Pauling sighed.
“Maybe we should try and get those guys to come inside.”
Rick and Jeremy both looked horrified at the suggestion—then from behind her, she heard the loud cracking of large knuckles.
Heavy grunted, rolling his shoulders and striding towards the door.
“I go. Do not scare little ones.”
With a sense of finality, he closed the door behind him, and there was a beat of silence before Pyro put their empty bowl down and went back to colouring with the soft shfa shfa of crayons across paper.
Jeremy sat up off the carpet, looking curiously up at Pauling.
“So uh… what are we doin’ now the big guy’s gone?”
Pauling bit her lip in thought—then made a very quick decision.
“Well, do you guys know how to build a blanket fort?”
Jeremy rolled his eyes—“yeah, of course! I’m da BEST at blanket forts!”—Rick frowned and shrugged—“Wot”—and Pyro looked like they were about to burst from excitement.
“Well, there are lots of bedrooms on this floor, with blankets and pillows in them that you can use—you’d better get started!”
Pyro leapt from the floor, grabbing Rick and Jeremy’s arms and dragging them towards the door as Pauling yelled after them with a caveat she wished she’d thought of earlier.
“Wait—don’t uh, don’t use the one that’s locked!”
But they were already traipsing down the hallway merrily, and she hoped they didn’t lose any fingers to Spy’s boobytraps.
Quickly, as soon as she heard their footsteps fade from earshot, she pulled the brick-sized phone she always carried from its pocket in her skirt, dialling in a number she would never divulge on pain of death and waiting for the line to pick up.
“Administrator? Yeah, we have an interesting problem.”
**
By 10pm, Pauling felt like she should be charging the Administrator babysitting rates.
After several hours of trying to get everyone fed, with only what Heavy had cooked along with a loaf of bread and a roll of bologna—which arguably, was also Heavy’s—they’d finally finished building the blanket fort, which had turned into more of a blanket palace under Pyro’s watchful eye. Eight rooms worth of blankets had provided plenty of fodder for creative experimentation.
Demo and Solly, in all their thirteen year old glory, had been dragged in by Heavy, who had sternly deposited them on the carpet before fetching them both a bowl of pilaf.
He had then been presented with what in later life he would know as a “sandvich”, and Pauling had the distinct delight of watching a lifelong passion be born.
Soldier then started teaching everyone how to play 52 pickup, which he both insisted was absolutely a real game with rules, the only one of which was that all 52 cards had to be picked up by a different part of the body. Both he and Demo had cards tucked in several unlikely and unsavoury places, and Pauling had to ban the game before something really disgusting happened.
Pyro’s crayons were starting to look worn down to the nubs, and they started to get a bit restless even as they started to emit soft yawning noises, Jeremy joining them even though he insisted he wasn’t tired.
A few minutes after 10, Pauling was startled by a knock on the door that revealed Medic and Engie, the latter hiding behind the billowing coat of the former and looking a bit sheepish.
Medic quietly leaned in towards Pauling and muttered something that sounded so earnest she wondered if this really was Medic at all.
“Dell had a nightmare, can we sleep in here with you?”
Pauling let them in and watched as they found a spot in the blanket mess, Medic making sure Engie was tucked in tightly before laying down next to him, watching him carefully like he’d break if he didn’t.
Pauling smiled. When you haven’t had a best friend before, she supposed there were a lot of new feelings that come with suddenly having one arrive out of nowhere.
She felt a tug on her skirt, and looked down to find Pyro—who only came up to her waist—looking up imploringly, still wearing their full suit despite how baggy it was on them now.
“Yeah? What’s up little buddy?”
Pyro mimed with their hands together and apart, like opening and closing a book, and Pauling felt her stomach drop into her shoes.
“Oh, you uh… you want a bedtime story, huh.”
Pyro nodded excitedly, and Pauling gulped, letting them lead her over to the edge of the blanket pile and settling themselves down in a puddle of pillows, watching her intently.
Pauling sat down in one of the only intact chairs in the rec room and tried to think of something with a brain that had suddenly emptied itself of any and all stories she’d ever heard before.
Pyro looked at her expectantly, and she felt her mouth jumpstart itself into talking, hoping she’d figure out where she was going with this as she went.
“Yeah, uh ok. So uh… once upon a time, there were nine mercenaries.”
“Mer-sen-airies? What da heck is dat?”
Jeremy had burst from his little blanket cocoon, popping up near where Pyro was sitting, and in response, Rick’s head popped up from somewhere near the other side of the room.
“Oi Jeremy, shut it! Let her talk!”
“I’m just sayin’, why can’t they be knights or something, or princes, like in Disney?”
Rick frowned, and with the air of a person whose local cinema at home was 50 miles away and had only visited once, very seriously uttered the sentence that nearly brought the tentative peace of the room to its knees.
“What the hell is a Disney.”
Pauling dove forward and shoved a hand over Jeremy’s wide open and indignant mouth, quashing whatever rebellion he could have caused as a result of such a bombshell.
“ANYWAY. The nine mercenaries got along great, but then one day, there was a terrible accident—and it turned out that all nine of them had a terrible case of uh… tumours. Lots and lots of tumours.”
Medic suddenly sat up, looking absolutely rapt with this development, leaning forward in excitement, glasses reflecting the light in the creepiest way possible.
Pauling grimaced and looked away.
“The uh, doctor and engineer of the group had experimented on a bunch of bread that also had tumours, and the doctor decided that these tumours were fatal, and the nine guys only had three days to live—so, they decided to all do something they’d wanted to do for a long time, since it was their last chance. One of the mercenaries, called Scout, decided that he uh… well, he wanted to go on a date with a pretty girl.”
Pyro sighed happily, leaning their head on their hands, and Jeremy wriggled free of Pauling’s hand by virtue of licking her hand and causing her to let out a disgusted yelp.
“Girls? Ew, I’m going to bed. This story blows.”
Pauling rolled her eyes as she watched him tuck himself obliviously back inside his blanket—the name ‘Scout’ having no meaning to him whatsoever—somehow managing to keep one ear out of it to listen to any further developments.
Yeah. For sure.
“Yeah, so Scout went to this ancient old wise man, called Spy, and Spy told him he had to shape up if he wanted to impress the girl. They spent ages working on Scout’s manners and behaviour, and Scout totally became a complete gentleman. But then… disaster struck!”
Pyro sat up straight, the very picture of pantomime horror, and a few other heads tucked into blankets turned to face her with interest. Pauling looked at Jeremy, who was outright refusing to look at her, and smiled wickedly.
“There was a great beast in the basement that had thought girls were gross, and hated that Scout was getting a hot date, so it came out of hiding and started licking everything!”
Several pairs of eyes swivelled around to look at Jeremy, whose ears were starting to look a bit red. Pauling chuckled and continued.
“Anyway, Scout was lucky he had such amazing taste, because the girl he wanted to impress was a total babe, and she managed to defeat the beast with a huge bomb that was stored in the basement.”
Demo looked extremely interested all of a sudden.
“Wait, what size are we talking aboot? What kind of charge did it have? Ye cannae just leave out important details like that!”
Pauling shrugged. “Well, it was set to a timer. Took a minute to figure it out as well.”
Demo opened his mouth, about to retaliate, and Pauling held up a hand, just wanting to get to the end of the story.
“But it was strong enough that the beast exploded, and everyone lived happily ever after.”
Pyro nodded, stretching their arms above their head and letting out a loud yawn—then, they laid down and rolled over, and within a few minutes, were letting out soft little snores.
That seemed to set off a cue for everyone else, including Demo, who sighed dejectedly and laid down next to Solly, who was already passed out. Gently, he untied his makeshift eyepatch, rolling it up and sticking it under his pillow—then he reached out and lifted off Solly’s helmet, which was covering his face and causing his snoring sounds to echo tinnily. After it was removed, he snuffled gently and rolled over, splaying an arm over Demo’s chest.
Pauling tilted her head curiously.
“Hey, Tavish?”
The boy in question sat up and whirled around, flinging off Solly’s arm—Solly only emitted a half hearted “eurgh” at the imposition—and fixing her with a confused single eye. The other socket was a mass of scar tissue, the orb of the eyeball completely absent.
God, he was only what, thirteen? That would have been the defining traumatic episode of his childhood.
And his adulthood, if the way that eye came back to haunt these guys on Halloween had anything to do with it.
…
Wait.
“Tavish, uh… who took your eye?
Demo’s gaze darkened, haunted by the memory of something that might have been a bit too heavy for right before bedtime, now she thought about it.
“Merasmus. The Wizard.”
Pauling brightened.
“Oh yeah, that’s the guy who keeps pestering you guys every Halloween, isn’t it?”
Tavish just frowned in confusion, and she shook her head.
“Nevermind. Any idea how to contact that guy?”
Tavish tilted his head in thought, face scrunched up in thought. “Honestly, I think his number was in the phone book, last I heard…”
They were interrupted by the sound of a cupboard somewhere slamming and something in the kitchen rustling.
Immediately, there was an immense stirring of blankets and pillows as 8 small bodies burst from their fort—Pauling groaned in frustration as her bedtime storytelling work went to waste, and followed the group to the kitchen as they all gathered around the interloper.
“Guys it’s probably just a rat, I really don’t think it’s a—”
“Thief!”
And there, clutched in Heavy’s hand like a mischievous kitten, held high for them all to see, was someone who looked an awful lot like Jeremy, brown hair and gangly limbs… and buck teeth.
The business shirt and pants he was wearing were, like on the other kids, rolled up in order to fit a smaller frame than they were designed for, although the kid looked almost the oldest of the bunch, around sixteen.
With a slice of bread clutched in his left hand, he looked absolutely mortified to have been caught, and upon locking eyes with Pauling, chuckled nervously.
“Eh madame, comment allez-vous?”
Pauling let out a long breath.
Well, there went her hopes of getting any help from Spy.
**
Merasmus was not fond of late night phone calls.
Merasmus was not fond of phones in general, but he’d installed one in case someone commissioned him for another love potion or petty curse, which at the very least were good cash jobs that he didn’t have to declare on tax.
This phone call in particular though was not one he was enjoying.
“Hey, is that Merasmus? The Wizard? Yeah, it’s Ms Pauling here, and I have a curse that I would like… no, that I’m absolutely demanding you undo right now.”
Merasmus sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“Pauling… are you with the Johnsons group? No, surely not.”
“I’m in Teufort! You know, Tavish DeGroot? Jane Doe?”
Merasmus rolled his eyes in recognition.
“Ah, those fools. Merasmus does not go back on curses that were well deserved, and that is final. Those fools deserved to be cursed into old age and die as useless old men. Goodnight.”
“Old men? You turned all nine of my mercenaries into kids! Are you telling me that you’re incompetent as well as an asshole?”
Merasmus bristled. “Well, now Merasmus is far less inclined to help you.”
The voice on the other side of the phone suddenly darkened, and Merasmus got the inkling that perhaps this young woman meant business.
“No, you listen to me. You are undoing this curse, and you are undoing it now, or I am bringing down the full force of the power I have down on you, which is not inconsiderable. Do you know how many shallow graves I’ve dug? If you do not undo this curse then I will be disposing of you within 24 hours, mark my words!”
Merasmus sighed.
“...will you contact the Russian Mafia if I don’t?”
“Oh, I have their number listed to call next. Don’t mess with me, asshole.”
A sigh—then, Merasmus was searching through his robe for the scrap of paper he wrote his incantation on, placing his glasses on his nose, and letting out a booming call that sent the neighbour’s dog into hysterics. Merasmus winced. Mrs Tennyson would be letting him know about that one in the morning.
“They’ll be back to frustrating normal at the break of dawn. But don’t make a habit of calling this number! Merasmus does not enjoy unsolicited calls, especially at this hour!”
-CLICK-
On the other side of the line, Pauling looked around at the nine kids that had suddenly fallen unconscious around her, nodding with satisfaction.
After confirming that none of them were in horribly uncomfortable positions, and that all of them were still breathing, she stepped delicately to the middle of the blanket fort, claiming her own blanket and pillow and tucking herself in. Sleep came quickly, and she had never been gladder for it.
**
The next morning, the 5am sunrise shone brightly and happily through that one crack in the blinds, and Pauling scrunched her face up in annoyance, going to roll over—only to find her passage blocked by several large things. Very large and very warm things.
She opened her eyes and sat up—and looked out across a sea of eight grown men and Pyro, a mess of tangled arms and legs and a cacophony of different snores and snuffles and heavy breathing.
Demo and Solly had somehow migrated together overnight, and were now laying next to each other with their arms entwined like two bizarre otters. Heavy was laid flat on his back nearby, causing a large dent in the blanket fort’s integrity—on one side was Pyro and Spy, Pyro curled up against Heavy and Spy curled up the opposite way with his back to Pyro. On Heavy’s other side, Medic and Engie still lay next to each other, Engie splayed on his back like a starfish and Medic almost ramrod straight on his side facing him with his back pressed up against Heavy.
Finally, on either side of her were Sniper and Scout, both of whom had an arm thrown over her affectionately.
There was no assumption to it—it was simply something that had likely been the act of two preteens towards the lady who’d watched out for them all day, and who they wanted to be close to. It was… nice.
And honestly… Pauling could use a bit more sleep.
With a sigh, she lay back down, closed her eyes, and let the snuffling cacophony around her lull her into sleep once again.