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“Bloody hell! Your pumpkin looks like you murdered it and then ripped its insides out!”
“Oh yeah, Picasso? Yours ain’t looking too hot either.”
“At least I drew out my design beforehand. You just went stabbing the thing like it was your ex-girlfriend.”
Scout took a quick sip of his BONK! before attempting to hack his knife downwards through his pumpkin, failing, and then pulling it out. Within seconds, he had the blade firmly rooted into the fruit again as he sought to make an incision more than a centimeter long. Sniper was already halfway done with his pumpkin, and pieces of skin and pulp littering the table in front of him.
“I’m telling you, Snipes, it wasn’t me! It was totally her boyfriend when he found out I was sleeping with her,” Jeremy exclaimed, preoccupied with his carving to face the marksman.
Sniper quirked an eyebrow and momentarily stopped working on his pumpkin.
“Shouldn’t he have killed you then? Seems more logical if you ask me,” he commented.
The Bostonian snickered and lounged back in his seat, finishing off his soda in the process. Once the tin was empty, he squashed it and tossed it towards the Australian’s trash can. The can underwhelmingly hit the rim and fell on the ground with a clunk noise. Scout and Sniper both groaned, Scout for missing the throw and Sniper because of the small stain that now painted his carpet.
“He could never catch me. Probably figured it wasn’t worth his time and took his anger out on his girl instead,” the runner concluded.
Scout let out a yelp and nearly jumped out of his seat when he felt something cut his shoulder. A small dot of blood stained his short sleeve, and Sniper let out a rough chuckle as he returned his Kukri to its spot under the table.
“What the hell was that for, Mundy?!” Scout cried.
“For staining me carpet. I’ve already warned you about being reckless with yer drinks. If you want to barge in and hang around in my van, you have to follow my rules.”
Scout crossed his arms and grumbled something about why he and Sniper were even friends, and the Australian quickly retaliated.
“Why are we friends? You don’t seem like the type of wanker to want to hang out with a loner like me,” Sniper stated, kicking his feet up on the table next to his pumpkin.
Jeremy went back to aggressively slicing his fruit as he spoke, “Cause the rest of this team are older than my grandpa! It gets kinda lonely not having someone your age to talk to, you know?”
Mundy also went back to carving out his jack-o-lantern as he continued the conversation, “What about Pyro? He seems about our age.”
The van was filled with the runner’s short, high pitched laughter as he placed one hand on his stomach and the other over his eyes. The Australian smirked at his companion’s over-dramatic reaction and leaned on the table, the side of his face sitting in the palm of his hand.
“I’d rather watch you try and ask out Hardhat than be friends with that freak!” Scout said in between laughs.
Sniper responded by playfully hitting the injured shoulder in lieu of telling him to shut up, which resulted in another cry of pain from the younger man. After the laughter had settled, the two men continued to work in an easy, blissful silence, only occasionally interrupted by the sounds of communicating hawks and whatever the hell Soldier and Demo were doing back at the base. Probably drunk and juggling explosives, Sniper thought.
The taller of the two took a pause to serve himself some coffee, but when he returned to his seat, he noticed that Scout’s expression was a lot less bright than before. It was thoughtful and almost depressing, something that the sniper would more likely see Spy or Heavy wear. Certainly not Scout.
“Hey, mate, is something bothering you? I’m real sorry I nicked ya earlier, if that’s what it’s about,” Mundy said honestly, putting a comforting hand on the Bostinian’s clean shoulder.
Jeremy shook his head and laid his knife on the table.
“Nah, I’m alright, it’s just...carving these pumpkins here with you reminds me of back at home. Every Halloween, me and my brothers would carve crazy designs and then show em’ to Ma. Whoever's ranked the highest got to eat dessert before dinner, it was loads of fun,” he explained, staring out through the Australian’s window sadly.
Sniper plopped back down in his chair and glanced through the window as well, not looking at anything in particular.
“Ya miss em? Your family?”
Scout’s nod was sheepish. He hiked his legs up onto the edge of the chair and curled onto himself, his expression one of confliction.
“If it’s any consolation, me and me dad used to go hunting for turkeys on Halloween. When he got home, we would carve out pumpkins while me mum baked dinner...I guess dad never thought his hunting lessons would have such an impact on my life,” Mundy trailed, thinking about the last time he spoke with his parents.
The silence returned, but now it was charged, awkward. Scout took to finishing up his design while Sniper moved to his bed and drank his coffee in resigniton. He was considering suggesting that the runner leave for his sake, but he figured that if Jeremy wanted to go, he would have upped and done it already. After what seemed like an eternity, Scout stood up and approached his friend with the pumpkin in hand, a tiny smile resting on his face.
“So, Snipes, wanna see?” He asked.
Still feeling somber but not wanting to disappoint his companion, Mundy nodded. Jeremy turned his creation around, and the taller man nearly fell out of bed as he rolled around and laughed into the sheets.
“Ahahaha! That’s bloody brilliant! And he looks so stupid too!”
Scout’s grin widened as he set the pumpkin back on the table. The design was that of Spy’s head, terribly misshapen and filled with various obscene features including piercings, a wide tongue that was stuck out, greatly oversized eyes, and thin, crooked letters that read ‘You SUCK!”
“You should really finish yours, man. I take back what I said, it’s looking pretty good so far,” Scout chipped in.
“No, no I shouldn’t---”
“Wait, wait just a second. Is...is that supposed to be Engie?”
The following chase that ensued filled the van with messy splotches of pumpkin seeds, spilled over urine, and the happy laughter of the two friends. The Boston boy laughed even harder when Sniper’s foot caught the leg of the sofa and he proceeded to face-plant into the carpet below.
“Aww man, Dell’s totally gonna freak when he sees this! Good luck ever getting that date, pally!”
“You show that to him and you’re a dead man, ya twitchy hooligan!”
For once in nearly five years, Scout felt like he was with his family again.