Chapter Text
there he stood, in front of one of the many mirrors lining the wall behind the sinks in the communal bathroom. on the corner of it was something written, a stupid piece of graffiti done most definitely by scout. what it was wasn’t important to pyro, though. no, he was in here for different reasons. as soon as he had entered he locked the door, knowing that none of his coworkers would be needing the bathroom for a while. turns out that memorizing everyone’s schedule was a useful thing after all. who would’ve guessed. he undid the clasps on his mask, hastily shucking it off and setting it down on the corner of the sink he stood in front of. at this point he had been standing in front of that damn off-white porcelain sink for far too long for his liking, even if it had only been upwards of 10 minutes. he stood there staring into the mirror, staring at himself and all his scars, all his imperfections and deformities. the too big burn scar draping clumsily over his left eye and most of his cheek, the chunk of his lower jaw on the right side that was missing—he had chosen not to wear his prosthetic today, instead he was letting it soak in a cleaning solution back in his dorm—just everything. the only thought pounding through his numb mind being “what the fuck is wrong with me?!”. today was a rough one for the RED team, they had lost miserably, pyro believing it was completely his fault. truth is, his world of rainbows and sunshine, or at least his world from an outsider’s perspective, had been more bleak and self destructive more than anything recently.
there had been many things going wrong for pyro; for starters his night terrors had come back which had only left him racking his brain for a rhyme and a reason as to why. he thought things were going great for him; he had an amazing job, he had great-ish friends, he got to do what he loved most, setting things on fire, so why was he left sleepless night after night after night? seemingly there was no reasonable explanation for it. he thought he had solved all his problems years and years ago, back before he had become a mercenary, but the other day he found something he thought he had gotten rid of back when he had the chance. he didn’t even know how it ended up with his current things, he swore up and down that he had burned it along with all the other things that had brought him discomforting memories, but somehow it survived and he found it once again. what was it, you may ask? it was a poloroid photo of him and his abuser, one that fell out of a small shoebox he had grabbed off of the top shelf of his closet. when he picked it up he didn’t recognize who the person was at first. he couldn’t get his mind off of that damned picture, he could very faintly remember things happening with this person, but he couldn’t remember exactly what or who it was. it sat in his mind for days, maybe a week at most, before he finally realized who it was. when he had the realization, which unfortunately came in the form of a distressing flashback, he damn near broke down, he was lucky he had gotten away with just a panic attack. he was out in the common room of the base when it happened, sitting on the floor next to the engineer who sat above him on the couch. it was rather sudden, the way he stood up and nearly ran out of the room with no further explanation. he felt bad for it, leaving engie, the only close friend he had on base, without explaining what was wrong, but in that moment he couldn’t bring himself to even speak, let alone remember to sign that he was leaving. he just got up and ran to his room, locking the door behind him and nearly tearing his mask off his face, tossing it with urgency and care onto the messy desk that sat against the wall. he doesn’t remember much from that day, the only thing his brain deemed worthy of remembering was the realization of who it was in that picture.
he stared deeply at his reflection in the mirror, scrutinizing every little detail and degrading himself mentally for it. he felt disgusted and nauseated with himself. everything was his fault, his team losing today, how he let himself be so deeply disturbed by something he thought he got over, how he’s allowing himself to get so worked up over something that seemed so little, everything. he was quickly losing his temper with himself. he felt like he was going to puke from frustration and anger. quickly and without thinking, he raised a gloved fist and smashed it into the mirror, shattering the glass and cutting up his knuckles through his gloves. the glass went through his glove. he’d have to sew them up later. he kept his fist planted there in the broken mirror, leaning his upper body against the sink as he heaved. he was lucky he chose not to eat yet today, he was never a breakfast or lunch person anyways, only ever getting hungry around dinner. he stayed in that position for a while, long enough for him to cough up stomach acid from how hard he was heaving, and long enough for him to forget how loud he was when he broke the mirror.
three raps. three little raps against the wood of the bathroom door was all it took for pyro to get himself right again. he stood back up quickly, wiping his mouth with the hand that was previously planted against the now shattered and damaged mirror.
“pyro? you alright in there, firebug?”
it was engineer. thank god it was engineer. he didn’t think he could handle anyone else. engineer understood him on a level of deepness that no one else on base could. pyro quickly slipped on his mask, making sure he locked the buckles up in the back, before he walked carefully over to the door. he unlocked it slowly and with care, like it would shatter into a million pieces if he was too rough with it. he pulled it open with even more care than he did the lock, facing a concerned engineer with his expressionless mask as always.
“what’s going on, firebug? why’re you all cooped up in ‘ere? much more spacious back out-“
engineer peered into the bathroom past pyro, finding his eyes catching on the pieces of glass surrounding the base of the sink on the floor. he looked up at the broken mirror just to confirm that’s where the glass came from, then back at pyro with a pitiful expression on his face. god, pyro hated being looked at like that. he never wanted to be pitied, he never wanted to be seen like he was a dying animal on an aspca commercial. his brows furrowed under his mask lightly but he contained himself for the most part.
“pyro…what happened? why’s the mirror broken?”
“i’ll fix it later.” he signed out with his hands, not bothering to use his voice. his throat was starting to hurt from puking up stomach acid. he opened the door some more and pushed past engineer, walking in the direction of the dormitories.
“what’s gotten into you, bug?”
he ignored engineer and kept walking. he almost made it to the dorm hallway before he felt a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from moving any further.
“pyro what the hell is going on? you’ve been acting strange since last week. i’m worried about you.”
he felt a pang of emotion, he wasn’t sure exactly how to pinpoint it but it was some kind of negative emotion, in his chest. after a few seconds pyro swatted engineer’s hand off of his shoulder, giving him a muffled and unconvincing “i’m fine.” in response.
“i don’t know how you expect me to help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, firebug.”
if there was one thing that brought out pyro’s anger, that phrase was definitely it. he whipped his body around to face engineer fully and was quickly signing out with his hands as well as using his voice to yell at engineer through his mask.
“maybe i don’t want your help, have you ever thought of that?!”
engie took a step back, he looked shocked. pyro had never yelled at him before. he was the last one on base you’d expect to yell at you.
pyro himself recoiled, his anger was quickly overtaken by shame for yelling. he spoke a muffled half assed apology to engineer before he turned back around and booked it to his room.
god he was such a fuck up.