Birds of a Feather

There's something special about you

After dinner things had sort of went back to normal. The key word there being sort of. Medic finished eating only to quickly babble on about having to return to his work. Scout had thought the man would take the bird with him, but Medic had just placed the bird back in the box and promptly handed the box over to Scout.

Upon seeing Scout’s blank look Medic said “It is still storming rather badly. It would be less stressful for him if he stayed with you since you bring him comfort.”

With those words said Medic took off and Scout was left standing there holding the box. “I guess you are spending the night with me then,” Scout said as he stared down at the little red bird.

The bird only happily chirped in response. Scout took the bird to his room, and placed the box down on the floor. Once that was done he gently took the bird out of the box and put the bird down on the desk. Once that was done Scout stared at the bird and mentally thought ‘Well, now what?’

It was still a bit too early to go to bed, but he didn’t really know what he should do to pass the time. The bird seemed unaware of Scout’s problem. He just happily looked around at his new surroundings without a care in the world. Scout’s eyes slowly drifted around the room as he tried to find something to pass the time, but eventually his eyes fell onto his sketchbook that he had sitting on his desk near the bird.

“Been a while since I drew anything,” Scout mumbled as he picked the book up.

He opens the book and slowly started to flip through the pages. There was a sketch of Demoman passed out on the red room couch that he had done during his first month on the RED team. There was an incomplete sketch of Engineer’s dispenser that he really needed to finish one of these days. There was a complete drawing of Sniper’s van sitting out in the dessert with the desert night sky acting as a backdrop. Scout was rather proud of that drawing. There was a doodle of Spy getting hit by a car...

Finally, Scout found a blank page that was just begging him to draw something on it. The question was what should he draw? That question had an easy answer. The bird was sitting right there, and he wasn’t exactly going to be moving from that spot. He would be perfect to draw.

“Feel like being a model?” Scout asked.

The bird let out a small chirp upon hearing that.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Scout said.

Before he started drawing he needed some music to draw to. He went over to the small bookshelf where he kept his records and comics, and started flipping through his records. He had a lot of choices, but for tonight he decided to go with the very best singer that he knew. Scout quickly grabbed the From the Heart Tom Jones record off of the shelf, and put it in his record player on the B side. Within a few seconds the song Hello Young Lovers started to play filling the room with music. Scout smiled as he slid into his desk chair, and opened up his desk drawer to get a pencil. As he did so he could see the bird turning his head this way and that as if he were puzzling over the strange new song that he was hearing.

“Enjoy the music, pal.” Scout said as he closed the drawer. “This is Tom Jones, and he’s like the best musician ever!”

The bird let out a series of chirps upon hearing that which caused Scout to smile a little. With the bird happy Scout put his pencil down to paper and started to sketch the bird. As Scout drew the bird the bird stopped tilting his head left and right in confusion, and instead he started to bob his head along with the beat of the song. Not that he had gotten used to the music he seemed to enjoy it. That fact made Scout smile grow a bit bigger as he continued to draw. It was easy to lose himself in his task. The music helped get him into the right mindset to focus on his drawing, and the soft pitter patter of rain on the roof was rather soothing. He could still hear the rumble of thunder every once in a while, but the music drowned it out enough that the bird didn’t seem to notice it.