inclementweather - Tumblr blog

[inclementweather]

Whumptober 2021 or 31 days of why the f*** did I decide to do this?

This is the masterpost for all the things I’ve written since the start of whumptober.  This is my first ever and I’m proud to say that I AM a completionist!  I want to thank everyone who read my work and reblogged and/or liked it, you have no idea how much this meant to me.  Seriously, there were days when I thought about just giving up but seeing the positves gave me the strength to keep writing.  For those of you who have read my stuff and liked it, I am Daoinhe on AO3, you can find lots more good TF2 stuff there!  Confession time, this was both my first Whumptober and my first time posting on Tumblr, so it’s been a definite learning experience for me.  I’ve truly enjoyed it though, and hope you all have as much as I have!  That being said, enjoy the masterpost. (I hope I’ve done this right.)

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/663936323649961984/give-that-man-a-hand

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/663936687644229632/dying-for-your-love

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664067791632187392/good-girl

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664156905251520512/the-trouble-with-kittens

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664243884982943745/unchained-melody

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664339835578892288/live-by-the-sword

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664505622359834624/the-trouble-with-kittens-revisited

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664505875284754432/der-schnupfen

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664597427797508096/see-you-in-hell

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664680174727708672/white-walls-broken-hearts

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664782589321756672/the-well

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664881220092592128/torture-time-television-broadcast-live-dont-try

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/664980415336054784/playing-doctor

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665025401982255104/orange-crush

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665144237178945536/a-bee-in-pyros-bonnet

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665238026465738752/scars

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665375029526151168/rekt

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665386013166911488/pyrophilia

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665507769560989696/once-bitten

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665609046206906368/fortunate-son

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665702829515833345/medics-equitable-divorce

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665782346608410624/hell-revisited

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665975916472762368/an-engineers-guide-to-obtaining-a-wife

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/665978572422414336/the-trouble-with-tuesdays

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666108881362092033/a-kitten-called-tuesday

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666148253559128064/a-barrel-of-monkeys

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666253374680875008/voodoo-fortress

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666335878804848640/dark-dreams

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666420925662724096/you-cant-spell-hospitality-without-hospital

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666507819427758080/weve-all-got-the-wailin-banshee-blues

https://inclementweather.tumblr.com/post/666605080766808064/healing-the-hurt

[inclementweather]

Healing the Hurt

Engie’s rage was a palpable thing.  You could feel it as soon as you walked into the workshop, could see it in the busted up pieces of sentries and dispensers that he’d beaten into their scrap components with his wrench.  Medic ducked as a piece of said dispenser whirled past his head, ricocheted off the wall and fell to the floor among a pile of scrap.  

Usually, Engie’s workshop was the epitome of neatness, Engie would stand for no less.  That’s why the mess was so surprising to Medic.  He’d known that the man was taking Demo’s death hard, felt like it was his fault, but this was a disaster zone the likes of which he hadn’t been prepared for.  

Engie looked up from where he was currently bent over a teleporter, using a wrench to reduce it to a mangled sculpture of chaos.  Medic frowned. “Engie, this was not your fault.” He started the sentence, intent on saying something that would help, but Engie waved the wrench threateningly at him.  Medic stopped talking.

“How can you say this isn’t my fault?”  Engie was snarling as he returned to beating the tele.  “I’m the one who’s responsible for taking care of the equipment.  Respawn is equipment.  It malfunctioned.  My fault.”  Every second word was punctuated by another crash as he brought the wrench down on the tele again.  “If it isn't my fault, whose fault is it?”  He looked around at Medic again.  “Is it your fault?”  He shook his head.  “No.  You” crash “aren’t responsible” crash “for the mother” crash “fucking equipment.”  crash crash crash

Medic sighed.  “It’s not anyone’s fault.  It happened.” He took a cautious step closer to Engie.  “Would you put down the wrench so that we can talk?”  Another cautious step.  He was close enough now to see the dark circles under Engie’s eyes, the paleness of his face, the way his arm, slowly lowering, trembled with exhaustion.  

“Please.”  Medic took yet another step, hoping that he didn’t get his brain knocked out of his head in the process.  Mercenaries weren’t easy to deal with in the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times.  He reached out slowly and took Engie’s hand, then brought his other hand around and took the wrench, laying it on the splintered wooden remains of Engie’s workbench.  

“This is not anyone’s fault, Engie.  Certainly not yours.  You have been following proper protocols, right?  You have been doing the maintenance checks, have you not?”

Engie nodded and he continued, keeping his voice low and calm, even as he lay his hand on the shorter man’s shoulder.  “So, how could you have predicted this?  Are you suddenly psychic?  Able to tell when a machine will break before it does?”  He allowed a small smile to cross his lips.  “I thought not.  Therefore, you had no way of knowing.”

Engie’s throat moved as he swallowed.  “I should have seen this coming, Doc.  Should have known something was wrong.  I mean, it’s not like that damned banshee was here for the beer.” 

Medic shook his head.  “There was no banshee.  You and I both know that was a myth.  Besides, if the banshee was real, then there was nothing that could have been done to stop what happened.  Banshees do not come for nothing.”  

Engie sighed deeply.  “I don’t know what I’m gonna tell his Mom.  I promised I’d take care of her, and here I am, afraid to even talk to her.”

Medic touched his cheek, forcing him to look up into the deep blue eyes staring down at him, sympathy and sorrow written on Medic’s features.  “I spoke to her.  She was proud that he died in the family business.  She said that he went out as a demoman is supposed to go, with a bomb in his hand and friends nearby.”  

Engie shook his head.  “Friends wouldn’t have told him to shoot a weapon that had been acting up.  A friend wouldn’t have just sat on a bench waiting for him to come back.  I should have moved quicker, Doc. Should have torn the respawn machine down and figured out how to get him back.  This is bullshit, Doc!”  

Medic nodded as Engie started to get angry all over again.  He pulled the man close to him, wrapped his arms around Engie and held him close. Engie tried to pull back but Medic simply tightened his grip on the man.  “It’s okay to mourn, my friend.”  

Engie tried to push away once again.  Medic could feel him beginning to tremble and then the tears came, great heaving sobs of loss and grief that shook through his body like a tsunami.  Still, Medic held him, allowing him to sob.  When finally the sobs dried up and became gasping whimpers, Medic led him over to the couch and sat him down, noting the red eyes and stuffy nose, the way that Engie’s eyes drooped now that the hard part was over.  

Medic sat down beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, unsurprised when the normally undemonstrative engineer curled into his shoulder and promptly fell asleep.  Medic sat in the ruined workshop, holding the small man close, wondering what he could have done to keep Demo from dying.  After all, he knew it wasn’t Engie’s fault because he blamed himself for the death of their friend and brother. 

[inclementweather]

We’ve All Got the Wailin’ Banshee Blues

The first time they heard the wailing, the team thought it was a coyote or something.  Those who were sleeping rolled over and went back to sleep, those who were awake, shrugged it off and drank another beer.  It wasn’t really even worth remarking on, although Engie did comment about the mangy noisemakers when Demo asked why his eyes were so red over breakfast. 

The next night, the wailing wasn’t far out in the desert, it was near the base, inside the fence.  It started around midnight and continued until the false dawn lit the sky.  Demo was first up, sitting at the breakfast table with an unspiked cup of coffee when Engie walked in.  He rolled his one good eye over to where Engie was fixing his own cup.

“Banshees wailing around the walls last night.”  Demo stirred his coffee, watching Engie carefully.  “Not coyotes.”

Engie frowned as he carried his cup to the table.  “What the hell are you talking about, Demo.  Ain’t no such thing as banshees and you know it.”  He sat down, staring forlornly into his cup.  “We got a hole in the fence and they smelled the trash or something.”  He sighed. “That’s all it was.”

Demo shook his head.  “I know a banshee when I hear it.  They’ve been following my family for near six hundred years.  The last one I heard was the night my Da died.  It’s not a sound you forget.”  He looked into his cup, seeming to be searching the dark brown liquid for answers.  “I think they’ve come for me.  Promise you’ll watch over me ma, Engie.”  

Engie looked up at him, utter disbelief on his face.  “You’re kidding right? You think you’re gonna die and I should take care of your mom?” He laughed, a harsh discordant sound in the early morning stillness.  “We get paid to die, repeatedly, every day.  Get this nonsense out of your head, Demo.  It’s bullshit.”  He sipped carefully, watching Demo through the steam that curled up from his cup.  “As for your mom, take care of her yourself.  You’re near immortal, you know.”  

Demo shook his head.  “Maybe you’re right.  I hope so.” He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers.  “It would make me feel better if you said you’d take care of my ma, though.”  His dark eyes were pleading.  

Engie nodded.  “I’ll take care of her.  Hell, I’m right fond of the old lady.  She’s a spitfire.”  Engie’s smile was kind.  “Better now?”  His smile broadened when Demo nodded.  “Good.  You want eggs and toast this morning?” 

The conversation turned to other things after that, and ended altogether when Medic, always an early riser, wandered in wearing his pajama pants and a pair of scuffed slippers and not much else.  They teased Medic for a bit about his state of undress then settled into their usual morning routine.  

***

The battle that day was a lost cause from the moment it started.  Engie couldn’t get his buildings to go up smoothly, he spent more time banging on them than he did anything else and that put him in a foul mood.  He was used to things working the way they were supposed to, and when they didn’t he wanted to fix them.  Problem was, he couldn’t tear his equipment down on the field, all he could do was bang on it and hope for the best.  

He wasn’t the only one having problems.  It seemed like the entire team was plagued with ill luck, from Medic getting headshot every time he neared uber and losing it all, to Scout losing the heel of one of his shoes and trying to run sideways for the rest of the match.  Engie tried not to think about Demo’s banshees but the thought continued to plague him.  

Every time he thought he’d forgotten about it, he would see a shadow in the periphery of his vision or a cloud of red dust would float by that, at first glance, appeared to be vaguely human shaped.  Somehow, a black cat got onto the field and went darting around, hissing and squalling at everyone.  It was obviously scared out of it’s wits but when it attacked Medic and shredded his forearms, they all knew something was wrong.  Medic made a joke about respawn taking care of rabies and kept on fighting, but he was even more on edge than when the enemy Sniper was after him.  

When the day finally drew to a close, everyone was glad.  They could lose gracefully, go back to base, drink a few beers and put this whole day behind them.  That’s exactly what they did, too.  As they were walking back, all of them slump shouldered and exhausted, Demo jogged over to walk beside Engie.  

“Could you take a look at my pill launcher?”  He held out the offending weapon.  “It’s not working right.  Feels like the nades keep getting stuck or something.  It’s got a delay that wasn’t there before.  

Engie nodded.  “Shoot one over there.” He pointed to an empty stretch of desert. “Let’s see what it’s doing.”  

Demo nodded and pointed the grenade launcher toward the setting sun.  He pulled the trigger and nothing came out.  Suddenly, he pushed Engie to the side, throwing the launcher on the ground and himself down on top of it.  “Incom…” He managed to scream that much of a warning before the thing blew, covering a stunned Engie in bits and pieces of his friend. Engie lay there, his ears ringing, cursing under his breath as he waited for the bits and pieces to sparkle and vanish as respawn picked them up.  They did neither.

Engie pushed off the ground with a curse and started running toward respawn, a sinking feeling in his gut. When he got there, he sat on the bench in the corner and waited patiently for Demo to rematerialize.  He was still sitting there, waiting anxiously with the rest of the team an hour later. 

Finally Medic leaned around Heavy and cast a sympathetic look at Engie.  “I don’t think he’s coming back.  Perhaps you should go check the respawn logs and try to find out what went wrong while I go call Ms. Pauling?”  

Engie looked up from the floor, his eyes hollow.  “I’ll go do that.” He stood and walked out of the room, listening for the sound of wailing from outside. 

[inclementweather]

You Can’t Spell Hospitality Without Hospital

“You’re still not dead?”  Engie plopped down on the couch in the common room, one of his booted feet resting on the RED Scout’s throat.  He’d really thought the others would have killed the boy by this point. Engie leaned forward, resting his beer on the floor and examined the Scout closely.  He was a wreck, his body covered in a mass of bruises and lacerations, blood leaking all over the concrete floor.  Engie shook his head in wonder.

He moved his foot down, toed the boy’s hands aside.  Engie sucked in a breath when he saw the mangled remains of the boy’s genitals, letting it out in a low whistle.  “Damn, son, you pissed Medic off good, didn’t you?”  He didn’t wait for a reply, simply moved his foot, letting the boy cup his hands between his legs once more.  “Don’t worry too much.  It’ll grow back.”  He laughed at his own joke.

“Ya know, if I thought you’d hold still, I’d use you to hold my beer, but I think you might spill it for spite.” He laughed and leaned back against the soft couch cushions, resting the heels of his boots on the boy's rib cage.  He turned on the tv with the remote and settled in to watch Jeopardy.  He loved this show, yelling out the questions before the contestants ever could, heckling them when they got the answer wrong.  He shouted out a wrong answer and dug his heels into the Scout’s ribs, twisting the edge of his boot heel until he drew out a low groan of pain.  

“Awake now, are ya?”  he chuckled.  “Sorry ‘bout that but Popular Literature never was my forte.”  Leaning into the cushions again, he pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and lit one.  He watched the smoke lazily curl toward the ceiling.  “I bet you really regret that smart mouth of yours on the field, don’tcha?”  He flicked ash on Scout.  “I bet you regret even more that you pissed your own team off so much they ain’t even gonna try to get ya back.”  He took another deep drag, blowing smoke out his nose while a commercial jingle rang in the background.  “Who the hell even eats Oscar Meyer weiners?”  Engie asked the tv before once again becoming immersed in his show.  At his feet, the Scout bled some more.  

When the show finally ended, switching over to Bonanza, Engie leaned forward and ground the stub of his cigarette out on the back of Scout’s knee, drawing an agonized whimper from him. Engie grinned.  “Ya know, people forget how soft the skin is back there.”  He drew his lighter from his pocket, turning it sideways and flicking the little wheel, allowing the flame to heat the metal top.  He leaned forward again, wrenched one of Scout’s arms up and lay the hot metal on his armpit.  “That’s another good, soft place, right there.”  Engie worked the boy over, the backs of his knees, the soft folds of his armpits and groin, the insides of his elbows.  He chuckled out loud at the soft moans and attempts to scream.  

“Still going, huh?”  He lay the lighter to the side, letting it cool.  “Let me give you some advice, son.”  He roughly grabbed the boy’s chin, jerked his head up so he could peer into the blue eyes nearly hidden by swollen black flesh.  “You ain’t made yourself no friends here.  I’d change my ways if I was you.  You see, when you die, respawn’ll grab ya and then we get the chance to catch you and do all this again.”  He leaned in closer, searching the boy’s face for any signs of comprehension.  “I know you’re still in there, listening. You aint that far gone yet.”  He grinned, the expression hard and menacing on his normally placid face.  “If we get you again, now that we know your team ain’t gonna come back for ya, I’ll have something special planned for you.  I know the rest of the boys are thinking real hard about next time too.”  

He laughed, a full throated belly laugh.  “Especially Medic.  I don’t know what you did to that man, but he’s got a full on hatred of you, boy.”  He leaned closer.  “Last I heard, he wanted to see if there was a way to permanently disable your vocal cords.” He chuckled again.  “Not that I think that’s a bad idea, but nobody wants to wake up on his table with duck vocal cords instead of human, right?”  

Engie shrugged and reached into his pocket, digging out a small knife.  “Just remember all that when you respawn.” He flipped the knife open, light gleaming on the polished blade.  “They sent me in here to talk to you before I send you back to your base.”  He laid the open blade against the soft skin under Scout’s ear.  “You got any last words, boy?”  

Scout turned his head slightly, struggling to get his tongue to work.  He could feel the congealed blood peel from the roof of his mouth, letting his tongue flop around like a worm in the cavern of his busted up throat.  He whispered the words, then waited as the BLU Engineer leaned in closer to hear him.  “Fuck you.” He spat the words out with a gob of blood and spittle, mangled lips stretching into a grin as the wad of nasty hit the side of Engie’s cheek and oozed down it.

Engie reached up and wiped the mess off his cheek, cleaning his hand on his overalls.  His eyes narrowed in anger.   He straightened his knees out and reached for his wrench, laying on the end table.   “Boy, you just earned yourself another night of Southern Hospitality.” 

[inclementweather]

Dark Dreams

Pyro curled tighter under the blankets and peeked over the edge, wide eyes staring into the darkness of her room.  She’d been dreaming, she knew that much, but the dream seemed so real to her.  She’d been running through the forest, and at first, it had been a lovely green forest, but that had quickly morphed into a dark forest, trees and brush slowly dimming under the fading night sky.  Then, she’d become aware of the footsteps behind her, the heavy thud of something crashing through the brush, chasing her.  She hadn’t needed to turn around to know that, whatever it was, it was big and had huge gnashing teeth.  What it was didn’t matter.  Even if she laid eyes on it, it would be impossible to tell, just a huge blur of teeth and claws and dark fur interspersed with patches of reptilian hide.  So, Pyro just ran.  Then the cave had appeared and though she knew it was a bad idea to run inside, she hadn’t had a choice in the matter, her feet had simply taken her there without consulting her.  She’d run through dark tunnels lit only by ghastly green phosphorescence, bats swirling around her fleeing body, her breath panting and echoing back to her, made harsher and louder by the dream acoustics of the caverns she now fled through.  

She’d taken a side path, run panting and sweating until she could run no more, a dark wall of moisture beaded water rising in front of her, blocking her flight.  She’d spun around and the thing was right there, all eyes and teeth and pain as it tore her to shreds, shaking it’s head like a cat with a mouse, huge splatters of blood splashing the walls around her until she’d woken up, gasping and screaming, tears running down her cheeks and fear closing her through and making her heart feel like it was going to jump out of her chest. 

She’d screamed then, long and loud, the shrill tones echoing off the blank walls of her room, coming back to her and making her throw her hands over her ears at the din.  She’d screamed until she couldn’t scream any more, then collapsed, weeping.  And now, the dream over, she was trying to avoid going back to sleep, staring around her room for any sign that the beast had followed her from the dream world to this one.  

She knew that was nonsensical thinking but it was dark and quiet and no one had come to comfort her when she’d screamed.  She couldn’t get out of her bed for fear that it was hiding under there, couldn’t make it to the light switch on the wall, the dim shadows could contain any manner of monster.  She groaned and pulled the blankets further over her shoulders, trying to be quiet in case something heard her.  

She wished that someone would come but knew it didn’t do any good to wish such things, no one ever came.  She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, pretending that they belonged to someone else, someone who had come to comfort her.  It took a lot of imagination but finally, she began to relax.  She curled down under her blankets, whimpering sleepily, her eyes drifting shut once more.  Perhaps this time, she hoped, the dreams wouldn’t come.  And if they did come, perhaps this time someone would hear her scream and care enough to check on her.  She sighed as she drifted off, silence falling over the room once more.  

[inclementweather]

Voodoo Fortress

Solly stood on the edge of the point, swaying back and forth.  “I’m fine.” He answered Medic’s query, then swayed a bit more.  “I prom…”  Solly collapsed, his knees giving way, his body slumping gracefully in an all American faint. His rocket launcher fell from his limp fingers, laying  on the ground beside him.  Silence fell as the others stared in shock.  

The loud ting of the point being captured was the only sound that broke the silence.  Medic stepped forward finally, stared down at Solly as he lay still in the red dust and, seeming to realize that this was not a joke, bent over and laid his fingers against Solly’s neck, checking his pulse.  “He is still alive.”  He turned to look at the others, hands fluttering uselessly for a moment.  “Does anyone recall if he’s been acting odd?  Complaining about anything?”  

Medic sprang into action then, pointing toward the base and helping Heavy pick the still unconscious man up.  He frowned, then led the little procession across the battlefield and to his clinic.  The BLU team, expecting a humiliation round, stayed hidden, but Medic could feel eyes on them as they passed by.  

When they reached the clinic, Medic started an IV and began to examine Solly. He was in the clinic with him for what felt like forever before emerging and looking at his team, sitting in the row of chairs in front of the clinic doors.  

“I cannot find anything physically wrong with him.”  He rubbed his forehead with one hand.  “His vitals are stable, his blood work is fine, everything is in order.  But I cannot get him to wake up.”  He was frowning heavily now.  “I’ll ask again, do any of you know anything?”  

The team eyed each other silently.  Finally Scout lifted his hand.  “Ummm, I don't know if this will help, but he said this morning that he had a fight with his roommate?”  The young man’s voice rose at the end, as though questioning the statement.  “Don’t he live with that weird wizard guy?” 

Demo nodded. “Yeah, Merasmus.  Slimy little git.  He has a house on the edge of Teufort.  Well, a shack really.  Full of all sorts of weird shite, it is.”

Medic nodded gravely.  He’d had dealings with Solly’s room mate before.   “Perhaps it’s time you look into this.  Take Heavy with you.”  

Demo nodded solemnly.  He and Heavy stood and headed for the truck.  It was time to talk to Merasmus.  

 The bread truck pulled up in front of a ramshackle castle, Heavy and Demo getting out, weapons in hand.  Demo looked over at Heavy.  “Are you ready for this?”  He shouldered his borrowed shotgun and walked up to the castle door, preparing to knock when the door swung open.  “Oooooh, now.  That’s not a bit spooky.” He looked over his shoulder, checking that Heavy was still there, and entered the dark hallway.  

They’d walked through the hallway and into a huge dining room, the smell of mildew increasing the further they went, when a noise in the far corner caused them to both turn, weapons pointed in that direction.  

Merasmus was standing in front of a small wooden door, his lanky form looking out of place in a pair of stained sweatpants and a shirt that had started life as white but was now dingy yellow.  He looked up, startled, his stringy black hair flipping into his eyes.  “Oh.  Merasmus was not expecting company.”  He grimaced.  “Why are you here? What do you want from Merasmus? I don’t think I owe anyone money.”  

Demo and Heavy simultaneously brought their shotguns to bear on the white trash wizard.  “We know you have done something to Soldier.  We want to know what.”  Heavy’s voice was a low growl.  “You will tell us, or all magic will leak from the holes Heavy puts in you.”  

Merasmus backed into the wall behind him, his hands going up defensively.  “Merasmus has done nothing to him.  Nothing that he did not deserve anyway.”  He straightened, looking offended.  “You do not know what he did to me.”  

Heavy started toward the skank looking wizard but Demo thrust out a hand and smiled, trying to look benign.  “Why don’t ya tell us about it, lad?” He motioned for Heavy to back down and Heavy, taking the hint, stepped back a step and lowered his shotgun.  

Merasmus visibly relaxed.  “You would listen to Merasmus?” He frowned, then stepped forward. “Perhaps you are not as unreasonable as Soldier has said.”  He waved his arm in a grand gesture, toward the table.  “Sit down!  I will make us some tea.”  He scurried from the room, leaving the two mercenaries to warily approach the table.  At last, Demo lowered himself into a chair, followed by Heavy, who looked worried as the chair creaked and groaned, but it held his weight.  

Merasmus returned bearing a tray with a chintz patterned teapot and three mismatched cups.  He set them all on the table, pulled the sugar bowl from the bulging pocket of his pants and placed it on the table.  “I hope no one wants milk, it seems to have gone to the dark side.”  He collapsed into a chair and reached for the teapot.  

Demo pretended not to notice the way Merasmus’s hand shook as he poured the tea.  “Soldier has this thing for raccoons.”  Merasmus glanced from face to face.  “He collects them, and I swear, they are all rabid or something.  But he loves them.  Treats them like little soldiers or something.”  He stirred sugar into his tea then offered the spoon to Demo and Heavy.  

“Anyway, this morning when I woke up, the raccoons had eaten my spell components and turned themselves into zombies.  Can you imagine my surprise when I found a herd of rabid zombie raccoons in my library, munching on my irreplaceable books?”  One hand flew out in a grandiose gesture, Merasmus seemed to tend toward those, Demo noted silently.  “I had to put them all down.  Again. It was horrible.  You don’t understand.  They were all glowing with the magic they’d eaten and those volumes were priceless.”  Merasmus leaned against the table, massaging his forehead with his hand.  

Demo glanced at Heavy, then back to Merasmus.  The wizard began to speak again, obviously not done ranting yet.  This time, when he swept his hand through the air, a large tome that had been laying on the table went whizzing through the air.  He had the grace to look sheepish as it struck a wall and fluttered to the floor.  “He accused me of not likeing them, of killing them on purpose.”  Merasmus muttered into the still dining room.  “So I made a voodoo doll.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled the doll out, laying it next to the teapot.  It was a perfect likeness of Solly, right down to the bright red jacket and tiny cardboard rocket launcher slung over one shoulder.  It had a little bag over its head, and a helmet placed on the bag.  “I knocked him out.”  Merasmus grinned and poked the tiny figure with one finger.  

Demo looked from the doll to Heavy and back again.  Heavy cleared his throat.  “I can have little doll?” He reached across the table for it and Merasmus looked at him for a moment, then snatched the doll up and held it to his chest.  

“Why do you want it?  And what will you give me for it?”  

Heavy smiled.  “Does not like little Soldat.  Will owe you one favor.  Muscle only.  No killing.”  He stared into Merasmus’s eyes for a moment and finally the smaller man relented.  “One favor, no killing.” He reached across the table and shook Heavy’s hand, then slid the doll across the table to Heavy.  “He’s yours. Tell him that he needs to have his things moved out by this weekend.”  

Heavy nodded solemnly. “Will tell him.”  He stood and looked over at Demo.  “We go now. Have battle to fight.”  Demo nodded and stood from the chair, eying both of them for a moment.  At last he went out the door behind Heavy.

When they were both in the bread truck, Heavy pulled the doll out of his pocket and looked at it.  “Time to wake Soldier up.”  His big fingers began to pick at the knot holding the bag over the doll’s head.  When at last he had it freed, he carefully began to pull the bag free.  Demo, driving the truck, glanced over at him.  “Mate, don’t you think you should wait until we get back to base?” 

Heavy started to answer when Demo, still staring at the doll, hit a bump in the road.  Heavy’s fingers were jarred, popping the doll’s head from it’s shoulders.  Demo slammed on the brakes and they both stared down at the stuffed doll head, rolling from side to side on the floorboard of the truck.  

Heavy looked over at Demo.  “Uh-oh. Doktor will be angry.”  He sighed, a deep heartfelt outpouring of breath.  His shoulders sagged.  He stared back down at the doll head, now coming to rest beside his boot.  “Doktor will be very angry.”  

[inclementweather]

A Barrel of Monkeys

Medic didn’t often feel out of his league when it came to injuries but tonight could be the exception to the rule.  He was used to battlefield injuries, used to the after-battle shenanigans that a group of hardened mercenaries sometimes got up to, but he was not used to the gottverdammter quatsch that Scout and Pyro had just pulled.  They didn’t realize that, even with respawn, they were not immortal.  What would he do if they managed to kill themselves?  He pushed the thought away, not even wanting to entertain that idea.  

He groaned and buried his head in his hands, the very thought of their stupidity making him want to end himself.  He couldn’t believe that he was on the same team as those idiots, couldn’t believe that he’d gotten attached to them, come to consider them friends.  And now they do this?  How could Mann Co have done this to him?  

He sighed and put his hands flat on his desk, pushing himself up to go check on the Schwachkopfe.  He strode into the clinic and walked over to Pyro’s bed, staring down at the boy.  At least Pyro had the grace to look ashamed.  He sighed once more and, pulling his stethoscope from around his neck, placed it into his ear canals and listened to the steady heartbeat before him, the burbling remainder of river water in the boy’s lungs.  

“Hey, Doc, what about me?”  Scout shouted from his bed.  Medic turned and held up one finger, gesturing for him to wait.  He pulled the thin sheet back from Pyro’s chest and examined the glorious bruising there.  The boy looked like he'd been through a meat grinder, Medic decided.  He refused to smile where they could see him, but inside he was laughing at the mental image, thinking that was pretty much what they’d done.  Put themselves through a meat grinder.  

Who in their right minds would have gone over a waterfall in a barrel?  Easy answer, he crowed to himself!  The Arschgeige in front of him.  Oh and let’s not forget, the Arschgeige in the other bed, the one who was currently calling for his attention.  When they’d been fished out of the water, broken and bleeding, nearly drowned, Engie had asked them what they were thinking and Medic had been appalled when Pyro said “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  Neither of them had any sense of consequence.  

He had mentioned to Engie, right then, in front of them,  that Respawn needed a recalibration as apparently it had left out crucial brain matter from their scans.  He shrugged. Engie had said it was ‘boys being boys’ and walked off chuckling.  Engie didn’t have to put the ‘boys’ back together again.  Thank God the waterfall had only been 30 feet tall.  Thank God they never went to Niagara.  

Medic’s frown deepened as he suddenly thought of a childhood friend that he hadn’t considered in ages, a year older than him, though smaller by a hand.  They had snuck into an abandoned castle, found a hidden trapdoor, and despite warnings from the old wives in the village of ghosts and heinenkleed, they had gone down into the darkness. When the candles they’d stolen had blown out, they’d wandered, lost in the darkness, for what felt like forever.  They emerged two days later to find the entire village looking for them.  He still remembered the lectures of the older men, the allusions that had been cast on his and Hans' intelligence, allusions that had followed them nearly to adulthood.  He stifled his laughter with a cough.  

Medic turned away from them both, allowing the smile to wreath his lips before he carefully schooled his features and prepared to lecture them yet again about the price of stupidity and boyish bravado. 

[inclementweather]

A Kitten Called Tuesday

Pyro didn’t know how long they leaned against the door, lost in despair but, eventually, the tears stopped and they were able to think again.  They leaned their head back and sniffled, then bent over the broken thumb and checked it out for the first time since their escape from the ropes.  It had started to swell, the skin black and blue and swollen tight.  It throbbed the way that broken bones do, but Pyro had spent enough time on the battlefield that they could push the pain aside and still function.  

They were glad it was  the left hand, their trigger finger was on the right and a broken thumb made it hard to grip a gun properly.  Not that they had a gun, but still, you never know what you might come across in the course of the day. Pyro snorted in amusement.  If they didn’t get out of this room, there would be no need for a gun, a trigger finger, or much of anything else.  

But, how to get out?  They leaned their head back, thinking.  The door was locked, there were no windows.  There was an air vent but it was too high to reach, not to mention being much smaller than Pyro.  Sighing, they reached up with their good hand and rubbed the scarred side of their face, then wiped at their cheeks, trying to get the salt tears that had dried in the scars and were starting to itch.  Suddenly, Pyro stopped moving and turned to look at the door.  The hinges!  They were on the inside. Pyro grinned.

Picking up their mask, Pyro held it in the crook of the left arm and used their fingernails to pry off the respirator. The metal was thin but sturdy.  They thought it would make a suitable tool for prying.  It was worth a try, at least.  

Pyro went to the door and used the metal to pry up on the hinge pins, growing frustrated when it bent and folded down on itself.  Shaking their head, they tried using it as a screwdriver and chortled excitedly when that worked.  At least something was going in their favor!  

When the door at last gave way, they lifted it carefully, not wanting it to scrape on the concrete floor and slipped through the crack they’d made, mask tucked under their armpit.  Sitting the door back as near to its previous location as possible, they hoped that no one would notice until too late.  They looked up and down the dimly lit hallway they were in, then picked a direction at random and started walking.

The BLU base was not like RED’s.  Bland concrete walls  gave way to bland concrete walls.  There was nothing to use as a landmark.  In RED, they had drawn pictures, some hanging by scotch tape cobwebs, some directly onto the walls, but here, there was nothing.  Just one wall leading into the next, occasional closed doors marring the pristine lengths.  

Pyro was walking along more bravely now, having given up on the idea of people finding them, when suddenly a laugh rang down the corridor.  Pyro darted quickly back, trying door handles as they went, until finding one that was unlocked and ducking inside.  They leaned against the door, a bare crack of light spilling through, watching the hallway.  

Spy and Soldier passed by outside, talking quietly.  As they passed the door, Soldier patted a wickedly long knife sheathed at his side and chuckled, saying something in a low tone.  Pyro caught the sound of their name, but nothing else.  It didn’t matter, the intent was there.  They were glad they’d escaped when they had, but time was running out for them.  

As soon as the pair passed the corner, Pyro ran out of the room and down the hallway in the opposite direction.  They were passing a large loading bay door when the alarms suddenly began blaring, the noise so strident that they stopped mid stride and just stood for a second, hands over ears before running again. 

They could hear the sound of booted feet behind them, people shouting, and lungs starting to burn. They rounded a corner and came face to face with a stairwell leading down.  Pyro stood, indecisive, then darted down the stairs.  They slammed through the door at the bottom, instinctively throwing their arms up to protect their face.  They froze.

They were in a large storage area, crates stacked floor to ceiling, in rows as far as the eye could see.  Pyro quickly darted down an aisle, then another and another, losing themself among the stacked storage containers.  Each crate was large enough to hold a refrigerator, or larger, and they all were covered in black lettering, loading codes that made no sense whatsoever to them.  

When at last Pyro was too tired to go on, they began to look for a place to hide.  That place soon became apparent, if they could just reach it.  Three crates up, one of the wooden slats had fallen from the crate, whether through rough handling or poor construction, Pyro didn’t know.  The dark opening was just large enough to crawl into, the interior of the crate would provide a good vantage point to rest in.  Taking a deep breath, Pyro began to scale the wall of crates just as the door to the large room rattled and banged in the distance.  Pyro climbed faster, even while their mind screamed for them to slow down, that any slip or noise would be fatal at this point.  

At last, having reached the hole in the crate, Pyro wriggled through and into the dark interior.  The crate was roomy inside, the floor covered in loose straw.  There was a box in one corner, the side reading “FRAGILE” in capital letters.  Pyro tried to pick it up, gasping at how heavy it was.  There was no way to move it noiselessly and at last Pyro gave up and sank down in the thick straw. They could feel something under them, something that was not straw.  With a frown, they pulled it free, staring in disbelief.  The lump was a stuffed kitten, the soft grey fake fur full of straw and hay, but the button eyes in place, the tiny ears pert and pointed.  Small string whiskers adorned it’s face, giving it a mischievous look.  Pyro hugged it close with a muffled squeak of happiness. “I’ll call you Tuesday.”  Pyro whispered into the toy’s soft ear. Curling into a small ball, Pyro lay still, listening for their enemy.  

Pyro heard voices ringing out several times.  They sounded like the BLU Demo and Scout but Pyro was afraid to look.  They could hear the two men walking down the aisles, looking for any sign of a disturbance, shouting back and forth to each other as they searched the labyrinth of crates.  The two were chuckling at some joke as they passed below Pyro’s crate. 

Pyro curled up even tighter, afraid to breathe as the sound of scuffling footsteps slowly passed by.  Neither of the men sounded as though they were looking very hard, and Pyro was thankful for that.  As they listened to them pass further along the rows, the last few days of captivity caught up with them and Pyro lowered their head, resting it on their forearm.  They stifled a yawn with their good hand, then allowed their eyes to slowly drift closed, comforted by the smells of straw and wood.  As they fell asleep, curled around the stuffed toy, they hoped for pleasant dreams, but feared the worst. 

[inclementweather]

The Trouble With Tuesdays

(Being the continuing tale of our poor Pyro from The Trouble With Kittens and Kittens, Revisited.)

Pyro had been hanging from their wrists for what felt like forever now.  They’d been visited by several members of the BLU team, not visitors that they wanted, because each of them had come bearing gifts like some unholy Magi visiting the baby Jesus on Christmas morning. Except, instead of bringing gold and frankincense and myrrh, they’d brought pain and suffering and tears.  

Pyro gasped back a sniffle, they had cried so much that their nose was full of snot now, mouth open, gasping for breath which was hard coming through the clogged respirator of their mask.  They couldn’t see, could barely breathe, and they knew that this was just the beginning.  Spy had said so, his voice soft and breathy as he’d used his knife to bring pain on pain without end until finally it had stopped being the sharp stabby kind and become the dull achy kind that wounds make when sharp things aren’t being stuck in them.  

Engie had always warned Pyro to be careful around the BLU’s. “They ain’t like us, little bit.” he’d said in that cornpone accent of his that Pyro found so soothing.  “They’re mean and nasty and would kick a puppy just ‘cause it’s a Tuesday.” Pyro hadn’t known what that meant, had asked Engie if Tuesday’s were puppy kicking days and Engie had chuckled and chortled so much his beer had come out his nose.  They’d both laughed then, while Engie had cleaned beer off his upper lip with a handkerchief.  Pyro never did find out what Tuesdays had to do with kicking puppies but he’d always been especially careful around both BLU team and puppies on Tuesdays.  Not that they got to see many puppies at their job, but still, Tuesdays felt especially dangerous. 

Briefly, Pyro wondered if today was a Tuesday?  That might explain why Spy had stolen them.  Pyro shivered, thinking that if it was a Tuesday, there was no hope left.  That’s when the rope holding their left wrist had given just a little.  Pyro froze, eyes widening in the darkness of their mask and pulled down a bit harder.  Their wrist moved, slid around slightly inside the rope.  It must not be Tuesday, Pyro thought.  They pulled down harder, jerking their hand downwards and the rope gave again, then snagged up tight against their hand.  Pyro groaned in frustration. They could feel the rope biting into their hand, right below the thumb.  

Pyro thought for a moment, then furrowed their brows determinedly.  It was time to go for broke.  That was Scout’s favorite saying.  They braced themself for what was coming and jerked down harder, as hard as they could.  The rope bit into the soft flesh of their hand, then suddenly, they could feel the snap of slender bones. 

The pain was brilliant, immediate, breathtaking.  Pyro screamed, lights blooming across their blinded eyes, leaving them gasping and moaning even as they felt the rope slide over the now compressed joint of their thumb, up their hand, allowing it to flop freely.  Their entire arm was numb from having been held upright and tight for so long and after the briefest moment of numbness, pins and needles set in, white hot pricks of agony as the blood returned to the limb.  

Pyro whimpered in the darkness behind their mask, slowly flexing fingers made numb by stricture, whining as life returned to them.  At last, satisfied that the worst had passed, Pyro lifted the broken hand and, sliding two fingers under their mask, pulled up.  Even though they tried to avoid jarring their thumb, it still shot white hot bolts of pain through their hand and arm with every movement.  At last, the mask passed the top of Pyro’s head and they squinted their eyes open.  

The room was blindingly bright after so much time in darkness.  Pyro grunted and gingerly held their mask up, examining it.  The lenses were covered with a dark substance, spray paint, thought Pyro.  No wonder they’d been blind.  Someone had spray painted their lenses, leaving them in darkness.  Thankfully that mystery at least was solved, Pyro dropped the mask to the ground and turned their attention to the room they were in.  

It was small, looked like a closet or a storeroom  of some sort.  Bare concrete walls met bare concrete floor and ceiling with nothing to break the monotony.  Pyro grimaced.  There was no window and the door was thick wood.  There was a drainage hole on the ground by their feet, dark stains around it suggesting the room had been used for wet, bloody things before.  

Pyro looked up at the rope holding their other arm in place.  It was tight, attached to a metal hook in the ceiling.  Pyro cursed and slowly lifted their free arm to the tied one.  Using one finger to pick at the knot was getting them nowhere, they decided after a few moments.  With an angry glare at the hook, Pyro grabbed the rope, wrapping their good fingers around it just above the knot and jerked their body downward as hard as possible.  They screamed in pain, tears coming to their eyes as the broken hand was harshly jarred.  But the hook had moved!  

Whining to themself, Pyro jerked down again and again, ignoring the pain even as bright blooms of color overtook their vision.  Pyro decided to give it one more try before stopping to rest and on that try, the last of the curve went out of the hook and the rope slid off.  Pyro slammed unceremoniously to the floor, then lay there panting for breath and trying not to pass out.   

When they had gotten their breathing back to normal and the colorful blooms had stopped blooming behind their eyes, Pyro staggered up and slowly, cautiously lay their ear against the door.  Hearing nothing, Pyro reached down and turned the knob, only to feel that it was locked.  

“Of course it’s locked.”  Pyro muttered. They tried it again and again, with the same result.  It was locked, solid in the frame.  Pyro couldn’t help it as despair welled up in their chest.  Slumping against the door, Pyro let the tears fall from their eyes, running down their cheeks to mingle with the blood already smearing their suit.  Slumping, Pyro closed their eyes.  It was definitely a Tuesday. 

[inclementweather]

An Engineer’s Guide to Obtaining a Wife

When Austin decided that he needed to get married, he found himself in a bit of a bind.  Women were a rare commodity at his job and given where his job was located, he didn’t often have the chance to go out and meet nice women.  Oh, he met women enough, but mostly of the smoky eyed bar variety that were ready for anything provided you had the cash.  

So he did what any good company man would do, he brought his dilemma to the boss. Well, in this case, he brought his dilemma to Ms. Pauling.  After all, he was 72, and, thanks to respawn technology, didn’t look a day over 32.  It was about time to consider passing his genes on to the next generation of Connaghers.  

As he had hoped, Ms. Pauling had a solution.  That’s how he found himself, dressed in his best plaid shirt and jeans, attending the Annual Mann Co. Auction.  Ms. Pauling met him there and they proceeded to the back room that most of the folks attending didn’t know about.  “I mean,” he thought to himself, “arms deals were one thing, human trafficking was quite another.” But as Ms. Pauling had so succinctly put it, something needed to be done with problem employees and at Mann Co. firing them was not an option.   He tried to push down the disquiet settling in his bones.  This was what he wanted after all, right?  No point in getting squeamish about it now.   

He settled quietly into the folding chair next to Ms. Pauling and looked over the little pamphlet he’d been handed going through the door.  Three mercenaries, a secretary, and seven janitors, all their stats listed plainly to the side in neat rows.  The secretary was the one who caught his eye.  

She was  a pretty little thing, brunette with a snub nose and a sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks.  He was willing to bet that a little time on the ranch would turn her hair dirty blonde.  Nice form too, slender and well put together, like a racing filly.  He grinned, pointed her out to Ms. Pauling, who nodded.  He tried to put aside the thought that this was a human being, that she probably didn’t want to be sold to some Texas redneck, no matter how smart he was, just so she could have babies and fetch the evening beer while he watched the game on tv.  Nope, wouldn’t do to dwell on that at all. 

He watched patiently as the mercs went for pretty high prices, they had some pretty nice skill sets, even if they were Mann Co rejects.  The secretary was next on the block, so to speak.  She stepped out into the spotlight timidly, dressed nicely in an A line skirt and white blouse, her scared eyes trying to see past the light that Austin knew would blind her and turn the room into a wall of darkness.  He raised his hand and placed the first bid.  Across the room, someone met his bid and raised it, he was the first participant in a heavy bidding war.  He frowned when the price got to be more than he was willing to pay, Seven thousand dollars for a wife was a bit much.  He slumped back in his seat and Ms. Pauling placed a consoling hand on his shoulder as the auctioneer announced an end to the bidding.  She’d sold for ten thousand.  He sighed and massaged his temple, wishing he’d never come to this damned event.  

Ms. Pauling tapped her pamphlet then, pointing out the only other female, a janitor.  He leaned closer and peered at the picture then frowned. Not quite what he was hoping for. She was a little red headed thing, he could see the orneriness shining in her eyes without having to read the blurb, but he did anyway.  Twenty seven years old, 128 pounds, healthy, authority issues.  He wasn’t sure what that meant and raised a questioning eyebrow at Ms. Pauling. 

She sighed and shook her head.  “She was working late one night and slapped the Classic Heavy when he came into the office and grabbed her behind. He took offense to it and when we called her into the office to formally apologize to him, she told the Administrator that she was a washed up prune.” Austin could hear the snicker in her voice, even though she was trying hard to hide it.  “

We need to make her disappear.  For her own safety.”  Ms. Pauling’s mouth turned up in a half smile.  “She’s smart, relatively pretty, but a bit of a temper.” She looked up at him, meeting his eyes with her own.  “I think she would make a good match for you.”  

He nodded and sat back, watching the bidding carefully.  When the girl came onto the carpet, there was a big burly man standing behind her.  He pushed her into the spotlight and she whirled on him, fists up.  Austin was the only one in the room who chuckled. The girl was a spitfire, all right!  

The auctioneer set the first bid at two thousand and no one accepted it.  He sat back waiting a full 30 seconds before raising his hand in the air.  The bidder accepted, asked for further bids and within a moment, he had bought himself a wife.  Austin sat back and glanced at Ms. Pauling.  She looked satisfied and suddenly he wondered if he’d been set up.  “Nah,” he thought, “that’s just paranoia talking.”  

He wrote out a check, handed it to the auctioneer and went home to wait for his delivery.  He’d been told that it would take a week to clear the check and process the paperwork. He wasn’t sure how there could be paperwork with an illegal transaction like this, but he shrugged.  It would give him time to put the house in order. 

A week later, he was waiting on the dirt driveway in front of his little house when a bread truck pulled up.  He smiled, crowbar in hand as the driver and his helper hopped out of the truck and went to the back.  They rolled up the door, climbed into the back and maneuvered a large wooden crate onto the tailgate.  Standing on either side of the crate, they lowered the gate to the ground, slid a dolly under the crate and moved it into his garage.  They dropped the crate, none too gently, in his opinion and stepped back.  

The driver grinned at him.  Austin noted the claw marks on the left side of his face as he gestured to the crate. “Good luck.”  He turned and walked to the truck then, climbing back into the driver’s seat.  The passenger held out a clipboard for him to sign, then followed his co-worker back to the truck.

Austin looked from the crate to the crowbar, anticipation and anxiety creating a nervous ball of rolling energy in the pit of his belly.  He placed the tip of the crowbar under the crates top and pried upwards, the screeching of nails being torn loose loud enough to wake the dead.  Tipping the top onto the driveway, he peered inside, his eyes meeting a pair of leaf green eyes glaring up at him, a mop of greasy, oily red hair nearly hiding them.  Austin smiled.  “Hello, wife.”  

He wasn’t prepared for the little fury to spring out of the crate and attack him, but she did.  Austin fell to the ground, fending off the blows she was trying to land on him. Briefly, he wondered if he could get his money back.

[inclementweather]

Hell, Revisited

(A short following the timeline of story 9, See You In Hell.)

Medic stood in front of the mirror on RED base, in his old team’s communal bathroom and brushed his teeth with someone else’s toothbrush.  He was lost in thought, remembering what he’d just done to the girl he’d come back from Hell to find.  He bared his lips in a grin, bloody foam frothing from his mouth, making him look like a rabid dog.  He rather liked the look, he decided as he leaned over the sink and spat. He watched the foam go down the drain, taking with it the rich taste of coppery blood, leaving minty freshness behind.  

He’d bitten her tongue off.  He sighed in pleasure, one hand dropping low to rub at his growing hardness, the memory of her muffled screams enough to make him hard.  He’d forced himself into her mouth and bitten down, severing her tongue and swallowing it whole, the thick muscle wriggling in shock as it had slid down his gullet. Then he’d bitten off other parts of her, great lumps of flesh satiating a hunger he hadn’t even realized he had, filling his stomach and reveling in the power that he felt growing in him, power that hadn’t been there before his most recent trip and bargain.  

When he’d last been alive, he’d wanted power, control.  Now, he wanted blood. And this was the place to get it, he thought.  A never ending battle where atrocities were encouraged, where he could literally get away with murder and face no consequences.  In fact, where murder was part of the job description.  He only hoped that Pauling would listen to reason and give him the Medic’s spot on the enemy team. He wanted to fight that damned girl every day, kill her over and over again, each time more humiliating, bloodier than the last until finally she broke.  He couldn’t figure out what it was about her, but he really didn’t waste much time analyzing the situation. That would have been former him.  Now him simply reacted. 

As he stepped under the shower’s spray, he thought of the many ways he had to make Pauling and the Administrator listen, the fun he could have with them until they gave him what he wanted.  He was not aware of the expression on his face, but if anyone had seen him right then, they would have run far away.  

He stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as it would go, allowing billowing clouds of steam to wrap around him.  The water turned crimson as he washed himself, taking the evidence of his recent fun down the drain with it.  He did not like that, wanted to remain covered in her sweet, sweet blood, but he knew that, in order to do the things that came next, he would have to blend in with the fools around him, the humans who had not seen the glories of Dis.  

He sighed and reached for the soap, lathering his skin as he wondered if he could find a hitchhiker on the way to BLU HQ.  If not a  hitchhiker, then perhaps a family?    That thought really got him going, the pools of blood he could create!  The pain and torment he could sow on his road trip!  He reached between his legs and cupped himself, marveling. He’d never been this hard before.  He’d sated himself repeatedly on the girl, would do so again, but here he was ejaculating in the shower like a randy teen.  

He leaned his head against the wall, watching as that too washed into the sewers to mingle with the blood he’d just gotten rid of.  Idly, he wondered if the little bitch had made it through respawn yet.  Maybe he could go down there and pick her up for one more round?

Things were definitely going his way. 

[inclementweather]

Medic’s Equitable Divorce

When they were first married, Karl had repeatedly told her how much he loved her hair.  He would sit for hours, the bright gold mass spread over his lap, brush in hand, stroking it lovingly like one would pet a cat.  He forbade her to cut it, watching with pride as it grew ever longer down her back.  

He bought her lovely things, silk ribbons, ornate wood and metal barrettes studded with gems, brushes and combs aplenty.  It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford these things. He was a physician, on the cutting edge of science with his experimentations and able to keep people alive when any other physician would have given up and administered a fatal dose of morphine to end their suffering.  She had  been so proud of him then. 

She still remembered those days, when he would come home from work and sit on the sofa, pat his knee as she knelt at his feet and placed her head in his lap, his fingers sinking into the mass of her hair, losing the tensions of the day as his fingers worked through it.  

The first time he struck her, she’d been teasing him and spoken of going to the hair salon for a trim.  It had been a jest, she hadn’t expected the open handed slap that staggered her backward, bringing immediate tears to her blue eyes.  He’d knelt beside her then, pulled her hand from her face, eyed the cheek she’d been protectively cupping.  

He frowned then.  “Really, Madeline, it’s barely even red.  Stop being a baby.”  He’d cupped her chin then, forcing her to look into his eyes.  “This was your own fault.  You do understand that, right? ”   Don’t ever speak of trimming your hair again.”

She’d nodded, afraid to argue with him, the cold steel of his eyes boring into her own.  After that, she’d tried to be more careful.  And then this job with the American company had been offered to him.  He’d agreed readily, moving them over the ocean without even consulting her, leaving her for long periods of time in a tiny house in a tiny town where she could barely speak the language, where everyone eyed her like she was an unwanted plague and whispered “Nazi.” behind her back.  

Karl, who should have been her refuge, changed as well, growing colder and more intractable as the years passed.  The single, open handed slap was no longer the end of it, instead becoming close fisted beatings that left her whimpering in pain as she tried to please him, tried to calm him.  He no longer brought her lovely trinkets for her hair. Instead, it was more common for him to wrap his hands in it, force her to her knees and do things to her that would make a devil blush.  She sank into herself, growing more quiet, smiling less, but always taking care to make sure that her hair was as thick and lustrous as when they had first met.  She still had not cut it, a lesson learned in the beginning.  

As her grasp of the language spoken by those around her improved, she became more accepted in the community, fewer slurs behind her back as she walked down the streets, more people smiling at her, and she always smiled in return.  It would not do to let them know the hell she lived in, she always wore long sleeves, long pants, no matter how hot the day, to make certain the bruises did not show.  Sunglasses became an essential part of her wardrobe.  Those around her, her neighbors, chalked it up to “foreign ways' ' and did not ask questions.  

Karl began to visit for shorter and shorter periods of time.  It was a relief to be alone.  And then, one day while she did the shopping, she met a man.  He was tall, with dark skin and short curly hair, a patch over one eye and an easy manner about him.  He helped her carry groceries to her car, asked about her accent, his own was so thick she could smell the heather.  She’d smiled then, a genuine smile, told him about the time when, as a child, she’d visited the town of Inverness, the beauty of the lochs and moors.  

He’d invited himself to her home for coffee, one thing led to another and within a few weeks, she found herself, in her bedroom, letting her hair down for this handsome Scot, laying long in the bed and laughing over breakfast with him.  The lonely hole in her heart slowly began to fill with sweetness.  

She knew that she would have to tell Karl.  She’d discussed it with her handsome one eyed demoman as they lay in the bed, glasses of brandy in their hands, both staring into the amber depths as the warmth added to the heat already in their bodies.  She’d been so certain that, given Karl’s harshness with her, he would not care.  Lachlan had asked to be there, but she’d told him no, knowing that her husband, although sworn to uphold the sanctity of life, was a dangerous man when angered.  She did not want to see him harmed.  She did not want to see how she was treated.  It shamed her to even think of Lachlan knowing. 

When the day arrived, she’d fussed around the house nervously, binding up her long hair and tying a kerchief around it. She’d waited by the front door, watching anxiously for Karl to stride up the cracked concrete walkway.  She realized suddenly that the twisting knot of nerves in her stomach was not fear, but hope, hope that she would finally be free of him and his bullish ways. 

When at last he came into their small home, taking off his jacket and tossing it on the couch for her to put away later, she’d simply stood by the door, not gotten on her knees and gone to lay her head in his lap as he expected.  He’d sat on the couch for a moment, watching her with a surprised look on his face.  At last, he pointed to his lap and made a motion for her to come.  She’d frowned.  

“Karl, we have to talk.”  She’d stayed by the door, watching him warily.  

He sighed. “Madeline.”  He shifted on the couch, leaned his head back.  “If you are still upset about last month, don’t be such a baby.  I did not hurt you that badly.  You recovered, did you not?”  He raised his head and pinned her with his icy blue gaze.  “You don’t want to go through that again, do you?”  

She shook her head, remembering all too well the slow fading bruises, the ache that had invaded her very bones, lasting for over two weeks before she was able to walk without a limp.  “I’ve met someone.” She blurted it out, thrown off guard by the memories.  “I want to be with him, not you any longer.  I want a divorce.”  

Karl’s eyes widened for a moment, the dark lock of hair she’d found so attractive in the beginning flopping over his forehead.  Suddenly he began to laugh.  “A divorce.  Madeline.” He stood then, stalking toward her, his movements slow and graceful as a cat’s.  She backed up against the door, hand on the knob.  “You have been in America too long.  You forget, Leibe, I own you.” He’d lunged then, hand wrapping around her slender wrist and squeezing tightly.  

She screamed as bones grated against each other, beating on his chest with her free hand.  He ignored her attempts to fend him off.  “You are mine!” He snarled the words in her face, his eyes savage and cold as he stared into her face, searching it for something.  At last, seeming to find what he sought, he grinned, a smile that she’d never seen on his face before.  It transformed his features into a demon’s mask, no longer the man she’d been with for so long.  He began to drag her behind him then, into the kitchen.  

She planted her feet and tried to fight, but he was unstoppable.  At last, reaching the kitchen island, he swept it clear with his arm and, grabbing her around the waist, he slammed her onto it so hard that the breath left her body, she was left dizzy, sucking in air, unable to fight.

Her hands were bound quickly, he’d used her own dish towels to do the job. Pulling off his belt, he then bound her feet, bent at the knee, draped over the end of the tall wooden island. He snatched the kerchief from her hair, gasping as it flooded down toward the floor, a golden waterfall.  He turned from her then, rummaging in a drawer until he found what he was looking for, a sharp fillet knife that she used for fish.  

He held the knife up near his face, an expression of pure evil shining across his features.  “I only value you for one thing, Hure, and you will not take that thing with you.”  He walked toward her then, gleaming knife in hand and she screamed.  

She tried to fight but was unable to get her hands or feet free.  He wrapped his left hand in her hair, pulling sharply backward, forcing her head down on the table.  With his right hand, he brought the knife closer and closer to her hairline, finally sinking the blade in, forcing it under her skin in a blaze of white hot pain.  She could feel the blood beginning to trickle down her face, the skin of her scalp lifting upwards under his careful slices.  She tried to fight, tried to toss her head from side to side, anything to escape the blaze of pain that his blade heralded.  And still, he worked, as calm and sure in his movements as only a trained surgeon could be.  He parted her scalp from her skull, one millimeter at a time, working slowly and carefully to avoid ruining his work.  

Gradually, her voice broke and she could hear the things he was murmuring under his breath, the little coos of pleasure that accompanied each stroke of his blade.  It was disgusting, causing her stomach to churn and roil.  She feared what vomiting would do, could not imagine he would stop long enough to let her turn her head and not choke on her own foulness.  

She heard a dim patter, like rain on a window, and, in her pain and confusion, she remembered thinking, “That’s funny.  The sky was blue when Karl came in.” She realized later that it was the sound of her blood, pouring from the horrific wound and off the edges of the table to patter on the floor, a never ending sound that would forever after make her cover her ears when it rained.  She looked up at Karl as he continued to work.  “Why?” She screamed, “Why, Karl?”

He stepped away from the table at last, holding something in his hand.  She screamed again when she saw it, the blood matted blonde hair hanging limply in his hand like a Halloween wig.  He looked at her and chuckled, laying the bloody knife in the sink.  “Divorces are messy, Madeline, with everyone fighting over who gets what.  I hate the drama, the courtrooms.” He shuddered delicately at the thought. “You can have the house, meine süßeste Liebe, and the car.  I have what I want right here.”  He turned then and, grabbing his jacket from the sofa, left the house. 

[inclementweather]

Fortunate Son

(This directly ties into the events of Day 11, The Well)

Scout lay on the cold concrete platform and shivered. He knew that he should have told the others he couldn’t swim.  Hell, who needed to swim in Boston? It wasn’t like his Ma ever had the money to pay for any of her kids to go to the pool.  He knew it was a bad idea, keeping that  secret, but when Pyro fell down the well, then got attacked, and then the guys had all decided to hunt the thing living down here, he’d wanted in.  Pyro was his friend and he’d seen the blubbering mess that was left after that thing toyed with him.  What the hell had Medic made, anyway?  And how?  Scout shrugged, whatever it was, it was obviously hostile.  And now he was trapped in its lair. 

 There was just enough light to see, leaking in from a storm grate overhead, the thin watery illumination revealing the dirty concrete, the dirtier water that lapped at it in slow, dark waves.  He sat up finally and cursed, thin arms wrapping around himself and trying to slow the shivers coursing through his body.  

The whole base was riddled with drainage pipes of one kind or another, and it seemed like every single one was filled with murky, foul smelling water.  He’d been helping the others search when he’d heard a soft splash down a dark side tunnel.  He’d gone to check it out, was just getting ready to turn around and let the others know where he was when a slithering tentacle wrapped around his ankle and he was pulled under.  He’d screamed then, stygian water filling his lungs, the metallic taste of pollution on his tongue.  He had a sensation of moving at high speeds, travelling under the water, banging against the unforgiving sides of pipes and rough walls, then he’d been flung out of the water and onto this platform.  

He looked around cautiously, checking out his prison more closely.  Bare concrete walls, the storm drain set up high in one, too high to reach, the grating too small to squeeze through. A dark stain crept and fanned out below it, water turned to black mold in the dampness of this sewer.  The platform he was on was maybe ten feet by ten feet, rising just a few inches above the water.  If it rained now, he shuddered at the thought, not wanting to think about it but unable to block out the image of water quickly rising, swirling white foam sweeping him under its surface, drowning him like a rat in a toilet.  He cursed again, the sound of his voice echoing off the bare walls, distorted and low.  

.From the way the thin sunlight moved up the wall in a travelling square marked with the shadows of bars, he thought it had been about an hour.  An hour of laying on his side, curled up with his arms around his knees, waiting to be drowned or murdered or torn apart while he sobbed uncontrollably.  The rough ride through the tunnels had taken all the fight out of him.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of water, but he was afraid of drowning.  Slowly, he’d gotten himself under control and managed to stop crying, thankful that none of the guys were around to see this shit. They’d never let him live it down.  

Scout could just make out a mouldering mattress in one corner, the light reflecting off the water in rippling patterns now, causing a scintillant design to travel over the walls, confusing to the eyes like the light in a bar, where the disco ball’s reflections made everything seem unreal.  Curious now, he approached the mattress and the heap of trash beside it.  

A broken chair balanced on three legs beside a wooden crate that had a book resting on it. The pages were so swollen by water that the book was fat and bulging outward in places, some sort of orange fungus growing across the cover and spilling over the crate’s top, engulfing it as well.  There was a pile of clothes, what looked like suits in the corner behind the crate, dark blue material black in the dim light and the damp.  He reached for them and then pulled back, there were silverfish crawling all over them.  

His foot bumped a stick, glowing white in the dim lighting.  He reached down for it, pulled it free of it’s home under the mattress, then realized with horror that it wasn’t a stick, it was a thick heavy bone, roughly the size of his forearm.  He nearly dropped it, his fingers spasming in a rictus of disgust around it.  The bone was slimy, the rough surface felt gross.  He held it up into the light, peering at it.  Tooth marks covered every inch of the surface, little pockmarks like a dog would make, only he knew that whatever had gnawed at this bone was not a dog.  

Curiosity winning out over terror, he used the bone to poke at the clothes, moving the dripping, squirming mass to the floor, revealing a trunk under them.  It was an old looking thing, like a steamer trunk or something, the lid held in place by a rusty looking lock clasped through a metal ring sticking out of it.  

With a feeling of dread in his stomach, he slid the bone into the metal ring and wrenched it outward.  There was a loud, splintering noise and the entire thing ripped free of the trunk.  Scout punched the bone into the air, a gesture of triumph that seemed out of place down here.  Then he knelt by the dark hole that was the trunk’s inside, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Scout gasped in surprise.  There wasn’t much in the trunk, but what was in there was remarkably well preserved.  He reached in and pulled out a blue baby blanket, crocheted from some soft yarn, a small stuffed rabbit that looked vaguely familiar, and a photo.  He held the photo up, the sunlight illuminating a woman, lovely, dark hair, wearing a blue, form fitting dress stared out at him, smiling happily, a little boy clasped in her arms, smiling as well as he held a stuffed rabbit toward the camera.  He dropped it with a wail of surprise, it seemed to drift to the damp concrete at his feet in slow motion. 

 Scout squatted and reached for the photo with a tentative finger, tracing the woman’s face, a tear spilling down his cheek.  His voice whispered across the platform starting those echoes once more.  “Ma.” he whispered just as a cold tentacle draped across his shoulder, curled around his neck. 

He recoiled in terror as a garbled, watery voice spoke behind him. “Son.” 

[inclementweather]

Once Bitten

She shouldn’t have targeted the Sniper today.  She could regret that now, but at the time it had been fun.  She’d enjoyed the hunt, he was always seeking out the highest places he could find and thinking that he was safe there like a bird in a tree.  After his third headshot on her, she’d decided to prove to him that Snipers cannot fly.  It had worked well the first few kills, she’d cornered him and watched him burn.  Then, he caught on.  

She hadn’t realized that he knew how to lay traps until she’d been going up the rickety stairs to his latest nest and suddenly been jerked upside down, one leg suspended neatly above her in a noose, her body hanging over the steps and swinging wildly too and fro.  She’d heard the roar of blood rushing to her head and, over that, the sound of boots creaking across wooden boards as he approached her.  She’d glared at him, tried to look tough as he approached, hiding how scared she now was behind a mask of bravado.  

Sniper had paused at the edge of the steps, then placed a hand on the rope and slowed it’s swing, leaving her hanging in mid air, dizzy and mildly ill from the swinging and upside down position.  He grinned, long horsey teeth showing yellow in his mouth.  “Well, lookit that.” He crouched down and stared into her face.  “Not as sneaky as you thought, eh?”  He twisted the rope, letting her body twirl in midair, flashes of wall and empty space interspersed with him staring at her thoughtfully.  “Gonna have to teach you a thing or two about sneaking up on a man, ain’t I?”  

He’d stilled the rope again, leaving her facing the wall that made up the back of the stairs.  She tried to reach behind her, tried to grab onto him and climb up his body but he simply stepped out of reach and chuckled.  

“Now, now, firebug, don’t go getting feisty on us, you hear me?”  He’d pulled his kukri then, she heard the hissing sound of the big blade leaving the leather sheath and, pulling back, he swung it into the back of her leg.  She screamed as it cut through asbestos suit and clothing and flesh and into the tendon, severing it.  Her body dropped an inch as something in her leg gave and blinding pain shot through her. She could feel the blood, like a scalding flood, flowing down her leg, over her body. Between the upside down position and the pain, she fell into darkness.  

***

When Pyro woke up, she was heaped unceremoniously in a corner, facing a rough wooden wall.  She lay on a dusty floor, the air reeking of the combined smells of piss and coffee.  There was something tight wrapped around her leg and her hands were bound.  She’d groaned at the effort of turning over, then froze when she saw Sniper, sitting on a wooden crate, cup of coffee beside him, leaning over his rifle.  He pulled his head back from the scope as she stirred, then grinned at her.  “Morning, Glory.”  

She frowned, then realized that she was no longer wearing her mask.  Eyes widening, she looked at him.  “You aren’t supposed to take that off.  The boss is gonna be pissed.”  

He shrugged, shoulders moving under his loose blue cotton shirt.  “That's gonna be the least of your worries, sheila.  You should be more concerned about what I’m gonna do to you after this match is over.” He winked then turned back to his rifle, pulling the trigger.  “Boom, headshot!”  He pumped a fist into the air then grinned at her.  “It won’t be much longer, ya know.  We’re on the last point now and your Heavy just got dropped.”  

Pyro frowned at the sinking feeling in her stomach.  “They’ll come for me.  Then you’ll pay for this, asshole.”  She tried to push herself up the wall, crying out as she got halfway there and her leg collapsed under her, unable to support her weight.  

“It’s called hamstringing.” He nodded to her leg.  “It means you aren’t going anywhere until you go through respawn.  If I decide to kill you.” He grinned.  “I might decide to keep you alive if you don't behave yourself.  Find a nice, dark place to hide you, maybe let the rest of my team know where you’re at.” The grin grew wider, leering.  “I'm sure they’d like a turn with ya, given how many times you’ve burned ‘em to death.  ‘Specially the Doc.” He laughed.  “That man hates you.”  He turned back to the window then, concentrating on the battle below.  

Pyro lay on the floor, in the dust for a moment, gathering herself. This was not good.  She frowned, trying to figure a way out of the situation.  The only thing she could think of was to attack, piss him off enough that he killed her, sent her through respawn.  She started to crawl toward him, elbows scraping on the floor, splinters digging into her bound hands, leg dragging behind her.  He ignored her as she got closer to him, pulled the trigger again, the loud snap of the rifle booming in the small room.  He cursed, missing the shot she guessed.

Sniper looked down at her then, watching her crawl closer.  “What the hell are you up to, sheila.”  He sat there, eyes on her struggle as she got closer and closer to him.  Finally, she collapsed, panting and out of breath, head against the rough crocodile skin of his boot.  She glared up at him, trying to catch her breath.  

“Well, now.  Lookit you.  Wanna get closer already?”  He grinned down at her, then one hand fisted in her hair, he was pulling her body up by the scalp.  She bit back a scream, the flare of agony in her scalp was blinding, bringing tears to her eyes.  At last, he maneuvered her up and against him, back turned to his body, grabbed her chin and pointed her head out the window.  She looked over the battlefield, just able to see the last point from where he held her.  “You lose.” He crowed the words in her ear as the point turned blue.  

She turned her head to the side, looking at his arm where it wrapped loosely around her shoulders and, leaning her head down, sank her teeth into it.  Sniper cursed, a low savage growl in her ear, tightening his arm around her.  Instead of pulling away, he pressed his arm further into her mouth, the soft flesh pressing up around her nose, the heavy bone of his forearm smashing against her lips.  She kept her teeth together, grinding them into his flesh, trying to suck in what air she could through her nostrils.  She could feel her lungs starting to burn as he rolled his arm up a bit, covering her nose completely.  She could feel her lungs screaming for air now, his flesh pressing in her mouth further, filling it, gagging her.  She grunted as bile rose up in her throat, tried frantically to swallow it back down, pressed her head further back against his side as the burning filled her mouth and nostrils.  Suddenly, he was letting her go, she was falling, sour vomit bursting from her mouth and nose to pool on the floor, adding to the foulness already in the air.  

She yelped and fell, face planting in her own pool of vomit as one of those dusty boots caught her in the ribs, landing with a grunt.  She tried to roll over, aided unintentionally as he kicked her again, landing her flat on her back, looking up at him.  Before she could curl protectively around already bruising ribs, his boot was on her throat, pressing her firmly into the floor. 

 “You just had to go and bite me, didn’t you?” He pressed harder, causing her breath to whistle through her nose as her throat was constricted.  “Well, jokes on you, sheila, I like that shit.”  He grinned sardonically, then leaned closer to her.  “Guess when I get you home we’ll see how you like it.”  

She tried to choke out a reply but he bent over then, one fist driving into her chin.  Splotches of red blossomed in front of her eyes, then everything went black.  

When she woke up next, she was laying someplace soft, the comfort welcome to her bruised body.  She peered around through slitted eyes, the swelling in her face preventing them from opening all the way.  She was in some sort of camper van, lying on a mattress, looking directly at a table. 

Sniper sat there, cleaning that damned kukri of his.  He looked up when he heard her moving, then smiled.  “About time you woke up.  I was starting to think I might have put you in a coma.”  He chuckled.  “Not that it would matter too terribly much, but I did promise to find out if you like to be bitten.”  He held up his forearm, the bruise there matching the imprint of her teeth.  “Call it paybacks if you want.”  His smile widened and, for the first time, she noticed how sharp his teeth looked.  She closed her eyes.  This was going to be a long and miserable night.

[inclementweather]

Pyrophilia

She’d gone to the Medic, trusting that he would keep her secrets.  She had a lot of them, and wasn’t that what doctors were supposed to do?  Doctor patient confidentiality and all that good shit, right?  He’d assured her that he would never speak of what happened between them.  She had trusted him. She had been a fool.

She walked into the clinic and looked warily at the table, then at the doctor, standing beside it and patting it patiently.  His fingers drummed a rhythm on the cold steel, a jungle tattoo, a frantic heartbeat that matched her own.  He’d smiled then, and the smile had been reassuring. She hadn’t realized what a snake he was, able to camouflage his true intent behind his expressions.  

“Come on.  Sit up here, bitte.”  She’d always thought the rich German accent was sexy, so much sexier than Spy’s rounded French or Demo’s lilting Scottish brogue.  Now, she thought that Medic was about as sexy as one of those statues carved from ice, fun to look at but would burn your fingertips with it’s coldness if you dared to touch it.  She’d walked to the table and, turning her back to it, keeping her eyes warily on the Medic, she had hopped up on it and sat there, waiting.  

He’d stared at her for a moment, then had spoken in a soothing voice, explaining that, in order to examine her, he would need her fire suit removed. Under the mask, she’d frowned, suddenly doubting her decision to come here, but then the grinding ache in her gut had reminded her that she needed his help.  Or more precisely, she needed his drugs. Something for the pain would be ideal, she could return to her job with none the wiser.  With a sigh, she’d pulled off her gloves.  

In hindsight, she should have known this was a bad idea when she saw the way Medic had looked at her hands.  The scars covered them, the backs dappled with old wounds, a long litany of fire written in flesh, etched in her bones by her temper.  She was used to the stares, it’s why she wore the suit.  She knew that she was made ugly by her love, the fire’s caresses changed whatever it touched and her body was no different than a building or a forest that was forever marked by the presence of the flames.   

She lay her gloves on the table within easy reach and looked back at the Medic, seeing the greed in his eyes, the need to see more.  Slowly, her hands went to the fastenings on her bunker gear, working them hesitantly open.  She bared herself to the man’s watching eyes, pristine flesh that had known no other eyes since she’d been hired here.  How long had that been?  Years and years, it felt like.  She kept her eyes on his face, knowing that he could not see her watching behind the tinted lenses of her mask.  

He would see her head tilted downward, seeming to watch what her fingers were doing, clever fingers that could open her self in a darkened room without difficulty, while her eyes were locked on a flame.  She could surely turn her eyes upward, her head down, watch the Medic while she peeled out this safe shell, like a hermit crab watching a predator as it shed its shell.  

She emerged from the heavy jacket, letting it fall onto the table around her, the fabric a stiff exoskeleton for the meat underneath.  Thin shoulders drew inward, scarred arms wrapped around her, seeking comfort even as she denied herself the comfort of her gear.  She was looking down now, shame invading her as he stared at what remained of her form. She didn’t see the thin pink tongue that whipped quickly across dry lips, wetting them, didn’t hear the sharp intake of breath that he couldn’t control as her ravaged body came into view.  

The scars covered every inch of her exposed flesh, a litany of her love affair with the flames, written over time and experience, some accidental, some on purpose.  The most recent burns shone with a soft, weeping tenderness on her inner arms, pink and yellow and charred black blotches denoting each harsh kiss.  She looked up at him then, but it was too late.  He’d schooled his features into an indifferent mask.  

When he first touched her, she shivered, his fingers like the touch of a spider, crawling in the darkness, seeking an aperture for it’s eggs, a crevice or cranny that would hatch out hundreds of crawling young to cover and devour.  Pushing the thought aside, she allowed him to explore her skin, fingertips roaming over her, breaching her privacy.  She groaned in agony at his touch, skin rippling in response to the unwanted stimuli.  

When he spoke, it was a command to remove the mask.  Reluctantly, her hands pulled it over her head, revealing her features to his questing eyes, features that had not been meant for other humans, only for the conflagrations of her own making.  She stared at him, wondering what he was thinking.  

She knew how she looked, there was a reason the mirror in her room was covered in black cloth.  Bald head with the hair sacrificed years before, dips and whorls of flesh, melted in the heat, lost to the pyre of her God.  She smiled, she always smiled, the corners of her lips pulled upward in a grimace by scar tissue, stretching tightly over her teeth, baring them in a skull’s rictus.  She saw only wonder and awe in his face.  

At that moment, she trusted him, thinking him a kindred spirit who realized what she had done, the convoluted reasoning behind it.  That was her first mistake.  The second was sitting still as he disappeared into a small back room, returning with a box in his hands, a box that she recognized.  He stood in front of her, camera in those big hands and looked directly into her eyes, blue meeting brown, his hunger written plain on his face.  

“Smile for the camera.”  The words scarcely had time to register before he snapped the photo, the damning square of paper ejecting out the front and into his hand, him catching it and waving it as it developed, her soul caught in his lens. He watched as it developed, admiring.  “My colleagues will love this.” He muttered under his breath.  She snatched at the photo, but he slapped her hand away, shook his head.  “Nein, Brandstifter, this is the price you pay for my help.” 

She subsided back onto the table, dropping her bare head, light reflecting brightly onto it. She knew the fire was a jealous lover, this travesty would require atonement. Inside her skull, where he could not see, she wondered how to fix this, how to make certain the flames were not jealous that she’d exposed herself to him like this, allowed him to trap her, defile her with his eyes and his black box.  

With a nod at her seeming acquiescence, he placed the photo in his desk, locked the drawer, and then, as if he had not just plundered her soul, continued his exam.  

[inclementweather]

REKT

Medic held one hand, palm down, on Heavy’s stomach, the other fumbling in his kit for a bandage, a piece of cloth, anything that he can use to staunch the bleeding.  “Please, don’t move.” He pressed down harder, feeling the blood squish between his fingers like hot mud, the charnel reek of the open wound reaching his nose, making it wrinkle and twitch. He grunted, trying to breathe through his mouth.  Stomach wounds were nasty business, the rich copper of blood mixing with bile and shit in a hideous miasma above the hideous wound in the man’s stomach.

He grimaced, Heavy’s intestines were writhing under his hand like huge bloated worms, peristalsis continuing even though they were now exposed to air.  He could feel fear welling in his chest, icy waves of an emotion he had not felt in a very long time.  There wasn’t any respawn to pick up Heavy’s death and return him, whole and unharmed.  This was real.  For keepsies, as Scout would say.  

Medic tried to keep the chuckle from crossing his lips, bit down on his tongue until the taste of blood filled his mouth. He was afraid that if he started laughing, he wouldn’t be able to stop.  He finally managed to snag a cloth with his free hand.  He pulled it toward the wound, then started in surprise.  His hand was trembling, shaking like he was palsied.  He looked at the hand buried in Heavy’s wound, it was shaking as well.  He could feel it now, the fine tremble in his shoulders, traveling down his arms, to his hands, the hands that he needed if he was going to pull off this miracle.  

He knew what shock felt like and was able to say to himself “I think I am going into shock.” even as he watched everything happen from a distance, like some incredibly tense scene in one of Demo’s horror movies.  He shook his head to clear it, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at the cloth in his free hand for a while now, unable to tell how long he’d been staring at it.  

On the hard ground, Heavy groaned in pain, a fresh trickle of blood mixed with saliva drooling down his chin.  Medic didn’t have time to wonder where that blood was coming from.  The thin thread of blood was not his primary concern.  He was currently more worried about the fact that the wreck had parted layers of fat, abdominal muscle, and allowed Heavy’s guts to pool out. 

Medic looked down at the wound, at where his hand was sunk to the wrist in Heavy’s belly, yellow adipose tissue sucking at his wrist, a gaping mouth closing around his hand and devouring it.  Medic pushed the thought from his head.  He couldn’t get distracted again. Time was of the essence here.  

Pulling his hand from Heavy’s gut, he tried to shut out the wet, sucking sound of his fingers coming free from flesh.  It was one thing to dig around in someone when respawn was there to catch his mistakes, something else entirely when the man’s life depended on it.  He would have no qualms about digging around when he had a medigun and knew that, if he touched the wrong thing, no harm, no foul.  But out here, there was no safety net.  Just him and Heavy and the skills he’d garnered over a long career as a combat medic.  Plus, the realization that had been haunting him, this was his friend.  

Medic pulled a needle and thread from his pack, quicking readying it for sutures.  He looked down at Heavy, the cloth laid on his stomach already red, blood pooling in the center in a thin, viscous puddle.  He grunted once and pulled the cloth away, glancing up at Heavy’s face in time to see him wince in pain.  Medic held the needle in his right hand, pinched the edges of Heavy’s abdominal wall together with his left hand.  “I am going to suture this closed.  I need you to lie still, meine Freunde.”  

When Heavy nodded understanding, Medic began to sew.  He quickly lost himself in the rhythm of needle and thread, in and out, through and lift and pull the thread tight.  He bent closer, absently turning his head and using his shoulder to push his glasses back up his nose, then turning back to his work. 

He ignored the pain in his back and shoulders, the tight burn of muscles stretched too far for too long, the cramping that began to shiver through his hand.  He ignored the way Heavy’s muscle quivered under his touch, a localized reaction to the trauma of being punctured over and over by his needle.  He kept his mind and his eyes on the wound, only the wound, refusing to contemplate the thousand other thoughts that screamed inside his head, begging for attention.  Impatiently, he pushed them all to the back of his mind.  

Gradually, the wound closed.  He tied off a knot, snipped his thread and stretched for a moment, trying to relieve the fire in his back.  Then, only partly relieved, he bent over the wound again, this time shoving adipose tissue inside skin and suturing once more.  When at last all was complete, he leaned back again with a loud groan, his hand flying to the small of his back, rubbing at the muscles that were cramping and seizing there.  

The giant in front of him finally spoke.  “When we return to base, Heavy will rub Doktor’s back, make it stop hurting.”  He tried a lopsided grin, teeth gleaming through the clotting gore that covered his face.

Medic stared at him as though he’d never seen the man before.  He’d just pulled him back from the brink of death, saved him from truly dying, put him through God knows what kind of pain, and the man was offering to rub a few kinks from his back?  What the hell?  Medic could feel sudden tears welling in the corners of his eyes.  He’d nearly lost the man!  Didn’t he understand how serious this was?  

Medic stood and turned away, fighting the sudden conflicting urges that filled him.  He wanted to weep. He wanted to kick the man until the wound popped back open and he cried for mercy.  He wanted to scream and yell and have a tantrum right there, on the side of the road.  Instead he clenched his fists and waited for calm to come back to him.  

Finally, when he felt confident that he could speak without screaming, he turned back to Heavy.  “It’s a long way back to the base.” He tilted his head in the direction of his car, currently a pile of wrecked metal wrapped around a telephone pole.  “The car is unusable.  I suppose I should start walking.” With a half smile over his shoulder, he started walking. 

[inclementweather]

Scars

Pyro lays stretched out on the sunbaked rock beside Scout, looking out over the dusty track they’d just run.  He grins, content to let the heat soak into his bones.  He and Scout are wearing their running gear, shorts, no shirts, their skin sweaty and glowing in the hot desert sun.

“Hey, man, where’d you get all the scars?”  Scout’s voice disturbs Pyro’s thoughts but he doesn’t mind.  He never thought he would have a friend, but here they sit, comfortable in each other’s company.  He shrugs and sits up, looking down over his scarred body, not ashamed to let Scout see how disfigured he is, how almost every square inch of him is covered.  He lays his finger on his knee.  

“This one came from a brush fire in California.  It was a pretty good fire, burned nearly two thousand acres, but I got caught in the blowback when the wind shifted.”  He touches another, strokes his finger over the rough skin of his upper thigh.  “This one, a building in Detroit.  “I didn’t realize that it had empty spray paint cans in it, they exploded and the shrapnel lodged right here.” He briefly caressed a divot in his leg, letting Scout see it.  

In his mind, he is reliving the glory and terror of that fire, the abandoned building going up like an Old Testament pillar of flame.  His lips curve up at the memory.  “That was a great fire.”  He moves on to the next one, this one on his hip, spreading across his belly like a reaching hand.  “This one is from the first fire I ever set.  I used gasoline, accidentally splashed some on me and, when I struck the match…”  He glances at Scout, the rapt look on his friend’s face.  “WHOOSH!”  Scout jumps, not expecting the loudness and Pyro loses himself in giggles.  

“It was my school.  There was this kid that just wouldn’t shut up about me.  Teased me all the time.”  His features shift to a frown.  “He didn’t tease me any more after that.  I told him one of our teachers wanted to see him after class, locked him in a room and lit it up.”  

Scout’s eyes meet his own and he shakes his head.  “Jeez, man, you couldn’t just beat the shit out of him or something?”

“Tried that.  He had older brothers.  They beat me pretty bad.”  Pyro’s voice is solemn, reliving the pain of that beating.  He’d come out of it with broken ribs, then his old man had beaten him worse for losing a fight when he told him what happened.

He touched another one, this one higher up, on his arm, a melted nightmare of flesh that thankfully only spanned the area from wrist to elbow.  “This one is from my dad.” His voice stays solemn.  “He was an asshole.  Beat me a lot, but he taught me how to fight so I guess that was a good thing?”  His voice goes up at the end, unsure. 

Scout nods. “Yeah, I guess so.” He shrugs with one shoulder.  “Sometimes I’m glad I didn’t have a dad.  I hear all this crap about how kids get treated and I think, ya know, my ma loved me, she never did any of this stuff to me, I was lucky.”  He looked into Pyro’s eyes and the two nodded at the same time, understanding each other innately.  Then they both chuckled, amused by the synchronicity of their thoughts.  

Pyro shakes his head, unable to believe how lucky he is to have someone who understands.  It’s a luxury most people take for granted.  He shifts slightly and turns to look at the base.  “Now we have a lot of dads.”  He keeps his voice solemn but nudges Scout in the ribs. 

 Scout grins.  “Yeah we do.  Weird ones, but still…”  He grows quiet, contemplative.

Pyro’s fingers go up to his face.  “I burned my face when I blew up that shopping center in Dallas.  Shouldn’t have been looking at the damned thing when I lit it.” He shrugs.  “That’s when Mann Co caught up with me.  I was so scared. Thought they were the cops.”  He grins, remembering running from Ms. Pauling, how she finally cornered him in a back alley behind a bar, talked to him soothingly even as the reek of stale beer and vomit rose around them both.  “I’m really glad they caught me, though, to be honest.  I’d have probably killed myself at the rate I was going.”  

Scout nods, thinking now about his own recruitment, how he was in jail on a murder charge and Ms. Pauling just sort of swooped in and took care of things.  “Same.”  He looks over at Pyro, not wanting to get lost in his memories of that time.  “Do you regret any of your scars?”  

Pyro shakes his head.  “Not a one.  You see, I think I’m really lucky here.”

Scout frowns. “Lucky how?  I mean, you’re covered in the things.”

Pyro nods, examining his skin under the harsh sunlight, the dips and whorls of disfigured flesh, the hills and valleys and craters that map out his life.  He turns to Scout and smiles knowingly, at peace with himself.  “I’m lucky because all my scars are on the outside.” 

Scout hums quietly under his breath, thinking about what Pyro just said. The two sit in silence after that, watching the sun until it sets and Engie calls them in for dinner.