Title: Stitches
Author: IxLovexEwe
Rating: T
Warnings: Language. Mild drug and alcohol use. Fluffy Heavy/Medic slash. Engineer has a family. Medic is an ex-Nazi. Brief appearance by Sniper, the unwashed hippie. This is an Engineer & Medic centric fic.
Summary: When Teddy Roosebelt is damaged in battle and does not make it through respawn, Engineer is heartbroken and at a loss. Heavy attempts to help his team mate with some assistance from the Medic.
Length: 12 Chapters. 20,160 words.
000
Most of the BLU team had been desensitized to the concept of "death". They lost teammates every day, trusted allies usually dying horrific, bloody, and violent deaths, only to awake in the respawn room with the aftershock of a vivid nightmare. The usual side effect was a headache and occasionally nausea, but otherwise everything was put back together, just like it had never happened. No one feared the death, just the pain. Even in the heat of battle, there was always a Medic or a Dispenser to heal wounds and repair damage. Pain was always fleeting and damage was never permanent.
As long as you were human.
Explosions were the nastiest way to die. Tearing, hot, and loud, the blistering heat and ear shattering resonance were so powerful they seemed to carry over into respawn, if only for a moment. It was even worse when you utterly did not see it coming.
The BLU Engineer hardly had enough time to register the sticky bombs that had been laid out on the other end of the Teleporter before they ignited in a raw discharge of twisted shrapnel and fire. The pain was excruciating, flesh ripping, skin sizzling and bones buckling from the blast. But temporary death came quickly, the feeling of intense pressure and blackness that lasted both an instant and an eternity, before the Engineer woke with a shuddering gasp on a cot in the resupply room. Just as he never got used to being shredded to tiny pieces, the act of resurrection never got any less shocking.
The fiery pain was a slow burn now as the Engineer carefully contemplated his next move, while remaining completely still on the suddenly comfortable cot. His senses were slowly reawakening as he debated returning to the field to aid his team, or staying right where the hell he was and waiting for the Administrator to announce what he predicted to be a BLU loss. Tinkering around with a broken Teleporter wasn't going to reel in a victory at this point in the battle… He was snapped out of his thoughts when the smell of burning cotton reached his nostrils, causing him to lurch up with a panicked jolt.
He quickly rolled off of the cot and stood, his nerves screaming at him not to move so quickly, but his reflexes were louder as they demanded he find the source of the fire. He looked down at himself, eyes searching behind dark tinted goggles for the origin of the smoky grey stench. It didn't take him long. When he spotted it, he felt his heart detach and fall down into his stomach.
The ammo pouch on his left hip was torn to shreds; the smoldering remains of Teddy Roosebelt were barely holding together inside.