DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A WORK OF FAN-FICTION NOTHING MORE. TEAM FORTRESS 2 BELONGS TO VALVE CORPORATION.
Names: (Story was started on 29 November 2010, not all characters have been named hence the need to come up with own names)
Spy: Andre
Heavy: Sokov
Sniper: Nigel
Soldier: Jane Doe (as stated in Team Fortress Wiki)
Medic: Landric Metzger
Demoman: Tavish DeGroot (as stated in Team Fortress Wiki)
Engineer: Dell Conagher (as stated in Team Fortress Wiki)
Pyro: Pyro
Scout: Dillan
OC: Toskia Van der Meer
BOOSTER
CHAPTER 1
A Team Fortress 2 fan-fic
••••••
The setting is the Blue team's base. It is in the canteen while everyone eats just after the nightly ceasefire has begun. It is a Friday, and the weekend is also a ceasefire. The distinct matronly and yet military voice of the administrator sounds through the high-end P.A. system.
"Attention Blue team."
The entire canteen fell silent at the announcement, the mercenaries looked up from their food, surprised.
"What the hell..." Grunted the Soldier with a fork of spaghetti near his mouth.
The administrator continued, "Please give a warm welcome to our newest team member and class of mercenary. Bear in mind that this is only a trial period to see if this addition is successful, hence the Red team has been left out."
"Ha! Finally mates we get somethin' they don't! They get everything!" Whooped the Australian Sniper, turning around to see where this new person was.
From the door stepped in their newest team member. He was wearing typical Blue team millitary-ish uniform, a variation of coveralls. He was not tall, but was solidly built with broad shoulders, of Dutch origin with short blond hair and light blue eyes. At least they all thought he was a "he" until this new team member spoke, whereby an unmistakable female voice broke the silence filled with anticipation.
"My name is Toskia Van der Meer. Pleased to meet you." she said. "That," she replied the Sniper's earlier comment, "-or as Mr. Hale of Mann Co. commented; that the Blue team keeps getting whacked by the Red."
While everyone except the medic enthusiastically introduced themselves, the spy with his typical straight face asked her coyly, "What do you do?" His mask ironically accenting his facial expressions, but keeping his identity secret.
Van der Meer turned to him and answered deftly, "you will see on Monday."
"Mmmmhh mmmmhh mmmh." said Pyro.
The spy spoke once more, using more his intuition this time. "You... are a climber yes? It is why your shoes are the soft and flexible kind... Your hands are chalky... But I cannot understand why you would need such a build."
"Never comment on a lady's weight Andre, even if it's muscle." Laughed Dell the Engineer. "It's offensive." He looked at the Scout with a warning glare before he said something stupid.
"As I said. You will see on Monday." she said, her mouth gently set with a firm smile. "Now gentlemen, I am hungry, I will just have my dinner now with you."
"Och' Lassie come on here hae' a seat wi' me!" Tavish waved his half-empty bottle of alcohol.
"Here, have sandvich." said Sokov the Heavy weapons guy.
••••••••••••••••
The Blue Medic turned off the hot water running in the shower of his thread bare quarters. Even so as he stepped out of his bathroom he trembled inwardly. She looked different from when he last saw her, but yes. The name and appearance tallied, how could he forget that face?
"Toskia..." he whispered.
Three snowy white doves perched upon his shelf cooed softly.
Drying himself off with a towel, he thought about the past many, many years ago. That was after WWII... Without his round glasses on, he slowly made his way to his bed and tucked himself in, shivering abit since the sheets were still colder than his body.
One of the doves fluttered over and landed on his bedside table.
"Archimedes... Go to sleep..." said Landric.
The bird hopped onto his bed and then onto his pillow, tilting its head this way and that, its ruby-red eyes wide and unblinking. It lay itself flat, belly-downwards in a comical manner close to Landric's face.
"Archimedes..." whispered Landric.
His pet could tell that he was not well. The Medic looked at the bird's eye. To a lay person it would look blank and mindless, but to Landric he could see that Archimedes was looking at him and watching.
"Ja... I zhink my past has come back to haunt me..."
The dove cooed softly once and still did not move.
"Vhat will I do Archimedes...?"
Drifting into sleep, he was pulled into the present again by something heavy pressing onto his body over the blanket.
"Dr. Landric Metzger." said a calm alto voice.
His eyes still half-closed, his body stiff and sluggish from being rudely awakened from deep sleep he murmured. "Vhat are you doing here." He struggled to wake up, and he gasped when he felt her hands on the sides of his face.
"I knew it was you the moment I stepped into the room." Toskia said.
The medic struggled to see her face without his glasses, cool moonlight shone into the room through the curtains covering the window. He could not sit up because her body was draped over his. Odd, he did not seem nervous or agitated. But he understood why the moment he saw an empty syringe lying on his bedside table.
Landric could only manage to say softly, lethargically, "Ja... Toskia. I remember.
"I am pleased you do." she answered, looking at him unashamedly. "I did not know you would let yourself become a drug addict." It amused her greatly to see the roles had been reversed. Now it was her turn to stare down at his face, her turn to have power over him. She watched his pale grey eyes look half-blindly up at her. Slowly turning in their sockets, searching and trying in vain to focus.
"It helps me manage." he mumbled.
"You took... such good care of me doctor..." she whispered cutting him off. Her hands were moving down from the sides of his face to around his neck.
He sighed and blinked slowly, helplessly, the drug she gave him made him unable to feel much fear. But it still was there within, just drug-cloaked and disguised. She was going to kill him then. Of course she would want to.
"You're all grown up now." he said. His mouth felt dry. "I barely recognised you... What have you been doing... all these years before you came here?"
"I was working. Using the same skills I presented to my most recent employer."
Metzger's brain was fogged up. He asked slowly, his mind taking more time to process this information. "What haff... you been working as?"
••••••••••••••••
A LONG TIME AGO IN YESTERYEAR...
*Italics in German.
"Keep still!" Roared the doctor, holding down his patient. "Hold her down!"
Accompanying assistants in white struggled with a young teenager, trying and just succeeding in holding her down onto an all-rounder type of medical table. Above her shone bright electric operating lights.
"The more you struggle the more it will hurt dummkopf!"
"Give me more anaesthesia!" the girl screamed with her face red and eyes screwed shut, she continued to struggle, the medical platform was creaking.
"Zhere is no time it has to be done now, before it sets!" The doctor pulled on his black rubber gloves. "Bring it here! Quickly!"
•••••••••••••••••••
BACK TO THE PRESENT...
"How have you been Metzger?" Asked the woman, changing the subject and looking at his face. More than just looking, admiring his face in fact.
Landric swallowed with no expression once, his eyes still half-open, half-conscious with whatever she gave him. He spoke slowly. "Just... get on vith what you want to do to me." He closed his eyes waiting for whatever was on the menu.
The woman leaned forward and kissed his mouth once. Then she carefully searched his face for any readable expression. His eyes were half-closed and seemingly languid. When she leaned in again to kiss him a second time, she was disappointed when he lethargically turned his face to the side denying her his mouth and tongue. Discouraged but still determined, she began to kiss his neck instead with her soft lips. Her hands had moved onto his shoulders, and when she began to massage them...
"N-Nein. Stop zhat..."
"You find me repulsive then doctor?" She got up.
In the blur and darkness, he saw she was wearing the standard-issue cotton, pale blue night shirt everyone wore. Without his glasses, the blurry shape he saw looked just like that of a man's.
"Toskia, vhy do you..."
There came no reply from her, just the sound of his room door softly closing with a strong air of finality. Landric closed his eyes and went back to sleep again, but he felt hot and bothered even through what numbness the drug gave him.
••••••••••••••
The next morning, Toskia woke before everyone did. She was a light sleeper, and she lay in bed collecting her thoughts. She decided she liked her little room. It had a bed, a toilet and bathroom. Steel cabinet and simple wooden shelf. Small writing table and chair.
All she needed to do was get used to everything, like a comfortable routine. Then, she would be able to feel safe and that everything was all right.
Unexpectedly she heard the rain arrive. It got louder and louder, it was deafening like white noise. The sun was beginning to rise. From the schedule she found out that on weekdays at 9:00AM sharp the conflict would begin.
She got dressed and walked out into the corridor shivering abit.
"Katie Biardie hae' a coo' black and white aboot the moo'..."
She stretched stiffly, recognising the drunken singing voice. Lo and behold came the Demoman Mr. DeGroot. Except for this time he could barely walk straight, and he was holding a bottle of whatever upside down. Last night at dinner he appeared sober although he smelt like alcohol.
"Aye lassie sing wi' me!" He slung his arm around her broad shoulders. Toskia, (and she imagined also the rest of the world) could smell him. He smelt like an uncovered barrel of whiskey out in the mid afternoon sun.
Humming along with the swarthy Scotsman, she walked and tottered with him to the canteen for breakfast making a mental note to herself. ("Demoman is drunk 100% of the time. Competency depends on level of intoxication.")
"Katie Biardie hae' a coo' black and white aboot the moo', go Katie Biardie..e.e!" He finished, sitting down onto the chair with a loud plonk at the table with Toskia.
The kitchen personnel were already preparing breakfast.
"Mr. DeGroot, did you sleep well last night?"
"Och' no lassie, I was awake all night drinkin' and smokin me life away." He leaned back in his chair with his one eye closed. "But don' worry aboot me none. I'll be sleepin' in the afternoon."
Toskia watched as he tried to drink from the wrong end of the bottle– he still was holding; it was upside down. As he cussed mildly asking what was wrong with his "scrumpy" she saw labelled on the brown bottle the classic "XXX."
A puff of smoke appeared from the corner of the room, and then a man materialised out of thin air. The masked Spy.
"Bonjour." He said, taking a short graceful bow.
Toskia nodded once, and then refocused her attention on the Demoman, now eating sloppily his scrambled eggs and bacon. She had already finished her crispy cornflakes. He had evidently drunk himself into a heavy state of merriment. He was also so drunk that he poured his coffee into his cornflakes, and ate it without seeming to notice anything was amiss.
"Mon petite," began the Spy Andre, "would you need me to show you around zhe base?"
Andre frowned, turning his head to the side. Of all people to get acquainted with, she chose the alcoholic Demoman in his worst state? The Spy was much used to having women flock around him, and he found it a mild insult that she barely looked at him.
The newest arrival replied without even turning to glance at him, "No sir. I will be with Tavish for awhile."
Andre put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. "I see."
••••••••••••••••
Toskia walked with the drunk merry-maker to his side of the base. She walked alittle ways behind him, in case he should fall and she might be able to catch him before he hit the floor.
His room was far from everyone else's. She could see why, this man slept with his explosives and alcohol. Come to think of it, on his explosives, she assumed since there was no bed in sight and there was a pile of rockets and sacks of gun powder that had been flattened leaving a vague shape of a person in its centre.
Her line of sight then fell on an ashtray and a few unopened bottles of booze sitting on a crate next to his "bed", the crate acting as a make-shift bedside table. Also on the table was an unlit kerosene lamp. She could not decide which was more dangerous, the smoking or the kerosene lamp.
"Argh bonnie lass, I caen't call ya wee so... Thankye fer walkin' me here to me room." He said, smiling contentedly and sitting in his chair. His eye momentarily lit up when he said, "I'd like to see you in action killin' off them opposition!"
She looked about. The room though average-sized, seemed alot smaller since there were many stained wooden crates stacked on top of each other, filled with dynamite, plastic explosives, C4, bombs, powder kegs. Barrels of carbon and salt peter...
Tavish slumped forward onto his bomb-making table and mumbled something in gibberish, before snoring softly.
•••••••••••••••
Later into the afternoon, she observed the Soldier walking in the rain. He was juggling his grenades, Toskia wondered how he could see through his helmet covering half his face. Later when she got closer to him, he suddenly dropped them all into the dark mud, ran up to her, held her by the collar, and lifted her up shaking her asking if she was a Nazi.
She replied amidst the shouting and rain, over his distinct American accent that she was not.
When he heard "no" he put her down and began to pace up and down in the mud and dirt, giving her a classic briefing about how they were all "maggots" and that they were going to kill the other "maggots" on the other side. More than half the briefing was obscenities, the other part was useful instruction on how they were going to advance through territories and take the red base.
The Soldier, wet and shining from the rain at the time was holding a shovel, and every few sentences he would whack his wet helmet with it.
"I'm tellin' you now little missy!"
WHACK
"That you can't let yer guard down right down there on the goddamn field!"
WHACK
"Don't you got a pair of lips on you, sound off like you got a pair!"
"SIR YES SIR!"
"Them Red maggots are good because they win more matches than we do!"
WHACK
"You're not allowed to shiver in the rain lil' missy! Keep still!"
"S-sir yes Sir!" she cried.
"Good soldier!" Jane Doe fell onto his knees with a squelch, the rain coming down onto him and whacked his head with the shovel, or rather, rang his helmet with the shovel. Like how a mechanical alarm clock rings with its bells.
••••••••••••••
Dr. Metzger sat in his clinic. He picked up a scalpel, its hard and sterile edge catching the light and glinting. Spread before him were his other medical instruments, all clean and free of blood. The last to do was his Übersaw. He adjusted his glasses and held it up to the light, there was still blood on it.
It was only in battle that he felt his blood in his veins, his breath moving in his lungs. A little more alive when he was treating people's wounds, but when there was nothing to do...
Then someone knocked upon his door.
It broke him out of his reverie. A sick smile spread evilly on his face. Now who could it be this late Saturday afternoon? He crossed the threshold of his clinic, and walked into the adjoining infirmary. It had better not be the scout with some silly little injury. He hoped it would be someone else with usually something more serious. Maybe Pyro got seriously burnt, or the demoman blew off–
Landric stopped in his tracks at who it was. Oh no.
"I broke my leg doing a rocket jump." Toskia stated simply, limping into the empty infirmary.
The doctor did not respond but continued to stare. The girl– no, he mentally corrected himself, the woman was also dripping wet. Already playing in his mind he wondered if she did this on purpose. Whoever heard of a new person being injured in less than 24 hours and on a weekend no less!
"What, are you upset you have to do work on a weekend?" Said Toskia, pulling up the leg of her pants without flinching or showing expression.
"Follow me mein fraulein."
He led the way, turning back to look at her. The hair at the back of his neck pricking from nervousness. He gestured to her to sit on the examination table, he watched more her face than her injury, searching it, trying to understand. As she limped there was blood mixed with mud from her shoes, leaving footprints.
An old emotion came back to the doctor. "Nien. I just think it stupid for you to attempt such a thing with that crazed self-proclaimed professional Soldier. Und furzher more in the rain." he said, his expression disapproving. "Strip off your vet clothes or you vill catch cold."
Landric went to get a blanket and returned watching Toskia curiously from the door frame of his office. She had her back to him. Toskia had grown stockier and more muscular, yet her pale body still remained supple, her torso arching easily as she lay herself shivering onto the table again. Her waist had remained small from when he remembered. Then of course there was his familiar surgical work, her whole body permanently marred with it.
Landric commented, "ach you're turning blue."
She looked up at him from her injury when Landric covered her bare and scarred body with the warm blanket, her blue eyes were unblinking and oddly blank. "This would be interesting for me doctor." she said.
He looked away from her gaze quickly and picked up his signature medigun, it made a scraping sound as it slid on the stainless steel table. "How so fraulein?"
"It works by nano technology correct?"
"Ja." Her character had not changed. Defiant and brave. Rocket jumping... perhaps he should scold her? He brought the medigun closer to her and put it on a table nearby.
Landric looked at her leg. Part of it was charred, her boot had protected her from most of the heat. The part that was troublesome was the broken bone visible from under her red and inflamed skin. A sadistic thought entered his mind. He could wrench the boot off painfully instead of cutting it open.
Dr. Metzger looked at her lying there, yes. It was very tempting to make her scream and writhe in pain. But back then... he was not quite like how he was now. His heart thumped. He mentally slapped himself for wanting to hurt her. How could he...?
"Doctor?"
Landric focused again and adjusted his round glasses. "Ja?"
"Will you give me some anaesthesia? I am in pain." The blond fraulein shivered, blinking. "Can it be morphine?"
Nervously he let her have her drug request. He watched her expression go blissfully blank after the shot. Re-alining the bone was no trouble after he cleaned it with alcohol swabs and iodine. He gave her a tight splint. Then he used his medigun on her.
While she was still doped, he wheeled the table into the recovery room and heaved her body onto a bed.
"Doctor?"
He stopped momentarily and replied, "ja?" Bloody hell, he thought he would never see her again, her voice was hauntingly familiar. Now he himself felt that he needed morphine. Did she really come to his room last night, or was it a dream? If she did do so, her acting like nothing had happened was unnerving.
"Can you bring me my metal? It is hanging on the back of the door of my room. It will comfort me." she whispered.
"Ja." His hand faltered and he fumbled with the cold door knob. She appeared to be still resistant to drugs, because people on morphine usually did not care about anything but the effect of the drug. They would just go into a content state of oblivion, not talk and ask questions.
••••••••••••
Landric was frowning as his feet carried him to his destination. The rain had stopped and the air was thick and humid. He found Toskia's room and when he opened it he was shocked to find the Spy standing right inside, in the middle of it. He was smoking.
"Vhat the hell are you doing here?" demanded the doctor.
The spy was twirling something tied on a cord on his leather gloved finger. He raised an eyebrow and retorted, "do you have an excuse to be here too?"
"I haff come to fetch my patient's keepsake."
"So she's gotten injured already?" asked the Spy. "We may have gotten the most useless class of mercenary just yet mon ami."
At the word 'useless' Landric snapped, "Vhat do you mean?" It struck a chord within him, it was an insult to his abilities.
"In a bad mood today I see." The Spy put both hands behind his back for a moment, then used one hand to gesture around the room. "Zhe woman has no weapons whatsoever. She only has harnesses and bags."
Landric kept silent, imagining what would it be like to forcefully jam a syringe into the Spy's eye.
The masked man continued, "Zhis is her patch symbol. No clue as to what she does, a hand. Zhe Pyro has a flame, the Demoman has a bomb... A hand? Hand-to-hand combat? Zhat would be perfectly ineffective and useless. Zhe woman would be shot before she can get in range."
Landric sighed and walked a few steps into the room, and turned over the door only to find an empty nail in the back of it.
"Looking for zhis?" Andre dangled the thing in front of his face.
"Ja. Give it to me."
"Here."
"Danke."
"Not so fast. What's zhis woman to you? I noticed you did not introduce yourself to her last night." The espionage expert narrowed his eyes. "By zhe way you behave, you know her do you not?"
"It is none of your business." Landric said flatly, turning to leave. "Und stop smoking in her room."
•••••••••••••••
Back in the clinic, once he had passed Toskia her keepsake, and made sure she was all right, Dr. Metzger locked himself in his clinic and gave himself through syringe a shot of morphine. This time he needed it. He wondered what sort of person Toskia had grown up into.
Archimedes his pet dove sat at the window sill ever watching and always keeping him company. The bird would never tell anyone or judge his actions. The bird would never feel contempt or disgust at his habits. The bird would always love him and accept him.
"Archimedes... I am done for."
••••••••••••••
End Of Chapter 1
