Tank Dempsey growled to himself as he jogged down the stairs that led to the theater. His heart stopped for half a second when his foot slid across the carpet which was wet and slippery with blood, causing the failed experiment that was crawling behind him to emit a grotesque hiss and claw at his ankle, missing by a fraction of an inch. Once, it may have been a human, but now it may as well have been some sort of alien, grunting and retching as it chased after the man on skinny, deformed legs.
"Fuckin' freak," the marine muttered as he increased the distance between himself and the thing before swinging around, smashing the creature's ugly mug with the butt of his gun. It shrieked once, the sound reverberating off the walls, before curling up to die. Dempsey let out a sigh of relief.
"Too much for you, American?" a sickeningly sweet voice called from behind him, belonging to none other than Doctor Edward Richtofen, who sure was taking his time in assisting his unlikely ally.
"Took you long enough," Dempsey said disapprovingly, grimacing as the ex-Nazi's smirk grew on his pale, scarred face.
"I needed to find something," Richtofen purred, turning the dead thing over with his boot, which was scuffed from so much time running from hordes of the undead, "And since when does our big, strong marine need assistance?"
This left Dempsey silent, and the doctor took pleasure in noticing how the muscles in the sides of his jaw twitched. "Well, this seems to have been the last one for today, so it seems you've faired quite well on your own, anyway…" There seemed to be a slight tone of distaste in the German's voice, as if he was disappointed that the American hadn't been torn to shreds.
Tank's fury slowly cooled down, and his tone presumed the usual cockiness that was so typical of him. "How else would I do?"
The other man raised an eyebrow and began to speak, no doubt prepared to list every way that Dempsey had failed in the past, but a booming Russian voice interrupted him, followed by a frantic Japanese one:
"All clear! Time for drink!"
"A ruined liver is far from honorable, Nikolai!"
The two men then joined Dempsey and Richtofen, breaking the angry tension that always thickened when they were alone together. Of course, tensions had increased between each of the four men, stemming from cultural differences but branching out into more than that. Dempsey hated Richtofen because of that sadistic gleam in his eyes, for the way he grinned when someone let down their defenses and got hurt; he hated him for being the first to save someone's life just to see them nearly get killed over and over. He drove him crazy, and sometimes he wondered why he didn't just wrap his fingers around the damned Nazi's neck and end him right there.
That would be stupid, though—the doctor obviously knew more about their situation than he let on. He had, after all, fixed the teleporter so that they could stay in the projector room for longer periods of time, something Dempsey knew he wouldn't be able to do lest he had a part in building it.
In a way, Richtofen may have been the reason why they were all still alive. After all, if they didn't have that room as a safe haven, they would have been sick from sleep deprivation by now. Even so, Dempsey despised the possibility that he could owe the doctor his life.
"We should all get some rest," the marine announced, heading off to the teleporter, glowing blue with electricity. He never bothered to ask Richtofen how such technology had got there in the first place, but at this point he just appreciated the machine was there. The other men silently followed him, glancing warily about themselves for any sign of undead that they had missed.
"Just look at our destruction, Takeo," the doctor said with the same astonishment and joy that a child would have on Christmas upon seeing gifts underneath their tree.
"Hai," the other man agreed, but in a dismissive way; the last thing he desired was to talk to Richtofen any longer than was necessary. Richtofen seemed disinterested in whatever Takeo had to say anyway, as he soon moved on to Dempsey, matching his gait in order to walk next to the other man.
"Worried, American?" he sneered, noticing the way Tank's eyes scanned the room.
"Me? Nah," Dempsey replied, "You're the one who should be worried, Doc, one of 'em got you good back there." He gestured to the open wound on the side of the Nazi's palm, where one of the zombies had bitten through his flesh. It was a pretty nasty bite—even for Richtofen, who seemed to enjoy his own pain just as much as others'.
Richtofen waved his unaffected hand as if to push away the American's words. "This is nothing compared to the things I had to face during the war, marine."
Dempsey ignored this. "You gotta clean that up, man, you could die or somethin'."
Richtofen grunted and again waved away the words. "Why do you think I left you? I found some medical supplies in the dressing room…"
Dempsey shrugged, and the two stopped speaking, the sounds of Takeo and Nikolai arguing as the only thing that kept away the silence. As they stepped into the metal shell of the teleporter, Richtofen pressed a button and soon each man found themselves spinning through blue nothingness, the dizzy feeling unrelenting even as they found themselves in the dim upper room.
"Damn it…" Nikolai groaned, holding his head as he lurched in shaky legs, "I never get used to that…"
Takeo crawled into the corner, looking sickly, and promptly fell asleep, his usual routine. It wasn't long after that before Nikolai's complaining stopped as he passed out in a drunken stupor, and Dempsey found himself drifting off as well, slouched against the wall of the small room.
The sound of tearing paper brought him back, though, and he found himself glancing over at Richtofen, who was attempting to wrap his wounds in gauze with one hand and his teeth, struggling in the process. Dempsey smirked—hey, it was sort of funny.
As the doctor struggled with the gauze— which kept slipping out of his hand into his lap—Dempsey figured he might as well help. What was the point of having Richtofen there if he couldn't shoot a gun, anyway?
"C'mere, Doc," he muttered, scooting over to grab the man's wrist and snatching the gauze out of his lap. Richtofen in response to this growled in disapproval, but allowed Dempsey to wrap it around his hand, noticing how carefully he did so.
"I'm the only one who does things right around here…" Dempsey mumbled, destroying any desire that Richtofen had to thank him. When the gauze was fastened in place, the Nazi just rolled his eyes ungratefully and put more distance between their bodies, curling up on his side to sleep. He winced as he accidently put pressure on his injured hand, and there was a rustle as Tank moved, peering over to look at him for no reason that Richtofen could see.
"Go to sleep, American," he murmured, and a slightly embarrassed Dempsey moved as far away as he could from him to slouch again against the wall. It was a long time before he actually fell asleep.
Wow, I actually wrote a Black Ops fanfiction. No regrets.
Shoot me, but I do sort of like the angsty relationship between Richtofen and Dempsey. ;_;
I hate how some people portray it as a definite uke/seme relationship, too. Guys. They're soldiers. Kthxbye.
I'll stop now. _;