Notes: My thanks again to ScrapThat for taking a look at this chapter for me! Should further revisions be done after my editor takes a look, I'll update accordingly, as always.
But, most of all, my deepest gratitude to each and every one of you! It's been exactly four years since TiWWaN was first posted, and what it just blows my mind that not only am I still here, but all of you are, too! I'm humbled and so very, very grateful to have such an incredible group of people following, commenting, and providing such encouragement. Thank you, thank you, always-thank you. Now, without further ado...
WARNING for: blood, weird science, and unadulterated flirting
Knocking—a sharp intake of breath and your lungs ache with the shock of it. Open your eyes, blearily. Sun coming through the window, iron bars casting shadows across the comforter. More knocking. Try to raise your head. Limbs too heavy.
"Lass?" Muffled through the door.
Call something like "come in," but you're not sure if your tongue made the right sounds.
The knob turns, door creaks, and Demoman stands hovering in the frame, brow creased. You hadn't locked your door. What time is it?
Shit. Your heart thumps in your chest. Did you oversleep, have you missed—
"Dinner's ready," he says, and you relax, try to wade through the fog in your mind to piece it all together. Today, Spy had stolen the intelligence, and battle had ended early. After being dismissed, you spoke with Scout, returned here, laid down on the bed for a moment, stretched out across the covers… and now— "Are ye feelin' all right?"
You press your fingers over sticky eyes, blinking furiously. "Yeah. Just fell asleep." Slowly, you sit up. "Didn't sleep much last night. Not sick-nothing to worry about."
Demo nods, but a small frown creases his mouth. "As long as we're going regular through respawn, we shouldnae get sick. It kills the bacteria, cleans ye up. But… you went through today, didn't ye?"
No illness. Yes, you seem to recall something about that... in the paperwork, maybe, or during one of Medic's surgery monologues. "Yeah, right before the end."
Demo's brow arches, the perfect picture of puzzlement. "An' you're still… hm, that's some powerful insomnia ya got there, lass. I know Medic's got some tranquilizers stashed away if ye can get him to share. If not, I'll give you an old DeGroot remedy."
You chuckle dryly, rasping in your throat. "Is it scrumpy?"
"No! Well… sometimes, but no' today."
You smile, resettling on your stomach against the blanket. "Thanks." You just feel so heavy, mind ticking through fog and mire. "I think I can just sleep now. I'm not hungry."
He nods, presses a hand to his chin. "All right, but I'm makin' a plate for ye."
"I appreciate it." You can feel the weightlessness creeping into your limbs again, and the door creaks, but you're already far away, eyes shuttered against the world.
You wake to the hazy purple of evening. The base hums as usual, a television show murmuring away, water running through the pipes, someone with their radio on nearby, trumpets cheerfully wailing. You draw a deep breath through your sleep-cottoned mouth, and find you do feel rather better, more focused. Eyes sweep slowly to the clock—8:08. Any leftovers will probably be in the refrigerator.
With a sigh, you sit up, stretch your back and your arms languidly, freeing the tight muscles and cracking joints awake. You reach for your lamp, and flick it on; the lavender light of evening won't be enough for long.
Standing, you try to brush some of the wrinkles from your collared shirt and trousers, creased and clinging like the last remnants of sleep. The thought of food and maybe a nice glass of tea is sounding more and more appealing to your slow-moving mind when something by the door catches your eye—
A small crate. This means you didn't lock your door before passing out cold; careless, but not important at the moment, not when a cube of cheap pine stands against the dark, worn planks of the floor. You squint, puzzling it out, letters stamped on the crate's side manifesting themselves into the Mann Co. logo.
Oh-yes!
The surge of excitement boosts you to moving more quickly, a grin springing to your face, burning your mind awake, pushing you across the floor to your prize. On the crate's lid helpfully sits a crowbar.
Fantastic. You'll have to thank whoever dropped it off, and, of course, figure out where to return the tool, but… first things first.
Your broad smile doesn't abate as you crouch beside the box, grab the crowbar, and angle its edge just under the crate's lid. A gentle wiggle, and it slips between planks, pulling nails with a creak. You count quietly to yourself, not caring a whit for sounding like a child because on three! you push the lever, the lid groans, and all at once, pops open in a single, satisfying movement. It takes little effort to jiggle the other nails loose from the opposite side, and you seize the paper sitting on a bed of straw beneath.
Good hunting! it reads: Official kabar trench knife, 7" blade, ready for action, 18.75, complimentary corporate shipping. A bright seal of authenticity accompanies Saxton Hale's reproduced signature at the bottom.
In half a second, the invoice flutters the floor and you're digging among the straw, paying no mind to how the fibers prickle at your skin until you find the sheathed knife, leather and metal cold under your fingers. You draw it, slowly, into the light.
It's even more beautiful in person. The warm glow of lamp-light shines gold on the brass knuckles and the dark scent of new leather hits your nose as you turn it this way and that. It draws smoothly, silver blade gleaming beautifully, its edge bright and promising. You slide the knuckles over your fingers and decide right away that it was meant for you. Each ring sits elegantly on your hand, and the leather wrapping rests comfortably in your palm, like everything had been fitted personally for you.
You feel beautiful yourself, seeing how the gleaming bronze stands against your skin, how the blade extends the line of your arm as your roll your wrist and point it straight. It shines in the low light.
Brilliant.
You must show Medic.
The weight of the knife against your calf is comforting, even exciting, as the hilt peeks over the top of your boot. With every step, you feel it there, waiting to be drawn, and by the time you reach the infirmary doors, you're so thrilled that knocking doesn't even come to mind—you just push through. After all, you haven't seen Medic all day; you're certain he won't be bothered. In fact, he'll probably pester you for a surgery, but you find you don't—
He's standing at the gurney, elbow deep in a metal basin, blood splashed all the way to his shoulders, a crease of intent focus between his brows—but his head snaps up at your arrival. "Ah! Specialist, perfect! Would you mind holding zhis for me?"
This turns out to be… well, it's—you'd… really rather not know what it is, exactly, but it bears striking resemblance to a bloody liver, and before you can protest it's in your hand. Your poor, naked hand, now dripping with frigid blood.
You really wish you had taken your time crossing to his side, but here you are and it's much too late now. Nothing to do but ignore the cold, fleshy weight in your palm, the way it gives against your skin, soft and damp and wet like a slab of bacon fresh out of the refrigerator.
Easier said than done, of course.
"Medic, what are you doing?"
He doesn't look up from the basin, where you now see another fleshy thing being connected carefully to a bunch of thin, copper wires. "Testing electrical impulses on various organs."
Shit, you probably are holding a liver.
"Why?" you ask.
"Animation." He twists each strand just so, gaze intently focused through his spectacles.
Blood doesn't well up properly where copper pierces the organ; it's obviously been dead and preserved for some time. Your stomach churns unpleasantly. You want to avert your eyes from the carnage, but the repetitive wrapping of wire, the precise rhythm of his fingers, creates a pleasant economy of motion that you can't help but watch. It's… interesting to see this from the other side. You never watch when you're on the table. Some of the wires are braided together between dextrous fingertips, others wound securely about squelching flesh. He rolls and crafts each piece, metal and flesh, like he's does it each and every day; care and precision coupled with an agility that comes only with repetition.
How many times has he carried out this experiment?
"At zhe moment," he says, scooping the organ out of your raised hand and tucking it into the tray just centimeters from the first, "the only means of resurrection is through respawn. It is very inconvenient."
Inconvenient? Inconvenient. A fantastical machine that brings you back to life an infinite number of times a day, in better condition than when you started— and he deems it inconvenient.
"Are you sure you don't mean incredible?" you ask dryly.
He cocks an eyebrow, peering at you sidelong, hands still rotating and adjust the experiment in its tray. "I know vhat I said."
Dimly, you realize that you've been watching his bare fingers dancing over copper and flesh. It's no wonder he didn't think twice about slapping something into your ungloved palm. He must feel the need for extra dexterity that the rubber gloves do not afford. Your cold and now rather sticky palm.
"Then you'll have to explain to me how the most miraculous piece of technology on this planet could be construed as inconvenient." You punctuate this with a raise of your own brow before making your way toward the sink near the back of the room.
With a glance, you can see his posture change, shoulders pressed back in familiar pride, but that crease of frustration still sits at the corner of his mouth. "I don't disagree with your assessment of its value, but we must always strive for better."
With your clean hand, you turn on the faucet and reach for the… dish soap. Dove. You hope he can't see the amusement no doubt all over your face as you tip some into your stained palm. Apparently, he has some concern about keeping his hands soft.
"If we could do away with zhe respawn system—perhaps by modifying the medi-gun—I could resurrect you wherever you fell." You shake your hands off over the sink while follows the bundled wires over to a machine that looks something like a cross between a defibrillator and a radio. "There would be no need for proximity to the respawn machine, no need to wait minutes—only seconds."
If respawn sounded like science fiction, that sounds like absolute fantasy, but you're curious. You've already seen things you thought impossible; who are you to say it can't be done? "And you plan to use electricity?" You return to the table and tray, but stop a couple steps away, wary now of surprise entrails.
"Zhe body has its own electrical currents," he replies, adjusting three black dials on the front of the machine. "But it is not all I will need." Then, he checks the connection of the wires to two copper prongs on its side. Apparently satisfied, he stands back, and meets your eyes over flesh and aluminum and steel with a grin. "For now, let's see if zhis works, shall we?"
His energy, as always, is infectious, and you find yourself smiling. "Let's see it."
He holds up a bloodstained finger. "Zhere's just one last thing." From the counter behind him, he produces a glass canister filled with a clear liquid that he pours slowly into the tray until it just barely fills the bottom; the only thing connecting what you assume to be the experiment and control. "Done." He replaces the canister's rubber seal and lets his finger hover beneath a little, silver switch between the machine's black dials. Over his spectacles, Medic meets your eyes, grinning. "Ready?"
A bright flutter of anticipation settles in your chest. "Yes."
Without further ado, he flips the narrow switch, and the machine buzzes to life. Your eyes follow the twisted cables from the machine to the tray, where the organ flinches and shudders before settling into a steady, gentle pulse, flesh writhing like some living thing against the copper that encases it.
Sunlight gleams on crimson and bronze, limbs hanging useless as two lumps of meat off your shoulder, veins and wire shuddering in desert air, fingers pawing through intestines like ribbon, blood on glass, no—no breath, no air, wheezing, whistling through lungs, can't—
Medic's shoulder brushes yours as he leans over the tray, spectacles slipping slightly down his nose, and you draw a stuttering breath. You hadn't seen him move. Slowly, you unclench your fists, flexing them back to life. He doesn't step away, maintaining that singular, all-important point of contact, and you wonder if he knows. But you don't ask, instead jerking your chin toward the wire-and-flesh thing: "It works," you observe.
"Oh, I knew what that would do… this is the reaction I'm looking for." He indicates with a rust-stained fingertip the organ you had been holding; alongside the other, it moves gently in the same pattern, as though electricity danced across the short distance from one to the other, working them in a similar mind. But, after a moment, it stops and starts at intervals, stuttering, as if the connection between them isn't quite strong enough. You tilt your head, looking at the tray as a whole… ah—whatever is in the bottom of the tray has begun to evaporate.
"Everything functions in a system," he murmurs. "If you remove the parts, sometimes they still remember what they should do, even disconnected, even dead." Medic's eyes roam over the tray in minute flicks, back and forth in a rhythm like reading. His mouth twists in a thoughtful frown as he produces a little book and pen from the pocket of his labcoat, and finds the thin ribbon that marks his page without ever taking his eyes off the experiment. After a few beats, he begins recording in looping shorthand.
You're not sure when you stopped observing the experiment and started observing Medic, but there's something calming in each movement, of his pen on the page, in the tilt of his head as he regards the experiment between notes. It's methodical—quite unlike the manic excitement and impulsiveness you so often see on the field, unlike the coiled, energetic potential his displayed when you arrived. His shoulder presses closer against yours to the rhythm of his pen scratching on paper. This is the in-between time, you think, the moment before drawing the bonesaw across an unsuspecting throat, the quiet seconds before uber, the intent observations before countering an attack—
"You weren't at dinner today," he says, fitting the ribbon back between pages and closing up the book.
"Uh—"
"Demo said you were sleeping—" Medic continues "—have you been experiencing nightmares to keep you from resting at night?"
You feel your cheeks heat. While it's certain Demoman means well and there's nothing wrong with telling the team why you were not joining them, per se—well. You wish he hadn't. "Sometimes," you admit, tersely.
He turns to face you properly. "You should tell me when zhese things happen. You're not expected to solve everything alone." He frowns, readjusts his spectacles. "I thought I'd made myself clear before."
You fold your arms, gaze dropping away to boots on bloodstained tile. "If I need help, I'll ask for it."
Medic hums a dubious note, but paces away to switch off the machine. You let yourself watch again when you hear the click, and find him steadily unwinding wire from the now-still organ. "You've been taking your vitamins each day as I've prescribed?"
The vitamins! Fuck. "Yes." Shit, when was the last time you'd taken one? You still have a few more in your drawer, you think, after that unfortunate incident with the bottle…
"If I remember correctly, you should have enough for fifteen more days." When he's done with the wire, he wraps it in a loose coil to hang across the dormant machine. "I should have another batch ready by then."
You definitely don't have fifteen. Hopefully they're not that important—especially since you can't remember the last time you took one. "All right." You've missed a few days and you're not dead yet, so it'll probably be fine.
Medic hefts the aluminum basin, used organs and all, and up-ends it into a large, plastic bucket that doesn't look nearly secure enough to be holding hazardous materials. He drops the tray itself onto a counter spread with other containers and tools that you fervently hope are set aside to be washed before crossing to the deep sink. You assume he's going to wash his hands, but he sets about undoing his labcoat instead, turning toward you again. "I assume you didn't originally come by to assist me with an experiment." Practiced fingers flit down the ivory buttons, and you're confronted by the overwhelming urge to avert your eyes. "Perhaps you were hoping for a surgery?" The teasing grin that accompanies his jest isn't making you feel any less like you're seeing something you shouldn't as he pushes the coat from his shoulders, revealing a neat, charcoal-grey waistcoat underneath.
"No!" You do have sense enough to steer this conversation as far from impromptu operations as possible.
Medic chuckles, folding the stained coat in half twice and tosses it beside the sink before turning on the faucet. "Vell?"
As he rinses his fingers only to unbutton his cuffs and push the sleeves out of the way, you're very grateful that you can, in fact, remember why you came. It gives you an excuse to stop looking and and reach for the sheath tucked against your calf. "Something came for me today."
He washes all the way to the elbow, peering over his glasses to see as you draw the blade, sheath and all, from your boot. "Ah! Is zhis what you bought with your winnings?" Medic shakes the water from his hands and delves into an overhead cabinet for a white towel; this, he tosses atop the stained coat before approaching, turning the sleeves back down to his wrists, fixing the buttons without even a glance.
A proud grin finds its way to your lips. "Yes, it is—thank you again for that."
"I believe I told you that you did all the work, anyway." He waves a careless hand before extending it for the blade, which you turn and place hilt-first into his palm. "A trench knife." The doctor places his other hand beneath the sheathed blade, tilting the brass hilt and knuckles so that they catch lights overhead.
"I've wanted it since training," you admit. "It's the first thing I circled in the catalogue."
A small smile tugs at his lips as he slides his fingers around the grip and draws the silver blade, its elegantly tapered edge and soft, triangular point reflecting the fluorescents. "Beautiful design." Leisurely, his eyes trace their way down the blade, across the air, to meet yours. "And deadly in your hands, I'm sure."
A shiver dances over your skin. "I'll bring it with me tomorrow—" You raise a brow, the corner of your mouth quirking to match. "—and we'll see."
Medic's smile broadens into a full grin, and, carefully, he sheathes the blade, turns it gracefully in his fingers, and presses it hilt-first back into your hand. "I look forward to it."
The blade is still warm from his touch.
Notes: Knuckleduster - n - a metal guard worn over the knuckles in fighting to increase the effect of blows and to protect the fingers; also nickname of the Short R.24/31, a British twin-engined, high-wing cantilever monoplane flying boat designed and built by Short to Air Ministry for a "General Purpose Open Sea Patrol Flying Boat"
(i.e. the ship is in the air, folks)