The Cook spent that morning listening to the announcer screech about the BLU team and lost points, tuning it out in favor of the measured routines of the kitchen. When the BLU spy did not show up, she put the knife in her belt on the counter, and started dinner. The knife against the cutting board clunked rhythmically as she minced onions, and the low murmur and pop of the stew made a pleasant contrast to the high-pitched cackling and crowing of the announcer, then the thunderous groans of what sounded like a stadium. She made herself a cup of coffee and leaned forward against the cabinet, looking out the small window by the sink at a small, dun colored bird—a wren, she thought. Or maybe some sort of sparrow. It cocked a tiny head and peered at her through one dark eye and then the other, untroubled by the groans echoing across the desert sand. A pair of hands curled around her hips, fingers fitting themselves familiarly around the bone and she startled up, trying to turn. The bird flew away with a faint clap of its wings.
"No peeking."
She didn't recognize the whisper. Right, she thought. Well, if you were the BLU spy, you'd already be taunting me, and the round is over, so it's someone on the team. The fingers rhythmically squeezed, soothing the tight muscles that joined her legs to her torso, and she grunted. The last five hours of being on her feet had made her hips sore. Whomever it was massaging them had found a tense spot, and was slowly working it out of her. She made a tiny moan, then sighed regretfully. "That feels good, but I have to tend the stew."
"Turn it off."
The vowels were particularly short. If that's the Scout, she thought, he really has talented fingers. The rhythmic squeezing slowed, fingers digging for deep pressure on a painful knot. All right, she thought, I'll play along later. But I have to finish dinner. "They hired me to do a job, they didn't hire me to do this. I need to actually do my real job before I get up to anything else."
Breath on the back of her neck, tickling—she shivered. Someone was working hard to be very, very persuasive, she thought, arousal stirring in a surge of warmth.
"Turn it off anyway." Lips brushed her ear, stubble scratching against her earlobe, and a body touched hers too briefly for her to pick up anything but heat and an instant of pressure.
"Oh yeah," she said, teasingly. "Going to make it worth my while?" Excitement tingled in the warmth of her arousal—to not see the person, to not know whose body fit into hers. She poked fun at herself, wryly. Who hasn't had this fantasy, she thought. Well, since we're apparently going to hit all my fantasies…
The quiet laugh was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. The hands on her hips were insistent, and pushed her toward the stove, to turn off the flame. She turned it off with a click and a mental shrug. Surely it wouldn't hurt, she thought, if dinner were a little late. Those are really talented fingers.
"Let's go."
The fingers on her hips steered her out of the room. Footsteps fell on either side of hers, a long stride made awkward by her smaller steps. Too tall to be the Scout, she thought. Who's taller than Scout? Solly, Medic, Demo, Heavy, Sniper and Spy. Well, Heavy and Demo are right out, and I can't picture Medic doing this without Heavy, so it must be Solly, Sniper or Spy. Except Solly isn't this bold. Is he? "Who is this?"
"Shhhh."
Maybe Solly is this bold, she thought. But I just can't imagine him doing this. The Spy or Sniper, however, might. But I don't hear the Australian drawl or pouty French in that whisper. "Come on," she said, tone rising with minor irritation. "Who is it? I have to get back to dinner if you want to eat."
"Shhhhh!"
She frowned. The hands steered her left, and then right, and then left again, toward a single door at the end of a hallway.
"I don't know this door," she said, suspicion making her start to drag her feet. The hands dug in around her hips and pushed forward insistently.
"I know."
The whisper held the beginnings of laughter, skipping his breath. Wait, she thought. Is that tone familiar? Where have I heard it before? "No, seriously, who are you?"
"Guess."
It was a voice now. Not Australian, not French, somehow blandly American and teasingly familiar. The Cook dug her heels in, leaning back, but the hands wrapped around her waist and lifted, dragging her along. "Put me down," she said, trying to twist as the arms tightened.
"Not yet."
She looked down. The hands were gloved in black leather, and the arms were covered in a loose black sweatshirt. "No, I don't think so," she said, and wrenched herself sideways in the arms, trying to get a look at his face. She caught a glimpse of the side of a hood before they pushed through the door. There was a prick on the side of her neck and she gasped from chilly shock, then tried to turn again, wrenching the needle from whomever was holding it. A hand on the side of her head pinned it to the chest behind her and pulled the needle from her neck.
The sun overhead grew very bright, and then went away entirely.
Voices swam up into her consciousness from some strange, distant place, popping like bubbles on the surface of her hearing. She clawed up after them through the heavy, dark water, trying to make sense of the sounds. Urgent. One voice was urgent. The other was—she grasped for a word—satisfied. Her eyes opened. The world was blurry and she was heavy, pressed down to the hard surface beneath her. Her eyes rolled about under the stones on her lids. Wake up, she thought. I have to wake up. She opened them to patterns and pale light, and frowned with the effort of trying to figure out what was in front of her, not to slip back down into the waiting darkness. There was something soft lying against her cheek, pulling her back toward sleep. She worked her lower lip into her teeth and bit hard, the pain letting her keep her eyes open, staring at a dark pattern in front of her vision. Words. She could hear words.
"… wouldn't believe what they're doing right now. They're tearing that base up."
"Finders keepers." The satisfied voice was familiar. "BLU is being cheap, and between this and the loss, we just fucked them. We captured the point and," the voice held laughter, "captured their point."
"When will she wake up?"
"Any minute now. The Doc should be in here soon to check on her."
"Hey, her eyes are open."
"Sure are. Hello, Rosie."
The Cook worked to focus her eyes on the tall, wide form in front of her, leaning down to see her face. Her glasses were gone, she realized dully. The figure leaned down further, stepping in and allowing the BLU Soldier's face to swing into focus with the slow spin of the room. That predatory smile was back, a chilly little thing that did nothing to soften the rest of his expression. Her mouth felt glued together and it took her three tries to make a sound. "B-blue."
"Yep, sweetheart. BLU." His fingers flexed on his knees and she remembered them digging at the knots on her hips, a blush sweeping up her cheeks. He followed the line of her gaze and flexed them again, watching her face heat with wry satisfaction.
"Don't wanna be here." Her thoughts were viscous, slurring out of her mouth.
"Probably not," he said, watching her face. "But here you are." The light changed and she realized after a moment that he'd stepped away from her, back to a fuzzy silhouette. "Hey Doc. Put her out or sober her up?"
The voice, when it came, was buttery smooth. "Let her wake. She can't get out, and this is more fun when they're awake."
The Cook took a deep breath and tried to lift her head against the sensation of wearing a lead suit. Something jingled and pushed at her neck. She reached numbed fingers up and tugged at it, clumsy fingers exploring: a leather band. A collar, she realized, her breath stuttering. A heavy lock. A chain. Panic started to burn the sedative out of her system, her heart pounding in her chest as if it could punch through the cage of her ribs. She tried to sit up, knocking her head on a low ceiling and rebounding on rubbery arms. No, she thought, squinting. Not a ceiling. A large dog crate. She whipped her head around, trying to see the door, and made herself dizzy enough to fall on her face. She put shaking hands beneath herself, trying to push away from the bottom of the cage, and fell again.
"Give it a minute there, Rosie," the BLU Soldier said. "It'll come out of your system soon enough."
Lying on the floor of the cage, she panted while the room spun rapidly around her. "I think I'm going to…." She gagged, body jack-knifing, and covered her mouth with her tingling hands.
"Did you have to give her that much, Doc," the BLU Soldier growled.
"It'll wear off," the BLU Medic said, idly. "Be patient."
"She isn't going to be able to do much until it does."
"Did you really go to that much trouble to get a cook? If you got her for any other reason, just flip her over."
The Cook curled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, fetal. The BLU Medic's voice hadn't changed, banal and bored, neither excited nor even particularly interested in the prospect, as if this were merely part of the daily routine on base.
"Why, Doc," the BLU Soldier said, a nasty little lilt to his voice. "You don't want any?"
"My dear Soldier, I'm a real sadist, not a sexual sadist. I have uses for her, but none of them involve sex the way you people mean it." The Medic laughed dryly. "I'll take what's left. Are we bothering to give her back, or can I enjoy myself?" At that, interest crept into his voice—an edge of heat. She dug her fingers into her own legs, eyes screwed shut, trying to stem the tide of panic. What kind of man.… what kind of men.… Her thoughts cut off, stunned.
"She's not much of a trophy dead, Doc."
The Cook heard a labored sigh.
"Doc," the BLU Soldier said, his voice full of a genuine disbelief, "how the hell did you get past medical school?"
"I'm a surgeon. People pay me to cut them open, and I have more than adequate self-control." The Cook heard a clinking noise and a rustle, and realized she hadn't blinked. Her eyes were burning. She closed them. Her pulse hammered in her ears, almost obscuring the BLU Medic's voice and the disgust in it. "If you're going to amuse yourself, I'm leaving."
"Suit yourself, Doc."
Two sets of shoes clicked away, and the Cook heard the squeak of steps coming closer to her. She opened her eyes to see the BLU Soldier leaning down over the top of the cage, that predatory smile back. As she watched, he took a breath in through his nose and let it out slowly. Waiting, she thought. I don't want to know what he's waiting for. I don't even want to guess. Her mind, however, presented her with several lurid pictures that sent another wave of nausea and cold chills sweeping across her body.
"I know the Spy is interested," he said. "I am, too, but I'm not into Roman showers, so I'll wait."
"Why," the Cook swallowed heavily, clammy sweat clinging to her face. "Why are you…."
He laughed expansively, comfortably. "I could say it's traditional, and it is. God knows I've been to enough wars to know. But mostly, sugar, it's a competition thing. If the office had found someone like you and shelled out, we'd probably just capture you ever so often for the fuck of it. But BLU is being cheap as hell, or maybe one of the brothers is mad about it, and so we don't have one. It's months between visits to town, and even then sometimes we can't find anyone. And, frankly, the look on the RED soldier's face told me a hell of a lot about how important you are."
The BLU Soldier squatted down and rattled the cage, watching her flinch at the clatter, curled up protectively around herself. Instinct, he thought, ain't it lovely the way their bodies try to hide, the way their minds try to hide from what they know is coming. A slow thrill of anticipation made him shiver and his eyes darkened, pupils expanding.
"But mainly, baby," he said, voice thick with ecstatic rush, "we're fucking bored, pun intended. So I'm going to sit here and talk to you for awhile. And then I'm going to have a little fun with you."
"What," she swallowed again against the urge to vomit. "I mean—why would you rape?" Look at him, she thought. Look at the expression on his face. Mercy has never touched that face. The only emotion she could recognize was the hunger lighting his features and the visceral satisfaction of seeing her fear. He really doesn't care, she thought. He doesn't seem conflicted. Her mouth sagged open. Oh my god, he's done this before.
"Honey-child," he drawled, a hint of accent coloring his speech, "if you ain't figured it out yet, we're all fucked up around here. The Marines, when they kicked me out, said I was a psychopath. I've been pulling the wings off flies and little girls since I was old enough to grab them."
He sat down on the concrete floor, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs and loosely clasping his hands. "But let's talk about you. I know what the RED Sniper is into. I assume you weren't kicking and screaming for that. It means you're as fucked up in your own ways as any one of us. Did something happen, or was it natural for you?"
"Fuck you," she said, panic pitching her voice high.
"I will," he said, then paused to watch the expression on her face. "But answer the question, or it'll be much more fun for me than you. I always did like it when the girl is crying and a little bloody." That did it, he thought as the first tear puddled in her eye socket. They do the same thing every time. Begging is up next.
Her eyes flicked up to him, wide and wet. After a stunned silence, she spoke. "I don't know the answer." If I knew, she added silently, anger pushing back against the urge to simply give up, I would have figured out how to be someone else and I wouldn't be here.
"Jesus, Honey, it's not a hard question. Did someone rattle your cage when you were small?" He reached out and shook the walls of the crate, making her yelp. "Or have you always gotten hot and bothered for pain?"
The BLU soldier watched her shaking and waited until she had managed to tame some of it before continuing. Strong-willed, he thought, eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure. These are the most fun to break. "I'm looking forward to that, actually," he said, conversationally. "I'm looking forward to your body responding while you want to die. So which was it?"
The Cook closed her eyes, unable to think for a moment, terror screaming deafeningly inside her skull.
"Come on, Honey," he coaxed, voice full of disorienting charm. "It's just us freaks in here. You can tell me."
Her voice was distant, buried under the screams that were making her head ring like a bell. "I couldn't tell you which one. I don't know."
Fight, she thought. No, goddamn it, fight. There has to be something you can do. She opened her eyes and started slowly scanning the cage and its contents: a blanket. The chain. Herself. A water bowl—a water bowl? Her rage was instantaneous, and she embraced it, let it clear the horror that set her nerves crawling and filled her with mindless fear. The Cook took a deep breath and pushed it out hard. No, she thought. No, I'm not having it. I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do, but I'm not fucking having this as long as I'm conscious and able to do something.
"Ha! Every single one of you bitches so far. Every single one has a little something in their background. I can see it on you, that guilty little twitch." The BLU Soldier stuck a long finger through one of the holes in the crate and feathered it down her foot, the sensation making her cringe and shaking her resolve.
"So who was it," he said, satisfied. "Daddy? Boyfriend? Teacher? Stranger? Who made all those pretty shards in your head?"
"I'm going to fucking kill you when you open that door." She could hear the tremor of fear in her voice and hated it, raging at herself for feeding him any sign of weakness. It is feeding, she thought, nausea rising again. He is eating this up.
"No, Honey, you'll try, which is good. Fight me for it." He rubbed himself, visibly hard, eyes glittering under the florescent light, and shivered. "God yes, fight me for it."
She gagged. I have to keep him talking, she thought. I need time. I have to think of something. "No, now it's my turn. You ever been arrested for any of this?"
He gave her a knowing smile, eyebrows cocked over the charm he'd turned on again like a switch. "That's how BLU got me. They must have connections everywhere in the legal system. Every one of us has a record. No one will say what for, but it's gotta be homicide all around by the way they fight." He shrugged, then looked her up and down. "My turn. I'm guessing boyfriend."
"No, not a boyfriend. My turn." If he gets close enough, she thought, brow wrinkling, I might be able to strangle him with the chain. But he's fucking huge. There's no way I can outmuscle him. "What did you get in trouble for?"
"Which time, honey?" His amusement was sardonic, his lips twitching. Oh Sweetie, he thought, go ahead, try to think of ways to overpower me. All the brains in that head aren't going to stop me. "The time BLU found me? I'll tell you, but I want to be touching you when I do. I want to see your face from very, very close."
The Soldier could see her stop thinking, the panic again burning the thoughts out of her head. "My turn," he said, cheerily. "What made you hottest when the RED sniper touched you?"
The Cook closed her eyes then opened them, staring into the distance, and didn't answer. Some part of her was retreating, emptying, and she let it go. The cage grew distant around her, fading.
"No," he said, irritation sharp in his voice. "That's not how this is played, Honey. So now we talk about forfeits. If you don't answer, I'm going to open this cage and we're going to play the game that got me kicked out of the Marines, and you'd better not vomit on me. My favorite part was always what they taught us about interrogation, and I'll violate the shit out of the Geneva Convention to get an answer." He paused. "Not that we use the Geneva Convention out here."
"Power," she gasped, convulsing, fear pushing the words out of her.
He blinked, surprised. A strong-willed masochist, he thought. Well, shit, this is about to get entertaining as fuck. They get all confused and guilty when they've got that shit in the background. When I break this one, she's going to think it's her fault. His cock gave a single, heavy throb. And when she does break, there ain't much I won't be able to make her do.
The Soldier's breath hissed in through his teeth and his eyelids fluttered. "That, honey-child," he said slowly, a flush staining his cheeks, "makes you rarer than a two-dicked midget." He shifted, readjusting himself and watching her eyes follow his hand, horror draining the blood from her face and giving it a green tinge. "I don't know where they dug you up, but someone did their homework."
Something in the space behind her eyes screamed over and over, and she pushed at it. I have to get angry, she thought. Angry. Despair wrapped its leaden arms around her and whispered in her ear: nothing you can do. She was falling, air rushing in her ears as despair dragged her down. She scrabbled for something to anchor her. I can't let him just have control, she thought. Fuck, at least get angry for your own goddamn survival. Get angry about something. Anything.
"I'm not always a masochist," she said, voice shaking. The urge to pee suddenly, incongruously, made her squirm. A small, detached part of herself wanted to laugh. All those books and movies, she thought, and I thought this was a metaphor. I thought they were kidding. Exaggerating. It's all I can do not to piss myself.
"I don't think any of us will care one way or the other about that, though it'd be funny to see you try with the Doc." He paused, tongue touching his lips. "I think I'd pay to see that. Of course, it'd be sort of one-way for you. Doc is not very tolerant of anything he can't order around. We only get away with it because we can kill him if he gets too far out of line."
He bent down to peer into the holes in the cage. "How are you feeling there, honey? Still pukey?" Time to beg soon, he thought, but I'll let you keep trying to hide for a little longer. You keep lying to yourself at little longer in there, honey. It'll be even sweeter when you realize it's a lie.
"Yes." She could feel the pressure on the back of her throat, her stomach making small, convulsive movements.
"Tell you what. I'll give you a few more questions before we make friends."
The Cook sobbed once, dry and hoarse, and clapped both hands over her mouth, fighting not to vomit.
"Yeah, there'll be some of that later," he said, drily. "Ask me a question, honey."
"What—," she cleared her throat. "What got you kicked out of the Marines?"
"Right to the meat, huh? Eager little thing, ain't you? You dying to get to it?" He watched the barb sink in before continuing—there's that guilt, he thought as she froze. You're going to have nightmares, Sugar. You're never getting away from me, not even in your own head. I'm going to pry that thing open and make myself a little nest, and all that guilt is going to help me.
"They caught me persuading a prisoner in ways the legal branch thought were contrary to proper behavior." Come on, he urged her silently. Ask me what I mean.
I have to keep him talking, she thought. Have to keep him talking and not touching me. "Persuading," she said, her throat suddenly dry.
"If the little fucker hadn't been screaming so loud, I'd have had time to finish. I let go of his neck for a second to adjust his position and he screamed like a dying rabbit."
The Cook whimpered and stopped herself from pulling the blanket next to her over her head with a great deal of effort.
"Look," he said, making his voice cheerful. "It ain't so bad for you. You're in their respawn, right? I won't let you die, but even if we got a little out of hand, you'd just pop back there in a few minutes. It leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, but nothing's permanent. And hell, you might even like it." That's right, he added silently, try to figure out which one you want more: do you want to die more than you want to hang on, hoping someone will rescue you? You sure as shit aren't rescuing yourself.
From the expression on her face, she would rather die. Too bad, he thought, letting a smile he knew people found unnerving spread slowly across his face. I'm not going to let you die until I'm sure I'm stuck between your ears, fucking all those little crevices where you think you're in charge. And then, Sugar, you'll just respawn knowing I might come back, that any time you try to forget me I could start it again.
Behind him, the door swung silently open, unseen, and was propped closed.
He kept talking, watching her face twist. "I can't wait to see you learning to like it. Women like you always learn to like it one way or the other. Forcing you only—"
The tip of a blade appeared, jutting out his chest, and sawed hard to the left. He choked and slumped, a pink froth bubbling out of his mouth. The air sizzled, and the RED Spy squatted by the body, searching the pockets. The Cook screamed once, then stuffed a fist in her mouth, the room narrowing to a small tube edged in black. No, she thought, making herself breathe. I will not faint. Do not faint. The black edges started to dissolve as she concentrated, blinking rapidly and biting down on her fist. Adrenaline burned some of the sedative out of her system, leaving her shaking but clear-headed.
The Spy glanced over at her, at the greenish skin of her face, then quickly down at the body. "Merde. I don't think he has the key." He reached the calf pocket on the BLU soldier's BDUs. "Ah, there it is."
The Cook sat up quickly, bruising her forehead on the cage. "Get me the fuck out of here."
"Momentarily." The Spy unlocked the cage and she crawled out, scurrying away from it and slipping in her haste. He let her get some distance away from the thing and quietly hissed at her to get her attention.
She looked over, panting. "Get this thing—," she raised a hand to the heavy collar, "off my goddamn neck."
He walked to her and she raised her chin, shuddering, as he tried the other key. He sighed. "Vipere, I can get the chain from it, but not the collar. He does not have its key." The RED Spy unlocked the padlock from the collar and dropped the keys to jingle on the floor.
The Cook tugged at the collar, eyes white-rimmed. "Just get it off. Get it off." She realized distantly that she was shrieking, that it echoed in her head and the room. She gagged, and realized she was choking herself, both fists curled around the leather and pulling until her arms and elbows burned.
"Vipere," the Spy said, command firming his voice. "You cannot panic now. Now we have to run very quietly. They took your shoes and his body just disappeared into respawn, so you will have to run barefoot across the desert to the other base. Take my hand, and now we must go."
The Cook scrambled upright and grabbed at his hand. "Go! Just go!"
The air shimmered, and she found herself holding something she couldn't see. His glove in her hand pulled, and she followed him out the door, up a flight of stairs, and into a hallway. At the end of the hallway, they heard voices. He swore and pulled her into the nearest door, an empty bedroom. She crammed her free hand in her mouth, trying to stifle the harsh, shallow sound of her own breathing as the voices passed the door.
"They ain't gonna recover for awhile. We swept their entire defense and took their damn prize. I wonder how the Soldier is doing down there. Do you think he needs any help?"
Another voice, retreating into the distance, replied. "Nah, but he's fun to watch. I think I'll go down and see how he's doing."
"Vipere," the Spy whispered. "Non!"
The Cook realized she had crumpled down to her knees, the floor rushing up to meet her.
"We have to go now!"
She struggled to her feet, still holding his hand, and followed him out that door and down the hall, then out two more doors and into the desert air. She ran, staggering and tripping herself in her haste, her feet leaving stars of blood in the pale sand. Her back crawled. Any moment now, she thought, leaping over a rock. Any moment they're going to come out of that base and he's going to drag me back in. The Spy pulled her on, fingers digging into hers, his longer legs blurring in the darkness. The moon was a high spotlight, pointing at them as they ran across the flat expanse. They're going to get us. They're going to find us. There's nothing to hide behind. She couldn't breathe, chest heaving and lungs straining. The air was feral, snapping at her as they ran, fighting her. Her vision was red at the edges, throbbing. I'm going to pass out. I'm going to pass out and they'll find me.
"A little further. A little further, now," he panted, the blocky shapes of the base slowly appearing in the distance. "You can do it, Vipere."
Is it getting closer, she thought dully, the edges of the base seeming to appear and disappear in the darkness, her vision strobing red and black.
The Spy could feel her slow and looked back at her bloodless face. Without a word, he scooped her up and staggered across the last fifty yards to the base, falling heavily against the doors. He let her down on her own feet and fumbled with the lock, pushing her through and locking the door behind them. She fell prone on the concrete floor, looking up at the ceiling. After a moment, she pushed herself up and crawled past the second set of doors, into the base proper, arms and legs shuddering beneath her. Beside her, the Spy slumped down, sweat sticking his balaclava to his face and darkening his suit. She kept crawling down the hall, leaving droplets of blood and sweat on the floor, head down and hair dragging and pulling beneath palms and knees. He peeled the balaclava off and let it fall with a wet slap on the concrete.
"Gentlemen," he panted, watching her stubbornly keep crawling but too winded to stop her. "A little help?"
The doors to the living room slammed open, narrowly missing the Cook who simply kept crawling down the hall.
"Christ," the Scout said. "Look at them." There was a pause, and his voice came back, hushed. "Look at her feet."
She kept crawling. Have to get away, she thought. Have to keep going, to get to safety. There were voices, but she wasn't safe yet. She was so slow. How was she supposed to get away if she was so slow? Her arms and legs were wavering, and it took all her concentration to keep them moving, to keep moving, the pain of her hair catching under palms and knees registering as a distant pull, buried under the cold fire at the end of her legs. My feet. There is something wrong with my feet. Have to keep going. She raised a hand, shifting her weight on her bruising knees, and there was something there: a hand. Someone was there, gently and firmly pushing her to sit. She whimpered, and the hand paused, then came back and made her sit down. She fell back and to the side, and the hands helped her sit with her back to the wall. They caught me, she thought, too tired to even sob, and sat there, waiting for whatever would happen next.
"Mischa, get the gun." The Medic knelt beside her, looking at the vacant expression on her face, and sighed, the wrinkles beside his eyes deepening. He tugged at her feet, pulling them out from under her thighs, and hissed before settling into his habitual, medical distance. "Also bring an emesis basin and tweezers."
Fingers brushed the bottom of her foot, the pain washing over her like an ocean. Something is embedded in them. The thought wandered through the emptied expanse of her head. There's something in my feet. Her eyes rolled over the figure in front of her. I know you, she thought. You're familiar.
Medic. The word echoed inside her. The RED Medic. I'm in the RED base. There were figures all around her, silent. But this isn't safe. I'm not safe. Where can I go to be safe? She watched incuriously as the Medic turned to the Spy, his voice cutting. "Did you have to drag her through every sharp thing in the desert?"
"Docteur," the Spy said, mopping his face with his sleeve, accent thickened by exhaustion, "you are welcome to make zhat run yourself, barefoot, and tell me what you pick up." He laid his hands flat on the floor and pushed himself up the wall until he could stand, bent and leaning. "We should prepare for company. I gave the BLU soldier a rather entertaining death."
The Cook struggled up on her elbows, then hands and knees and started to crawl again. Get away. Have to get away.
"No, Kätzchen," the Medic's voice was very gentle. "You must not do this." He turned to look at the cluster of mercenaries behind them. "Help me get her up."
"I've got the lassie." The Demo reached down and scooped her up, turning her in his arms. She panicked immediately, pushing weakly at him and making hoarse little noises in the back of her throat. Above her, the Demo's face emptied and he stiffened, tightening his arms. She screamed, the sound bouncing off the walls, and thrashed. Horror loosened his face and arms, and she started to slide away before he caught her. "Please," he whispered. "Lass, please." She looked up, staring through him, the skin on her face twitching and eyes empty. Rage hung a red haze in front of his eyes and he snarled. She whimpered again, eyes focusing on his expression, and he subdued it with effort, a fine tremor running through his arms. Her gaze went back to the emptiness, and he had to look away, staring a hole in the ceiling, murder written on every inch of his face.
It was silent in the hall for a moment, the quiet like a heavy hand pressing on them all. Behind the doors of the surgery, they could hear the faint sound of the Heavy opening drawers. The Spy's breath started to slow, and he let himself stand up straight.
The Engineer broke the silence, his voice hushed. "Just don't drop her, Demo." He leaned in to see the bottoms of her feet, then looked up to her face and hissed. "I believe the BLU team and I need to have a little chat."
"Get in line, Truckie," the Sniper snarled.
They caught the Heavy on the way back and turned him around, to follow the procession. In the surgery, the Demo laid her on the exam table with exaggerated care, then turned. His teammates saw his expression and moved out of the way quickly as he left the room, his fists curled into solid blocks at the end of his arms.
The Engineer whistled quietly. "Tomorrow," he said, watching the door, "I expect it's gonna to rain body parts. Ya'll might think about bringing your own umbrellas."
"I intend," the Soldier said, voice muted by his clenched teeth, "to take a shower in it." With that comment, he turned abruptly on his heel and stomped out of the room, boots squealing loudly against the concrete.
"Sheeeet," the Engineer said, watching the Soldier disappear. He started to say something else, then stopped himself and looked back at the table and the little figure on it. He sighed heavily and lapsed into silence.
The Medic approached the exam table slowly, watching her stare blankly into the distance. "Kätzchen, did they give you anything?"
She rolled her eyes over at him, whites showing all the way around her eyes. The words fell around her like little weights and she couldn't hold them. They slid through her fingers, the whole world sliding around her.
"Kätzchen," he said, slowly, reaching for her hand so that she'd focus on the room. "There are needle marks on both your arms and your neck. What did they give you?"
As he'd expected, her eyes leapt to his hand and she cringed back from it, personality flowing back into her face. She shook her head, blinking profusely. The Cook looked up the line of his arm to his face and swallowed. "I don't… I don't know."
The Medic scrubbed his face with the offending hand, frustrated. No, he thought, of course she wouldn't know, dummkopf. At least we have her attention now. "Kätzchen, the only things I can do to make the pain go away might make you sick. May I get a quick sample?"
She flinched, then held out an arm, and he slowly removed a needle, vial, and rubber strip from a drawer of the exam table. Her eyes followed him, darting around his hands, her whole body cringing back from the arm she held out. I've seen that before, he thought, grief startling him. His memory vomited up a skeletal face and black uniforms before he could stop it, constructing a room around him in an instant. Coward, he thought, then ground his teeth together until they squealed.
The Medic took a breath. "Very brave, Kätzchen," he crooned, pity softening his self-loathing. "Very brave lieblinge. This will only sting for a second."
The Cook closed her eyes as the needle came closer, arm rigid and shaking. The Medic put a hand behind her elbow to hold her arm still and she stopped breathing.
"Lieblinge, it will hurt less if you can relax. Please."
She forced herself to un-clench her arm, sweating heavily from the effort. When the needle slid into her arm, her hand shook violently and the Medic pinned it between his arm and body. She made a quiet, dry sob and he froze, then quickly impaled the vial on the waiting end of the needle and drew it off. The tie came off her arm with a snap and he gently folded her arm over a cotton ball.
I can't, he thought. I can't have feelings now. The Medic turned away from the table and added a drop of the blood and a chemical solution to a vial. He shook the vial and held it up to the light, watching it turn an obscenely bright mauve with a rage that made his hand tremble. "That… doctor." Her dulled reactions could be shock, but the results of that test—the quick, neon-bright color—told him that she'd been given an irresponsibly high dose of opiates. Probably codeine, he thought, clinically. It is easy enough for us to get.
He turned to the Cook, composure settling over his features like a mask. "I am sorry, lieblinge," he said, tone formal and distant. "I cannot give you anything for the pain, and we must pull the scraps from your feet so that your skin does not close over them." Her pupils were tiny, pinpricks in the brown of her iris, and her lips still held a bluish tinge from her run. He looked down at her hands. The nail beds were blue as well, and at some point she'd torn several nails off, leaving bloody half-moons. Her skin was clammy and tinged with blue-green where it wasn't torn, or bruised. Her eyes were focused on a point somewhere through the walls of the base. She'd retreated inside herself, aided by whatever dose had kept her limp.
He made himself stop looking at the symptoms. I could, he thought, administer Naloxone. Of course, I don't know how much she's had, but if she hasn't noticed the damage, she may have enough to suppress pain already. Best to take advantage of—his fingers convulsed, the thought too close.
Behind him, the Spy gave a start and muttered something before speaking. "I am sorry, Vipere. I should have noticed. I of all people should have noticed…" He trailed off, looking at her under the mercilessly bright light of the surgery. She ran, he thought, guilt slapping him in the face. She ran through the desert and she couldn't breathe and I didn't stop to see. He took a breath, in and out, another burden in a sea of burdens. The Sniper eyed him for a moment, face softening. There are things, the Spy thought, that no man should do, things even I wouldn't do. There are things he wouldn't do. We would kill a man, but this is a sickness. They looked at each other and away.
The Cook stared at the Medic with a blank, wet face, her shoulders shaking. I am a man of science, he thought. I am a professional. His fingers curled around the edge of his lab coat. I have seen worse and I have a job to do. With an effort, he turned his head. "Mischa, can you hold her? You, she might find safe."
"дa." The Heavy walked up and held his hands out to her, palms up. "Can touch?"
The Cook dug her fingers into the padding on the exam table and shook her head slowly. After a moment, she found her voice. "Just… do it."
"Is okay, девочка," the Heavy said, gently. "I will be here if you need me."
"Lieblinge, if one of us does not hold you, you must be very still." Will this never stop affecting me, the Medic thought, irritation stinging him. Will I ever get to the point where I don't hurt when they look at me like that? For a moment, he wanted her to disappear. That look, he thought, and his memories surged up again. "The guards," the Heavy whispered, blindfolded, blood pooling under his knees. "They paid. They all paid." In his memory, the Heavy howled, everything human stripped from his voice. Again and again he howled, the sound…
The Medic shook his head. I can't heal this, he thought, despairing. Lieblinge, he begged silently, I can't make what happened disappear. Forgive me. I can't give it back to you. He looked over at the Heavy, who smiled once at him, sadly, then looked away.
The Engineer sighed. "Little girl, I can't watch this. I can't." Rubbing his stubbled scalp, he left the room.
The Scout closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Nope. No, I'm good, I can do this. I wanna remember for tomorrow."
"Vipere, I believe I will take our wild friend and have a drink." The Sniper shrugged the Spy's hand from his shoulder and kicked the doors open, stalking into the hallway. The Spy followed him.
"I'm sorry, lieblinge." The Medic reached out with the tweezers and started to dig. She let the distant fog come back, muting the world around her as she retreated from it. When he looked up, the expression was gone from her face again. She was empty, moving when he pushed her, stopping where he positioned her.
His hands worked methodically, but behind them, inside, he died and kept working, doing what he could.
The Scout swallowed heavily. "Toots, I can make the pain and I can take the pain, but I can't take fixing the pain. I'll come see you later." He walked out of the room slowly, leaving the Pyro, the Heavy, and the Medic.
The Heavy pulled up a chair, watching the Medic's face with knowing eyes. A moment later, the Pyro pulled up his own chair and sat quietly, watching the Medic dig spines and splinters out of her feet.