The ceiling over her head was speckled with peeling paint, the red on the walls going abruptly to white and falling off in flakes. The morning light shone into all the bubbles and cracks, making the ceiling seem leprous. She had no idea how long she'd been looking at it, just that it was morning, and that there was a blank space where her dreams should have been. An occasional noise told her someone was in the room with her—she couldn't make himself care who. Adrift, floating, the muted world was a comfort. Out of a strange, distant curiosity, she couldn't stop herself from asking. "How long was I there?"
The Medic sighed, laying down the paperwork he'd been staring through with a rustle. Shock, the clinical part of his mind said. PTSD, perhaps. Voice faint, dissociative state likely. Probably short-term, given isolated exposure. He'd kept up with medical journals, though they were more curiosity than useful given the technology they'd given him. "Not long," he said. "A day or so."
The Cook stayed staring at the ceiling, making patterns of the balding spots above her. A face. A dog. Some part of her was busy and she was content to let it stay busy as long as the rest of her floated. Poking out around the edges of that busy spot was something—she shied away from the thought. "Why are you still here?"
An edge in that, he thought. Is it better that she stay dissociative or should I encourage her to talk? It is not… the talking cure was young when I came here. I don't have enough training. The Medic pushed up his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, trying to soothe his headache. "One of us is staying for a time, lieblinge. And today, that person is me."
She turned over with a screech from the bed frame, curling under the covers into a fetal ball. "I'll be fine. They probably need you." Just go, she added silently. Leave me alone and let me… I don't know. The beds were old-fashioned, a brass scrawl for a headboard and feather mattresses. Where did he get these things? The base was one part technological magic and the rest run-down junk from the 1950s and 60s. Just like the men on it, she thought. We're all relics, or I will be, if I stay here. Do they think about it, about being adrift in time while the rest of the world moves on?
He clicked his tongue, capping his pen and restlessly twirling it between his fingers. "They are managing quite well without me. RED will be pleased, I think, with the totals at the end of the day."
Her voice was dull. "I want to be out there." Don't leave me here, she thought, panic starting to push its way past the blank spot. Don't leave me here doing nothing.
"Let us wait until the swelling has gone down, and the Sniper will be glad to help you." The edges, he thought. Have your taste from the edges, so you lose your hunger for it. The Medic felt all of his ninety-eight years, every one of them pulling him down—please, he begged her silently. Please be sickened by it. Please be sickened by killing. Do not make me watch you learn what you cannot unlearn.
She flexed her ankles, too stiff to flex her feet, and looked down at the gauze criss-crossing her ankles. He administered something for the pain, she thought. He has to have administered something. This should probably hurt more. "I want the BLU Soldier," she said absently, looking at the bandages. "I'm going to kill him."
The Medic laughed, a short bark of sound that held little of a man and less of humor. "Lieblinge, you will have to fight the Sniper for him." So that's the one, he thought. I would have guessed the Spy from the way she disappeared. He put the pen down and folded his hands over it, safe for the moment behind fifty years of self-control. We will make him pay, lieblinge. Let us make him pay for you. Keep that part of yourself which is still innocent.
"I don't care. I want him. Over and over. I want to kill him until I get tired of it." She made a fist in the blanket, the edge back in her voice. "I want to make him suffer," she hissed.
The Medic sighed and winced. It was on her face: the intent, the will, the desire. But do you, libelinge, he asked silently. Do you have the will to see it all the way thought, to see him die? Will you be able to live with your memories? In his mind, he raged at her. Do you not see what it has cost us?
The Cook turned her head to look at him. The Medic looked at her with a soft, slightly sad smile and opened his hands raising them in an age-old gesture of conciliation, then folded them back gently in front of him on the dark wood of the desk. He said nothing, but she could see it on his face—doubt. He was going to push her aside. They all were. They were going to take revenge from her as if she were a child with a dangerous toy. It's my revenge, she thought, rage wrapping its fingers around her and boiling her alive. Mine. I will not be treated like a child, will not stand aside and let the men fix it for me. Not now. Not ever. "That file wasn't thorough enough," she said, her voice rusty as a saw blade, "if you don't know what I can do."
There was a faint ache in his chest. He rubbed at it absently. Psychosomatic, he thought. Some part of me grieves. Her face was red, eyes bloodshot and glaring at him. She has the right to her outrage, and rage is to be expected. But kinder, you do not understand regret.
That twinge again—he pressed the heel of his hand to his chest. You will as you go. We all do. The Medic smiled once, bitterly. "I only know what you've been arrested for. I think you should talk to the Heavy." Forgive me, Mischa, he thought, the twinge becoming a flower of fire that stole his breath. Forgive me for this. We are all patchwork men, slapped together over our own scars and ticking on without the comfort of death. And I ask you to go into the most dangerous of places out of mercy.
For a moment, the Medic wished, in a way he hadn't allowed himself in decades, that there was something to which he could plead in prayer. A foolish wish, he castigated himself. You left god behind in the camps, Klaus. Your imagination won't comfort you or take the burden from Mischa or this girl.
"Why," she said, suspiciously. "What does Mischa have to do with it?"
"Lieblinge, Mischa knows more about the…." He let the sentence taper away, staring beyond her at the reflective glass door of a cabinet. She wouldn't thank him for naming it, and no matter her rage, she could still shatter. "You will have to ask him."
The Medic opened the top drawer of his desk, pulling out a deck of cards. "Kätzchen, tell me: are you familiar with many card games? Perhaps poker?"
The Cook pulled herself up on the bed, squinting at him under the surgery lights. "Yeah. I could play."
That evening, the Spy took over the kitchen without complaint or comment, efficiently making something with noodles that no one else could identify—it reminded the Cook of Vietnamese food, but nothing she'd ever eaten before.
The Medic carried the Cook in when the Spy rapped once on the surgery door, sitting her at the table over her protests that she could walk just fine. At least, he thought, she feels good enough to complain. He tactfully refrained from commenting that her feet were purple and twice their size, something she had trampled getting away from the BLU base proving venomous. She still had a tremor as well, he noted, the cards going awry as she tried to organize them in a fan.
The table was silent but for the clank and clatter of bodies seeking fuel, the usual teasing patter dwindled to grunts. She looked around and wilted, embarrassed. I made things worse somehow. The thought was quickly followed by a flutter of fear. Will this mean they ignore me? Am I alone again?
No one would meet her eyes as she looked down the table. They'd showered. The table was clean but for the food. The kitchen was clean. I'm being erased, she thought, panic thudding through her with her pulse. I'm invisible. She dropped her fork with a clatter, staring down into her plate and missing the quick look of concern passing around the table. No one wants me. No one wants to talk to me. Shame warred with panic, and her shoulders inched up, hands loose and empty on the table. I'm ruined. They think I'm ruined.
They looked at her staring, sightless, through the table. The Soldier opened his mouth to speak and the Medic made a cutting motion in the air, shaking his head. The Soldier pleaded with him silently, then sighed under the Medic's glare and looked away. As the mercenaries started to clear the table, the Medic reached out and touched the Heavy's arm.
"Mischa, the Kätzchen needs to talk to someone. Would you?"
For a tense second, the Heavy stared at the Medic. The strain on the Medic's face—eyes dark and sleepless in their sockets, fine lines deepening by eyes and lips—what you ask, the Heavy thought, anguish lining him in fire. You know what you ask, what it will do to me, and you ask me anyway. He watched the Medic's eyes close, watched him grapple with the refusal the Heavy knew was written across his features. The Medic's eyes opened, the look in them lancing through the Heavy like a bullet. I have not seen that look, the Heavy thought, since we met. Damn the girl. He shrugged the Medic's hand from his forearm, pushing him away.
The Medic's lips moved, something that wasn't a whisper, and he let his hand fall. The girl is still staring through the table, the Heavy thought. She is like a rock thrown through a window, and she does not know it. He watched her for a moment longer, the thousand-yard stare and the thin fragility of her skin. She does not know anything right now. His shoulders hunched, habit he had learned to make a large man less frightening, responding by instinct to his lover's pain. The Medic stood, guilt in every line of his body, and turned to leave. The Heavy reached out, squeezing his lover's arm gently. For you, he thought. Before anything else, for you.
The Heavy's face softened. "Very well, Doctor." He turned to the Cook, his face grave. "Little one, may we talk?"
His voice was slow to enter her head, and she turned to look at him with the movements of a dreamer. "Why should we," she said. Her eyes rolled around the room, now empty of everyone but herself, the Medic and the Heavy. "What do we have to say?" Her thoughts were birds, wings clapping as they battered themselves against the inside of her skull.
The Heavy took a sharp breath, fighting the urge to simply walk away. For what I am about to do, he thought, fighting the defensive rage that made him want to strangle her, you should be grateful. His lover flinched and the Heavy stifled his anger. She does not know, and she is full of her own pain right now. He thought about his sisters with a flash of old grief, and gentled his voice. "For this, little one, you will want to talk. May I pick you up?"
The Cook looked up at him, lips pressing together, and stood using the table. I will not, she thought. I will not be treated like a bad child. Her knees buckled immediately, and the Medic reached for her without thinking of it. The Heavy growled at him. "Out."
The Medic left, casting a single worried look over his shoulder and closing the door behind him with a quiet snick. She clenched her jaw and pushed up again on the chair. The Heavy let her pull herself to sitting before simply scooping her up. The Cook stared at him, the same angry jut to her jaw, but said nothing.
Damn you, she thought. Goddamn all of you and me too. Goddamn you for seeing me this way, for simply picking me up as if I were helpless. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked heavily.
He sighed and pushed the door open, carrying her to the living room. The Pyro sat, elbows on his knees, watching the fire dance in the fire place. "Pyro," the Heavy said. "Leave."
The Pyro looked up, then sighed and got up. "Does the Doctor need me to go?"
"For this? дa."
The Heavy put the Cook on the couch and sat down next to her. The Pyro turned and walked out, flicking a lighter and mumbling. The Heavy watched him go, squaring his shoulders. The muscles of his jaw rippled, catching the red light of the fire. She watched him, sniffing occasionally at the tears running from her eyes and nose. You wanted to talk, she thought spitefully. Fine. You talk.
It took him several minutes of silence to master his emotions. In the silence, the fire crackled and popped. Green wood, he thought. The Pyro should have let it dry out longer. He turned to face her, looking at the wary, angry tension in her face. "Little one, the Doctor has told you I cannot go back to the Ukraine. He has not told you why, yes?"
She looked down at the arm of the couch beside her. There was a hole in the brown tweed, haloed in loose threads and the dark yellow foam of stuffing. She plucked at the threads before answering carefully. "No, he hasn't."
He searched for words. How does one—he stopped the thought and started again. The word they use is gay. How does one say this thing? She knows how I feel about Klaus. Where should I start? "You know I am gay?"
"Yeah, I know." She slowly picked the hole in the couch wider, digging at the wooden frame beneath the padding.
"Do you know, девочка, what they do in Ukraine to men like me?"
"I know it's probably not good." The hole was the size of a dime, the wood underneath still pale. She hooked her finger and ripped a strip of padding free.
Not good, he thought, disbelief making him dizzy for a moment. Such little words. There were still scars on his arms from the rocks boys had thrown at him when he was a child. Fifty years later and still visible, respawn giving them back to him every day, giving him back the calluses from the labor camp and the whip scars. Fifty years, he thought, and what is not given back to me by respawn is given back to me when I close my eyes. Twenty-eight guards. Bodies hanging on the barbed wire that we dared not bury, staring accusingly at us as we worked ourselves to death. That is not the worst of it. The worst—a cascade of images, his body tied and bent over a barrel and the excited murmur of guards—he shook himself hard, moving the couch back with the squeal of wood against concrete. But it is merely not good. Yes, девочка, it is not good. The Heavy cleared his throat, blinking for a moment. "Do you know what they do when they can see it in a young man?"
There was something thick in his voice. She looked over and straightened on the couch. Agony, raw and terrifying, poured from him, settling in the prominent bones of his skull. Hell, she thought. That man has looked into hell, is looking into it again for me. Her mouth worked silently—no. Don't. Don't go there. Her heart was leaden, beating against itself.
Could you have lived with it, he thought, eyes glassily reflecting the fire. Have you ever lived with the knowledge that no one cares if you live or die? What would you have done, девочка? Once started, his memory took on a life of its own—he stared through the fire and time as his mouth moved, voice just audible. "They say it is simply what you deserve."
Her breath caught. "No," she said, her voice faint. "No, please."
"They say, девочка, that if you will act a woman, you will be a woman. And the worst part… the worst part…." The Heavy sunk his head into his hands, fingers pressing dents into his skull.
"No," she whispered. "Please. Please." Memories were unfolding like carnivorous flowers inside her skull, the emptiness gone. "No, I don't want to remember."
"девочка," he said distantly. "You have seen me with the Doctor. What do you think they make of men like me?"
She went rigid. The BLU soldier was smirking at her through the bars of the cage. Blood rushed past her ears, making a sound like the wind, babbling: he wants what he wants what he will eat me up. Beyond him, another figure moved in the darkness—her fingers sank into the old cloth of the couch, the fingers of her right hand punching cleanly through the cloth with ripping sound. A sound a sound a rip. Echoes no I don't want to remember.
The Heavy turned his head slowly, waking from his nightmares. The woman sitting beside him on the couch had her mouth open, sound pouring from it: panting, ragged, high pitched sounds that filled the room, an animal with its leg in a trap pulling, trying to pull free. He sat for a moment, pulling himself free. The space between them was viscous.
My memories are old, he thought, the path familiar. I should have known not to bring her along while hers were so fresh. The Heavy reached over and pried her hands from the couch, then picked her up, cuddling her to his chest. She is so small. Look at her. Like a child, so small. I am so sorry, девочка. I should have shown mercy. He closed his eyes. Mercy. The word echoed.
The Heavy shifted her weight in his arms and started to rock gently as the sounds slowed, humming tunelessly. "Shhh, little one. Shhhh. We have killed him and we will keep killing him."
She crumpled in his arms and he kept humming, waiting for her to come back, for her breathing to slow. After a time, she looked up at him. He smiled, a frail little thing, and she smiled back with the same, fragile expression of loneliness. "мышка," he said gently, the name coming to him as he looked at her wide, dark eyes, "there is a thing I must say. I wish someone had said it to me. Can you hear me?"
The Cook ground her face into his chest and murmured, "I am here."
"Yes, мышка, you are. You are here now." He shifted, pushing her up until she gave up trying to hide in his chest and looked at him. "You must know that it is their sickness that they try to give you. You will have a time where you are wild, or you are cold, or you are distant like the stars, but it will fade because it is their sickness and not yours. It is not your sickness."
But you will think it is your sickness for a time, he thought. And I will remind you it is not, because no one reminded me. I am so sorry, мышка.
She whimpered and burst into tears. The Heavy went back to rocking gently. "Crying is good," he said, trying to tell her with his tone what he could not with his words. "I wish I were better at crying. The Doctor has many times to help me cry." The Heavy went back to his tuneless humming, staring at the fire with his chin resting on her head.
Klaus, he thought, the edge of his lover's boots taking shape in his mind. Where I was shown mercy, I could give it. Where you showed me mercy, I have learned mercy. Many nights…. He let the thought trail off, rocking her and thinking of the Medic's arms around him. After some time, she ran out of tears and simply sat there, shaking. The Heavy kept humming, gently rocking, and they both stared into the fire as it guttered and went out.
"мышка," he said, looking away from the darkening embers, "I think you should sleep." His legs and arms had gone to sleep some time ago, and as the room cooled, his muscles had started to cramp where they weren't numb.
She pressed her ear to his chest to hear his voice rumbling out of it. "I don't want to be alone."
The Heavy looked down, frowning. "I sleep with the Doctor." Please. I am tired and I must let myself rest. I am not, he thought, your doll to clutch against nightmares. I have my own.
"I don't care. I just don't want to be alone."
She had that look on her face again—lost and small. The Heavy sighed. Once, he thought. Just this time, because I am a clumsy fool. "Let us ask him."
The Heavy scooped the Cook up in his arms and walked to the surgery, the halls empty and echoing with the sound of his footsteps. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging like a small child. He winced and tried not to let his annoyance show. He pushed through the surgery doors, turning to take the door on his shoulder.
"Is she…." The Medic stood up, knocking a clipboard off his desk.
"мышка," the Heavy said, shortly, "ask him."
She looked at the Medic, her face still pale and reddened by crying. "I don't want to sleep alone. Can I sleep with him?"
"I will be sleeping with the Doctor." The Heavy looked down at her again, the tension on his face making his eyebrows a heavy line across his face. The Medic eyed at them both and took a breath to speak but she interrupted him.
"Can I sleep with you both?"
The Medic blinked, and the Cook was suddenly reminded of his age. "Yes, I suppose thebed is large enough. It cannot be a habit, lieblinge. This is my time with Mischa."
She looked at them both. Oh, she thought, embarrassed. Oh, I'm intruding. I'm being so selfish. She blushed heavily, looking up at the tense Heavy. "Oh god, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I just… I'll go to my room. Just put me down."
The Heavy made an exasperated noise. And now, he thought, irritated. Now she realizes what she's asking. His arms tightened. "Do not be a fool, мышка. If you ask for something, you should take it. And you cannot walk on those feet, yet."
The Medic bit his lower lip, trying not to smile. As usual, Mischa had given voice to his thoughts. For Mischa, he thought affection and pride warming his expression, this has been incredibly generous. To give up his privacy.… He hates things to keep changing. "No, liebling, do not be sorry. Not right now. Mischa, take her back and I will follow when I finish the paperwork."
The Heavy pushed through a set of doors in the back of the surgery, and put the Cook down on the huge bed where she sat like a splash of red paint against the dark green pine of the comforter. "We do not sleep in clothing, but will wear something tonight."
The Cook looked up at him in mute desperation. "I'm sorry, Heavy. I'm sorry, I didn't think I would make a problem. I don't want to make a problem."
Now you don't want to make a problem, the Heavy thought darkly. "Once," he said drily and with careful emphasis, "is not a problem."
He turned and rummaged in a chest of drawers, emerging with two striped sets of pajama bottoms, laying one on the other side of the bed. "I'll be right back."
The Heavy emerged, drawing the string on the pajamas tight and tying a bow. "All right, мышка, you will take the edge and I the middle. The Doctor is not… he needs his space." And I, the Heavy thought, need to touch him. He looked at her cringing on the bed with resignation. Should make the best of it. She is certainly small enough to be my doll but would not stop any nightmares.
He lay down with a sigh and pulled her against him, tugging firmly on her stiff body until she settled into the curve of his. "Relax, мышка." Do not keep me awake, he added. I cannot sleep with you lying in the bed like a block of ice.
She let him pull her into the line of his body, her head barely reaching his collarbone as he lay behind her. The Heavy looked down. She was staring into the wall. As she sensed him looking at her, her eyes rolled over nervously and she gave him a tenuous smile. He sighed. "мышка, you will keep us both awake. What do you need to sleep?"
That smile again, watery and frail. The Heavy made a face. "Then talk, if you must."
"I don't know what else to say other than to apologize."
He grunted. "There is only so much, мышка, I can take before I become annoyed."
"I…." she shifted against him, anxious. "I keep trying to think of something soothing to say, but I can't think of anything."
He growled, low in his throat, and put a hand over her mouth. She rolled her eyes up at him. The Heavy began to sing quietly, one of the few lullabies he remembered. His voice was gravelly, breaking occasionally.
Ой ходить сон, коло вікон.
А дрімота коло плота.
Питається сон дрімоти:
"Де ж ми будем ночувати?"
She went still, listening to the sound of his voice, and he moved his hand. In the outer room, the Medic sat up quickly, turning toward the sound of the Heavy singing. He pushed the chair away quietly and crept across the room to stand by the inner doors.
Де хатонька теплесенька,
Де дитина малесенька,
Туди підем ночувати,
І дитинку колисати.
The Medic leaned against the wall, flattening a hand on it with his eyes closed. He never sings, he thought. Alexi never sings.
Там ми будем спочивати,
І дитинку присипляти:
Спати, спати, соколятко,
Спати, спати, голуб'ятко.
The Heavy let his voice wind down. Her breathing had slowed as he sang. He looked down—not asleep, but not icy. It was enough. He settled down behind her and closed his eyes.
The Medic turned slowly against the wall with a whisper of cotton, eyes still closed, overcome. I do not deserve you, he thought. Alexi, I have always and ever been a better man since I met you. The paperwork waited for him on the desk when he opened his eyes. He stared at it for a moment. Tomorrow, he thought. It can wait. Everything can wait.
He let himself silently into the inner room and changed quickly. With a sigh, he settled into the curve of his lover's back, laying a kiss on his spine. If we had forever, he said silently, it would not be enough.